To Be Great, You Have To Surrender To Your Truth

To Be Great, You Have To Surrender To Your Truth

I lost an unhealthy amount of weight, spiraled into a depression, overworked, and was stressed out 99% of the time. Sounds like an easy call to leave right? It wasn’t. ⠀

priscilla-du-preez-sDKzVeIt_Nk-unsplash.jpg

Back in 2012, I was in Cameroon working on my second startup — a nonprofit that helped rural communities fix broken water systems and gain access to clean water. ⠀⠀

I was constantly challenged by the work, got to travel a lot, and connected to so many beautiful people I would not have met otherwise. It was really a dream job for me. ⠀

The first few years were great, but as I hit year 3 and on, it became clear that I wasn’t cut out for the work. ⠀

I love challenging work, I thrive on it. Give me a puzzle in written form, on a physical board or on a climbing wall and I’m game. But with my startup, the puzzle was too hard, to the point it wasn’t stimulating anymore and was mentally, physically, and emotionally draining instead. ⠀⠀

I didn’t take care of myself and lost an unhealthy amount of weight, spiraled into a depression, overworked always, and was stressed out 99% of the time. 

Sounds like an easy call to leave right? ⠀

It wasn’t. ⠀

Despite my internal destruction, I was thriving externally. I won a lot of recognition from major publications and received some awards. My family and friends were really proud of me and put me on a pedestal for doing work that was changing the world. ⠀⠀

I may have changed the world positively in a small way, but I did so at the large price of my life. ⠀⠀

After 6 years of this, I couldn’t do it anymore, I had to surrender to my truth.

My outsides did not match my insides and I was living someone else’s life, faking a happiness that wasn’t my own. ⠀⠀

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s fighting extra hard right now for your business and you don’t want to, ask yourself why you’re finding comfort in going all-in on someone else’s game. 

When you fight for someone else’s truth that isn’t your own, you are bound to lose. 

I don’t care if by every definition you have a dream career you should be grateful for, if you’re not building off your truth, you won’t win any awards for faking it the longest.

And a personal fake out never lasts — the only person who loses is you, and you only elongate your pain by staying. 

We hold ourselves so strongly to the standards of others’ definition of success rather than taking the hard step of being radically honest with ourselves.

To be great at what you do, you have to confront yourself with fear-inducing honesty. Surrender to your truth, no matter how unsavory that truth is to the world around you. ⠀


I help entrepreneurs turn their startup chase into a victory lap every Friday morning — get The Crux in your inbox

Sophia Sunwoo