It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

#MentalToughness #Unbreakable #MindPower #Fortitude #Strength #Resilience #VictoriousMindset #Quotes #ShareInspireQuotes

"Strength isn't just about winning. It's about courage, empathy, and heart"

Kristy Coventry,
President #IOC,
Milano Cortina 2026

#WinterOlympics #MilanoCortina2026 #KristyCoventry #Strength #Courage #Empathy

Guided by His Light (Christian Music) = Another blessed melody 🎶 for Christ! - #God #Jesus #TheLord #Praise #ChristianMusic #Bible #Music #Song #Light #Faith #Path #Guidance #Trust #Journey #Strength #Hope #Purpose #Truth #Love #Peace #Comfort #Grace #Salvation #Redeem #Spirit #Follow #Lord #Prayer #Worship #Praise #Eternal #Promise #Believe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Strong roots 💪
Build your inner stability with Ganesha.
Grounding. Powerful. Steady.

Stand tall 👇

#Ganesh #RootChakra #Strength #Confidence #SpiritualTok #Hinduism

“You are the sum total of all of your highs and each of your lows.“ - Futurist Jim Carroll, via Lauren Daigle

Some songs speak to your soul.

And some lyrics reach out and grab you by the throat.

This one did.

It hits you right in the pre-chorus of Lauren Daigle's "You Say." She asks the question: "Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaT8Jl2zpI

The song came on while I was out for one of my first outdoor walks since my November spinal injury, and it hit the moment perfectly.

My answer to her question is: Yes, you are more—but you are also the sum.

You must accept the lows as a critical part of the process rather than pretending they don't exist. Otherwise, you'll never have the opportunity to learn from them.

In my career as a futurist, I tell clients that innovation isn't a straight line "up and to the right." It’s a messy squiggly line of breakthroughs and failures. You cannot have the "High" of a new invention without the "Low" of the failed prototype.

If you delete the failure, you delete the lesson.

My incident has informed me. It has taught me that the "lows"—the pain, the confinement, the loss of the ski season, the frustration,was not lost time. It was valuable insight.

It was the construction site where my resilience was being reinforced.

Rebar for life, if you think about it!

When life throws you a curveball, you have to live through and feel the emotions, rather than trying to hide from them.

Don't edit out the lows. Own them. They are the only reason the highs mean anything at all.

---

Futurist Jim Carroll is back out for his regular morning sunrise walks, and is back to the gym. It feels great!

**#Highs** **#Lows** **#Resilience** **#Soul** **#Music** **#Lessons** **#Growth** **#Journey** **#Emotion** **#Healing** **#Wisdom** **#Life** **#Recovery** **#Strength** **#Learning** **#Failure** **#Breakthrough** **#Acceptance** **#Perspective** **#Inspiration** **#Process** **#Heart** **#Balance** **#Meaning** **#Onwards**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/02/daily-inspiration-you-are-the-sum-total-of-all-of-your-highs-and-each-of-your-lows/

BROKEN CRAYONS STILL COLOR
Our design is a reminder that damage doesn’t erase purpose or creativity.
Act Out Tees ~ www.actouttees.com
#resilience #healing #strength #creativity #hope #printondemand #tees #imperfect #growth #perseverance #wholeness #selfworth

Don't pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

#InnerStrength #Resilience #Courage #Strength #OvercomingAdversity #PowerWithin #WarriorMindset #Quotes #ShareInspireQuotes

"Your future won’t be defined by the setbacks that might sideline you, but by what you decide to do with the velocity of your recovery!" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Next week, I will be standing on stage in Toronto at the Canadian Automotive
Dealers Summit.

As I prepare that keynote, this quote is the central pillar of my message.

The automotive industry is currently navigating a series of high-speed "sideline" events: interest rate volatility, a turbulent EV transition and pullback, Tesla's essentially deciding to leave the market, and the arrival of aggressive new global competitors. In Canada, that also involves the looming arrival of more Chinese-built EVs, as well as fast-moving turmoil in the automotive manufacturing sector (with resultant brand destruction) due to tariffs.

