Inner Work

Day One: How to Keep Going When Things Get Hard

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Since I decided to start building my ideal life nearly seven years ago, I haven’t been a stranger to adversity. I’ve been through the fire once or twice so to speak. 

Entrepreneurship has tested me in ways I never could’ve imagined when I started… but earlier this year may have been the hardest test I’ve endured yet. The stretch of October 2024 through May 2025 humbled me in a big way. 

Ironically, it was also one of the most “successful” stretches on paper.

We hit milestones. Grew the business. Launched a book that took years to bring to life. Rolled straight into a product launch that demanded everything from everyone involved.

We hit best-seller lists. We were featured in numerous nationally distributed and televised news organizations. There was momentum. Visibility. External wins.

But internally? I started unraveling.

At the same time all of that was happening professionally, my personal life also started to spin out of control. I got married to my best friend (which was beautiful) but right on the heels of that, my wife and I walked through an incredibly difficult life event together. The kind that tests your mental and emotional fortitude. I was battling several physical injuries that took away the simple joys in my life like taking a walk outside as well – Murphy’s Law was in full effect. 

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, the pressure caught up with me. My mind was tired. My body started to push back. My joy for the work (usually the compass that guides me through long days and nights) had shrunken to its lowest levels. My team felt it. My family felt it. It seeped into every part of my life. 

We were in a dark tunnel and there was no light at the end of it in sight.

That’s when we started saying a new phrase – first as a joke, then as something more serious.

“It’s Only Day One.”

Every morning, no matter how drained or exhausted we were, we would just ask what day it was – and there was only one answer: “Day One.”

Every setback, every botched email or tech issue or delayed decision. Every disgruntled customer, missed opportunity, or overwhelming task… 

We would immediately reset and reorient ourselves on the idea that it was only day one. And that changed everything.

At first, it was just something humorous to keep us from spiraling and burning out. But over time, it became a mindset and an attitude. It gave us something most people lose in the middle of hard things: momentum.

“Day One” became our way of refusing to drown in the weight of everything around us. We couldn’t afford to carry yesterday’s stress into today’s decisions. We couldn’t afford to believe the finish line was still impossibly far away.

When you’re pushing through a long and difficult period in your life, it’s important to remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And much like a marathon, it’s not mile 1 or mile 26 that determines the outcome – it’s how you find a rhythm to grind out miles 2 through 25 that matters most. 

My last post was about “zooming out” on the world to gain a true perspective of your situation. Day One is about shrinking the frame of the big picture and returning to the present moment. 

Focusing on just one task. One conversation. One breath. One step. And one day at a time. 

Because when you treat every day as Day One, you stop operating from a place of exhaustion and apathy. It allows each day you wake up to be a fresh start and an opportunity to push forward and restore your commitment to the goal. 

Day One thinking isn’t a magic trick – it’s a cognitive reframing technique that can help you reconnect with your purpose and find that extra strength to not give up halfway through the mission. 

It reminded me, over and over again, that commitment isn’t something you make once. It’s something you choose every single day… especially when it would be easier or more convenient to quit. 

There were days in those eight months where everything felt like an uphill battle. Decisions took longer. Conversations felt heavy. Even the wins lacked feel good reinforcement. And yet – because we woke up every day and told ourselves it was only day one – we kept moving and kept pushing forward. 

Not perfectly. Not always in a pleasant way. But we moved forward regardless. Day by day. Step by step. Inch by inch. 

There were times when my team and I were overwhelmed and we’d jump on a call stressed out of our minds. Our spirits were drained and everything was characterized by low energy – wondering when this craziness would be over. 

But that simple question: “What day is it?” brought just enough levity to shake the stress off and keep going. We’d crack a smile and laugh. We’d take a deep breath. And then we’d get back to work on the task at hand. 

Because it wasn’t Day 137 of a never-ending launch anymore. It was only Day One. A chance to start fresh with a clean perspective. That’s the real power of this mindset.

So how do you use this? How do you take a mindset like “Day One” and apply it to the middle of a business launch, a personal crisis, or a particularly difficult season of life you didn’t ask for? 

You do it by lasering back in on the here and now. By grounding yourself in the present moment.

You stop trying to finish the story and instead, focus on writing the next sentence. You stop trying to fix everything and just concentrate on moving the ball one yard down field. 

You remind yourself that today – right here, right now – is where winning happens. 

Day One is the tool you use when you’re two years into starting a business that hasn’t taken off yet, but you still need to show up and lead with integrity.

Day One is what you reach for when you’ve lost someone you thought you’d never lose, and it feels like the pain will never pass – but you still get out of bed.

Day One is for the parent or the caregiver who hasn’t had a moment to themselves in weeks or months, the artist who’s stuck in a creative drought, or the person staring in the mirror wondering when they stopped recognizing their own reflection. 

It doesn’t matter where you are on your journey or how far you are from where you want to be. What matters is that you wake up, and choose to start again.

