What Happened When I Stopped

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I’ve been disengaged from social media.
It started with FB last year.
Then it happened with IG.
And then these last 6 months I’ve been on and off of LinkedIn.
There’s even been weeks here on Substack where I’ve been on and then off.

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I’ve been drained by all the “look at me, look at me” posts and AI slop proliferation.
It’s beyond noise. It’s overwhelming and the majority of it . . . is shallow.

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This change in culture
The proliferation of AI productivity
The world is moving at a speed that no one can keep up with
And the more we crave human interaction, the more it moves away from us.

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I heard myself say the other day that I want to be connected to those who are done with the performative. And being done with the performative doesn’t mean that success is off the table, because it’s certainly not! But rather, that success be purposeful and with intention. Leaning into what matters.

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And it’s not just me.
There’s this slice of humans I know feel this way.
Maybe it’s because we’re at a pivotal point in our lives.
Maybe it’s timing.
Maybe it’s because of all the mileage we have, and we see the world differently,
Because we have this perspective that can only come through wisdom

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I’m longing for depth.
Inspiration.
Curiosity.
Playfulness.
Joy.
Life with purpose and on purpose.
And this applies to my friends, colleagues and clients.

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This morning, I was sitting on my chaise, swirling that I was stuck in my own way. I didn’t want to write because I was so disappointed and turned off by this uber focus on AI productivity which is turning everything into transaction vs and freeing up time for deeper meaning and collaboration.

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And I had found myself falling into that vortex as well.
Showing up because the calendar said it was time to show up.
Sending newsletters because that’s what you do when you have a newsletter — you send it.
On schedule. Consistently. Like a professional.

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And the whole time, something in me was whispering you’re performing.
And because I wasn’t listening, it turned into apathy. Then distain.
Which is, if you know anything about the work I do, deeply inconvenient.
Because my entire practice is built on helping people stop performing. Stop producing on autopilot. Stop trading their aliveness for their credibility. To undue the conditioning that life has done to them.

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So when I recognized it in myself — the pushing, the content-for-content’s-sake — I had a choice. Keep going and pretend I didn’t notice. Or stop.

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I stopped. I retreated. I disappeared. And in the abyss of the dark cave, I found the light again.

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And what happened next was exactly what I tell my clients will happen when they stop: the silence got uncomfortable. Then it got interesting. Then it got generative.

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I started listening instead of broadcasting.
I sat with conversations differently.
I let things metabolize instead of rushing to package them into something shareable.
I held onto faith that my slowing down would reveal the way because I asked the question from heart “how am I getting in my own way?”

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A few things emerged that I’m going to be writing about over the coming weeks.
One of them has to do with what happens in the space between the life you’re leaving and the one that hasn’t arrived yet. Not the next chapter — the threshold before it. The part nobody holds well, including me sometimes.

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Another has to do with the difference between knowing who you are and actually living from it. That gap is wider than most people admit, and I’ve been sitting inside my own version of it.
More soon.