I want to share with you one of the wildest experiences of my life that happened at the beach, right here in Los Angeles.
It was about a year ago, and my company was headed towards another big launch edging. I had spent the past month or so stuck inside and glued to my laptop, and last week I was officially worn out.
I was feeling restless after countless hours in my inbox and proofing web pages, I decided to take my work with me down to the shore and answer a few emails with the wind in my hair and the sand between my toes…
… But let’s be real:
No one really gets that much work done by the ocean (no matter how many ultra-glam photos we see of women in flowing white dresses happily working on their Macbooks from a beach chair.)
It was in the middle of a workday. I could have been sending emails and scheduling calls. But instead, I decided I needed a break — like, really needed one.
I jumped into the Pacific and swam out, as I always do, as far as I can get beyond the reaches of the shore. Once my feet can’t touch the bottom and the people on the shore look tiny, I feel truly free.
It was just the sky, the water, and me.
That’s when I heard it.
Shark!
A man was shouting. Treading water, I turned around to face the beach.
What?!
To my genuine shock, he was pointing at me and waving frantically.
There’s a shark! Right behind you! There’s a fin!
For a split second my blood ran cold, and I frantically started kicking backwards and searching the water for the fin in a panic. Until I noticed…
…It wasn’t a shark at all. It was a dolphin.
A whole pod of them actually. And they were swimming all around me.
I’m not ashamed to say, amazing reader, that my panic immediately slipped from my body and was replaced with an unadulterated childlike joy. I started to laugh, and cry out in surprise, and watch them swimming underneath and around me.
Not everyone is an ultra wellness nerd like me, so you may not know this: but dolphin sounds actually have some really incredible therapeutic side effects. Swimming with dolphins can create physiological cell and tissue change in the body, and “echolocation” sounds from dolphins are so intense that they can even modify human brainwave activity.
And in that moment? I really felt it.
The dolphins swam back and forth for an hour or so, with me laughing and splashing along with them and potentially looking like a bit of a loon to anyone watching from the beach. But in that moment I felt so free — from the stress, from the obstacles in my way, and from the work that had yet to be done.
I stayed in the water until night fell and took the warm sunshine with it, and I walked back up the chilly beach, still illuminated and laughing in shock.
Did that really just happen? Did I just have a Disney Princess moment off the California coast?
Here’s the reason I’m telling you this story:
Because when the dolphins came?
I could have been chained to my desk.
I could have forced myself (and my adrenals) to stay answering every single email and reading and re-reading pages on the new site until I wore myself out.
But instead? I chose to surrender.
I chose to listen to my body when it told me that I needed a break, and go to the ocean where my new dolphin friends were waiting for me. And as a result, I could get back to my work refreshed, raring to go, and feeling — dare I say it — superhuman.
If you’ve read my books The Conquer Kit or Conquer Your Year, you’ll know I’m a huge supporter of the idea of “balanced ambition”.
Inside my Conquer Kit, I even help you plan out each month’s goals for money, career & learning, giving back, health, and relationships — as well as business goals.
And this right here? This playtime with the dolphins?
This is why — and why this exercise is the last section of the Superhuman series.
Because there’s more to life — and sanity, let’s be real — than micromanaging your business and making sure everything’s absolutely perfect.
It’s so important to balance our ambition with our lives — our real lives.
While it can feel instinctive to work around the clock as entrepreneurs, especially when things get tough, we truly owe it to ourselves to take time and space to grow more of ourselves.
To deepen our relationships.
To improve our health.
To learn.
To master our money.
And to give back.
So for today, I challenge you to give my Balanced Ambition Month Mapping technique a shot.
Here’s how to do it:
Take out a sheet of paper and make two columns.
First, mark the right-hand column “Business goals”.
Underneath that header, write in what you want to achieve this month in your business (whether that’s posting more on social media, outlining a new product, or starting your next book).
Then in the left-hand column, I want you to make a category called “Balanced Ambition”.
In that column, write out:
Money
Career & Learning
Giving back
Health
Relationships
Then, write in a small goal for each category; like drinking more water, putting 10% of your earnings away into savings, or calling your bestie once a week.
Finally, pull your brand new Month Map out of your journal or notebook, or print it off your computer, and post it somewhere you can see it clearly, and do your best to hit all of your goals — especially your Balanced Ambition ones.
It might shock you how much more you can create — and get done!
Then, once you finish this list? I’d love to know in the comments:
Which Balanced Ambition goals will you be setting this month? And why?
Can’t wait to read all about ‘em.
Ready to choose and create your dream future now?
Download my guided Futuring Ritual MP3
