Our culture confuses busyness with purpose.
Our calendars overflow, our minds race, and our bodies run on autopilot—and we don’t just tolerate it, we glorify it. It’s how we define ourselves. We think meaning lives in what we do because it’s where we’ve been trained to feel accomplished.
Recently I noticed just how much I’m still hooked into this narrative when an opportunity came my way and I realized that it was because I’d actually stopped, said no and made space in my life.
Let’s open that can of worms and make some shift happen.
A Suspicious Message on LinkedIn
I opened LinkedIn to schedule our weekly Soulful Leader posts and saw a message from someone I didn’t know. I opened it warily. It was intriguing, and yes, very suspicious.
It was from the VP of Editorial at an independent publishing house. He said he’d read one of my articles and believed it was the basis of a book they might want to publish.
You see why I was suspicious, right?
Millions of people every day are writing books and pitching them to publishing houses only to be rejected. They are self-publishing through Amazon and Smashwords. They’re using hybrid publishing. Getting noticed by publishers is an industry unto itself.
And a publisher was reaching out to me?
He was committed to finding me, too. He’d tried to reach me through my malfunctioning website. Twice. (Yep, I’m between web support people and all kinds of things are breaking on the site.) He was both persistent and patient. A little unbelievable.
Of course the first thing I did was research him. I really thought it was a phishing scam – you know, the “we guarantee you a best seller at no cost to you, just add this name to the deed to your house” kind of thing.
Amazingly, he is real. His company is real. And his interest is real.
Choosing to make space for meaning is a bold step in today’s world.
Yes, I Did Things… And That’s Not Why This Happened
At first glance, it seems like he found me because of everything I did:
- Stephanie and I recorded a podcast
- That sparked an idea for an article.
- I wrote the article.
- I posted the article.
- TSLP shared the article.
- I kept showing up on LinkedIn.
Those are easy to see and talk about, and the deeper truth? It actually happened because of things that I DIDN’T do.
I stopped filling my life with things that were not aligned with my deep why.
I started saying no – to great opportunities, to wonderful people, and even to my own distractions. I stopped scrolling, stopped binge-watching, stopped stuffing empty time with empty noise.
Was I perfect? Absolutely not.
My lifetime doing all the ‘other’ things wouldn’t evaporate over night.
– saying yes when I needed to say no
– people pleasing
– following everyone else’s ideas for me
– doing all the shoulds
It would be a process.
I had a choice, I could keep reacting to the noise and the conditioning, or I could live the unique life I was born to live.
I committed to the process, knowing that there would be lots of mistakes, do-overs, and that-didn’t-work-at-alls.
Three Things That Made All the Difference
Choosing to make space for meaning (instead of celebrating busyness) is a bold step in today’s world.
I realized there were three practices that kept me aligned:
➡️ A clear, ongoing way to get clear about, and return to, my meaning
Not the world’s expectations—my own internal why.
➡️ Someone to help me see when I drifted
Because we all drift.
➡️ The growing ability to discern my yeses and nos
Not from resistance, but from devotion.
Looking back, I see the hundreds of small ‘nos’ that led to larger ones, I see the places I drifted and I see the grace of being committed to the process.
I became the person that a publisher would seek out.
The Big No’s That Created Space
A few of those bigger decisions clearly created the space to change my world.
At the end of 2022 I closed my dance studio. I finally said no to something that I knew was no longer mine to do. I’d put copious amounts into renovations and I still had close to two years left on a lease that my landlady refused to negotiate down.
It cost me a lot financially, and I knew it was time.
- I said no to teaching gigs.
- No to judging and performing.
- No to the roles and identities that were no longer mine.
And then, crucially, I didn’t fill the space I’d created.
I didn’t force myself to be productive.
I didn’t chase a new “what now?”
I didn’t take on others’ projections: Oh, so you’ve retired? What are you doing next?
I doubled down on my why. I listened. I stayed present.
And life began to move.
Life Meets Us When We Make Space
In that space richness unfolded, all in alignment with my meaning.
- My partnership with Stephanie blossomed into the Soulful Leader Podcast and Project.
- I began writing regularly.
- My coaching business came alive.
- Public speaking opportunities popped up.
- Partnerships, leadership roles and unexpected business adventures we mine.
We love the myth of the “overnight success”, and we know it’s not real. It’s been debunked again and again. And, when we choose to start, and really commit, life meets us, opens doors for us and does most of the heavy lifting.
Three years of podcasting, writing and speaking were only possible because I stopped. Because I chose to make space for a different path. Because I said no to the noise.
Those three years built outer skills like writing, articulation and communicating. On a deeper level, they built inner skills like listening, partnering with life and tracking the future that wants to happen.
Most importantly, returning again and again to my why changed me and showed life that I was serious.
I became the person that a publisher would seek out.
Why the Publisher Really Found Me
The publisher contacted me because I made space three years ago. Because of the thousands of minute choices I made that accumulated into a different version of me—someone living in alignment, not motion.
The book proposal may lead somewhere or it may not.
I’ve agreed to write it. I know it’s my next step. Will it be just to build skill for a different, future opportunity, or will it result in a book contract? It doesn’t matter.
I’m committed to the process, without needing the result to look a particular way.
That is where the freedom, the space and the magic live.
Your Turn
Where in your life are you staying in motion—doing something you know is not yours to do?
That motion may be consuming the very lifeforce you need to step into the meaning, alignment, and magic that are calling you.
“The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy, they come when the mind is still.”
~ Leon Brown
Ready for a new way?
That’s exactly what we do in our year-long mastermind, the Co-Creation Circle.
For more information, click here.
Our Co-Creation Circle is all about walking the very unchartered path of co-creating with life and the future that wants to happen.
Invest in your future and be a part of a new world of opportunity!