How to Believe in Yourself When Everyone Tells You “You Can’t” | Cole Brauer - EP 820

29:53We have the tech team, like the shore crew, and then we have the racers. And so I realized that my way to get into the racing position was by doing the tech team. And it's not guaranteed if you're the best shore crew ever that you will eventually end up as a racer, but normally that doesn't happen. And that was pretty much why solo sailing was like, okay, well, I think I can be a tech team, a really good shore crew, but I'm also going to show everyone that, hey, I'm a racer also. I love it. I don't know about you, but I always feel like there are some boats that just speak to you and there are others that don't.

30:35And for me, I've always loved being on Mel just 24s. I love them. But I would also sell the 32. And I just didn't like, for whatever reason, I didn't like the 32 as much as the 24. It doesn't feel as intimate. It wasn't as fun. But you end up encountering this boat called First Light, name of your book, which enters your life. And one thing I loved about the way you describe First Light is you don't describe meeting a boat. you almost describe it as meeting a companion. And I think from a sailor's perspective, I got it. Other people might not. What was it about a boat first light that made you feel so connected almost immediately?

31:19Oh, I was living on a boat next, like in one dock over from her. And I was, well, this, the boat that I was living on was really small. And I was kind of living under a tarp and a beanbag chair. And I remember just being like, okay, this is hard, but it's okay. Like I'm doing great. And I remember when she pulled in, when first light first pulled in and her original name was, it was called dragon. And she had a giant red dragon painted down the side of the boat. And I was like, wow, like I had never seen a boat like that ever. And she was twice the size of the boat that I was on. And I was like, wow, that's like the most beautiful boat I've ever seen.

31:58And it was kind of like she had talked to me almost immediately. She didn't really officially start talking to me until I got a chance to deliver her from Charleston, South Carolina, up to Stonington, Connecticut. And that was like the first time that she actually spoke to me. And I know this isn't going to make very much sense to a lot of people, but it's kind of like having, when you have a dog, dog doesn't actually speak to you, but you still talk to the dog, right? You're still like, oh, you're so cute. Oh, you still find yourself talking to your cat or your dog or your bird or whatever you have.

32:35That's pretty much what I was doing with First Light. And I think a lot of people would have seen me as being like the crazy houseless girl who was talking to her boat and stuff. But something about First Light was she was very she felt very generous. She felt like if I did something really bad, she was like a tank. She was like, okay, yeah, like that hurt. Let's just pick ourselves up and keep going. Like she didn't break under whim a lot of the times. It had a really good learning boat for me because she's actually got a lot of power. Like a lot of these sailboats, as you move up into the rankings, they get more and more powerful and a little bit more, I don't want to say frightening, just more like they have more oomph behind them.

33:19And you have to be a little bit more careful, like where your fingers are in space and like where your feet are. and okay, well, this has a lot of load on it. You don't really want to get near that right now. Let's back that off a little bit. You have to be a lot more cautious than smaller boats like the boats that I started on or even like the Meldus 24. The Meldus 24, it does have a good amount of loads, but it has less loads than the 32 where the 32, that's when it's like, okay, we're getting the winches out. Like, we got to be really careful not to get our fingers in here. A lot of pro sailors don't have fingers.

33:53It's terrible. I don't want to say that online, but that's true. It's always a cautious thing that we're worried about. But First Light felt like, even though she was quite a powerful and dangerous, but I still felt incredibly safe with her. It's super hard to explain. When I wrote the book, it took me the entire book to try to explain it. And pretty much like the second to last chapter of the book, it was me trying to explain all these feelings that I had with First Light and nature and everything. And the second to last chapter was actually the longest chapter. And I had to cut it down because my publisher was like, this is too much.

34:30It's not an encyclopedia. It's much more concise than it used to be during the first draft. But yeah, that's a very long-winded answer of why I fell in love with her. But I did. I know exactly what you're talking about with the book. I turned in my initial draft to my upcoming book and I was 25 ,000 words too long. So imagine having to come back and cut that because it's not like you just cut one chapter. You got to cut it throughout the whole thing. Oh, it's really hard. And you have to be really brutal about it. You have to go into it like, because if you become too attached to a lot of these words, then it's like really hard.