Achieving things is great, but the real beauty of life is who you become on the way there. It’s threaded into the pursuit of the goal, not the mere possession of it. 

Nick Saban calls it “trusting the process.”

The Stoics called it “Dichotomy of Control”

Different language. Same concept.

  • Don’t worry about the finish line.
  • Don’t obsess over how far behind you feel.
  • Shrink the frame and return to the present moment.
  • Focus only on what’s directly in front of you.
  • Do it with intention and do it well. 

Because real progress doesn’t happen overnight – it happens over long periods of time in the consistent choices made by people who refuse to stop short of the goal. No matter how uncomfortable, how painful, or how slow the process is. 

Most people stop halfway through when it gets hard and they realize they have no guarantee of success. Don’t let that be you. 

Approach every day as a new opportunity. To improve. To get sharper. To chase whatever still gets you out of bed in the morning.

Approach every day like it’s Day One. Another chance to get better. Another chance to start over. Another chance to reset the scoreboard. 

Don’t do it for the applause or the recognition – do it for the results. It’s the only thing that matters. 

And the longer you stay in the game, the better your chances of emerging victorious become. Day One lets you erase today’s fuck ups and wake up tomorrow with a clean slate. 

You may not get all the way to where you want to be, but you will get somewhere. And sometimes that’s much better and further along than you’d imagine. 

As long as you’re still standing, you’re not done yet. 

Keep going – it’s only day one.

Focus on What’s Right

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

I’ve been so busy with work and travel lately that I’ve been making a lot of excuses for not dedicating time to write. In fact, as I write this, I’m currently sitting seaside on the island of Maui in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, listening to the sound of white-crested waves race across the open water and crash against the black volcanic rocks that litter the coastline. Being here is an incredible feeling. It’s one of those places I’ve always dreamt of visiting and I think most people have that dream. To actualize it and not only be here, but to be here for a full month, traversing multiple islands, and celebrating Thanksgiving Hawaiian style is amazing. Best of all, I’m here with my mom. Being able to share this bucket list trip with her after spending my childhood watching her work her ass off as a single parent to keep a roof over our heads is charged with so many positive emotions that truly outweigh everything else about the experience. But there’s another feeling I contended with the first few days on the island.

That other feeling, tucked way down in the back of my mind behind all the amazing feelings stemming from being in this moment where nearly half a decade of hard work has culminated in a real-life dream coming true is – “Is this it?” I’m not sure what the best way to articulate that feeling is, but I couldn’t help but hear whispers of that question echoing through the corridors of my mind. Is this it? Is this what I’ve been pushing myself so hard for? Is this all there is on the other side of sacrifice and patience? Is this everything I thought it would be? Am I really happy right now or are other areas of my life that need improvement more important? Are all of my troubles bigger than my triumphs?

Don’t get me wrong, when confronted between the choice of being my former broke and angry self and being me now with a level of meaningful success and the freedom to choose where I go and when, it’s not even close. I’d rather be thinking through this issue on a tropical island any day of the week than washing dishes, shoveling horse shit, or putting some drunk asshole into a headlock to pay the bills. But my expectation of how I was going to feel being here is way different than the reality. I thought there would be more clarity that came along with getting to this point. I thought I could at least hit the pause button on the stressful shit in my life and feel more at peace. The truth is, my life and my circumstances have changed dramatically, but I still feel the same. That truth carries over for when I change physical locations as well, no matter how wonderful or exotic those locations may be. Things that had bothered me in New York City followed me to Charlotte and they continue to bother me when I’m sitting in this tropical paradise. Maybe it was silly to believe that there’s a breakthrough point where certain troubles just vanish into thin air, but I think anyone who really goes 100% in on chasing success and a dream has just a little bit of hope in that possibility. It’s unrealistic.

I have so much to be proud of myself for and so much to celebrate in my life right now, but it’s as if my brain insists on clinging to the things that aren’t the way I’d like them to be. Without intentionally focusing on all the good – on all that’s going right in our lives – our minds will default into concentrating on where we feel dissatisfied or where we’re underperforming. The point of this blog post is to help you realize where this is happening in your own life, because if you trick yourself into believing that a big bank account or achieving whatever your idea of success is changes a lot about the inner strife you face as a human being, you’re going to be sorely disappointed even if you get it. I’m not going to lie – there was an element of shame involved when I realized how ridiculous it was to be feeling sorry for myself while on a trip of a lifetime. I’m not particularly proud of the fact that I allowed myself to feel bad while sitting in Hawaii, but I am proud of the fact that I caught myself and course corrected and that although it occurred, it was short lived. If nothing else, it’s a testament to how true happiness must come from within first and foremost. If you’re not happy where you are now, you won’t be truly happy on a tropical island. If you’re not happy by yourself, you won’t be truly happy with other people. If you aren’t happy with what you have, you won’t be truly happy once you get the things you want. The key isn’t to never slip into a bad mood or feel like shit – that’s just part of being human. The goal should be to reach a level of self-awareness that allows you to catch yourself and shift your way of thinking back into a positive and optimistic frame of mind as quickly as possible when you feel like that. Sometimes when you overlook all the blessings in your life and focus solely on the things you perceive to be undesirable, you just have to take a minute and ask yourself… Am I nuts?

