We tend to believe the things that we think about ourselves.

Our biography, our talents, our challenges.

That story that you always tell about how you overcame your fear to enter and win the big race. Or the story, often deeper, that we are somehow not enough.

I want you to set those aside for just a moment. You will continue to think those thoughts. You will continue to think all kinds of thoughts. That is how we are made. We are thinking machines.

But occasionally, our thoughts settle.

If you take a moment, you might see your thoughts settle, just a bit, even right now. Like the snow in a globe when you stop shaking it.

It’s what happens when we aren’t trying to manipulate our thinking. Calm and clarity is our default state.

It’s in these moments that fresh thinking is possible. It’s in these moments that you might begin to see who you really are.

Not your thoughts. Not your accomplishments, your history, your redemption story.

What I see, in myself, and in you, is the infinite capacity to create. And everything has this capacity.

A tree, a flower, a dog, all create.

Humans create primarily through thought. They think, and then they experience and feel those thoughts as reality.

The fact that our experience of life is 100 percent internally generated, that we only experience and feel our own thinking rather than something happening outside of us, creates some odd results that we accept because we don’t tend to see them.

We establish “the rules” through our thinking and then judge others (and often ourselves) for not following them. We establish goals through our thinking and then judge based on whether we’ve met them.

We accept our own and others’ stories of who we are and allow them to confine us.

We create “I’ll have arrived when I…” stories and then suffer until we do. And then we suffer again when we see that we are no different than we were before.

We miss that we are judge and jury. We miss that we have made it all up. We don’t see  how small we have made ourselves and the world.

All you are is the infinite capacity to create.

How are you using it?

How are you creating yourself? How are you creating your partner, your colleagues, your adversaries? (Even the idea that you have adversaries?)

What if you stopped, just for a moment, to see everyone, yourself included, as they really are?

What would you create then? And what would you stop creating, because you saw it doesn’t serve you?

I work with leaders and teams who are often trying to take on big change. And I notice a theme, no matter what type of change people are trying to take on.

Maybe I’m helping a leadership team get more aligned.

Maybe I’m helping a sales team close more deals.

Maybe I’m helping the CEO create a more inclusive and innovative culture.

The theme is this—things can look solid that are really just made of thought.

Corporate life is hard. Some of us develop habits to protect ourselves, to try to keep ourselves safe. Some of us are focused more on advancement, or winning.

We use these habits so often that we think they are real and solid. So real and solid that we are afraid not to do them.

I was working with an organization a few weeks ago where the former CEO is still involved in the company. He coaches several on the executive team. He maintains relationships with several external partners. He has maintained a “kiss the ring” culture even after supposedly retiring.

It is limiting the organization. And it is all made up. He has been able to convince those around him that he continues to have more power than ever. More power, in fact, than he ever really had. Because you can’t really have that kind of power without someone else consenting to it.

And if the new CEO and the board told him to get out, he would have to get out. A new thought. One with some fear, certainly, but one that would bring immediate change.

All change requires is new thinking. All new thinking requires is seeing that our old thinking isn’t real or solid. It constantly changes. Corporate cultures emerge through the habitual thinking of those in authority, fueled by the self-preservation instinct of those reporting to them. When the leaders change their thinking (or more commonly, when the leaders change), the thinking of the organization will follow.

All a sales team needs to change its effectiveness is for one person to see that listening is more effective than telling.

All a leadership team needs to change is to see that every person’s view of the world is equally valid, and that I can learn more from the others than I can teach them.

Curiosity, borne of seeing that my world, and yours, are never solid and never true.

When a team sees this, they can make any change necessary.

What will your team see today?

I deal with a lot of leaders who have imposter syndrome. I certainly have it at times. The sense that I’m not qualified, that I’m going to be found out.

The sense that, despite my 30 years of experience, I’m a fraud.

When I talk to people about this, it seems like for most, imposter syndrome is most acute when we get asked a question about ourselves. When we get put on the spot somehow.

Our minds go blank! Our moment to shine, and we have nothing to say! We panic! What now?

I used to be convinced that this was evidence of social anxiety, or some other deep psychological flaw. That I could overcome it with an elevator pitch, with 30 seconds that I could trot out anytime, that would show how powerful my work was.

“I help leaders be more impactful by finding and coming from their innate sense of ease.”

Or something like that. (Actually, I just came up with that, and I kinda like it. But as you will see, that just proves my point.)

What I have found instead is that clearing of the mind is a sign that our psychological system is working perfectly.

When my mind is clear, it is perfectly prepared to listen. It is perfectly open to new thought. It is perfectly ready to say what will be most impactful for my audience in that moment.

Experiment with this. Try it for yourself.

Notice when your mind goes blank.

See if you can wait a few seconds (without panic).

See what pops into your head. Sometimes it will be a question to clarify.

At some point you will know what to say. Say it. Notice the impact.

See if it is way better than any elevator pitch you could have memorized.

After you do this a few times, you will look forward to your mind clearing. Your mind will tend to clear more often. You will have access to more fresh, new thinking than ever before.

You might just find that your imposter syndrome has gone away, too. And you might be amazed by how often you know exactly the right thing to say.

Because we aren’t our history. We’re our innate ability to respond to our present and create our future.

Everyone has this. We are made of it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

The weekend can be a time of reflection. Of getting away.  Sometimes, my best insights come on the weekend.

I’ve been reflecting on a question I have all my clients ask themselves.

“What do I want?”

I ask it knowing that it might be the hardest question there is to answer.

But I’m coming to understand that it is hard because it tends to lead us astray. It points away from where we actually should be looking. It points us toward our experience, and away from the source of our experience.

It does this in at least three ways, with three different words.

“What.” Our first impulse here is often to think of things, but when we go deeper, we often find that what we really want is feelings.

Peace. Equanimity. Purpose. Alignment. Connection. Joy.

Yet we tend to answer with things like, “A promotion. A business. A car. A house. A partner.” The things that we hope will generate those feelings, even as we realize they don’t. As we look more closely at this, we realize we are the source of those feelings. We really don’t have to “get” anything to have joy, for example.

“I.” What do “I” want? Who is the “I” in that statement? The “I” that I habitually think of myself as? The stories that I have made up about that person, that identity? The characteristics and qualities that I describe myself as having? That “I” might look solid, but when I look, I’m not very solid, and neither are you. I seem to change from day to day, even from moment to moment. I can be nice, a jerk, hardworking, lazy, kind, and selfish. If there is a solid “I,” it seems to be whatever is looking through this body’s eyes. Not my thoughts, but wherever my thoughts come from. It is formless, mysterious, silent, yet everything in my world emerges from it.

“Want.” Again, does this bigger I want things or feelings? What is this want? This desire? Is it just for stuff? Or even feelings? Is it what I want, or what I think I should want? What I think others expect me to provide for them? The thing that I, the bigger I, most seem to want is to create. I even seem to create “want!” There is great joy in the act of creation. In fact I seem to get more from the creating than from what I have created. And yet, it seems like the creating is happening all the time, whether I want to or not. I seem to be this process of constant creation.

“What do I want?”

The you who is wanting is also creating everything else in your world. It can create anything, including the idea that there is something outside of you, something to want, that if you get it, will somehow complete you.

This you is the creator of your life. You think you are in the world, but, as a matter of biology, of neuroscience, the world (or at least your world) is in you.

Sit with this. Take a walk this weekend. See what arises for you. See what comes from the silence.

It might not be huge. It might just be a hint.

But a door is opening. Will you walk through?