For most of my adult life I’ve been infinitely curious to understand why the most incredible, caring, and successful people I worked with were secretly exhausted. We’re talking business and community leaders, culture shapers, thought leaders, politicians, scientists, engineers, athletes… our best and brightest! And it wasn’t simply physical exhaustion. Many of them are physical warriors, super-marathoners, and bad-asses in their sport. What I saw was soul-level exhaustion.
Even when their calendars were optimized, their companies were thriving, their teams respected them, their communities embraced them, and home life appeared on point.
I saw the same thing in myself.
After leaving the corporate world, navigating divorce after almost 20 years (with two kids), taking a sabbatical to write my first book, and choosing to pursue a different career path of coaching high-level leaders, the same pattern kept emerging: I knew how to lead others, but it took an enormous amount of effort.
I was really good at delegating tasks but not trust. Managing performance, but not potential. It was a grind, full of friction and angst. Not surprising, the results were inconsistent and mediocre at best.
This wasn’t just playing out at work either. It looked the same at home. With my new partner, my kids (and her kids), my parents, and in my social circles.
My first book, Papercuts: The Art of Self-Delusion, was a journey through learning about the self-sabotaging stories we tell (and sell to) ourselves along with how to reclaim our agency (aka free will). It was incredibly eye opening to see how choice is something most of us, or maybe just me, take for granted and don’t claim as ours. And it doesn’t just happen sometimes. The book earned its title reference to a death by a thousand papercuts. Not a physical death. More like a catatonic numbness to life, where we end up stepping out of presence in the moments that matter most.
I had witnessed firsthand that presence is what shifts a room. Instantly and effortlessly, for better or for worse. Whether we want it to be or not, our emotional, energetic, and spiritual states are infinitely contagious.
Knowing about the value of choice, the moments I abandoned it, and ultimately stepped out of presence, didn’t mean I got any better at it. This was one of those things that I knew about intellectually yet had no idea how to have presence on command. So, I spent the next three years studying, questioning, meditating, and conversing. Whatever it would take to learn the secrets that were clearly evading me.
Then I had a breakthrough. An epiphany handed down from something bigger than me.
It showed me that owning our true presence isn’t a skill you build nor is it something to be performed. It’s a remembering. And it can only happen in reverence to our inner genius.
I had to sit with that one for a while.
Genius?
Yeah, it’s not what we were taught it means. Over the last couple thousand years the true meaning has morphed into something our egos love. It’s tangible and KPI-able. Allowing us to prove our worth because we have a metric who’s smarter and, by de facto, better… yuck!
The Latin origin of the word genius means inborn nature. Sometimes referred to as ‘generative power,’ genius was the word used to describe our capacity, as humans, to create. To bring things into existence. Physical objects, ideas, social systems, all of it. The core of it was anchored by the ability to bring forth something new. We are, after all, creative beings if nothing else.
Even though the etymology was about creativity and generative power, the function was as a guardian. An internal personal deity or spirit of an individual during their lifetime. Catholics have patron saints. The Greeks have the daimon. The Hindus have the atman. Indigenous cultures have spirit animals. No matter what part of the world you look at, virtually every culture believed that each of us had a genius that was our very own cosmically assigned guide. The job was to keep watch over and advise us along our journey, helping guide us through the creative act of living.
Which means that genius was never about being smart.
It was about remembering who’s been inside us all along. The part of us that’s not exhausted. The part that doesn’t perform. The part that just knows. Has always known.
So, for the rest of this short time we get to spend together, we’re going to bring genius back to its roots. A time and place where it meant:
Deep inner wisdom. Your guardian. The Holy Spirit. Or maybe, just maybe, your truest Self.
What matters is this: you don’t have to hold it all.
You don’t have to earn your worth through exhaustion. Or control everything so tightly that nothing falls apart. Or do everything just perfectly so you’re not left behind, or standing there all alone. And you don’t have to keep proving you’re indispensable. Not to yourself or anyone else. Nobody was really buying that lie anyway.
There’s a better way to lead. To love. To live.
From a place of overflow. From alignment. From genius. I’ve found that leading from this place is truly effortless.
Effortless? (cough, scoff, choke…)
You should be skeptical.
You’ve built your life on effort. On being the one who works harder, stays later, carries more, gets up earlier, never says no, always thinks about others’ needs, is the nice one, acquiesces, doesn’t ruffle feathers, gives more than you receive, is truly a servant leader.
I had to learn this the hard way. The internal exhaustion—that residue of lament no one else can see, but that you know is slowly dimming how bright you shine—isn’t from the work.
It’s from the internal war.
Against believing in your own genius. Against seeing and trusting others’ true Self. Against the very systems that could set you free.
Effortless doesn’t mean no work. It means no more war.
It means aligned action. Natural authority. Impact that multiplies without destroying you in the process.
Effortlessness has changed my life.
I have written books, started companies, found love, deepened relationships, run triathlons, backpacked thousands of miles, long-hugged (aka the ‘Disney hug’) my daughters, lived life, ultimately achieving more by doing less. Not less effort and not less work. Fewer things that are only fear-based ‘shoulds.’ Everything that has FOMO attached to it and is meaningless, distracting, and exhausting.
Here’s my invitation over the next 40 days. Gather up all your preconceived notions, your expectations, and all the things you think you already know. Put them inside an extra-large suitcase, put a lock on it, then set it down. Gently kick it so it rolls over to a safe corner in your house. You can open it back up in 40 days.
In this moment, step into a child’s mindset. Become teachable. Instead of the inner monologue saying, ‘I already know about this stuff,’ try, ‘I’ve heard about this before.’ This small shift invites curiosity where the door was shut and locked previously.
We’re about to explore the possibility of hope, joy, peace, love, happiness, and freedom. Too much? Too bad, I like to dream big.
How about the possibility of less stress? The kind where you’re not on edge 18 hours a day. A full body feeling that you are good enough as-is. That how you exist at home, at work, and in community is exactly what everyone needs, without any extra effort or fake performances.
YOU. As God made you. Nothing more. Nothing less. The good, the bad, and especially the ugly (I’ve learned to really like the ugly).
Yes. The messy, dirty, unpolished side of you. We all have it and pretend like we don’t. Yet, this is the fastest route to effortlessness. Why? Because it’s authentic. It’s real. It exists and you aren’t hiding it. And everyone else has this ugly stuff too. Which means… you are not alone!
We can start gently. Slowly and softly pushing the boundaries of our current thoughts and actions. Expanding the capacity of who we’ve been and exploring what we might have the capability to hold.
That last part was a test. I don’t really know how to be gentle. This book is going to be kind, yet not very nice.
Who has time to waste on fluffy, warm, soft ‘maybes’ anyway?
You’re welcome.
And, I’m sorry.
I love you.
Thank you.
