I Failed At My Job

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You know that one guy who has to pause and rewind a movie every time he misses one line?

Yup… that’s me.

I can’t just pretend I understood, because I know I’m going to miss something important later.

It’s also why it takes me 3 times longer than everyone to learn anything.

I read the same book 3 times.

Listen to the same lecture 3 times.

Only then it finally clicks.

It even affects my social life.

If someone said something that didn’t make sense, I’d get stuck thinking about it. I couldn’t stay present because my brain was still trying to figure out that one thing.

People thought I was uptight.

I just thought I was stupid.

Years later, I started freelancing and met Leslie.

She was my first “real” client, not just a friend I was doing favors for.

She was a stay-at-home mom who had inherited some money from her grandma and wanted to start an online baby clothing store.

She knew nothing about websites.

Or business.

So I walked her through everything, step by step.

And honestly…

I loved it.

Every meeting, I felt useful.

For the first time, I felt like I was actually good at something.

I think that’s when my confidence started to grow.

10 years later, I was at a dinner with Gabby Bernstein’s team and when she introduced me, she said, “This is Sun. He’s a genius.”

I had no idea that’s how she saw me.

I realized something that day.

For the first time, I thought I wasn’t stupid for taking longer to learn anything.

Gabby was right. I was a genius because while everyone was half-learning it, I was learning it inside and out.

Einstein said, everyone’s a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll live its whole life thinking it was stupid.

Most of my life, I was a fish trying to climb a tree.

And if this story resonates with you, you might be too.

Stop doing that.

Go find your genius.