Gossip

I want you to gossip. 

Even though gossip is a thorn in the side of greatness.

Even though it’s a distraction, a tool of procrastination that holds you in place, in some chokehold that slowly strangles the person you are becoming. It’s a setback, a mental retreat from focus and clarity. It sucks time and emotion from your spirit.

It threatens your reputation. It betrays your preferences. It puts your loose-tongued weakness on display.

But I want you to gossip.

I want you to gossip often about the bad motherfuckers you admire and want to be like.

You know the ones.

Gossip about the people paving a road worth following, out in the hot sun, without a whisper of complaint in their mouths. The ones bent over, sweating, grinding the earth into a passable roadway for others. The others who want to know HOW FAR? and HOW STRONG? and HOW FAST?

Talk about ‘em.

When you put their achievements, their actions, their habits into your mouth, when you pass those stories to friends and family, when you verbally admire the men and women doing what you will one day do, you pay respect to their hard fucking work. You endorse the meritocracy of greatness.

It’s an endorsement we should all make.

 When we put our words behind hard work, when we pledge our lives to following a culture of challenge, we take on the burden of working hard ourselves, of demanding more from ourselves.

It’s a good fucking burden to bear. And it’s a demand worth making.

Those motherfuckers you admire and want to be like—the warriors and veterans of greatness—demanded more from themselves, accepted a burden of responsibility, and pledged their lives to challenge. 

Challenge and hard fucking work.

They signed their name, inked their loyalty to fatigue.

So go ahead, talk about them.

Allow their stories to fuel your own. Allow the strong heart of greatness to beat in your chest. Allow yourself the admiration and respect due.

Gossip freely on their behalf.

But stop there.

Weak, soft, complacent people might inspire as much gossip as our warrior heroes. They often do. They’re soft and bitter victims who encroach on our emotional and mental intelligence. They won’t put in hard work, they refuse to overcome their weaknesses, and they sink into modern, addictive comfort.

Pay their destitution no public scorn.

Pay their softness no verbal homage.

You’ve got work to do.

Like ancient stories told around savage fires, gossip lives in the hearts of those who listen.

It’s a tool for inspiration, for illuminating stories of victory. It’s successful and brilliant. 

Just choose your subjects carefully.

Make sure you’re gossiping about the right fucking people.

If you want to follow their hot and bloody road and climb the same mountains, if you want to live their creed and become yourself what they stand for, you’d better ink your fucking loyalty to their cause.

The cause is indisputable victory, no matter the sacrifice.

Head down, foot after foot, breath after breath.

The cause is Never Fucking Quit.