Being Aligned
· Being
Learning the art of discernment: what happens when the life we're living no longer reflects the life we believe in?
Have you ever looked at your life and realized that, by almost every measure, things are going pretty well, but something still doesn't feel quite right?
You're working hard, showing up for the people you love, meeting expectations, and pursuing opportunities you've spent years building toward. From the outside, there isn't necessarily anything wrong. Yet somewhere beneath all the activity, there's a quiet sense that something might be missing.
I've experienced this more than once in my life. As a husband, dad, creative, and business leader, I've spent years building things I care deeply about. I've been fortunate to have opportunities I never imagined, work alongside incredible people, and pursue ideas that bring me genuine joy. But I've also had seasons when I became so focused on keeping everything moving that I stopped asking whether everything I was doing still reflected what mattered most to me.
Sometimes the difference between a meaningful life and an exhausting one isn't how much we're doing. It's whether what we're doing aligns with who we are. This has me thinking about something I've been exploring more intentionally lately, especially as I hit the road on Rule29 new business and promoting this book: the art of discernment.
It's a word we often associate with spirituality, but I believe it belongs in nearly every conversation about how we live, lead, love, and grow. Because discernment is about much more than making good decisions. It's about learning to recognize what is true, what matters, and what deserves our attention. And why would we want to become better at that?
Because, I believe, we want to live an aligned life. More specifically, I believe everyone deserves the opportunity to live a soul-aligned life.
What Does a Soul-Aligned Life Actually Look Like?
When I use the word soul, I'm talking about the deepest part of who we are. The place where our values, beliefs, purpose, identity, and understanding of what matters most come together. Some of us connect that to faith or spirituality. Others experience it through conscience, meaning, personal integrity, or the feeling of being fully ourselves. However we describe it, I think most of us recognize when we're living in alignment with it.
There's a sense of peace that comes from knowing our choices reflect what we believe. Our relationships feel more honest. Our work feels more meaningful. We aren't constantly trying to reconcile the person we present to the world with the person we know ourselves to be.
That doesn't mean life becomes easy or that every decision feels good. In fact, some of the most aligned decisions we make may be among the hardest. Sometimes living according to our values means having a difficult conversation, walking away from an opportunity, admitting we've been wrong, or making a choice that others don't understand.
Alignment isn't about always feeling comfortable. It's about living with integrity.
I've been thinking about this in relation to success. For much of my career, success meant building something meaningful, creating great work, hustling, growing a business, and providing opportunities for others. Those things still matter deeply to me.
But as I've gotten older, my definition has expanded. I think more about the relationships I'm investing in, the memories I'm creating, the impact I'm having, and whether the people closest to me are receiving the best of who I am. And I've learned that it's entirely possible to succeed at something while slowly becoming disconnected from why you started. That's one reason discernment matters.
Not Everything Good Is Right for You
One of the things I've learned about myself is that I love possibilities. I love new ideas, interesting people, unexpected opportunities, and the chance to create something that didn't exist before. If you know me, you probably know that saying yes comes pretty naturally.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some of the most meaningful experiences of my life began with an unexpected invitation or a willingness to try something new. But I've also learned that every yes carries a responsibility. It takes time, attention, energy, and space that could have been given somewhere else.
I learned this lesson during a particularly difficult season at Rule29. Business was slow, we needed new work, and I was feeling the pressure that comes with being responsible for a team and making sure everyone has what they need.
Around that time, an opportunity came along that, on paper, looked incredible. The potential budget was substantial, the kind of project that could have relieved a lot of financial pressure and given us some much-needed breathing room. We had worked with this company a little in the past, so I knew them well enough to understand what the relationship would probably look like. And that was the problem.
Our previous experience had been difficult. The way they operated, how they treated people, and some of the values that seemed to guide their decisions didn't align with what we believed or the kind of culture we were working so hard to build at Rule29. But we really needed the work.
