What if your body knows when to fall and when to fail so you can grow? What if each falter or failure you have experienced were all a beautiful, essential part of your becoming that your mind couldn’t have known to choose?

What if today, you chose to be grateful for all of it, as part of a greater intelligence you get to be a part of?

You might not need to change your mind. You might need to change the state of your body.

If you are feeling grumpy, stuck, or down, you may just need to get your heart pumping, get some sunlight, get your body moving, take a shower, take a nap, drink some water, get some protein, or get a hug. When used well, these things aren’t distractions from the real work,t hey are the work.

We've been taught to handle things from the neck, up. If we can just strategize harder, plan better, or experience mental certainty or superiority, we will finally be happy. Howeverm your body is where you actually live right now. When your body is depleted, stressed, or stuck, your mind will reflect that. You can't think your way out of a state that your body is asking you to shift.

Before you try to use your thoughts to out-think your thoughts, try taking care of your body and see what you see differently. Sometimes the answer isn't an answer, it’s a physical state change.

What would shift in your life if you made a practice of shifting your body?

Let people disagree with you, because most of them will. There are 8 billion people out there, in addition to you, and each has a different life experience, unique situation, and perspective. The odds that most of them would agree with you are basically nonexistent.

We exhaust ourselves trying to convince people that we are right or trying to get people to see things our way. Or, we exhaust ourselves by holding back out of the fear that people won’t agree. Yet this focus on agreement doesn’t create connection.

Instead of believing that others agreeing with you is success, try believing that providing people with a starting point for a conversation is success. Even better, take responsibility for staying open so a conversation can actually happen. Real co-creation requires us to be willing to change our minds, not just to try to change theirs.

After all, what are the odds that out of 8 billion people, you are the only one who is right? When we grip our rightness that tightly, we lose access to learning, connection, and growth.

What would open up if you stopped going for agreement?

Sometimes in order to achieveve something you want, you have to do nothing. This sounds backwards, yet it's often the most powerful choice we can make.

In order be in loving relationships, we need to let people be as they are. In order to be at peace in the world, we need to accept things will always be changing and allow change to happen. This doesn't mean we shouldn't take action when it is our responsibility, and it means we must learn to distinguish between action and reaction.

Reactions don’t support what we really want. We do something because the discomfort of doing nothing feels unbearable, or because we are addicted to a certain pattern, not because action aligns with our values. We try to fix, manage, control, all in the name of an outcome, when really we're just trying to ease our own discomfort.

Sometimes it is important to stop sitting there and do something. Sometimes it is essential to not do something and to just sit there. Knowing the difference is wisdom.

What would happen if you did nothing where you feel you need to fix right now?

Committing to getting things complete helps us in so many ways. It helps us get creative when the solution isn't obvious. It helps us have the courage to have the conversation we would otherwise put off. It puts us face-to-face with our power to create and contribute, which can be confronting.

It helps us build resilience as we will inevitably experience insecurity, failure, and feedback when we put ourselves out there. This is where many of us stop. We hit discomfort or a belief in lack and turn it into evidence that completion isn't for us or isn’t possible. Yet, pressing through to completion is exactly what builds helps us build the capacity to handle what we feel like we must avoid.

Committing to getting complete helps us realize that we are already inherently complete, and that there is nothing we need to avoid. We can complete things not because we're incomplete, yet because we're powerful enough to hold space for anything and see things through. This is true for work, relationships, goals, messes at home, and everything else.

What are you avoiding completing that wants to show you how powerful you are?

You will never change in the way you want by blaming someone else. You will also never change the other person in the way you want by blaming them. No one wins when you blame.

Blame keeps us stuck. It gives us the temporary relief of feeling right while robbing us of any real power to create change. We get to point the finger, yet we stay exactly where we are. They also stay exactly where they are, and nothing moves.

Instead of blaming, choose to take responsibility and help make it better, or choose to walk away. These are your only two useful options for creating the change you actually seek. Everything else is just a place to hide.

What would you do differently today if blaming wasn't an option?

Every time you interact with someone is an opportunity to make a positive difference. You have so many opportunities today. Really seeing them, checking in with them, smiling at them, hearing them. With some of the disconnection we experience today, even simply not being avoidant, rude, distant, or self-focused is a gift to someone else.

We underestimate these moments. We think making a difference requires grand gestures, big platforms, and significant resources. Yet the person in front of you right now is your opportunity. The cashier, the colleague, the family member you've stopped really looking at. Each interaction is a choice to contribute or be a drain. Why not choose to contribute?

Of course, making a difference isn't just for others. When we choose to see others, we feel better. When we choose presence over self-absorption, we feel more alive. This is how contribution works. It elevates everything.

With each moment you have to make a difference for others today, why wouldn't you?