35:12I had to go in and just like, I printed out my whole book and multiple times and printed out, put in a binder. I'm much more of a pen and paper girl and then big X's okay this chapter big huge X's and then I would just go then online almost and put blinders on and not read it again and be like nope I made the decision I was cutting this that's what I'm going to do because it's like giving stuff away to Goodwill you put stuff in the bag and then you're going to Goodwill and you're like well maybe I ate these pair of jeans I could still wear one day but it was like the book for me

35:50Cole, as I was reading the book and trying to learn you, it seemed like the first part of your career, you talked about loneliness. It seemed like in this stage, a lot of it had to do with belonging because a lot of people, it seemed like underestimated you and what you were capable of. In fact, you're not like a six foot tall person and people would tell you're simply too small to do some of this ocean racing. Another sailor even questioned whether you'd even be able to finish a race. Do you think looking back that early part of your career was really spent proving that you belonged? For sure.

36:34I think that you can't think about it so much because if you think about it so much, it will bring you down. A lot of times I just, I had this almost internal confidence in myself that, Hey, I could do it. And I actually say it's like the heartbeat. You have really good moments and then something really bad happens. And then you have really good moments when you have these ups and downs in your confidence level. And you almost like when you hit rock bottom, the way to get yourself out of that rock bottom, when you're just sulking and you're like, wow, this really sucks. And I just got fired from this thing.

37:06And I really wanted to do this, or I got cut from this team or whatever. I always had to change my mindset and say, okay, well, I'm at the bottom. All I can do is go up. I can't really go any lower. And something about that drove me really hard. Actually being in the worst possible with someone underestimating you is exactly what I need to go back up. It's almost when I'm at the top and I'm like more where I'm like, oh no, I'm like, I'm going to drop down. That's why I actually, I do speak a lot in the book about these hardships and about these things that kind of happened that were like pivotal moments in my life and in my sailing career that just, you know, like a knife in the gut.

37:48And when you feel just so close to rock bottom, I'm like, all right, I know I'm about to be successful. I know that it's coming. and that was pretty much exactly what had happened with my around the world race and the funding coming through from the sponsors was the year before the funding came through I had gotten cut from this really big team and they had told me I was too short for the southern ocean and how could I ever believe that I could ever be on this team and I was like completely crushed because I had flown all the way to France from the US. I had dropped out of some paid gigs so that I could do this because it was a dream of mine.

38:29And then after getting cut from that, exactly a year later, I was sailing. I was starting my Around the World race solo. And so I had hit such rock bottom in that moment, that October. I was like, okay, now there's like nothing that's going to stop me at all. I'm ready. But I don't recommend hitting rock bottom to then find what your, but if you do, you are in the middle of rock bottom and let's say you're going through like a horrible divorce or like something's gone wrong or a death in the family, or you've had some form of disease or something that's going on in your own life and your health and your wellness.

39:11Like I, you gotta be thinking, okay, this is my rock bottom. Like, this is it now. Like there's nothing else that's going to bring me down. Like I'm already here. I'm here. Like I'm at least on the ground. I'm not falling anymore. I've stopped the falling. I've stopped the bleeding. Now it's time to pick yourself up, dry your tears. I do a lot of crying in the car. Just climb back up that ladder. And that's the way I always run my life. I wish I didn't have to hit rock bottom. to find exactly where I am going in life. But maybe that's kind of the beauty of it too, is that it's not supposed to be easy.

39:49If life was easy, all of us would be severely like bored, like really bored. Well, I don't think had I not hit rock bottom, I went through that divorce. I went through things like that. And on the other side of it, I am doing what I do now, which is completely different than what I did before. And I don't think had I not gone through that and went through the relearning of self that I would be doing what I'm doing now. So I think sometimes God or the universe gives you these wake up calls to push you to do what you're supposed to do. Sometimes it happens at the best moment, but maybe in that moment, it doesn't feel like it's the best moment.

