I gave a talk to a group of local leaders yesterday and I explained how my coaching had changed over the years.

At first, when a leader came to me asking for help around delegation, or stress, or executive presence, I would respond with techniques, or with models of development.

We would identify where that leader was on the developmental path and create strategies and techniques to get them to the next level.

It was all very heady. Sometimes, it was effective.

It was effective enough that we both wanted to continue. But over time, I realized that something felt amiss. I realized that there were so many things that leaders came to me with that were symptoms of a larger problem.

And that the problem is a simple and yet profound misunderstanding.

Let’s take stress as an example. It’s easy to add breathing techniques or yoga or exercise as a prescription for stress. But while stress can be managed with those techniques, it returns as soon as the techniques are no longer applied.

Stop meditating or running for a few days and you will be just as stressed out as you were before.

But what if you saw what creates the experience of stress? What if you saw what creates every experience?

My experience and yours are constantly being created, inside of us rather than by our circumstances. And then that personal reality is experienced as solid and real.

Yet the solidity of this experience can easily be tested. Think of how different people can experience the same events totally differently. Think of how YOU can experience the same event differently a day later, or even a moment later.

Or one thought later.

When people see that their assumptions about life, that it is out there, that it is happening to them, that to change how you feel, you have to change your outer circumstances, are not true, then suddenly, magically almost, stress dramatically reduces or even disappears.

Because when you see that you are the one creating your experience, and feeling that creation, when you see that everything in that experience can and does change from moment to moment, you take the whole thing, what some have called the “cosmic joke,” a lot less seriously. You know that if you only wait to settle a bit, the same thing “out there” will look completely different.

You don’t have to do affirmations or think positive thoughts. If left alone, your thinking settles. Calm and clear is your default setting.

Just about everything is impacted by seeing through this fundamental misunderstanding.

And I find the longer you are willing to stay in the conversation, the deeper the impact will be.

Neil Patrick Harris, playing a psychologist, says this to Thomas Anderson at the beginning of the trailer for the new Matrix movie.

Thomas Anderson is Neo. Only now, he apparently doesn’t remember who he really is.

The Matrix has always been my favorite movie. In addition to being an action-packed martial arts joyride, it metaphorically points to what is actually true. My understanding of that truth has only deepened in the twenty-one years since the first movie came out.

In the Matrix, humans are imprisoned by a simulation of reality created by machines.

In our “real” world, each one of us is creating our own simulation, the only reality that each of us ever experiences, moment by moment.

And “like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad,” most of us never realize that we are imprisoning ourselves.

While there is almost infinite data available to us from “reality,” our senses are able to detect only a very thin slice of it. And then our brains reduce that data still, and compare it to a prediction we are making at the same time. From that we each make the virtual reality that we live in. The vast majority of what we sense as “reality” is just a prediction that our minds are making in each moment of what reality “should” be.

That’s right. Your reality is mostly made up of things that have already happened to you. (Mine, too.)

Thoughts you have already had.

Stories you have already been told.

Things you are convinced you need to do to stay safe.

This is true of ourselves, our partners, our jobs, our organizations. Story after story, made up and mostly unchallenged.

And we suffer because of it.

“Crazy,” is the word that Neil Patrick Harris was referring to.

We think the world we experience is made up of things outside of us, and we think we can solve it by changing those things.

But it’s a totally inside game. Our experience is 100 percent internal, 100 percent of the time. And we fall for the same trick, over and over and over again.

It’s crazy. To paraphrase Einstein, we do the same thing, over and over, and expect different results.

The first step is to see the thought-created nature of our reality. To wake up. To see that we are not Thomas Anderson. Each of us is Neo. Capable of so much more.

When we really see that we are only experiencing thought, something shifts. The habitual thinking about who we need to be and what we need to do to feel whole or complete begins to fall away, because we see it isn’t real, or helpful. We see, gradually or suddenly, that we are the creator of our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. We are unlimited potential, not whatever that potential has created.

Ponder that. Deeply. Because really seeing that truth will be the first step toward everything changing.

The world that most of us see is crazy. Because it’s based on assumptions that can easily be proven false.

What do you see?

I hear it over and over again. Whether someone builds their business to certain size, cashes out in a sale, gets a top role, or even finally decides to retire.

They thought there would be this sense of “arrival.” This sense that they had made it. This sense that finally, they were enough.

And when they don’t get it, they often come to me.

They have been looking in the wrong direction.

A bunch of them have been looking outside. At the stuff and the titles. Figuring that $10 million would do it if $1 million didn’t. And over and over again, they find that more of the same is not enough. I’ve had two conversations with people on this very topic just in the last week.

A few people, sensing they need to look “inside,” have looked at their thinking. Figuring that if they can just change their thinking they can feel better. That they can use affirmations or visualization or the law of attraction to fix themselves.

But the hole remains. Because if you have ever tried to change your thinking, you know how exhausting it is. And how seldom it works.

When I say “look inside,” I’m pointing to something completely different. More fundamental. And when you really see it, it changes everything.

This is something that I can explain, but it is better to experience it. Because it’s not a concept. And I can only point to it with words.

When you see it, you realize you never had to do all that stuff. You see that the universe has always had your back. You were always enough because you, the real you, is actually the source of everything.

The paradoxical result for many is that seeing you never had to do anything to prove your worth allows you to do even more, just for the sheer joy of creating. More ease and more impact. Magic.

If you’d like to talk about this, PM me. I’ve opened a limited number of spots on my calendar. And if you are drawn to what I’m saying, if you sense there might be something here for you, I would love to connect.

I am taking off for the Labor Day weekend. If you reach out and do not hear back, I will connect with you next week.

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?