Episode 29: Sunzi’s Six Strategies for (Self-)Preservation and Total Victory in Life or How to Have an Impenetrable Defense and an Unstoppable Offense!

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome, everyone! Thanks for joining us! I’m so glad you’re all here listening. I missed you all last week. I was out sick all Labor Day weekend.  I was really sick. I had a fever and we had some technical difficulties. And so it’s good to be back.  You can hear my voice is still a little raspy, so you get the deep version – not quite my Batman voice, but, here we go.

It is a rainy morning this morning and it’s kind of providing some Zen ambience to go with my deep voice this week. Last week I talked about “Sunzi’s Top Priority: 4 Principles to Become Unbreakable,” which are:

1. Top Priority: First become unconquerable 先為不可勝 – Develop an unconquerable mindset and belief system.

2. Becoming unconquerable resides within ourselves – not anyone else 不可勝在己.

3. The Opportunity to Conquer Lies Without – Watch, Work, & Wait for the Opportune Moment 可勝在敵, 待敵之可勝.

4. Manifest our Future: Understand how to overcome our (inner) enemies even before we have done so 勝可知, 而不可為.

I hope that you’ve all made up your minds to become unconquerable and have started removing the obstacles to that sort of belief system and mindset – to not let anything life or this universe throws at us defeat us or define us!  That’s not who we are, just what we’re going through. Your trials, your tribulations, your challenges, your setbacks, your failures – that’s not who you are. That’s just what you’re going through. I hope that you will choose to not let disappointment dash your dreams on the rocks or to let setbacks seduce you into settling for a less than life.

Next week, we’re going to discuss defensiveness, confidence, and openness, along with scarcity, insufficiency and abundance, so stay tuned. Today we’re talking about Sunzi’s six strategies for self preservation and total victory in life.  So let’s go!

If you’re a visual learner like me, check out the blog version of this podcast at www.artofwarforlife.com, which includes all the Chinese characters I discuss, along with additional images. Don’t forget to join the “Art of War for Life” Facebook page and follow us on Instagram @artofwarforlife. For any questions, comments or to work with me, shoot me an e-mail at artofwarforlife@gmail.com.  

Oh, and as a reminder, the views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the US Government. Thank you. Thank you very much.

In Chapter 4.2 of Sunzi’s Art of War, we read:

If you can’t achieve victory, then defend what you have.  If you can achieve victory, then attack! When defending there is not enough and when on the attack there is a surplus.  Those who excel in defense dig in beneath nine layers of earth (also meaning to conceal one’s location, capabilities, & resources); Those who excel in attacking, strike from beyond the ninth level of heaven (i.e. unseen from the highest heights of heaven where lightning comes from – to descend like a lightning strike). Therefore, they are able to protect themselves and achieve total victory.

不可勝者, 守也; 可勝者, 攻也。 守則不足, 攻則有餘。善守者, 藏于九地之下; 善攻者, 動于九天之上, 故能自保而全勝也。

From this passage, I’ve derived six strategies for self-preservation and achieving complete victory in our lives.  They are:

1. Pick Your Battles 可勝

2. Keep Holding On – Don’t Give Up 守

3. Make Your Move 動, Take Your Shot 攻

4. Dig Down Deep 藏 – The Secret to Holding On

5. Strike Fast, Strike Hard – The Secret to Making Your Move

6. Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Nothing Behind – leave it all out there on the battlefield! 

I’m going to talk about these out of order so that we can discuss all of the defensive strategies and offensive strategies together.

1. Pick Your Battles 可勝

The first of Sunzi’s Six Strategies for Self-Preservation and Total Victory in Life is picking our battles.  I first introduced this concept as the fourth of six tactics in Episode 22: “Take Back Your Life! Six Tactics to Pick Your Battles and Start Winning.”

The idea here is to not fight losing battles, battles where the price is too high, and the rewards not worth it, and to not miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime because we failed to act during the lifetime of the opportunity, which also links back to two forms of self-sabotage, pushing things too far and giving up too soon, which I discussed in Episode 24: “The Seven Deadly Sins of Self-Sabotage and How to Avoid Them,” where I quoted the classic Kenny Rogers song, “The Gambler:” “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run!”

