Wednesday Reps for July 25th, 2026
Run the "marathon"... but put in the "miles" first
I’ve run five marathons with my fastest a 3:17. Not blazing fast but close enough to a Boston qualifier to taste it … and yet not close enough to get it. Even so running those races took a lot of prep. Nobody runs a marathon on race-day willpower. You run it on months of unremarkable tempo runs and long runs and recovery runs… none of which anybody sees. The race is just the day you collect on the reps you already put in.
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Mental fitness works the same way, and I think a lot of leaders miss it because it doesn’t look like anything. We’ll grind for hours on strategy and skip the handful of small things that actually decide whether we show up as someone worth following. You can’t pour from an empty tank. Fill the tank before you lead the team, every single time, or you end up leading on fumes … and you’ll probably end up calling it dedication.
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Here’s the only rule I trust for building one of these. Make the rep so small you can’t fall off of it. Not thirty minutes of meditation, five breaths. Not the perfect workout, put your shoes on and get out the door. Just like Monday’s Focus Check, it’s ystems over willpower, always, because willpower runs out right when you need it most and a small enough system just keeps running without you having to feel like doing it.
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I miss days. I’m not writing this from some mountaintop of consistency. I sat down late today and almost talked myself out of it entirely. The streak was never the point. Coming back to the rep is the point.
What’s one rep, small enough that you genuinely can’t fail at it, that you could start tomorrow and still be doing a month from now?
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Get out there and kick some butt y’all!
Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider
The Men Talking Mindfulness Podcast and Focus Now Training