Doing Hard Things

💥 In my selection process, going into special operations, we started with 80 guys and ended with 10. One of the exercises that helped weed out the quitters was something called bobbing—the instructors tied our hands behind our backs and our feet together and shoved us into the deep end of the pool.

🪢Bobbing works like this: you exhale everything, sink to the bottom, push off the floor, break the surface for a quick breath—then dump the air and sink again. Over and over. Some people relaxed into it. I didn’t at first. Panic wastes oxygen; presence buys time. There’s a moment in any hard thing where you stop negotiating with fear and just do the work. My favorite definition of discipline: “the ability to grab oneself by the throat”—a metaphor for taking command of yourself when every instinct wants out.

📈 In financial services, the market can feel like that pool—rates jump, spreads widen, clients get skittish, regulators tighten the screws. High performers don’t flail; they return to process and act:

🫁 Exhale: let go of sunk costs and confirmation bias.
🧱 Find bottom: re-anchor to first principles—risk appetite, investment thesis, credit policy.
🚀 Push: take the hard action today—rebalance out of a favorite, escalate a credit, call the nervous client with clarity.
🌬️ Breathe: brief reset, capture the lesson, and repeat—cycle after cycle.
🎯 Performance beyond the ordinary isn’t always pleasant—it’s disciplined.

What’s the one hard action you’ve been avoiding that would materially improve your book, portfolio, or team this week?