Your Mess Is Not a Setback. It Is the Message.

So here is the advice you have probably heard a hundred times, and I want to push back on it a little.

"Just stay positive."

It sounds right. It feels right. And honestly, it is not wrong. But it is incomplete in a way that I think trips up a lot of capable people. Because staying positive without doing the inner work first is kind of like putting fresh paint on a wall with structural damage. It looks fine for a while, and then it does not.

That is what hit me hardest in my conversation with Anthony Guastella, founder of Anthony Guastella Wellness. I had Anthony on the full episode and what he shared about his six-year battle with Lyme disease reframed what I thought I knew about resilience, healing, and what it actually takes to build real momentum.

The victim or victor choice is real, but it is not what you think

When Anthony was in the middle of six years of joint pain, thyroid issues, and fibromyalgia, he describes hitting a fork in the road. He could be a victim of his circumstances, or he could be a victor within them. And he chose victor.

But here is the part that gets left out when people tell that story. Choosing to be a victor did not mean everything got better right away. It did not mean he had a plan. It did not even mean he knew how it was going to happen. It just meant he made an internal conviction that he was going to get well, and then he kept showing up on the path even when nothing seemed to be working.

That sounds a lot like entrepreneurship, right? You do all the things. You put in the hours. And for a stretch, the results just do not seem to show up. Anthony made that connection himself in our conversation, saying it felt like putting in all the work but not necessarily seeing the results up front. So many people give up too quickly because they are expecting the scoreboard to move faster than it actually does.

The antidote is not more positivity. It is a longer mission horizon.

Awareness before action

One of the things Anthony said that I want to sit with for a second is this: the solution is not always unavailable. We are just not receptive to it based on our current paradigm.

That one lands hard for me. I talk about this through the lens of the reticular activating system, that thing in your brain that suddenly makes you see your new car everywhere once you buy it. The information was always there. You just were not tuned to receive it. And a lot of us are running around taking action, staying busy, trying new tactics, when the real block is not effort at all. It is awareness.

Anthony stumbled into podcasting almost by accident, found a whole world of information he did not even know existed, and started rebuilding his health piece by piece. The channel mattered less than the fact that he opened himself up to new inputs. Once he was receptive, the answers started showing up.

That is a principle we talk about inside Prime Performance all the time. The problem is stagnation. The cause is reactivity. The antidote is awareness. And Anthony's story is one of the clearest real-world examples of that I have heard.

Consistency over intensity, every single time

Anthony made a point about this that I think is worth underlining. A lot of people go after these overwhelming goals, massive projects, total life overhauls, and then they stop because they buried themselves under the weight of it all. What actually builds momentum is smaller consistent action repeated over time.

He put it simply: keep the commitment, but let the process adapt to where you are and what you have. Some days that means three sets at the gym. Some days it means one set. You still showed up. You still moved the needle a little. Give yourself credit for that, and let the small wins stack into something you can feel.

I have shared a version of this in my own story about going back to play rugby in my thirties, five to ten years older than most of the guys on the field, and realizing I was trying to play as college Rob instead of stepping into who I needed to become next. Same thing applies here. Stop trying to recreate the peak moment from your past and start building toward the next version of yourself.

Your inner world is running your outer results

This is where Anthony really pushed past the surface level, and I want to make sure this part lands.

He said his number one tool for healing was not a supplement or a protocol. It was becoming in alignment with who he actually is. Everything else, sleep, nutrition, exercise, mindset practices, those are pillars. But without that inner alignment, you are building on shaky ground.

"A mess becomes your message" is a line Anthony kept coming back to, and it is the kind of thing that sounds like a bumper sticker until you hear the full story behind it. He went through six years of genuine suffering, came out the other side, and now uses that exact experience to reach people who are in the middle of their own version of it. The pain was not wasted. It was the curriculum.

That is worth asking yourself right now. What have you been through that you have been trying to leave behind instead of turning into something useful for the people you serve?

One thing to do this week

Anthony talked about giving yourself space to think, not scroll, not consume, not plan, just think. He mentioned the default mode network, the part of your brain that actually knits ideas together when you stop filling every gap with noise.

So here is the move. Block fifteen minutes today with no phone, no podcast, no inputs. Ask yourself one question: what do I actually believe about where I am headed right now? Not what you are supposed to believe, not the positive spin, what you actually believe.

That is where the real inner work starts.

If this conversation is sparking something for you, go listen to the full episode with Anthony Guastella. He goes deeper on the wellness pillars, what personalized coaching actually looks like, and how he thinks about turning chronic struggle into a platform for service. The full conversation is worth your time. And if you are not subscribed to Surviving the Side Hustle yet, now is a good time to make that happen.