Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve never lost a game, I just ran out of time.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Read that quote again if you need to. Take it in. You never lose – you just run out of time or in many cases, we give up. Choosing to stop reaching, striving, and fighting is the only way we can lose.

At the end of last year and through the first four weeks of this year, it felt like I couldn’t get a deal done.

Not one. It wasn’t necessarily that people were saying no; I think I was just telling MYSELF no.

I was letting myself run out of time. I was letting myself off the hook.

I was not being who I was supposed to be.

We don’t lose – we either win or we run out of time.

We either succeed, or we allow ourselves to falter.

The only one who can make the decision not to surrender is us.

Things are turning around. ‘Better than ever, really. But I’m sharper and hungrier for it.

Look, struggle is natural.

Without it, how would one ever know how good things are and how good we have it?

Without pain, how would you now pleasure?

The fight, the struggle, the pain, that is where all the gains come from and where we win.

That’s where we EARN IT, where we put ourselves in a position to taste victory.

The Game is still going, and I’m not even in the fourth quarter yet. But I promise you that I won’t allow myself to run out of time, and I definitely will never give up!

-J.D.