So how do we pick our battles?  First, we have to get clear on what we want in our lives, out of our lives, and for our lives, as I discussed in Episode 1: “What Are You Fighting For?  What’s Your Big Deal?”  We need that clarity of purpose to ensure that we are fighting the right battles and not fighting the wrong battles. 

This also links back to knowing ourselves, to really understanding ourselves – our thoughts, our feelings, and our beliefs that shape and drive our actions and results, which I talked about in Episode 27: “Know Thyself & Understand Others: The Secret to Becoming Unbreakable”

2. Keep Holding On – Don’t Give Up 守

The second of Sunzi’s Six Strategies for Self-Preservation and Total Victory in Life is if we can’t win yet, in any area of our lives, then just hold on!  Keep holding on, holding out, and hold the line, and cling to hope!  In last week’s Episode, “Sunzi’s Top Priority: Four Principles to Become Unbreakable!” we discussed the ideas of watching, working, and waiting for the opportune moment 可勝在敵, 待敵之可勝 and manifesting our future: understanding how to overcome our (inner) enemies and achieve our goals even before we have done so 勝可知, 而不可為.  Both of these require holding on and not selling ourselves short and settling for less than!

This links back to Episode 22: “Take Back Your Life!  Six Tactics to Pick Your Battles and Start Winning!”  The fifth of those “Six Tactics” is to hold on, to maintain, to conserve, to preserve, or to defend.  The character is shou3 守.  It has a roof 宀 over a measuring hand 寸.

There comes a time in our lives where we really have to decide what we’re fighting for. We have to draw a line in the sand and say no further – no more!  I will not tolerate this in my life, out of my life, or for my life anymore!  

Sports is a great way of understanding the importance of a solid defense. Regardless of which sport, soccer, football, baseball, basketball, they have offense and defense and there are sometimes when the defense can really bail out the offence and make it easier for us. A really good defense can get us a stop when we need it, even when our offense is sputtering, even when we’re out there taking risks but the shots are just not falling, and the chances are just not coming our way. A defense, a solid defense can keep us going.

From a military standpoint, this is also easily understandable.  We have to defend and maintain what is ours, even if we can’t take the offensive. So how do we do that? How do we keep holding on when times are difficult, especially when we may feel like we just don’t have enough – we don’t have enough time, we don’t have enough energy, we don’t have enough resources, we don’t have enough opportunity?

One of the challenges of constantly digging in on defense is we can feel as if we are constantly under attack and that defensive mindset can really amp up the pressure, especially if it’s combined with a mindset – a scarcity mindset, a victimhood mindset, or a martyrdom mindset – that triggers our feelings of insufficiency in any area of our lives. We’re going to talk about this more next week when we really dig into defensiveness, but for now, let’s focus on how do we have an excellent defense in our lives, which is principle #4.

4. Dig Down Deep – The Secret to Holding On

The fourth of Sunzi’s six strategies for self-preservation and total victory is to dig down deep. To have exceptional fortifications, and to dig in on defense. To excel at holding on, we need to be able to dig deep to dig down and then dig ourselves out. The imagery here that Sunzi uses is to have a repository, and also to be concealed or invisible.

It makes sense from a military standpoint.  If you wanted to have the best defensive fortifications, they would be invisible, they would be undetectable. They would be unfindable. How can you launch an attack against an enemy base if you don’t know where it is?  You don’t know where to strike them.  So, Sunzi is clearly talking about digging in going underground.

The Chinese character that Sunzi uses here is cang2 藏, which means to hide, to conceal, to treasure up, or to bury.  The imagery is of storing or caching supplies, resources, and treasures for a rainy day, and to keep our most treasured and valuable items from falling into enemy hands.  So, they need to be protected and safeguarded in a fortress so far down into the earth that no one could ever get to them.

In our lives there is a similar principle here. When things get hard, and we feel like we are on the defensive and we need to dig in and fight, and we’ve drawn that line in the sand, and we cannot allow things to deteriorate any further – we can’t take any more losses — that’s when we need to dig down deep inside of ourselves!

All of the hopes, all the values, all the aspirations, all the good things that we’ve stored up inside. When things get really hard for me, I think about my kids. I literally conjure up an image of their smiling, laughing faces. Or of me coming home at the end of a long day and getting to cuddle them, tickle them, play with them, and read them books, and just hang out with them and put them to bed.

