The Unknown Is You

Safety. Safety, safety, safety.

We are all craving it.

So many of our decisions are rooted in seeking it. We don't want to push past our limits. We don't want to find out what we're actually made of. Safety lives in what we already know.

And the unknown is terrifying.

But here is where I keep landing, and it's the part most people skip.

The unknown has a face. It's yours.

It's the version of you that already knows what you want. The version that doesn't need permission to lead. The version that stopped waiting to be picked. That's what you've been calling the unknown. That's why it feels foreign. That's why your body reads it as a threat. You've been treating yourself like a stranger for years.

Safety dresses up as wisdom. It says be measured, stay where you have leverage. It's the same impulse that keeps somebody in a role they outgrew two years ago. The same impulse that makes a leader go quiet in a meeting they could have moved. The same impulse that says later to the person you can already feel yourself becoming.

Call it risk if that's easier. You're backing away from yourself.

Your imagination doesn't expire

Most people think imagination is something you had as a kid and traded in for a mortgage and a calendar. Something you grew out of.

It's the most practical tool you own. We spend it on passing thoughts and whimsy, hardly ever on growth.

I want to be careful here, because there's a whole industry that will tell you the universe delivers if you picture the house hard enough. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the thing you want can stop being an abstraction. It can become something you have already felt. That is available to you today, and it changes how you view the possibility of receiving your desired state.

Try this. Right now.

Let yourself imagine it. If it's a promotion you're after, who would you call first after you got the news?

If it's getting better at presenting in front of a crowd, imagine the energy of the Q+A after you finish presenting.

Now bring your awareness into your body. How does that feel?

Does it feel local? Or does it feel far away?

If it feels far away, now we've identified the gap. You've been avoiding the part of you that thinks the goal is too hard or too far for you to reach.

Now the easy part would be acknowledging the distance, feeling defeated, staying in the same cycle of desire and not receiving. That's the trap we all fall into, myself included.

Where I will challenge you is addressing the core issue. Close the distance. Acknowledge it, then ask yourself genuinely, who would I be if I had what I wanted?

The question I keep coming back to

There's one question I bring to almost everyone I work with.

What kind of person would you be if you were already doing the thing you want?

Sit with it. It's a question about who you would be. It costs you nothing to answer today, and it will immediately show you something about how you're behaving right now.

Most people answer and forget it, because the real answer is that they'd be calmer and more composed. They'd say what they want out loud. Not just ruminate in their head. They'd start moving through static energy and feel more lively.

You don't need someone else to tell you it's okay or that you're ready. All of it is available in this moment.

Your dreams can feel real, and you can feel them today. Letting go of the noise and focusing on the feeling of receiving the prize will give you the clarity you're looking for.

Put it down

Can you let go enough to listen to your own awareness? Without describing it. Without explaining it. Just acknowledging it.

I think you can.

I know you can.

All the weight. All the heaviness. Put it down.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Rumble, young man, rumble. Drew Bundini Brown, Ali's cornerman, used to shout that at him before the bell, and he walked out and became the guy he'd already been telling everybody he was.

You got it. I believe in you.