The Lie of Certainty

The trek that is our journey is rarely manicured and easy to follow. There are times when I knew where I needed to go and in order to get there I had to create the path. There was no bare earth under my feet because I had not walked this direction before. It was overgrown, unclaimed. I had not been this direction before. In these moments of uncertainty I was the very thing I was dismantling.

Preaching growth while fighting the internal programming of my old systems. I helped others discover self awareness while I punished myself for being human when I had a moment alone. I taught presence while not always recognizing when I was white knuckling control. I collaborated to build frameworks of freedom while living inside the confines of my own brain’s safety. I mistook pressure and deadlines for purpose. I thought fear was discipline.

The hypocrisy was surgical, maybe even beautiful. On the surface everyone saw the calm and thought it was mastery, precision. But churning beneath the zen presence was a head filled with fear and anxiety.

And then I stepped back. Took a breath. And I saw it.

The programming I was taught from my upbringing.

The persona I adorned.

The certainty I had been wearing like perfectly fitting armor.

In that moment I wasn’t leading. I was performing.

And I was damn good at it.

If we are honest, most of us are.

But,

performance ends.

Presence doesn’t.

It’s waiting for us to step back and see the path before us for what it is.

You see, performance is easy to teach. Presence is the difficult lesson.

My edge never came from control. It came from surrender. The kind of surrender that removes all you have until it’s just you. I learned, after years of doing it the wrong way, that being “right” is a cheap high. Take a hit, feel alive and in control, competent, unmatched. But like with any high, the crash is coming. And the crash is where you might just find out who you are if you don’t immediately chase the high again.

So this is where I hand you the mirror. The permission to step back. To look.

Take a breath and move into the work. Lean into the storm without all the safety nets you’ve convinced yourself you need. Find your favorite chair and have a seat in the spaces you feel exposed, incompetent and stay a while.

Then

say the words you were taught strong people never say,

“I don’t know.”

I know it’s not comfortable. If I’m being fully honest, it sucks. But it is the only place honesty resides.

Try it with someone who looks up to you.

Try it with someone who you’re a little intimidated by.

Try it alone.

Allow the anxiety and panic to rise.

Let the ego tremble a bit.

Let the old identity you’ve been living through crack.

Because when you stop performing with certainty, you stop performing yourself.

This is the moment when you can finally see clearly. Finally feel fully. Finally lead well. Finally enjoy the life you have. Not because you are right. Not because you’re in something you think you control.

But because for the first time you’re awake, breathing crisp, clean air.

Freedom, real freedom, comes when you allow the world you’ve constructed to be what it is without needing to hold it all together. When you stop experiencing your value through someone else’s eyes. When you stop the performing so you can feel like you belong.

These days I work differently. I’m not softer. I’m not harder. I can simply see more clearly. I’ve sat down the glasses I was handed by my culture, my family and the countless others along the way.

Don’t think I’ve stopped chasing precision, because I still do. But I chase it through truth, not control. I build systems that can expand and breath rather than suffocate. I lead with the curiosity to learn because I am certain of nothing. Because if I am certain, I’m not learning.

And if I’ve stopped learning, I’m moving away from who I am and who I will be next.

Maybe that’s what leadership actually is. Perhaps it’s the art of dying before you die. Shedding your ego, your need for safety, your perfectly crafted armor, the illusion of control. Until all that’s left is the beauty that lies in the abyss of uncertainty.

In it all, I know only what I know and I’m fucking excited to learn what I have yet to imagine.