Eric "Brickwall" Decker

Everyone talks about the glitz and glam. The highlight reel. The fireworks.

But that’s not where things are forged.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You’re not made when the eyes are on you.

You’re made in the mundane, everyday work. The reps nobody claps for. The sets nobody films. The decisions nobody cares about.

The boring work isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t get applause.

But it compounds.

And compound interest is undefeated. In muscle. In money. In trust. In the legacy you’re quietly building.

Fall in love with the boring work.

That’s not where the greats visit.

That’s where they live.

Nobody quits because today didn’t work.

They quit because yesterday didn’t work fast enough.

That’s the trap—misunderstanding lag.

Physical fitness is a great example. it takes weeks, months, and even years before visible changes take place.

They don’t show up after one day.

It’s the same with anything else. Results don’t come instant.

In the beginning, effort outpaces evidence.

It’ll look like nothing is happening.

It’ll seem like you’re wasting your time.

It’ll feel like you need to try something else.

But momentum isn’t built by novelty. It’s built by staying put long enough for the compound interest to kick in.

If today feels quiet, good. Quiet is the sound of foundations curing.

Things change when the mission doesn’t.

We’re taught that more is better.

More exercises. More skills. More projects. More apps. More people pulling on our time.

But more doesn’t build mastery.

Focus does.

Everyone only has so much energy, attention, and bandwidth.

When you spread it across too many targets, none of them get enough pressure to change.

Pick two or three things that matter right now.

Then give them real attention.

Track them. Feed them. Protect them from noise.

You don’t need a bigger life.

You need a more honed in one.

Choose fewer targets. Apply more pressure.

New year. New you?

Not really.

It’s easy to get excited when the calendar flips. Easy to make promises. Easy to declare reinvention.

But nothing changes just because the year does.

If you don’t update your software, you’ll run the same bugs.

Same ruts. Same holes. Same traps.

Old systems produce old results.

Want a fresh start? Fine.

Then rewrite some code.

Change your training patterns. Upgrade your habits. Remove what no longer serves…and install what does.

That’s the work nobody celebrates. That’s also the work that actually compounds.

So forget the resolution.

Open the hood.

Because 2026 isn’t a fresh start. It’s the next chapter of the same book.

What’s written is written.

What will you write now?

2025 is almost over…and it’s holding up a mirror, forcing you to look straight at yourself.

Did you skip the reps—or show up for them?

Did you avoid the tough things—or step into them?

Did you choose comfort—or construction?

Did you delay what you wanted—or move closer to it?

At midnight, nothing actually changes.

New Year’s feels like a fresh start, but it isn’t.

You carry the same habits, the same patterns, the same defaults from one year into the next.

So what are you carrying forward?

If you’ve been forging ahead, keep building. Double down on what worked.

And if you haven’t?

Don’t wait for fireworks to save you. Don’t ask the calendar for permission.

Decide now.

Because the clock doesn’t define you.

You define you.

There is no finished version of you.

No end state. No last upgrade. No moment where the work is complete.

You are in motion or you are in decay. Nothing else exists.

Your body either adapts or atrophies. Your mind either sharpens or dulls. Your business either evolves or gets replaced. Your relationships either deepen or drift.

Stasis is a story people tell themselves when growth feels inconvenient.

You don’t have to chase perfection.

But you do need to pursue progress.

Learn new skills. Rework old systems. Discard habits that once worked but no longer serve.

If you look back at the past year and can’t clearly see how you’ve changed, that year didn’t build you.

It consumed you.

There is no final form waiting at the finish line.

There is only the version of you who shows up today and decides to evolve again.

Build, or be built over.

Anything positive you want to achieve, make it convenient.

The most obvious example is the gym.

You could join the best facility in the world. Top equipment. World-class trainers. Perfect lighting.

But if it’s on the other side of town? It might as well be on the other side of the planet.

Traffic. Weather. Mood. Life.

Friction kills follow-through.

Now flip it.

A gym five minutes from your door? You’ll go without thinking.

Not because you’re disciplined—but because you removed the excuses.

This applies everywhere.

If healthy food is hard to reach, you won’t eat it.

If your work needs attention but your phone is closer, you’ll scroll.

If learning requires a bunch of steps, you’ll skip it.

Convenience isn’t laziness.

It’s leverage.

Don’t rely solely on willpower.

That’s impossible.

Design environments that make the right choice automatic.

Don’t make better habits heroic. Make them unavoidable.

Make necessary things so close you trip over them.

Entropy means things fall apart by default.

Your body doesn’t stay strong on its own. Your business doesn’t stay profitable on autopilot. Your relationships don’t stay aligned without attention. Your systems don’t stay clean unless you maintain them.

Decay is the baseline.

Growth is the rebellion.

This is why you never “arrive.” You’re never done.

There is no maintenance mode in life—only construction or collapse.

Skip the gym long enough and muscle and strength drains. Ignore your work and relevance fades. Neglect your kids and distance grows. Stop learning and the world moves past you.

Entropy doesn’t announce itself. It works quietly, in the background, stealing your edge a day at a time.

So you train. You sharpen. You clean the systems. You rebuild the habits.

Not because you’re broken—but because the universe wants to tear things apart.

You don’t fight once.

You fight every day.

You should be able to look back and say, I’m better today than I was yesterday.

And tomorrow? Better than today.

The you from five, ten, fifteen years ago shouldn’t even be in the same conversation.

Not because you were broken—but because you kept building.

Every day you train something.

Body. Mind. Craft. Skills. Relationships.

That effort compounds until the gap between who you were and who you’ve become is impossible to ignore.

You are not finished. You are not fixed. You are not stuck.

Who you are isn’t set in stone. Where you’re at isn’t set in stone.

There is only direction—forward or backward—chosen daily.

Outgrow your old excuses. Outlift your old limits. Outlearn your old habits.

Crush your past self.

We underestimate the importance of redundancy.

We get comfortable. We coast. We assume nothing will go wrong.

We put all our eggs in one basket.

But life doesn’t run on assumptions—and reality can be cruel.

Ask anyone who poured everything one…only to watch it vanish.

If you’ve got only one, you’re one failure away from catastrophe.

This isn’t paranoia.

It’s preparedness.

Don’t wait for critical failure to learn this lesson.

Design for it. Create margin in your life.

Options aren’t weakness.

They’re leverage.

Because when the unexpected hits—and it will—you won’t be on the ground.

You’ll be upright.

With a leg to stand on. And a fist to fight with.