Fortitude Fridays

Vol. 139: The Quiet Kind of Fortitude, Running Lessons & More

Welcome to Fortitude Fridays—part mindset training, part field notes from real life. I share what I’m learning, testing, and using to help you take better care of yourself, strengthen your mindset, and keep showing up—week after week.

Here are a few ideas as you head into the weekend.

Read time: 7 mins

This Week’s Snapshot:

• Quote: Running and Life
• Tactic: Quiet Fortitude
• Small Thought: Happiness

On Running (and Life): No one tells you running is 10 percent cardio and 90 percent negotiating with the voice begging you to quit. -David Deck (Endurance Athlete) Maybe that’s what running teaches us about life. Not that you’ll never want to quit, but that you can hear that voice and keep moving anyway.

Reflection: The Quiet Kind of Fortitude

What a squeaky trampoline taught me about staying present

Last Friday night, I stood at the kitchen sink overlooking the backyard.

It was past 10 o'clock, the sun had long disappeared, and the breeze had finally turned cool. Through the open window, I could hear laughter drifting in from outside.

When I looked outside, I saw my daughter lying on the trampoline with her two best friends—a pair of siblings she's grown up with over the past five years. The three of them were stretched out on their backs, staring up through the trees into the night sky, laughing so hard they could barely catch their breath.

Every so often, the trampoline squeaked beneath them.

I have no idea what was so funny. It really didn't matter.

I stood there smiling.

Then I remembered: they were moving to Italy in two days. I knew we would hug them goodbye the next day.

For a second, I felt the urge to pull back a little. To love the moment a bit less, brace a bit more—the way you do when you already know something's about to end. It's a natural instinct. Protect yourself early, so the goodbye hurts less later.

I didn't do that. I stayed at the sink and watched. Because the truth is, some friendships don't end just because the zip code changes. These two had been in and out of our house for five years—sleepovers, birthdays, a hundred ordinary afternoons. Italy would change the distance. But it wouldn't change the core of the friendship.

And that's when I realized: I wasn't just watching three kids on a trampoline. I was watching a memory being made—and choosing to stay present for it anyway, fully, even though a part of me wanted to brace for the goodbye already coming.

The Quiet Kind of Fortitude

We usually think of fortitude as something loud—gritting your teeth through pain, pushing through a hard workout, holding the line under pressure. But there's a quieter version of fortitude that gets far less credit: staying emotionally present with something you know is ending.

It would be easier not to. Numbing out, staying distracted, keeping one foot out the door emotionally—all of it protects you from the full weight of a goodbye. But it also costs you the moment itself. You can't half-watch your kid laughing on a trampoline and get the whole thing. Presence and protection pull in opposite directions.

Real fortitude isn't just enduring hard things. It's staying open-hearted in the moments right before a hard thing arrives—choosing closeness over self-protection, even when you know exactly what it's going to cost you.

More often than not, it's the only way to get to the good part.

Stay In It

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. Many of you will spend it with friends and family—cookouts, fireworks, maybe at a lake or in a backyard. It's the perfect chance to put this into practice.

This year happens to be a big one—250 years since the first one. But whatever the number, the holiday's always been the same simple thing: families and friends gathered around picnic tables, fireworks, backyard games, summer nights and fireflies. All of it worth showing up for.

Tomorrow, you might feel that same instinct I felt at the sink: the pull to keep one foot out of a moment, just a little, because some part of you knows it won't last forever. Maybe it's your kids piled onto a trampoline. Maybe it's your parents telling the story you've heard a hundred times. Maybe it's a roommate who's about to move out, or a friend group that won't always live in the same city.

Or maybe it's just a good, ordinary summer night with people you love—however that looks for you.

If you feel that instinct to pull away, try the opposite. Stay a little longer. Put the phone down. Let yourself feel how good it is, instead of how fast it's going.

That's the tactic. Not guarding against what's coming. Just being here, fully.

Bringing It Home

I hope this weekend you get your own chance to try it. Not because the moment will be perfect. Simply because the people you're with today won't stay exactly as they are.

Neither will you.

Fortitude doesn't always look like white-knuckling through something hard. Sometimes it looks like standing at a kitchen sink, watching your kid with friends you know are leaving, and staying present anyway.

I'm glad I did. I got the whole thing—the squeaky trampoline, the laughter I couldn't explain—instead of a version I'd already started bracing myself out of. And the goodbye wasn't harder for it. It was easier. I wasn't saying goodbye to some half-watched night. I was saying goodbye to the whole, beautiful thing.

Fully lived moments don't leave regret. They leave gratitude.

I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July. And somewhere along the way, I hope you find a moment worth staying fully in.

Not because it will last. But because, while you're in it, it's everything.

Small But Mighty: The universe has a sense of humor and I came upon this the other day and I can't stop thinking about it: Happiness lives in three places: letting go of what was, enjoying what is, and trusting what will be. ​ -Unknown Maybe that’s why happiness can feel challenging sometimes. Because it asks us to loosen our grip on the past, stop rushing through the present, and believe the future can still hold good things. Harder than it sounds. But worth every bit of it.

This Is The Best Thing I've Seen In Ages:

This incredible compilation of people from all over the world coming together for the World Cup gave me chills. It made me feel proud and grateful to be an American, watching the world come together like this.

Click the image to watch.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have an AMAZING Fourth of July. Stay safe. Until next time…

You got this,

P.S. I am grateful for every single one of you. Truly. If something in this issue landed for you, consider forwarding it to someone who might need it today. You probably already know who that person is.

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