Good morning and welcome to the Increase Remempaq podcast. I'm Justin Sua episode 2100.

I recently read a quote by Alex Hermose that I really enjoyed. And here it is, quote,

heroes and villains always have the same backstory. Pain. The difference is what they choose to do about it.

Villains say the world hurt me so I'll hurt it back. Heroes say the world hurt me and I won't let it hurt anyone else. Heroes use pain.

Villains are used by it, close quote. You're going to experience tough times. And those tough times that you

experience could be either viewed either as an excuse to not give your best or as a reason to give

your best. For example, if you're not getting much playing time as an athlete, you can use it as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself, or you can use it as a reason to maximize every single rep that you take.

If you're a leader, a coach, a parent, you can use a poor performance of your team or the stress of your family as an excuse to let your guard down, to lose your patience,

to make bad decisions, or you can use it as a reason to slow down, to be a good decision

maker and really show great leadership qualities. As many of you know, I am, I work, I'm a process coach to some of the best athletes in the

world. And one of these athletes recently had a historic performance in the major league

baseball playoffs. And we were discussing his performance this weekend. And he gave me many examples of things that happened outside of his control that he could

have used as an excuse to not perform well, but he chose to use it as a reason to lock in,

to focus on what he can control.

And he ended up going out and having the kind of performance

that the world talks about. It was really neat to hear and really need to see. But you don't have

to be a professional athlete to make a decision like this. Whatever you're facing, you have a choice.

You can use it as an excuse or you can use it as a reason.

And so my invitation to you today is to take a look at the adversity you're facing and listen

to the words and the thoughts that you have. Listen to the decision and pay attention to the

decision that you're making. Are you using adversity as an excuse or are you using it as a reason

to make good decisions and to be a better version of yourself? If you like this episode,

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