On August 2, 2016, five years ago today, everything changed for me.

It was on that day that the universe seemed to say to me, “You really want to be a coach? You really want to move across the country? Here is everything you need.”

Of course, it all came from being fired. So it didn’t exactly look like the best thing that ever happened to me.

At first.

It took a few months, of fear, of panic, of disbelief, before I trusted the bigger forces that were seemingly working behind the scenes, often in ways I didn’t understand.

I walked through the door in front of me. And then I walked through the next, and the next.

Five years later I live in a beautiful place and have a still-growing business coaching wonderful people. I don’t think I’m “there” yet. Far from it. The journey continues, and continues to surprise.

Something is driving, and it certainly isn’t this little thing called “me.”

It never has been.

To be perfectly honest, I still don’t trust it. There is still struggle, still doubt at times. But things do seem to work out. And usually in a way that’s way better than what I could come up with on my own.

Most of my work today is helping others walk through that door to whatever wisdom is showing them is next. To step back and see the larger possibilities that life wants for them, even if (especially if!) they are afraid. To trust their deeper selves in a way that, to this point, they have not.

To stop playing it safe. To stop playing small. To stop resisting what life has been offering them. And to see that they are already whole, already complete, already happy, no matter what they do.

The head will try to tell you all kinds of reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t do the thing that is calling you. It’s just trying to keep you safe.

But you have a felt knowing in your heart, in your gut, in your deepest wisdom. A yearning for a purpose beyond safety. Follow it. It will never lead you astray. And while it might bring struggle from time to time, it will also bring a level of satisfaction, of fulfillment, of complete “enoughness,” like nothing you have ever known.

I was talking to a CEO this morning about his challenges with his COO, with his employees, with his board. He’s been running the firm very successfully for almost ten years, despite having never expected to be in his role. The firm is in a strong market and is poised to grow. And yet he sees that there are times where he has neither the patience nor the empathy to connect with his senior team.

Like many of us, he often comes to a meeting with his mind made up. He listens to rebut, rather than to understand. And he is beginning to see how it is hurting him, and could limit what he wants to build over the next few years.

We talked about that awkward place between where you know you have something you want to change about yourself, and actually being able to change it. And we came up with an experiment.

For one week, he will go into meetings without an opinion. Or at least without stating one.

I assured him that he only needed to leave his opinion by the door, that he could have it back as soon as the meeting ended. But his goal was to truly understand what others are telling him. And to be open to changing his mind if he got new information.

In uncertain times, the leaders with the best information get the best results.

Our people have to feel safe to tell us the truth. And in my experience, nothing feels safer than genuine curiosity.

While he knows this will be a challenge for him, he knows it’s a first step to becoming the inclusive and inspiring leader he wants to be.

To begin the path of change for himself.

And maybe his people, too.

You probably think I’m quoting an ex-president. Especially because a book just came out with the same title.

But I’m quoting me. And you. And every senior executive I’ve ever worked with.

Because at some point, we’ve all said this, or at least thought it.

In a moment of overwhelm, or hubris, or when we don’t trust our team or know what else to do.

Some of us might even have had a reaction just reading the quote. I know I did!

But that’s because I know I have this part of me that thinks this. Pretty regularly in fact. And I hate it.

But I’ve learned this thought can be a gift.

Because it shows me I’m in a bad state. It practically screams at me, “Don’t make any important decisions right now!”

I’ve learned that it’s my sign to talk a break. To take a walk. Even to take a breath or two.

And when I do that, my thinking begins to settle. The world becomes a bit more friendly. And it becomes clear what I need to do next.

Including finding help.

What do you do when you think you have to do it all?

I was talking with a prospective client who just lost his C-suite role. He quickly had opportunities to go back into the same role at a bigger organization.

It would have been easy. But it didn’t feel right.

For the first time, this executive really felt no pressure to work. No pressure to perform, to go back to the grind, to measure his self worth by meeting his organization’s KPI’s. His kids were through college. The house was paid off.

For the first time, he was asking the big question–

What do I want?

What would feel meaningful? What would bring joy to me and others?

If I already have enough, if I already AM enough, then what?

The truth is that many of us already fall into that camp. We just have trouble seeing it sometimes.

But when we see that we are already enough, that we’ve always been enough, that our innate state is peace, is joy, is wholeness, then we can ask ourselves, what can we create just because we want to?

When we do create from that perspective, all the other things, the money we thought we needed, the self worth and meaning that we thought was lacking, show up anyway.

My experience is that the universe has always had bigger ideas for me than I have.

How about you?