http://www.5summitevolutioncoaching.com/

5 Summits Evolution Coaching, 11 Maplecrest Lane, Trenton, ON (2026)

09/03/2026

FEAR DOESN’T GET THE DECIDING VOTE.
“You don’t train until fear disappears. You train until fear no longer gets the deciding vote.”
In the military, we used a term called “dirt diving” the mission. Before executing a mission, we would rehearse it again and again, physically and mentally.

You walked through the sequence.

You anticipated what could go wrong.

You visualized your actions.

You rehearsed your response.

By the time it was time to move, your mind had already been there many times before.

From my experience in the military, business and life, I’ve come to believe that preparation progressively changes our relationship with fear.

Think about it.

The first cold call can feel uncomfortable.

Make a hundred of them and something changes.

A special operator may rehearse a high-risk mission repeatedly before stepping into uncertainty.

An astronaut trains relentlessly before sitting inside a tiny capsule on top of an enormous rocket about to be blasted into space.

Does preparation guarantee that fear disappears?

No.

It creates evidence.

Evidence that says:

I’ve prepared for this.

I’ve been here before.

I know what to do next.

I experience a smaller version of this on my early-morning trail runs.

I’ve run into those dark trails hundreds of times.

And yet, standing at the trailhead staring into the blackness, there can still be a moment of hesitation.

I can't see what is around the next bend.

I can't see the entire trail.

So I take one deep breath.

Then one step.

Then another.

Within minutes, something changes.

The darkness hasn't changed.

I have.

And perhaps that is what courage really is.

Not eliminating fear.

Not waiting for certainty.

But preparing yourself so thoroughly that when fear arrives, it no longer gets the deciding vote.

Brian Tracy often emphasized clarity, preparation and purposeful action. Robin Sharma frequently reminds us that growth happens at the edge of discomfort.

Both point toward the same principle:

Confidence is built through preparation.
Courage is built through action.
And mastery is built through repetition.

You don't need to eliminate the fear.

You don't need to know exactly how everything will unfold.

And you certainly don't need to see the entire trail.

Prepare well enough to take the next step.

Then take it.

Daily Notes From The Climb
5 Summits Evolution Coaching

09/02/2026

FACING YOUR FEARS
Lessons from my early-morning trail runs.

The first discipline of the day is simple:

Get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

5:30 AM.

I’m standing at the trailhead on a warm, foggy September morning.

Lightning suddenly lights up the sky.

Immediately, fear speaks:

Maybe skip the trail run today.

Then I start counting.

15 seconds until I hear the thunder.

The storm is roughly five kilometers away.

One excuse eliminated.

Now I’m staring into the entrance of the trail.

Pitch black.

The heavy tree canopy makes it even darker and more intimidating.

I’ve run these trails hundreds of times, yet there is still that moment of inertia, the moment when the mind looks for a reason not to begin.

I take a deep breath.

And start running.

No headlamp. No flashlight.

Just darkness, night vision and the trail beneath my feet.

Running this way forces me to be completely present.

I can't worry about the next kilometre.

I need to deal with the rock, root or turn directly in front of me.

Eventually, the mind becomes quiet.

I settle into flow.

And somewhere in that darkness, a thought emerges:

Business, and life, are a lot like running a dark trail.

We spend enormous amounts of energy worrying about what might be ahead.

Economic uncertainty.

Political turbulence.

Changing markets.

Bad news.

Things completely outside our control.

Standing at a dark trailhead is like staring into the unknown and unknowable.

You can't see the entire trail.

And you don't need to.

You simply need to prepare yourself, and take the next step.

That's why I believe the morning matters so much.

Breathwork.

Meditation.

Visualization.

Clarity about your goals.

These practices don't remove uncertainty.

They prepare you to move through it.

At 7:00 AM, I emerge from the trail.

15 kilometres.

Countless rocks, roots and obstacles.

No falls.

No dangerous wildlife encounters.

Just daylight, and another reminder:

Courage isn't knowing exactly what lies ahead.

Courage is preparing yourself well, stepping into the darkness and trusting yourself to handle the trail as it unfolds.

Maybe that's true of business too.

You don't need to know exactly how today will unfold.

Prepare your mind.

