Years ago, when Gigi first started high school, we went to the spring fundraiser. It was an all-school production called “Cabaret.” Students, parents, alumni… everyone on stage together. Somewhere in the middle of it she leaned over and said, “Senior year, I’m doing that.”
I smiled. I assumed she meant her.
Fast forward to last spring. Senior year. And somehow I’m backstage in a Cobra Kai gi and headband, about to walk on as Johnny from The Karate Kid, wondering how exactly I got talked into this.
I’ve spent the better part of my career on stages and in client pitches where I knew what I’m doing. This was definitely not that. There was choreography... Cues... Other people depending on me to not miss my moment… I was definitely way out of my element.
And here’s what surprised me. I liked it.
Not because I was great at it. I wasn’t. Not because it advanced anything. It didn’t. Not because it made sense strategically. It absolutely did not.
I liked it because it was unfamiliar.
At this point in my life, I don’t often put myself in situations where I don’t know how I’ll perform. Most of us don’t. We get good at what we do. We build reputations around it. We operate inside lanes that feel efficient and competent.
But competence can quietly narrow your world.
There was something about stepping into something I’d never done before, at this point of my career, that felt different. It reminded me that you don’t “come alive” by staying inside the roles you’ve mastered. You come alive when you let yourself enter something you haven’t figured out yet.
And maybe that’s the real question this week.
When was the last time you chose something that made you slightly uncomfortable… not because you had to, but because you wanted to see what it would feel like?
“Your 50” is a 50-week reflection series about realigning, activating, and expressing what comes next.