Oh, HELL No!

The other day I was brainstorming on a new post with my creative director. I sent her my suggestions, she incorporated them and then sent me back what’s called “a clean copy” that didn’t show any of the suggestions I made but integrated them into the content.

And I was pissed.

Not because she did a bad job, but because I couldn’t see my original edits anymore. I thought we’d have a conversation about them before they were finalized. Instead, I was staring at a “finished” piece that felt foreign to me.

MUTINY. How dare she not read my mind and follow my exact process which I hadn’t actually communicated? OUTRAGEOUS!

Now, let me pause.

She and I have an incredible relationship, and together we’ve created some of the best work of my career. So, if I was reacting this strongly, something deeper was happening.

And because I’ve lived enough life to know the value of self-examination, I did what I always do: I dug for the story.

I realized I was not just reacting to a creative process. This was an irrational response to a relatively benign event. I was reacting to a wound.

I grew up in an environment where it was dangerous to be seen or heard.

So, I built a career where being heard and obeyed literally meant life or death. As a surgeon, if someone didn’t listen to me, the consequences could be catastrophic. My authority was non-negotiable.

Fast forward to today. My creative director followed her normal process, and my nervous system interpreted that as: You’re not being heard again.

But that wasn’t the truth. It was an assumption—an echo of an old story still playing inside me.

When our past wounds get triggered, we see a distorted reality.

She wasn’t mutinous. She was simply doing her job with efficiency and good faith. I was the one bringing old pain into a new moment.

That’s the invitation for all of us: before we point a finger outward, give ourselves the grace to pause and ask, What story am I telling myself right now? Where is this really coming from?

Nine times out of ten, the fire you feel in your chest isn’t about the present moment. It’s about the past moment your body still remembers.

This is exactly what The Empowerment Revolution is about—learning to interrupt the inherited stories and unconscious patterns that hijack our present.

The book is coming out in just a few days, and I’ll be first in line to read it again. Because it’s nice to have a reminder once in a while.