you CAN give up...if you follow this one rule.

It’s not often that the modern cult-of-self-development narrative would permit a message like this. And there is a catch.

In my personal journey to experience the pure potential of being, I have read extensively, interviewed all sorts of people, experimented with beliefs, philosophies, recommendations, advice, savoured the counter-intuitive and come up short in intellectual cul-de-sacs.

But never have I blinked and done an intellectual double-take at a concept. At first, its simplicity caused it to slip past my cognitive gateway. Then I summoned it back, made it stand still, and walked pensively around it — measuring, prodding, examining.

So here is the one rule.

You can give up any time you like….as long as you’re having a good day. But you cannot give up when you’re having a bad day.

That’s it. It’s brilliant.

This is Anna Kotchneva, a former Soviet rhythmic gymnast. And this was the advice she gave her daughter Nastia Liukin when the latter was a kid, training to be a gymnast. Nastia’s dad was also a champion gymnast.

Nastia went on to be one of the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnasts ever. Now you may think that having two champion gymnasts as parents would be the reason why Nastia went on to be an Olympic superstar.

Yes that probably did help. But then look at this (hint, she literally falls on her face...but....)

If your parents were champions at the same sport you failed publicly at, how would you handle it? You’ve put in years and years, you’ve won before, you’ve been a champion, and in one moment, you literally fall flat on your face.

Here is the thing: Nastia talks about how hard it was growing up a gymnast, and training super hard, and how many times she almost gave up. But her mum would not let her break the rule.

And today, the failures are public but her successes are tremendous. And she is remembered for both- for succeeding despite the devastating failures. In fact she says that she is remembered more for her response to that devastating failure than winning the Olympics!

That is why this advice is so powerful — it comes from someone who lived it and embodied it. After all, some of her worst “bad days” are on YouTube. And I do believe that things are never as bad as they appear to us, or as great as they appear to us, when we’re steeped in the moment.

Anyway, this is my new favourite rule about quitting/giving up/ hanging in there. I hope you remember it on good days and bad days.

Also published on my Medium Blog.