The Texture Layer: Why Comfort Kills Your Growth
The Feel of Your Life
Run your fingers across the texture of your life. Is it smooth with comfort or rough with authenticity? Here's the thing: silk feels nice, but rope helps you climb. Most people spend their whole lives choosing silk, wondering why they never get anywhere.
The rebel onion doesn't grow smooth. Each layer has ridges and rough patches that tell the story of real growth. This week, we're exploring how the uncomfortable texture of authentic living beats the numbing smoothness of playing it safe.
The Comfort Trap
Every Friday night at my father's freight company was "flight night"—cargo received, packed, and prepared until midnight or later. I remember working straight through one night and into the next day. When I finally got home, my alarm went off again—same alarm, next day.
The work was hard, demanding, and long. But the texture of that life was predictable in its patterns, certain in its outcomes. I had security, family approval, a clear path forward. The problem wasn't that it was easy—it was that I wasn't growing into who I wanted to become. I was getting really mediocre at something that wasn't me.
I finally had to follow my bliss and find my personal legend. I gave my resignation and told my father I was leaving in October 2013 (my lease was up in my fancy high-rise, and if you're asking, my father took it pretty well). A family member asked, "Why are you doing this now? You have it all here."
I told her, "Please trust in your brother. I have to do this."
When Texture Gets Real
I left the family business—it was a hard decision and scary to take this leap. The confidence I had came from acquiring a big luxury watch company as a design client while still working at my family company. At that time, my design business had a few clients on the side, and now, leaving the family company, I would rely on these new clients and no longer the day job. This gave me the confidence I needed to climb the rope to the next levels of my life.
Life was good until year two, and that big client needed to restructure—overnight, they were gone. Then my other client sold their company. I was lost, in panic mode, still doing all the irresponsible stuff: drinking, womanizing.
The texture of my life had gone from smooth royal comfort to complete chaos, but that chaos was where everything good was about to happen (though, I admit, it involved a long period of lessons ahead).
The Rough Road to Everything
During those chaotic years, I met Dr. Goodman, who coached me through a lot. I needed a change of scenery, and my childhood friend lived in Delray Beach, so I started driving weekends up there to see him. There I met my girlfriend, now wife.
She worked, at the time, at a high-end restaurant in West Palm Beach. One of her patrons talked about a lot of common things that I talked about, and she told him he needed to meet me. We hit it off. Long story short (and more in later newsletters), he introduced me to blockchain. A few startups later, that evolved into our Web3 company.
I was losing everything in Miami—my clients, my apartment. Despite my love for the city I grew up in, it wasn't the same anymore. As Dr. Goodman used to tell me, 'You're never a prophet in your own hometown.' I needed to get out.
So I moved in with my girlfriend in a studio apartment in West Palm Beach. The texture of that life was rough in a different way—uncertain, humbling, but determined with possibility.
The Texture That Teaches
Here's my lesson: smooth comfort zones teach you nothing. They're like silk—nice, but useless for climbing. Real growth happens in the rough patches: the uncertainty, the patience, the depressions, the endless search for answers, the moments everything falls apart.
Leaving my predictable career, I unknowingly walked toward my wife, NET, Dr. Goodman coaching, blockchain, and everything that now matters, including my son. The texture of uncertainty led to discoveries I never planned. Every rough patch—losing clients, panic, hitting rock bottom—created the texture leading to my authentic self. You can't smooth your way to authenticity; you must feel the rough edges, embrace discomfort, and trust that the texture is teaching you.
Your Texture Map
Consider your life's texture now. Are you choosing silk or rope? Are you staying comfortable, or willing to embrace the rough patches that lead to real growth? The Rebel Onion's layers are textured with lived experience, rough with authenticity. Each bump tells a story, each uncomfortable moment creating a texture that leads somewhere unimaginable. Life truly moves you to amazing, unexpected places.
Your texture map isn't about avoiding rough patches—it's about recognizing them as the path, discomfort as the compass, and uncertainty as an invitation to something bigger. What smooth comfort zone are you avoiding? What rope are you refusing to grab? Your authentic life's texture awaits beyond that comfort zone.
The texture of your authentic life is waiting on the other side of that comfort zone. Are you ready to feel it?
What textures in your life have led you to unexpected discoveries?
Reply and tell me about a rough patch that became a breakthrough.
Being Coached Layers: Grace in the Rough
This week, Dr. Goodman says: The definition of courage is grace. You never truly cultivate your courage until you put yourself to the test. Right before the challenge, there's that sense of hesitation, that feeling that it would be smoother, easier to stay where you are. But if you stick with what's smooth and easy, you'll never progress. You'll never truly live the big experiences, like getting married or having a kid.
At the end of the day, your life lived authentically only counts, or truly happens, when you dare to put yourself to the test. It's when you forsake the silk—what's comfortable and familiar—and go for the rough spots, trusting that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Bookshelf Peeled - Resisting the Ego's Old Tricks
This week, I remember the audiobook Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. He perfectly echoes the discomfort required for true growth, urging us to step beyond the smooth facade and into the grit of authentic living.
Gibran reveals, "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked," showing how deep joys emerge from facing life's rough textures. He powerfully warns, "The lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul. And then walks grinning in the funeral." This signifies that choosing "silk"—constant comfort—actively stifles our true purpose. Ultimately, he affirms, "In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness"—a "giant self" found only by embracing life's rough, challenging currents, much like a torrent to the sea.
This week, let Gibran's words be your guide: choose the rope.
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran is a poetic treatise on all facets of life, from everyday realities such as clothing and houses, to questions of love, beauty, and self-knowledge.
Design Rebel: Unleash Your Vision. Break the Mold.
My art inspiration this week is a deep dive into "The Texture Layer," presented in a humorous and heartfelt animation. It shows our Royal Onion confronting his scarred reflection—with a little dancing thrown in! I brought this to life by prompting Leonardo.AI for the visuals and videos, using ElevenLabs for two voices. I wrote the script and edited it all together in Wondershare Filmora. It's weird, but I always like to add humor to the seriousness of personal growth.
Weekly Inspired Insights I liked or found useful this week:
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 Translucent Layer: Seeing Through Yourself (Tentative title)
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