Beginning
According to Cambridge, the definition for “Beginning“ is:
the first part of something or the start of something
the origin of something, or the place, time, or way in which something started
the first part of something that continues
What better word to begin with than “Beginning”? Fittingly, I misspelled it almost every time today—except in this sentence. Beginnings stir emotions. Sometimes we seek them, sometimes we avoid them. Sometimes they arrive like a door we open ourselves; sometimes they arrive like a door slammed in our face. Today, I stand at one of mine and, for the first time in a long while, I allow myself to feel it fully.
As a child, beginnings came more easily. They could be difficult, sure, but I didn’t overthink them. I remember climbing trees like they were home, convinced I had found the perfect hiding place. I remember a few kicks out of thousands I gave to footballs over the years—each new ball slightly different, each kick a small new beginning. I never paused to wonder if I was ready. I just played.
The Spark: Losing a Job
My latest beginning came unwillingly: I was fired. I left my last employer one month before my ten-year anniversary. For years, I had imagined leaving to build my own path, but the job was comfortable, the pay was good, and I could spend time with my family. So why change?
The company had been cutting staff in waves. The first round brought chaos and panic. I led a large team then, and I tried to shield them, prepare them, even while I was afraid myself. We were spared. The second round came suddenly—an entire office shut down, random others let go. Still, I felt safe. I believed I was untouchable. But by the third, my team had been split, my role reduced to fragments, my confidence gone. Fear and frustration hung everywhere. People were scrambling for job security, unwilling to do anything beyond the bare minimum. Creativity disappeared. I tried to push for innovation, but I felt like Don Quijote, swinging at windmills.
When the layoff invite arrived, I wasn’t shocked. That morning, six members of my wife’s family were sitting in my living room—her uncle had been in a tractor accident and was in the hospital nearby. Life’s fragility was already heavy in the air.
I joined the call calmly, notebook in hand. The HR representative was professional, detached. My manager couldn’t look me in the eye, apologizing again and again: “It’s not personal. It was a business decision, you know how it is. My hands were tied.” She spoke as if I were the one getting hurt, when in truth it was her discomfort spilling over. Not once did she ask how I felt. It was her story, her script. A situation difficult for her, not for me.
And yet, in that moment, clarity arose. I realized I had been preparing for this. Coaching, art, entrepreneurship—all the seeds were already in me.
It reminded me of something from The Residence. Detective Cordelia Cupp, a birdwatcher, said birds have the amazing ability not only to know what is food, but also to know what is not food. I suddenly saw all the “not-food” I had been surrounding myself with—the stories I told myself disguised as optimism, the reality buried under denial.
So I chose. I accepted the layoff. I walked away relieved, almost enthusiastic.
I grew up being told that having a good-paying job is what you should aim for. For the first time in twenty years, I am unemployed. I feel excited—and I almost shake in fear at the thought of my savings running out.
The Aftermath
In the office, after the event, there were waves of whispers:
“I got the invite.”
“I heard so-and-so got the invite.”
“This company has no future.”
“I heard they gave a good severance package. I wish they had fired me.”
I was in a very different place. I had savings, I had my family, and I had a plan I believed in. For me, the layoff was alignment. For most, it was fear.
Colleagues approached me with pity in their eyes, saying they were sorry. But their words weren’t really for me. They were ways of defending themselves, ways of pushing their own fear away. They were the ones hurting, not me.
A few, though, were different. They didn’t try to fix or explain. They asked how it was for me, and they listened. These were the same people I had always found grounding with—the ones open enough to share, to explore, to let things be real. For me, the ending was a beginning I could no longer delay. For them, staying meant facing another cycle of fear.
Ash Can Be Fertile
In adulthood, I often feel like I am always beginning. Studies, jobs, friendships, loves, projects. I sometimes feel them scattered around me, sometimes echoes calling me back into them. Some ended by themselves, others I ended voluntarily, on purpose. And from those endings, I have discovered a new perspective: ash can be fertile. Compost is made of what has broken down, what is no longer alive in its old form. Into it we offer what we can no longer use—old habits, false stories, past identities—and in return it becomes soil for something new to grow.
That realization did not come easily. Growing up in poverty, in an abusive household, years of improbable projects in technology, years of writing and performing music—they all taught me the same lesson: creativity often comes through constraint.