I went back and forth on it more than I'd like to admit. I could make a pretty convincing argument for taking the project. We had a team to support, bills to pay, and a business to keep moving forward. Walking away from an opportunity that large felt almost irresponsible.
Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that saying yes would come with a cost that wasn't reflected anywhere in the budget. There would be the stress, the strain on our team, and the possibility of compromising the very culture and values we said mattered most to us. Eventually, I made the decision not to pursue it.
I didn't suddenly feel relieved or confident that everything would work out. We still needed the revenue, and I still had to figure out how we were going to bring in other work. The financial pressure didn't disappear because I'd made a decision that felt right. But I knew I couldn't ask our team to live out our values while making business decisions that contradicted them.
That experience has stayed with me because it taught me something important about discernment. Sometimes the right decision doesn't solve your immediate problem. Sometimes it actually leaves you with more work to do.
But it allows you to move forward without sacrificing what matters most.
I wish I could say I've always made decisions with that kind of clarity. I haven't. There have been plenty of times when fear, excitement, ego, or the desire to make everyone happy has influenced my choices. And I suspect that's true for most of us. That's why discernment isn't something we achieve once. It's something we practice, especially when the stakes are high and the answers aren't obvious.
We live in a culture that celebrates more. More growth, more recognition, more productivity, more experiences, more accomplishments. And when we're surrounded by so many voices telling us what we should want, it becomes surprisingly easy to confuse someone else's expectations with our own desires.
Discernment helps us recognize the difference.
It's learning to understand that something can be good without being good for us. That an opportunity can be valuable without being ours to pursue. And that sometimes saying no to something worthwhile creates space for something that matters even more.
I don't think discernment is simply following our feelings, either. Feelings are important, but they aren't always reliable guides. Fear can make the right decision feel wrong. Comfort can make the wrong decision feel safe. True discernment requires us to listen to our emotions while also examining our values, seeking wisdom, considering consequences, and being honest about what is motivating us. It asks us to look beyond the immediate moment and consider the person we're becoming.
The Courage to Recognize What Is True
There's another reason discernment can be difficult. Sometimes, when we slow down enough to really listen, we discover something we'd rather not acknowledge. Perhaps we've outgrown a role that once gave us purpose. Perhaps a relationship needs an honest conversation. Maybe the expectations we've been carrying were never really ours to begin with. Or perhaps the beliefs we've held for years are being challenged by what we're learning and experiencing.
I think this is where discernment and courage become inseparable. It's one thing to recognize that something in our lives is out of alignment. It's another thing entirely to do something about it. In Being HumanKind, I spend a lot of time exploring stillness, curiosity, honesty, authenticity, and courage. I've been realizing how closely these practices work together.
Stillness creates the opportunity to hear ourselves think. Curiosity gives us permission to question what we've always assumed. Honesty helps us recognize the difference between what we believe and what we're actually living. And courage allows us to respond, even when doing so requires change.
But there's another practice that holds all of these together: kindness.
We need kindness toward ourselves as we recognize the places where we've gotten off course. And we need kindness toward others, understanding that they, too, are trying to navigate their own questions, responsibilities, and complicated lives. We won't always make the right decisions. We'll misread situations, trust the wrong things, and sometimes confuse our own preferences with deeper convictions. That's part of being human.
The goal isn't perfection. It's becoming more aware, more honest, and more willing to adjust.
Everyone Deserves a Soul-Aligned Life
This is the part of discernment that I think deserves more attention. It's easy to talk about finding purpose, following your calling, or living according to your values when you have the freedom and resources to make significant changes. But not everyone has that freedom.
Think about someone working multiple jobs to support their family. A parent caring for a child with significant needs. Someone navigating illness, grief, financial pressure, or a difficult relationship. For many people, the idea of simply changing their circumstances isn't realistic. That doesn't mean they don't deserve an aligned life. It means the path toward one may be more complicated. And I think that should matter to all of us.
Because if we genuinely believe everyone deserves the opportunity to live in alignment with who they are, then we have a responsibility to consider how our actions might help make that possible.