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.

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.