The Inventory of You.

The Inevitable Moment: It happened for me on a rooftop bar in downtown Minneapolis, after a George Strait concert. It was October 2021.

The story would be easier to write if I could tell you I figured it out on my own. That I found the clarity, summoned the courage, and made the call without any help. But it didn’t work that way.

It took my wife to push me. To call me out. To hold my hand, look me in the eye, and tell me that I had changed. That I had become lost, distant, and distracted, and that she misses the person I used to be when I was in sync with my purpose.

It took someone who knew me better than I knew myself to finally say what I couldn’t come to see on my own: My work there was done…and I was afraid to say it out loud.

I never wanted to be a quitter. I didn’t want to look like I couldn’t hack it. That I burned out or wasn’t capable. But once I stopped calling it quitting, and started calling it finishing... everything changed. Well, everything in my mind.

That moment gave me permission.
Permission to get curious.
Permission to wonder what might come next.
Permission to finally take an inventory of the life I was living, and the one I still hoped to create. Permission to do something before it was too late.

If you’re here, maybe you’re right there, too.

And maybe you’re work there is done.

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The Inevitable Truth: The easiest lie we tell ourselves is that things will get better tomorrow, or next week…or at some fictitious time in the future—after this project, after this quarter, after the kids are back in school, after vacation, after this launch, after this bonus, after I vest, or after one more promotion.

But it never lets up. It only happens after you waste a little more time settling.

And after a few years of stringing those lies together, you start to feel the weight of your own pretending.

If you’re here, you really don’t need someone to tell you what’s wrong. You already know. You just haven’t admitted it out loud.

You hope something changes. You hope it’s under your control. You hope you have time to write a better story.

That’s not confusion.
That’s not weakness.
That’s pressure.
And it’s the beginning of The Inventory of You.

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The Inevitable Model: You don’t need to build a plan. Not yet.

You need to get honest. Really-damn-honest.

Before you can write what comes next, you have to uncover what still matters.
What you’ve been burying.
What you’ve forgotten.

This is what we do in Normal 40. We don’t hand you a blueprint. We hand you a mirror.

And we invite you to finally look. To judge for yourself. To be honest. to be real. Then we challenge you to see what we see; your potential.

We ask you to be honest about what you see, who you are becoming, what no longer fits, and what you will no longer tolerate.

Then, we give you tools to do something about it.

Not tools to do it for you.

Tools that will allow us to do it with you.

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The Inevitable Tool: Take inventory. Real inventory. Use these prompts. Write them down. Speak them aloud. Share them with someone who knows you. Here’s what you do.