Lately, I have been irritated.

Not in any dramatic way, and not really at any one person. More by a pattern I seem to notice every year around this time, when summer starts to loosen its grip on Tahoe and the town begins its annual shift toward winter.

The local Facebook groups fill up with new arrivals. People are looking for housing, jobs, community, opportunity. Some of them are also arriving with plans to start businesses, often businesses that already exist here in one form or another. Yoga studios are an obvious example, mostly because I happen to notice them, but they are hardly the only one. I understand the impulse. I really do.

Everyone who lives here was new once. People arrive with energy and ideas, and communities need that. Businesses close. Needs change. New people bring new perspectives. I have also been a landlord long enough to know that “local” is not automatically synonymous with responsible, generous or community-minded.

Still, after enough years in a small mountain town, you begin to see how fragile the ecosystem can be. There are only so many people here. Only so much housing. Only so many customers. Only so many volunteers, teachers, coaches, employees and people willing to keep showing up when January is dark, April is muddy, and tourism disappears for a while.

A community like this is held together by people doing a thousand largely invisible things over a very long period of time. And lately I find myself wondering whether we have become so enamored with the idea of creating something of our own that we forget to ask another question first. What could I contribute to what is already here?

I have been thinking about this outside of Tahoe too. The online world has its own version of the same phenomenon, particularly at this time of year. September rolls around and suddenly everything seems to require reinvention. There is a new course, a new framework, a new challenge, a new system, a new way of eating, training, working, organizing your life or becoming a better version of yourself.

I saw a rant from a business mentor recently making essentially this point: we keep trying to reinvent the wheel. It landed with me because, somewhere along the way, I have become one of the people who has been doing the same work for a very long time.

I have owned a brick-and-mortar business for more than twelve years. I have been coaching and training people full time professionally for close to eighteen. I grew up in a family small business. Years ago, I helped build and run a nonprofit women’s sports league that still exists today, and this month I will once again be standing behind a microphone announcing at one of its tournaments. That one catches me a little, because it does not feel like that much time has passed.

I can still remember the earliest versions of all of these things. The uncertainty, the improvisation, the constant feeling that I was figuring something out just a few minutes before I needed to know it. And then one day you look around and realize you are no longer new, you have history.

You have watched trends arrive and disappear. You have seen businesses open with enormous enthusiasm and close quietly a few years later. You have watched people become obsessed with an idea, abandon it, rediscover it under a new name and become obsessed with it again.

You have also watched certain things endure, usually, they are not the flashiest things. They endure because someone keeps tending to them. That has been true of my training too.

For more than twenty years, I have been doing some version of the same things. I squat. I pull. I push. I carry things. I jump. I hang from things. I move my body through space and pick up heavy things simply because I would like to remain a person capable of picking up heavy things.

There have been different programs and different seasons, certainly. Different goals. Different bodies, in a sense, because a body at twenty-five and a body at forty-five are not quite the same place to live. But the fundamentals have barely changed. What has changed is me.

I understand more. I notice more. I know when to push and when stubbornness is masquerading as discipline. I know that a bad week does not erase a good year. I know that strength is built slowly enough that you can miss it happening, until one day you realize that something which once felt impossible has become ordinary.

There is something reassuring about that. We spend so much time looking for transformation that we often overlook accumulation: another season, another skill, another relationship cared for, another contribution to a community, another year spent doing work that matters, another rep added to thousands that came before it.

Perhaps that is what I want to carry into September this year. Not the question, What should I start? but What is already here that deserves more of me?

There may be something in your life that does not need replacing at all. It may simply need tending. A friendship, your health, a business, a creative practice, a community, or even a habit that worked perfectly well before summer disrupted it. Progress does not always require becoming a different person. Sometimes it asks us to remain with something long enough to become different inside of it.

That is also very much at the heart of 6 Weeks 2 Strong, which begins September 14. I am not interested in promising anyone a new body, a new identity, or a miraculous transformation in six weeks. I have been doing this far too long to believe meaningful change works that way. What I can offer is six weeks of deliberate practice: at three strength sessions each week, coaching, structure, and a place to return when life gets messy. The goal is not simply to complete a program, but to learn more about what your body can do and to build something sturdy enough to keep developing long after the six weeks are over.

Longevity, in training and in most worthwhile things, is rarely the result of constant reinvention. More often, it comes from staying in the conversation: contributing, adjusting, returning, and continuing to build on something worth keeping.

Maybe the strongest version of you is not waiting somewhere ahead, shiny and unfamiliar. Maybe she is already here, shaped by every season you have stayed, practiced, learned, and returned again. Maybe you have been building her for years.

NBC-HWC | ACSM-CPT

Mental PEAKS: Build on What’s Already Working

Behavior change research suggests that we are more likely to stick with habits when they are connected to routines and environments that already exist, repeated consistently, and made realistic enough to survive ordinary life. In other words, lasting change usually has less to do with creating the perfect new system and more to do with making a useful behavior easier to repeat.

Strength training works in much the same way. Your body adapts through progressive overload: doing a little more over time, whether that means more weight, more control, better technique, greater range of motion, or simply more consistency. You do not need an entirely new workout every week to make progress. You need enough repetition to actually adapt.

The same principle can be useful outside the gym. Instead of asking what needs to be replaced, look for something that is already helping and ask how you can strengthen it.

The Practice: Add One Layer

Choose one area of your life and finish this sentence:

This month, instead of starting over, I will build on __________ by __________.

Keep the second blank small, concrete, and repeatable. Add one strength workout each week. Call a friend every Sunday. Return to a morning walk. Give an existing project one uninterrupted hour. Prep one breakfast that makes your mornings easier.

Then resist the urge to make it more complicated. Repeat it long enough to let accumulation do its work.

6 Weeks 2 Strong starts September 14. This is six weeks of structured strength training, coaching, and practical support designed to help you build consistency without making fitness your entire life. You’ll get three scalable workouts each week, guidance to help you keep going when life gets messy, and a plan built around progress—not perfection. ​Join 6 Weeks 2 Strong →​ ​ Join Now

A First Look at Power in Practice 2027

A little preview of what’s next…Power in Practice is heading to the Dolomites, Italy in Spring 2027. Our retreats are about intentional movement, adventure, connection, great food, and stepping outside everyday life for a while. Think alpine trails, daily movement, spa time, incredible meals, and a small group of very good humans in Ortisei. We’re still finalizing the details, but this one will be intentionally intimate. If this already has your attention, hit reply and tell me you want first dibs on the Dolomites details!

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