40:35But sometimes it's like the best possible moment where it's like, okay, I still have a whole life to live. Let's just restart. And I've done, I always tell people I've done like nine restarts and I'm only 32. too. I've tried different things. I've gone to school for different things. I was in art, then I was in medicine, then I'm a pro sailor. Like I've, I think it's a total myth that you have to be born predestined to be something and then still do that by the time you're in your thirties or forties or even fifties. I think you could, you can quit that job you hate, take your money and go do something that you really enjoy.

41:18And life can be affordable just in different circumstances. It really can. I lived in a van. I still live in my van. I'm in an Airbnb in Hawaii, in France right now, but my van was super cheap and I made it my own. I just sew my own curtains and stuff, but that was cool because I learned how to sew, which now I use sewing all the time in the sailing world for different things. I think everything happens for a reason. And honestly, it was my mom who was really good at that. My mom wasn't super happy that I was leaving art school to go to a completely different school, pretty much across the world.

41:53And I was nervous at one point, my first or second month moving to Hawaii. I was like, wow, did I do something wrong? Was this stupid? And I called my mom and she was like, no, you learned stuff at Savannah College of Art and Design. You learned amazing things and they made you who you are. Like you don't lose any of that learning ever. You're just creating this beautiful human being who now knows art and now medicine. And now I'm no weird things about sailing.

42:26A lot of tips and tricks about sailing. actually. Well, Cole, you talked about having this low point. You come off this team, you give up these paid gigs in order to do it. And then you find yourself standing on a dock some months later, knowing that you're about ready to spend four plus months alone at sea. With this as the backdrop, what is going through your mind in those final moments before you're before you're casting off? The thing that I never say, but I'll say now, I couldn't wait to get off that dock. I was so excited. I was like, everyone get off my boat. It's her and I time. This is her.

43:09And I just need everyone off the boat. Because I used to tell the team all the time, it's time to stop painting the painting. The painting is done. She's perfect. Even if she wasn't perfect, there was things that were missing and we could have done better things. There was a lot of things we could have done, but there's a moment when it's like, the painting is done. Everything else I can do when I'm offshore, just everyone get off my boat. Let me go. It's time. I just got to be out there. And there's something, there's just like, you're calling. And so me standing on the dock saying goodbye to everyone, I had wanted to do that the month before.

43:47And then I still had to wait for my race start. And so I was super ready. And I was enjoying my time in Spain. I love Alcarunia and I love Spain, but I was definitely like, all right, I'm done. I'm ready. Let's go. I will do anything to be out there in the middle of the ocean. It's yeah. She calls to you for sure. Well, you talked about loneliness earlier on. And at one point you describe after you were early in the race, something called the scaries. And you already talked about you're not really fearful of storms and you weren't really fearful of equipment failure. Was it more the realization that you began questioning your own sense of self?

44:38Yes, for sure. There was moments when I felt like the world had been ripped from me. So it was about two weeks after the start, like those 14 days after the start. It's like I was so used to being surrounded by my team. And then all of a sudden, there's no weaning off period. All of a sudden, you're just out from your team. And we did dinners every night together. We knew everything about each other. There's this passionate bond with you and your team. And they care so much about you and the boat and the whole campaign. And then all of a sudden, it's just gone. and I was like wow this is insane and I the scaries is something I know a lot of people actually feel it like the Sunday scaries and it's this anxiety so it wasn't really a fear or anything it's just like this this constant anxiety that's kind of eating you alive a little bit and I missed my family I missed my friends I missed my team and the way that I actually got through that was one, my mother told me like in just so many words to suck it up.

45:44And she's good at that. She's my like strong rock in my life. And she was like, this is what you've wanted to do for so long. Just you're in it. Enjoy it. And then two, I needed to start looking outside. I needed to start participating with nature. The same that we talked at the beginning of this interview. Like participating in nature makes everything feel more predictable, which also helps anxiety. Looking outside and reading the clouds was just so beautiful for me. And I'm glad that I was able to actually take those moments and just watch the world go round. And that really calmed everything.

