With all the focus on success it’s easy to overlook the valuable lessons we can learn from the more difficult parts of our journey. Below, you’ll find some very interesting insights from some of the most fascinating members of the community.
Godwin Bortey
Suffering taught me patience, discipline, and perspective — things success can’t teach you. When you’re in the middle of the storm, you start to see what’s real and what’s not. You learn who you are when there’s no applause, no spotlight, just you and your purpose. For me, those moments built character. They made me appreciate the process — not just the wins. Read more>>
Pauline Victoria
Suffering taught me that there is strength in surrender. Success often tells us to push harder, do more, and control the outcome—but suffering invites us to let go. When I was 15, I reached a breaking point. I was tired of fighting against my reality, of wishing I was someone else or that my life looked different. Read more>>
Erika Quiroz
Suffering taught me humility, resilience, and perspective, which success cannot. It striped me away the illusion of control that success can foster, revealing a person’s true strength by forcing me to confront hardship and find inner resources. Read more>>
Clare Gray
Suffering teaches us what success never could — but only once we stop being its victim and start looking for its gift. From age seven to sixty-four, I was allergic to all animals. That’s fifty-seven years of staying away from creatures I passionately loved. Fifty-seven years of turning down invitations from friends because they had a dog or cat. Read more>>
Zaidi
Suffering taught me stillness and patience. It taught me that actual suffering is the lack of awareness. Not just awareness as a general concept, but self awareness through struggle, to then understand humans as a whole. When I did my first interview with you, I was in that season. I am now a much quieter, slower individual. Read more>>
Kase
Suffering taught me that success doesn’t come without it they’re a pair. You have to be willing to feel the worst to experience the best. It’s like after the rain comes the rainbow and the sun, something beautiful always follows what’s perceived as darkness or suffering. It’s all necessary, and it creates its own kind of beauty. Read more>>
Nick Flook
If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. Nobody is amazing at anything right away. You must fail countless times to fully understand how something works. Its all part of the process. There are no shortcuts to becoming incredible at something. I wish more young people would understand this and not give up so easily if something doesnt immediately go their way. Read more>>
Christopher Worth
Grit. Determination. You have to prove yourself to the art by being willing to give all of yourself to it and continually let go of your expectations of what you get back. The process teaches you to love the mystery of life. Read more>>
Kayissa Green
Adversity has taught me the value of resilience. Adversity has taught me that setbacks are temporary and do not dictate the ultimate outcome. Adversity has taught me the importance of perseverance and trying again. These are valuable lessons that initial success cannot provide. Read more>>
Farheen Zahid
Suffering taught me everything that success never could. It stripped life down to its most human form — raw, fragile, and honest. Before all this, success for me meant progress, promotions, and ticking goals off my list. But living with paralysis changed that entirely. Read more>>
Tyler Keye
Chris and I both grew up facing different struggles, and honestly, those experiences shaped us in ways success never could. For me, those struggles taught me more about grace than any success ever could. Even in the darkest moments, when I felt at my lowest, I know it was only God who brought me through. Read more>>
Adithyakiran PB
Suffering taught me that hard work and never giving up are the keys to growth While success can be rewarding it’s the struggles that truly test your dedication strengthen your resolve and show you what it really takes to achieve your dream Read more>>
Montez Brown-Mobley
Suffering teaches you lessons that success will never teach you. The intricate details you learn through the suffering process, but when you succeed you never really learn the small reasons why. You learn things like this in sports the more you excel. From shooting a basketball the correct way or throwing a pitch in baseball. Read more>>
Erin Grimm
Some of the most defining moments in my journey have come through struggle. Those seasons have taught me lessons that success never could. When everything is easy, it’s simple to keep moving forward, but when things fall apart, that’s where the real growth happens. I’ve learned that suffering isn’t something to run from; it’s something to learn from. Read more>>
