What Turning 44 Has Taught Me
JUNE 15, 2026
Gripping feels like preparation. But it's usually just a way of not trusting yourself. Acceptance doesn't make you less ready, it makes you more present. And presence is what the room actually responds to.
Find the place where you're gripping. Not to fix it. Just to notice what it's costing you. The fuller version of you is on the other side of letting that go.
I landed in Greece running on whatever the opposite of sleep is.
The flight from the US to Europe has always been the hardest for me. I don't sleep well on planes. And when I finally arrive, I can't sleep there either. So by the time I walked into the venue, I had been awake long enough that I'd stopped counting.
A few years ago, that would have meant gripping. Running through the talk in my head. Checking the slides one more time. Filling every quiet moment with preparation so I didn't have to sit with the feeling that I wasn't ready.
This time I just let it go.
I had prepared relentlessly already. And I honor the stakes at every keynote and the responsibility I have.
I mean I let go of the argument with my own state. I was tired. Okay. I was in a different time zone. Okay. I was about to walk on stage in front of a room full of people who flew in from across Europe. Also okay.
None of that was changeable. So I stopped trying to change it.
And something showed up on that stage that doesn't always show up when I'm fresh and prepared and running on a full night's sleep.
Something fuller. More present. More honest.
The room felt it. All the air went quiet. People leaned in. The feedback afterward was some of the best I've received.
I've been thinking about that ever since.
I turn 44 this week. I'm not going to give you a list. But I will tell you the one thing this year has taught me. Or more accurately, the one thing I've finally started to believe instead of just knowing:
Acceptance always precedes expansion.
Not as a philosophy. As a practice.
Every time this year I fought what was… the renovation delays, the business decisions that didn't land the way I planned, the relationships that asked more of me than I had easy answers for, I made myself smaller. Tighter. Less available to what was actually happening.
Every time I stopped fighting and let it be what it was, something opened.
The nervousness doesn't go away. I still get it before big moments. But somewhere along the way this year I stopped trying to get rid of it and started trusting what shows up on the other side of it.
The version of me that walked out on that stage in Greece: exhausted, slightly disoriented, not gripping, was more fully me than the version that would have spent the morning white-knuckling his way to ready.
Letting go isn't giving up. It's not going soft. It's what happens when you finally trust that who you are is enough for what's in front of you.
That's what 44 feels like so far.
And I'll probably still be learning it at 54.
Key idea:
Letting go isn't weakness. It's what happens when you finally trust who you are. Gripping feels like preparation. But it's usually just a way of not trusting yourself. Acceptance doesn't make you less ready, it makes you more present. And presence is what the room actually responds to.
Take away:
Find the place where you're gripping. Not to fix it. Just to notice what it's costing you. The fuller version of you is on the other side of letting that go.
Build your movement:
Where are you gripping right now — and what might show up if you stopped?