The Fire and the Stillness

You know what’s funny? People often think that guys like me wake up every morning chomping at the bit, ready to wrestle a bear or scale a cliff before breakfast. Like ambition and drive are just hardwired into some people and the rest are out of luck.

That’s rubbish.

Here’s the truth: most mornings I wake up and don’t particularly fancy doing anything hard. The drive to push, to climb, to fight through tough stuff – that’s not some gift I was born with. It’s something I’ve had to build. And keep building. Every single day.

Think of resilience like a muscle. You don’t just have big biceps because you exist. You build them. You train them. And some days, they ache and you wonder if it’s worth it. But you keep showing up to the gym anyway.

That’s what we’re all doing, really. We’re all in the training ground of life, and none of us get to skip the hard reps.

I’ve spent a lot of my life chasing summits – literal ones and metaphorical ones. There’s something powerful about setting your sights on a goal and grinding toward it. That fire in your belly that says “I’m not done yet” – we need that. Life will knock you down, and without that trained resilience, without that earned fight in you, you’ll stay down.

But here’s what I’ve learned, often the hard way: you can be so focused on the next mountain that you miss the fact that your kids are growing up at base camp. You can be so driven toward what’s next that you forget to be grateful for what’s right in front of you.

The grass always looks greener on the next ridge. Always. That’s just how our brains work. But sometimes the greenest grass is right under your boots, and you’re too busy looking ahead to notice it.

So how do we strike this balance? How do we keep the fire burning without letting it burn up everything that matters?

I don’t have this perfectly figured out, not by a long shot. But I’m learning that maybe it’s not an either/or thing. Maybe we need both the fire and the stillness. The fight and the presence.

We need to train ourselves to push hard, to be resilient, to not quit when things get brutal. That’s how we grow. That’s how we become people who can weather storms and help others through theirs.

But we also need to train ourselves – and this is just as hard – to be fully where we are. To sit at the dinner table and actually be there, not mentally planning tomorrow’s climb. To look our kids in the eye when they’re telling us about their day. To notice the small moments that actually turn out to be the big ones.

Both of these things – the drive and the presence – they’re disciplines. They’re muscles. And they both take work.

For me, faith plays a quiet but crucial role in this balance. It reminds me that my worth isn’t tied to the next achievement or summit. That I’m loved regardless of what I accomplish. There’s something deeply freeing about that. It takes the desperate edge off the ambition and replaces it with something steadier – a sense that we’re part of something bigger, that we’re called to serve others, to be present, to love well.

It’s not about being perfect. It’s about knowing that grace covers the gap between who we are and who we’re trying to become.

And that changes things. It means the drive isn’t about proving ourselves. It’s about growing into who we’re meant to be and helping others do the same. It shifts the focus from “I, I, I” to “we.” From solo climbing to roped teams.

So here’s what I’m trying to do, and maybe it’ll resonate with you:

I’m training the resilience muscle. I’m choosing hard things regularly. Not because they’re fun (they’re usually not), but because that’s how we build the capacity to handle life’s inevitable storms. Small disciplines. Cold showers. Difficult conversations. Keeping promises when it’s inconvenient. This stuff matters.

But I’m also training the presence muscle. I’m putting the phone away at dinner. I’m saying no to good opportunities so I can say yes to my family. I’m practicing gratitude – actually stopping and naming things I’m thankful for, even when (especially when) I’m in the middle of working toward something new.

Both require intention. Both take effort. Neither comes naturally to me.

The beautiful thing is, when we get even a bit better at both of these things, we become more useful to the people around us. We become people who can handle hard things and who notice when someone needs a hand. We become people who push forward and who know when to sit still.

That’s the life I’m after. Not some superhuman existence where everything’s easy and I’ve got it all figured out. Just a normal guy learning to train both muscles – the one that fights and the one that rests in gratitude for what already is.

Some days I get it right. Most days I don’t. But we keep training. We keep showing up.

And maybe we learn that the real summit isn’t some distant peak we’re always climbing toward. It’s right here. Right now. In the ordinary, sacred moments of being present for the people we love while also having the resilience to face whatever comes our way.

We’re all in this together, learning as we go.

Keep going. Stay humble (or be humbled) - and always train both muscles.

And remember – we’ve got this. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s worth it. Life is the long game…