It's easy for a dealer to feel injured, battered, and bruised by this pace of change!

But as I’ve learned personally over the last few months of my own physical recovery, the injury itself isn't the defining moment.

The defining moment is the velocity you choose once you decide to get back in the game.

What's happening in the auto world right now is a massive widening of the "Resilience Gap" - that's what I write about in my book Dancing in the Rain. Some are still sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the "old normal" to return.

And then there are the leaders who are engineering a new future right now.

They aren't just recovering; they are using the momentum of this current setback to a faster pivot toward software-defined vehicles, a faster adoption of hybrids in light of the EV pullback, new digital customer journeys, and hyper-efficient service models.

One group is frozen - the other is moving.

I'm in the latter camp. Yesterday, I went back to the gym for the first time since my spinal injury. It’s a literal manifestation of this principle. I wasn't going back to where I was; I was going back to build the strength required for what’s next.

The automotive industry is at the same crossroads. You can’t control the volatility that sidelined you, but you have absolute control over your recovery speed. In Toronto, we’re going to talk about how to stop looking at the rearview mirror of "what happened" and start focusing on the "velocity" of the next logical move.

Strength doesn't return in the absence of struggle—it returns the moment you decide to show up and accelerate.

You need to think the same way.

Let's get moving.

Futurist Jim Carroll spoke to the same event in 2012, and will be doing a retrospective look back and forward in his keynote.

**#Recovery** **#Velocity** **#Resilience** **#Automotive** **#Comeback** **#Leadership** **#Future** **#Acceleration** **#Strength** **#Dealers** **#Toronto** **#Transformation** **#Momentum** **#Pivot** **#Change** **#Strategy**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/02/daily-inspiration-your-future-wont-be-defined-by-the-setbacks-that-might-sideline-you-but-by-what-you-decide-to-do-with-the-velocity-of-your-recovery/

"Strength always comes back the moment you begin to show up again." - Futurist Jim Carroll

Today is a big day as I FINALLY head back to the gym.

For ten weeks, my world has been defined by limitations.

Don't twist. Don't lift. Don't rush. When you live in "protection mode" with a spinal injury for that long, it’s easy to believe that you’ve lost your edge. You start to wonder if the engine has rusted over completely.

But data doesn't lie, and it doesn't care about my worries.

Before heading back to the gym today, I ran a diagnostic on my own recovery when I went into my home gym on Saturday. And I was impressed with the results.

Looking at the hard numbers from this "shakedown" home workout. I expected to see weakness; instead, I saw a lot of capacity. My body handled 60 reps of heavy pulling without a single complaint from my back. My heart rate recovery has hit a "safety floor" and refused to drop further. My VO2Max has actually started to go back into the upper-edge of "above-average" with all the indoor 'mall walking' I've been doing.

The charts proved that while I was busy healing, I wasn't decaying.

My foundation is solid!

It might have to do with a screen I shared early into the story of this process - my biggest exercise for 2025, before slipping on ice and breaking 3 small bones on my back - was back extensions!

I've had long-running conversations in a chat with Google Gemini AI about my situation and recovery. One moment, it pointed out that what probably saved me from greater damage was all the muscle I built back there!

And my test workout shows that muscle never really left - it's just the bones that had a 'thing.'

That realization shifts everything.

I am not walking into the gym today to "fix" a broken body.

I am walking in to reactivate a strong one.

One way to put it - the rust is just on the surface—the steel underneath is as solid as ever.

Time to get to work.

---

**#Strength** **#Recovery** **#Comeback** **#Gym** **#Fitness** **#Resilience** **#Healing** **#Motivation** **#Progress** **#Foundation** **#Health** **#Determination** **#Reactivate** **#Mindset** **#Patience** **#Data** **#Perseverance** **#Body** **#Wellness** **#ShowUp** **#Steel** **#Capacity** **#Journey** **#Grateful** **#Onwards**

Futurist Jim Carroll will be working out with the guidance of his neighbor, a professional personal trainer, and has a tightly defined set of exercises that are compatible with recovery from his injury.

