Are you letting “should” run your life?

What is guiding the choices you’re making in your life right now?

Is it habit?
Expectations?
Responsibility?

Or is it genuine alignment with what feels true to you and what you want?

For much of our lives, we make decisions based on what we should do.

We build careers.
We take the sensible path.
We become the dependable one.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is necessary and natural. (It's adulting. And we all have to do it.)

But at some point, the question shifts.

James Hollis, one of my favorite authors, writes that the first half of life asks, What does life demand from me?

The second half asks something deeper:

What is my soul inviting me to do?

That question can feel destabilizing, even irresponsible.

At 40, burnout forced me to confront it.

I had built a life around being capable, steady, responsible. I did the things I thought I should.

Wanting something different felt selfish.

But here’s what I learned:

Excluding what you want from your decisions does not make you more responsible.

It disconnects you from your aliveness and your own life.

It was the reason I burned out: I depleted my energy, my life source, by ignoring what energized me and made me come alive.

I've made a lot of changes in my work and life since then.

I went from being a tech CEO to being a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and mentor to leaders and founders.

I finally gave myself permission to paint (something I'd always wanted) and just came back from my first big art show in Mexico City.

I built a new successful business doing what lights me up and have helped thousands of people and teams thrive.

And I earned a huge lesson:

Including what you want in your decisions does not mean being irresponsible.

It's actually THE way to achieving meaningful success and creating the impact that's uniquely yours.

And you don't need to burn your life down to do more of what feels true!

It means building your next chapter with more honesty.