I think about my students.  I think about showing up and impacting them and I think back on the kind and gracious words that they’ve shared with me about the impacts that I’ve had on their lives over the years. I think about those tender moments of connection that I’ve shared with those around me, the privileges, the blessings, and the opportunities that I’ve had to serve and to be there for someone in their moment of need.  I think of the life that I want to create and I draw on all of those things. I access those feelings and that’s what helps me to dig in, dig down deep, and then start digging myself out of whatever challenge or trial I’m having.

Another aspect of this is about having good solid boundaries, which I discussed in  Episode 7: “Eight Tactics to Transform Your Life,” and avoiding bad boundaries, which I discussed in Episode 24: “Seven Deadly Sins of Self-Sabotage and how to Avoid Them.”  See, a good defense is all about being firm and unyielding on the people, the influences, and the beliefs that let into our hearts and minds.  Do they build us up or drag us down? 

Because remember: our beliefs shape our thinking, our thinking creates our emotions, our emotions drive our behaviors, and our behaviors determine our results. But it also works backwards: external influences can also impact our behavior, especially if you’re like me and have been a people-pleaser and codependent.  My behavior changed based on my environment.  I was such a chameleon! Trying to curry favor and win friends and influence people the wrong way!  So, that also shifted how I felt. I’d externalized my sources of affirmation my self-worth, another one of those traps of self-sabotage.  It all came from a belief about where my value lay.

So, it’s really important to dig in and have good solid defense about the thoughts that we let into our minds and the feelings that we let into our hearts and that we allow to stay. Thoughts are going to pop into our heads. We are bombarded with thousands of thoughts every single day from media, from marketing, and there’s a whole psychology behind marketing and manipulation. So, we need to know that and sometimes we need to understand how they are literally trying to manipulate us to buy their products. So, we have to be very cautious, we have to be a little defensive stance, and we have to be a little critical about this.

Do we have to think: Where is this thought taking me or where is this feeling going to lead me if I indulge in it? If I allow it to stick around in my life to just hang out, it’s going to grow — and what kind of fruit is it going to produce in my life, and do I want any part of that?  So, the problem is that most of us uncritically accept whatever is going on, whatever thoughts pop into our heads, but they’re not ours and we’re not even responsible for the thoughts that randomly pop into our heads from marketers or from the world, or from social media.

We are responsible for what we do with those thoughts and what we do with those feelings. We ALWAYS get to make a choice, even if some horrible thought pops into our heads. That’s not who we are. Who knows where that came from? Sometimes they came from us, but that’s OK. Sometimes it came from somewhere else. We get to decide what we’re going to do with that thought or what that feeling. We can turn it for good. We can turn into something constructive or we can kick it to the curb and say:  You know what? I don’t want you in my life. You don’t have any place here. Get out! 

This is really important when it comes down to our beliefs.  Do our beliefs build us up or drag us down? Do the people we surround ourselves support us, encourage us, love us unconditionally, build us up, encourage us to chase our dreams?  Or do they drag us down? Do they create conditions for their support and their affection?

Imagine someone walking up to you and saying:  “Hi, I’m going to manipulate you, gaslight you, cause you to second-guess yourself and erode your self-confidence for the rest of your life.”  If somebody actually said that you’d be like, ‘OK, no, thanks. See you later or not!’  And yet people don’t do that.  As people, we’re not transparent.

I like to believe that everyone is doing the best they can with the light and knowledge that they have. Some of us learn to manipulate to get what we want because we came to believe that’s the only way that we could get what we wanted. We were modeled that in our younger years or whatever. If you have people like that in your life, you have to decide, can you be a positive influence for good that is going to elevate and lift them?  Or, is this person going to drag you down?

It’s the same way with other forms of influence in our lives. The music we listen to, the TV and the movies we watch, the media that we consume.  We are what we eat, but we are also mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially, what we consume in those areas.  Are we nurturing and nourishing our souls, or are we calorie-dense and nutrient poor?  Meaning, are we surrounded with a bunch of sycophantic suck-ups, or people who don’t actually really care about us, and who wouldn’t actually be there if we needed them? Or are we just being bombarded by influences that are manipulating us for other purposes and not encouraging and helping to get us to our “Big Deal?”

This is going to require some self-reflection, some self-knowledge. I’ll give you an easy example. I’ve struggled with a sense of futility in my relationships that started when I was 11 years old. I discovered that there was a correlation between my feelings of futility and the music that I listened to, which actually was the music that spoke the most to me when I was feeling certain ways.  

