10/23/2026
I was at the Your Life Your Terms event last Saturday, it's run by Tom and Nick Karadza who run the Rock Star Inner Circle, a Real Estate Investment Membership in the GTA. It's been a while since I've last attended it and it was great to reconnect with many friends who I've not seen in years.
One of the presentations had an interesting point that stuck with me. It was a quote from the CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang:
"People with very high expectations have very low resilience – and unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you except for... I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering. Greatness comes from character, and character isn't formed out of smart people. It is formed out of people who have suffered."
I recently had a guest on my podcast who had Lyme disease. It impacted his career: he went from almost being a partner at a law firm, to having to take time off to focus on his health, to now rebuilding a new law practice from scratch.
I also mentioned to him how making the transition from my Realtor Team to mortgages was not easy, especially in the last 18 months of running the Realtor business, not being able to pay myself while working harder than I ever have before.
We both shared this sentiment. We both feel grateful for the pain and suffering we experienced.
Through those challenges, I've personally had to take a deep look at my identity, what truly matters to me, and reorient myself in many ways. When things are going well it's easy to confuse our identity with our profession or accomplishments, and when those are stripped away from us do we have a chance to really reflect who we choose to be and where we gain our confidence and self-worth from.
Now I find that I'm far more present with my family, and ultimately happier now than I was even when my old business was thriving.
He shared the same sentiment, how he's connecting with his 2 boys now far more than he was when his career was at its last peak. And how grateful he is for the connection he has with himself and his family now.
This brings me to some thoughts I've been having as a father, while I want to do my best to support them and help them in their lives, saving up for education, or even simply helping make connections that can help them progress in their career.
Part of their development will simply need to come from facing tough challenges that they need to face on their own. While I can do my best to not make their life harder than it needs to be, ultimately the challenges they face become something precious in their growth and development.
The one comfort that I have is that life will ultimately give them and all of us challenges, especially if we look for an adventure and choose any path that may be out of the norm.
So if you are reading this and are going through a tough time right now, I know it can feel rough at the moment, but there is a chance you may grow and become a different person from having had these challenges.
