They wanna fight (they wanna fight)
I'm just gon' let 'em hate (I'm just gon' let 'em hate)

The song “Elevate” from the Spider-Verse soundtrack is a goldmine. You can use it to chase a specific pace on a morning run, or you can let it play in the background while you go in circles refining Jira tickets and think, “This beat is incredible,” before moving to the next task.

Or, if you’re like me, you can over-analyze a single couplet until it becomes a philosophical manifesto on the state of personal growth. (I swear I will finish these posts by the time the third Spider-Verse movie comes out. Tick tock.…)

I’ve been thinking a lot about a specific line lately:

"They wanna fight (they wanna fight) / I'm just gon' let 'em hate (I'm just gon' let 'em hate)"

In the context of the movie, it’s about Miles finding his stride while everyone else doubts him. But when I hear it, I don't think about external enemies. I think about the internal fight we have with our own identities. I think about the parts of us we believe define our worth, but are actually just "suits."

The past few years, I find myself re-watching In Iron Man 3, wondering if it will ever get into normal people’s holiday movie cycle (no, it will not. But I can hope.) In this movie, we see two versions of this struggle. There is Tony Stark, who spends the movie having a panic attack because he thinks he is the suit. Then there is Rhodey, who has his "War Machine" armor rebranded as the "Iron Patriot."

Rhodey’s struggle is external—he’s dealing with the optics, the branding, and the government's need for a symbol. But Tony’s struggle is existential. When his house is blown up and he’s stranded in Tennessee with nothing but a broken prototype, he has to face the ultimate fear. If the suit is gone, who am I?

We do this in fitness and life all the time.

We identify as "The Person with the 400lb Deadlift" or "The VP of Sales" or "The One Who Always Has It Together." We build these Iron Man suits out of our accomplishments. But life has a way of stripping the suit away. Injuries happen, roles change, and the external validation we give ourselves as distractions doesn't solve the underlying anxiety.

When the world wants to fight and your suits are failing, it’s worth considering how to let that pressure exist without letting it break you. It's about finding the "Mechanic" within.

1. The Quiet of the "Mechanic" Phase

When Tony is at his absolute worst, he meets a kid named Harley. He doesn't introduce himself as Iron Man. He says, "I'm a mechanic." He gets back to basics with a screwdriver and a potato gun. There is something deeply peaceful about realizing that when your status is stripped away, your skills remain. You are not the superhero. You are the person who does the work.

2. Witnessing the Internal Hater

That lyric—"I'm just gon' let 'em hate"—is most powerful when applied to your own inner critic. Your brain will often insist that without the suit, you are nothing. The realization isn't about winning the argument with that voice. It's about letting it talk and choosing to exist alongside it. You aren't your gear. You're the person who knows how to build.

3. The Grace of the Wingman

Rhodey survived the destruction of the suit because he knew how to fight outside of it. He was a pilot and a soldier before he ever put on the War Machine armor. In the gym, your "Rhodeys" are the people who see you struggling and remind you of your foundation. They are the ones who see you when your "Iron Patriot" branding is gone and you're just a person trying to get through a difficult session. There is a quiet strength in being seen at your worst and realizing that you are still worth the effort.

4. The Uselessness of the Grand Gesture

Tony gave Pepper a giant, useless teddy bear because he didn't know how to give her his presence. He was trying to "suit up" his emotions. We often try to "buy" our way back into motivation with new gear or new goals to fix a lack of internal spark. But presence is a better gift than performance. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is sit in the quiet and realize you don't need a grand gesture to be valid.

5. The Long Horizon

Eventually, you realize that the fight was never with the weights or the world. It was a process of proving to yourself that you are the creator, not the creation. Like an athlete who builds slowly over years rather than months, the Mechanic finds satisfaction in the tinkering rather than the result.

The suits will always break. They’ll get outdated, they'll get rebranded, or they'll be taken from you. But as long as you have the mindset of the Mechanic, you are never truly starting from zero.

So, let 'em fight. Let 'em hate. Just keep building.