Third Monkey Productions LLC

You’ve quit before.

Maybe last Tuesday. Maybe this morning. You looked at the hill, felt the weight, and said *enough*. And then, at some point, you picked it back up.

Welcome to the boulder. You’re in good company.

We’ve Been Reading Sisyphus Wrong

Most people know the myth. Condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity and every time he neared the top, it would slip, tumble back down, and the whole brutal process would start again. Endless. Pointless. A punishment.

Except we’ve absorbed the wrong lesson.

We’ve quietly applied that story to our own lives believing that if we’re still struggling, still pushing, still not at the top, we must be failing. We must be cursed.

But the punishment was never the boulder. The punishment was the *belief* that the boulder made us worthless.

Forget Zeus. The forces that condemn most of us are far more familiar.

**Doubt** whispers that you’re not ready.

**Fear** freezes you before you’ve even tried.

**Naysayers** are loud when you slip and quiet when you make progress.

**Failure** is the rock rolling back down the rejection, the missed goal, the plan that didn’t survive contact with reality.

These four don’t take weekends off. And unlike the gods of myth, they live inside you which means you carry them *up the hill with the boulder.*

That’s the real weight.

The Quit and the Un-Quit

Let’s not dress it up. Sometimes you stop. Fully stop. You put the boulder down, walk away, and mean it.

That’s not shameful. It’s human. It happens to leaders, fighters, coaches, and creators. The quit is not the exception it’s part of the path.

The question is never *did you quit*. It’s: **what did you do next?**

Because something brings you back. Restlessness. A conversation. A quiet moment where you remember *why* you started. You find yourself at the base of the hill again, hands on the boulder.

That return the un-quit is an act of self-determination. Nobody commanded it. You chose it, because the work still matters and you still have something to offer it.

The Boulder Is the Point

Here’s what nobody tells you: there will always be another one.

Finish a book a new one calls. Hit a goal you’ve already spotted the next one. Solve a hard problem your growth creates new, harder problems.

This isn’t failure. This is a life lived with purpose.

The myth was framed as tragedy because the gods assumed the *point* was the top of the hill. But the person who has actually done the work knows: **the top is the direction, not the destination.** Every push builds something in you that can’t be taken away, discipline, resilience, craft. And when the boulder rolls back down, you’re not starting over.

You’re starting better.
 

Keep Pushing

The boulder will be there tomorrow. So will the doubt, the fear, the critics, and the memory of every time it rolled back down.

Push anyway. Not because success is guaranteed. Not because the top is visible from here.

Push because you decided this matters. Because Sisyphus wasn’t failing, he just hadn’t stopped yet.

And neither have you.

#Leadership #PersonalDevelopment #Resilience #GrowthMindset #LeadershipDevelopment