Coach Bowyer
Laziness makes life hard.
Going all out?
Makes it easy.
Let me take you back to freshman year.
I was on the basketball team.
14 years old with burning lungs and lactic acid-filled legs….
They felt like they might collapse under me at any moment.
Coach Bowyer—picture Herb Brooks in Miracle with his whistle—ran practices like he was prepping us for the Hunger Games.
“Again”
“Again”
“Again”
Our freshman basketball team ran suicide after suicide after suicide.
Baseline to free throw line and back.
Baseline to half court and back.
Baseline to the opposite free throw line and back.
Baseline to the opposite baseline and back.
And then we'd do it all over again.
The only thing we did more than run... was sweat.
My teammates started dropping like flies.
Guys I’d played with for years were looking me in the eye and saying,
“Zack, I can’t do this. I’m going to quit.”
Too hard.
Too intense.
Too much.
I convinced them to stick it out just a little longer.
Then something magical happened when we finally started playing games…
We couldn't lose.
That endless sprinting made us monsters.
Full-court press in the 4th quarter.
Other teams gasping for air.
Us?
Still flying around.
We didn’t just win—we broke teams.
We saw it in their eyes.
They were done.
That year, our little public school team went 29–3.
Next year, same guys, new coach, half as hard in practice….
And we went 16-16.
Boom.
Right back to average.
Coach Bowyer is the best coach I’ve ever had.
Not just because he's a great guy, but because he knows the truth:
If you train so hard that practice is miserable… the game becomes easy.
That’s not just basketball.
The Spartans got it, too.
In ancient Sparta, boys began training for war at age 7.
Their training was so brutal, so relentless, that for them, going to war was a vacation.
The actual war was easier than their daily grind.
That’s the mindset.
That’s the gold standard.
It isn't just for basketball teams or ancient warriors.
It applies directly to your business and your life.
- If you give 50%, life gives you less than 50% back.
And the tough stuff? It’ll crush you.
- But if you go all in—hold nothing back, attack your mornings, sweat the details, work your systems, invest in your growth—suddenly the hard things become... not so hard.
You build capacity.
You become “battle-ready.”
There's a famous quote: "Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better."
The harder you push yourself NOW, the easier your life becomes LATER.
Think about it.
What’s harder?
Struggling with the fallout of procrastination, missed deadlines, and regrets…
Ashamed to look yourself in the eye in the mirror… every day of your life…
OR
Enduring a little pain up front and enjoying win after win after win?
Every day you choose to coast, to sleep in, to skip the reps—life gets harder.
But every day you choose pain now, you build an easier, more fulfilling, more amazing life.
So here’s my invitation:
Go harder in “practice” than anyone else.
Push yourself.
Run your own sprints.
Embrace the discomfort now.
Be like a Spartan; always battle-ready.
Because when the real game comes—whether it’s a sales call, a new client, or a market crash—you’ll be the one still standing, smiling, knowing you’ve got gas in the tank.
Why?
Because you chose the hard path when no one was watching.
Don't shy away from the hard stuff.
Run toward it.
Your future self will thank you.
-Zack "Again" Powell
