Not My Story
You want my story?
Fine. Here it is:
I said no.
No to the prestige that padded my LinkedIn. No to the meetings where no one remembered what they were negotiating. No to the performance review called lifestyle.
That 'no' cost me everything I didn’t want, and gave me everything I didn’t know I needed.
I used to say I built startups. Really, I built exit strategies. Now I design presence. I used to answer questions like: "What do you do?" with an acronym. Now I ask: "Do you know what you're avoiding?"
I’ve been the guy in the boardroom who looks like he belongs there. I’ve also been the man sweating through asanas in a room full of searchers, hoping someone would name what hurts. Neither role explains me. Both taught me how easy it is to hide behind purpose.
I didn’t escape the system. I metabolised it. Then I starved the part of me that still thought being impressive was a form of nourishment.
So if you're here wondering if I’ve lived enough to help you live differently — yes. I have lived. But not the way you mean.
I’ve fasted from sugar and from praise. Lost weight and lost face. I’ve practiced movement arts until my body stopped performing and started remembering. I’ve sat in circles that promised transformation and walked out calmer, not better. I held ayahuasca in my mouth, not out of courage, but because part of me still believed suffering could earn change. I’ve done some of the work. Not the loud kind. The kind that leaves you lonelier before it leaves you lighter.
Now I live lightly — in cities that feel like thresholds more than destinations: George Town’s damp heat, Cape Town’s windbitten light. Maybe somewhere in Brazil next. I’m not searching for a better place. I’m tracing what it feels like to belong without following the rules. I witness the noise, the movement, the makeshift economies of service and hustle. The ways people invent futures — and edit out the past.
I don’t coach to give you answers. I coach because the sharpest part of you is tired of being seen through a soft lens. I won’t make your story coherent. I’ll make sure it’s alive.
This isn’t proof of life. It’s the part I stopped editing. Make of it what you will.
Don’t bookmark this. Let it interrupt your own attempt at impressing someone next time you're asked about your plan.