Have the Audacity.
Someone said three words to me recently that have stuck with me.
Have the audacity.
It's an interesting phrase.
We often associate audacity with arrogance. Someone who oversteps, asks for too much, or believes they're entitled to something they haven't earned.
But I've come to think about it differently.
What if having the audacity isn't about believing you deserve something?
What if it's about being willing to give something meaningful a genuine opportunity, even when you don't know how it will turn out?
To ask the question.
Explore the possibility.
Make the decision.
And accept responsibility for whatever comes next.
Because there's a difference between believing you're entitled to an outcome and believing something matters enough to pursue.
And before we can make that distinction, I think we need to ask ourselves another question.
Who decided what a meaningful life is supposed to look like?
Whose Definition of Success Are You Living By?
From a young age, we begin absorbing ideas about what success should look like.
Our parents, teachers, communities, and experiences all contribute to that picture.
Get an education.
Find a respectable career.
Earn a good living.
Build stability.
There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things.
But sometimes we inherit a definition of success without ever stopping to ask whether it belongs to us.
Maybe someone grows up being encouraged to become a doctor, but finds meaning in music.
Maybe someone builds a successful career and eventually realizes they want to spend more time with their family.
Maybe someone's greatest ambition is to raise children who feel loved, supported, and capable.
Or maybe someone wants to create something that doesn't exist yet.
Which of those lives is more meaningful?
I don't think that's a question anyone else gets to answer.
A meaningful life doesn't have to look impressive to anyone else. It has to mean something to the person living it.
And I think having the audacity sometimes begins with examining the expectations we've accepted without questioning them.
Is this what I actually want, or is this what I've been taught I should want?
That doesn't mean dismissing the people who helped shape us.
It means recognizing that their experiences and aspirations don't necessarily have to become our own.
Purpose Isn't Always Something You Find Before You Begin
For nearly 18 years, I worked in leadership.
I spent much of that time developing people, building teams, and helping others become more capable leaders.
It was meaningful work.
During those years, I also began building My Disciplined Mind.
At first, it was an idea. Then a hobby.
I was working roughly 50 hours a week, bodybuilding, preparing for competitions, and managing the responsibilities that came with my career.
There was only so much time available.
But the longer I worked on My Disciplined Mind, the more I began recognizing what it meant to me.
I saw how much fulfillment I found in helping someone understand their behavior, overcome an obstacle, or accomplish something they once believed was beyond them.
And gradually, I realized I wanted to give that work a genuine opportunity to grow.
Looking back, I don't think my underlying purpose changed as dramatically as my career did.
I had spent years developing people.
Now I wanted to do that in a different way, with greater freedom to shape the work myself.
The vehicle changed.
The desire to help people grow was already there.
And that taught me something.
Sometimes purpose doesn't arrive as a sudden realization. Sometimes it becomes clearer through participation.
Through the conversations we have.
The work we do.
The relationships we develop.
The experiences that leave us feeling that our time and effort mattered.
We don't always need to know exactly where something will lead before allowing ourselves to explore it.
Sometimes the exploration is how we discover its meaning.
Everyone Has Their Own Mount Everest
There's an analogy I often use when talking about helping people.
I believe everyone has their own Mount Everest.
For one person, that might be building a business.
For another, becoming a better parent.
For someone else, it might be improving their health, rebuilding their confidence, or finding the courage to make a change they've been avoiding.
The mountain looks different for everyone.
And that's the point.
We don't get to decide which mountain is worthy of someone else's effort.
When I'm coaching someone, I see my role as something like a Sherpa.
I can help them understand the terrain, recognize obstacles, and develop the tools they'll need.
But I can't climb their mountain for them.
Nor should I.
Because meaningful growth requires participation.
There's a saying I've always appreciated:
A man asked a gardener why his plants grew so beautifully. The gardener replied, “I don't force them to grow. I remove what stops them.”
I think there's a tremendous amount of wisdom in that exchange.
Because sometimes helping someone reach their potential isn't about pushing them harder, giving them more instructions, or trying to turn them into someone else.
It's about understanding what's preventing them from growing in the first place.
