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

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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John R. Miles (1:21)

What happens when you hit rock bottom? When someone tells you you're too small, when you're cut from the team, when the dream you've sacrificed everything for suddenly feels like it's slipping away. Most people would take that as a sign to stop. Cole Brauer took it as a sign to keep going.

She was told she was too small to compete in the Southern Ocean.

And years later, she was sailing solo around the world.

And when I asked her what she tells herself when everything falls apart, her answer stopped me. Take a listen.

Cole Brauer (1:59)

When you hit rock bottom is exactly what I need to go back up. While I'm at the bottom, all I can do is go up. I can't really go any lower. 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.

John R. Miles (2:16)

Hey, it's your friend John and welcome to Passion Struck. I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're a long time listener or someone who just discovered the show, thank you for pressing play today.

Maybe you've built the life you were supposed to want, but you've quietly wondered why it still doesn't feel like enough.

If that's you, you're in the right place. Every week I sit down with the world's top scientists, researchers and thinkers to uncover what it actually takes to build an intentional life that matters. Thanks for joining me. Let's get into it.

Welcome back to Passion Struck. This is episode 820, and we're continuing our series, The Adaptive Brain, How We Thrive in a Changing World. Over the past conversations, we've been looking at adaptation from very different angles. Angela Duckworth challenged us to look beyond grid and recognize how profoundly the people, places, and situations around us shape who we become. Then, Dr. Marty Seligman took us deeper into the question of agency. The belief that our actions can actually make a difference. And last Thursday, David Epstein helped us to rethink what it means to adapt in an unpredictable world.

But there's a point where ideas stop becoming theories. They have to be lived. So what happens when adaptation isn't something you can talk about in a book or study in a laboratory? What happens when you're thousands of miles from land, completely alone, and the decisions you make have consequences you can't escape? That's where today's conversation takes us.

My guest is Cole Brauer, and her story is extraordinary. Cole became the first American woman to race solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world. She spent more than 130 days at sea, covering roughly 27,000 nautical miles aboard her 40-foot sailboat, First Light. But what makes Cole's story so compelling isn't simply the achievement. It's everything that came before it. Cole wasn't born into sailing. She didn't grow up believing this was the path her life could take. She tried different identities, changed directions, moved across the country, lived in a van, taught herself the systems of a boat, and repeatedly found herself in situations where other people told her she didn't belong. At one point, she was cut from a team and told she was too short for the Southern Ocean.

A year later, she was sailing around the world alone. And that brings us back to one of the deepest questions we've been exploring throughout this series. Who do we become when the circumstances around us tell us that we can't? Cole's story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the world doesn't immediately reflect back what we're capable of. Sometimes you have to believe it before anyone else does. And sometimes you have to get in the boat and find out. I am so excited for you to hear this conversation with Cole Brauer. Let's dive in. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.