Quote of the Day: Ben Smith on Motivation

Before he ever looked like “professional success,” Ben Smith was the kind of kid who had to keep restarting, new places, new faces, new expectations, learning early that confidence isn’t something you find, it’s something you build. Out of that messy apprenticeship comes a line that sounds simple until you’ve earned it: “Embrace the struggle; it makes you stronger.”

Most of us are trained to treat struggle as evidence we’re doing something wrong. We take friction as a sign to retreat, or we anesthetize it with distraction. But struggle is often the body’s and mind’s way of announcing growth: the moment when old habits stop working and new skills are required. It’s not a motivational poster; it’s a diagnostic tool. When life presses, it reveals what’s brittle, our shortcuts, our stories, our avoidance, and what’s durable underneath.

Embracing struggle doesn’t mean romanticizing suffering. It means refusing to waste it. The hard season can become a workshop: setbacks force adaptation; disappointment demands honest self-audit; uncertainty stretches our tolerance for not knowing. Over time, this is how resilience is made, not by avoiding the storm, but by learning to keep functioning inside it. And once you’ve survived a few rounds, fear loses some of its authority; you begin to recognize failure as information, not an identity.

That’s why Ben Smith can speak to it with credibility: his journey weaves personal connection, travel, and volunteer work into a life shaped by real-world constraints, and real-world recommitments. Struggle, for him, isn’t theory; it’s terrain.

April, with its restless weather and reluctant blooms, is a reminder that progress is rarely linear. Apply this wisdom today by choosing one challenge you’ve been avoiding and taking the smallest honest step into it, an email, an apology, a first draft, then letting the discomfort do its quiet work on your courage.