Your superpower will often feel weird because it is different from others'. Your job is to own what feels weird, unique, outstanding, and even uncomfortable in you so you can give your gift to the world.

Your job is also to celebrate what others' superpowers are, even when they are unfamiliar to you. You need people to do things that are different from you, just like they need you to be different from them. We're not supposed to all be the same. That would be useless.

What feels weird in you might be exactly what the world needs. Stop trying to smooth out your edges to fit in. Those edges are where your power lives.

What superpower you have you been trying to assimilate?

We don't get stronger from doing one pushup. We don't become a leading expert through reading one book. Our teeth don't stay clean after brushing them once. Anything we want to develop takes consistency, and shifting our attention to what is good, what we are grateful for, and the blessings all around us is just as much of a practice as anything else.

We don't think teeth brushing isn't working because we have bad breath in the morning. We brush our teeth again. To remain physically strong, we must continue to put in our reps at the gym. If we want to experience gratitude and happiness, we must choose it consistently, again and again, moment by moment.

Happiness and gratitude aren't necessarily easy, yet they are simple if we are willing to do the work again and again and again. One moment of choosing gratitude won't transform your life. Ten thousand moments will.

What would change if you practiced gratitude with the same consistency as you pick up your phone?

It doesn’t matter if you feel like doing it or not. What matters is if you want the results that come from doing it or not.

And remember, the most critical result you can create is the self-esteem that comes from trusting yourself to do what you are committed to.

Feelings are fleeting, commitment connects us to the steady and continuous.

Where is it time to act from your commitment rather than your feelings?

When we value our values and lead with them, we find the correct people in our lives.

Some people will try to come closer to you because of how they perceive your accomplishments, role, or status, yet they won't hold the same values as you, so the connection might not stick. This is not only okay, but it is optimal. The people who share your values will be the ones with whom connection thrives naturally. The right people aren't attracted to your carefully curated image, but to your integrity and the alignment between what you say and how you live. Many people will only be able to say things and not live them. Valuing our values means we live them. We live them imperfectly, yet we recommit and do our best to clean up messes when we need to.

When we stop compromising our values to fit in or be liked, we naturally attract people who resonate with who we truly are, with whom we can be ourselves, and with whom we can co-create. Unaligned people fall away when we value our values. While this can feel lonely at first, it's actually the path to real connection. Our people can’t sense us out while we are pretending to be someone else.

What would shift in your relationships if you did the courageous work of valuing your values?

There's a difference between taking responsibility and taking things personally. We can take responsibility for the quality of our relationships, for our environments, for how we show up in the world, without drowning in shame and blame. These are two entirely different things.

Taking responsibility means acknowledging our impact and our power to create change, as well as when we’ve created impacts that are unaligned with what we value. It means we recognize where we can improve and choose to evolve, all while showing compassion for ourselves and our human imperfections. Taking things personally means we make everything about our worth, turning every challenge into evidence that we're not whole. One empowers us to serve, the other paralyzes us and makes our energy a drain.

We can take full responsibility for how our actions shape the people, places, and things around us, knowing we're doing our best and continuing to grow to our best. We can care deeply about our impact without collapsing into shame when things are hard. Responsibility says, ‘What can I do differently?’ Taking it personally means, 'What's wrong with me?’ Only one of these questions leads somewhere useful.

What would change if you took full responsibility without taking it personally?

Fulfillment isn't found in accumulation. It lives in circulation.

If you want to be fulfilled, you need to practice what you teach, and you need to teach what you practice. These aren't separate paths; they're one complete cycle.

We understand that we need to practice what we teach or preach. We know we can't authentically share something we haven't lived. People sense this disconnect.

What we may be missing, if we want that extra happiness boost, is that teaching what we practice is just as essential. When something works for us and transforms our experience, we have the opportunity to share it. This type of sharing doesn’t come from obligation. It comes from generosity and completes the cycle.

The only way we can really teach is through demonstration and invitation. As Fred Rogers says, attitudes aren’t taught; they’re caught. When we practice what matters to us and share it without attachment, we can inspire by example. This is teaching because it isn’t forcing, ordering, or telling, which aren’t helpful for anyone.

Both sides matter. Practicing without sharing keeps us small. Sharing without practicing feels stressful. The contribution cycle completes itself through both.

What are you practicing that you'd like to share? What are you teaching that needs deeper practice?

The sensations of intensity we feel from stress, whether good or bad stress, physical or emotional, are simply signs for us to choose to soften and embrace what is happening. These sensations are invitations to become channels for all of the experiences we are meant to experience as humans, letting them flow through us rather than bracing against them.

When we soften and embrace, we gain the power to co-create with life instead of push against it and suffer. We waste so much energy thinking things should be different, when our job is simply to accept them as they are and be a tiny part of their evolution through loving them, rather than controlling them and trying to constrain them.

