08/17/2026
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Motivation Monday: Who Do You Say You Are?
This weekend, I completed my first Ironman 70.3.When I checked in, they made me a badge. I got a picture of it—and there was something about that picture that really stopped me.
At the bottom of the badge, it said one word: ATHLETE.
And I thought… I've never really thought of myself as an athlete.
But let's look at the evidence: I've run multiple marathons. I've done half marathons. I've completed several triathlons. And this weekend, I swam 1.2 miles, biked 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles.
Yet somehow, I still hadn't really adopted the identity of athlete.
That got me thinking about how often we do the same thing in our own lives.
Maybe you've been leading people for years, but you don't see yourself as a leader.
Maybe you've built a successful business, but you still don't think of yourself as a business owner.
Maybe you've overcome something incredibly difficult, but you still see yourself as the person who struggled with it.
Maybe you've accomplished far more than you give yourself credit for—but your identity hasn't caught up with your accomplishments.
Sometimes we keep waiting to feel like the person we already are.
And maybe it's time to start identifying ourselves by the evidence.
For me, I'm going to start calling myself an athlete.
And I can’t go without sharing the most beautiful part of this race for me…..my COMMUNITY!
There was another identity lesson I took away from this weekend—
It has to do with Redding.
Our city has a narrative problem.
We say a lot of negative things about our community. We talk about what's wrong. What's missing. What we don't have.
But this weekend, Redding showed up in a way that an international organization like Ironman had never experienced at a first-time event.
We had more volunteers sign up than Ironman had ever seen for a first-year event! The Ironman director was so moved by our community that he was literally choking up.
And for 56 miles, almost every driveway we passed had people cheering.
Signs. Music. Cowbells. People holding hoses, ready to spray athletes down if they wanted it.
People we'd never met were standing on the side of the road cheering for us.
And the athletes who had never been to Redding before?
They were blown away.
They kept talking about the spirit of this community.
This is what I want my city to know -
This isn't an exception. THIS IS WHO WE ARE!
We need to stop treating that kind of community spirit as something unusual and start identifying ourselves with it.
Because identity matters.
The words we repeatedly use about ourselves—and about our community—eventually become the story we believe.
So this week, I'm challenging myself to pay attention to the labels I use.
What am I telling myself I am?
And more importantly…
Is that identity actually true anymore?
Because sometimes, the person you are has already grown beyond the person you still believe yourself to be.
I am an athlete.
And Redding is an absolutely beautiful community because of our people!
Maybe it's time we both started saying it like we mean it.
