The Is Starting to Feel Real

October 13 is the date I have circled.

That is the target publication date for Inspired by LIFE: Redefining the Future of Leadership, and even though there is still plenty to do between now and then, it is starting to feel close in a very different way.

For a long time, the book was something I was writing, shaping, revising, talking through, and trying to make stronger. Now it is becoming something I will actually get to share with people.

That part feels exciting.

Really exciting.

And since we are getting closer, I wanted to share a first look at the cover.

I like the cover. I hope you do too.

But what I am most excited about is what sits behind it.

I wrote this book to empower and inspire people. I want it to help people think differently, lead more intentionally, open their minds a little more, and see possibility in places they may not have been looking.

That is what gets me excited.

Because I do believe we are surrounded by more wisdom, insight, and leadership lessons than we usually realize. They may come from coaching conversations, business challenges, family, sports, nature, animals, mistakes, pressure, joy, frustration, or the moments that stay with us for reasons we do not fully understand at first.

That is how I see the world, and it is a big part of how I coach.

When someone is in the middle of a challenge, I am rarely interested only in helping them get through the moment. Of course, sometimes we need to solve the immediate problem. But I also want to help them see what else may be there. What the challenge is showing them. What strength they may not be using. What pattern may be repeating. What opportunity may be hiding inside something that, at first, just feels frustrating or difficult.

That is not about pretending hard things are easy.

They are not.

It is about helping people see more, so they have more choices in how they respond.

That is one of the biggest reasons I wrote Inspired by LIFE. I wanted to take this way of looking at leadership and put it into a form people could use. Not only in coaching with me. Not only in a workshop or a keynote. But in their own lives, in their own work, and in the moments they are already experiencing.

I put my heart and soul into this book because I believe the ideas can help people.

I want a leader to read it and think about a challenge differently. I want someone to recognize a lesson from their own life that they had been moving past too quickly. I want a team leader to become more conscious of how they are showing up. I want someone in transition to see more possibility than they did before. I want a reader to feel more curious, more open, and maybe even a little more energized by the life they are already living.

That last part matters to me.

Leadership can become so serious that we forget how much there is to notice, appreciate, laugh about, learn from, and use. I do not want people to only become stronger leaders. I want them to enjoy the process of becoming stronger people too.

That does not mean every moment needs to become a lesson. Nobody needs to turn every walk outside or every conversation at dinner into a leadership seminar. My family would probably stage an intervention if I tried.

But some moments are worth noticing.

A conversation that stays with you. A reaction you did not expect from yourself. A story you keep telling. A challenge that keeps showing up in a different form. A moment outside of work that somehow gives you language for something happening inside of work.

Those things can be useful if we are paying attention.

That is the heart of the book.

It is also why this launch is starting to feel more meaningful to me. The closer we get to October 13, the closer the book gets to doing what I hoped it would do when I started writing it.

I want it to help people see more in themselves, in their work, in their challenges, and in the lives they are already living.

Many of you have already been part of that process, whether you realized it or not. You have read these newsletters, replied to ideas, shared your own stories, challenged my thinking, encouraged me, and helped me see what was landing. That has meant a lot.

So today, I’m excited to share the cover.

Even more, I’m excited to start sharing more of what is behind it.

October 13 is coming, and I cannot wait to get Inspired by LIFE: Redefining the Future of Leadership into people’s hands.

Where might life already be trying to teach you something that could make you stronger as a person or as a leader?