I Disappeared. Here's Why.
And What I Brought Back With Me
I owe you an explanation.
I’ve been quiet for a while. No posts. No podcast. No dispatches from whatever corner of the internet or world I usually shout from.
Some of you noticed. A few of you emailed. Most of you probably didn’t think about it at all—and honestly, that’s fine. You’ve got your own life to manage.
But I disappeared on purpose. And I want to tell you why.
Six years ago, my body fell apart. I’ve told pieces of this story before, but never the whole thing. A brain aneurysm discovery. A rare nerve condition called glossopharyngeal neuralgia—pain so severe it would drop me to the floor mid-sentence. Doctors who couldn’t agree on what was happening. Nights where I’d grip the bedsheets at 3 AM, teeth grinding, heart racing, wondering if this was it.
I’d spent 30 years helping others transform their lives. Coaching leaders. Building organizations. Writing about resilience and purpose and doing the hard things.
And then one day, I couldn’t get in the pool.
Not metaphorically. Literally. I stood at the edge of the pool—a place I’d gone for years to clear my head—and my body wouldn’t let me get in. My nervous system had decided, without consulting me, that the water wasn’t safe. That nothing was safe.
That moment cracked something open. Because I realized that everything I’d been teaching about change was incomplete. I’d been working from the neck up—belief systems, mindset shifts, willpower strategies—and my body was telling me, in the most brutal way possible, that none of it was enough.
So I went looking for what was.
I spent two years reading neuroscience I’d never encountered. Studying polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, the biology of stress and recovery. I didn’t just study it—I tested it. On myself. Every day. In the wreckage of my own health crisis.
And something happened.
Not a breakthrough. Not some dramatic before-and-after moment. Something quieter. Something that accumulated over weeks and months until I realized: the anxiety that used to wake me at 3 AM had gone quiet. The tension I’d carried in my jaw for years had loosened. The fear that something terrible was about to happen—a fear I’d lived with so long I’d stopped noticing it—was gone.
I didn’t think my way to that. I regulated my way there. Body first. Then mind. Then everything else. I wrote a book about it.
It’s called The Shift: Rewire Your Body. Reclaim Your Mind. Restore Your Life. It comes out on March 15.
And it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever written.
Not a self-help book in the way you’re probably imagining. No five-step morning routine that promises to change your life by Thursday. No guru wisdom delivered from some mountaintop of arrived-ness.
This is a book about what happens when a guy who spent his whole career helping people change discovers he can’t change himself—and has to burn down everything he thought he knew to find what actually works.
It’s about your nervous system. Your body. The loops running in your head you didn’t put there, but can’t seem to stop. It’s about why you’re stuck—and it’s not what you think.
I’ll be sharing more in the weeks ahead. The ideas. The framework. The science. The story.
But today, I just wanted to say: I’m back. I missed this. And I brought something with me that I think you need.
One More Thing: I'm building a small launch team — 50 to 100 people who want early access to the companion app, a first look at the opening chapters, and a role in helping this reach the people it's meant for. The first 50 who follow through on launch day get a signed copy. If that's you, sign up here.
No obligations beyond three: buy on launch day, leave an honest review, share with someone who needs it.
