I didn’t plan to write this post, but sitting in a hotel lounge waiting to pick up my son from hanging out with his friends, a profound realization hit me just a few moments ago that I wanted to capture.
It has been about a week since I made the conscious choice to go pro as a writer, and even beyond that, to become a world-class writer.
Even though it was a major life decision that has already completely changed the trajectory of my life, I made it in mid-stride, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to be with it until now.
Sitting here in the lobby, with a soft instrumental Spotify playlist in my ears, looking out the window at the small wisps of white clouds slowly floating across the blue sky, alternating sips of green tea with Pepsi, it suddenly occurred to me: To become a world-class writer, I need to become someone entirely different from who I have been up until this moment.
This isn't really a new realization, nor experience, since I have moved through transformation before. But I have never made a major conscious pivot like this.
I have been on this path for close to two decades, blessed to have touched over half a million people as a creator of transformative media. As wonderful as that has been, and as grateful as I am for how I have been able to serve, the person who got me here cannot take me where I’m going now.
I heard a similar statement in the audiobook I’ve been listening to called 10x Is Easier Than 2x, which I referenced in my last post. Sitting here, in a moment of stillness and silence, it hit me like a ton of bricks: from now on, I will no longer move through life the same way I did only a week ago.
To Go Where We Have Never Gone, We Need To Become Someone We Have Never Been
The me who recorded those hundreds of hours of talks, meditations, prayers, and courses will be no more.
A growing snake needs to shed its skin, not because it wants to look pretty, but if it doesn’t, the old skin will ultimately stifle the snake’s expansion. Biologists call this ecdysis.
To become who I need to become, I will need to release large parts of who I am now. The he that got me here did good. He did amazingly good, and I am both proud and grateful for who he was and the work he did.
However, for all his wonderful accomplishments, as I set out on a journey in a completely different direction, I cannot bring him with me. In fact, trying to drag him along would only stifle my expansion.
Which, honestly, is a very strange thing to contemplate and feel into.
There are so many pivotal moments in our lives. One moment we are moving in one direction, and the next— voluntarily or involuntarily—we find ourselves moving in a completely different direction.
Each time we transform, we need to release who we have been to become who we need to become.
As the principle of the Spiritual Warrior states, if we want anything to change, we need to change.
Standing on the verge of transformation, I embrace and say yes to stepping outside the known and familiar. I willingly let go of who I used to be, so that who I need to become may emerge from within me.
These words are easy to write, and I mean them, but I also know from experience that breaking habitual ways of moving and being is easier said than done.
Even so, it needs to be done, and I know that it will be done, as the version of me who is that world-class writer already exists within the infinite mind and I give him full permission to come forth.
There Is Always A Next Version Seeking To Emerge
I am still figuring out what being a world-class writer means to me. What will I do? What will I write about? How do I want to move through life? How do I want to show up? What will my style be? What is the unique angle I get to bring? What will my standards be?
There are so many questions that need clarification. But beyond these practical questions, I need to discover who I need to become.
Over the past few years, I established an identity as a teacher, coach, and creator of transformative content. But I slowly grew into that identity through the gradual inner work I was doing. It was organic and incremental.
I didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Hey, I am going to become a coach, teach classes, and record content that will touch hundreds of thousands of people.”
Many of the steps I took and changes I made were so subtle and incremental that I don’t even remember making them.
The shift happening now is dramatically different. I have made the conscious choice to pivot my life, direction, and business on a dime. Not over the next few years, but immediately.
Making that choice was surprisingly easy, though. Through reflection and contemplation, it became abundantly clear that to keep moving toward my vision of a simple, peaceful, quiet life, unbound by time and place, continuing to create content will no longer get me “there”.
I hit a fork in the road, where I could either continue doing what I have done for the past 10+ years, which might get me a few steps closer, but never all the way... or I could pivot, take the path not yet traveled, and start walking down a path I know will move me into the full manifestation of that vision.
So making that choice was easy. Moving through the transition may not be (or maybe it will) be that easy.
I just love how Spirit eternally moves us forward into ever greater and grander versions of ourselves.
We are never done. We will never arrive at a final destination.
But no matter how far we have come, there will always be a next great and grand version waiting for us to say yes to and step into.
And as scary and disconcerting as it may sometimes feel to venture into the unknown, we can always rest assured of one thing:
Being a unique, perfect, whole, and complete expression of the One Mind, we are eternally sourced, fueled, and funded. Eternally guided, moved, and led.
We are not in this by ourselves.
The same intelligence that calls the chicken to peck the egg to step out into a completely new world, that inspires the seed to crack open to begin to root and shoot, that makes sure seasons come and go, that the distance between the sun, moon, and mother earth is exactly perfect for life to even exist here on this planet.
That same intelligence is within each of us. It is the truth and the essence of who and what we are.
The same evolutionary impulse that penetrates and permeates all of creation is our very being.
However, unlike anything in nature that cannot choose whether or not to grow and unfold, we humans can either participate in or resist our own evolution.
And this is a choice we need to make again and again and again.
