I'm truly grateful this book has found its way into your hands.

I wrote it for you because I know you have a heartfelt desire to live a deeply meaningful life, one that inspires you even as it challenges you. A life rich in purpose and fused with passion. A life you can one day look back upon without regret but with a deep sense of satisfaction, gratitude and wonder.

Yet I am guessing that there are times you find yourself feeling stuck, wondering whether there is more to life than the one you are living. Whether there is more you could be doing. Whether you are playing too small, living too safe or settling for too little.

I've felt that way myself. Many times. Sometimes I still do. Times when my desire to stamp my biggest mark upon the world is wrestled to the ground by my fear that I simply don't have what it takes; that I'm deluding myself and I'm destined to fall short of the mark. Far short.

Which is what has brought us together, here, right now. Because I know that I'm not alone: that there are millions like me who also sometimes wonder, ‘What else?' or ‘What if?' People with wonderful talents and burning dreams who want to do more and be more, but who so often doubt whether they can. People like you and me who aren't content to settle for less than the life we are capable of living, but who so easily get swept along by the shallow currents of our culture. A culture that celebrates the superficial which feeds our ego, at the expense of the meaningful which feeds our soul.

Of course, there is no shortage of social-media posts and t-shirts emblazoned with catchphrases imploring us to Think Big, Shoot for the Stars and #JustDoIt.

Few people would argue with their sentiments.

After all, to quote one of the most well-worn maxims, ‘life is not a dress rehearsal', right?

Yet, for all the messages we get encouraging us to ‘lean in' and ‘aim high', most people struggle to live them out. This is despite the thousands of books written to help them do just that. (I've written three myself.) While most of these books offer useful insights to help move people into action, they often fall short in transforming the lives of their readers or of their families, teams, organisations and communities.

The reason is simple.

FORGING A DEEPLY MEANINGFUL LIFE IS FRAUGHT WITH RISK.

The risk of failure, the risk of rejection, falling flat on your face and feeling like a fool.

Given we're wired to avoid all these risks, it's little wonder so many people veer away from them. Taking the road less travelled just seems so hard.

Too hard.

It's hard because, at the core of our being and woven through every thread of our psychological DNA, we are terrified of falling short — far short — of achieving our goals, much less ‘reaching the stars' or leaving a legacy that will far outlast our years on earth.

Hardwired into our boards at birth is a potent and primal force against change: against exposing ourselves to anything that might threaten our sense of identity, security and belonging.

AND SO, FOR ALL OUR GOOD INTENTIONS TO BE STRONG AND BRAVE, WE SO OFTEN HOLD BACK FROM DOING THE VERY THINGS WE KNOW DEEP IN OUR HEARTS WILL HELP US CREATE MORE OF WHAT WE WANT AND TO CHANGE WHAT WE DON'T.

More fulfilment, more connection, more growth.

Less melancholy, less conflict, less spinning our wheels in a frenzy of busyness without feeling like we're moving any closer towards the very things we yearn for most.

Hence this book.

Since embarking upon my ‘second career' nearly 20 years ago, I've had the privilege of working with thousands of people from different walks of life and cultures around the world. Entrepreneurs. Small-business owners. Leaders in business, government, education, healthcare and social enterprise. Time and time again, what I have found is that while they often come to me looking for answers, the most powerful answers they ever get are those they arrive at themselves when they sit quietly, unguardedly, with the big questions.

What is your ultimate outcome? What do you yearn for most, when all that sparkles is stripped away? Where is fear holding the balance of power in your life? Is the security it's giving you worth what you're giving up? What would be possible if you stepped outside your story?

These are just a few of the questions I've asked people over the years to help them on their ‘quest' to live a deeply authentic and meaningful life. I share them here only because I know that if you sit quietly with these questions you'll find yourself having to think a little harder and dig a little deeper about your own.

With both my clients and the people who have attended my programs, I have witnessed the power that flows when we give ourselves the emotional space to connect to our deepest desires and uncover the fears holding them hostage. The possibilities that can open up when we remove our armour and get clear about the highest purpose for our lives — the most meaningful mark we hope to make on the world — are as boundless as they are beautiful.

