The Surprising Reason Many People Are Still Stuck

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anaïs Nin

I never imagined I’d be fired.

It wasn’t because I didn’t have the qualifications or experience. In fact, I had built a successful academic and consulting career. I had studied leadership, organizational behavior, and human development. I had read the right books, taken the right classes, built the right résumé. I was, by all appearances, doing all the right things.

But after ten months in a role I had left my tenured university position to pursue, I was let go. At the time, it felt devastating. I remember sitting in the aftermath of that moment thinking: How did I get here?

I had always been someone who wanted to become better. That desire had followed me since childhood—where I had a deep yearning to feel loved, connected, and seen. When I was young, I thought getting better at basketball and gaining athletic accolades would bring me that. Later, I thought studying leadership and performance would.

I pursued excellence like a ladder—one rung at a time. If I could just learn more, do more, prove more, I’d be better. Right?

Getting fired shattered that illusion.

The Developmental Path That Most of Us Walk

Looking back now, I can see that I was following a very common path—the one most of us are taught from the time we’re kids. I call it the Doing Better Development Path.

This path tells us that if we want to grow, we need to learn more, improve our skills, work harder, set goals, and check more boxes. And to be fair, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach. It can absolutely help us improve in incremental ways.

But the truth I’ve discovered—through my own pain, study, and coaching others—is that the Doing Better path has real limits.

It doesn’t help us heal the parts of us that self-sabotage. It doesn’t address our fear of failure or our lack of self-trust. It doesn’t quiet the voice in our head that tells us we’re not enough.

And it doesn’t help us become the person who can courageously show up in difficult moments.

That was my problem—not a lack of knowledge or competence, but a way of being that was self-protective, hesitant, and reactive. I had the tools. But I wasn’t the kind of person who knew how to use them effectively when it mattered.

What I needed wasn’t a new skill.

What I needed was a new relationship with myself.

The Shift: From Doing Better to Being Better

In the months that followed being fired, I went through a season of reflection. Not just on what happened—but on how I was being in the world. I realized I had spent so much time trying to appear capable that I had stopped being curious. I had been defensive instead of open, self-protective instead of growth-oriented.

That’s when I stumbled onto a different developmental path—one I now call the Being Better Development Path. This path doesn’t start with “What do I need to do?” It starts with:

• Who am I being right now?
• How am I relating to myself and the world around me?
• What mindset or inner story is guiding my reactions?

It was only when I started asking these questions that real transformation began.

I’m not the same person I was when I got fired. And I don’t mean that in a vague, inspirational sense. I mean that how I experience life, how I respond to challenge, and how I see myself has fundamentally changed.

And it all started by turning inward—not to fix myself, but to understand myself.

Three Steps to Start Walking the Being Better Path

The beautiful thing about the Being Better path is that it doesn’t require a job change, a spiritual awakening, or a year off in Bali. It just requires intentional self-exploration.

If you feel stuck, or if you’ve been trying to grow but keep hitting a wall, here are the three steps that helped me begin my transformation—and may help you too.

1. Understand Your Being Side

Most people think personal growth begins with action—what do I need to do to get better?

But real, transformational growth begins with awareness—specifically, awareness of your Being Side. Your Being Side is your internal operating system. It’s the invisible system that governs how you see the world, how you interpret what happens to you, and how you respond in any given situation.

This system isn’t just about thoughts or beliefs—it’s also about how your body regulates itself. Your Being Side controls your ability to feel safe or threatened, connected or isolated, grounded or overwhelmed. In other words, it determines whether you’re operating from a place of trust, compassion, and courage—or from fear, defensiveness, and self-protection.

Here’s the catch: most of us never stop to consider that we have an internal operating system, let alone evaluate its quality. We assume that how we react or what we believe is just “the way it is.” But it’s not. It’s just the way your Being Side is currently wired.

When you start to observe your internal operating system—how you regulate emotionally, how you make meaning, how you instinctively react—you take the first step toward real, lasting transformation. You begin to shift from living on autopilot to living with intentional awareness.

This awareness lays the foundation for the next step: evaluating the quality and altitude of your Being Side, so you can start the process of elevating it.

2. Evaluate Your Current Being Altitude

Once you begin to understand and connect with your internal operating system, the next step is to evaluate its quality.

