Dear X.,

You were strong, tough, untouchable . . . operating at a level unachieved by most of us . . . and then . . . . Then . . . nothing.

You were left with a void . . . a death of sorts.

The drive, the motivation, the confidence, the security had been taken away.

Your talisman was gone.

You had never really believed in all that lucky rabbit’s foot stuff anyway.

What, putting your faith into an object?

Not you.

But you’d lost your edge.

What you once saw as your victories, now stood naked as lucky successes founded in a false confidence based on an idol.

You’d unwittingly believed in the talisman . . . with your whole heart . . . without even realizing it.

All faith. Zero doubt. Full trust.

But then it disappeared.

Without it, who are you?

What are you capable of?

Can you still achieve what you want?

You weigh your options.

To stay stuck in the current place of nothingness . . . all your desires for self-confidence, success, excellence placed into a box and put on a shelf . . . to be opened occasionally as memorability.

Or, one step taken. Then another. Find the win. Take another step.

Discover how it feels to gain success and excellence on your own. Keep moving forward. Because option one is not an option in your book, you take the second path.

And because a journey is defined through taking that first step, that’s what you do. You take that first step.

You leave your house. You go for a walk. You dig out your workout clothes and dust off your shoes.

You start waking up early again.

You pick up a barbell and actually add weight.

And it feels good.

And it’s at that moment that you realize that instead of your original hope to recreate what you’d had before, you find yourself creating something entirely new.

Not only that.

Now you are doing everything you’d once done before . . . but better.

Instead of it being more difficult, it’s just the opposite.

It’s actually easier and more enjoyable.

You’d found yourself without motivation or drive.

You looked inside for a morsel of courage, dug it up, and took a step forward.

And with each step you take, your memories fade of the time when you relied on something outside of yourself to help you believe.

In their place . . . momentum, drive, success, strength, power, and grace.

Perhaps the role of your original talisman was to give you a roadmap.

Now it’s time for the real journey.