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One night, Will Polston walked to a river and decided his entire future based on whether the tide was in or out.
In 2018, the UK-based performance coach and business strategist faced a devastating loss. Money, identity, and the credibility that came with being the guy others turned to when life fell apart. Buried in debt and carrying shame he couldn’t outthink, he reached a moment where mindset alone stopped working and reality demanded a different answer.
This is not a story about motivation.
It’s about responsibility, alignment, and why effort without clarity keeps people trapped in cycles they swear they’re trying to escape.
🧠 What I found while reflecting on this conversation
Studies show that early setbacks can actually predict greater long-term achievement for those who persist, even when people appear equally capable at the start. In research on early-career setbacks—such as grant proposals just missing funding—those who experienced a near miss and stayed in the game went on to produce substantially higher-impact work over the next decade than those who secured early success. (learn more.)
The Night Everything Collapsed
Will Polston was not supposed to end up here.
In 2018, he was a performance coach and business strategist, known as the mindset guy, the one people trusted to find a way forward when things broke down. Behind the scenes, he had lost everything. Not just his income, but his identity. He had borrowed money from banks, friends, and family, including people he never should have involved, and he had no clear way to pay it back.
What made it unbearable was not the debt itself. It was the hypocrisy.
He had built his life around helping others overcome limits, yet he could not escape his own. Worse, he had created the very instability he once blamed his father for, the thing he had sworn he would never repeat. That internal contradiction pushed him to a breaking point. One night, he walked to the end of his road in England, toward a river, and made a deal with himself.
If the tide was in, he would step into the water. If it was out, it meant there was still a way forward.
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Responsibility Without Excuses
The tide was out.
Will stood there in the cold, numb, staring at what he took as a sign, not that life would be easy, but that it was not over. That moment did not magically fix anything. The debt was still there. The damage was still real. But something fundamental shifted.
For the first time, he separated fault from responsibility.
Much of what had happened was not his fault, but all of it was his responsibility. Not responsibility as blame, but as response-ability, the ability to choose how to respond when there is no good option left.
This distinction matters more than people realize.
Most men collapse not because life is unfair, but because the gap between where they are and where they think they should be becomes psychologically unmanageable. When that gap feels permanent, hope disappears. Responsibility, reframed correctly, closes that gap. It restores agency without denial and ownership without self-destruction. That night at the river did not provide Will with the answers he sought. It gave him something more important.
A commitment to stay and find them.
It’s alignment that creates results, not effort. When you’re aligned, effort compounds. When you’re not, effort just burns you out.
Key Takeaways You Can Use Now
This story is not about hitting rock bottom.
It is about what to do when life removes your illusions faster than your coping mechanisms.
The lessons are practical, not philosophical, and they apply whether you are in crisis or simply drifting.
Separate fault from responsibility. Even when something is not your fault, it is still your move. Waiting for fairness delays recovery. Taking responsibility restores momentum.
Close the gap before it becomes lethal. When the distance between your reality and your expectations grows too wide, adjust your perspective or strategy immediately. Do not let the gap fester in silence.
Audit alignment before effort. If pushing harder is not producing results, the problem is likely direction, not discipline. Ask whether your actions actually reflect your values, not your identity or ego.
Replace motivation with structure. Motivation fades. Clear values, intelligent action, and accountability systems do not. Build environments that reduce reliance on willpower.
Remember this. Survival moments do not define you. The response does. Staying, choosing responsibility, and rebuilding from truth instead of image is how transformation actually happens.
That is the difference between effort and alignment.
Talk soon,
Roman
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