it is not the mountain I conquer, but myself.

The line is Edmund Hillary's, said after Everest, and the interesting part is that he'd just conquered an actual mountain and still didn't think that was the achievement.

What you beat on a hard climb is the argument in your own head — the one that shows up at the halfway point with perfectly reasonable grounds for turning around. It's persuasive. It usually has facts.

You'll meet it in smaller forms all week. The rule isn't to silence it. It's to keep taking the next step while it talks.