I can predict that life will challenge you. Not because I want you to struggle, but because I want you to grow. Hardship isn’t something to avoid. It’s the raw material of success. People think the goal is to find the easy way, to hack the system, to arrive at some magical point where everything is smooth sailing. That’s a fantasy. The truth is, struggle is the price of admission for anything worthwhile.

Lao-Tsu, an ancient Chinese philosopher and the founder of Taoism, said that the strongest person isn’t the one who conquers others, but the one who conquers himself. That’s what struggle does—it forces you to meet yourself, to see what you’re made of, to break down and rebuild stronger. Every challenge, every setback, every moment you want to quit is an opportunity. Will you retreat, or will you push through? Every time you push through, you become someone new. Someone better.

Athletes don’t just show up on race day and expect to win. The ones who do lose. The real competitors, the ones who make it, spend hours training for a race that lasts seconds. They run until their lungs burn, until their muscles scream. They push themselves to failure so that on race day, they can push themselves to victory. That’s how life works too. You don’t get strong by coasting. You get strong by getting uncomfortable, by stepping into the fire instead of avoiding it.

It’s the struggle that builds you. The late nights, the failures, the moments of doubt. That’s where the real growth happens. When you’re tired, when you’re frustrated, when you feel like you’ve hit a wall—that’s when it matters most. That’s when you have a choice to either stop or push a little further. The people who win in life are the ones who push.

The toughest losses are the ones that build your strength the most—if you let them. But a lot of people don’t. They hit a wall, they feel the pain, and they let it break them instead of using it to make them stronger. That’s the real difference between those who succeed and those who don’t. The ones who succeed take their hardest defeats and turn them into fuel. They don’t give up when things get tough. They take the loss, they feel it, they learn from it, and then they come back stronger. Don’t let setbacks stop you. Let them shape you into something unstoppable.

Jalen Hurts, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, exemplifies how overcoming adversity can lead to success. In Super Bowl LVII, Hurts delivered a remarkable performance but suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. That loss, however, became a turning point for him. Instead of letting it break him, he used it as motivation, setting a reminder of the loss on his phone’s lock screen. He described the experience as transformative, saying, “Losing Super Bowl 57 to the Chiefs changed my soul. It was a transformation for me… My desire to win just burned like it never burned before.” Two years later, he led the Eagles to victory, earning the Super Bowl MVP award. Reflecting on his journey, he said, “The joy of winning it still had no comparison to the pain of losing it.” His experience proves that setbacks, when approached with resilience and determination, can be powerful catalysts for growth and success. So I can predict that life won’t be easy for you. I know you will hit roadblocks. I know you will get knocked down. And I trust that you will get back up, again and again. Because every time you do, you’re getting stronger. You’re building muscle—real muscle, the kind that lasts. Brain muscle. Willpower muscle. The kind of strength that turns struggle into success. And that’s what makes you unstoppable.