This is a good time to remind you that if you live in the United States (or really any first world country) it is an undeniable fact that most other human beings on the planet would switch places with you in a heartbeat. As I write this and as you read this, there are millions upon millions of people like you and I who are facing famine, battling diseases and ailments that could be prevented or treated if they had access to the same resources we have, or they live in constant chaos while trying to keep themselves and their families alive in an active warzone. Billions of others lack reliable access to safe drinking water. I deal with a lot of pressure now that I’m leading a team of people, and I have to take full responsibility for everything that’s happening in our company – that’s my biggest source of stress and anxiety. How’s that stack up in the grand scheme of things? It’s really not shit. Whatever you’re going through right now, put it into context because perspective is everything. The fact that I was able to catch myself slipping into that negative mindset – focusing on all the bad and letting the days pass me by without enjoying the beauty of the moment – allowed me to center myself and lean back into the genuine appreciation for everything wonderful happening in my life despite any issues I’m currently working through. Yes, there are things I’m not thrilled about that I have to face and other things that I wish were going a different way in my life, but right now I’m enveloped in the warmth of the sun, the birds are singing all around me, and palm trees are gently swaying in the wind. It is peaceful. Only my thoughts are capable of removing me from this reality and it’s ultimately my responsibility to reject them when they try.

As human beings, our minds are programmed to look for what’s wrong, and it can steal the joy from even the greatest moments in our lives. One of my favorite quotes I’ve ever read is, “Everything that’s wrong is always available, but so is what’s right.” I wanted to take the time to write this post to remind everyone who reads it to take inventory of themselves and their lives in a truly objective way. You’re always going to have something you feel is lacking. You’re always going to want something to be different about yourself or your existence. Don’t focus on that. Although there may be some truth to these thoughts, they are often distorted in ways that make us feel negative emotions based on a bigger picture that we’re filling in the blanks of with completely imaginary misconceptions. Or worse, you bring yourself down by drawing comparisons to other people when there’s literally zero value in doing so. That means you’re often feeling like shit for real because of something that’s only a half-truth at best. Instead, focus your mind on everything that’s going right and then build on the psychological momentum it gives you. Celebrate your wins, soak them in fully, and tell any conflicting thoughts that try to pull you down from that high to fuck off. That’s how you can find happiness and sustain it. That’s when the external gratifications like working for that big check and then digging your toes in the sand on a beach in Maui become the special moments they’re meant to be.

I needed this reminder to snap myself out of a funky headspace that was making me feel dissatisfied with being in Hawaii. Can you imagine that? Go ahead and roll your eyes at me because I’m still rolling my eyes at myself. Not only is that dumb at face value, but I know better. This is all rooted in mental disciplines that I have studied and understood for a while now. It just goes to show you that the work is never done. You must constantly provide your mind and spirit with nourishing thoughts and not allow your uncontrolled mind to direct itself in unwanted and negative ways. Once thoughts like that establish themselves it is much more difficult to rid yourself of them – so make it a practice to be mindful of choosing the healthiest, most positive thoughts about yourself and your life every day. Life is too short not to find appreciation in every moment, and the extreme of where I just was earlier this week in my own head is a shining example of how much power the quality of your thoughts have over the quality of your life. Choosing what thoughts inhabit your mind on a daily basis is critical to your overall happiness – and your ability to take control of shaping your life to be what you truly want it to be.

Too many people think that the answer to a great life is to change their external circumstances – their finances, their appearance, their location, etc. All of those things can add value to your life, but they are extremely limited – and they won’t make a difference at all if you’re fundamentally unhappy. The foundation of a great life has to begin by looking inward. It is built on your internal conditions – your level of self-love, your appreciation for life itself, and the quality of the relationships you have with the people you love and who love you back. Everything else is just icing on the cake and although you can make a shitty cake look good with a colorful exterior and sprinkles, eventually the truth comes out when you take a bite and realize it belongs in the trash. A lot of the curated versions of other people’s lives we see on social media that we think are so great are really just shitty cakes decorated well in a display case. If you were able to taste them, you’d discover you don’t actually want them that bad after all. Everybody has problems, and if you fall into the comparison trap – you’re measuring yourself up against 1% of what’s actually going on in other people’s lives. You’re extrapolating from that very small sample size to make assumptions about the other 99% of that person’s life and then comparing it against the 100% of your own life that you have to live every day. You don’t know what shit they’re dealing with, but you know your own shit inside and out. Comparing your life with an incomplete picture of someone else’s is apples to oranges – and that’s a recipe for lifelong unhappiness – not making a great cake.

