The closest I’ve come to winning the lottery? A severance package that shoved me out the corporate door. Officially, it was framed as finding work “better suited to my unique capabilities,” but in that moment, it felt like I hit the jackpot. Finally, I could do all the things I’d dreamed of: travel the world, learn to write, become fluent in Spanish. The classic escape fantasy when time and money stop being excuses.
Four months later, I’ve yet to tackle those dreams. Instead, I’ve filled my days with honorable distractions, avoiding the real work of becoming who I said I wanted to be.
It’s funny, for three years I prepared for this moment of freedom, yet here I am, no better than a lottery winner blowing through their fortune. The Apostle Paul’s words haunt me:
“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
Why?
If I’m completely honest with myself—it’s hard. All of it. But something about showing up for yourself feels the hardest. It’s difficult to achieve something that relies on a part of me I’ve never truly believed in: my own mind.
I still remember my kindergarten teacher meeting with my mother, insisting I needed to be held back because I was behind in reading, writing and counting. She gazed at me as if I was hopeless—and in that moment, I learned I was a problem to be managed, not a mind to be nurtured.
School became damage control. I was funneled toward “safe” paths where the metrics were clear (paychecks, promotions) and no one questioned whether I “deserved” to be there. Society celebrates innate genius—the child prodigy, the “natural”—but what about those of us who came labeled “slow” before we’d even lost our baby teeth?
When the world rewards talent that arrives effortlessly, it’s hard to trust the voice whispering, You could do this too—if you keep trying. Especially when that trying might prove your deepest fear: What if I put in the work and confirm what I’ve always suspected? That I’m simply not built for this?
So I’ve clung to external validation instead, my job, my family’s approval, the tangible safety of money. These are things my culture understands. No one asks why I haven’t written my novel or learned Spanish, because no one ever expected me to.
And that’s the quiet tragedy—I stopped expecting it of myself.
But what if, just once, I’m wrong?
The Turning Point
Well, I’m now asking those questions myself: Why aren’t you writing more? Why aren’t you studying that language? It’s going to be messy, but I refuse to waste this time. I don’t want to look back and regret not doing something spectacular—even if that “something” is simply proving to myself that I can do it.
Since I’m still a work in progress when it comes to positive self-talk, I’ll be leaning on my self-help gurus for encouragement. Starting with Tony Buzan’s Use Your Head:
“…you have done an astounding job, and people are beginning to call you ‘extraordinary, wonderful, amazing, a genius, brilliant,’ and they are describing your work as ‘astounding, the best they have ever seen, unbelievable, and unparalleled in its excellence.’ …Yes! I am brilliant, I am a genius, and the job I have done is indeed amazing—so amazing it amazed even me! And the reason is because I’m human!”
For the remainder of the year, Tony Buzan, Harry Lorayne & Jerry Lucas, Jim Kwik, and Stanley D. Frank, Ed.D., will be my personal mentors. As I go through this evolution of learning how to learn, and as I study the operating manual of my bio-computer (my brain)—their words will fuel my voice until I no longer need external validation to affirm my own genius or the power of my mind.
I am freeing myself from my own limitations—where discipline and boundaries become constants, where I face emotional triggers head-on, and where I build a system that works for me. I’m treating this time as a closing window, not an open-ended fantasy.
This time next year, I’ll be someone my kindergarten teacher wouldn’t recognize—not because I’ve become ‘gifted,’ but because I’ve finally learned to gift myself the chance to try.
Follow along as I share my journey toward mastering my intrinsic self.