Admitting I Didn't Have All The Answers

I spent 12 years standing in front of people as a Life Sensei, and then life put me in a position where I had to be willing to show them that I didn't have all the answers.
My husband of 32 years told me he wanted a divorce.
And suddenly, I was living through something that felt like the end of my life as I knew it.

For twelve years, I had been working with people, speaking from stages, and sharing what I had learned about life.

People saw me standing in front of a room.
They heard what I had to say.
And perhaps, without me even realizing it, some may have imagined that I had somehow figured it all out.

But I knew something they couldn't see.
They didn't know what I had been through.
They didn't know the experiences that had shaped me.
They didn't know the circumstances that had eventually led me to become a Life Sensei in the first place.

And I never wanted anyone to look at my life and think, "I wish my life were more like hers."
Because they had no idea what my life actually looked like.

So when my marriage ended, I made a decision.
I was going to be transparent.
I wrote my first book.
Not because I had all the answers.
Not because I had figured out how to navigate every difficult thing life could bring.
But because I wanted the people I worked with - and the people who listened to me speak - to know that I was experiencing life right alongside them.

Standing on a stage doesn't make someone immune to heartbreak.
Teaching about life doesn't mean life stops happening.
And knowing what you believe doesn't mean you will never be invited to look at those beliefs again.

So I wrote.

I shared what was happening.
I allowed myself to be seen in a way that was very different from standing on a stage and sharing what I knew.

And when I finished that first book, I honestly thought: "Well, that's probably the only book I'll ever write."

I couldn't have been more wrong.

That one book became another.
And another.
And another.
Today, I've written ten books.

Ten.

And what makes me smile about that is that I had absolutely no idea when I wrote the first one that there were nine more waiting somewhere in my future.

I thought I was simply being transparent about one of the most difficult experiences of my life.
I didn't know I was opening a door.

A door that would lead to more writing, more sharing, more conversations, and eventually, opportunities to touch lives I may never have otherwise reached.

Looking back, I think there's something beautiful about that.
We rarely know what something is becoming while we're living it.
Sometimes the thing that feels like an ending becomes an opening.
Sometimes the experience we would never have chosen becomes part of what we have to share.

And sometimes being willing to say, "I don't have all the answers,"
creates a much deeper connection than pretending we do.

That's one of the things I still appreciate about that first book.
It wasn't perfect.
It wasn't the beginning of some carefully designed publishing plan.
It was simply me saying: "This is what life looks like from where I am standing."

​And apparently, that was enough to begin something I never could have imagined.
What have you started in your life without having any idea where it would lead?
Maybe it's a relationship.
A business.
A book.
A move.
A conversation.
Or perhaps something that, at the time, didn't even feel like a beginning.
I'd love to hear your story.
What Are You Noticing?