There’s a lot of trust required.

Your security can get snatched from you in a second.

This happened right before my son Gabriel was born. I was pulled into the office of a start-up in Los Angeles and fired because I refused to do something that I knew was illegal.

That’s one of the reasons why I a…

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Hate it, actually.

It does not thrill me when people say that I am an average dude, pretty good, etc…

And I definitely do not want 2026 to be another average year, a nice year, another 12 months of okay.

I’m not sure that I can stomach more of the same.

That very notion sends tingles of frustration up my spine.

I…

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These are my children

Today is Father's Day in New Zealand.

Today, I choose to celebrate myself and what has been the most rewarding journey of my life.

They are without doubt, the most important two people in my life.

Gabriel and Rose.

Life asks a human being many questions, parenting asks you even more...

Who will you become under pressure?

When it's raining…

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I’ve missed him terribly.

He’s my good buddy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about kids and how we treat and value them.

It’s honestly mostly very shit 💩

Yeah, I am cursing again, but how you were treated as a child has greatly affected how you show up in the world today.

It’s in the message you were given.

Sit d…

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Even though my dad was an atheist, my mother was a stubborn, determined and faithful believer.

I am a lot like my mother and a little like my father.

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At school, I was one of those annoying Christians who told other kids that drinking was bad, cursing was evil, and dancing was from the devil.

I guess you could say that I was a you…

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A lot of things are growing, my business, my writing, my reach…. And I am feeling way healthier in my body, fitter every single day.

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I think I can trace it all back to one terrible day last year.

I was (and still am) dealing with a really tough life situation.

I was meeting with Sam, my personal trainer and he asked me a really…

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I was running against eighty-plus 12-year-olds in the Auckland championships.

The 2-mile road race was about to begin.

I was only 9 years old, pushing 65 pounds, with an asthma inhaler in one hand, surrounded by boys who appeared to me to be the size of men.

To begin with, I wasn't terrified at all, I was excited, I wanted to win.

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The start line…

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It was the longest car ride of my life, sitting on a bag of ice for 8 hours all the way back to Los Angeles.

Surgery was booked …

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It was his birthday.

Dark already. People buzzed outside LAX, loud voices, bright lights, deals happening on every corner. Everyone is selling somebody, something.

The young man smiled to himself.

He was loving every second. This was the promised land. The place of dreams. He could feel his future br…

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I couldn’t sleep last night, and this question was dogging me, chasing my soul like a rabid Rottweiler down a dark back alley.

The essential existential human questions…

Why am I here? What’s the reason behind all of this?

I‘ve been too uncertain for too long. I left my faith years ago, and it’s …

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You've tried this before, and it didn't work

It worked before, but it won't work before”

The voices of others (and sometimes ourselves) permeate the worlds of those who are brave enough to try and build their own thing.

I remember being yelled at and told that I would never succeed.

I've got receipts,…

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I’m trying to spend 5 minutes a day upside down.

Standing on my hands.

Every single day.

You probably think that is an extremely weird pursuit for a 49-year-old?

You are completely right

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You know the kind, the kid who refuses to let you sit on the couch, work too much, or give in to the sedentary life.

A year ago, he was begging me to take him fishing.

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I hate fishing, but I love my son. So when he asks to fish, I usually take him.

This day would be different, though…

I’d been living …

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I think it’s an existential human question. I ask it all the time, probably even when I’m asleep.

I think it’s what was coming up for me when I was lying on the ground, getting the shit kicked out of me by bullies when I was 12.

It’s like a sacred whisper as a foot slammed into my ribs, excruciating pain.. YES.. but also a still, small voice.

”What was I made for?”

And the answer I heard then is the same answer I hear today in any struggle: it is always the same.

“More than this.”

As you read this post, I’m wondering about you. What are you made for?

We’ve got thousands of readers, so as this message spreads across the interwebs, this question is being asked of you, and of many others.

It’s a deeply philosophical question.

Here’s what I don’t want you to do:

I don’t want you to answer the question.
I simply want you to keep asking it.

There’s danger in answering too quickly. In our modern world, we tend to reply with a job or a role:

• I was made to be a fireman.

• I was made to be a mother.

• I was made to be an accountant (said virtually nobody).

The problem is, once we answer it, we settle the matter and we stop asking the question. We cut short the great unfolding.

What were you made for?

This is meant to be a lifelong exploration, a deep dive into the unfathomable adventure of living a big, bold, beautiful life.

So my answer is always:

“More than this,” and then I wonder about all the beautiful, magnificent things that I am made for?”

That’s how you tolerate bullying. That’s what gets you off the ground. It’s the question that helps you break out of a soul-sucking 9-to-5. It’s the thing that gets you out of debt.

It’s the question that causes you to create beauty from the ashes of grief.

The answer is never practical. It’s always exploratory.

If you’re tempted to answer “fireman,” go deeper.

What was I made for?
More than this.
More than a job.

You were made to be brave.
To run fearlessly into fires.
To not hold anything back.
To love where love is difficult.
To speak the truth kindly when silence is squashing you.

You were made to go to the difficult places that others fear, because you are brave. Nothing can stop you from caring.

Please keep asking this question. I beg this of you.

G. x

If you're a paid supporter of SPHERE, thank you. I’ve created a list of 17 versions of this question you can ask yourself below, in different seasons, in different tones, and in wildly different ways.

19 WAYS TO ASK THIS QUESTION

These are questions to ask and not to answer. They will propel your life forward in a million different ways. Print them out and dive deep. Your support means the world to me.

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This just happened to me…

Just before I sat down to write this post, I received a message on the Substack app. It was insulting. It was physically demeaning. It was rude. It was HORRIBLE. It wasn’t spam; it was a real person.