Know your direction.

Take the next step.

And keep moving forward.

What "dark trail" are you standing in front of right now, and what would happen if you simply took the first step?

Daily Notes From The Climb
5 Summits Evolution Coaching

09/01/2026

THE WHAT IS DECIDED. THE HOW IS UNFOLDING.
What if one of the biggest obstacles to achieving an extraordinary goal is believing you need to know exactly HOW you're going to achieve it?

You don't. There is a powerful distinction between the WHAT, WHY, HOW and TODAY.

WHAT → Absolute clarity.

$500K+.

The destination is decided.

Brian Tracy consistently teaches the importance of clarity: decide exactly what you want.

WHY → Emotional certainty.

Freedom.
Impact.
Choice.
Legacy.

The goal needs enough meaning to pull you forward when the path becomes uncomfortable.

HOW → Flexible.

This is where we often get trapped.

We decide what we want, and immediately try to mentally construct the entire path between here and there.

But what if the best path isn't visible yet?

What if an opportunity appears three weeks from now that you couldn't possibly predict today?

This is where Robert Scheinfeld's perspective becomes interesting:

Stop trying to control every detail of HOW reality must unfold.

Set the intention.

Stay awake.

Watch what appears.

TODAY → Extremely specific.

This is where intention becomes ex*****on.

Ask: “What are the 1–3 highest-value actions I can execute today?”

Then move.

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.

Execute. Get feedback. Adjust.

You can change the HOW without changing the WHAT.

That isn't inconsistency.

That's intelligent adaptation.

The goal remains fixed while the route evolves.

So my operating principle becomes:

“The WHAT is decided.
The HOW is unfolding.
My job is to recognize the next opening and move.”

There's an interesting paradox here:

Release your attachment to knowing the entire path while becoming relentless about executing the next step you can actually see.

Don't sit back waiting for opportunity.

Move.

Experiment.

Have conversations.

Make offers.

Create value.

Follow the energy.

Pay attention to unexpected openings.

Then ask again:

What is the highest-value opportunity in front of me right now?

And move.

Maybe extraordinary goals don't require extraordinary certainty about HOW.

Maybe they require extraordinary clarity about WHAT, combined with the courage to keep moving while the path reveals itself.

5 Summits Evolution Coaching
Keep climbing.

08/31/2026

RECONNECT TO PURPOSE.
One of the most valuable things I do each week is simple:
Reconnect to purpose before reconnecting to activity.
Sunday evening, or Monday morning, is an opportunity to step back and ask:

What actually matters this week?

It’s easy to become busy.

To fill the calendar.
Answer messages.
Attend meetings.
Check off tasks.

And still make very little progress toward the things that matter most.

Brian Tracy teaches that clarity is essential to high performance. Know your goals. Identify your highest-value activities. Then organize your time around them.

So each Sunday, I plan my week.

Interestingly, some of the first things I schedule are my non-negotiables:

Trail running.
CrossFit.
Yoga.
Mobility.

People sometimes ask:

“What do those things have to do with business?”

My answer is:

Everything.

CrossFit builds strength, energy and community.

Trail running gives me space to think, recalibrate and get grounded.

Yoga and mobility slow me down, regulate my nervous system and create the quiet necessary to listen to intuition.

These aren't activities competing with performance.

They are part of the foundation that makes performance possible.

The stronger the body, the greater the vitality.

The greater the vitality, the more mentally present you can become.

The more present you become, the better you can manage your emotions, make decisions and focus your energy on what matters most.

Robin Sharma often speaks about the connection between personal mastery and professional mastery.

I’ve come to believe the same thing:

How you lead yourself influences how you lead everything else.

Peak performance isn't about cramming more into your day.

It's about having the clarity to identify what matters most, and the discipline to act on it consistently.

So before this week gets busy, ask yourself:

What is my purpose right now?

What are the few things that would genuinely move me toward it this week?

Then put those things on the calendar first.

Because a productive week isn't measured by how much you did.

It's measured by whether what you did moved you closer to who you're becoming and where you're going.