When faced with your imperfections and the parts of yourself and your life that you don’t like, be careful not to overvalue the negatives in relation to the positives. When we play that trick on ourselves, it causes us to prioritize the things that don’t really matter much at the expense of the things that matter most. A goal like “I need to make as much money as possible” can replace a much better goal like “I need to make as many joyful memories as possible with the people I love” real quick if you aren’t paying attention. You need to be intentional about hyping yourself up and appreciating everything you already have and all you’ve already accomplished because life is a marathon, and it is way too difficult to sustain yourself on the climb if you’re knocking yourself down inside your own head. Lean into what you’re doing right, what’s going right, and fucking celebrate yourself. Don’t let other people, circumstances, or unrealistic expectations detract from how special where you are right now actually is. Expectations and desires are often much different than the reality of meeting or achieving them and if you aren’t careful, they can ruin something truly great by messing with your perception of it. Be rooted in reality, always. Do the work to reprogram your brain to find the good in every situation or moment.

If you really feel like things aren’t good enough as they are right now, or you struggle to find what to be grateful for – I would keep it simple. I could have just as easily snapped myself out of my mental funk by thinking to myself, “I’m healthy and able to travel – so many people can’t say that and wish they could be here right now.” Or “My family and all of my good friends are alive and well today – so many people can’t say that and would give anything to trade places with me because I can.” There is literally ALWAYS something to focus on that you can be grateful for that can put whatever is attempting to eat away at your happiness into perspective. If you don’t learn this truth about life and how to master it, no amount of money or things will be able to stop you from feeling lousy about yourself and your place in the world. You will just be rich and sad, in the best-case scenario. That might sound better, but you’ll quickly find out that being able to do and have more shit loses its significance quickly and being truly happy every day of your life is the most meaningful goal you can ever pursue as a human being. People who try to convince you otherwise are empty inside and fighting bigger battles within themselves that you can’t see – and they’re losing.

Like everything I write, I hope this added value to your life if you took the time to read it. I am going to try to be more consistent with this project again and will continue to provide my unvarnished thoughts and opinions that have helped me get to where I am and that I am going to keep using to get to where I want to go. If you take away nothing else from this, remember to focus on what’s going right at all times. Life will continuously challenge you and give you reasons to question yourself and the path you’re on. There will be times when it becomes easy to entertain thoughts that serve no purpose other than to prevent you from reaching your full potential. You have power over whether or not you accept them. You have the ability to choose the thoughts that flourish in your mind, and they will either help you or hurt you. They will either make you or break you. Choose them wisely. Always look for the ones that build you up and give you courage. Cultivate the self-confidence to keep moving forward in the face of adversity. Don’t give up on yourself or your dreams just because you fall into a temporary moment of despair. Making it to the other side of those difficult times will give you strength. The narrative you create for yourself and about yourself inside your own head is much more important than most people realize. Try not to compare yourself to anybody – only who you were yesterday, last week, last month, and last year. Don’t worry about how far you must go or what still needs to be done but look at how far you’ve come already and all that you’ve overcame to get to this moment instead. Don’t try to see far into the future – focus solely on the step that is directly in front of you so that things don’t feel overwhelming and cripple your ability to act. Remember what you’re capable of doing and who you are. Remember that nothing is impossible, and that the only thing that can stop you, is you. It may sound cliché, but the further I progress on my own journey, the more I realize that these are not meaningless sayings to make us feel better about ourselves – they are the core beliefs and building blocks we need to build an extraordinary life. Focus on what’s right.

Now or Later

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

I’ve been meditating nearly every morning for the past year and a half or so. It is now a crucial part of my morning routine. It allows me to ground my thoughts and center my mind before I let the external world bombard me with things outside of my control. Negativity, pessimism, cynicism, and overstimulation are all things we must contend with in the modern world on a daily basis. I’ve found that taking ownership of my mental state through meditation early in the morning allows me to better combat those forces. It’s not a magic bullet by any means, but I am consistently in better spirits when I take five to ten minutes to practice before I start my day. The problem is that I find it difficult to concentrate sometimes as my mind wanders easily. Meditation is a fascinating discipline in that one must master the act of bringing their own subconscious mind to heel repeatedly by actively controlling their conscious mind to that end. In order to help me try to better master this discipline, I took a meditation class last week.

The class was an introduction to Buddhist teachings, so it consisted of active meditation and also a lecture on the philosophy of it. The similarities between Buddha’s wisdom and that of the Stoics in Ancient Greece in regard to the importance of controlling your mind was striking. As a generally curious (and non-religious) person, I make it a priority to try to stay open-minded to all things and then search for the throughline between the advice/wisdom/information of those I consider reputable. I’ve only attended one class so far and I intend to finish the four-part series over the course of this month, but what stood out to me already was the fact that Buddhism seems to be much more of a belief in one’s own divinity and power than an indoctrination into fairytales. That is in stark contrast to most religions (that I know of). Its essence is rooted in empowering the individual by awakening them to their own internal strength and good nature rather than attempting to control their lives through fear of punishment or eternal damnation.