46:27Doing little bits of exercise, because a lot of sailing is sitting, you're doing a lot of upper body work but not very much with your legs like actually forcing you to stand up and do leg exercises and keep your body moving make your food drink your water take care of yourself there's no one there to be like oh don't worry about it i know you're depressed a little bit i'll just make you food or oh i'll just go out to dinner no that doesn't exist there's nothing out there if you're depressed it is like all right we gotta buckle up and handle this because this is going to be a really long race if we don't.

47:01And you can make yourself totally crazy out there. Or you can learn to truly love yourself and feel these feelings and then not be afraid of them and understand what your mind is telling you. Our minds with different hormones and different thoughts and our environment is always telling us negative things. and it's not silencing the negative things. It's just understanding that your brain is doing this and different ways that you can try to deal with it because the negative thoughts go away. They never go away. They just get taken over with the positive things. And if you can learn not to be afraid of the negative, the positive comes back even better.

47:49For me, sailing has always been a mindfulness exercise. Even those days where it really sucks and you've got no wind at all and you're just sitting there baking in the sun. I still, like you said, reading the clouds, the waves, in that case, they're not too many waves, but you're still reading the body of water. But more, I'm looking at the birds. I'm paying attention to the smells, the sounds that the boat makes. And there comes a point, I think, that you stop consciously sailing. You're no longer thinking about every sheet or every sail adjustment. At least that's how it is for me. You start feeling the boat.

48:33And to me, it's like the boat starts communicating through their motion, their sounds, the pressure on the helm, the noise that the jib is making. And I wondered, like when you were out there on that trip, did it feel you were not only sailing, but you were starting to feel like a partner in some ways? First light and I became very close. You're in solitary confinement for a very long time. But describe that because a person who's not a sailor or not a boater is going to hear this and be like, she's talking about a boat. What is she talking about? Yeah, it's a little hard to describe. I think that's actually what the whole premise of the book is me trying to figure out how to describe the beautiful relationship that I had with her.

49:23That's why I named the book First Light, because after I wrote the whole book, which it's my memoir, but it became almost a love story to First Light more than just this. It was really, it's a story about my life but you can't really have my life without her and so it is more of a love story towards her and yes she's an inanimate object so that doesn't make a lot of sense to most people but the relationship that I had with her was because she saw everything in me the good the bad the ugly and she still sailed right along and she had this just this beautiful generous way of of handling me, which I know that sounds totally crazy to say out loud, but it's hard to explain sitting in a chair, talking through a computer, but it's one of those feelings where I always had a hard time with humans growing up.

50:21Like I had friends, but not like the closest of friends. But with her, it was like falling in love with my own self-conscious, which as most people grow up, they don't really love themselves and they have a hard time with being able to truly believe themselves for who they are. And First Light was holding up a mirror to me and a good mirror. And she was showing me like, hey, you can do anything and you can really make anything happen. And I think it's super important for people to hear that it's not, But it doesn't have to be a boat. It doesn't, this could be anything. This could be just your dog or this could be your daughter or your son.

51:10This doesn't have to be just a boat of some sorts. But also what made First Light really amazing was that I got the opportunity to spend so much time with her completely alone. And so there's no distractions. There's nobody there who's got a different vibe and bringing on different energies onto the boat. It's fully predictable and under control, your little 40-foot space. And that's also, I recommend it to anybody. If you're really struggling with something, I recommend having some alone time. Just be careful with that alone time because sometimes it will make you go crazy. You have to get over the hump.

51:49And the hump was that the 14 days of me pretty much going crazy. And then after the 14 days, I was like, okay, this is actually really wonderful. And I need to enjoy this because it's actually really cool that I get to experience this. So I think almost every listener knows Everest and they know how difficult and how elusive it is for people to climb Everest. To put that in perspective for a sailor approaching Cape Horn is like the sailors Everest, except But there are far few sailors who actually cross Cape Horn than there are people who climb Everest. And if I understand it, here you're approaching Cape Horn, you're racing for this remarkable finish, and then there are two massive weather systems that force you to make a decision.

