When I was in high school, I was lucky to be mentored by a leader at the National Institutes of Health who knew that from childhood, I had wanted to be a physician. He thought I’d make a good scientist instead and offered to have me do my senior year internship in one of his labs.
We were working on understanding how the drug we call valium worked in the brain. I learned a ton. I learned I was good at doing the mechanics of the experiments. I learned I hated having to wash things in acetone because it took off my nail polish, after all I was 17. And I learned that most experiments fail. That success is years and many failures in the making. And I didn’t think I had the stomach for it. While I really appreciated the learning, bench science was not where I was headed.
And it turned out neither was med school. I didn’t love physics, and I loved communication and understanding how people think, and so my career goals changed.
In a meeting this week though, we were talking about how hard advocacy is, which is such a big part of what I do. How things take years. How things fail before they succeed. And I was struck by the fact that I had in fact chosen a very similar career. One in which you fail a lot before good things happen. That failing is part of what creates success.
Failing teaches the lessons needed to succeed. You succeed or you learn more.
Breath deep, take action, learn. Repeat.
Have a great week,
Julie
What I’m learning this week: My book group read a Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert this month. I had read it before, but it was great to reconnect with it. My favorite point to remember is that ideas aren’t who we are but work through us to the world. I think it’s something she also explained well in her first TED talk. Somehow this idea makes it easier to play with things and see them as less precious.
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