The Ring Layer: Stop Fighting Your Season
Your Seasonal Growth
Like tree rings, each layer of an onion marks a season of growth. Which season shaped you most profoundly?
Here's the thing about onion rings (aside from being delicious when breaded and fried) - they don't all form the same way. Some grow thick during abundant seasons, others thin during drought years. Each ring tells a story, and right now, you're living in one of those rings.
But here's what nobody talks about: most of us are fighting the season we're actually in.
I'm writing this deep in entrepreneurial summer - Tony Robbins' framework that's stuck with me for years. You know the drill: Spring is planting and growth, Summer is work and challenges, Fall is harvest and rewards, Winter is preparation and reflection. Right now, I'm sweating through the Summer grind with my tech company, trying to make momentum while Bitcoin rallies to $118K and everyone else seems to be sipping cocktails in Europe.
Five years in, three years of playing the long game while everyone else seems to be cashing out. Prospects love our stuff, then ghost us. Investors get "gung-ho" then disappear on vacation just when we need decisions. The cosmic joke of the Summer season: you're working your ass off while watching everyone else's Instagram stories from Santorini.
And here's where I was getting it wrong - I kept trying to force Fall to happen.
I'd stare at my laptop, asking ChatGPT and Claude increasingly desperate questions, convinced that if I just asked the right prompt, some AI would analyze all my talents and punch out the perfect solution. The magical "aha!" moment that would skip me straight to harvest season.
But that's just adding layers to the onion, isn't it? More synthetic input, more overwhelm, more distance from the actual work that needs doing. I was planting frantically when I should have been tending to what's already growing.
The season you're in right now isn't wrong - you are.
Not wrong as a person, wrong in your approach. You're trying to plant when you should be harvesting, or harvest when you should be building roots, or rest when you should be working. The resistance isn't coming from the season - it's coming from your fight against it.
When I stopped comparing my entrepreneurial Summer to everyone else's vacation Fall, something shifted. Yeah, I'm in the grind while others are in their harvest phase. So what? Their timing isn't my timing. Their season isn't my season.
This "stuck" feeling? It's not stuckness. It's root-building. While I'm waiting for clients to return from vacation and key decision-makers to get back from the Hamptons, I'm not actually waiting. I'm refining. Using these AI tools to make my current websites sharper, more niche, more ready for when Fall actually comes.
And here's the kicker - it's literally Summer outside. Before I got lost in the entrepreneurial hustle, I used to love summers. Sun, water, and bike rides with my family. Why am I treating the season like a prison sentence?
Your current season isn't something to survive - it's something to maximize.
Maybe you're in Spring, overwhelmed by all the new growth and thinking you should already be harvesting. Maybe you're in Winter, beating yourself up for resting when everyone else seems busy. Or maybe, like me, you're in Summer, grinding away while secretly resentful that it's not Fall yet.
Here's your ring layer reality check:
What season does your life actually feel like right now? Not what it "should" be, not what you wish it was - what it IS. Spring chaos? Summer challenges? Fall rewards? Winter reflection?
What are you trying to force that isn't meant for this season? (For me, it was trying to AI my way to instant clarity instead of trusting the process.)
If you stopped comparing your season to everyone else's timeline, what would you actually be grateful for right now?
What if this "stuck" feeling is just you building the roots for what's coming next?
The ring you're forming right now - this exact season of your life - it's not a mistake. It's not a detour. It's not something to rush through to get to the "good part."
It's the layer that's going to make everything else possible.
Stop fighting your season. Start maximizing it.
Because the most beautiful onions aren't the ones that rushed through their growth rings - they're the ones that fully lived each layer.
What would change if you spent the next week working WITH your current season instead of against it?
Being Coached Layers: Embracing Your Season
This week, Dr. Goodman says, "You're exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing." He delivers a powerful message that resonates deeply with The Ring Layer of The Rebel Onion.
He challenges us to stop forcing outcomes and instead let things happen. In that surrender, our inner rhythm emerges, but only if we pay attention and don't "should all over ourselves" with expectations of what should be. Dr. Goodman encourages gratitude for our current position and to actively "carpe diem" – or seize the day – by telling ourselves, and anyone who listens, "something great about your today." This shift in perspective can profoundly alter how we feel and, ultimately, the results we achieve in our current season.
Bookshelf Peeled - The Little Rock King and Your Season
This week, as we explore The Ring Layer and the season you're currently in, we're reminded of a story that hit me hard while reading a while back from Bill Plotkin's Nature and the Human Soul: The Little Rock King. In this tale, an individual becomes utterly consumed by their small, self-proclaimed "kingdom" on a single rock, meticulously managing every detail and believing it to be their entire world.
The powerful lesson, often brought with tears of recognition, is that this narrow focus prevents them from seeing the vast, interconnected beauty and belonging of the larger landscape they are truly a part of. Just like the Little Rock King, we can become so fixated on forcing our current season to be something it isn't, or controlling every detail of our perceived "ring," that we miss the profound wisdom and purpose inherent in our actual circumstances. The story urges us to release that rigid control, embrace the particularities of our present season – be it a Summer grind, a Winter rest, or a Spring growth spurt – and find our place within the grander, unfolding narrative of our lives. It's an invitation to let go of the "shoulds" and truly live the layer you're forming right now.
Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World. By Bill Plotkin,
Design Rebel: Crafting the Rebel Onion Video
This week's Rebel Onion video lesson is a special one! Crafted with a little help from my AI prompt, voiced by ElevenLabs, brought to life with images and short videos from Leonardo.ai, and edited in Wondershare Filmora (with my own script, of course!). I poured a lot into this one, and I truly hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating it.
Weekly Inspired Insights I liked or found useful this week:
Tony Robbins' mentor, Jim Rohn, has a truly insightful way of describing the seasons, and I've saved the video to start right at 5:16, where he shares that wisdom.
P.S. If this resonates with you, share it with someone. I'm dedicated to helping fellow explorers—or anyone who found this page—uncover their authentic self with humor and insight. We're all in this together, finding the courage to truly live from our core essence (or as close as we can get!).
The Flavor Layer: What Makes You Distinct (Tentative Title)
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