You're Not A Puzzle Piece

My friend Mike jokes, “Paul, don’t become one of those coaches who coach coaches on selling coaching courses to other coaches.” It's not just the coaching industry. These days, it seems like everyone is doing something other than what they're actually good at. Musicians spend hours writing newsletters. Chefs have become TikTok personalities. The work has become the side hustle, while the pitch is the 9 to 5 job.

When I was a kid, it was a mantra that capitalism breeds innovation. But in many ways, capitalism has severely limited human innovation by shaping not just what we buy, but what we dare to become. It has trained us to aim at what gets the biggest reaction rather than what meets the real needs of our planet and its people.

You have to pay the landlord, but if you want to stay sane, you also have to resist. You have to measure your life by something real. You can call the real love, work, or God, but it isn’t something “out there.” It’s “in here" — not in a self-absorbed way, but in the sense of self unplugged from comparison. As Thomas Merton put it, you know you’re following your true calling when your soul is free from its preoccupation with itself.

What that looks like is different for everyone. You may have to disappear for a few years to make a strange, beautiful album or simply devote yourself fully to parenthood. For me, who was thrown into the role of "teacher" from a young age, it has meant resisting the idea that I can persuade anyone about anything. The more I try to fit in by having answers, the less real value I have to give.

These days, I see myself less as a teacher and more as a giver of invitations. And the main thing I want to invite people into is the idea that they aren't puzzle pieces. Your life has a value that can’t be measured by how it fits into anyone else’s. Whether at work or in dating or as a creative person, you don’t exist to convince others what you can offer them. You are one and singular.

So when someone asks, “What do you bring to the table?” tell them, “I am the table. Come sit or don’t. I’ll be here either way.”