Jessica Cole

Category: Reflections

  • Our Generation’s Blind Spot

    Our Generation’s Blind Spot

    I wanted to touch on a subject that can be sensitive, but important and increasingly relevant (regardless of your gender):

    Emotional intelligence is not the same as emotional vulnerability.

    Music has been a large presence in my life lately, so to kick things off, here’s a little musical analogy:

    A classically trained musician can read the most complex sheet music. They understand theory, harmony, and can execute a flawless performance of a piece someone else wrote. It’s safe, predictable. But that is a world away from being asked to improvise. For one to step onto the stage with no sheet music and create a melody from scratch, exposing their own ideas with the very real risk of hitting a wrong note.

    The technical knowledge of the scales doesn’t eliminate the visceral, very normal, fear of playing something that isn’t perfect.

    As we have all seen, our generation has become a generation of masters of the self. We have the sheet music. We’ve studied our patterns, we understand generational trauma, we know what a “healthy relationship” is supposed to look like. We have the emotional intelligence.

    But why have we become so good at playing the notes perfectly? It’s not an accident. We are now told to build a career before even thinking about a partner. For safety. We learned the language of therapy, “setting boundaries,” & “protecting our peace”, and sometimes, we use it as a shield. For many of us, especially women, hyper-independence wasn’t a choice. Instead, it was a necessary armor in a world that didn’t always feel safe while being consistently overstimulated. The world has changed, and we’ve borne witness to it.

    We now know the whole song by heart, but we stand frozen on the stage, afraid to play a single note that hasn’t been written for us.

    But here’s the truth that we often forget, one that was hard for me to admit: A flawless performance in an empty hall is a lonely one. A life lived entirely in the safety of hyper-independence is a life half-lived. It keeps out the dissonance, but it also keeps out the incredible, life-altering experiences that can only come from connection. The irony is that in our quest to build an invulnerable self, we risk building a world with no one else in it.

    As cliche as it sounds, love and community are the most important things in this world.

    Mind you, I’m not talking about an “I’d die without you” anxious attachment love, nor a space filler. The goal isn’t codependence, y’all.

    The goal is interdependence. Two musicians choosing to form a duo. Each is a master of their own instrument, but together, they can create a sound more beautiful and complex than either could alone.

    The safety to be out of tune without being seen as a bad musician. It’s the freedom to play your own melody, knowing there is a steady rhythm section to come back to. It’s knowing that when your own fingers get tired, there’s someone willing to play with you for a while. Not because you’re weak, but because they’re strong enough to share the stage.

    The next step for our generation, one that has mastered independence, is to find the courage to finally let go, and to open ourselves up to everything that life has to offer.

    I’m proud of you all, and everything you have overcome.

    A little Toolkit For You

    Here I want to share some exercises that have helped me on my own journey with vulnerability, I hope they may be useful to you as well.

    1. This week, tell one trusted friend one small, real thing you’re struggling with. Not a crisis, just a small crack in your armor. See how it feels to be seen in a moment of imperfection.
    2. The next time someone gives you a genuine compliment, your only job is to say “thank you.” That’s it. Don’t deflect, don’t minimize. Just let the kindness land.
    3. Ask a friend to grab you a coffee, or for their opinion on a minor problem. The goal is to build the muscle of letting someone show up for you, proving that it’s safe to have a need.

    * To be clear, while both 1. & 3. build trust, one teaches you it’s safe to be emotionally seen, and the other teaches you it’s safe to have practical needs. These are two separate and necessary skills to learn.

  • I Traded My 5-Year Plan for a Coffee and Found My Mentors: An Astronaut, a CEO, and a Barista

    I Traded My 5-Year Plan for a Coffee and Found My Mentors: An Astronaut, a CEO, and a Barista

    My life used to be a rigid fortress built from societal expectations. I was the architect, the builder, and the nervous sentry, agonizing over every milestone built from an outdated blueprint. Trying to de-risk a future I couldn’t predict and calculating the opportunity cost of everything I missed. My strategy was control. And it was exhausting.

    The great pivot of my life, as it turned out, wasn’t a dramatic, earth-shattering event. It was a quiet decision, a slow exhale. It was the choice to trade the illusion of control for the power of curiosity. To stop trying to control and predict the future and start paying attention to the person right in front of me. To put down the map and simply start walking, following my strengths, my interests, and the simple, profound magic of saying “yes” to a conversation.

    And what a journey that “yes” has unlocked.

    Now, my life plan is no longer a rigid diagram. It has instead formed a living, ever-shifting world of shared stories. It has embodied the lesson in resilience I learned from a startup founder over espresso in Austin. It’s the perspective on global systems I gained from Fortune 500 executives. It’s the creativity I saw in an artist in a quiet Mexican studio, the disciplined passion of a film director, a boundless view of humanity from an astronaut who has seen our world from above.

    I’ve shared laughter with venture capitalists who bet on people, not just pretty pitch decks. I’ve listened to celebrities who navigate the chasm between their public persona and private self. I’ve learned about community from a cafe owner who knows every regular’s name and story. In every case, I quickly learned their famous titles were the least interesting thing about them. Each conversation, whether in a stark boardroom, an overpacked conference in the EU, or a quiet corner in the UK, became a masterclass in our shared humanity, in life.

    These incredible people, from every walk of life, are the living proof of my new thesis: The most effective strategy is not a rigid plan, but a prepared, curious, & flexible mind.

    They didn’t all have a perfect blueprint. What they had was a commitment to their passion, a relentless work ethic, and an intelligent awareness of the world around them. They knew their strengths and played to them. They were masters of their craft who understood that real progress happens in the messy, beautiful, unpredictable space of humanity. They taught me that if you work hard, trust your intuition, and stay open, things will not only work out, but become more fascinating and meaningful than you could have ever planned.

    This philosophy changed my life. The energy I once spent on control, I now invest in curiosity. That curiosity led me to travel the world, not with an itinerary, but with an open heart. The freedom from a rigid path ironically sharpened my professional focus, allowing me to become a true expert in business strategy because I was finally seeing the world as it is, not as a spreadsheet predicted it should be. This newfound clarity gave me the courage to pick up a camera and become an avid photographer, a researcher, an artist, a writer, a theorist of my own life – and I have never been happier.

    Keep in mind, this isn’t about passivity. It is a strategic pivot. It is building a personal toolkit so diverse—in international business, creativity, technology, and sustainability—that you can step into any room, understand the conversation, and listen with appreciation. It is realizing that the most powerful opportunities aren’t lines on a Gantt chart; they are sparks of life.

    So, how do you trade a map for a path that has only just begun to form? It begins by collecting skills, not just milestones, with the understanding that true security isn’t a title but a versatile, curious mind. This mindset encourages you to say ‘yes’ to the coffee meeting, to stop networking with a rigid agenda and start connecting with genuine curiosity, because the most valuable encounters are often the ones with no clear objective.

    In these conversations, you learn to listen for the lesson, recognizing that every person you meet is a world-class expert in their own life whose story holds insights for your own. Ultimately, this path requires you to trust your inner compass. To love and appreciate every individual, no matter their walk of life. The things that actually excite you, your true interests and strengths, are the most powerful navigation tools you own, and the key is to follow them relentlessly.

    I no longer stand guard on the walls of a fortress. I’m out in an open forest, and the path forward is illuminated by the light of a thousand fascinating conversations. The future is still unknown, but for the first time, it feels less like a source of anxiety and more like an invitation to an incredible adventure. I’m excited for it.

    And so my dear reader, if you were to gather anything from this blog, let it be this: it is time to get out there and live a little.