I was having trouble writing for about a week.
Things were just. not. jiving.
There’s this strategy people talk about in writing that I used long before I knew it was “a strategy.” It is, write for one person.
I always thought it was simple, but this year, one of my clients was astonished to learn that I don’t write for a one-person avatar. I write for one literal person: a person with a name with whom I share my life.
Not a “group.” Not an “ideal client.” Not a “political” something or other. Just “one person.”
Of course, this last week, it got confusing as I couldn’t figure out a single being I wanted to fucking talk to. 🤣
Then yesterday, the dry spell was broken with “If I created you.”
That one was for the muse… ✨ I found one person.
(A sidebar: My friend Frank serendipitously wrote about writing for one person in his newsletter Action Words yesterday. He does incredible work helping writers break through their blockages and powerfully tell their stories. If this is you, and you know you have a story to tell but feel overwhelmed getting started, subscribe here!)
I’m in a transitional phase of my life because, in 2025, I am shifting how I do things to begin serving a different group of people. It’s been a long time coming— as I was given the awareness of how I could best proceed from a client in the summer of 2022. I didn’t know how to do it, so I slapped it on the back burner.
Every day, more and more people tell me stories that let me know how much it’s needed. I also am in a new circle of coaches who inspire me, so I’m finally ready to change things up.
So that left me with, “Who am I writing to, then?”
All of a sudden, it’s not so clear.
I’m in the goop phase again, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. I’m still going about my life of service, and I want to be a useful human. However, I also lack “one” clear human that this piece would best serve. There are at least ten instances in my head, all requiring a different message.
I think the best course of action is just to address five of them. No matter who reads this, I hope you can take the wisdom from these passages, and speaking of wisdom, let’s start there:
#1 Wisdom is more important than knowledge
Reading a lot of words doesn’t mean anything. It may be better to read the Tao 82 times than to read the entire catalog of personal development books. Information is addiction. If no wisdom comes from the information, it is worthless.
Knowledge these days is about as abundant as dirt.
What is the wisdom in it for you?
Ram Dass said:
“I want wisdom!“
Tough.
All you’re going to get that way is knowledge.
That’s the frustrating part of it. We’re dealing with a very subtle quality now. You’re not going to be able to do it like Westerners do it.
“I’m gonna grab it. I’m gonna take my 45s and I’m gonna go into that town and I’m going to get it! And I want that wisdom! Come on give me that wisdom now. I have all the credentials. I earned the right to have that wisdom!”
How about that one?
Oh, this is a good one, see? It infuriates you! Oh it’s so beautiful.”
#2 Change requires an injury to your ego
I’ve been sober for nearly five years, and something I noticed about people in recovery, whether it be from substance abuse, gambling addiction, sex addiction, etc, is that they have enormous potential to reinvent their lives.
The reason people in recovery can reinvent themselves so damn well is that they do three things immediately that other people pussyfoot around for years or decades:
1. They come to terms with losing their identity. (e.g. “Who will I be on the other side of this?”)
2. They go through the FULL BODY DISCOMFORT of letting go of an addiction. (Addiction is habituated neural pathways.)
3. They come face-to-face with darkness pretty much immediately and have to say, “I accept this. I forgive myself for this. I love myself, and this.”
Facing yourself is part of recovery.
Everyone else who desires a life “shift” or change must also face these three things.
Still, when it’s not as critical as “I’m going to die if I keep doing this,” those three things (loss of identity, discomfort from rewiring neural pathways, and self-love/compassion/forgiveness) are usually enough to send people running for cover.
And…. that’s why many people don’t live 75 years, but rather "one year, 75 times."
#3 Most people just want to take orders
I have been coaching people for four years now on reinventing themselves.
We have enormous power to be beautiful creators and do or be anything we fucking want. Inside of every person is a uniqueness that does not exist anywhere else. It’s through us and only us that that uniqueness takes place. We are the only one who has that very precise gift.
What I find is that a lot of people want to copy a script.
You may very well copy your script, but it won’t fulfill you. You’re just an order-taker.
If you’re an order-taker, be an order-taker. There’s nothing wrong with being an order-taker. Not all of us are meant to be leaders, and it’s a lot fucking easier to be an order-taker. But, it’s doing you a disservice to say you want to be a leader if you’re an order-taker.
This would be like me saying, “I want to be an Ironman! But I don’t want to bike.”
Unfortunately, cycling is part of being an Ironman triathlete. Since I don’t want to cycle, I can live upset about not being an Ironman or settle into the fact that, for now, I enjoy running, and I’m a runner. But, I’m not an Ironman.
#4 If you don’t have the thing you want, ask, “Are you committed?”
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, I said that as long as my lungs continued to work, I would continue to use them.
I quickly built my running mileage from 25 miles a week, to 40, to 50, to 60… Hell, I think there were one or two 70 weeks in there.
I was committed. For me, it was life or death. Physical health, movement, sunlight, and fresh air were the things that would keep me well. (And they did.)
I went from running about 1,000 miles per year to more than double that from 2019 to 2020, and that held constant for two years.
In 2021, I ran back-to-back marathon PRs in the fall.
I was committed. There was nothing that could stop me.
I’m currently registered for a marathon one month from now, and I think there’s about a 25% chance I’ll actually run it. I haven’t trained well, haven’t done a 20 miler even… I’m not excited about it. I dread it.