~Daily Notes From The Climb
5 Summits Evolution Coaching

08/30/2026

THE ANSWER MAY ALREADY BE WITHIN YOU.
Every trail run teaches me something different.
There is a Japanese practice called shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, the idea of immersing yourself in nature and allowing the forest to restore the mind and body.

My version is a little different.

I run trails through the Canadian wilderness.

For me, it’s more than exercise.

It’s a way of clearing the noise.
Reconnecting with something deeper.
And creating enough internal stillness to hear what I normally can't hear.

Today, something came up during my run:

Whole Mind Union.

Think of three centres of intelligence:

The Head, the thinking mind.
Logic. Analysis. Reason.

The Heart, the emotional centre.
Values. Connection. What matters deeply.

The Solar Plexus, intuition.
That quiet sense of knowing before you can necessarily explain why you know.

The practice is simple.

Spend a few minutes placing your attention on each centre individually.

Head.

Heart.

Intuition.

Then gradually bring all three together.

Don't force anything.

Simply hold your awareness there and become still.

Thoughts will appear.

Let them.

Don't judge them.
Don't chase them.
Don't identify with them.

Observe.

Something interesting can begin to happen when the noise settles.

An idea appears.

A connection you hadn't previously seen becomes obvious.

The missing piece of a problem you've been wrestling with suddenly surfaces.

Brian Tracy often emphasizes that clarity is one of the greatest accelerators of achievement.

Robin Sharma repeatedly points us toward solitude, reflection and mastery of the inner world.

Maybe the two are more connected than we realize.

Sometimes we don't need to think harder about the problem.

We need to become quiet enough to see it differently.

That is one of the reasons I keep returning to the trails.

I'm not always running away from the noise.

Sometimes I'm running toward the answer.

What might become clear if you gave yourself enough space to hear what you already know?

08/29/2026

EXPAND POSSIBILITY.
One of the most important things we can do is continuously challenge our perceived limits and then help others discover what may be possible for them.

Many of the limits we live within are self-imposed. Some we can see.

Others operate quietly in the shadows of our thinking, assumptions about our age, abilities, circumstances, past experiences, or what we believe we are capable of becoming.

That’s why reflection and journaling can be so powerful.

They create awareness.

And awareness gives us the opportunity to question the beliefs that have been quietly determining our actions.

One of my favourite questions is simply:

What if?

What if the limit I’ve accepted isn’t actually a limit?

What if I’m capable of considerably more than I currently believe?

What if the next version of me requires me to stop looking at my past as evidence of what my future can be?

Brian Tracy often teaches that clarity is one of the foundations of achievement.

Robin Sharma reminds us that mastery is not a destination, it is a process of continual evolution.

Put those ideas together and something interesting happens:

We stop asking, “What can I realistically do?”

And begin asking:

“What could I become?”

Your calling is not simply to become successful.

It is to become an example of what is possible.

To demonstrate through the way you live that a person can continue evolving:

Physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
Spiritually.
Financially.

Regardless of age.

Regardless of previous circumstances.

Regardless of the limits you once believed were permanent.

And perhaps there is a useful question hidden inside all of this:

Where is the gap between what you are currently experiencing…and what might actually be possible for you?

Sometimes the first breakthrough isn't closing the gap.

It's finally seeing it.

Daily Notes From The Climb
5 Summits Evolution Coaching

08/28/2026

LIVE COURAGEOUSLY.
Choose the difficult, meaningful action over the comfortable, familiar one.
That’s where growth lives.

One question I’ve been asking myself:

How will I starve fear and feed courage today?

Fear gets stronger when we negotiate with it.

Courage gets stronger when we act.

So every day, I deliberately take at least one action that requires courage, especially when part of me would rather avoid it.

When fear appears, I use a simple sequence:

Witness → Breathe → Observe → Choose → Act.

I don't need fear to disappear before I move.

Courage is not the absence of fear.
Courage is action in its presence.

Over time, I've built a toolbox for controlling my state and continuing toward the mission:

Box breathing.
Meditation.
Visualization.
Witness consciousness.
Integrated movement.
Micro-goals.
F3 - Fail Forward Fast.
The OODA Loop - Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

None of these tools eliminate difficulty.

They help me move through difficulty deliberately instead of being controlled by it.

And that raises a bigger question:

Where is the gap between where you are and where you want to be?

