Recently, I’ve been shutting down, feeling like a fraud, and trying to show up, anyway. I feel surrounded by voices, gurus, and experts telling me to “choose joy” and “choose hope.”

I have started to feel completely inadequate because I couldn’t choose joy. Even though I teach on mindset, personal development, and personal growth, I felt like they weren’t helping.

For months, I’ve struggled with what to say because I felt my role and place in this world was to be another voice sharing about the power of personal growth but because of so many challenging external circumstances in the world and grief within my little world, I just kept shutting down.

I didn’t have anything to say. How can I get in front of people and teach them about mindset or about choosing the life they want, or choosing their way into personal growth when I was crumbling and falling apart?

I value showing up in genuine, vulnerable ways.

My cousin and my wife both have said to me, “You need to tell people what you’re going through. You need to be honest because none of us have it figured out.”

If I’m going to do that, I’ve got to be real, and I’ve got to be honest because the world doesn’t need another guru. We need real people, real humans, with all of our humanity, talking about how we’re showing up, despite the bad days that come.

I’ve been able to see that I don’t want to follow people going through massively difficult times, but keep saying things like “choose the joy.”

Because some days you can’t choose the joy for yourself, and that’s okay. Some days you can’t choose the hope for yourself. And that’s okay.

When you’re willing to say, “I don’t have it all together. I’m having a really hard time, but I’m here and I’m showing up.”

That is where the magic happens.

If you try to pretend that everything is okay, or if you decide to push it all down, (like I sometimes do), then you don’t make space for anything significant to happen in your life, and you certainly don’t make space for growth.

I don’t want to admit that I’m not superhuman.

I don’t want to admit that I fall apart. I don’t want to admit that sometimes I’m not strong enough to choose hope or joy or push through what I’m experiencing.

I don’t want to admit it because I’m afraid that if I’m honest about where I’m at, someone’s going to look at me and go, “Who are you to teach what you teach? Who are you to talk to us about mindset?”

Do you know who I am? I’m a real person with real situations that sometimes are hard.

So if you’re following someone who makes you feel less than because you can’t choose joy some days, or because you can’t choose hope some days, or because you can’t just wrap your head around all of the positivity in the world, then stop following them. Stop exalting them. Stop putting them on an altar.

Before I stopped listening to those voices, I felt bad about myself. I shut down, and I had nothing to say, because I thought if I can’t say the same thing someone else is saying, then I can’t say anything at all.

It is time for us to be real and vulnerable and to be authentic with what life is presenting us and figure out how to get through it together.

It’s time to figure out how to show up one day, one moment, one second at a time. Because some days that’s what it takes. Sometimes that’s all we’ve got.

I believe in what I teach. I believe that when you show up, the magic that will happen in your life is all of the good that you want. I don’t believe that you get there by pretending. And I don’t believe that you get there by faking it.

I believe you have to become so self-aware that you can be completely honest with yourself and say, “I’m not okay today, but I’m showing up anyway.”

I’m committed to showing up for you and sharing what I’m going through. I’m committed to bringing in other people who are also willing to share what they’re going through and how they have overcome things in their lives. I’m committed to hearing from people how they have learned to show up as the best versions of themselves.

We’re going to do it from a place of honesty, transparency, and authenticity because I am not your guru anymore.

I’m just someone who got pushed down a little bit lately. I am figuring out how to show up for life in the most real and honest ways. And I’m going to share that journey with you. And I’m going to teach you the things I know have worked for me.