TeNari Parker
Suffering taught me patience, resilience, and humility. Things success could never teach. It showed me how to find strength in stillness, gratitude in struggle, and faith when nothing made sense. While success feels good, suffering shaped my character and reminded me that growth often happens in silence, not celebration. Read more>>
Hannah Cole
I’m a great teacher because I’ve screwed everything up. I’m not teaching tax literacy from a place of superiority, I’m teaching from a place of having been so confused, so dismissed, and so deeply in trouble. I’m not here to judge, I’m here to show people that if a screw-up like me can get organized and on top of taxes, that you can, too. Read more>>
Nelia McNicol
The resilience i have built through suffering has served as my greatest weapon. I also hate to sound cliche but as an actress the spectrum of experiences i have gone through have served my actress in wonderful ways that my imagination never could. As an actress you are living truthfully in imaginary circumstances so having a well of life experience within really helps my artist. Read more>>
Leslie Witter
One thing I’ve learned through the struggles of starting a business is the necessity of taking care of yourself and filling your own cup. Read more>>
Suzanne Borders
Success doesn’t really teach you much. Suffering, or, more accurately, failure, is the great teacher. People who succeed from the jump are extremely handicapped in that they never learn how to push through challenges and how to continue through setbacks, both of which are inevitable facts of life. Read more>>
Steve Ramona
That when you fail it is not a failure. It is the next step in the journet where ever that takes you. Read more>>
Carlos Wallace
I learned that suffering exposes the truth about who you are and what you value. I will never forget one of the most painful experiences in my promotion/production career. I had organized a comedy show in Tyler, Texas that I believed would be a major success. I put my heart, time, and money into it. Read more>>
Krissy G
Be patient and trust gods timing . Remain focused and humble . What is written for you will always be for you and even when you can’t see it hang in there and stay patient because better days are gonna come . Read more>>
Sehrish Ali
Suffering taught me how to sit with the parts of life that don’t have quick fixes or clean endings. Success often celebrates what’s polished the outcomes, the achievements but suffering pulls you into the raw, unfiltered spaces where growth actually happens. It taught me empathy in a way success never could. Read more>>
Jenna Benn Shersher
Suffering stripped away everything superficial and left me face-to-face with what mattered most: connection, creativity, and compassion. When I was diagnosed with cancer in my late twenties, I lost control over my body, my plans, and my sense of safety. But in that unraveling, I discovered a more profound truth—that vulnerability is not weakness, it’s the birthplace of empathy and innovation. Read more>>
Heather Elizabeth Neary
Wow…what a brilliant question. I feel the presence of a BELOVED Ancestor, Thich Nhat Hanh, as I lean in to answering this question. Read more>>
Keira Kotler
Suffering has revealed my mental, physical and intellectual strength. I always had a sense that I was strong and could pivot when needed, but I never would have learned how creative, innovative and agile I am had I not endured tough times. Read more>>
Sean Grand
Suffering taught me things that success never could. I went from the top of a tech career to the bottom of the music industry, rebuilding who I am and what I do from the ground up. I did not lose what I had as much as I let go of it to find deeper meaning and connection in my life. That decision changed everything. Read more>>
C. Eric Collier
That’s a really great question, because I often say that the worst thing we could’ve ever learned as a child was, ‘and they lived happily ever after.’ That I believe shapes a mindset of everything is and should be perfect once we decide to complete a specific task or accomplish a specific goal. Read more>>
Tyler Henson
This is one of those things most people don’t really get: suffering is its own language. You have to learn it if you want to actually grow. Most of us do everything we can to avoid it—to numb it, outrun it, pretend it isn’t tapping on the door. But suffering is a teacher. Read more>>
Konn Lavery
Wisdom. Failure and suffering are the best methods for learning to understand. If you are successful all the time, you never grow or change. Suffering is a lot like exercise to me; you need it to be stronger. When I have suffered, I have accepted and gone through the process of misery, grief, or pain. Read more>>