Because, when we create our belief systems, we then experience the world that way.  So we naturally look for evidence that reaffirms that belief system. Then our brain filters everything out that way.  So for me, when it came to relationships, I had a huge sense of futility because I had this “lost love” complex that sooner or later, all the good things in my life were going to come to an end, and they’re going to come crashing down, and I was going to end up heartbroken and alone!  So the music that I listened to reflected that “love lost” theme and it became almost a kind of self-soothing. This is the way it is.  

When I actually started going back through some of the songs that I listened to for decades, I was like, ‘oh, here’s another one, here’s another “love lost” song, here’s another “love lost,” and here’s another “love lost” song on my playlist.  These are all about breakups and loneliness and I started thinking, ‘OK. No wonder I feel this way.’ I’ve literally conditioned myself to feel this way and to believe this way about relationships for decades, and it wasn’t actually helping my relationships. It was very subtly undermining my relationships.  

So, I made a conscious decision to go through my playlists and cut anything out that was “love lost” music as I began to work on my feelings of futility.  That’s just one example.  Where are the influences in our lives that are shaping our feelings? We need to have good boundaries there. We need to decide: Does this music, does this TV show, do these movies, do they instill the hopes and the values and the aspirations they portray, do they reflect what I want to create or are they creating something that I don’t want in my life?  

I’m very sensitive to gore and violence in movies and that’s just me.  I don’t watch rated “R” movies in my life and I just know how I feel. It kind of disturbs me and that’s me. That’s something I know about myself. So, whatever it is for you, whatever your goals are, take some time to look at the influences. Whether it’s people, whether it’s media, whether it’s music videos, whatever it is, the books that we consume, what are those things? What are they subtly teaching and reinforcing about our beliefs? Are they supportive and conducive to what we want to create?

We’re just talking minor shifts here and there, but having good, strong firm boundaries, that is the whole point.  The whole point of a strong defense is to not let those things into our lives and to not let them in mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially. That’s how we begin to “manage our MESS.”

3. Make Your Move, Take Your Shot , Work and Fight for What You Want!

OK, let’s move on to the offensive side. The third of Sunzi’s six strategies for self-preservation and total victory is to make your move, take your shot, and work and fight for what you want. The flip side of this formula is that we can’t just play defense all the time. Sooner or later, we’ve got to take the offensive in our lives. We’ve got to get out there and make things happen. We’ve got to score some points! We’ve got to kick some goals! We’ve got to hit some home runs! We’ve got to knock it out of the park! We’ve got to throw some touchdowns! We’ve at least got to get some field goals, right? We have got to have some goals that we’re working towards and fighting for. Because if we just play defense and we don’t have any offense, we’re fighting a losing battle. It’s really only a matter of time before our inner enemies, or the world, or life scores on us. It’s inevitable.

In baseball, those no hitters are so rare. Shutouts in any sport are rare. It takes a monumental defensive effort to keep the opposing team from scoring in any sport, and so part of this is that we need to have a good offense too.  We need to get out there, we need to take some shots.  So this is about confidence, which we’re going to talk about more.

We’ve talked about this character before. The character Sunzi uses here is gong1 攻. And it’s comprised of the word to work 工 on the left with a hand holding a tool or a weapon 攵 on the right.  It conveys this sense of working, building and fighting for what we want.

So, taking our shot, making our move is the second of Sunzi’s six tactics to transform our lives discussed in Episode 22.  We need to get out there. We need to take some shots. We need to throw some passes. We need to kick some goals. We need to run 10 miles. Whatever it is. We need to get out there!  We need to engage!

So, while there are times that we need to dig in and dig deep, draw the line in the sand, and put up a staunch defense, there are times where we need to strike out on our own, get out there, engage, take a shot, and make our move if we’re going to win – and we have to believe that we can win!  Part of picking our battles is that we have to know that we’ve got a shot.  There are rarely guaranteed victories in our lives. There are some, especially if we situate ourselves right; especially if we recognize the resources that we have and then we position ourselves accordingly to get out there and are in the right place at the right time at that opportune moment to seize the day!  There are some but we have to have the confidence to make our move, to go on the offensive, to work and fight, and pick our battles in those areas where we believe we actually have a chance – where we can win.

