Grow By Growing Others
Sometimes the smallest decisions become the dividing line between two lives.
For Dr. Giancarlo "GC" Aponte, that decision had nothing to do with college.
It was quitting smoking.
At the time, returning to school wasn't even the goal. Like many adults, GC was balancing work, responsibilities, and the quiet weight of wondering whether the life he was living was the one he was meant to live. From the outside, everything appeared stable. Inside, he carried a question that refused to disappear: "Was this all my life would become?"
Then he decided to stop smoking.
What followed was one of the hardest battles of his life. The cravings appeared in the ordinary moments—driving, drinking coffee, sitting quietly after a long day. His mind negotiated constantly. Just one cigarette. You can quit tomorrow.
Each day demanded a choice.
As the weeks passed, GC realized he wasn't simply breaking a habit. He was discovering a version of himself he had never met before. Every craving he resisted became evidence that change was possible. The discipline required to overcome addiction revealed something far more important than willpower.
It revealed hope.
"If I could overcome a habit that had been part of my life for years," he began to wonder, "what else could I change?"
That question changed everything.
Guided by a deep sense of faith and purpose, GC came to believe that growth itself creates hope. Every act of becoming expands what we believe is possible. The discipline that helped him overcome addiction soon became the discipline that carried him back into the classroom.
Returning to college as an adult was not easy. He carried responsibilities that many traditional students never experience. Yet he approached education with the same commitment that had transformed his life, eventually earning three master's degrees and a doctorate in leadership.
Along the way, his purpose evolved.
Education stopped being about proving something to himself. It became a way of helping others discover what he had discovered: that people are capable of far more than they believe.
One conversation crystallized that realization forever. After speaking with a student about persistence, the student quietly told him, "You make me believe I can finish."
Those seven words transformed his understanding of leadership.
Until that moment, his educational journey had been deeply personal. Now he realized that his story had become evidence for someone else. His comeback was no longer only about his own future. It had become an invitation for others to imagine a different future for themselves.
That insight eventually became the philosophy that guides both his life and his work: Grow by Growing Others.
Today, as a scholar, mentor, and higher education leader, GC continues working with adult learners who often arrive questioning whether they belong. He recognizes the doubt immediately because he once carried it himself. More importantly, he knows that persistence is rarely about determination alone. Students thrive when they encounter environments—and people—that cultivate hope alongside opportunity.
GC's story reminds us that transformation rarely begins where we expect. Sometimes it starts with a single difficult decision. Sometimes it begins by breaking a habit. But when one act of courage changes how we see ourselves, it also changes what we believe is possible for others. And that may be the most enduring education of all.
Dr. Giancarlo “GC” Aponte is one of fifty adult learners featured in Beyond the Degree: Stories of Adult Learner Comebacks and What They Teach Us. Read his complete story in his own words, and discover what these remarkable comebacks teach us, in the book from the Center for Academic Innovation.