Pause and Reset 🧘🏾♂️
Let’s pause here and take a moment to center ourselves through coming back to the nowness of this moment.
I invite you to close your eyes, bring a smile to your face, and join me in taking three deep conscious breaths.
Breathing in… and releasing.
Breathing in… and releasing.
Breathing in… and releasing
Now that we have reset our minds, I invite you to say with me:
All is Well
Something Wonderful is Always Happening
Everything is Working For Our Highest Good
Perfect Preparation and Unfolding are happening now, always, and forever
A New Divine Seed Has Been Planted
Every idea, dream, or vision we ever catch is a Divine Seed planted within our consciousness.
As with every seed in nature, within these seeds is everything needed for the perfect unfolding to happen with ease and grace.
I am grateful beyond words that I have this deep realization. It allows me to step into this new iteration of my life wholeheartedly, without a sliver of doubt about whether or not this is something I can do.
Obviously, it won't be easy. Who I need to become is far beyond who I currently am. But even so, Spirit has already qualified me. Spirit has provided everything I need to start moving in this new direction, as long as I keep moving forward, to ultimately realize this new iteration of my life.
Only to have the next great and grand iteration reveal itself, requiring me to start over and do the inner work necessary to realize that version. And again. And again.
As an old teacher of mine once said:
“We are always at the bottom of our next level.”
Thank you, Rev. Coco, for your eternal wisdom.
We Are All Free As A Bird
Whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever our past experience has been—every single moment offers an opportunity to make a new choice.
A higher choice. A choice that will either subtly or dramatically alter the trajectory of our lives.
There is nothing stopping us but us—or rather, the small, limited stories and beliefs about who we are, what we are worthy of, and what we are capable of that we allow to run our lives.
A few years ago, I had an experience that drove this point home in a powerful way.
I was sitting on the porch of our old house, having a “breathing space”—a space dedicated to non-doing and pure being. Looking out over the fields and the lake beyond, I noticed a single bird flying across the field.
I followed its flight for a few moments, and then, suddenly, the bird turned about 90 degrees and took off in a completely new direction.
I will never know what prompted the bird to so dramatically alter its trajectory, but watching it made me realize that we all enjoy that same freedom.
None of us are so bogged down that we cannot choose to move in a new direction. Nothing is ever set in stone.
There is no destiny in the sense that we are caught in an experience that is permanent or unchangeable.
Even when we cannot see the way forward, just starting to articulate the kind of life we want to live and setting the intention to move in that direction sets in motion powers far beyond our ability to comprehend.
In quantum mechanics, a field of infinite potential remains a wave of probability until a focused observer measures it, collapsing the wave into a solid particle.
When we set an intention, that is exactly what is happening. We lock on to one possibility (of infinite possibilities) and call it forth into this physical dimension.
All it takes is a conscious choice to go for it.
We all inherently have a Divine Mandate to live our most beautiful life, as unique expressions of the Benevolent Loving Presence that is all there is.
Pause and Reset 🧘🏾♂️
Let’s have another moment of coming back to the nowness of this moment.
Let’s close our eyes, bring a smile to our face, and take these three deep, conscious breaths.
Breathing in… and releasing.
Breathing in… and releasing.
Breathing in… and releasing
Now that we have reset our minds, I invite you to say with me:
All is Well
Something Wonderful is Always Happening
Everything is Working For Our Highest Good
Perfect Preparation and Unfolding are happening now, always, and forever
🎧 Complementary Audio Treat
The complimentary audio for this post is the talk I recorded right after seeing that bird change course midflight.
Invitation And Empowering Questions
Our invitation is to be brutally honest with ourselves about who we want to be and what kind of life we truly want to live.
For me, enjoying the financial independence to live a simple, peaceful, quiet life, unbound by time and place, is the next iteration of my life.
It is not the final version, but it is the next step.
How about you? What life are you dreaming about?
If anything were possible, who would you want to be, what would you want to do, and have?
The empowering question for us to ask is:
What choices can I make now that will move me in the drection of that life?
We don’t need to wait until we have it all figured out. Our ducks will never get in a row—at least not until we choose to go for it.
Please know this isn’t about making massive, dramatic choices right from the get-go.
Even the tiniest new choice makes a tremendous difference over time. So let’s not wait, but let’s go.
What does your most beautiful life look like? I would love to hear about it—feel free to leave a comment or share it in our chat.
As always, I would love to connect with you, so leave a comment below or simply drop in and say hi in our community Chat.
If this article resonated with your heart and soul, I would deeply appreciate your support in expanding this work—whether through a financial contribution or by sharing this blog with someone who might benefit from it. All support is received with deep gratitude.
Until next time, my fellow Spiritual Warriors, I bless, bless, bless our days, and I bless, bless, bless our ways. Knowing that All is Well, that Something Wonderful is Always Happening, that Everything is Working for Our Highest Good, that Perfect Preparation and Unfolding are Happening, Now, Always and Forever.
With much love and many blessings,
Namaste ✨💜🙏🏾
daniel