So, the warrior mindset is that we can win any battle. We can figure it out.  We can solve any problem. We can find any solution we need. We can gather allies and resources and we can make things happen.  So, we gotta get out there and work and fight for what we want, and that takes a lot of confidence.

I’ve played in enough sports competitions to know that when I’m really confident and I step up to the plate or I step up to the free throw line, there’s a completely different feel when I take that shot, or I take that swing, or I kick that ball, or I make that pass than when I’m sitting there thinking about missing or when I’m playing, to not lose. Have you ever seen this happen with a sports team?  A sports team may come out of the gates just roaring and everything, all cylinders firing, and they jump out to a big lead and then for whatever reason they start playing defensively instead of playing to win anymore. They’re now playing to not lose and there’s a huge difference in how that feels in the energy that it creates.

I’ve seen and I’ve been on teams where we were playing to not lose and all of a sudden before you know it, what happens?  That lead that we had, it’s gone, and we’re like, ‘oh. What happened? How did we get here?’ And then we have to dig in and be like, ‘OK, let’s just go back to what was working. Let’s play loose. Let’s play confident. Let’s work together as a team and let’s get out there and turn things around again.’  So, what’s the secret? This leads us to. Principle #5.

5. Strike Fast, Strike Hard – The Secret to Making Your Move

The fifth of Sunzi’s six strategies for self-preservation and total victory is to strike fast and strike hard – that is the secret to making our move.  See, it’s all about speed and momentum from Sunzi’s perspective.  Just as we want to dig down deep and we literally want to disappear and be unfindable on the defensive side for military campaign – nobody can attack you because nobody can find you – this is the whole purpose behind a stealth attack. No one could shoot down your planes because they can’t even detect them. They don’t know where they are and they can’t get access to you. 

On the offensive side, exceptional offensive strikes are about speed. The metaphor that Sunzi uses is to make your move from above the 9th levels of heaven.  The idea of the imagery, the metaphor that he’s using, he’s making an allusion here to a lightning strike.  In ancient Chinese thinking, lightning emerged from above the 9th levels of heaven and “Boom,” it comes down in a flash and it’s gone. So, you strike first, you strike fast, and you disappear. Gone. Nobody can counterattack.

I’ve been doing a lot of studying and learning about an abundance mindset lately, about a wealthy mindset, about the differences between how wealthy people think and how poor people think. And because I don’t want to be poor, I’ve really been trying to upgrade my thinking about and my beliefs about money, and so I’ve been trying to understand what a wealthy mindset looks. As I’ve done that, one of the things that I learned is that wealthy people tend to make decisions very quickly and then act immediately, which is kind of the opposite of what I tend to do. I tend to think through things very thoroughly, create detailed plans, and once I’ve got that sure victory and am ready to pull the trigger, only then do I find out that I missed the boat, or something has changed and so making decisions and acting quickly is the secret. Just get out there! This is something that I’m working on in my life. 

Get out there!  Even if it’s not perfect.  Perfectionism is the enemy. Get it out there!  Take a risk! Put it out there and prove it along the way. Make some adjustments. Make some course corrections but get out there. Strike first, strike while the iron is hot, and gain momentum. This goes back to avoiding the atrophy of indecision, as I discussed in Episode 10: “Sunzi’s Five Full Send Commitment Tactics for When We Hit the Wall,” as well as the entropy of failing to fully commit.  

We start something, we stop, we start, we stop, we go back and forth, we lose all momentum. That’s really hard to get anything done. So strike fast!  This always reminds me of Cobra Kai from the original Karate Kid movies.  “Strike first, strike fast, no mercy, Sir!” And that kind of ties into the 6th principle.

6. Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Nothing Behind – leave it all out there on the battlefield!

The Sixth of Sunzi’s six strategies for self-preservation and total victory in life is: Don’t hold back.  Leave nothing behind – Leave it all out there on the battlefield.  If we’re going to take our shot and make our move — and by the way, whenever I think of make your move, I think of my friend Lea Newman, fantastic Tony Robbins coach, and amazing person, fierce competitor. We were colleagues at the Air Force Academy years ago, and I remember watching her train cadets on how to physically strike a power pose and her key phrase was: “Make your move!” And that’s stuck with me for years. So, Leah, wherever you are, thank you for that!  She has a great coaching platform, books, and online courses available, so check her out and tell her I sent you.