One powerful way to do this is to ask: Is my internal operating system primarily wired for self-protection or for value creation?

When we are wired for self-protection, we tend to be:

• Reactive
• Defensive
• Focused on avoiding discomfort, failure, or rejection
• Concerned with preserving our ego or image in the short term

When we are wired for value creation, we tend to be:

• Intentional
• Open and non-defensive
• Willing to engage with challenge or discomfort to grow
• Focused on long-term contribution, connection, and learning

Here’s a simple example:

Imagine someone gives you constructive criticism. If your internal operating system is wired for self-protection, you might feel attacked, justify your actions, or get defensive. But if your system is more oriented toward value creation, you’re more likely to receive the feedback with curiosity, reflect on it honestly, and use it to grow.

Or consider moments of failure:

A self-protective mindset might spiral into self-blame, shame, or disengagement. A value-creating mindset sees failure as a teacher, not a threat—and leans in with resilience.

The goal isn’t perfection. We all have moments of self-protection. But the more we become aware of these patterns, the more we can assess where we are on the Being altitude spectrum—and begin to consciously shift upward.

That’s what the third step is all about: the process of elevating your Being Side so you can experience real transformation.

3. Elevate Your Being

Understanding and evaluating your Being Side is essential—but real transformation happens when you begin to elevateyour internal operating system.

Your way of being is like the software that runs your life. If you want to experience new results—not just in what you do, but in how you feel, connect, and show up—you have to upgrade the programming of that system.

Elevating your Being isn’t about forcing change from the outside in. It’s about rewiring how you regulate, perceive, and respond from the inside out. And this often requires intentional, layered efforts.

Here are three levels of development that can help:

1. Basic Efforts: Strengthening Regulation

These include practices like meditation, breathwork, mindful movement, or simply spending time in nature. These activities help calm and regulate your nervous system so you can operate with more presence and less reactivity. They’re foundational for building the internal safety needed for deeper growth.

2. Deeper Efforts: Upgrading Mindsets

Your mindsets are the lenses through which you interpret the world. When you begin to shift from fixed to growth, from fear to trust, from judgment to compassion, you start processing life in a more value-creating way. This level of work helps you move from reacting out of habit to responding with intention.

3. Even Deeper Efforts: Healing at the Source

For many of us, our Being Side is shaped by past experiences—especially painful or overwhelming ones that left an imprint on our nervous system. Practices like trauma therapy, EMDR, or neurofeedback therapy can help us heal, not just cope. They allow us to safely revisit and release the patterns that keep us stuck in self-protection mode.

None of these approaches are “quick fixes.” But together, they help us shift from surviving to thriving—from being stuck in old programming to becoming someone new, from the inside out.

The more we elevate our Being, the more we expand our capacity to create value, deepen relationships, lead with integrity, and live with freedom.

There’s No Finish Line—But the View Keeps Getting Better

I wish I could tell you that once you step onto the Being Better path, everything becomes easy. It doesn’t. Growth is still hard. Life is still life.

But your experience of life changes. You become less reactive, more present. You stop chasing success to feel worthy—and instead create from a place of wholeness.

This has absolutely been true for me.

Over the past several years, I’ve incorporated all three levels of effort into my life. I meditate regularly to calm my nervous system. I’ve done deep mindset work to shift how I see myself and others. And I’ve engaged in trauma therapy to heal long-standing patterns I didn’t even know were holding me back.

These efforts haven’t just changed what I do—they’ve changed who I am. I feel more grounded, more open, more aligned with the person I’ve always wanted to be. I’ve become a better partner, parent, friend, and leader. And for the first time, I feel like I’m living from the inside out—not trying to prove something, but simply trying to be someone I respect and trust.

Ultimately, the Being Better Developmental Path is not about achievement. It’s about healing—healing the mind that spins with doubt, the body that tenses with fear, and the heart that aches for connection.

And when we begin to heal, we become free.

Since stepping onto this path, I’ve written books, launched a business, and built a community I care deeply about. But more importantly, I’ve become someone I’m proud to be—someone more resilient, more compassionate, more alive.

If you’re tired of doing all the right things and still feeling stuck, consider this:

Maybe the path forward isn’t about doing more.

Maybe it’s about becoming more.

Not someone different—but more you than you’ve ever been.

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