Resilience is a skill. There is a stone on my desk engraved with six words: “Winners never quit. Quitters never win.“
To someone else, it might look like any other motivational quote. Something you would see on a gym wall, a locker room poster, or the kind of desktop decoration people buy when they are trying to convince themselves to answer emails with a better attitude.
But to me, it’s a reminder. And it’s tied to a thread that runs through almost every major chapter of my life.
Those words were given to me by my father when I was 10 years old, during a season when I needed armor more than I needed encouragement.
The Shirt My Dad Made For Me
When I was 10, I was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma.
The tumor was around L5-S1, near the base of my spine. Treatment meant a 19-hour surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, months in bed, time in a wheelchair, lasting nerve damage in my left leg and foot, and eventually learning how to walk again.
No child is supposed to understand words like oncology, chemo, radiation, or survival odds.
No child is supposed to have their world shrink down to hospital rooms, medical equipment, physical pain, and adults trying to sound calm when you can feel the fear underneath their voices.
But life does not always ask your age before it tests you.
During my treatment, my dad made me a shirt that said: Winners never quit (on the front), and Quitters never win (on the back).
At the time, I did not have the wisdom or vocabulary that I have now. I was not thinking about resilience as a philosophy. I was not thinking about identity, emotional authority, self-leadership, nervous system regulation, or any of the things I can explain much better now that I am an adult.
I was just a kid trying to survive something no kid should have to go through.
But even then, I was aware of the mindset.
I understood, at least in the way a 10-year-old can understand, that what I believed mattered, my attitude mattered, and that giving up internally was not an option.
The shirt was not just a shirt. It was a message from my father.
It was a reminder of who I was supposed to be when things got hard.
Six months into my treatment, just under the halfway point, my dad passed away, and that changed the story forever.
Because now the person who gave me the phrase was gone. But the phrase and the ideology behind it stayed.
Living It Before I Understood It
I think some lessons enter your life before you are old enough to fully understand them.
At 10, I could wear the shirt. I could repeat the words. I could try to be tough like John Wayne or Rocky. I could keep showing up for treatment, recovery, physical therapy, and whatever came next.
But I could not fully understand what was being built in me. That came later.
It came through reflection, life experience, and the process of getting knocked down in other ways and realizing that the same message kept rising up inside me:
Find a way.
Then, if there is no obvious way:
Make one.
Looking back, I can see that I was developing an operating system, not just surviving cancer.
It’s not that I never struggled, never broke down, never got angry, never felt grief, or never questioned why things happened the way they did.
Because of course I did.
But somewhere inside that experience, a pattern was planted: When the path disappears, you do not collapse and call that the end of the story. You look for another path, and if you cannot find one, you make one.
The Motto Kept Showing Up
That motto did not stay in childhood; it kept following me.
Or maybe I kept carrying it.
It was there when I had to learn how to walk again. Slowly. Awkwardly. Frustratingly. I had none of that inspirational movie montage that people imagine when they talk about comebacks.
It was there when I dealt with the lasting nerve damage in my left leg and foot. The kind of limitation that does not go away just because you are motivated. The kind you have to adapt to, work around, and live with.
It was there when I competed in triathlons. Because apparently, surviving cancer was not enough. I also needed to voluntarily sign up for swimming, biking, and running like some kind of overachieving lunatic with compression shorts.
But that was part of the point. I wanted evidence that my body was still mine. That limitation did not get the final vote. That pain and damage could shape the path without owning the destination.
It was there when I became a group exercise personal trainer and taught P90X three times per day, six days per week.
Three times a day. Six days a week. Not forever, but for two 90-day sessions in a row. That kind of schedule runs on discipline, identity, and a little bit of “what is wrong with me?” energy. But again, the motto was there.
Keep going. Find a way. Make one.
It was there when I graduated from law school. It was there when I passed the Massachusetts bar exam on my first try. And in 2015, after doing both, I got a tattoo on my left bicep: Aut Viam Inveniam Aut Faciam. Latin for: I will find a way or make one.
Different language, same operating system.
The shirt was inherited. The tattoo was chosen. That distinction matters to me.
My father gave me the first phrase when I needed it most. Years later, I chose to mark the philosophy on my body as my own.
