5 Life Lessons You’ll Hate…Until They Change Your Life
Hard choices now, easy life later. What do you choose?
The Art of Becoming is about turning obstacles into opportunities. Drawing from philosophy, resilience, and real-life experiences, I share lessons on navigating adversity, cultivating wisdom, and living with purpose. Because in the end, life isn’t about avoiding hardship—it’s about becoming someone who thrives in it.
We won’t always have the answers, but we can search for them together.
Today, we study hard choices.
I hope you’ll join me.
Everyone wants success, but no one wants what it costs.
These lessons aren’t sexy. They’re painful and earned the hard way.
But if you’re willing to make hard choices now—you won’t have to live a hard life later.
Let’s get to it.
Lesson 1: Success is a painful road.
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.
Winning has a price.
The bigger your dream, the bigger the obstacles you will face. The more meaningful your purpose is, the more pain you will endure.
You will doubt your ability to endure. People will laugh at you. And for a while, giving up sounds like the best option.
But quitting has a bigger price.
The regret you feel will never go away. You can hate the road to success, but trust me, you’ll hate quitting even more.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” — Muhammad Ali
Lesson 2: You will have more losses than wins.
There is a lesson in every failure.
My first sales job was selling cars. I lost more deals than I closed. But each rejection made me a better salesman.
Failure became my feedback. Fuel to move forward. Every time someone told me no, I wanted to win even more.
I turned failures into a reason to move forward. They became my scorecard. I realized that the more times I failed, the closer I came to succeeding.
For me, success is a game of numbers. The more losses I have, the more wins I accumulate.
I still hate to fail, but all my successes were built on my failures. As C.S. Lewis said, “One fails towards success.”
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan
Lesson 3: How you handle adversity and failure will determine the direction of your life.
I know. I know. Life is hard.
It’s a shitty proposition. It will kick you, knock you down, spit on you, and take a crap on you before you’ve had your first cup of coffee.
This is what you should do: Be grateful each time you’ve been punched in the face and lost. It means you’re alive. You have something new to learn.
Stop saying life is unfair. So what? Be a f**king savage and fight back. Learn from the pain. Learn to duck and fight back.
Do you want a good life? Fight back. Do you want a great f**king life? Fight harder.
Failure is a shitty, god-awful feeling, but it is part of life. Deal with it.
You’ll either regret how you faced your challenges or be grateful for them.
“Brave men embrace adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.” — Seneca
4: Losing is not failure. At the very least, it’s an opportunity.
Repeat after me: Quitting is failing.
You will suffer. You will go through hard times, but what you do with suffering will either break you or make you stronger.
The world says failure is bad. The world is wrong.
Every obstacle is an opportunity to be better. You can either be polished by your mistakes or taken down by them. Adversity can be your teacher or jailer. The choice, as always, is yours.
“Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity, and stumble from defeat to defeat.” — Anaïs Nin
Lesson 5: Winning is boring
Winning does not happen in one moment but in the hours, days, months, and years before game day.
But losing?
It happens with a decision. One simple, easy decision.
It happens when you decide to sleep in and not train.
It creeps into your life when you decide to watch videos on TikTok instead of calling ten more prospects or applying to ten more jobs.
You lose when you choose comfort over commitment.
Losing happens when the writer stops writing because of “writer’s block.”
You lose when you watch TV, hang out with your friend, eat a slice of cherry pie, or doomscroll instead of working on your dream.
Losing is exciting because you choose to do something easy and fun.
But winning is boring because it is hard and takes time, because you’re putting in the same reps repeatedly.
Winning is done alone: in the gym, early morning or late at night; writing your book at 4 a.m.; driving to your client’s office 200 miles away; or working on your business plan when everyone is asleep.
Losing can be done anywhere, with anyone.
It happens when you’re practicing on the court at 5 a.m.
And you’ve been at it for over an hour.
It happens when you find purpose in the grind—when it’s hard, everyone else quits, and no one is watching.
Winning is boring. And lonely.
But that’s okay. You don’t need the applause—just the wins.
Thanks for reading. Now do the boring work.
Love to you and yours,
Michael