During the lecture, we learned about the Four Noble Truths, which in Buddhism, are considered the truths (or realities) for “the spiritually worthy ones.” The instructor spoke of only the first of these four truths in that class. It is “The Truth of Suffering,” and it basically states that although life is a gift, it comes with inevitable suffering. That experiencing pain is an innate characteristic of our existence. To live is to feel and to feel is to hurt sometimes. From my understanding, the whole religion is based on the idea of forming acceptance of this fact and then training yourself to endure your own suffering through developing love and appreciation for life and all other living beings. The Stoics of Ancient Greece weren’t quite as chill about it, but they had closely related ideologies. Suffering was considered part of the deal as a human being and although it cannot be circumvented completely, you can greatly reduce your suffering by controlling your mind and faulty qualities. The Stoics believed that virtuous behavior is the path to an agreeable existence.

As I sat there and listened, it became more and more apparent to me that there were many overlapping concepts being delivered in different messages between these two belief systems. When I hear two or more incredibly wise theories about life from honorable figures who lived in different parts of the world at least a hundred years apart finding common ground on serious topics – I pay attention to those theories. They weren’t emailing each other to compare notes, so the believability factor increases exponentially for me in these cases. I’ve sat in deep contemplation about this for a number of days now and without further ado, I’ll share my takeaway from this idea of inevitable suffering and what you can learn from it to better your life today.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this – life requires you to eat a certain amount of shit over the course of your existence. What do I mean by, “eat shit” exactly? For the purpose of this blog post, we’ll define eating shit as the act of experiencing the opposite of what we’d like for extended periods of time. Suffering, if you will. It’s an unavoidable fact and it doesn’t matter how rich, poor, short, tall, smart, dumb, pretty, plain, young, or old you are. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what god(s) you pray to, or what ethnicity you are – life doesn’t discriminate when it comes to handing out shit pies. At some point on this whacky journey, you will find yourself flat on your face contemplating the meaning of life and why the fuck it’s so unbearably difficult and painful. You’ll wish you could have a different one as you compare your life to a bunch of fake bullshit on a phone app while staring down a heaping plate of shit a la mode. You’ll sit and cry and feel overwhelmed and want to give up. But then you’ll have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again anyway. Ouch.

We are incapable of choosing whether or not we eat shit (suffer) in life, but we can take an active role in determining the size of the portions and the duration of the buffet. How? By choosing to eat it now as opposed to later. What I mean by this is that you can choose to recognize navigating hardships, making sacrifices, and having the discipline to do things that aren’t the most fun or pleasurable right now as necessary parts of securing your idealistic version of the future. Likewise, on an internal level, you can realize that questioning the meaning of your life and experiencing the growing pains of maturing spiritually is essential to becoming the best possible version of yourself. Your acceptance of the inevitability of suffering allows you to set the foundation for the mentality needed to make meaningful changes and shape your behavior in a way that makes you actively seek out the difficulties of life. While everyone else is trying to run and hide from them, you decide you’re going to welcome them so that you can get them over with now.  

Here’s my theory on this: If you dive in headfirst and voluntarily eat the shit now, you can drastically minimize the window of shit eating you need to do as a total percentage of your life. Ask for the difficulties and the personal growth now. Pursue the knowledge of the world and the awareness of self now. Understand the inherent level of uncertainty and discomfort that is intertwined within the human experience now so that you don’t keep falling into a false sense of security. The alternative to this choice is of course eating the shit later (avoiding suffering). Avoidance takes many forms, and the truth is that even if you successfully avoid eating shit now, you’re still going to have to eat it later. The difference is that you’ll most likely end up eating It for the rest of your life. If you do it now, you can convert maybe half a life’s worth of shit eating into a significantly smaller, finite block of time. The choice is yours.

I’m pretty sure I heard this from a clip of Tony Robbins on Instagram, but it really drives my point home succinctly. He said, “There are only two pains in life. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.” I’ll talk about the topic of regret another time and discuss what I’ve learned about it over the years, but let’s just say that ounces to tons is not an exaggeration. What this all means is that you cannot become the person you need to be in order to achieve your dreams unless you are capable of regulating yourself. You have to be able to establish routines and be consistent in acquiring knowledge and sharpening your skills. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable to making the progress you want to see and not allow distractions to get you off track. You have to commit to your desire and follow it earnestly even though our culture today doesn’t really celebrate that quality anymore. It’s about having the courage and conviction to bet on yourself and then really putting in the work to get to that next level. Discipline, at its core, is voluntarily eating shit now so that you can eat less shit overall. It sucks in the moment, but it pays off big on the back end. A lack of discipline, on the other hand, leaves you vulnerable to being completely blindsided when easy street and lemon drops turns into treacherous terrain and shit sandwiches.

