Aaron Taylor’s anchor statement — “The gold in our lives lies just beyond what we’re afraid or unwilling to go” — crystallizes a principle that runs through his entire life story. At 15, sobbing on his bed after being destroyed at his first football practice, he somehow got up the next morning. Everything that followed — Notre Dame, the Super Bowl, financial freedom, his wife, his children — nearly didn’t exist because of that one moment.
“Everything that came after that was so close to never becoming. And I don’t know what it was in me that got me up that next morning.”
The principle also shows up in his reconnection with his absent father, where he discovered that the adversity of growing up without a dad was actually protective. And in his faith journey, where getting in the “wheelbarrow” — actually trusting rather than just believing — always led to growth, even when the fall was painful.
Joe Hudson adds the complementary insight: the destruction that happens when you fall is “the destruction of a part of myself that can be destroyed, leaving me with the part of myself that can’t be destroyed.” The false self dies; what remains is more real, more refined.
Related Concepts
- Fear as road map not enemy
- The abyss you avoid is your freedom
- Facing fear builds empowerment
- Follow your calling even when uncomfortable
- Adversity refines rather than destroys
- Feel your way to freedom