Most people begin the story of who they are too late. Ask why someone struggles with fear, scarcity, excessive caution, or difficulty taking risks, and the investigation usually begins with childhood: parents, schooling, poverty, discrimination, or culture. Those forces matter enormously, and the next three chapters examine them. But what if part of your story began before you could recognize your parents or consciously form beliefs?

When I began studying underdogs, I focused on visible barriers: poverty, education, family, culture, discrimination, and political and economic systems. But a deeper exploration of human development raised another question: What if some influences begin before we enter the world?

We speak of birth as if someone presses a biological START button in the delivery room. Yet the developing brain has already been responding to signals from the womb. Through prenatal development and epigenetic processes, early environments can influence how certain biological systems develop and respond.

This early conditioning is not necessarily a disadvantage. Some prenatal adaptations may help prepare a child for the environment into which they will be born. But conditions change, and responses that were once protective may become limiting later in life. What helped prepare you for survival may not always prepare you for success. Understanding these influences helps us recognize possible predispositions without mistaking them for permanent limitations.

You did not arrive biologically empty, nor was your destiny already written. You arrived with a starting point. The first task of Uncover is to examine it without turning it into an excuse, diagnosis, or sentence.

1.1 What May Have Predisposed You Before Birth

Most of us learned that parents pass DNA to their children and that genes influence physical characteristics. That remains true, but epigenetics adds another layer.

The Library and the Librarian

Think of your DNA as a library filled with thousands of books. Not every book is opened or read. Your DNA carries the instructions, while epigenetic processes act like a librarian, helping determine which instructions are used and which remain quiet. They can influence how your genes work without changing the DNA itself. Scientists are also exploring whether certain human experiences can leave biological marks that influence future generations.

When an Experience Appeared in the Next Generation

Neuroscientists Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler conditioned adult male mice to associate the odor acetophenone with mild foot shocks, making them unusually sensitive to the smell. Researchers bred the males with unconditioned females, minimizing direct social transmission. Their offspring never received the shocks, yet showed increased sensitivity to the same odor, and the next generation did too. Researchers also reported changes in the relevant olfactory pathway and methylation of the corresponding odor-receptor gene in sperm.

We must not exaggerate. The mice did not inherit a narrated memory, and mice are not miniature humans. Human development involves parenting, language, culture, economics, and countless other influences, and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans remains debated. The responsible lesson is narrower but powerful: we should not assume that everything influencing our biological starting point began with us.

“You Are Just Like Your Grandfather”

Families noticed recurring patterns long before the word epigenetics.

·  “You have your grandfather’s temper.”

·  “She worries exactly like her mother.”

·  “Addiction runs in our family.”

·  “He has his father’s nerves.”

Such observations aren't scientific proof. Similarities can arise from DNA, modeling, parenting, shared culture, prenatal influences, or economic conditions. Uncover does not diagnose the mechanism. It becomes curious about patterns we may have mistaken for permanent identity. Instead of asking, What is wrong with me? ask: What seems to repeat across generations in my family, and how might it still be expressing itself through me? Sometimes freedom begins with a better question.

1.2 Why Prewiring Can Matter

Whatever science establishes about transgenerational inheritance, one fact is clear: your brain began developing before birth. I call this prewiring. A fetus cannot consciously understand danger, scarcity, or fear. Yet inherited genetic factors, epigenetic processes, and biological signals from the mother's environment influence its developing brain. Together, these influences shape early brain development and stress responses before the child is born.

Epigenetic processes help regulate gene activity during development without changing the DNA itself. Together with other prenatal influences, they may shape a newborn's temperament, stress sensitivity, and emotional responses. Your psychological starting point may begin forming before your first breath, but it does not determine your destiny.

Prewiring can give us a valuable head start. Biological signals influenced partly by the mother's environment may help prepare a developing child for life after birth. However, early adaptations that support survival may become limiting when circumstances change. What once helped us survive may eventually hold us back from thriving. Recognizing these tendencies is the first step toward questioning and, where necessary, rewiring them.

The Computer Was New, but Not Empty

Imagine opening a brand-new computer. Although new to you, it already has an operating system and basic settings. You did not install them, but they influence how the computer operates. Human development is far more complex, yet the principle remains: new does not mean blank.

Likewise, we may carry tendencies we never consciously chose. Consider three questions:

·  Why am I unusually sensitive to threats?

·  Why do I protect what I have rather than explore new opportunities?

·  Why do I hesitate to take risks even when circumstances favor me?

Prenatal development cannot fully explain these tendencies, but we shouldn't assume their origins lie entirely in childhood experiences we can remember.

What Protected You May Not Propel You

Research on developmental plasticity and fetal programming explores how early conditions influence development. In environments marked by scarcity or danger, heightened sensitivity to threats and stress may offer protective advantages. The difficulty arises when those early responses persist in different circumstances.

Someone shaped by scarcity may later face opportunities that require confidence, experimentation, visibility, and calculated risks. Yet old tendencies may discourage the very actions needed to advance. This creates an important distinction:

·  Then: Caution, vigilance, and conserving resources may have supported survival.

·  Now: Excessive caution, distrust, and fear of failure may restrict opportunities.

·  Next: Awareness lets us examine these tendencies, keep what serves us, and work to change what holds us back.

