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Every once in a while you have an epiphany that changes your world view. It’s a great feeling. The skies open, the sun shines a little brighter, and you feel like NOW, the world is your oyster. What is funny and humbling, is when someone gives you a totally different perspective and you start to wonder, maybe your epiphany was not totally right.

Act 1

I recently had an epiphany about why I was sabotaging myself in certain ways. One day, I realized,

“Your Today Joe, your comfortable Joe, is so resistant to change it is willing to burn everything down before letting you venture forth to become Tomorrow Joe.”

I was like, wow, that explains SOOOO much. After this epiphany, certain things started to fall into place and the self-sabotage started to have less of an impact. I was pretty happy with myself.

Act 2

One of the great things about coaching is I learn as much or more from my clients as I teach them. Case in point, I was telling one of my clients about my recent epiphany on self-sabotage and what they said next shocked me!

I see it totally the opposite way, Joe. I think your Tomorrow Joe is tired of waiting for you to do the right thing so it is willing to burn everything down so you have to venture forth to embrace Tomorrow Joe.”

I had to admit, what they said made a lot of sense. At least as much sense as my initial interpretation. The student has become the teacher!

Act 3

In the end, the lesson I learned is the resistance to change is great. Also, there are plenty of reasons we self-sabotage. The important thing is to always move forward. Fall forward. Fail fast. Get up and do it again. In this way, you can’t lose.

If you have any questions or comments or have a story of your own, I'd love to hear from you.

Next post next Saturday, 6:30 a.m.

Recently, a former colleague, Chris Jean-Charles shared his insights on taking Blind Leaps on the "Why It Works" podcast. After spending over a decade in the Marines, he successfully transitioned into the private sector, and is now an entrepreneur. My only regret is that during the time we worked together, I failed in my mission to transform him into a soft, corporate marshmallow.

While Chris has learned to thrive in various VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambigious) environments, make no mistake, he is not a fan of reckless risk-taking.

Never put yourself in a position to lose more time and/or money a single leap of faith than that which you can stomach and bounce back from.

Being courageous enough to take a calculated risk with an uncertain outcome is not the same as risking it all on one roll of the dice. Another important lesson we discussed is the need to "develop your edge" when taking blind leaps. Chris defines your edge as the collection of all the unique things about you that can shift the odds in your favor. This might be your skills, network, mindset, personality, past experiences, etc. An easy way to focus on discovering your edge is to complete the following sentence:

I am uniquely qualified to succeed at this because ________.

If you'd like to hear Chris share these insights in his own words or hear more of our conversation, you can listen here.

Next post next Saturday, 6:30 a.m.