A Rebel Looks at 60
Dan’s shadow at a despacho ceremony in Peru. The fire was real.
Reflections on Coaching and
Life as a Fire Horse is Reborn
Dan turned 60 and felt reborn. Not metaphorically - literally. Months of quietly shedding everything that no longer fit - the corporate mask, the wrong backdrop, the rules he never believed in. A reflection on kanreki, the Fire Horse, why MCXI exists, and the three coaching lessons that only make sense from the other side of sixty.
A funny thing happened last month. I woke up one morning and suddenly, I was 60.
The day before, I was 59, and hadn’t been thinking about my age. (I tend not to – it’s pretty meaningless to me. I’m here, and one day I won’t be. That’s what matters to me: be here and live in the moment.)
So yeah, I completed my 60th orbit of the sun. And I’ve never felt younger and more alive.
Culturally, I should have been ‘over the hill’ and receiving black mylar balloons with the Grim Reaper on them twenty years ago as I rolled up the sidewalk of my life and butt-tested recliners…but I’ve never really accepted other people’s rules about what I should believe or how I should live.
I will definitely say that I now have more appreciation for the reflections, admissions, observations, and realizations in Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Forty – life goes on, even in the face of past success, failure; and if we allow ourselves to live, we will find our way just like life finds way.
It’s all just a flow of one present moment to the next.
And, if we open ourselves to listening and learning, we can discover incredible information that makes our time on this planet even more interesting.
Little nuggets like:
What is a Kanreki?
You’ve probably heard by now that 2026 is the year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac.
Until two months ago, I had no idea that there were five elements in the Chinese system, I only knew about the animals. So, curious, I dug deeper to learn more.
These combinations of elements and animals repeat only every 60 years, meaning I was born a Fire Horse, and that this year marks my kanreki.
In Japan, when someone reaches 60 years of age, it is believed that they have completed a cycle and are reborn to a new life; a return to youth. In one way, it’s a recognition of wisdom, becoming a wise elder maybe, and it’s also about releasing the past that is done and embracing the time left; to live with intention, giving back and contributing that wisdom with purpose in the second life.
Because I am so attuned to energy and my intuition, I am fully feeling that new youthfulness, and a renewed sense of purpose, along with a feeling of release and freedom.
Said in more modern terms, “I’ve spent my first life being overly concerned about following the rules, and in this new opportunity to live, I have zero fucks to give.”
There’s a freedom in that. It feels like life, real life, rather than the hurry-scurry of the rat race I used to live when I was in the corporate phase of my existence.
What happens when a coach outgrows everything they were trained to teach?
In late 2024, Monselete asked me if I’d ever considered opening my own coaching school.
My immediate response, “Absolutely NOT!”
And then I thought about it.
I had grown tired of teaching foundational work. I had grown past it and was bored. But advanced work, for dedicated coaches? Count me in.
So we co-founded MCXI.
This month is our one-year anniversary. One month after my kanreki, I am co-parent to a one-year-old business.
Youthfulness in two stages and the wisdom of a grandparent. Vitality and energy with focus and intentionality.
Why do breakthroughs always feel like they came out of nowhere?
I jokingly opened this piece with the idea that one morning I was suddenly 60, like it just snuck up on me from behind a bush, but of course I knew it was coming, and I felt the energy of this rebirth coming with it.
From July 2025 through January 2026, I made major revisions to my website at least 4 times, as I felt myself changing and saw an evolution in the work I was doing; a removal of the corporate mask I wore and a return to my spiritual roots where I thrive and feel alive.
I used to worry that people would judge the ‘spooky’ side of me, so I buried it under a mask of suited success. It’s risen and I am no longer ashamed of my gifts. They are the things that make me uniquely me.
My corporate self was a Xerox copy: flat, reproducible, replaceable, and disposable.
The Fire Horse burned it.
For about 3 months, I’d been feeling like it was time to reorient my office. The signed football jerseys that had been my backdrop for four years no longer felt like they represented me.
I tested, twisted, moved bookshelves and desk a few times, but none ever felt right, so on any given Monday morning, I still had the same Kansas City Chiefs Smith 11 and Mahomes 15 bookending my face.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Bob Russo on my first day in that office, with Mahomes and Smith at my back. Bob and I know each other as spiritual coaches. Bob called me out on the jerseys, “I don’t know what that shit is on the wall behind you, but that is NOT you. You ARE a spiritual being.”
At the time I answered, “I’m both. I’m a spiritual being who loves football.”
Little did I know that Bob saw deeper than I did in that moment. Four years later, I now understand what he saw: those jerseys weren’t me; they were just symbols of something I enjoy, and a mask I was wearing as office décor.
The week before my birthday, I had a vision of inspiration and turned my desk 90-degrees counter-clockwise (hmmm, turning back the clock?) and suddenly, the office felt completely new. It was like a homecoming.
There’s that word again: Suddenly. After months of experimentation, the answer ‘suddenly’ appeared; after decades of living, 60 ‘suddenly’ happened.
Nothing is immediate, no matter how much we want it to be. Anything worth doing or achieving takes time.
I wasn’t fully paying attention to the road signs, but I had some awareness of them…enough to make small changes.
The truth is that I was nurturing the space for the new me, like preparing the nursery for a new baby. I was creating the room for my rebirth and accepting that I was changing.
Small, seemingly insignificant steps that suddenly brought me to a new destination.
(And yes, the jerseys are still on the wall. They are now to my left, felt, seen in periphery, no longer the sole focus framing me.)
How do you find meaning in the parts of life you didn't choose?
Maybe that’s the biggest realization and truth for me to share from my journey so far, from my new rebirth as a wise elder infant: The Journey is the Destination.
Give yourself permission to enjoy every moment of it.
As much as you want to arrive at success, the struggles you experience on the way make the arrival so much more meaningful.
As much as you want to arrive at the summit, you must acclimate on the climb to be able to remain there.
As much as you may hate every fucking moment that isn’t what you want it to be, all the pain, grief, worry, stress, and discomfort, the tears, the screams, the existential abysses that gaze back knowingly, they are brief and fleeting and you’ll never get those moments back.
Live them. Experience them. Embrace them. Enjoy them.
They are molding you to achieve and sustain your dreams.
Without them, success is hollow, just as fleeting, and nowhere near as sweet.
What are the three most important coaching lessons of life at 60?
Those who are closest to you, the people you desperately want to be your champions, might never be your biggest supporters because they don’t understand your vision and want other things for you. That can be crushing and can destroy relationships.
Don’t let your desire for their approval distract you from those who do see your light and who are your true champions.
2. There is one, and only one, person for whom you are responsible, and for whom you can count on: YOU.
On the surface, that may feel defeatist, but when you embrace the freedom of it, you’ve arrived at true personal power. Your life is yours to live – stop living it for the approval of the people who may never understand you, no matter how much you love them and want them to.
3. Remember that you are a work in progress. Give yourself grace. Show yourself kindness and allow yourself permission to be unfinished.
Every new beginning Comes from some other beginning's end.
“Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.”
What does it feel like when you stop needing to prove yourself?
There’s an interesting peace in knowing I have (most likely) fewer years ahead of me than are behind me. I have nothing left to prove, yet everything to live for. There is freedom in that too.
I am right where I am supposed to be. I always have been, even when I didn’t know it because I didn’t want to accept those circumstances at some moments.
I am always exactly where I am supposed to be.
And so are you.
Why didn’t someone tell me this before?
Because now is the time
You don’t have to figure it out.
You can sit with it.
Join us for our live monthly guided session with Dan inside The Quiet Pause.
