I was reflecting on the recent success of a founder I did some work with last year.

He had spent 2021 building a leadership team. Growing his organization. Raising tens of millions of dollars. Landing Fortune 500 clients.

The company grew 300 percent. It was by all accounts a spectacular year.

And an incredibly lonely one.

The people he had inspired to work with him at the beginning are now mostly gone, or layers down in the organization. The clients he initially recruited himself, so critical in those early days, are now small in comparison to the recent wins.

He is no longer working in the business, which he loved, but on the business.

And he has no one in his circle who has any idea how to relate.

To the uncertainty, yes, but especially to the loneliness.

Simply put, there is no one who understands that he is the same flawed fragile human being that he was before all the success.

He is constantly on guard. He is constantly wary of people wanting to manipulate him. He is constantly acting like what he thinks others want to see in a leader. Calm, clear, confident.

And he is exhausted. Because he doesn’t see that the same heartfelt humanity that he brought to the early stages is exactly what is needed now.

That finding at least one person he can be human with is the most important thing he can do.

What if you saw that, too? Wherever you are in your leadership journey?

So many of the leaders I coach have been on a journey, from a currently dissatisfactory “here” to what they imagine will be a better “there.”

Someday, they think, they will arrive at an ideal there.

They imagine that the current work, strife, and sacrifice will be worth it.

But there is no “there.”

There is only here. Now. This moment.

What I have seen, what I have lived, and what I teach, is that if you are not able to arrive here you will never arrive there.

If you are not able to feel the perfection of this moment, there is no moment in which you will.

Somehow, most of us learn that the way to feel better about ourselves in the future is to feel bad about ourselves now.

That self-punishment is a valid path, a requirement even, to self-improvement.

I want to suggest something different.

That the route to change is to fully accept where you already are.

That, to paraphrase the late Zen teacher Shunryū Suzuki, you are already perfect, and you could use a little improvement.

Walking that line is the way.

Seeing, welcoming, and even enjoying all that is here in this now. And seeing that there could be even more, even better, in a future now.

That might include struggle. That might include some long nights. That certainly includes learning. But even now, the hard work can feel enjoyable, fulfilling, meaningful, not a burden to be endured for some imaginary payoff.

And if it is only a burden, you are likely pointed in the wrong direction.

I’ve always felt like an outsider, like Neo in the original Matrix. Living two lives.

One, in a traditional corporate career trapped inside my own expectations. Lawyer, consultant, executive.

The other, trying to figure out why doing what I was supposed to wasn’t making me happy, and determining what actually would.

Even as I hid that second identity for many years, I had some powerful insights along the way. Insights that helped me manage stress and be more present, and that helped others along their path as I figured out my own.

Insights that eventually helped me own my full identity, and to help more and more leaders own theirs.

But none of those insights was as powerful, as profound, as utterly simple as what I saw last July 7.

I was sitting at my dining room table listening to a conversation between Stephan Bodian, a spiritual teacher I’ve done some work with, and Sam Harris on Sam’s “Waking Up” podcast.

I remember Stephan saying something about noticing that all we are ever doing is experiencing sensations. And suddenly I was not Jeff.

Instead, I was a presence, an aliveness, that was so much bigger than what I had ever experienced as Jeff. A presence that was looking through Jeff’s eyes, that was, as I explained to Stephan later, “waking up from the meat suit.”

Something that had none of my characteristics or history or stories.

Something that had always existed, beyond birth or death.

In just a few seconds I had no doubt that “I” was not who I thought I was.

And in a moment, years of anxiety dissolved, as I suddenly got the cosmic joke.

As I lay awake that night, energy pulsed through me. Every time I closed my eyes, any sense of a body, of a boundary, collapsed.

I was the universe and the universe was me and even the idea of “I” seemed confining and silly.

Why do I bring this up now?

Because it happened again last week.

And because I realized in retrospect that seeing this has totally changed my coaching work.

Where before I talked about the possibility that we were more than our personal identity, that we had unlimited creative potential, I now KNOW this to be true.

And it seems to have an impact on my clients. Whether I talk about it or not.

I just finished a two day retreat with a serial founder to start a year of work together.

He was skeptical of taking two days away during an incredibly busy time.

But thirty minutes in, he told me I had already made my fee for the year.

The way that he had thought about his business, his legacy, his life, had begun to shift in that short a time.

He described his experience as “a calming presence.” He saw a way to be that he had not been aware of. And a mission that seemed larger and more possible than ever.

He’s not done. We never are. We go deeper and deeper the more we look in this direction.

The more we see what we truly are.

What do you see? What’s possible for you?

I’m starting with a new client next week and I sent along a couple videos to start the process. I got an email back with some GREAT questions–

“I understand that we all have thoughts but will need you help me understand why/when we should let go of them. Do we only need to quickly release bad thoughts or limiting thoughts? Looking forward to having you help me re-tool my thinking.”

When people begin to see that the only thing we can ever directly experience is our thinking (and not the world itself), many of them quite naturally think that the answer is to control their thinking.

But have you ever tried to do that? To stop the bad thoughts, or convert them to more positive ones?

It gets discouraging pretty fast.

But luckily, it’s entirely unnecessary.

Because thoughts are like clouds.

You would never say, “I need to control those clouds. I don’t want any scary looking clouds to appear. Of course I’d rather not have any clouds and just enjoy the blue sky. But if there are some bunny clouds and some clouds that look like flowers, I guess that would be ok.”

Clouds happen.

Thoughts happen, too.

But like clouds, thoughts change from moment to moment. By the time a single cloud has crossed the sky, it’s gone from being a bunny to a pirate ship to a turtle and everything in between.

You can watch your thoughts do this, too.

So while you can’t control your thoughts, you can see that all they are is thoughts. You have the power to give them power.

Many of us bludgeon ourselves with our thoughts with the mistaken (and innocent) idea that it will help to “motivate” us. But what seems to be more helpful is to simply see the “I’m not enough” thought for what it is–an indication that we are not in the best frame of mind right now.

When we see thoughts for what they are, the repetitive, stubborn ones often seem to quiet a bit.

And something interesting happens. In the silence, new thoughts can arise.

Insights.

We can see things from a fresh perspective. Life gets lighter. And in a moment, we can see a new opportunity. The world looks different.

Without trying to make anything happen at all.

What are you seeing that’s new and fresh for 2022?

And what do YOU have questions about?