Everyone With a Superpower Has a Part-Time Job

Years ago when I started getting serious about my health, a group of top-level CrossFit athletes decided to join my gym.

One night, my Crossfit coach decided to take a regular class, right next to me.

I wanted to think that he looked the way he did because of his genes. (Lemme tell you, after a few years of weighing your food, counting your macros, and working out for 2+ hours a day, your body will be 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥)1test

“I’ve got to earn my supper.”

My already super-chiseled CrossFit coach before taking yet another class

The next year, I started working with Chip Heath, a 4-time New York Times bestselling author. He took “I work a lot” to a whole new level.

Derek Sivers? He was a successful entrepreneur from the internet’s early days, who took that singular success and transformed it into a wealth of contacts, with hundreds of thousands of devoted followers on his email list. He knows everyone. When I spent time with him, he spent hours and hours answering email every day. Really.

I’m an optimistic and resilient person, despite the whole alcoholic/absentee father thing, surviving a fractured skull in a car accident and subsequent brain surgery/bankruptcy, getting sober, and a few other things that are too personal and lengthy to get into. Did I mention that I was going to NYU on 9/11? (Or that I’m still dating at 40? That takes a pathological amount of optimism.)


Anyone can have a superpower if they’re willing to work for it. Resilience is my superpower; tending to it is a part-time job.

I exercise, eat whole foods, belong to multiple groups, love myself, feel a sense of connection with the universe (what others might call God), am a mentor, am close with my family, believe that I have a great future—and can do what it will take to get there, love learning how to be the best version of myself, and relish in the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with others. I study how to be resilient. It’s my thing.


You can have a chiseled body, or a crazy great career, or know thousands of people, or the ability to bounce back and keep going despite, you know, life.

Just make it your job.