Not Every Fire Was Physical
Cancer was not the only fire.
Some fires were physical.
Some were emotional.
Some were professional.
Some were financial.
Some were the kind of fire you choose because you are chasing growth.
Some were the kind you never would have chosen, but had to walk through anyway.
I started my first business. I lost my first business. I started my next business.
Then I had a partner embezzle from it and force me to close it.
That one hits differently. There is a specific kind of pain that comes from being hurt by someone you trusted inside something you were building. It is not just financial. It makes you question your judgment.
But the motto was still there.
Sometimes it stood as almost a challenge. Are you going to quit or are you going to find a way?
So I started again. Then again. A third business. A fourth.
What now? Where is the path? And if there is no path, what do I need to build?
What Resilience Is Not
I want to be clear about something.
I do not believe pain automatically makes people stronger. You know the whole “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” schtick. That sounds nice, but it is not completely true.
Pain can make people guarded or bitter.
Pain can make people shut down and disappear from themselves.
Pain can make people afraid to try again, trust again, lead again, love again, build again, or believe in anything that requires hope.
I also do not believe resilience means pretending things do not hurt. That is not resilience, that’s emotional immaturity.
Resilience is not denying grief, bypassing anger, or forcing yourself to be positive while your life is on fire.
Real resilience is more honest than that; it’s being able to say:
This hurts.
This is unfair.
This is not what I wanted.
This is not how I thought the story would go.
But still refusing to let that be the end of your story.
What Resilience Really Means to Me
To me, resilience is the refusal to let pain have the final word.
It is the ability to keep your identity intact when your circumstances try to rewrite it.
It is the willingness to adapt when the original plan falls apart.
It is the discipline to keep moving when motivation has packed a bag, changed its number, and left no forwarding address.
It is the humility to admit when something is broken.
It is the courage to rebuild despite previous attempts.
It is the self-leadership to ask better questions when life gives you answers you did not want.
Not “Why me?” Although that question is human, and I have asked it.
But eventually:
What can I do with this?
What can this teach me?
Who do I need to become now?
Where is the way?
And if there is no way yet, how do I make one?
Why This Became My Work
You’ll notice I do not talk about mindset like it is fluffy, ethereal, BS.
To me, mindset is not a cute productivity hack. It is the foundation underneath how a person leads themselves when things get hard.
Maybe your version of hard is not cancer…
It could be grief, divorce, a failed business, a personal betrayal, or burnout.
Maybe it’s just knowing that you are capable of more, but feeling trapped inside an identity that was built for survival.
That is why I care so much about self-leadership. Because sooner or later, everyone meets a moment where the old map no longer works, and when that happens, motivation doesn’t work.
You need something deeper than surface-level motivation to pull yourself back up.
You need: A bold personal philosophy, a new standard of living, and an updated internal operating system.
Create for yourself an internal something that can hold you steady when the external world stops cooperating.
The Stone on My Desk
Today, I still have that engraved stone on my desk, “Winners never quit. Quitters never win.“
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t keep it there because I think quitting is always wrong. Sometimes quitting the wrong thing is wisdom, walking away is self-respect, and changing direction is the bravest move you can make.
But quitting on yourself?
Quitting on the part of you that knows there is still something more to become?
That’s different.
That is the kind of quitting my father’s words still challenge in me, and that is the kind of quitting I want to challenge in others.
Not with pressure or fake tough-guy nonsense. But with a deeper reminder:
You have survived things. You have adapted before. You have carried more than people know. You have found ways through situations that once felt impossible.
And if you are still here, the story is not finished.
Find a Way or Make One
My father gave me the motto.
Cancer tested it.
Life kept giving me opportunities to prove it.
Learning to walk again.
Triathlons.
P90X classes.
Law school.
The bar exam.
Business failures.
Betrayal.
Reinvention.
Starting over.
Again.
And again.
And again.
At some point, the phrase stopped being something I was trying to believe, and it became a core part of my identity.
It became the way I meet life.
“Aut Viam Inveniam Aut Faciam” = I will find a way or make one.
Sometimes life blocks the path, or the person who first taught you how to be strong is no longer here to remind you.
But if the lesson became part of you, it keeps speaking.
And when it speaks, I listen.
Find a way or make one. Just keep going. The world needs more of you.
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