You always look like you’ve got it together.

You’ve been successful at everything you’ve tried.

You’ve got all the stuff. But you’re not happy.

I know because I was there.

I was you.

On many days, I’m still you. Pretending to keep it together, thinking that if we can make the outside look good the inside will somehow follow.

And the mistake you made was the same one I made. (I still make it, but I do make it less.)

You assumed that there was something outside of you that could fix what’s inside of you.

What’s inside? The gnawing feeling that it will never be enough. That you will never be enough.

It can look like outer success will make you feel better. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Has it ever? For more than a few minutes, or a few days?

If VP didn’t do it, if EVP didn’t do it, if COO didn’t do it, CEO won’t either.

If $5 million didn’t do it, $50 million or $500 million or $5 billion won’t either.

Maslow had it right. Once your outer needs are taken care of, the work is inner work.

Of course he never really said what he meant by “self-actualization.” I’m not sure he even knew.

But it seems a major part of it is to see that you are enough and always have been. That you can be both totally fine with yourself, and still strive to improve.

Not to cover something up or make yourself whole. But for the sheer joy in doing so.

Seeing that changes everything. And it can happen in a moment of insight. Or a series of glimpses that take years.

Not everyone can see it, at least not right away. But when they are willing to start looking, and to stay in the conversation, it changes everything.

Looking in that direction has changed everything for me. And it will for you, too.

When we can create from joy, rather than lack, life is suddenly worth living again. Instead of just being one crisis after another.

Are you curious enough to look for what has always been there?

Are you willing to take that leap of faith?

I talked with a CEO last week who was working with four coaches—a CEO group leader, a mentor, a relationship coach, and a personal trainer.

And he said he wanted a break from all of it for a few months.

I get it—to do that much work on yourself must be exhausting.

When I see that in someone, my sense is that they are viewing their lives as a series of projects—the leadership project, the fitness project, the relationship project.

But this misses a fundamental point—the “you” that is at the center of all these projects.

You’re “you” (and my “I”) is mostly made of the stories we that we tell ourselves or have been told and believed.

If you get that you created all these projects, that you created the standards by which you judge yourself as a success or a failure, and that you will feel bad or good based on whether you met these standards, then you are beginning to see the craziness of the human condition.

We create the game and then beat ourselves up for losing it. Over and over again.

For all the times you’ve berated yourself because somehow you think it will help, has it ever worked?

The point is not to change your thoughts, it’s to see that your thoughts change.

That if you’re revved up, you get a lot of old thoughts. Thoughts that might not serve you. That probably don’t, at least in my experience.

And if you allow yourself to settle, you get fewer thoughts, and some of them will be new.

With these new insights, you will know what to do. No matter what project it’s related to. The inside takes care of the outside.

No berating required.

I recorded a podcast interview today and the topic of fear came up.

And I said, without really thinking, that the biggest fear at work is the fear of looking stupid.

Now I admit that particular fear was top of mind for me in that particular moment, being on a podcast as a supposed leadership expert.

But as leaders, fear of looking stupid can get in the way of a lot of things.

If you think you’re supposed to know, you can never ask a question.

If you think you’re supposed to be the smart one, you’re going to limit what you’re willing to say. You’re going to avoid other’s ideas in favor of your own. Because using someone else’s idea would mean they are smarter than you, right?

Your world, your capacity to create, your ultimate impact is going to be very small indeed if you’re afraid of looking stupid.

How do we drop this fear?

As a coach, I have the luxury of asking lots of stupid questions. And I find that it is the stupid questions that often give my clients the hardest time.

“What do you want?”

“Why do you want that?”

“What would that give you?”

Because the seemingly obvious often isn’t obvious at all.

I think what allows me to ask these questions is my sincere interest in the client. I really want to know. I really want to understand.

Wanting to be understood, wanting to be heard makes my client eager to share with me. (And if they think the question is stupid, they usually don’t tell me that!)

What are you deeply curious about? Explore that, and see what opens up. For you, your team, your company.

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.