It’s not a lack of physical fitness.
It’s my mind.
I realized that I am not committed to this race, to the training, or to spending 3+ hours on my feet every weekend (or even mid-week.)
I’m committed to running! I run almost every day, and I love it!
Running is spiritual. Marathon running is intellectual. It’s a sport of the mind, and right now, my mind has other commitments.
My deepest desires are to cross a certain income threshold in my business, pay off two remaining debts, and move out of New York City before my 40th birthday (October 2025).
That is what I am committed to.
I’m not a failure if I don’t run this marathon. It’s OK not to be committed. But it’s important to recognize when we aren’t.
If you don’t have something or are falling short in an area, recognize whether or not you’re committed.
#5 What if you created them that way?
I had my mind rocked right open this week.
Before I tell you what happened, I will tell you about someone in my life named Sally.
Sally loves power and control—she just loves it. She loves to be in charge, and she’s one of the most capable human beings I have ever met. Sally ended up in this horrific job, but it was a high-paying position, and she truly felt she could do some good for the organization.
Horrible circumstances, abusive… it was one of those “glass cliff” situations where a company hires a woman, allegedly to turn things around, but then sets them up for failure.
Sally hung on. I often thought she was a little too obsessed with work (unlike me, who doesn’t care at all.) Her health and family life began to be affected. She was always miserable.
Sally and I are close friends, so I was angry at Sally for this misery.
I saw her as unreachable. I felt this was affecting our friendship, and I thought she was driving her life and relationships into the ground for the sake of this horrendous job- not to mention her health, which terrified me.
My thoughts did not paint Sally in a positive light at all. On the contrary, I was getting really fucking sick of her. She was going to die an early death, and I gave up hope she would ever see the light. “Idiot Sally, just can’t fucking wake up.”
And then one day (knowing what I know from the magical world I live and work in now,) I had a moment of “Oh my God.”
I thought to myself, “If there’s any chance at all that I might be creating this reality and creating Sally as a suffering, sad human being… if there’s any chance… I love this person, and I owe it to them to change my thoughts.”
Things are different for Sally now. New job. New opportunities. New projects. New peace.
I, as a person, had nothing physically or influentially to do with Sally’s decision to choose herself and get the fuck out of there.
But energetically, beyond the physical world, what if I did? If there was even a chance… changing my thoughts was worth it.
I remember learning about active love years ago and how powerful it is to create a ball of energetic “love” in your solar plexus and aim it at a person you absolutely can’t stand. I remember seeing people melt into softness from my doing that.
I’ve used it with clients spinning out, as I noticed over the years that when I would become internally irritated, their spinning continued. When I began putting active love into practice with clients in that same situation, they’d soften, melt, start crying… They’d feel my love.
This week, the topic that blew my mind right open was “helping people” versus “serving people.”
It’s this idea that when you “help” people, you inadvertently create them as less capable than you are, but when you serve those people, you acknowledge they’re an equal. The universe loves you both as God beings.
What if by saying “I help” people, I am creating them as incapable? I owe it to them to change my language, and my thoughts.
If there’s even a chance that your thoughts might have to do with the outcome of someone else, would you change them?
Like if your mother is driving you crazy, and for years has acted whatever sort of way… You’re on your way to her house and you’re bracing yourself for the negativity spiral from hell… If there’s any chance you are responsible, even if it’s the most minuscule chance in the world, could you afford to keep having those thoughts?
If your brother has, let’s pretend, a gambling addiction, and you think “Terry is driving his life into the ground. He will bring his family into financial ruin. They’ll be in a homeless shelter soon!”
If there’s even a small chance that your thoughts could play a part in that reality being created, can you, in good conscience, continue to have them?
Is it worth it? Even if there’s a small chance?
Let me know…
I hope you had a wonderful week.
If you’ve been in a fucking loop for five, ten, fifteen years, FALL is a fantastic time to change that.
Maybe you’re drinking a half bottle of Bulleit every night. Maybe you’re posting happy family photos on social media, and your husband is having two affairs simultaneously. Maybe you just can’t get up the gumption to put in your two weeks because your brain has you dead in a ditch after week three.
There’s nothing right now that your brain is going to say you have to “wait until it’s over” before you do this.
Back in 2020, I did a podcast called “There’s always going to be another holiday.” Just one more thing we say, then four years goes by…
(I quit smoking at 32… after doing it for 18 years. 18 years. By 32. Always one more holiday…)
So, the Labor Day wedding you just attended is over. You’ve got nothing for two months. Now is the time.
Reply to this if you’re reading it in an email, or send me a Substack DM.
And for WOMEN, this is your damn invitation! Stop waiting to be invited. I had to get over that myself. Now I just barge into rooms like a fucking rhinoceros.
Stay beautiful.
😘
Wonderful, insightful stuff. Some concepts are hard to grasp, like the herring I pulled out of the river in Plymouth, MA ca 1978 with my bare hands, but this speaks more to the Way of the World and how it influences our "wiring" than you're writing style. Love the idea or rewiring anyway, but that in relation to serving kicks ass. Thanks for this, A.S.
I’ve thought about this before. What if my wife sees our life a certain way, and is bringing that about?
But
What if I see how she sees our lives a certain way, bringing about her bringing it about?
All we can do is be charitable and positive when we think of others, as you say. We should do our best not to sabotage anyone.