I was in downward dog at a yoga studio I’d found down the street when the writing on the front window caught my attention.

It was upside down and backward — or I was — and instead of my Ujjayi breathing, I spent the next ninety seconds decoding it.

When I finally decoded the letters, I got a little burning of tears out of the corner of my eye.

“Beginners Welcome,” it said.

The degree to which it moved me was surprising, but whenever my body gives me a sign (tears, sweating, leaning forward, a sudden, deeper inhale), I always listen.

If you’re carrying constant pressure around time, money, and achievement, this is for you.

Most of the pressure and stress I used to feel around time, money, and achievement was based on an idea of what “successful” meant that didn’t come from inside me.

This false compass with which I was navigating was based on conditioning that I’d unconsciously downloaded from the culture.

Do you know what this idea of “success” depended on?

Appearing as though I knew what I was doing.

In my twenties, I wanted to write a book called I Don’t Know What I’m Doing and You Probably Don’t Either.

Nearly two decades later, I stand by the premise.

Here’s the truth: we’re all winging it.

I’ve written two bestselling books, run a multi-seven-figure company for over a decade, and taught this work to tens of thousands of people, and I’m still making up a lot as I go.

Sure, there are things I can do while half asleep that used to take a lot of focus because I’ve repeated them so many times that my body has the neural patterning to make them mostly unconscious and automatic (like a dead lift at the gym, a kick ball change in dance class, or scrambling eggs.)

But the stuff that really moves the needle, that brings me the most fulfillment (and, interestingly, eventually the most revenue)?

I often feel like a beginner. (Like when I’m upgrading the content arc for the Good with Money workshop each year, writing a book in a new format, or interviewing Lynne Twist live on stage after years of admiring her from afar.)

That upside-down, backward sign pulled just the right heartstring to fill my eyes up with tears of truth because yet another layer of unhelpful conditioning around achievement unraveled as it sunk into my body.

“Beginners Welcome.”

Here’s what’s happening in the body:

When we operate as though we have to be experts in everything we do to be “successful,” our bodies are in a stress response (even if it’s low-grade).

That stress response makes it harder to tune out distractions, know what to prioritize, see possibility, and access unique solutions.

But telling ourselves that we get to be a beginner, no matter how old we are?

It’s a relaxing fertilizer.

Permission to be a beginner drops the pressure, which moves the body toward a parasympathetic state where blood flow returns to the regions responsible for creative thinking and intuition. Which is where your best work was always going to come from.

So let’s take the vitality and the resources that come with being a beginner.

The physical and energetic reserves. The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fresh eyes that’ll see things in a way we simply cannot when we bring our preconceived ideas. The mental bandwidth that only exists before you’ve decided how a thing is done.

Let’s let ourselves and each other know:

Beginners Welcome

Xo,
Kate

P.S. This week’s podcast guest left me astounded. I’m not going to say much else other than it’s worth a listen if you suspect you have a book in you and/or you want to be wowed by stories of quantum financial leaps from a single mom of five.