A Lifetime of Attending
Reflections on the questions that have shaped my life—and the work that grew from them.
If someone were to ask what I have spent my life doing, I doubt I would begin with degrees, professions, accomplishments, or even the many forms my work has taken.
I would probably say that I have spent my life watching.
Watching people. Watching relationships. Watching the surprising ways fear and love shape our choices. Watching the invisible assumptions that steer our lives. Watching what happens when someone becomes willing to question a story they have believed about themselves for years, and the unmistakable shift that occurs when something more genuine begins to emerge.
Long before I wrote books, painted large canvases, or began offering private retreats, I found myself captivated by one enduring question.
Why do some people continue growing throughout their lives while others slowly begin living inside an increasingly smaller version of themselves?
That question has accompanied me everywhere. It led me into the study of psychology, scientific research, contemplative traditions, organizational behavior, creativity, and human development. More importantly, it led me into thousands of hours of direct conversation with people whose lives rarely fit neatly into theories.
Over time I discovered that no single discipline could answer the questions that mattered most to me. Each offered something valuable, but each was only one way of looking through a much larger window. Real life was always more interesting.
Then, during my forties, life interrupted my own questions with one of its own.
An unexpected inner awakening during a dialogue with death changed the direction of my life in ways I could never have anticipated. It eventually became the foundation for my first book, Remembering Who You Really Are, but more importantly, it deepened my trust that some of life's greatest teachers arrive disguised as experiences we would never willingly choose.
Not long afterward, people began asking to work with me privately.
I never set out to create a methodology or build a career around mentoring. The work grew organically, one conversation at a time, as people sought a place where they could think more honestly, feel more deeply, and discover possibilities they could not yet see for themselves.
Looking back now, I can see that what appeared to be many different careers were never really separate.
Corporate consulting. Private retreats. Writing. Painting. Photography. Music. Multimedia works. Community conversations. Living legacy collaborations.
Each has been another expression of the same lifelong inquiry.
Today, my work continues to evolve, but the questions remain remarkably familiar. How do we become more fully ourselves? How do we meet change with greater honesty and imagination? How do we continue growing into the deepest possibilities of our own lives while contributing something meaningful to the lives of others?
Those questions still guide me.
They continue to shape my books, artwork, mentoring, music, and the conversations I have with people who find themselves standing at life's crossroads.
I no longer think of them as questions to be answered.
They have become companions on this journey...
What Continues to Fascinate Me
The surprising intelligence hidden inside resistance.
The creative process as a form of inquiry.
How ordinary moments reveal extraordinary things.
The moment someone's life becomes larger than the story they've been living.
The relationship between beauty and truth.
Growing older and becoming fuller not smaller.
Some years ago, one of my retreat participants introduced me to others as "the loving butt kicker."
I laughed.
Then I realized they weren't entirely wrong.
Over the years I've also been described as being "a bit on the Zen side"—someone who somehow notices both another person's deepest gifts and the ingenious ways we protect ourselves from fully living them.
I've never been especially interested in telling people what they should do. What fascinates me is helping someone recognize the places where they have quietly stopped telling themselves the truth, or where an old certainty has become too small for the life now asking to be lived.
Fortunately, this work does not have to be solemn.
Some of the deepest moments I've shared with clients have arrived through laughter. Humor has a remarkable way of slipping past our defenses. We laugh, and in the very next moment we recognize ourselves with a little more honesty and a little more compassion.
If that occasionally earns me the title of "loving butt kicker," I accept it as one of the nicest compliments I've ever received.