How to Wake Up from the Life You Didn’t Choose

Hi there,

This week I’m writing to you from Shanghai, a city that changed my life.

It’s here that I fell in love with education. With the idea of building future entrepreneurs. It was the place that first forged the courage to do what I do today.

Shanghai became a mirror. It reflected back my fear of not being enough to follow my dream to support others as a coach. And it challenged me to find my way through action, service, and growth.

Being back where it all started reminded me of a story I first heard in 2018 when I studied Chinese in Guilin, Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream.

The Butterfly Dream

Over 2,300 years ago, in the quiet countryside of ancient China, a philosopher named Zhuangzi lay down under a tree and fell asleep.

In his dream, he became a butterfly.

Not a man. Not a thinker. Just a butterfly, dancing through the sky from flower to flower, weightless, free, and completely present.

No fear. No pressure. No ambition.

Only wind, sunshine, and joy.

He didn’t know he had ever been anything else.

But then he woke up…

and everything shifted.

The Real Question

Zhuangzi wasn’t trying to be poetic.
He was pointing at something deeper.

How do I know this life is truly mine?

What if most of us are still asleep? Dreaming someone else’s dream, living a life of inherited expectations, autopilot routines, and quiet fears we never chose?

What if we were born to fly… and just forgot?

What’s Behind the Story

Most people have no clear picture of what courage, identity, or alignment even look like in their life.

Worse? We forget to ask…
We run on autopilot.

Wake up, baby cries, feed baby, feel guilty for not working. Go to work, feel guilty for not being with the baby. Answer messages, Slack, emails. Chase to-dos. Put out fires. Try to be enough for everyone. Wonder if we’re actually enough for ourselves. Yet look the other way, because it’s easier.

We bounce between expectations. Our phones, our bosses, our own beliefs about what we should be doing.

We check boxes. Play roles. Hit targets.
But deep down, something feels… off.

• We live inside a dream of “shoulds”

• We carry someone else’s idea of success

• We operate from fear and guilt instead of conscious choice

Then, in rare moments, like the one I had in Shanghai, you suddenly… wake up.

This Is the Work

These moments don’t always come because we’re “ready.” Sometimes, they just show up. Mine came after COVID stopped me from returning to Shanghai and pointed me toward something new…

These moments are what I’ve studied. And what I help people access through coaching.

Because waking up sounds beautiful. But it’s scary as hell.

You’ll have to ask:

• What do I really want?

• Who am I without this old identity?

• What am I pretending not to know?

• What parts of me have I outgrown but keep holding onto?

And maybe hardest of all… what if I get to the end of this life and realize I’ve disappointed myself?

And yet…

The butterfly doesn’t doubt its wings.
It just flies.

Wanna Fly?

Fear, guilt, apathy, anger… they all want you to keep dreaming.
They want you stuck. Small. Asleep.

But your real self, the one that remembers who you are?
It’s trying to wake you up.

It wants you to question the stories you’ve inherited.
To feel what’s real.
To stop performing and start living.

Because that’s when everything starts to shift.

Start here:

• If you were the butterfly… what would you do next?

• If you trusted your wings… what would you stop delaying?

Until next time,

Your coach and friend,

Carlos