Built to Endure

Today’s Topics

• Stay True to Your Pivot 🏀

• The Dark Energy 🌩️

  5 Mins Read Time

Stay True to Your Pivot 🏀
By Jo

In basketball, when you change your pivot too often, it’s called traveling. The same goes for life. Every time you shift too far from your foundation — your values, your purpose, your truth — you lose your balance. You move without progress.

Changing that pivot requires you to travel, and most people can’t function like that for long. It creates confusion, inconsistency, and instability. You start chasing trends instead of building legacy. You start reacting instead of leading.

It’s always good to embrace new ideas and make changes — that’s how we grow. But let’s not confuse constant movement with meaningful direction. Sometimes people get so caught up in the idea that “everything’s good” or “change is always positive,” that they lose sight of why they started in the first place. Real peace — real freedom — comes from executing on your initial thoughts and ideas.

Yes, scope will change. That’s part of the journey. But your foundation should remain solid. As long as what you represent isn’t compromised, evolve all you want. Just understand that if your foundation is compromised, that’s not a pivot anymore — that’s a rebuild. And rebuilding takes time, energy, and humility.

So, move with purpose. Adjust your form, not your foundation. Keep people around you who remind you of who you are, especially when the noise gets loud or the pressure to “stay positive” overshadows reality.

Because when your pivot is solid, every move has meaning — and that’s where real progress begins.

The Golden Rule: You’ve got to have people around you who will call you out every step of the way — not to tear you down, but to keep you true to yourself and what you represent. Because what good are we if we’re always changing our pivot?

The Dark Energy 🌩️

By Marcus

I think there’s a misconception about people who aren’t always beacons of positivity and optimism. It’s the idea that you must constantly maintain a hopeful outlook and turn every circumstance in life into something positive.

I used to be reasonably optimistic about most aspects of life. If I were to describe my outlook now, I’d say I live in reality—a space between pessimism and hopium. Never too high, never too low.

Maybe that’s what older people meant when they’d say, “You’ll see when you get out in the real world…”

This middle ground may not work for everyone, but for many, it’s a daily fight just to “show up.” The professionalism performances at work, the faking it around family and friends, the general flow of life can be exhausting depending on your circumstances.

We all want better days. But to get those days, the path is rarely smooth or kind. When hope is lost and circumstances are unfavorable, sometimes you have to tap into your pain to get back on track.

The Dark Energy

Early in my career, I believed anything was possible. Promotions, recognition, progress—it all came quickly with hard work. I was confident that few obstacles could stop me professionally.

Then life happened. No job is promised. I faced a major reset—going from peak earnings and status to taking whatever work I could to cover basic expenses, relocating, and making my first attempt at entrepreneurship.

There was failure, setbacks, and bad luck. Positivity, optimism, preparation, encouragement—none of it seemed to matter. It was a true losing streak, and I was fighting just to get back to where I’d been.

Eventually, I realized the positivity thing wasn’t working. Forcing optimism had diminishing returns. It took too much energy to fake what wasn’t there. The negativity piled up, and I couldn’t shake it off.

After failure upon failure, with no progress or return to my “old life,” I became angry, frustrated, and afraid that I’d never achieve what I once envisioned.

So, I went where I’d never been before—

I tapped into what I call The Dark Energy.

At that point, it was exactly what I needed. I funneled all the negativity into energy to create a plan that would pull me out of the hole and never let me fall back in.

The anger became fuel to work longer and harder.

The frustration became fire to stay relentless.

The fear became drive to take massive action—no matter the odds.

And for those who doubted, disrespected, or dismissed me—proving them wrong became the bonus motivation.

Use What’s Available

Some may dislike this approach, but at its core, I used a negative to create a positive. If you ever find yourself in a similar place, you can do the same.

Living in reality means knowing life will always throw something unexpected your way—and sometimes you’ll be down longer than you’d like.

The power of using your Dark Energy for good is that it gives you two sources of strength instead of one.

It’s also part of not quitting. Who said success was supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows? Or that failure would always be graceful and peaceful?

Sometimes you have to fight. And as unorthodox or gritty as that fight may look, you do what you must to get through.

“Grit is picking yourself up and moving forward even when you think you can’t take one more step.”
—Christy Mossburg

Fall is here…