I’m going to use a fictional example to illustrate my point here – don’t feel triggered if any of this applies to you or hits close to home. This is a common situation that unfolds for people over time. Let’s say you’re a woman between twenty-four and twenty-eight years old and you work at a bank right now, but you actually love working with hair. You know you could have a successful business running a salon if you just put in an hour of work when you get home from your day job and stay home on the weekends to put in bigger chunks of time. You come home and even though you’re tired, you’re committed to your vision – so you practice mastering your craft, file for an LLC, design logos, build a website, and construct a social media and marketing strategy. Your friends make fun of you for being a hard ass, but meanwhile you’re saving a small fortune not going out all the time and are able to reinvest it into your business. You eventually turn your part-time side hustle cutting hair in the kitchen of your apartment into a full-time position and quit your job at the bank. Three years later, you open your first physical location in a major city you always wanted to live in. Ten years after that, you’re now the majority owner of a multi-million-dollar franchise.

Are you guaranteed to achieve that level of success? Of course not. But wouldn’t making $70,000 a year doing something you love and being your own boss be enough anyway? Either of those outcomes is only possible if you’re willing to have the discipline to go after your dreams. A lot of people think they’re going to pull it together in their thirties and get serious or “catch up.” Which is totally reasonable and possible to do – but they don’t. Why? Because an undisciplined person cannot form structured disciplinary actions overnight. A much more common occurrence is that they follow the same behavioral patterns throughout adulthood until it catches up with them. Let’s take a look at an illustration of how this scenario usually plays out for the vast majority of people.

You’re the same person with the same set of circumstances, but instead of having discipline, you work eight hours at the bank, and you hate it. When you get home, you know you should put time into building your business idea, but you just want to get into bed and watch Netflix. Your roommate “convinces” you to go out Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You sleep in Sunday and go to brunch and then repeat your week over and over again on autopilot. You end up putting zero hours into your dream and remove every chance of building the life you want just by making those seemingly inconsequential decisions because they’re easy to make and they feel good in the moment. You settle for your paycheck even though you don’t like your job because it pays the bills and offers steady advancements that you find adequate enough to rationalize staying. Everything is going great until you wake up one day and you feel a sudden dread wash over you – your life is essentially the same as it was seven years ago except for a slight increase in pay. You start worrying about starting a family and settling down, but your social life and network revolves around activities that aren’t conducive to that. The lifestyle you lead is no longer harmonious with your wants and you feel trapped in a life you don’t truly enjoy. You settled on your career, so you end up settling for a partner too and eventually get married, buy a house, have kids, and then… you start to wonder “what if?” That’s the pain of regret – and it comes crashing down on you like a ton of bricks.

Maybe this is dramatic or oversimplified, but it feels pretty damn accurate to me for a lot of people purely based on observation. You can apply this to anyone who has a dream and 98% of them choose to avoid the discipline needed now to achieve it and end up suffering from regret later as a result. In the first scenario, all the woman did was voluntarily eat a few helpings of shit in the form of putting the work in and sacrificing some of the fun she could be having in that moment in order to achieve her dream. In the second scenario, the avoidance of suffering became the ultimate priority for her, and that choice quite literally crushed her dream. This is something that each individual person needs to confront themselves on. If something is holding you back from your dreams and causing you to allocate your time improperly and overextend yourself into having “fun” all the time – consider reevaluating. You don’t need to have a ban on fun and cut the world off, but you do have to have strict boundaries and a reason to keep yourself beholden to them. It’s the only way to avoid the much more severe pain and suffering of regret later on.

If you don’t want to end up in a position where you have to settle for less than what you really want out of life because you didn’t give yourself options – with a job you don’t really like, a spouse/partner you don’t really like… a situation and a life that you don’t really like – then listen up. You need to internalize the fact that you cannot escape the hard part. Life is going to test you and make you earn your keep one way or another. By attempting to deny that reality, you’re just setting yourself up to endure the unpleasant part of life much longer than necessary. My personal advice would be to analyze yourself and your decisions and get really honest about whether or not they are guiding you to where you ultimately want to be. If the answer is no, you need to take that seriously. Reaching the end of your life with what ifs and regrets is something I don’t wish on anyone. It may seem too daring a mountain to climb or too pointless an undertaking to bother with when you consider pursuing a dream, but those are just excuses.

I started this blog to say what I feel explicitly, and the truth is that the world is not going to change for you. You need to change yourself to thrive within it. Recognize reality for what it is, accept it for what it is, and then adapt to it. Your life will not get itself together for you. If you focus your energy fully on what is within your control and constantly push yourself to achieve better outcomes, you can actively shape your own reality. The idea that you’re going to wake up one morning a few years from now and suddenly feel capable of taking control of everything you need to be doing is incredibly flawed logic. Don’t defer the shit eating until later – it will only set you up for a world of hurt as you age. Put your bib on, grab a fork, and dig in NOW.

