👋 Hi! I'm Dan Cumberland. I help makers, artists, entrepreneurs, and creatives find the clarity and motivation to get their work out into the world. If that sounds good, let's go! 🚀

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Hi Reader,

It's been a minute!

Very few of us have a true fear of death. At least, not in a way that impacts us on a daily or weekly basis.

But we all fear other small ”d” deaths:
- failure.

- irrelevance.

- being forgotten.

Everyone has a death fear, and that fear is likely something to do with your ego.

What is your ego? It’s how you see yourself. It’s the sense of “self“ or “I” that you hold.

If we boil it down and put it simply: it’s a story. It’s the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

This is important. We use this story to make sense of the world, navigate competing priorities, set and pursue goals, etc.

It’s how we do every day.

If the very nature of who you are and how you view yourself is threatened, it gets really scary.

Without that, what do you have? Who are you without … yourself?

As long as we hold that fear, we’ll never be fully alive. We’re beholden to the narrative and story. Anything that could violate that story is a threat.

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The Stoics talk about the Moment Mori — remembering you will die. It’s a concept that transcends traditions.

Early Buddhist texts use the word “maraṇasati,” meaning remember death.

In fact, Theravada Buddhists have a death meditation. They look on decaying corpses and say, “that is me.“

The work is to embrace the truth of a future death so that you can be fully alive.

There’s a parallel here to whatever you’re trying to do, create, and make: you have a fear of some kind of death. Not a physical death. But an ego death.

I had a big one. And I didn’t know it until it happened.

For the past 10+ years I’ve been an entrepreneur. I spent my days building business and freelancing. It’s a longer story for another time. But over the past few months I’ve had to face the reality that I might need a more steady income and take a W2.

Suddenly the possibility of the Death of Dan the Entrepreneur loomed in my future.

I had to face the reality that maybe I won’t be an entrepreneur.

Maybe not in the next season of work, and maybe never again. I wrestled with this. I shed tears over it. I fought it.

And then I accepted it. And I began to feel free.

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What I found on the other side was the beautiful truth that I so often forget:

Something as small as this can’t define me.

I found that you can take the boy out of entrepreneurship, but you can’t take the entrepreneur out of the boy.

I found once again the truth that who I am and what I have to give is so much bigger than any single role or even a single path.

When I came to see it this way, the world opened up. I had options.
I can do what I want and what feels right for me and my family without holding to a singular fragile self-narrative.

Only when we free ourselves from the fear of death can we be fully alive. If we want to be free, we have to face death.

What do I mean by free? I mean that holding tight to a single story costs a lot!

If I’m terrified of loosing my entrepreneurship story, what could it cost me?

Opportunities. Income. A better future for my family. How I spend my time. What I work on. How much stress I carry.

Imagine it. And then imagine facing the very thing you’re running from. Imagine living out that worst case scenario. And imagine being ok with it.

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The irony of all of this is that...

The fear of losing parts of ourselves keeps us from the things we want most.

In other words: your fear is bigger than your desire.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you want to be a brilliant writer. Great.

To do that you have to write the book, edit the book, publish the book, and promote the book. Now what if the brilliance of your author self depended on the success of each of those steps?

First you have to write brilliant words. Then you have to have an editor make them even more brilliant. Then you have to share those brilliant words with people who may or may not think they’re brilliant. Then you have to promote it over and over again, hoping that the brilliance comes through.

Good lord that’s a lot of pressure!

You’re beholden to that narrative in a way that makes your path forward very fragile. You’re not free. You’re not living your best life. You’re scared and your actions are limited.

And that fear is going to cause you to play it safe. And when you play it safe, the things you create aren’t brilliant.

This is to say: embrace the death of your dreams. Lean into and meditate on the loss of what you most hold dear. And in so doing, may you find freedom.

One more story: I’ve been putting off sending this email for month. I’ve been afraid of starting the newsletter back up. Afraid of people unsubscribing. Afraid that I don’t have anything valuable to say. Afraid that I’m irrelevant. Afraid that what I’ve been trying to build for the past 10+ years with The Meaning Movement doesn’t have much momentum.

I let that story keep me locked up.

And so, I spent time on the death of the Meaning Movement. What would it feel like if everyone unsubscribed? What would it feel like if no one read and listened? What if my site traffic went away? What if my online friends stopped responding? What if everything was deleted?

It would hurt. I would feel sad. And then I would feel free.

So this email, in itself, is my death mediation.

I hope you’ll find yours.

Here's to finding the freedom you need to live your most courageous and free life.

Yours in meaning making,

PS- I'm working on rebooting the podcast and hope to have semi-regular newsletters landing in your inbox.

In the meantime, hit reply. I'd love to hear what you're excited about making/creating/doing in this season of life. I can't promise to respond, but I promise I read every email.

PPS - I'm sharing abbreviated versions of ideas like this on LinkedIn regularly. Would love to have you follow along there: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dancumberland/

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Dan Cumberland

Say hi 👋 on Twitter or LinkedIn!

And follow along:

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