The Walls Were Holding You In

Dear SUCCESS family,

Everything I’ve ever built has had a wall standing in the middle of it.

Not at the beginning. The initial phase is straightforward. It presents an open road, a clear vision and no obstacles in the path. However, the wall emerges in the middle, where the work ceases to respond to your efforts, and you find yourself standing in the darkness, uncertain if any of it will bear fruit.

That’s where most endeavors are abandoned. Not because they were flawed, but because a wall in the darkness feels like a verdict. Turn back. You were never destined for this. So, we turn, one step short of the crucial part.

But here’s what I’ve learned from running into enough of them: Most of those walls aren’t in front of us. They’re around us. We built them. The work stops responding because we’ve reached the edge of what we let ourselves attempt—the boundary of the person we’ve quietly agreed to stay.

That’s the unspoken truth. You don’t always have the power to choose which of those walls comes down.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, one falls without warning. A limiting belief you’d held for years gives way. A relationship you’d been keeping at arm’s length finally closes the distance. Someone tells you the truth, and the wall you’d been hiding behind is suddenly rubble at your feet. You weren’t prepared. And yet, when the dust settles, you realize it. That wall wasn’t just holding you back, it was holding so many more parts of you in.

Regardless of the situation, the path forward remains the same. You venture into the unknown one honest step at a time, building with everything the wall had been preventing you from experiencing.

Somewhere amid the rubble, I discover gratitude. Not in the moment—that grace takes time to settle. But the walls I tried so hard to scale are the ones I thank for finally collapsing. The honest conversations and the deep soul work opens doors within me that would have stayed sealed forever.

That’s what growth has been for me. Not a smooth ascent but a series of walls—some I chose to dismantle and some that chose me, and behind each one, more of who I was becoming.

So, wherever your wall is today, whether it’s the one you’re breaking down or the one that’s breaking open around you, walk through it. What’s waiting on the other side was always yours.

More soon. I’m glad you’re here,

–Rachel