You Are Not Your Past

How your history doesn't define your future, and why every moment is a chance to become who you want to be.

In 1901, a 22-year-old assistant patent clerk in Switzerland was going nowhere fast. He'd been rejected from teaching positions, struggled to find steady work, and was considered by many to be a academic failure. His own father thought he was wasting his life. Just a few years earlier, his professors had told him he'd never amount to anything in physics.

His name was Albert Einstein and he refused to let his early struggles define him. While working his mundane day job examining patent applications, he spent his free time developing ideas that would revolutionize our understanding of the universe. In 1905, his "miracle year," this supposed failure published four papers that changed physics forever, including his theory of special relativity.

Einstein's transformation from overlooked patent clerk to scientific genius didn't happen because he ignored his past struggles. It happened because he chose to see them as preparation, not limitation. His early rejections taught him to think indepe…