I want to tell you about something that’s been stirring in my soul lately. It’s about identity, about who we really are beneath all the noise.

You see, I’ve got this thing about eagles – hell, my Facebook handle is “EagleVision”. There’s a reason for that.

When an eagle takes flight, it has to stretch its skin taut just to catch the wind. There’s no halfway about it. You either commit fully or you stay on the ground. And that’s exactly what I’ve learned about living gracefully – you’ve got to stretch yourself, put some skin in the game.

Let me take you back a bit. Forty years into my life, I did something pretty radical – I changed my name. Now, I’ve spent years trying to understand why, sometimes ignoring it, sometimes celebrating it. I was named after John the Baptist originally, and I spent most of my life hating my identity. Imagine that – hating who you are so much that you have to become someone else.

But here’s the weird part – through all that seeking and changing, I ended up developing this unique blend. I work with Native American wisdom, neurolinguistic programming, and Neville Goddard. Three N’s, I call them. Nobody else does quite what I do. And for the longest time, I used that uniqueness as a hiding place. Funny how we do that, isn’t we? Create these elaborate shelters to hide from ourselves?

The other day, Victoria and I were talking about this. She has this way of just showing up… And in those moments, something magical happens. We’re not just spending time together; we’re weaving something new. Both of us walk away different than we came.

That’s when it hit me – wisdom isn’t something you download like a file or look up on Google. It’s something that gets woven between people. It happens in those spaces where we stop trying to be right and start being real.

You want to know what I see when I look around? I see people trapped in endless arguments with themselves. They’re all seeking agreement, looking for validation. Social media’s made it worse – everyone’s either trying to prove they’re right or find people who’ll agree they’ve been wronged. “Am I right that I’ve been wronged?” We get caught in these loops, these endless cycles of seeking validation.

But what I really want – what makes my soul sing – is when people get stunned into silence. Not the awkward kind, but the sacred kind. The kind where all the arguments fall away and you just… are. Because if a picture’s worth a thousand words, true vision is worth silence.

Here’s something that might surprise you: you can’t even see beauty when you’re caught up in internal arguments. I’ve got this little infographic that says “see beauty, be love.” Simple words, profound truth. But you can’t access that when you’re busy defending your position or seeking agreement.

I’ve noticed something else too. The moment we start settling for just sharing data, we’re actually in defense mode. It’s like putting everything in a report so you don’t have to show up yourself. But when you dance – now that’s different. When I take a risk and ask Victoria to dance, when she takes a risk and asks me to dance, we’re both transformed. That’s what real connection looks like.

You know what Muhammad Benghadi did? He built the first Bugatti and Mercedes-Benz residences without advertising. Instead, he created an architectural DNA that spoke for itself.

Thank you Lisa Ann LaRock.

That’s what we’re all doing, whether we realize it or not. We’re constantly revealing our identity through how we show up in the world.

The state we continually return to – that’s our dwelling place. And I’m finally learning to own mine, to find home in who I am rather than in what I do. It’s taken me 18 years since changing my name to get here, but I’m finally willing to show up with my full signature.

Because here’s what I know for sure: We can either become servants to our arguments, or we can rise up and see the bigger picture.

We can get lost in the details, or we can soar like eagles and see the landscape of our lives from above. The choice is always ours.

And me? I choose to rise. I choose to help others rise too. Not through more arguments or data or seeking agreement, but through that sacred silence where wisdom gets woven and beauty can finally be seen…