Three Keys to Your Personal Revolution

I can’t stand the term “reinvention” when applied to humans. Robots and apps are invented and reinvented, not people. Human beings evolve, we grow, we screw up then get better, rinse and repeat. We can’t just snap our fingers and change our lives no matter how the multi-billion dollar personal transformation business tries to convince us we’re just one weekend seminar away from success and “happiness.” Like it or not, we’re on a complex, confusing and often exhausting journey to be free. You say you want a re-evolution? As a seasoned warrior who’s led an adventurous life filled with missteps, immeasurable joy, and disastrous mistakes let me share three keys to real and deep personal change.

STEP ONE: KILL THE ANGEL

Virginia Woolf was a feminist writer who lived at the turn of the 19th century. Victorian England had convinced women that they were supposed to be “nice;” a woman was groomed to be the “angel in the house” — the selfless soul who soothes all wounds, the balm to every angry man or child. One of her most famous essays is called “Kill the Angel” and as far as I’m concerned this act of bravery and violence is the first step to living authentically. You have to kill the angel in the house to save your own soul and allow your best life to rise from the ashes. Or, you can just be “nice” and die steeped in regret. Here’s what Virginia Woolf said about the Angel:

“For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper, you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own, without…