Be Your Own Best Friend

/ nicholasjinfante / Leave a comment

I don’t think any of us can understate the value of genuine friendship. It’s one of the great joys of life and something we should always cherish when we find it. But relocating across the country away from my existing social network and not having the time (or frankly the desire) to create a new one has taught me an enormous lesson about the value of being emotionally self-reliant – or “being your own best friend.” I’m extremely fortunate to know I have some of the greatest friends in the world living in other cities and make every effort to see them when my schedule permits. I get that needed interaction with them in spread out blocks of time now since we can’t just meet up whenever after work these days. There’s a mutual respect there that, no matter how much time elapses between seeing each other, it feels just like yesterday and nothing changes.

A lot of us are still readjusting to the nuances of socialization as covid-related things seem to cool off or just become less concerning to us. I for one know I did everything possible to make my life fit within the dynamics of pandemic living and I’ve been finding it difficult to break that routine – mostly because it’s highly effective for me. My day to day is literally curated for maximum output and productivity while avoiding physical and mental burnout. It’s a balancing act – one that I’ve gotten particularly good at the last ten months. However, I couldn’t incorporate everything I would have liked into this approach, and as a result, had to make some difficult choices along the way. The easiest thing to give up in order to make more time so that I could sustain my work schedule while still prioritizing physical exercise and seven to eight hours of sleep each day was my social life.

I don’t expect other people to forfeit their entire social lives to build a business with the type of fervor I have. I think it would be unappealing at best for most people. I also don’t think it’s particularly healthy or sustainable in the long-term. But I want to be as straightforward as possible about the process of ascension in the entrepreneurial landscape and with the stage that we’re at with our company, that is what’s required of me right now if we want to go the distance. Since March 2020, I have been working like a man possessed by the devil himself – and results don’t lie. I have an awesome group of people around me (virtually) that has grown larger this past year and helps me move the ball forward consistently. That is what keeps me energized and makes it all possible – seeing my long-term ambitions in the distance and understanding the sacrifices I have to make right now in order to attain them. I’m voluntarily trading near-sighted pleasure for long-term freedom. Nevertheless, I’m human, and this lifestyle can be difficult to maintain and some days the voluntary solitude feels like it might be slipping into isolation territory – and that can be a heavy feeling. So, I want to talk about loneliness and how to overcome it.

I’ve had a tendency to isolate myself throughout periods of my life, particularly when I was abusing drugs and alcohol in my teens and early twenties. Although what I do now somewhat shadows those moments, I find that they’re related but quite different. See, this is the first time I’ve been able to forego regular socialization for a purpose – not because I feel like shit or because I’m sad, but because I have a goal. A goal that’s going to require me to role my sleeves up and work harder and more diligently than many other intelligent and talented people in the world if I want to have a shot at reaching it. A goal that has to be top of mind every single day and cannot be secondary to anything else if I want it to become reality. A goal that has given me purpose, and that I give back my attention, energy, and heart to in return. I’m so determined to accomplish this goal that it prevents me from falling into a depression where I then feel the need to self-medicate with substances or search for other forms of escapism – I’ve been alcohol free for over three years now and I’ll take a hit of a joint every so often but haven’t touched anything more than that in even longer. That’s the power of purpose. I plan on covering substance abuse (alcohol in particular) at some point, but today I want to stick with this idea of learning how to be your own best friend. It’s something I’m still learning how to do, and some days I really suck at it – but it’s an important relationship to develop and foster over time if you want to have a chance to pursue your passions and change the trajectory of your life in a meaningful way. It’s been a central component of my ability to push through the toughest times in my life psychologically.  

I love all of my closest friends dearly. Asking me who my best friend is feels like you’re asking me which one I love more. I really don’t want to answer that question, and I’m proud to say that I legitimately don’t think I could…. so, I’m my best friend instead. I know you’re thinking this is probably going to be a big ego thing and are rolling your eyes already, but bear with me here. I’m not talking about having a grandiose sense of self or being a jackass. I just mean being fully comfortable with yourself – being able to relax and think positive thoughts about yourself when you’re alone. Genuinely loving yourself. I have humility and I don’t think I have the right to judge anyone else… but I also realized that I can’t be so quick to judge myself either. If you think it’s acceptable to talk badly about somebody else’s way of life or judge them for their current position without knowing their story or ever walking a day in their shoes, then you need to stop right there because you have another step to complete before getting to what we’re discussing next. You need to unpack whatever part of you is so unhappy or insecure that it makes you want to pull other people down into that dark place with you.

But here’s the deal – you can’t be the best version of yourself until you reach a real level of self-acceptance and self-love that far too many of us are neglecting. If you’re a good person, you know exactly how leniently and nonjudgmentally you approach other people’s problems. You’re empathetic and you never want to exacerbate anybody’s negative feelings about themselves – and from the outside looking in, you know most of the time it’s way worse in their head than it is in reality. You probably approach these situations in a gentle manner and offer support to those people. But when it comes to yourself, do you offer that same kind of grace in your way of thinking? I know I didn’t.

