Mostly by showing you where yours went.

Last December I was asked to do something I rarely do in my work. Prepare something for myself. A short talk. A few minutes. Simple, in theory.

I was in a hotel room outside New York. Cold, because the heater was too noisy to leave on. 11pm. A full day of training behind me. Another full day ahead.

And I sat down to write.

Nothing came.

I have spent years helping others find their story, get to the point, say the thing they actually mean. I know how this works. I know what blocks it. I know what unlocks it.

And still. Nothing.

At some point, in frustration, I typed exactly that into a conversation with an AI. Something like: why is this so hard, it should be easy by now.

The response stopped me:
“What you’re experiencing is not a lack of ideas. It’s too much perspective. When you’ve coached for years, reflected deeply, helped hundreds of people articulate their moments of growth, your brain no longer reaches for neat stories. It scans for truth. And truth is messier, quieter, and harder to pin down in two minutes. That’s not failure. That’s maturity.”

I sat with that for a while. (And laughed out loud.)

It is easier to find a story when you have not yet examined your life too closely. Experience does not simplify things. It complicates them, in the best possible way.

And the simplest topics are often the hardest to write. Not because there is nothing there. Because there is too much.It is also why my signature offering is built around the specific and the small. Not because small is easier. Because it is where the real work actually is.

🫠 What do you find hardest to articulate, precisely because you know it too well?

For those who want to see how the talk actually turned out, after all that, here it is: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7437089881253863424/