52:40You can either go for the win or you protect the boat. And you chose the boat. And I asked you that question before this so people could understand why. I chose the boat. I chose myself. I really wanted to just, with First Light, she is a tank, and we talked about that before. But there's also a moment when you have to understand that she still has weaknesses. And the same way us as humans, we believe that we are super strong, but we still have our kryptonite. And I knew in that instance, when I call in the book, these two storms that are coming down kind of hunting me, I call them thing one and thing two.

53:20And they were a thing. And you're right, the decision, there was a really crazy tactical decision of, okay, well, do I push through as hard as possible, go for the win? Or do I kind of take giant detours and a giant, like 200 mile detours to avoid this storm, these two storms? And I made the decision. And you have to almost sit in silence with yourself and be like, oh, I've been racing so hard for this whole time. And now I absolutely know it's impossible for me to win this race. There's no way for me to win it. And I didn't cry. I didn't get upset. Because I knew that protecting First Light was like my main priority.

54:05And because she's my baby. She's my everything. We always say that the boat is your first life raft. Your life raft that's sitting on the back of the boat, that's your second life raft. If you're getting into the actual life raft that's there, that's a big no-no. Your first life raft is your vessel and she's your trusty steed. She's your horse. She's your companion. And choosing to...

54:34That was a no-brainer, to be completely honest. That was such a no brainer for me because she was my best friend. Yeah. I think the question that really struck me as I was reading was what I've experienced offshore is it's completely different than you because for me, no matter how difficult the conditions get, there's always been someone else on the boat, someone to take the helm, someone to help troubleshoot someone to simply say, I need help. You didn't have that. What is the psychological weight like of literally knowing there's no one coming to relieve you? You have to make these decisions.

55:20You have to live with the consequences. I didn't think about it too much. That sounds terrible, but I think I'm a naturally morbid person. I talk about death in my everyday experience. And I talk about my own death and other people's death. And I think that just comes from my parents were really open about these things. They didn't want us to fear it because, oh, you're going to lose your grandparents one day and you'll lose us one day. And so it was quite a normal conversation. So I think being brought up with the family that I have, they did try to preemptive me like in this world. And I think I always knew, okay, well, if something goes wrong, we can't be scared of death.

56:04We're just going to have to, we're going to have to run out of the problem and do our steps. So we had come up with steps for almost everything. Okay. Well, if you lose your leg, okay, step one, step two, step three, what's your steps? And we did that with medical. We did that with the electrical system, the rigging, and we did it with like composite. So if we got a hole in the bow, what's the step wise? We went through all these different things where it takes away a little bit of the emotional side when something really bad goes wrong. And I think that's super important is that when something goes wrong, you need to take the emotional side out of it because it does cloud your judgment a lot of times.

56:41And you have to turn into a robot. Like I'm a Gemini. And so I am fully, I live two different lives. I have the fully emotional, lovey, fun, soft human. And then my other side is robotic and it's hard and it's very linear and very organized and strict. And I swim through these two different personalities that are, that kind of embrace me. And I think that's actually quite lucky to have when you're sailing solo, because you're not just sailing with one person. At least you have two different personalities you can kind of grab onto. Something goes wrong. Okay. I've got personality number two. Okay.

57:21It's a beautiful sunset. Okay. I got personality number one. That sounds crazy to say out loud, but. I did want to ask you a couple of things. Valentine's Day, that experience was one of my favorite moments of the book because it seems like you are celebrating the person who's carried you to the starting line and now further. Can you explain what happened to give the listeners some perspective? so I had spent every holiday on the boat I spent Halloween Thanksgiving Christmas New Year's and then I got to Valentine's Day and at this point I had rounded Cape Horn which is like the pinnacle of sailing I had stressful experiences in the southern ocean and then I get around and it's like the sun came out and it's so beautiful and it was almost like time to truly feel gratitude to what had happened in my whole life and the people that had really made my whole experience in the campaign and throughout my whole life really enjoyable.

