Sit-ins were one of the clearest examples of nonviolent courage with a spine.

Black students, and their allies, sat down in “Whites Only” public spaces, especially lunch counters. They refused to leave until they were served.

No yelling. No swinging. No drama for drama’s sake. Just disciplined presence. And that simple act forced businesses, city leaders, and eventually the whole country to confront segregation in real time.

In February 1960, four Black freshmen from North Carolina A&T did exactly that at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

They asked to be served. They were refused. They came back. They came back again. And again. And soon, other students joined them. “ A few students” became a movement. Within weeks, sit-ins spread across the South and beyond.

They weren’t just “protesting.” They were exposing a lie.

They targeted lunch counters in department stores and drugstores because those counters were visible symbols of daily discrimination. Public humiliation; served with a side of “know your place.”

These students understood something we may have forgotten. Change doesn’t only happen in courtrooms or capitols. Sometimes change happens on a bar stool; while you sit there…calm, clean, dignified…refusing to be erased!

And because it was so clear, the media came running.

But the writer Richard Whalen was shocked to find the students had little interest in meeting with him. They were too busy.

No time to meet with one of the most important publications in the world at that time - Time Magazine?!!!

Finally, they agreed to see him at 6 a.m.

“6 a.m.?” Whalen said. “The only time they can meet with me is 6 a.m.?”

Then he said the quiet part out loud: “They’re going to win, aren’t they?”

Whelan recognized the sign of people who are serious. They aren’t “performing” commitments. They’re living it.

They weren’t “fitting the movement into their schedule.” They had rearranged their schedule around a calling.

Marcus Aurelius, yes, one of my favorite stoics, the Roman emperor with the journal that reads like a calm, therapist, wrote this in Meditations:

“On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind, I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm?” — Meditations 5.1

That man was giving himself a pep talk to throw the blankets off and get on with the business of being who he was created to be.

And those students? They weren’t just getting out of bed. They were getting out of “how things are” and into “how things must become.”

They had a calling. A greater good.

And that’s what I want to drop in your lap today.

We cannot be of service to ourselves, to other people, or to the world unless we get up and get working…early!

Now, before you say, “Dee…I’m not trying to change America before breakfast.”

I hear you. But you are trying to change something. Your health? Your finances? Your attitude? Your marriage? Your business? Your peace?

And the resistance we feel, the snooze button, the procrastination, the overthinking, the “I’ll do it later?” is the same old bully in a different outfit.

So c’mon. Put your feet on the floor! Say your prayers. Get in the shower. Have your coffee. And get going.

And when you feel yourself hesitating, like we all do, let’s borrow author Mel Robbins’ simple tool: the “5 Second Rule.”

That is, count backwards. Countdow: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… then move!

The point is to interrupt our “overthinking.” Force physical action before our brain negotiates us out of what we need to do!

Here’s what to do:

1. Pay attention to the moment you hesitate.
   About to hit that snooze? Avoid the email? Skip that yoga with weights class? Put off the hard conversation?
2. Count backward: 5…4…3…2…1!
3. On “1,” make a physical move immediately!
   Sit up. Stand up. Open the laptop. Put your shoes on. Step into the shower. Dial that number.
4. Then do the next tiny, tiny, tiny step.
   Not the whole project. Just one little move toward that goal. Write one sentence. Make just one call. Drink one glass of water. Complete the first page of that application.

The countdown creates urgency. Like a rocket launch.

Our mind is a storyteller. It can talk us out of the very thing we’ve prayed for. So, we must get moving before our mind starts bargaining with fear as to why we should not do something!

And that’s how we win. Quietly. Consistently. With discipline.

The Stoics remind us…to master anything, we must first master ourselves! Our emotions. Our thoughts. And then our actions.

Those A&T students mastered their actions so their courage could speak without shouting.

So today, we don’t need a lunch counter. We just need to rise to this moment!

A moment where we remind ourselves of our own great value - our goals, our vision, our purpose…

NOW shout it!…5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Get up. Go fight!