I want you to think about something for a second.

How many versions of yourself never got a chance to exist — not because you were incapable of becoming them, but simply because you never took the first step that would have introduced you to that path?

I’ve been sitting with that question a lot over the last several months. And when I look back over my life, what strikes me isn’t the big dramatic turning points; no, it’s realizing how many of the most meaningful chapters started with something that didn’t feel significant at the time. A conversation. An opportunity. An invitation. A door that could either be opened or simply ignored.

None of those moments came with a guarantee attached. There was no voice announcing, “This decision will change your life.” There was only a choice. And sometimes the choice that changes everything looks, in the moment, like just another ordinary decision.

Some of my yeses were easy. Some were genuinely hard. Not all of them were as seismic as my “ENOUGH!” moment — that point after Bob died where I quit my job and changed the direction of my life almost completely. But looking back, even the smaller ones altered who I became in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

Years ago, before the pandemic, I said yes to writing a book. To telling my story in Life After Losses. Not because I had some master plan for what would follow, not because I knew I was becoming an author… I just felt like there was something I needed to say and a story I needed to tell. That was it. That was the whole reason.

What I couldn’t see at the time was everything that would grow from that one decision. The people I’d meet. The conversations I’d have. The opportunities to teach, coach, and connect with others who were navigating their own losses. The person who wrote that first book had absolutely no idea what was coming next. He just said yes and started writing.

More recently, I said yes to something even more unexpected — a return to acting.

If you’ve followed my journey for a while, you know how out of nowhere that chapter appeared. It wasn’t a lifelong ambition finally being fulfilled. It wasn’t something I’d been quietly working toward for years. It was simply an opportunity that showed up, and I had a choice about what to do with it. I could have easily decided I was too old to start something new. Too inexperienced. Too comfortable with the life I already had. Too far removed from the last time I’d stood in front of a camera.

Instead, I stepped onto a film set for the first time in nearly three decades.

And what followed wasn’t just a new hobby or a creative outlet to fill some spare time. It was the discovery of a part of myself I genuinely hadn’t noticed before. A version of me that enjoyed being challenged in completely unfamiliar ways. A version that was willing (actually willing) to be a beginner again. A version that was still capable of surprising himself. A version that could take everything — the joy, the grief, the loss, the last thirty years of living — and use all of it to tell a story.

None of that existed before I said yes. Or maybe more accurately, it existed as possibility. It was just waiting for an invitation.

And I think that’s true for all of us.

We tend to think of identity as something fixed. Like we eventually figure out who we are and then spend the rest of our lives living from that understanding.

Here’s the thing… what if that’s only part of the story? What if there are still versions of you that haven’t had the chance to emerge yet — the artist who hasn’t picked up the brush, the traveler who hasn’t booked the trip, the student who keeps assuming it’s too late, the dreamer who keeps talking themselves out of it before they even begin?

Look, the truth is, we don’t really know who we’re capable of becoming until life gives us a chance to find out. And most of those chances arrive disguised as something much smaller than they eventually become. A class. A conversation. A chance encounter. A possibility that feels easy to dismiss because its significance isn’t obvious yet.

That’s why I’ve become genuinely cautious about assuming I already know what my future holds. Every time I’ve made that mistake, life has surprised me. Every time I’ve believed the story was mostly written, a new chapter appeared. And every time I’ve stepped toward something uncertain but meaningful, I’ve discovered parts of myself that would have stayed hidden if I’d just stayed where I was comfortable.

The future has a habit of introducing us to people we haven’t met yet, and that includes ourselves.

Your Turn

Instead of asking what you want to do next, try asking a different question this week: who might you become if you said yes to something you’ve been avoiding? Is there an opportunity that keeps showing up at the edge of your life? And what version of you might be waiting on the other side of that decision?