"You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

- Vice Admiral James Stockdale

Vice Admiral James Stockdale spent seven and a half years in a Vietnamese prison camp. Beaten. Starved. Years in leg irons.

When he got home, they asked who didn't make it out. His answer should rearrange how you think.

The optimists.

The men who said we'll be home by Christmas. Christmas passed, so they said Easter. Then Thanksgiving. Every broken deadline carved a little more out of them, until there was nothing left to break.

The men who walked out carried two things at once. Total faith they'd get home. And the discipline to stare dead-on at how ugly and how long the road might be.

You have this backwards. You think strength means keeping it positive, refusing to look at the bad news. Stockdale learned the opposite in a concrete cell.

So face reality. The credit card debt. The distance between you and your wife. The body you quit on. Stop pretending a good attitude will do the hard work for you.

Then plant your feet and decide you win anyway.

Hope without honesty is how good men break. Honesty without hope is how they quit. Hold both, and keep walking until you're out.

— Vice Admiral James Stockdale