A Million Dollars Worth of Reps

This piece was originally posted on LinkedIn.

I didn’t train for a sport. I trained for my future. At 17, my 4 a.m. workouts looked like essays not squats. Research papers not sprints.

Every morning, I sat at my desk in the quiet hours, focused on a single goal: paying for college. Six months later, I had won more than $1 million in scholarships.

People saw the celebration. The newspaper features. The banquets. The Sasha wins again headlines. What they did not see were the many rejection letters and the tears that followed. My English teacher running to the bus with my final essay in her hand. The skipped senior skip day, the missed prom and the lunches spent editing applications instead of hanging out.

That season rewired me. It taught me that consistency and grit are my superpowers. That discipline is not glamorous, but it compounds. And that audacity is born in the messy middle.

I treated scholarships like an athlete treats game day. Every essay was a rep. Every rejection was resistance training. Every late night was practice for the person I was becoming.

And guess what? It worked!

Not just because I secured the funding, but because I got the muscle. Mental, emotional, strategic. The same muscle I still flex today when life feels stuck, when doors close and opportunities get quiet.

Lowkey, seventeen-year-old Sash is my fave version of me because babygirl was bold, hungry and audacious AF. She didn’t wait for motivation. She built it. She didn’t chase balance. She chased purpose. She understood something I sometimes forget: you don’t have to feel ready to start. You just have to show up and get your reps in.

So now, when I’m staring down a big challenge, I think back to her. To the girl who trained like her future was on the line because it was.

And every single time, she reminds me: Show up. Get your reps in…and do it again tomorrow.