THE FIRE PHASE: Not Who You Used To Be, Not Yet Who You’re Becoming

There comes a point in every major transformation where you no longer recognize the person you used to be, but you haven't yet become the person you're working toward. It's an unsettling place to stand, but it’s also intensely exciting.

It's your personal blank canvas. What you become next is yours to paint.

"Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it's often only found in moments of truth."
- Alan Rudolph

Every meaningful transformation has a critical phase: a season of intensity, uncertainty, and rapid change. I call this The Fire Phase.

In this light, I want to talk about identity and that strange place where you're suspended between who you once were and who you're building yourself into.

The identity gap.

At the beginning of this year, I was deep into school and learning. I was feeling this gap dominate my experience, intensely, in the best way. I was doing something I previously thought to be impossible––flying helicopters––and that scared me. But, every single day, I got up and took another step towards making this dream a reality.

In that place, I was no longer the person I had always been, but I hadn't yet become the person I was working toward. The person who could confidently and smoothly handle the machine I was flying. Who could navigate all the situations that come up in controlled airspace.

That’s the identity gap.

I've talked before about what it feels like to watch fear shift and evaporate as you give it your brave attention.

One of my flights was a testament to this.

I was nervous to the point of nearly vomiting as I anticipated running up and taking off for my lesson. I knew, however, that change would happen as I embraced the experience. I understood that I was making a conscious choice to push through these feelings; this was one of the foundational reasons I chose to fly to begin with.

So instead of stepping back into comfort, I decided, “I am going to walk into this fear, and see how far I can get.”

I walked out to the helicopter. I completed my preflight inspection. I grabbed the start up checklist, and I took it one step at a time.

And you know what happened?

I lifted off, took my clearance from ATC, and gained altitude. As I did, all the tension evaporated from my body, and my entire nervous system did something incredible… it relaxed.

I took all my power back from that fear instead of allowing it to overpower me. It engulfed me, yes, but after you acknowledge and allow an emotion, it then moves on. It dissipates. It’s done its duty.

I gained confidence on the controls. As confidence grew, fear lessened.

Fear catalyzed into excitement inside of me.

I ended up having my first solo flight in this larger, more powerful helicopter that day.

The weather was beautiful. The view was spectacular. I wouldn't have experienced that had I not been willing to feel an intense amount of discomfort, or had I believed that fear was more powerful than I am.

So there I sat, in the identity gap, confident and afraid, but actively building who I would become months and years later.

When you enter this gap, be with it. This is the process, and you can't grow by jumping through it. It's meant to be uncomfortable, but if you embrace that, it's going to build you into someone who can handle intense fire.

No matter how difficult things get, no matter how many times you feel like quitting, keep your mind focused powerfully on where you're going.

It's in this gap that the new you is born. Not from building a bridge over it, not from bypassing or minimizing it, but from having the courage to walk straight through it to the other side.

It’s in this place that you can create miracles.

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If you're standing in your own Fire Phase, you don't have to navigate it alone. The Art of Being Human expands on these ideas and offers a practical framework for navigating life's hardest seasons with emotional resilience and grit.