In a Word, Resilience

Resilience is the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

If this past week had a name, resilience would be it, and it started on the treadmill. Twenty minutes at a four percent incline, five songs, and two speed pushes in each one. After almost every push, my thought was the same: the next one could be walked. Relief was always available, always justifiable, always one small decision away.

That’s usually how the difficult moments in life work.

We make a deal with ourselves in the hard stretch. We tell ourselves we’ll ease up next time, back off, choose the more comfortable option. But once we’re in motion, we usually just keep going, and we find that the hardest part isn’t the work itself. It’s the moment before the work, the anticipation, and the resistance. And that has a way of showing up well beyond a workout.

Not long after, I received an invitation to speak at a local event in June. When the question came about what the talk should be about, the answer could have come easily to me. Marketing, branding, community building, digital strategy. Those aren’t vague interests. They’re lived experience. And still, instead of claiming one directly, I handed the choice back.

I thought about that later, because on the surface, that can look like flexibility. It can even sound generous. But sometimes generosity and self-protection wear similar clothes. Sometimes giving others the choice is a kindness, and sometimes it’s a way of avoiding the discomfort of saying plainly, this is what I know.

That’s one of the subtler forms of impostor syndrome. Sometimes it sounds open, polite, easygoing. It lets someone else define the value first, and seen that way, the speaking invitation and the treadmill weren’t really separate moments at all.

In both, stepping back would’ve been easy. In both, there was a quieter negotiation happening under the surface. And in both, the real challenge wasn’t external. It was staying with the moment long enough to resist the instinct to shrink.

Then, the weekend. It was the last soccer weekend of the season for Ryan and Peyton. Medals and team pictures have a way of marking time and they make it impossible not to notice how much has changed.

Later came Peyton’s music recital. Before it started, there was a nervous parental pause in the car between Katie and I, the quiet wondering whether she might freeze once she got in front of everyone. She’s only seven so at that age, courage still looks fresh. You can almost see the fear sitting right beside it. But she walked up there anyway.

She introduced herself slowly. She explained the feeling behind the piece (and that she composed it herself). Then she played beautifully and sat back down. Afterward, she said it had been “terrifying.” And that may be the clearest version of resilience there is: the willingness to move forward while fear is still fully present. By then, the thread was hard to miss. It was practically waving its arms at me.

Resilience is less about force and more about staying. Staying in the effort. Staying in the discomfort. Staying present long enough to find out that fear doesn’t always get the final word.

People are often far more capable than they initially give themselves credit for. The challenge is getting past the hesitation long enough to find out. 

And as Sarah Blakely recently said, “It’s a reminder that everything you need is already right there on your back. But it’s up to you to unpack it.”

Join Me at Night Market

When Tommy Ruth and I started Night Market in 2017, we were building something from scratch and hoping people would show up. They did. Over time, that scary first step became something beautiful: an evening event filled with art, food, music, families, neighbors, and friends.

Night Market has grown into one of Fayette County’s most cherished evening events. What began as a grassroots idea has become a signature Peachtree City experience, uniting neighbors, families, and friends in celebration of creativity and community.

If you’re looking to get out and join something local this week, join us this Friday for Night Market at Drake Field from 5 to 10 p.m. Learn more at https://nightmarketllc.com/