The "Life Audit" - A practical exercise to design your dream life and career.

A simple way to clarify what you really want out of life.

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Who cares about success without fulfillment?

I’ve only experienced two moments in my life that I would consider truly “mystical” or beyond scientific explanation. One of them happened the day I met my partner Melissa and the other happened when I was 26. A friend sent me a one-line email introducing me to someone I had never heard of before. All it said was, *“You two need to know each other.”

When I opened that message, I could swear a gust of wind came out of the computer. Full-body shivers. A deep knowing that my life was about to change.

Two weeks later, I met Lauren Zander at Soho House in New York. Within minutes, I was in tears. She reframed the shame I carried from growing up with a lazy eye, and helped me see it as the source of so many strengths I now love about myself.

Soon after, I started working with her as my personal coach. At the time, I was running Tribute.co and she was leading a thriving coaching practice called the Handel Group, coaching many well known CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and famous actors.

Before our first session, Lauren gave me a deceptively simple assignment, something she called The 12 Areas of Life. It is a tweaked version of another popular life mapping tool called the “Wheel of Life.”

The homework asked me to reflect honestly on how I was showing up in every area of life, from health and relationships to money, purpose, and fun. It cracked me open and to this day, it has become a cornerstone of my own coaching practice and retreat facilitation.

Why? Because I believe that self-awareness is the foundation of meaningful change.

This exercise helps us to name where we’re out of alignment and what areas deserve our focus. It cuts through the noise and serves as a reality check on how we’re truly doing.

For clients, it reveals truth.

For coaches, it provides a holistic map of a person’s life—how their challenges and patterns connect across contexts.

Too often, I see coaches try to deliver insight without understanding the whole picture. But how we lead a team isn’t separate from how we care for our health, or how we show up in your closest relationships. It’s all connected.

Since that first life audit nearly a decade ago, I’ve adapted the exercise to better serve the founders and leaders I tend to work with today. I now call it The Life and Leadership Audit to reflect these updates.

If you're feeling misaligned, uninspired, or simply ready to reset—this tool will help.

It’s a moment to pause. To look at our life honestly. To reconnect to what matters. And to prep ourselves for action towards the life and business we truly want.

Here’s how it works…

For each area below, I encourage you to answer five questions. Go slow. Be honest. This is between you and you.

• How actualized am I in this area of life?
  (10 = fully expressed, fulfilled, and proud . 0 = unexpressed, stagnant and unfulfilled)

• What are the major wins I’ve had in this area?
  Moments you felt proud, capable, or aligned.

• What are the challenges, setbacks, or traumas I’ve experienced?
  What’s keeping me from living at a 9 or 10 here? Identify the major roadblocks.

• What’s my dream in this area?
  What would life feel and look like if I were operating at my highest potential here? This is not a place to be “reasonable” or “rational” - focus on what you truly want.

• Who is my model of success in this area?

  Who is the person who is succeeding the way I would like to here? Identifying others who re succeeding the way we would like to often makes it easier to think that what we want is possible and achievable.

1. Relationship to Self

This area covers how you feel about yourself, your personality traits & habits. What do you typically say to yourself...about yourself? Do you feel like people know the real you? Do you keep your word with yourself? Do you fully feel your feelings?

2. Leadership

How do you feel leading people? Do you have a clearly defined approach to leadership that you trust? Do you know how to articulate a vision and motivate people towards it?

3. Career

This is all about what you are doing to contribute professionally. Have you owned your own companies, freelanced, work for someone else, etc? Do you love the track you're on? Are you clear on what's next?

3. Body & Health

Everything associated with your body: your health, your weight, your appearance. Do you feel good in it, proud of it, or stuck with it?

5. Money

Do you feel empowered or stressed when you think about your finances? Are you earning, saving, investing, and giving in ways that align with your values?

6. Purpose & Contribution

Are you participating in the world the way you want to? Are you making as big of a contribution as you’d like to? What are you connected to that is BIGGER than yourself?

7. Time

What is your relationship with time? Are you on top of it, or constantly showing up late and feeling rushed? Plenty of it, or always strapped?

8. Friends & Community

How do you feel about your core crew? Do you feel closely connected to the people you want to be? Are you holding onto stragglers from your past?

9. Family

This includes both your immediate and extended family: your kids, stepkids, parents, in-laws, everyone. How do you get along? Are you as connected as you would like to be?

10. Fun & Adventure

What is "fun" for you? What do you love to do? Are you playing, learning and creating meaningful new experiences in the way you would like to?

11. Physical Environment (Home)

Do your space(s) feel like a sanctuary? Is it functional, beautiful, expressive of who you are? Are you living in the city/town that you truly want to be in?

12. Spirituality

Do you feel connected to a greater intelligence, energy, or wisdom? Do you have space in your life for awe, reverence, or the unknown? Do you feel connected to something bigger than yourself?

Additional consideration…

• This exercise is also a powerful way to cultivate intimacy and alignment in your romantic partnership.

• If you complete this exercise, you can also share it with your therapist, coach, or enter it into ChatGPT, or any LLM. This will help them to understand you more deeply for future advice and information they provide you.

Living “The Dream” and Why This Matters

What’s your dream?

This is usually one of the first questions I ask people that I meet. Often I add in the primer of, “if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do or build next?” This second part relieves some of the pressure of a big question like this right off the bat.

Why?

Because…

We only get one shot at this life. If we want to make the most of it, we need to know what we’re aiming for.

Orienting around the dream is not just about ambition—it’s about true alignment. It’s a pragmatic way reconnect with who we are, what we care about, and how we want to live.

If we’re here…why not aim for the absolute dream?

When we name our dreams, even if they evolve over time, they can give us direction and motivation to take action. They can help us move through fear, clarify what matters, and show up with more purpose.

—

An important distinction here is that I first did this exercise nearly ten years ago. I can tell you definitively that I have NOT achieved all of my dreams.

But that’s not the point…

While I did end up accomplishing many and created a pretty epic life that I’m proud of, there was a transitive benefit that was just as important:

I made it easier for myself to act in alignment with my values and vision. As I started to live this way, I began to develop more contentment, confidence, and self-respect that made me feel good about myself.

I was working toward goals, but I was also finding so much more joy in the process.

I believe we want things because of how we think they will make us feel. You might want to take a moment to let that one land. This includes our dreams.

Our dreams are our dreams because we subconsciously believe we’ll feel a certain way when we achieve them.

When our actions are directly tied to a dream we deeply care about, we become more capable of creating the feelings we want in the present moment.

The anxiety of “Am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my time?” suddenly becomes clearer.

When we light the path toward our dreams, the present becomes a much more enjoyable place to hang out.

So, what’s your dream?

What’s getting in the way?

What’s next?