Somewhere along the line I noticed that I was having a lot more patience and understanding for everybody else, but if I screwed things up or had an off day where I didn’t produce at the level I’d like for whatever reason – I would judge myself really harshly and beat myself up about it. I would kick myself when I was already down, and it would make course-correcting and getting back on track all the more difficult to accomplish. I was handicapping myself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about success thus far in my journey, it’s that it doesn’t matter how many times you get punched in the gut – but how fast you can recover from the hardest hits you take impacts your chances a lot. Just keep moving forward has to be your mantra, and I promise you that no solution exists that involves beating yourself up. It took me a long time to identify this fault in my way of thinking and behavior, but I’m really glad I did because ever since I shifted my perspective on my own humanity, I’m able to push myself just as hard each day but also cut myself a break when things don’t go according to plan. Because the reality is that if you hate on yourself, you’ve got no shot at achieving anything in life. That’s just the truth. It’s game over before you even lace up your cleats.

If you struggle with this internal hardship too, I want to give you a new way to approach your faults and flaws: Start asking yourself what you would do if a stranger or one of your closest friends came up to you and told you they were feeling the way you feel right now about whatever it is that’s causing you pain or distress. Whether it’s shit that happened recently that’s causing you acute pain, or if it’s stuff you don’t like about yourself or your past that you’ve been carrying around for a long time – ask yourself that, answer it honestly, and then have that same level of consideration for yourself. Give yourself that gift because you’ll find that it’s an extremely practical and effective method of processing your troubles and coming to terms with them. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to turn the page and make forward progress – and the ability to do that is essential if you want to have success doing anything in life.

We tend to be our own worst critic and judge ourselves unfairly in ways we wouldn’t dream of doing to other people – so start looking at yourself and the things that are weighing down on you right now from an objective standpoint. You’re too close to them and you need to step outside of yourself and look at them from another angle. Other people are going to judge you throughout your entire life, and it’s really important to understand that that doesn’t matter. At all. You have to realize that nothing that goes on in anybody else’s mind can hurt you, but what goes on in your own mind absolutely can. You need to build up your self-esteem and see your best friend when you’re looking in the mirror so that you can have a gentle, supportive approach with yourself when things go awry and so you can find peace and strength when you need it most. Otherwise, it leaves you vulnerable to the bullshit negativity other people impose on you – and trust me, they will.

The funny thing is that judgmental people are actually showing you how they feel about themselves. They’re deflecting attention from their own flaws and insecurities because they live in fear of being exposed for who they truly are (or how they perceive themselves). Once you know that, you realize it doesn’t matter what they think, say, or do anymore – and that opens the path to an extraordinary life for you to pursue your passions without being held back by anybody else. It creates tranquility. The second you hear someone start talking shit about somebody else’s life or dragging them through the mud for their problems, understand what that is telling you about the person speaking and immediately stop listening to them. Chances are that if they’re saying it to you about somebody else, they probably say it about you to somebody else too. Tune those people out and limit your interactions with them. Do things that feed your self-esteem instead. If you do, you’ll find that you’ll be way more interested in building other people up than tearing them down – and that’s just a better way to live.

You don’t necessarily have to be dealing with feelings of loneliness to experience the benefits of being your own best friend either. You can have a great support system and I would still say this is worth your time to understand and work on. People are finicky creatures full of irrational and finicky emotions… and even the people who love you most won’t always see eye to eye with you or understand what ignites your passion. Also, success by definition is excelling others in some area of life and some people can’t handle it when they see you excelling them. It may be a hard pill to swallow, but if you’re serious about changing your life for the better you need to be prepared to see your circle get smaller, at least initially. Success can be lonely, and not everyone you start your journey with will stand with you as you continue to climb. Whether it’s a forced situation or not, you need to be comfortable walking alone if you really want to reach your full potential and live your truth. Happiness is an inside job no matter what, so understand that you’re not pushing anybody away by becoming self-reliant – you’re just developing an invaluable internal environment that can help you weather any storm.

You also don’t have to be pursuing financial success or want to be great at business in order to gain a lot of value from this approach. Success is a subjective term to me, and I think it’s imperative that you define it for yourself, so you know what you’re aiming at when you start moving towards it. That helps you dictate where your energy is best expended and what actions and habits are going to be most beneficial to helping you get there. Regardless of what success means to you, it’s going to be an arduous journey to achieve it. If it were easy, everybody would be successful… and all great or worthwhile things should be hard. The more difficult it is, the more you’ll savor the process of getting to your goals. You’re going to need to be your own best friend to make that trek because as you encounter adversity, obstacles, and challenges – you’ll be confronted with the desire to quit and give up on things. If you can’t look within yourself and find that inner hype man or cheerleader to pull you up out of that mental funk, you’re not going to be celebrating many victories along the way. Nobody has ever accomplished anything difficult if they didn’t believe in themselves to do it first. So please start cultivating a healthy and supportive relationship with yourself today – it will carry you to great heights and there’s really no better feeling than knowing you don’t have to rely on anybody else to get the motivation needed to keep going and to keep pushing forward when things get tough.

In Summary:

“You don’t gotta fuck with me, I fuck with me.” – Russ, Utah Freestyle