Intensity isn't the enemy, it is actually our truthful friend. The belief that we should resist intensity is the enemy. Every sensation is life moving through you, asking you to open rather than clench, to allow rather than fight. This is how we participate in our own lives without exhausting ourselves trying to manage them. This is peace and joy.

What would open up within you if you stopped resisting what is meant to flow through you?

It all had to happen this way. Every choice you made, every mistake you think you made, every detour, every loss, every moment you wish you could take back. It all had to happen exactly as it did to bring you here. And this is true not just for you. It is true for all of us collectively.

Life is imperfect, and everything is interconnected. There are so many things at play beyond what we can understand and what we prefer. We all ended up here on the planet and in our lives inheriting beliefs, patterns, and circumstances beyond our control. We are learning every day, and we did our best with what we had. There is no other way it could have been up until this point, and we can continue to evolve together.

This isn't about making peace with a disappointing past, pretending horrific things aren’t happening, or avoiding responsibility for ourselves. This is about freeing us up from regret and shoulds so we can be clear about who we need to be right now. If we are willing, we can have a total, joyful acceptance of life, which is the only thing that gives us the freedom to create from right here. We are fully prepared for what we are meant to do and the difference we are meant to make if we let go of needing to know what the whole plan is. And this is always the case. We simply need to attune to it.

When we stop arguing with how we got here, we can finally be here. Being here, fully embracing the imperfection that has shaped us and will continue to shape us, is where our real power resides. Our minds may never fully understand why things happen the way they do, yet our hearts intuit that there is something bigger at play.

What becomes possible if you consider that it all had to happen this way?

Today is a brand new day. Making just the tiniest change can change absolutely everything. If there's an area where you're feeling stuck, sad, frustrated, anxious, or disappointed, you can consciously choose to start fresh in that area today.

It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be the way it would have been if you started twenty years ago. Making a tiny change starting today could change everything, and you have no idea what those changes could be or their depth. Yet you do need to start for something to happen.

Today is a perfect day for things to start and for you to truly focus on the thing that you know you want to focus on. When we start fresh, we get to carry forward the learnings and the blessings while simultaneously releasing the heaviness. You are free to grow.

What tiny change will you make today to start fresh?

We've been taught that taking time to be inspired isn't productive. Yet without inspiration, we're not creating anything new. We're just consuming and reproducing what already exists.

Actual productivity comes from being inspired. The walk in nature, the music, the conversation that lights you up isn't separate from your work. It's the very thing that makes your work worth doing and gives it its life force. Inspiration isn't a luxury we indulge in after we finish the real work. Inspiration is a discipline.

When we create from our highest place, we bring something into the world that hasn't existed before, and bring more abundance and meaning into the world. That's the only “productivity” that matters. Everything else is just spinning wheels.

What inspires you that you've been treating as unproductive?

Freedom isn't about getting to do or have whatever you want, whenever you want. True freedom is having the intelligence to be yourself and express yourself while having fun moving towards what's important to you.

Most of us think freedom means no limits, no responsibilities, no consequences. We imagine it as endless choices and instant gratification. Yet this kind of freedom and the srtiving for it often leaves us feeling empty and directionless, robbing us of purpose and growth.

Real freedom comes from knowing who you are and having the courage to express that authentically in a dynamic way, in co-creation with others who may have different perspectives. It's the joy of discovering the journey toward what matters to you. It's being free from the need to prove anything to anyone while being free to contribute by being yourself.

What might change if you believed freedom wasn’t about what you were doing but who you were being?

Have the discipline to keep life simple before it becomes complicated, and all you want is for it to be simple again.

We have all been taught that we have to make life more complicated and flashy for it to be meaningful. This seems to involve achieving status roles, looking a certain way, having more stuff, and earning stuff to be happy in the future.

Yet, we make our lives too complicated and then try to pay to make them simpler. We pay to unplug from work and reconnect with ourselves, to spend time in nature and sunlight, to create life-giving relationships, and to take care of our bodies through exercise, healthy food, and good sleep. These are all things we can do on our own. Letting life become complicated and stressful is the easy thing to do, and allowing life to stay ease-filled and straightforward feels like the stressful thing to do these days.

Luckily, we can use our commitment and creativity to author a new way. We can let go of looking perfect so we can enjoy what is real.

What simple thing could you do today that you've been making complicated?

Mistakes aren't real. We have no idea how things will work out or “should” work out. We label something a mistake based on our imagined and preferred version of how life was supposed to go, yet our predicting mind is not the ultimate authority of the universe.

Our belief in mistakes gives us a false sense of control. If we can make the right decisions, we think we'll be safe and whole. This belief keeps us small and afraid, constantly second-guessing instead of living fully right now, which is all there is.

What if our only mistake is believing in mistakes? What if every choice is simply another step in an unfolding we cannot see?