When Someone Finally Says What They Want

The Moment

The bees in the flower pear trees were buzzing.

Tiny insects moved through the blossoms, the branches trembling with life. Behind us, the scent of jasmine drifted through the warm air. In the grass, sky-blue crocus pushed through the ground.

Danielle and I were sitting on a bench in Piedmont Park.

Spring had just begun.

The Conversation

We had been talking about her life.

The work she had built.
The direction everyone expected her to continue.

I asked her a simple question.

“What do you want?”

Then I asked again.

“What do you really want?”

And then I was quiet.

The kind of quiet where nothing rushes in to fill the space.

Sometimes when that question is asked, answers come quickly.

Sometimes they do not.

Because many of us carry a long list of ideas about what we should do.

What is practical?
What makes sense.
What other people expect.

And somewhere underneath all of that lives something quieter.

What we actually want.

The Risk of Saying It Out Loud

Sometimes we know what we want, but we do not say it.

It can feel too big.
Too uncertain.
Too easy for someone else to dismiss.

We fill the space with stories about why it will not work.

We imagine what could go wrong.

Or we worry someone might laugh.

So the desire stays unspoken.

Waiting.

What I Saw 17 Years Later

Seventeen years later, Danielle sent me a note.

In it, she reflected on that moment on the park bench.

She had left the career she had built and followed something that felt true for her.

Today, she runs SLATE Contemporary Gallery.

A beautiful space where artists share their work with the world.

To look back now and see what has grown from that moment is such a gift.

In her note, she wrote something that stopped me.

She said what I gave her that day was Space.

Space where she could hear herself.

Space where what was true for her could emerge.

Reading her words, I realized something.

This is what I do with my clients.

Not by pushing.
Not by convincing.

But by creating enough space for what is already true inside them to appear.

A Question for You

If someone asked you today,

“What do you really want?”

and then gave you the space to answer…

What might you hear?

If you would like a place where your own truth can emerge, you are welcome to have a conversation with me.

You can schedule a time here:

https://calendly.com/annalscott/purpose-call