NOVEMBER 2, 2026
The rush after a great talk, book or trip fades fast. What lasts is when we stop avoiding the uncomfortable and see it as the way back to connection, peace and community, the things that never change no matter the circumstances.
Pick one thing you want more of. Find the uncomfortable step sitting in front of it, and take that step this week.
Last month I had a full week. Dallas, then Chicago, then Denver, then Palm Beach. Four cities, a different room almost every day.
From the outside, those rooms had very little in common. A sales kickoff in Dallas for an insurance group. A legal software company’s client event in Chicago. A 1:1 client in Denver. Then Greg Scheinman’s Midlife Male event in Palm Beach. Different industries, different ages, people from different parts of the world.
What struck me is how little any of that mattered. In every one of those rooms, once we got underneath the job titles and the agendas, people wanted the same things: connection, peace, community, positive impact, experiences shared with people they care about. No matter what’s happening in the world, those are things we can always bring forward.
It got me thinking about a question we all ask after anything that moves us, whether we say it out loud or not: will this stick?
You know the feeling. A great talk, a book you couldn’t put down, a weekend away where everything finally got clear. You come home a little different, with a plan. Then by Thursday the latest crisis shows up and most of it is gone.
Some of that fading is normal, and some of it should fade. The half-life of possibility is very, very short. If all you took from something was a good feeling, I’d expect it to last about a week. I hold my own talks to the same standard.
So what’s still working a few weeks later?
I have a clearer answer than I did a month ago, and it came from the people in those rooms. Since then I’ve heard from a lot of them through DMs, comments and posts.
Of course they mentioned how powerful the talk was for them. But most of them mentioned a person: a call they finally made, a dinner where they said something real, someone they let in.
None of that comes from the energy in a room. It’s more subtle. Somewhere along the way, the unknown and the uncomfortable stopped being something to avoid, deny or just survive, and started looking like a pathway.
I can see something now more clearly than I could before that week. That pathway leads straight back to what matters most. Connection is usually waiting on the other side of a conversation we’ve been putting off. Peace tends to show up when we finally loosen our grip on something. And community asks us to be seen before we feel ready. Almost everything those four rooms said they wanted was sitting behind something uncomfortable.
That’s why it sticks.
A good feeling has nothing to hold on to once you’re back in your week. A new relationship with discomfort is tied to the things you already care about most. Those things show up every day, so every day you get another chance to use it.
We all go back to our circumstances. The economy is what it is. The quarter is what it is. Your inbox is what it is. Nothing I say from a stage or in an email changes that, and I’d be lying if I told you otherwise. Circumstances are real and they have to be dealt with, but they don’t have to define us. They were never the thing standing between us and what matters.
So here’s a small test. Think back to the last talk, book, trip or conversation that moved you. What’s still with you? If the answer is “not much,” that’s useful to know. It probably wasn’t a lack of inspiration. More likely you went back to treating the uncomfortable stuff as something to get through, when it was really the way back to what you care about.
And here’s a small experiment for this week. Pick one thing you want more of in your life, and ask yourself what uncomfortable thing is sitting in front of it. Maybe it’s a call, or one honest sentence, or an invitation you haven’t sent yet. Do that one thing.
I need the reminder as much as anyone. Four cities in a week will do that to you.
What matters was in every room, and it doesn’t change. The real work is letting it outlast the applause.
Key idea:
Through the unknown and uncomfortable is how we get back to what we ultimately care about most.
Takeaway:
Pick one thing you want more of. Find the uncomfortable step sitting in front of it, and take that step this week.
Build your movement:
What’s one thing from a talk, book or trip this year that’s still with you?