This morning I went for a 5-mile run in 2-degree weather. It sucked, but only in the very beginning. The Under Armor-type stuff for cold weather is awesome at retaining your body heat. It only takes a few minutes to forget the fact you’re outside in 2-degree weather in glorified spandex.

I don’t flinch about this because several years ago I learned that nothing worth doing feels comfortable right from the start.

I waltzed into college six weeks before my eighteenth birthday the same way I’d imagine an offensive lineman walks into an all-you-can-eat buffet. It was a rude awakening. I wasn’t as intelligent I thought I was. I wasn’t as charming as I thought I was. I wasn’t as ______ as I thought I was. Just keep going.

I was also a scholarship athlete on a Division I swimming & diving team. Half of my teammates were high school All-Americans. This compounded my new-found insecurities.

As a freshman I didn’t really get hazed – at least not in the way most people think about hazing. In stead, I didn’t get the respect or admiration from anyone older than me. This was worse. Trust me. If you ever want to make someone else want something just exclude them from it.

Like a frigid run, it sucked at first. But I pushed through. My roommate (and teammate) was a really good influence on me. So were a lot of other people. That year I did more things I didn’t want to do than any other time in my life.

As a team we didn’t achieve our goal at championships, but I had a pretty good meet. And suddenly I noticed my attitude about the team – and its attitude toward me – had changed completely. I was part of it now. This happened gradually but I’ll never forget the moment when it really hit me. It was sweet like apple pie.

The following year we were Atlantic 10 Conference champions.

Two years after that, an hour after my final meet, I had to fight back tears upon the realization I wasn’t going to be part of this group anymore.

I’m glad I was wrong.

Those upperclassmen – whose withheld approval I was desperately seeking – knew what they were doing. They knew the team was something special. And if I was immediately granted access to it I might take it for granted. They needed to see me make sacrifices for it. Newton’s third law of motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Same thing here. The harder you work for something the greater the reward you reap.

Like how the more you freeze your ass off for a few minutes, the more accomplished you feel at the end of your run.

So when a bunch of older guys make you check your over-inflated ego at the door and you don’t really like how that feels but you work through it, that just means you’ve pledged your loyalty to a tribe that will have a better influence on your life than any other group you’ve ever been a part of.

Sacrifice is our tribal language. You can’t be part of the team until you learn to speak it. And once you do, it defines you and the relationships you have with your teammates. My tribe is about doing the hard thing because it’s the hard thing. It’s about not sacrificing long-term vision for short term peace of mind. It believes you can’t ever triumph in public if you don’t choose to suffer in private. And knows that spending your worst moments together is the surest guarantee that your best ones will be spent just the same.

Why else would a bunch of old timers fly and drive to a tiny little Ohio town to watch a bunch of guys they’ve never met compete?

Mine happens to be a swimming & diving program. Yours might be a fraternity or a club or a gym or your church. Either way, I hope you have a tribe. Maybe even more than one. If you do, tell us about it. Seriously. If you don’t, I would suggest finding one. You deserve it.

Nobody is too big, too old or too cool to be a part of something that wants you to be the best version of yourself.