What do you already know you need to do, but fear, uncertainty, distraction or hesitation keeps getting in the way?

Sometimes the breakthrough isn't another strategy.

Sometimes it's having the courage to take the action you've been avoiding.

What is one courageous action you could take today that would move your life or business forward?

“If you know where you want to go but something keeps getting in the way, send me a message. I’m always interested in a good conversation.”

08/27/2026

MASTER YOURSELF.
Before you try to master your business, your career, or your circumstances, learn to master yourself. One of the highest-leverage places to begin is the first hour of your day.

Before the messages.
Before the emails.
Before the demands of the world begin competing for your attention.

Own your first hour.

Here’s a simple practice I’ve been working with:

First 20 minutes: Master Your State

Breathwork. Meditation. Visualization.

Slow the mind. Regulate your state. Then spend a few minutes seeing the person you are becoming.

Don't begin the day reacting to yesterday.

Begin it rehearsing your future.

Second 20 minutes: Master Your Body

Move.

Use an integrated movement practice that connects breath, body and awareness.

Yoga. Qigong. Mobility. Flow.

The objective isn't simply exercise.

It's learning to become completely present inside your body.

Third 20 minutes: Master Your Mind

Read something that expands your thinking.

Study a course.

Learn from someone who has already travelled the road you're trying to travel.

But don't just consume information.

Ask:

How can I apply this today?

That's one hour.

And it's only the beginning.

Rise earlier if you want. Spend longer on each practice if you can.

But start somewhere.

Because self-mastery isn't something you accomplish once.

It's something you practice every day.

Master your state.
Master your attention.
Master your body.
Master your thinking.
Master your behaviour.

Do that consistently, and eventually you become much harder for circumstances to control.

Win the morning. Lead yourself. Then go lead your day.

Daily Notes From The Climb

If you're working on becoming more focused, disciplined and intentional, but you're not sure where to begin, I have a few openings for short 15–30 minute conversations.

No complicated pitch.

Just a conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and what's getting in the way.

Send me “MASTER” and we'll start there.

$How tight is your focus?We live in a world engineered to fracture our attention.Notifications.News.Social media.Endless ...$

08/26/2026

How tight is your focus?
We live in a world engineered to fracture our attention.

Notifications.
News.
Social media.
Endless content.
Other people’s priorities.

Most people don’t have a lack-of-time problem.

They have a lack-of-focus problem.

One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is:

What is my master work, and where in my day will I do it?

Because if you don’t deliberately protect time for your most important work, the world will happily consume that time for you.

I’m increasingly convinced that fewer things, executed exceptionally well, beat dozens of things executed poorly.

That means time-blocking.

Pre-committing.

Deciding before the day gets noisy what deserves your attention.

And then protecting that time.

The world is filled with superficiality competing for your attention.

But superficiality is still superficiality.

It rarely moves your life forward.

How do you start your day?

I begin mine with breathwork, meditation and visualization.

Then I feed my mind, reading, studying, watching educational material or working through a course.

But there’s an important distinction:

Consumption is not learning.

Instead of racing through more information, I’m learning to slow down and ask:

How can I apply this?

Where does this fit into my life or business?

Could I explain or teach this to someone else?

That final question changes everything.

Because when you imagine yourself teaching an idea, you stop merely consuming it and begin internalizing it.

Your attention is finite.

Your productive years are finite.

Your cognitive bandwidth is finite.

So perhaps the question isn't:

“How much can I get done today?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“What deserves the very best of me today?”

Protect that.

Execute it.

Then do it again tomorrow.

If your focus has become scattered across too many priorities, I have a few 30-minute conversation spots available. We’ll identify what matters most, eliminate some of the noise, and get you moving forward again.

DM me FOCUS and we’ll have a conversation.

08/25/2026

You probably already know what it is.

The call you haven't made.
The conversation you've been avoiding.
The offer you haven't presented.
The decision you keep postponing.

We can stay incredibly busy doing everything except the one thing that matters most.

And sometimes that one uncomfortable move is worth more than crossing 20 easy things off the list.

The Daily Edge:

What's the one move you've been avoiding?

Do that first.

5 Summits Evolution Coaching

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