58:27And a lot of them had been women. And First Light is also another woman that was in my life that was quite amazing. And so I celebrated that Valentine's Day and I said, okay, happy Galentine's Day. And I gave it out to all the amazing women that have made my life fabulous, like all the women on my team, my mother, and then also First Light. And I really in that, it was a social media post that I had put out almost like a gratitude post. And it was super fun for me, because I felt like it was a little bit of a release, like all this pent up anxiety and things that I've been holding on to. And it was like, no, this is such a beautiful moment.

59:10I really need to enjoy it. And I need to feel gratitude to the people who have allowed me to be here and be here successfully and in a good spirit. And then the other moment I really loved was you've just sailed 27 ,000 miles and most people would be sprinting towards the finish line. And instead you purposely slow the boat so that first light could cross the line at first light. Why was that moment so important for you? we had a tradition throughout the whole campaign where i kept on leaving at first light i was coming into different like when i would bring first light places we always arrive and it was coincidental and then when i was getting close to the finish line there was a moment of okay we should probably come in at first light because at that point i was about to hit the finish line at round one in the morning or something like that.

1:00:09And my whole team was like, now my whole team was so on board with, okay, we've got to come in at first light. There was no excuse. They were like, you have to come in at first light. It makes sense. It ties a bow on the whole beautiful campaign that we had all just done. And the whole team was so passionately committed to the team. and I think they knew this is what we have to do. We should just slow down a little bit and just kind of live in this moment, which I still, the only regret I have is that I would have loved just to take the boat and go grab onto a mooring and just sleep for a couple hours.

1:00:50And that's still to this day, I'm still upset about it. And everyone, all my friends and the whole team always told me, no, no, no, you did the right thing. It was good. You did the interviews, grabbed the opportunity. and I still am upset about it. I'm still a little resentful about that because I really just wanted to enjoy that morning. I wanted to have a moment to just sleep on first light completely alone for one last time. Not moving, not having to worry about boats or traffic or running over fishing pots or whatever else. Just truly enjoying her company. She used to make this amazing sound when, I don't speak about this in the book, but maybe I should have, when she's just on a mooring, she has this amazing sound that's these popping bubbles.

1:01:35It's just the hole just barely touches the surface of the water and then lifts back up. And it makes this little bit of a popping, crackling sound. And the first light is so thin, her fiberglass is quite thin. And so the sound is, it's such a gentle little echo through the whole cabin. And I should have wrote that in the book, the things you think after the fact, but that's what I was craving. I was craving one final beautiful moment with first light before I was like thrust into 30 hours of crazy interviews with every news station. And my whole world got flipped upside down and I must've looked wide-eyed and exhausted trying to figure out my life after that.

1:02:25And I'm going to bring us to a close here soon. I just wanted to ask about today. So right now, I'm talking to you in France. You're preparing for one of the premier campaigns in the world, and you're building towards what many sailors consider to be the Super Bowl of offshore sailing. Take us to you today. Like how have, did those 130 days of sailing alone prepare you for this dream you're accomplishing now? Honestly, it's going around the planet solo. The second that I had hit land, I had said I would go back out like the next day. And so no questions asked, I would get back on the boat and I would go around the planet again because it is such a wonderful experience.

1:03:14I think everyone should experience something like that. It doesn't have to be around the world, but just a little solo journey is it's something so cleansing and so pure and beautiful and something most of us will never get the opportunity. And so I'm so unbelievably grateful for that. And so I immediately went back to work to try to do it again. So I work for a team right now, an ocean race team. And what that means is that we will go around the planet in January and I'm doing it fully crewed. So there's four of us on board. It's a 60 foot boat instead of 40 feet. We're foiling now, which is a crazy way of saying that we're flying.

1:03:53And it's this totally crazy new experience. I am way over my head. There's many days that I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel like I don't know how to sail anymore. And it's completely such a big challenge, but honestly going around the planet solo and feeling that challenge is the drive that I feel to do this is that now I'm working outside of my comfort zone with a crew. We'll do stops on the next around the world race. And I I'm the The challenge of it is what makes it so fun and what makes every day, every day I feel like I'm getting a little bit closer to knowing who I actually am.

