10/26/2022
Can you remember one sentence that drove you to achieve a goal in life? I can. “You’re not smart enough to be here.”
That sentence is what my professor said to me as they physically took my lab notebook filled with 18 months of my experiments out of my hands, then asked me to hand over the key to their laboratory. Then, they kicked me out with only one semester left to earn my master’s degree.
I sat in my graduate advisor’s office, not knowing what was next in my life. Then, finally, he said, “well, you’re good with computers. There is a new emerging field called bioinformatics where you write code to analyze DNA sequencing.” He was right. After my first coding class, I fell in love with writing code.
On the day of my Ph.D. graduation, I was excited to see one specific professor in the front row, the person who told me I didn’t belong on that stage. That professor now had a front-row seat to witness one of my earliest lessons in resilience. I never broke eye contact with them as the professors who did believe in me, taught and led me toward my goal placed my doctoral hood over my head.
Most of us entrepreneurs have a story like this. We find a way to turn “failure” into an opportunity to learn and adapt. I knew I had a goal to obtain my Ph.D. I didn’t know how I’d get there, but my motivation to reach my goal never wavered. Go to https://www.startengine.com/offering/pherdal?variant=a to see the next goal I’m chasing with PherDal Fertility Science, Inc.
I love hearing stories of people overcoming challenges and demonstrating resilience. What is one moment in your life that drove you to accomplish something?
