CHAPTER 1
Braver Than a Badass:
Connecting the Dots
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
STEVE JOBS
Sometimes you can only identify what connection is by experiencing what it isn’t. A few years ago, I had the “seemed like a good idea at the time” thought to leave my own business for a corporate job. Within minutes of having my ID picture taken, I knew I had made a huge mistake.
On a daily basis, I walked into work feeling numb, a sense of doom and gloom washing over me. The reality had set in: I had accepted a job I was not meant to do, in an organization whose values did not align with mine. I couldn’t trust my coworkers, who were given to gossip and backstabbing.
I stuck it out for a year, and when I became physically sick, I quit. I was completely disconnected. This was the tipping point. I needed to get back to doing the work I love, coaching the clients I was meant to serve, and helping them find connection. I quit the job and found my way back to my own connection.
Perhaps you, too, have had an experience where you found connection through disconnection? Read on.
How Did I Get Here? Where Am I Going?
Our lives and careers are a rapid-fire series of choices, events, relationships, missteps, and questions. It’s the best connect-the-dots puzzleever. Every day you think, “Where do I want to go, what will get me there, and how can I make sense of where I have been?”
The dot marked “start” was that fateful day when you arrived on planet Earth. From that dot you move along, day after day, traveling from place to place, drawing lines or pathways to the next place or next contact, finding your way as the bigger picture becomes clearer and more d