Threatened somehow?

This ha…

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An entrepreneur sits closer to failure than they’d like…

I know I do.

But I think that’s what makes us brave. It humbles us. It’s the character trait that can make us great.

I’ve poured my heart and soul into projects that failed miserably — many times.

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At one point, I was in Hollywood, meeting incredible film producers, on the edge of a brea…

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I remember it like it was yesterday.

We were sitting in the car before he drove to the airport.
My father was going away for three months.
I had never been apart from him.

Strong men are not supposed to cry.

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I didn’t see that tear again until twelve years later —
when he had cancer.

Perhaps you li…

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The motorcycle was too irresistible, I had to ride it.

It was a beat up 90cc piece of shit and I was riding it around a paddock on a green field right next to Hobbiton in rural New Zealand.

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I had one goal: to go as fast as I possibly could.

I usually reach my goals, and on this occasion, I reached 40 miles an hour down the back straight of the dairy farm paddock. This was right before I tried to turn the corner.

No corner was turned successfully.

I smashed into a woody hedge, helmetless at forty clicks an hour, head on, way too fast, in a clattering, smoky wreck.

My head hit something hard… but not too hard. My right arm, however, was driven into a woody stump which scraped right to the bone.

I staggered away, grateful that I could still walk, happy that I could still breathe.

Then I looked at the bike…

It was a twisted, broken, sparking heap of metal… utterly ruined. I stumbled off in tears, going to find the farmer to tell him of my sins.

I was sure that I was in for the berating of my life. Convinced that I would be sent home early from the farm holiday. Devastated, embarrassed, and scared.

He was working on the tractor, and he didn’t see me approaching…

“David”, I said, my voice barely more than a whisper, “I ruined your bike.”

I stood waiting for his anger. He slowly looked up… “Oh my goodness, are you okay?”

It was the first time in my life that I truly saw it, unadulterated, pure, not defiled by anything else…

Kindness.

There was nothing else in his eyes other than pure kindness.

No concern for his bike. No anger at my betrayal.

Kindness. It’s a beautiful, life-changing thing. I still have the scar on my arm to prove it.

G. x

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I guess money was tight in our house and I did not realize it.

I was a rugby player with very poor eyesight in high school and he had finally relented and bought me some contact lenses.

This was before contact lenses were cheap and readily available.

These were so expensive.

I was ecstatic. I could finally see the ball and I realized for the first time that it was not round but oval. 😂

#Rugby #IAmExaggerating

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Our first game was against Kings, those posh prep school boys with silver spoons in their mouths.

I was carving up, charging into things, delighted that for the first time in my life, I could actually “see” the ball.

#ILoveRugby #VisionMakesEverythingEasier

Dad was watching on the sideline grinning from ear to ear, every single time I caught the ball. Like, he was getting a return on his investment.

Then it happened…

When it happened, I had no actual idea…

Suddenly, I became acutely aware that I no longer had a very expensive contact lens in my right eye. 😳

I looked around for it fervently, squinting like an old lady doing her knitting on a muddy rugby field…

GONE.

Dad was no longer smiling this lens had cost him a paycheck or two.

Still, there was a game of rugby to play, so I continued on, squinting badly with one good eye, dropping the ball like it was a piping hot pie.

We played on that field for another 40 minutes. 30 boys becoming men, running up and down with sprigs in their boots. Trashing the field.

#SprigsEqualsCleatsAmericans

The game ended. I don’t remember whether we won or lost. I walked over to Dad, I was crying because I knew how costly the lens was.

He put on a brave face, said some words that were his best attempt at providing comfort, and then told me that he would see me to home.

I could tell that he was disappointed.

#DadsFeelPressureToo.

I don’t know what made me do it.

Dad was a straight-out atheist at the time and I was going through my teenage born-again Christian phase.

But I prayed…

I had hope…

I had not given up…

I told my friend Bruce, let me go out there on that field and look for that lens one more time.

Bruce rolled his eyes. He was an atheist like Dad 😂

#IAmAnAtheistAlsoNow

Maybe it was maths. Sure 30 boys had run over that field for 40 minutes and they could have easily crushed my almost invisible lens inches down into the mud. It could have blown away in the wind.

Yet if it was still there? If that lens lay there on that field somewhere all I had to do was look in the right place.

#TheOddsAreAlwaysInYourFavor

Soon though, the enormity of my task hit me like a gut punch.

The field was massive. The mud was thick. Bruce and his family were yelling at me to hurry up and give up.

I was so upset.

I had seen the look on my father’s face, the disappointment in his dark brown eyes.

If only I could find it.

So in the middle of that muddy rugby field, I fell on my knees and screamed… “God help me find it?”

#ExistentialQuestion

If there is a God does he care enough to help a wealthy middle-class white boy find his contact lens? While millions of children in the world are going without food? How does any of this make sense?

I still cannot believe it…

My father died many years later, still not quite able to comprehend how any of this was possible.

Because kneeling on that rugby field, crying and squinting through my one good eye… I saw the flicker of something shiny and moist underneath a blade of grass.

It was my contact lens.

I grasped it, took it home, washed it well, and wore it for another 18 months.

#Miracles #ICannotExplainIt #NeverGiveUpHope

Much love

G.x

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In December, I set a goal of writing a sphere letter a day for the next 365 days. Yesterday, I failed.

I didn’t write and there was nothing for you to read.

A part of me is tempted to beat myself up for failing you, and for not keeping the commitment I made to myself.

There are loads of reasons (excuses) as to why I did not meet my commitmen…

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