1:04:41But the soul around the world was just the start of figuring out who I actually am. I love that. And since we're hearing kids in the background, one final question. If one of the girls who's trying to bang on your window, let's just say she's a 14-year-old girl. I don't know how old she is, but let's say a 14 year old girl came up to you today and said, Cole, I want your life. What's the first thing you'd tell her that probably isn't the most obvious? I would tell her that it's not easy, but it will be the best decision that you ever make in your life. And if you put your head down hard and you work as hard, you show up early and you leave late, you can do anything that your heart desires.

1:05:30And whether or not that's with pro sailing, shore crew, if you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, or if you want to change your mind completely and be an astronaut, anything is possible. And it's just when people tell you, oh, you can't do that, or there's no way that's possible. You just have to look at them and say, Yeah. Okay. Just watch me. I love it. Well, Cole, it was such an honor to have you on the show today. People want to learn more about you, your journey, everything else. I know you're very active on social media. Where are the best places they can go? So they can follow me on Instagram.

1:06:06I'm mainly on Instagram and Facebook, Cole Brower Ocean Racing. And those are my main platforms. And then if you're interested in pre-ordering. The book launches September 15th officially, but you can pre-order it if you just type into Google Cole Brower and First Light Penguin. The publisher is Penguin Random House. And I just finished the audio book last week and I'm super excited because I'm dyslexic and that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my whole life. Guess what? I just finished the audio book last week too. You did? I did. This is my second one. And man, by the time I was so glad I had the lessons learned from the first one, this right here is the most important thing, throat coat.

1:06:50Because man, after a while, it hurts so bad. Oh my God. I had the same thing. I was dying. I was dying. I couldn't drink coffee because it made my mouth like make this horrible sounds. And oh, it is so hard. I loved it because I love challenges, but oh my God, that's off to the professionals. Honestly. They're killing it because, and I love a good audio book, but wow, they do a killer job. I hope my book is anywhere even close to how they're doing theirs. I'm sure it will be. Cole, such a joy to have you. Thank you so much for joining us and giving us this honor. Thank you so much for having me.

1:07:30It's so fun. Thanks, John. I hope Cole's story reminded you that adaptation isn't always about becoming something different. Sometimes it's about discovering what you're capable of when everything familiar gets stripped away. Cole had to learn to trust herself in some of the most difficult and isolated circumstances imaginable. And I think that's one of the questions at the heart of the adaptive human. How do we continue becoming without losing ourselves in the process? We've explored how our environments shape us, how agency gives us the power to act, and how adaptability helps us navigate uncertainty.

1:08:07But there's another part of adaptation we haven't explored yet, our relationship with ourselves. Because sometimes the person standing in the way of our growth isn't the person we need to become. It's the version of ourselves we've been trying so hard to hide. And that's where we're going next. On Thursday, I'm joined by Dr. Marissa Franco, author of the new book, Worth, the new science of self-esteem and secure attachment. Marissa and I had a fascinating conversation about why some of the things we think should make us feel better, things like compliments, achievement, positive affirmations, can actually make us feel worse when they don't match the way we see ourselves.

1:08:50We talk about the memories that shape our self-esteem, why we sometimes perform versions of ourselves that don't feel authentic, and why healing may have less to do with becoming a better version of yourself than learning to listen to the parts of yourself you've learned to ignore. I think you're gonna love this conversation. People with low self-esteem prefer to interact with someone who sees them more negatively because if you see them too positively, they're like, you're gonna figure out who I really am. There's all this anxiety. I don't trust you. I don't believe you. If we struggle with our worth, we can have the greatest love of our lives.

1:09:24We can have the successful career, but all of it slides off of us because it doesn't resonate with our sense of self and thus we can't actually internalize it. Until then, remember, adaptation isn't just about changing how you face the world. Sometimes it's about changing how you relate to yourself. I'm John Miles. And as always, stay curious, stay intentional, and stay passion-struck.

1:09:58Thank you.