Harder to Kill
Embracing the suck, befriending discomfort, and becoming better for it
Ever heard this quote?
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”
Obviously. How about:
“The toughest steel is forged in the hottest fire.”
Yep, about a hundred times.
Both quotes enforce the global idea that adversity and struggle strengthen us as humans, and make us stronger for having persevered. But what are we persevering for, and how do we know if we can even handle whatever it is—let alone improve?
The answer, in as figurative a way as possible, is to get used to the flames before the fire starts. Take an intentional and proactive approach to toughen your body and mind. In other words…
Become harder to kill.
I had so much hesitation about writing this article. Hell, it’s probably half the reason it’s three weeks late and I’m still sitting here with heavy eyes and an empty coffee mug trying to coax the right words out of my brain. I know what I want to say, but I have this overwhelming fear about how it is going to come off. I don’t want it to be about telling people “not to give up” or to “always stay positive” or “give it their all.” I don’t want it to be an article from some jock about lifting or fitness or pushing your body. I just want my passion to bleed onto the paper and hope it hits someone at the right place and the right time.
Enter “the suck”
I believe in being strong by thinking strong, and that continuous improvement must be earned. Mentally, physically, and professionally, you must train your body and mind to not only survive, but thrive in adverse or challenging situations.
I didn’t make up “the suck,” but I sure as hell love it. My brother first introduced me to it as a term used by his drill sergeant in the Army. During long ruck marches or insanely grueling weeks in the bush, they would be told to “embrace the suck”—meaning, “It’s going to hurt, it’s going to be uncomfortable, so the more you can accept and embrace it, the less well, sucky, it will be.”
It’s a pretty gnarly idea, but if you can embrace all of that negativity and discomfort, your mind becomes clearer and that terrible situation becomes not as, well, terrible. My version of the suck shares the same overarching idea, but takes it a step further:
The suck is something you willingly endure to better yourself; it’s your medium in which you become harder to kill.
My suck, and perhaps the most instrumental element in shaping who I am and how I think, is fitness. Fitness is easy because it doesn’t require anything special, just a desire to be better and the mental strength to ignore the excuses that can and will stand in the way. It is responsible for shaping my mentality and approach toward all things, both personally and professionally.
Each day, I decide that I will be better, and I try and push myself to the edge of what I think I can physically endure. I find something that hurts, and I push through it over and over again.
What’s the result? The result is a human with a killer instinct who has continuously introduced and endured more suck in his day than many do. It’s a mind that can face discomfort, fear, or pain and keep fighting.
That right there is why I was afraid to write this article: picturing one big :eye_roll: as some desk jockey talks about working hard in the gym. There was my fear that it would come off arrogant or unrelatable. I assure you it’s not meant to be either of those things, and I encourage you to think about aspects of your own life that approximate to the same pattern of challenge-then-conquer. The above is just my way of elevating my mind to a higher level, and I want to be clear that it is only one of the endless options.
The truth is, the suck has no shape, no form, and certainly no restrictions. The suck can be physical, mental, spiritual, whatever. It is your personal way to sharpen your mind so that when faced with adversity—which we all sure as hell will—you can respond in a habitual, intelligent, and calculated manner.
Regardless of what medium you choose, there has to be something in your life in which you purposefully push yourself to the edge — beyond where you think you can go—so that next time you are tested or challenged, you can own the outcome without fear or hesitation.
So, you say:
“What the hell does this have to do with me as a professional?”
You are the sum of your actions
Everything in life is the same repeated process with a different look. The gym, a relationship, the office, everything. We wake up and face challenges, decisions, or situations that we have to navigate and respond to, each of which offer adversity and consequences. How we react in each moment is the sum of how we’ve responded to all of the adversity that came before. It’s the culmination of all of the suck we’ve endured and all of the ways we have responded to it.
It’s a father, mother, husband, or wife who finds the inner strength to push through what most would not, and find a solution rather than give in. It’s a young professional who faces failure but finds a way to keep his mind focused and productive in the face of it all and rises to the occasion. It’s a software company in its first year looking down the barrel of the gun that has claimed 99 percent of others like it. It’s owners who are hard — scratch that—impossible to kill, refusing to give up and instead finding a creative, albeit uncomfortable and painful, solution to keep their company alive.
Rocket Code doesn’t exist because its co-founders had “been there before,” because neither of them had. It exists because their minds have been shaped by embracing the uncomfortable on a daily basis with an ever-present desire to be more and do more.
What am I talking about here? I’ll explain.
I have seen countless situations involving client acquisitions that have ended up in our favor due to this overarching mentality. When other agencies have said “no” because of a simple unwillingness to think outside the box or work to find a solution, we simply refused to settle for that as an answer. We have gained clients, respect, and a reputation because of our desire to be better and the drive to find a creative solution that expands the boundaries of what we thought we knew and what others perceived as possible. All because of a “harder to kill” mentality that has seeped into every aspect of the company.
Be intentional
I don’t expect everyone to stand up and go find their nearest gym and start training like a Spartan soldier. However, I do hope that the next time you find yourself in a situation that makes you uncomfortable, you can find something deep down that allows you to embrace whatever it is and act intentionally, knowing that each decision is bigger than the everyday bullshit that surrounds it. Each choice will create another input that will shape how you think and react to similar situations in the future. The world doesn’t wait for weak minds. This is a challenge to be uncomfortable and become better from it.
While writing this piece, I found myself reflecting on my own challenges, and trying to isolate aspects that I perceive as weaknesses to decide how I can challenge myself to get better in these areas. It became glaringly obvious, in a full-blown tidal wave of meta, that the process of writing this article has taken me through the exact process I spoke of above. Putting my thoughts on paper is not a strength of mine, and I can assure you there were a host of times in which a barrage of four-letter words almost had me throwing in the towel.
If I’m being honest, the hilarious irony of a guy quitting on an article about not quitting is pretty awesome, but this ended up being just one more situation in which having an impossible-to-kill mentality left me with no other option but to keep pushing and pushing until it was done—and I am better for it.
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