Do not despise the tendencies that may once have protected you or those before you. But do not allow survival strategies to become your permanent ceiling.

1.3 How the Earliest Environment May Express Itself

The womb was our first environment. Although protected, we were not isolated from our mother's physical condition, including her nutrition, illness, stress, and exposure to harmful substances. These conditions can influence early brain and body development, but they do not permanently determine who we become or what we can achieve.

When History Entered the Womb

During the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944–1945, severe famine struck the western Netherlands, affecting thousands of pregnant women.

Because researchers could document the famine and its victims, they could later study people exposed to these conditions before birth. One influential study found differences in DNA methylation of the IGF2 gene between people exposed around conception and their unexposed same-sex siblings, nearly six decades later.

The study did not prove that famine determined their personalities or futures. It revealed something remarkable: conditions during early development can leave biological traces detectable decades later.

What Was Happening Around Your Mother?

This research led me to ask questions I had never considered about my own beginnings:

·  What was happening in my mother's life while she carried me?

·  Did she have enough food and other necessities?

·  Was she living in safety or uncertainty?

·  Did she feel loved, supported, and cared for?

·  What pressures or hardships might she have faced?

I grew up in Ethiopia, where poverty, political uncertainty, conflict, and food insecurity have affected generations. My mother was not my father's first wife, and he passed away while I was in high school. Looking back, I can’t fully judge their relationship, but I remember him as someone who rarely showed her affection or care. I also recognize that my mother's income was limited. These circumstances make me wonder whether she experienced stress, insecurity, or scarcity while carrying me. I can’t know for certain, but the questions are worth asking.

I can’t trace a particular behavior in myself to a specific prenatal experience, and neither should you. We are not diagnosing ourselves through speculation. We are learning to examine our beginnings with curiosity rather than judgment.

A fetus cannot understand war, unemployment, fear, poverty, or discrimination, but the developing body can respond to biological signals associated with stress. Researchers study how maternal stress, hormones, inflammation, and placental function may influence development.

Consider two pregnancies:

·  One unfolds amid adequate nutrition, safety, affection, care, and family support.

·  The other unfolds amid violence, displacement, stress, severe poverty, or persistent fear.

These children may experience very different prenatal conditions. Yet we can’t conclude that the second child is destined for anxiety, insecurity, or underdog status. Genetics, timing, relationships, later environments, learning, and personal choices also shape development.

Influence is not destiny.

1.4 Predisposed, Not Predestined

Everything here could be misread: My ancestors suffered. My mother experienced stress. Apparently, I was destined to become an underdog.

No. A predisposition may influence probability, but it does not determine destiny. After birth, family, peers, schools, communities, cultures, and systems continue shaping us. Meanwhile, the brain retains remarkable capacities for learning and change throughout life. That is why this chapter belongs in Uncover, not Accept Your Fate. We uncover what shaped us so we can rewire what limits us.

Stop Calling Every Pattern “Me”

Perhaps you have said, I'm just an anxious person. I'm naturally afraid of risk. I've always needed certainty. That's simply who I am. Be careful what you repeatedly declare about yourself. Every I am statement can reinforce an identity, shaping what you believe is possible and how you behave. When repeated often enough, a limiting description can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. These statements may describe recurring patterns, but patterns are not identities. Genetics, prenatal conditions, family conditioning, culture, and experience may all contribute. Stop confusing something you carry with the totality of who you are.

You had no vote in your ancestry, DNA, or earliest brain development. But eventually, something changed: you became conscious. You gained knowledge, discovered alternatives, and developed the ability to choose. As awareness grows, so does responsibility. You may not be responsible for your initial wiring, but you increasingly become responsible for what you do once you recognize its influence.

From Survival Wiring to Success Wiring

Honor what helped previous generations survive without allowing those survival strategies to limit your future:

·  Extreme vigilance protects in danger but exhausts in safety.

·  Excessive caution reduces losses but prevents calculated risks.

·  Distrust guards against exploitation but obstructs collaboration.

·  Keeping your head down protects in hostile environments but can hinder leadership and influence.

The question shifts from Why am I like this? to Does this pattern still serve where I am going? I call these inherited and conditioned patterns the Underdog Code because some developed before we could consciously choose them. But something inherited does not have to remain unchanged. Some patterns can be rewired, others redirected, and some transformed into extraordinary strengths. Part II explains how. First, we must uncover three more layers. For now, practice awareness without blame and responsibility without denial.

Reflect and Practice

Reflect

·  What pattern seems to repeat across generations in my family?

·  What do I know about the conditions surrounding my earliest development?

·  What pattern have I mistaken for my identity?

Practice

Conduct a One-Pattern Audit. Choose one recurring family pattern, limiting or empowering. Explore what you know about its possible origins and how it influences your life today. Avoid diagnosing its cause. Simply ask: Does this pattern deserve to continue through me?

From the Womb to the Home

We began with the earliest, least visible influences, those that shaped us before memory and conscious choice. But birth introduces another powerful environment: the home. Here, our developing minds encounter the voices, behaviors, beliefs, expectations, and unwritten rules of those closest to us. Some nurture our potential; others quietly establish limitations we may carry for decades.

Chapter 1 explored how influences before birth may shape our starting point. Chapter 2 takes us into the home, where our family's words, beliefs, behaviors, and expectations begin shaping how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us.