Maybe it's an environment that no longer supports them.
Maybe it's a belief they've carried for years.
Maybe it's a lack of structure, clarity, or the tools necessary to move forward.
The goal isn't to force someone to become what we think they should be.
It's to help create the conditions in which they can become more capable of pursuing what matters to them.
And I think there's a broader lesson here.
Sometimes our purpose isn't simply about what we want to accomplish for ourselves.
It's about what our efforts might make possible for someone else.
A parent finds fulfillment in helping their child grow.
A teacher sees a student recognize an ability they didn't know they had.
A leader helps someone become capable of taking on responsibilities they once found intimidating.
The work can be personally fulfilling while also being valuable to others.
Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
And perhaps that's worth considering when we think about our own ambitions.
What do I want to accomplish?
But also:
What might become possible for others if I pursue it?
The Audacity to Ask
Over the past couple of years, I've had opportunities to build relationships with people I genuinely admire.
And there have been times when I've hesitated to ask a question or explore a potential opportunity.
Not necessarily because I was afraid of rejection.
I was concerned about being perceived as someone who valued a relationship only for what it could provide.
That matters to me.
I want my relationships to be genuine.
But I've also learned that there's a difference between taking advantage of someone and respectfully exploring an opportunity where you believe you have something worthwhile to contribute.
You can have the audacity to ask while remaining humble enough to accept the answer.
Ambition doesn't require entitlement.
And pursuing something meaningful doesn't mean abandoning your values to get there.
Sometimes it simply means being willing to communicate what you're hoping to accomplish instead of waiting for someone else to recognize it.
The Audacity Audit
This brings me to something I've started using as a way of thinking through difficult decisions.
When I'm standing at a crossroads, I try to examine what having—or not having—the audacity to act might actually mean.
Not as a motivational exercise.
As an audit.
What do I want, and why does it matter?
What happens if I choose not to pursue it?
What becomes possible if I do?
What am I genuinely risking?
Can I pursue this without compromising what I value?
I think those questions are important because not every opportunity deserves a yes.
Not every risk is worth taking.
And discomfort alone doesn't make something meaningful.
Sometimes the information tells us to wait, prepare, or change direction.
That's judgment.
But sometimes, after examining the situation, we recognize that the primary thing standing between us and something important is our reluctance to accept uncertainty.
And uncertainty is not the same thing as impossibility.
Having the audacity doesn't mean ignoring the information. It means examining it honestly and deciding what you're willing to do with it.
The Cost of Never Finding Out
When I eventually decided to leave my career and pursue My Disciplined Mind full-time, I understood what I was giving up.
A predictable paycheck.
Benefits.
Structure.
A safety net I'd relied on for years.
I wasn't guaranteed that building my own business would work.
I'm still not.
But I had another possibility to consider.
What if I never gave it a genuine chance?
What if I spent the next 10 or 20 years wondering what might have happened if I'd committed to something that had become deeply meaningful to me?
I couldn't know the outcome.
But I could decide whether I was willing to find out.
That doesn't mean everyone should leave their career, start a business, or make a dramatic change.
For someone else, audacity might mean protecting time with their family instead of pursuing another promotion.
It might mean asking for help.
Starting a conversation.
Or choosing a quieter life than the one others expect them to want.
The decision will look different for everyone.
Because the mountain is different for everyone.
And that's why I keep returning to those three words.
Have the audacity.
Not because success is guaranteed.
Not because every ambition deserves to be pursued at any cost.
But because something that genuinely matters to you deserves more than an automatic no.
It deserves an honest examination.
And perhaps, when the information supports it, a genuine opportunity.
You may never know exactly what waits at the summit.
But you can decide whether the mountain matters enough to begin climbing.
Have the audacity.
What's Your Mount Everest?
We all have something meaningful we want to pursue. Sometimes the challenge isn't knowing what we want, but understanding what's standing in our way.
That's the work I do through My Disciplined Mind: helping people identify what's holding them back, build the tools to move forward, and pursue what matters to them.
If you're ready to take a closer look at where you are and where you want to go, start with my free Disciplined Life Assessment.
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