So, if we’re going to make our move, if we’re going to take our shot, if we’re going to work and fight for what we want in our lives, out of our lives, and for our lives, we’re going to strike first, we’re going to strike fast, and we’re going to strike hard. We need to be all in. We need to be fully committed. We need to avoid half measures. Half measures do not yield half results. I think I may have mentioned this before, you can’t make half of the cake and get half a cake.  If you only go through half the steps, you end up with a lot of schlop and no cake.

So, we need to finish the job, and I’m calling myself out here because I have been a great starter over the years of my life and not a great finisher. I’ve always struggled with finishing the course, going all the way, finishing the job, and that’s where the challenge is. So, if you’re going to go, if you’re going to take your shot, if you’re going to make your move, if you’re going to commit, go all the way, aim high, leave it all out there on the battlefield!  Leave it all out there on the court!  Give it 110%, and then get out! Don’t sit there resting on your laurels. Your one-time win, your 15 seconds of fame, hanging around to drink your own Kool-Aid and bathe in your own good press.

No, take the high ground. Take the road less traveled. Leave nothing behind. Leave it all out there. No regrets.  That’s how we avoid the atrophy of indecision and the entropy of failing to fully commit. As I discussed in , as I discussed in Episode 10: “Sunzi’s Five Full Send Commitment Tactics for When We Hit the Wall.”

So, in conclusion, today we’ve talked about six strategies for self-preservation and achieving complete victory in our lives. In the order that I discuss them, they are:

1. Pick Your Battles

2. Keep Holding On – Don’t Give Up

3. Make Your Move, Take Your Shot

4. Dig Down Deep – The Secret to Holding On

5. Strike Fast, Strike Hard – The Secret to Making Your Move

6. Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Nothing Behind – leave it all out there on the battlefield! 

These are the secrets for self-preservation and achieving complete victory in our lives. This is how we win!  By doing these things by having a good, solid, impenetrable defense. Picking our battles and holding on when things get hard. Don’t give up on ourselves!  Don’t give up on others!  Don’t give up on the world!  Keep holding on, holding out, and holding to hope! Don’t give in, give up, settle, or sell out!  

Things are going to get hard, but we can hold on a little longer, longer than we think, and we can get through any situation and circumstance! There are no impossible situations! There are no impassable obstacles!  There are no “Kobayashi Marus” – no no-win scenarios.

There is ALWAYS a way forward! There’s always a way onward! There’s always a way upward! There’s always a way through, a way around, or way out of any situation or circumstance we find ourselves in. There is always something we can do! There’s always a step that we can take!  There’s always a move that we can make! There’s always a way to shift our thinking, our feelings, and our beliefs about any situation, relationships, circumstance, challenge, or trial.  And by doing so, we change our experience. We open new avenues of possibility!

So, keep holding on! Don’t give up!  Dig down deep! Get to those core things that are deep down inside of us! Those precious memories, those major motivations, those things that move and inspire us, those soul yearnings deep down inside for what we want to create, those things that we have been called to do, and then start digging ourselves out, and then start making our moves!

Take your shot! Get out there!  Engage!  Start doing stuff!  Step by step. Start working, start fighting, start building, start creating. Strike fast!  Don’t wait!  Don’t delay!  Avoid that atrophy of indecision and avoid the entropy of failing to fully commit!  If we’re going to do it, go for it!  Believe that whatever happens, good, bad, or ugly, it’s going to be OK!  Even if we fall flat on our faces, we can get back up!  Even if that relationship doesn’t work out, even if that invitation is turned down, there’ll be another one – and who’s to say that this failure is not the stepping stone to greater success?  

So, get out there, engage, try, and try again, and don’t hold back! Leave nothing behind!  At the end of your life – forget the end of your life – at the end of this day, I want you to be able to lay your head on your pillow, knowing that you left it all out there!  Whether it was work, whether it was relationships, whether it was your home life, whether, whatever it is, that you gave it your all!  You have nothing left in the tank to give because you already gave it all!  You left it all out there!

That is how we begin to win our daily battles! And if you didn’t win today, it’s OK, because if we wake up tomorrow, we have another chance.  So, learn from today if we are awake, if we still draw breath.  As long as we are alive, we can improve! We can get better. There’s something for us to do. There’s someone who needs us. So get out there!