When I first sang in rock bands, rehearsals were so loud my voice never cut through. I was also a teenager full of rage beneath the surface. I screamed until I lost my voice. I remember after one show, two fans came to talk. I could barely croak a word. They looked at each other, confused, and left. I felt angry, frustrated, voiceless. Later, in proper studios with proper sound equipment, I no longer needed to scream. Therapy and mentorship helped me become more aligned with who I am today. Screaming fell away. I had to learn to sing again. To write in new ways. I found myself learning to produce and mix. What once felt like the end of a voice became the beginning of another.
The Lens of Nature
So how did I begin this time? I stopped trying to make it easy. Instead, I looked to nature.
A seed does not debate. It does not pause to question leaf-shape or timing. It grows, drawing from soil, air, sun, rain. It grows around fences, through cracks, toward light. Its soil is made rich by what came before—leaves, roots, lives. And it never grows alone: bees, plants, air, earth, all interwoven. Growth is not a solo act. It is call and response.
When I allowed this lens to guide me, one question emerged: What if I just let it happen?
In Zen Buddhism, there’s a concept called Shoshin—Beginner’s Mind.
It means approaching life with openness, curiosity, and no preconceptions. Even if you’ve done something a thousand times.
In a beginner’s mind, possibilities are infinite.
In an expert’s mind, they shrink.
The Weight of Choices
After my contract ended, I gave myself three months of exploration. I welcomed every idea that came and I let myself expand, drop, expand even more, create versions, dream up anything, no matter how improbable, and wrote it down. At first, it felt exhilarating. Then it became exhausting, almost endless.
Eventually, I narrowed it down to systems of delivery and immediate priority. I chose my communication channels, my formats, my products, my pricing. I set a date: September 1st, 2025. So here I am, writing this first chapter, recording it, publishing it. Beginning.
Part of my corporate past was about data—analysis, prediction, forecasting. This new path is the opposite. I have no certainty, no real experience. But that feels freeing.
Inspired by nature, I set up my business in cycles. Weekly rhythms for coaching. Quarterly rhythms for music. The seed will grow, and I choose to care for it. And I choose to do it with wonder instead of control.
Iteration and Change
The more we practice beginnings, the more we see they are rarely one-off events. They ripple, they reshape, they return.
Working with technology, I learned that if you cannot find the tool you need, you can often build it. You may not get it right the first time, or you may only be able to use it for part of your goal. So you make use of its limited functionality while you work on improving its next version. That is iteration.
Working with music, I learned something different. You are limited by your instrument. A guitar has six strings. A piano has eighty-eight keys. A drum has only some surfaces designed to be struck. The boundaries are set. And yet, within those limits, entire worlds of sound can open. The point is not to remove the constraint, but to create with it. To press against the edges, to explore their textures, to find resonance inside what seems small. Sometimes it is the limitation itself that becomes the source of beauty.
Working with people, I learned something else again. Everyone has assets and everyone has feelings. Everyone carries desires and griefs, hopes and disappointments. Growth happens when we have room to grow, when we acknowledge the space for that growth to unfold, by ourselves or together with someone we trust.
Iteration is a ritual. You do. You listen. You adjust. You do again. Clarity comes not from sudden epiphanies, but from returning, refining, deepening. It is built in layers, like harmony, like code, like trust. It comes not from a map, but from a compass. Not through force, but through listening.
Sometimes change is loud. Often, it is quiet. It is choosing to rest. Choosing to stop. Choosing to begin again.
And what if we treat each day as a cycle? What if one day is one iteration? What if each week is a different cycle, a different iteration? The same with months, seasons, years, decades. What will we begin? What will our iterations bring into the world?
For Me
Every beginning holds both clarity and uncertainty. You do not get to skip one for the other.
The skill is not in control. It is in listening. It is in choosing a response, if needed.
This chapter marks my beginning. Not because I was ready. But because I began. Because I stopped waiting. Because I showed up.
I don’t really know what’s going to happen. But for now, this seed is planted.
Reader Reflection: Beginning
Clarity. Recall a beginning in your own life. Was it chosen—or forced upon you? How did it feel in your body?
Creativity. How can this experience—whether painful or nourishing—serve as soil for something new?
Change. What beginning is calling to you now, and what is one small step you can take today to make it happen?