Your weekly guide to thriving in every aspect of life—Physical, Mental, Spiritual, and Financial Wellness.

“All things are difficult before they are easy.” — Thomas Fuller

My friend Drew ran 100 miles this weekend. I joined him at mile 83, sometime around 3 a.m. The air was cold, it was dark, and every step was closer to the finish line. At that point, it wasn’t about speed; it was about moving forward.

Watching him reminded me how easy it is to forget this truth in the middle of the hard parts. The miles that feel longest aren’t the ones on the course. They’re the ones between doubt and determination. The ones that get you there.

Growth is awkward. Change is clumsy. And endurance, in running or in life, always looks hardest right before it starts to feel possible again.

So wherever you are this week…whether at mile one, mile eighty-three, or somewhere in between… remember: the struggle isn’t a sign you’re off track. It’s proof you’re moving forward.

Keep going. The obstacle is the way.

Physical Wellness

In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness reframes toughness. As a society we glorify exhaustion, as if burnout were a badge of honor. Yet, Magness touches on the idea of not pushing past pain, but as understanding it. Real toughness, he says, isn’t blind endurance; it’s awareness in motion.

That resonates deeply with the 9:03 philosophy. In the physical pillar, doing hard things isn’t about just proving something to yourself. It’s about knowing yourself. It’s learning the difference between stress that strengthens and stress that breaks. It’s the ability to pause mid-effort, take inventory, and decide whether the next step is growth or ego. Sorting through the junk miles.

True physical wellness isn’t measured by how far or fast you can go. It’s measured by how present you can stay in the process.

It’s what Steve Magness calls “responding instead of reacting.” The same skill that carries you through the final miles of a race is the one that carries you through life, across all four pillars.

The ability to stay grounded when things get hard. To move forward with awareness, not armor.

Because strength built without awareness eventually collapses. But strength built with awareness endures. It compounds, just like time well spent.

Mental Wellness

I’ve been using the Waking Up app lately, and it’s reminded me that meditation, like most worthwhile things, is hard.

It sounds simple: sit still, breathe, pay attention. But the moment you do, your mind takes off: replaying, planning, drifting, resisting.

Meditation isn’t about clearing your thoughts; it’s about seeing them. It’s awareness training, the mental version of staying present when things get physically uncomfortable. Some days, you find calm. Other days, it feels like work. But that’s the practice…noticing when you’ve drifted and beginning again.

Because awareness, like endurance, isn’t built through perfection. It’s built through repetition. Through returning. And that’s what strengthens the mind — not escaping the noise, but learning to stay steady inside it.

If you’ve never tried meditation, start simple:

• Find a quiet spot. Sit comfortably; no special posture required.
• Take one slow, full breath. Notice the inhale and the exhale.
• Let your mind wander. It will; that’s part of the process.
•  When it does, gently return. That returning is the practice.
• Start small. Even 5 minutes a day builds awareness and presence.

You don’t need silence. You just need attention. Every time you come back, to your breath, your moment, yourself, you’re waking up a little more.

In meditation, you learn that awareness changes everything and that noticing a thought gives you the power to choose how you respond. Again, thank you Mr. Frankl for all your work on that thread. And money works the same way.

Most of us were taught to manage money through control…budgets, goals, returns, projections. Growing up I had an envelope system. Each week I would go to the bank and take out a certain amount of cash and place it into the particular envelope…groceries, insurance, travel, etc. But what I didn’t understand at that time was that plan also needed to connect with awareness. Taking the time to know why I was earning, how I was spending, and what those decisions reflected about what I valued at that time.

Awareness transforms money from something we chase into something we use.

You don’t need to overhaul your plan to start. Just notice.

• Notice where your money goes. Does it align with what you value most?
• Notice how you feel when you spend. Excited? Guilty? Numb? That’s data. That’s information.
• Notice what you avoid. Investments, conversations, or habits. This emotion reveals a lot.
• Notice the pattern. Awareness turns transactions into insight.

Financial wellness isn’t about chasing more. It’s about building meaning with what you already have and directing your money the same way you direct your time: with intention.

Because wealth, at its best, doesn’t just buy comfort; it builds clarity.

Spiritual Wellness

“The music came from a very real place, and the world just didn’t care. That hurt more than anything. I felt like I’d opened my heart and everyone laughed.” — Rivers Cuomo

When Pinkerton was released, Rivers Cuomo was being honest. I am sure looking back he probably felt like it was too honest for what the world wanted at the time. The Blue Album had made him a star. Pinkerton made him vulnerable. And when the world rejected it, he did what so many of us do when we’re hurt. He shut down.

He stopped trusting his heart. He stopped creating from the place that made him real. He retreated into control: into perfectionism, safety, and self-protection. That’s where so many of us live when we’ve been burned by honesty, caught between who we really are and who we think the world wants us to be.

It’s the space between self-interest and self-awareness. Between protecting your image and discovering your truth.

The spiritual work begins when we’re brave enough to stay in that tension and to not run from it or numb it, but to see it. Accept it. See where it takes us. That’s where growth happens. Awareness softens the ego, and over time, that awareness becomes transcendence. A freedom beyond validation.

Years later, the world came around. Pinkerton went from “a painful slump” to “a masterpiece.” The words of the same critics that so harshly destroyed Rivers and the record years ago. But by then, the point had changed. The real redemption wasn’t critical acclaim. It was Rivers finding his way back to himself.

Maybe that’s what all spiritual growth is: Losing trust in your heart and learning how to trust it again.

Because the truth doesn’t always win right away. But it always endures. And that is a very painful lesson that many of us will learn in our lifetime. I know I have…many times over.

And eventually, the world — and sometimes our own hearts — catch up to what’s real.

And In The End

From all of us at The 9:03 Collective: thanks for reading. Keep showing up. Stay curious. And never forget that the clock is running, so make it count.

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Until next week — keep building your moments.

The Journey Team & The 9:03