For most of my life I was the smartest person in every room I was in.

This is not a brag about my intelligence and more an admission that I was perpetually in the wrong room.

I was in the wrong rooms because I was afraid. Afraid of failure, afraid to lose control, afraid of the unknown. It was easier to be the big fish in the small pond.

But it came at the expense of my potential and one day the internal dissonance from taking the easy way out just got too great to ignore and I had to take a leap into the unknown.

I had to let it all fall apart.

I’m sharing this because I’m having an honest reflective moment about my own human weakness and fallibility and I think many of you out there are probably still in a place that you’ve already outgrown.

My advice?

Its time to let the past die.

Kill it if you have to.

That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.