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2026/02/daily-inspiration-strength-always-comes-back-the-moment-you-begin-to-show-up-again/

Are Jesus’ Teachings Weak?

When I was in seminary, I took a two week intensive in interfaith ministry. We heard a few speakers from an interfaith youth organization. One of those speakers, an atheist, told a story that went something like this:

I was talking with an Evangelical Christian who asked me “If you don’t believe in an afterlife, what’s keeping you from killing me right now?”

His position was that, without a threat of punishment in an afterlife, there’s no real reason from mistreating other people, including murdering them.

That made me uncomfortable, and a little scared.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

The other day I was thinking of two major moral systems.

One of these is rules-based, or what I called “Statutory Morality.” This morality – based on codes, laws, rules, or statutes – is mostly do this and don’t do that.

The ten commandments are an example of this, although there are several versions of the ten commandments based on translations of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Judaism expanded this into 613 Mitzvot, 248 positive or “do this” commandments and 365 negative or “do not do this” commandments.

Judaism and Christianity aren’t the only faiths with lists of rules, and governments obviously have decrees, laws, and regulations to determine how citizens should live.

Rules are a great way to win an argument. When someone does something you don’t want them to do, and you know a rule against it, you can just say “that is wrong because of this rule.” So rules sound strong, especially when there are associated punishments like fines, jail time, death, and eternal punishment after death.

And then we get someone like Jesus, preaching what we heard in today’s Gospel reading.

As I’ve mentioned before, Russell Moore – editor-in-chief of Christianity Today magazine, former leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, and author of the book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, had an interview with National Public Radio’s Scott Detrow in which he said the idea for the book

“was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”

– https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america

And in today’s reading, Jesus tells us some things that might seem alarming:

• Blessed are the poor in spirit
• Blessed are those who mourn
• Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
• Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you
  and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

– Matthew 5:3-4, 10-11, NRSVue

It’s almost as if Jesus says “Blessed are the miserable.” What kind of morality lifts up the dispirited as an example?

The counter to the kind of rules-based morality I called “statutory morality” is what I call “empathic morality.” Empathic morality is a morality that puts us in the shoes of the other. It’s the idea behind Jesus’ “do to others as you would have them do to you” in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31. It’s the idea behind Hillel the Elder’s “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation.” in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

It’s what keeps the atheist from killing someone, even though he doesn’t believe in divine retribution.

And it’s in our reading today, because the struggles are balanced with benefits:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

• Matthew 5:3-4, 10-12, NRSVue

The Beatitudes call us into trying to understand what it’s like to be among the less-privileged, and to see things from their perspective. And that kind of morality can be applied even where no one has thought to create a law yet.

Empathy requires a kind of vulnerability. While sympathy calls us to say “wow, I’ll bet that’s hard,” empathy calls us to try to understand the depth and quality of how hard something is.

Empathy has us looking at the last slice of pizza, realizing Terry will be here in a minute to eat that slice, and realizing how that person may remain hungry if we take that additional slice for ourselves. There may be no rule that says “don’t take another slice if there’s only one left and Terry will want it” but empathic morality calls us into a relationship with Terry and understand Terry’s need for a slice.

Empathic morality is not weak.

Jesus’ teachings are not weak.

They require us to have the strength of self to be vulnerable to the situations of others, to feel into their needs, and to act in ways to satisfy those needs.

This month – beginning today – is Black History Month. It was created to lift up the stories of Black people who have made real contributions to our nation and to our world.

Many of these stories had been glossed over, minimized, or ignored. Some of this has been intentional, but some is entrenched and embedded in systems.

Let me give you a non-race-based illustration of systemic bias:

Most people – roughly 90% – are right-handed. About 10% are left-handed, and a small number are ambidextrous, meaning equally adept with either hand.

Dexterity is based on the word Dexter, meaning on the right side. Sinister means on the left side. Adroit comes from the French “droit” meaning right. Gauche is French for left.

So the language we use for capability is associated with “right” and words for evil and lacking grace are associated with “left.”

