“Growth comes during periods of discomfort.”
Hermit crabs are most vulnerable when they have outgrown their current home and need to find a new one.
There is a fortunate group of people among us that seemed to have broken through to the other side. A group of people who systematically approach their dreams and seem to accomplish them at an unbelievable pace. I find that a common thread amongst them is that they all got there by going through a difficult period of time where they learned how to learn. A period of time where they built a foundation of understanding that gives them the confidence and knowledge that they can move forward without a fear of failure. In part I think that is due to good framing, an understanding that an unsuccessful attempt is only a failure if you failed to learn from the process. They might not all be where they’d like to end up but they are definitely on the journey and don’t seemed to be bothered by the process.
I still have a long way to go on my personal road to success, but I have noticed a shift in my thinking. After several years of intentional work I have seen a profound difference in my approach to big goals and my mental framing around what success can look like. The volume and tone of the consistent negative self speak has been transformed to one of positivity and possibility.
A major inflection point in this shift in thinking came during my 11th semester of college. Yes 11th.
I had graduated high school with an [A-] average, completed 180 credits in my undergraduate pursuit, took a well-paying job for an international construction company building subways in New York City but still was still 3 credits shy of receiving my bachelor’s degree due to a lingering Organic Chemistry requirement.
In 2007 (6 years earlier) I passed chemistry for engineer's (Chem 135) with a [C-] average. At that point in time I didn't think I could possibly know less about chemistry. Fast Forward 5 years in the future and it felt like I had never even heard of the periodic table of the elements.
So in 2013 I quit my well-paying job with the construction company, retreated to my parents basement and thankfully with the help of Khan academy I was able to teach myself high school and freshman level chemistry. After restarting with a foundation of understanding I finally enrolled in my last undergraduate college course, organic chemistry.
Without the distraction of a social life, a fraternity and a buzzing college campus, I was finally in an environment where I could focus. Armed with the foundational tools of understanding and financial burden of paying for my own education.
I had always written chemistry off as a topic that was beyond my understanding, “it is just two minuscule for me to grasp” I would complain. Coming from a life where physics and mathematics came relatively easy I chalked up everything smaller than a molecule as difficult to understand.
There are many differences between chemistry and physics but for me the differentiating factor at the time was as simple as a molecule. Bigger than a molecule, I could calculate that, anything smaller than a molecule such as elements, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, and leptons we're all for somebody else.
With all of that preface it shouldn't surprise you that I was able to get a 4.0 in Organic Chemistry that semester.
Against the advice of many of my colleagues I sacrificed a potential future with that construction company. I didn’t know it at the time but that sacrifice was the inflection point in my life that lead to me understanding that I could learn anything, that my knowledge was not a fixed entity but something that could grow and evolve.
I now write this nearly a decade later and can positively reflect that the ‘place between shells’ is the most important place in the world.