It's why this book is different from others I've written or the many wonderful books that may already line your shelves. While it's far more than a journal, my intention for writing it is to help you access the wisdom already inside you, uncovering your own answers to life's most pressing questions.

As such, I have deliberately excluded anything I felt could distract from or dilute the impact of the questions. While all of the concepts in the book are backed by empirical research, it doesn't detail studies about the psychology of risk-taking, the neuroscience of peak performance or the importance of cultivating grit and a ‘growth mindset'. Nor does it contain the case studies I've included in my previous books. All these have their place, and it's an important one. It just isn't here.

My primary goal for this book is to guide you on a journey to chart your bravest course to your biggest life. To do that, you'll need to be really honest about what you most want and what's kept you from having it already — or having more of it!

That in itself will take courage. To pause from the busyness of your doing and to spend more time simply being. To step beyond the shallows and dive deep into the still waters so seldom entered. To embrace your vulnerability and interrogate your reality. To park your cynicism, confront your fears and see yourself as a leader with an invaluable mark to make — both on the people you care about most and those you may never get to meet.

BUT LET'S FACE IT, WE HUMANS ARE WIZARDS WHEN IT COMES TO DISTRACTING OURSELVES FROM THE REAL WORK OF THINKING HARD ABOUT LIVING WELL.

We hurry through our days, from one activity to the next, juggling balls, spinning plates and bending ourselves inside out to measure up or avoid missing out. All the while we never quite get around to getting real about our inner lives or, to quote industrialist John W Gardner, ‘to probe the fearful and wonderful world within'.

It's my hope that this book will help you to probe the ‘fearful and wonderful world within' so that you can avoid the barrenness of a busy life and relish the richness of a brave one.

I must warn you, though. The journey ahead won't always be comfortable. Then again, having spent so much of my adult life feeling decidedly uncomfortable, I know that no worthwhile endeavour ever is.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED SINCE GROWING UP ON A FARM WITH A VISION THAT EXTENDED LITTLE BEYOND THE BACK PADDOCK, IS THAT OUR LIVES ARE AS BIG AS WE DARE TO MAKE THEM.

It's why you cannot afford to wait until ‘one day' before you make time to create the highest vision for your life. One day, when your kids are older. One day, when the economy's better. One day, when the mortgage is paid. One day, when you've lost your doubt or ‘found yourself' and finally feel like you've grown up.

There is no ‘one day'. There is only ‘this day'. Today.

While you may be tempted to skirt over the questions that follow each chapter and the exercises at the end of each of the seven steps — which tie the whole book together — I can't overstate the value you'll get from actually writing down your answers. Research has proven that the very process of putting a pen to paper will help you to process your emotions and refine your thinking in ways that simply reading never will.

Truly.

That said, there is no right or wrong way to complete this book. While it comprises seven distinct steps that guide you through a journey from self-reflection to purposeful action, if you open any page, you will find an invitation to rethink how you're ‘doing life'.

As I wrote in Brave (a book that provides a valuable companion to this one), if it were easy to lay our vulnerability on the line for something more important — to risk what we have now for what we want most — we would all be doing it. It's why, in our increasingly uptight, cautious and uncertain world, living your best life requires living a brave life.

I hope this book will serve as a roadmap — your own personal ‘life GPS' — to help you navigate from where you are now to where you most want to go (and, if you're unsure where that is, to help you figure it out!). So as you write down your thoughts, reframe your fears and reimagine your future in the pages to come, I invite you to do so with a brave heart and open mind.

YOUR FUTURE IS STILL AN OPEN BOOK, WAITING TO BE WRITTEN. YOU ARE ITS AUTHOR.

Every step of your journey so far has held a gift for you to use to start a new chapter. But not just any chapter. One that casts you as the hero in this grand adventure of life and leaves an indelible mark on others for how you lived it.

No-one on earth has the same combination of know-how, talent, passion, personality, opportunity or hard-won wisdom as you. No-one ever will. If this book helps you channel the best of who you are into making the biggest mark you can, I will be deeply honoured and immeasurably grateful.

Thank you for trusting me to accompany you on this leg of your journey.

In return I ask just one thing: to trust in yourself that you have everything — and I mean everything — you need within you to fulfil the highest vision you are inspired to pursue.