The Space Between Worlds
SEPTEMBER 7, 2026
Your environment constantly reinforces who you already are
Where in your life are the people, routines and expectations around you continuously reinforcing the same version of you? Ask what might become visible if those signals went quiet for a while.
There’s a reason changing your business, your relationships, your self inside your normal day to day can be so difficult.
Everything around you already knows who you are.
Your calendar knows.
Your team knows.
Your family knows.
Your routines know.
And whether anyone intends to or not, all of it keeps reinforcing the version of you that already exists.
That’s part of what made our No Matter What Adventure Retreat in Chile’s Atacama Desert so powerful.
We took leaders from very different industries and parts of the world and moved them far outside the conditions that normally tell them who they are.
No normal schedule.
No endless stream of meetings.
Long stretches of silence.
Altitude, physical challenge and an environment unlike almost anywhere else on Earth.
For a while, being the CEO, expert, high performer, caretaker or person with all the answers didn’t help very much.
And something starts to happen when the usual reference points disappear.
The limited identities loosen.
Most of those identities were built for good reasons. They helped us succeed. Belong. Lead. Stay safe.
But eventually, they can become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as identities at all.
They just become me.
That’s one of the reasons I think experiences like Atacama matter.
They create space between who you’ve been and who you might become.
A space where you can see yourself without all the normal reinforcement.
And that can be uncomfortable.
Because when the role gets quieter, you start noticing what sits underneath it.
The need to perform.
The need to know.
The need to take care of everyone.
The need to stay in control.
The belief that you have to be a certain way for people to accept you.
Those things are much harder to see while you’re moving through the same environment that helped create them.
Sometimes we try to solve that by working harder on ourselves.
Read another book.
Take another assessment.
Set another goal.
Build another habit.
All useful.
But there are limits to how much you can change while everything around you keeps inviting you back into the same version of yourself.
Sometimes you need interruption.
You need enough distance from the familiar to realize that the person you’ve been is only one expression of who you are.
That doesn’t require flying to the Atacama Desert.
But it does require creating spaces where your normal answers aren’t immediately available.
A conversation where you aren’t the expert.
A day without the usual noise.
A challenge you don’t already know how to solve.
A room where nobody needs you to perform the role you normally play.
Because when the familiar falls away, something else becomes possible.
You can stop automatically being who you’ve been long enough to notice who else might be there.
That’s what I mean by the space between worlds.
You haven’t abandoned the old one.
You haven’t fully entered the new one.
For a moment, neither has complete control over you.
And that space can feel uncertain.
Exposed.
Even disorienting.
But it can also be incredibly freeing.
Because you start to realize something:
Maybe the identity you’ve been defending isn’t the entirety of who you are.
Maybe it’s just the version of you that this particular world learned to recognize.
And maybe growth sometimes begins by stepping far enough outside that world to see the difference.
Key idea:
Your environment constantly reinforces who you already are. Sometimes real growth requires enough distance from the familiar to see that your current identity is only one expression of what’s possible.
Takeaway:
Where in your life are the people, routines and expectations around you continuously reinforcing the same version of you? Ask what might become visible if those signals went quiet for a while.
Build your movement:
Create one space this week where your normal role isn’t available to you. Step out of being the expert, leader, fixer or performer and notice what shows up when you don’t automatically become who everyone expects.