Reminds me of a recent podcast I listened to that really resonated with me about why smart kids often struggle to find success later in life. Growing up in a small pond I was always the top student in every class, Valedictorian, perfect SATs etc and I tied success and my identity to “not trying”.

Once I left that pond and found a lot of people I thought were effortlessly much smarter than me, I think I really sort of gave up on my potential because I had learned to associate working hard with being a failure instead of embracing challenges like I should have.

When you struggle earlier in life you’ve given yourself permission to fail and can be better equipped mentally to work through challenges. I think I could have been a lot more successful in life if I had correctly identified hard work and failure as a virtue rather than immediately labeling myself as not being good enough.