What happens when something you’ve always identified with is suddenly taken away?
When the role, ability, or sense of certainty you’ve built your life around is gone, who do you become?
For Dr. Brenda Lau, this question became deeply personal following thyroid cancer surgery.
An anesthetist and pain specialist, Brenda had built her career around communication, caring for patients and helping others navigate difficult experiences. But complications from surgery damaged her vocal cords, leaving her unable to speak.
Without her voice, she was forced to reconsider almost everything she had taken for granted.
I sat down with Brenda to talk about rebuilding her life after a profound setback. We discussed everything from how to challenge the beliefs that no longer serve us to moving forward when fear and self-doubt are still in the room.
Here are my 6 biggest takeaways from the conversation.
1. Question the box you’re living in
One of Brenda’s central ideas is that we can become trapped by the assumptions we make about ourselves and what is possible.
She describes these assumptions as a box: a collection of beliefs, expectations, and limitations that shape how we see the world.
Some come from our upbringing, culture, or past experiences. Others develop through repetition, until we stop questioning whether they are actually true.
The problem is that we can mistake the boundaries of our current experience for the boundaries of our potential.
Brenda believes curiosity is one of the most effective ways to get out of your box. Learn where the edge of your box is, then see what happens when you push up against it.
In real life, that might look like considering a new approach to a problem rather than automatically accepting that something cannot be done.
Every time you try something new, you expand your understanding of what you can do. Even if the experience doesn’t turn out as expected, you’ve challenged an existing belief and created an opportunity to learn.
As Brenda says, “Once stretched, you can’t unstretch.”
This is especially important when life changes in ways you didn’t choose. A setback might take away one version of your identity, but it doesn’t mean your capacity to grow has disappeared.
2. Seek challenge, not endless comfort
Most of us are constantly pursuing comfort.
When we’re going through a stressful time, we desperately want to eliminate all the stressors so that life calms down and “gets back to normal.” We assume that the fewer problems we have, the happier we will be.
But Brenda suggests that the human brain doesn’t necessarily thrive when everything is easy.
Imagine having all the money in the world and spending your days lying on a beautiful beach. It might feel like paradise at first, but Brenda argues that before long, you would probably get bored.
Why?
Because the brain is designed to learn, solve problems, and adapt. We need opportunities to develop our capabilities and experience progress.
Brenda uses the term anti-fragility to describe this process. While resilience is about getting through difficult experiences, anti-fragility means becoming better through them.
We often feel our greatest fulfillment when facing a challenge just beyond our current abilities.
She specifically explains that if the gap is too large, we will feel overwhelmed, and this will be counterproductive. However, when something stretches us without exceeding our capacity entirely, we can enter a state of focus, engagement, and growth.
In other words, there is a difference between pushing yourself to your limits and pushing yourself beyond your limits.
So rather than always choosing the easiest option, consider where you could introduce a little more challenge into your life.
Perhaps that looks like learning a new skill, taking on a project that feels slightly intimidating, or trying a different approach to something you’ve been struggling with.
3. Keep developing your body and your mind
Brenda is passionate about challenging the belief that aging automatically means becoming weaker, less mobile, or less capable.
At 47, despite being active, she discovered she had osteopenia. This prompted her to investigate women’s bone health and rethink her approach to exercise.
She began incorporating resistance training, increasing her protein intake, and disrupting long periods of sitting. By changing her approach to movement, she has begun reversing her osteopenia.
Her experience demonstrates that something becoming more challenging with age doesn’t make it impossible.
Instead of accepting you’re becoming weaker or less capable, start tending to your body more. Just like a garden thrives when you tend to it, so does your body.
Another thing we can actively develop and strengthen is our mind.
Brenda describes the subconscious as a vast, largely untapped resource. Through neuroplasticity, our brains can form and strengthen connections as we learn and repeat new behaviors.
This means personal development doesn’t have to stop at a certain age. We can continue expanding our creativity, understanding our emotions, and discovering new ways of thinking.
4. Recognize when comfort is costing you capability
An interesting part of Brenda’s conversation is her observation that modern convenience can sometimes come at a cost.
Our bodies naturally seek to conserve energy by finding the path of least resistance. Technology and convenience make many aspects of life easier, but when we rely on them too heavily, we can gradually lose capabilities we once took for granted.
Prolonged sitting is an excellent example.
Chairs are useful, comfortable, and sometimes necessary, but spending much of the day sitting can reduce how frequently we move our joints through their full range of motion.
Her question, which also features in her TEDx talk, is simple: “Are you disrupting your sitting time today?”
Could you walk somewhere instead of driving? Take the stairs? Stand up regularly throughout the working day? Spend more time outdoors?
5. Bring your fear and self-doubt along for the journey
One of Brenda’s most reassuring insights is that personal growth doesn’t require eliminating fear.
She explains that we all have multiple internal voices. Some are protective, trying to prevent us from experiencing rejection, failure, or disappointment. Others are more ambitious, curious, and willing to take risks.
When we consider doing something unfamiliar, the protective voice might immediately respond: You’re not good enough. Who do you think you are? Why would you even attempt something that big?
It’s easy to listen to these thoughts and let them create self-doubt. But Brenda argues that you can listen to them without letting them dictate what happens next.
Brenda experienced fear and uncertainty throughout her cancer journey, but she gradually learned that she could move forward without waiting for those feelings to disappear.
So she decided to acknowledge those parts of herself and bring them along, without letting them take the steering wheel. She describes reassuring her protective voice: “You’re on my team. Don’t worry, you’re not left behind.”
6. Change the words that shape your experience
The biggest mic-drop moment for me during my conversation with Dr. Brenda Lau was when she explained how “Our words change our biology.”
The words we use influence our actions, and our actions shape the environments and relationships around us. The stories we tell ourselves affect how we interpret experiences, respond to emotions, and make decisions.
This doesn’t mean we can control everything that happens to us, or directly instruct our bodies to behave in a particular way. Brenda is clear that much of our biology operates independently of our conscious control.
But our words can still influence how we respond and what we do next.
For her, this understanding began in childhood. Looking back on a difficult upbringing, she recalls realizing that the one thing she could influence was the words in her own head.
That realization becomes a starting point for change.
As she puts it, “Everything we’ve created here on this amazing dot of Earth has come from someone’s mind. And if you are driving the direction of your life with intentional words rather than just random, monkey mind words, things will unfold in ways that surprise you.”
Ready to become unstuck?
These are just a few of the insights I gained from sitting down with Dr. Brenda Lau. I invite you to listen to the full interview, where we dive deeper into questioning our assumptions, embracing challenges, and continuing to grow as human beings throughout our lives.
You can watch it here:
I’ll leave you with this question:
What’s one assumption or self-imposed limit you’d like to challenge, and what small step could you take to move beyond it?
Leave your answer in the comments below.
Resources:
- Brenda’s course, Becoming Unstuck: https://brendalaumd.com/becomingunstuck
- Dr. Brenda Lau on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendalaumd/
- Dr. Kim on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimfoster
- Join me inside The Big Ambition Club: https://www.skool.com/the-big-ambition-club-5688/about