But beyond that, right-handed people make things for right-handed people. If you’re right-handed, you may not realize that some items are more difficult for left-handed people to use.

For example, in most Western languages we write left to right, and most of us don’t think about it. But left-handed people using a pen or pencil may find their hands smudge the ink or graphite. It’s why left-handed Galileo often wrote right-to-left.

And if you’ve ever tried to use a pair of scissors with your left hand, you probably noticed they didn’t work well, because of the way your fingers put pressure on the blades to keep them separated rather than together.

There are left-handed scissors. They cost more.

But most right-handed people don’t have a clue about what it’s like to be left-handed in a right-handed dominant world.

Now feel into what it would mean to be part of a group of people whose achievements were not taught and whose stories were not told.

Now understand what it means to have your group represented in teaching, and having a month where those achievements are highlighted.

Representation matters.

This is why our banner out front this month will be Black Lives Matter: not because it lifts up our church, but because it lifts up people who are too often ignored or dismissed.

You may have heard “All lives matter.” That saying would not be controversial, except that it is in response to “Black lives matter.”

“Black lives matter” asserts something that might not be apparent. It rebukes the possibility that someone’s life has less value because of the color of their skin.

To answer with “All lives matter” is to dismiss the cry of those whose value is ignored. It’s not empathic. It doesn’t feel into the hurt of people who are thought of as simultaneously less capable and more dangerous.

So my challenge this week is to lean less on a statutory morality of laws and rules, and to lean into an empathic morality of feeling into the lives of the people our choices will affect.

And for this month, to take some time to learn about the vibrant and powerful history of Black people, especially in the United States.

Empathy isn’t weak.

It’s a sign of strength.

Amen.

Let’s sing NCH 180 Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.

Happy Sunday! 💙 Take a moment today to recharge and to remember that you have the power to handle whatever comes your way this week.

Tag someone who needs to hear this! 👇

#SelfCareSunday #MentalWellness #Strength

Bringing more #gym #strength training content to Mastodon

Very happy with the muscle ups, went a bit lighter on other exercises to not get too tired for tomorrow's volleyball

@fittogether

Changing Print Layer Patterns to Increase Strength

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://hackaday.com/2026/01/31/changing-print-layer-patterns-to-increase-strength/

Changing Print Layer Patterns to Increase Strength https://hackaday.com/2026/01/31/changing-print-layer-patterns-to-increase-strength/
#3dPrinterhacks #3dprint #Slicer #Strength

Senator Maye Quade on the clear definitions of #patriotism, #criminality, #strength, #valor and the worst of the worst.

If you know someone in ICE, CPB or Law Enforcement who doesn't fit what we see in #Minneapolis, so do I. Help us get rid of the rotten ones so that the decent ones can work.

Note: I usually refrain from re-posting anything from FB, Insta, etc. but this needs to go far and wide so please watch, like and boost.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUJJjiajs9R/

#minnesota #ICE #Trump #resistance

Core #Strength with #Bands

https://indianf.com/core-strength-with-bands/

"The river teaches us that persistence is stronger than force." L. Nault

#PersistenceWins #RiverOfLife #Strength #NatureWisdom #FlowWithPurpose

“And yet, despite all of this, #Ukrainian #athletes continue to demonstrate extraordinary #resilience and #strength of spirit, preparing for and competing in international events even under these circumstances” www.politico.eu/article/alex...

Lukashenko, Sabalenka and the ...

Be The Storm

"I do not wait for perfect conditions. I create them."

"I am relentless in pursuit of my goals."

"Doubt fuels me. Failure teaches me."

"I am not lucky. I am prepared."

Speak it. Become it.

#inspiration #mindset #affirmation #positivethoughts #strength

A story from Fareehaawan✍️ on Medium
Read “At Every Stage of Life, I Strive to Give My Best“ by Fareehaawan✍️ on Medium: https://fareehaawan2.medium.com/at-every-stage-of-life-i-strive-to-give-my-best-d8f8b7739c02
#relationships #psychology #womanhood #feminine #strength