Nick HutchisonFounder and CEO, BookThinkers

Succeed in spite of, not because of!

11 Dec 2023 · 1 min

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In this personal monologue, the speaker discusses how an innate empathy can feel overwhelming, describing a tendency to be emotionally crushed by others' pain and difficulty regulating those emotions. They argue that this sensitivity is not simply a product of past experiences, but rather that enduring relentless pressure and having to pull themselves out of challenging circumstances forged resilience. The speaker asserts that their achievements stem from succeeding "in spite of" these pressures rather than because of them, suggesting that most successful individuals achieve their goals despite, not because of, their hardships. They also caution against overvaluing such hardships or wishing others to endure them, emphasizing a nuanced view of how circumstances contribute to success.

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It comes into factory settings, and the empathy can feel very crushing. I feel very crushed by people's pains, if I'm honest. I have a hard time regulating my emotions when I'm confronted with something that I'm like, oh, that's so sad, you know? And I don't think that's because I witnessed something. I think I know how to do something about that because of what I witnessed. And so that's a long way of saying, I think without being subjected to unrelenting pressure and having the necessity to pull myself out of these circumstances, I actually think I would've maybe succumbed more to the anxiety and succumbed more to the empathy. And maybe the being a little more tentative. So I like to say that I did everything I did in spite of, not because of. And I think most successful people get where we are in spite of and more than because of. And so for me, I got here in spite of a lot of those factors. So I don't think there's any chance in hell I've achieved even 1/10 of the success I've achieved if I wasn't born into those circumstances. Now, that's different than overvaluing them and wishing that somebody else would go through them too.