Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story

For the last few months, I feel like I’ve only been half in. I’ve been writing a blog each week, telling myself I was building my personal brand — making progress, doing the work. But truthfully? I’ve been hiding. Waiting until I felt more ready. More prepared. More worthy of being seen.

Underneath it all, there’s been this quiet fear: What if I’m not good enough yet? So I wait. I tweak. I tell myself I’m refining — but really, I’m just stalling.

Four months ago, I promised myself I’d turn my blogs into videos — the format where I feel most alive, most myself. I told myself it would only take a few weeks. But the weeks passed. And I kept finding reasons to delay. I said I needed the right videographer. That I should wait until everything was perfectly set up. That my best work had to feel “ready” before I could share it. But nothing happened. And deep down, I knew the truth: I was waiting for a feeling that was never going to come.

Then a different fear started rising: What if I never become who I want to be? What if all this waiting is just another form of hiding?

This was something I had to reflect on deeper over the past few weeks.

While I was in Rome recently, I visited the Colosseum. Standing there, where gladiators once fought, I felt something shift. It wasn’t about the architecture. It was about perspective. These men stepped into the arena with everything on the line. They showed up. Fully. With no guarantees. They didn’t wait to feel ready.

And here I am, holding back… in a life that’s mine alone to live. I don’t want to spend my one life watching from the sidelines. Cheering others on while quietly shrinking myself.

I want to be the hero of my own story. Not in some grand, dramatic way — but in the simple, daily choice to show up. To bet on myself. To take the hits and keep going. To be in the arena, however messy it gets. Because trying and failing costs less than never stepping in at all.

That moment in Rome reminded me of something I already knew but hadn’t fully accepted: no one is coming to choose me. I have to choose myself.

And today, that means showing up and writing this. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t have to be. But it’s real. And right now, that’s enough.

Redefining the Hero

For most of my life, being the hero meant proving myself. As a teenager, I poured everything into running — five sessions a week for over a decade — chasing dreams of becoming an elite level runner. Not just for the medals or the titles, but because I believed that kind of success would finally make me feel worthy. Worthy in my dad’s eyes. Worthy to my peers. Worthy to myself.

Then came poker. A new arena. A new chance to rise from the bottom to the top — and prove, once again, that I was enough. And I did it. After five years of obsessive focus, I reached the highest level in my format. From the outside, it looked like a hero’s journey — and in many ways, it was. But the fuel behind it all was the same: earn your worth. Prove you belong. Then, maybe, you’ll feel enough.

And for a long time, I believed that formula. I believed that if I just pushed hard enough, achieved enough, outperformed enough, the doubt would disappear and I’d finally feel complete.

But each time I hit a goal — won a race, moved up stakes, hit a financial milestone — the feeling I was chasing never quite landed. There was a brief high. Then a quiet emptiness. Then the cycle started again: set a new goal, chase the next thing, hope this time would be different.

I kept thinking the next achievement would finally make me feel like enough. It never did. And slowly over time, that was the turning point.

I realised I wasn’t chasing goals. I was chasing permission. Permission to feel like I mattered. Permission to stop proving and start living.

Now, being the hero of my own story doesn’t mean proving anything to anyone. It means living in alignment with the person I already know I can be — not some perfected version of myself, just the honest one. It means showing up fully, not to impress or convince, but to live honestly. To create. To grow. To share. Not from lack, not to earn appreciation — but from a place of already being enough.

It’s no longer about reaching the top. It’s about returning to the arena each day and saying, I’m here. Not because I’ve proven I belong, but because I’ve decided I do.

When I Found Myself on the Sidelines

After poker, I stepped into a new role: helping others become the best version of themselves. Performance coaching gave me a deep sense of purpose. It felt meaningful to guide people through their own transformations, to pass on what I’d learned through experience and struggle. And for a while, that was enough.

But over time, I started to feel something was missing. I couldn’t quite name it at first. I just felt a little more restless after each coaching call. A little more disconnected when the Zoom screen closed and the silence returned. Then it hit me: I was no longer in the arena.

For the first time in my life, I was on the sidelines. I was supporting, cheering, analysing, advising — but I wasn’t in it. I wasn’t the one being tested. I wasn’t under pressure to evolve, to rise, to face the edge of my own limits. And as rewarding as the work was, part of me was quietly shrinking.

I missed the fire. The fear. The stakes. I missed being called into something that demanded my full self. I missed the version of me that had to grow through performance, not just talk about it.

That’s when I found powerlifting.

What started as a casual commitment quickly became something more. It became a proving ground: physical, emotional, personal. After years of training, I competed at the Asian Pacific Powerlifting Championships, the biggest event on this side of the world. Standing on that platform, with hundreds of eyes on me, I felt something return. That pulse. That edge. That sense that I was once again fully alive inside my own story.

And even now, I know I’ve only scratched the surface. There’s still so much potential in me I haven’t touched yet. So many reps left to pull from the ground. So many edges left to push past.

And I’m done pretending that doesn’t matter.

How I Show Up Today

Right now, being the hero of my own story doesn’t look like some epic comeback or perfectly crafted life plan. It looks like waking up each day and making the decision to show up — not for an audience, not for validation, but because I refuse to keep hiding from the work that matters to me.

It means writing every day. Filming every day. Not waiting until the conditions are ideal or the lighting is perfect or I’ve figured out the “right” thing to say. Just showing up — as I am, where I am — and putting something out into the world.

Because I’ve learned that momentum isn’t built from one big move. It’s built from a series of small, honest efforts made with intention and courage. It's built when you stop asking if you're ready and start acting like you are.

So I write. I speak. I hit publish. I take the thing I would’ve kept tweaking and I release it. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s my best effort right now. That’s the edge I want to be walking, the one where I'm brave enough to share whatever's on my mind.

This is my practice. My daily decision to be in the arena. Some days it feels easy, even exciting. Other days, it feels vulnerable as hell. But I’d rather be in the mess trying to figure things out, then safely on the sidelines thinking about it.

Because I can live with not getting it right. I can live with falling short. What I can’t live with is sitting it out and pretending that doesn’t cost me something.

Your Turn to Step Up

If you’ve been waiting — for clarity, for confidence, for the fear to disappear — I get it. I’ve been there too, telling myself that more time, more preparation, more certainty would finally make me ready. But it never comes. Because the truth is, most of what looks like waiting is actually fear in disguise.

For me, it was the fear of not being good enough. Of being seen too soon. Of creating something that didn’t live up to the version in my head. But that fear never announced itself directly. It came dressed as logic, as patience, as strategy. “You just need to learn a little more.” “Get the right gear first.” “Wait until you have a proper setup.” And it all sounded reasonable — until I realised I was slowly disappearing behind it.

At some point, you stop improving in private and start hiding in it.

So if any of this feels familiar, I’m not here to tell you what to do — but I will offer this: you don’t need anyone’s permission to begin. You can start with what you have. You can start from where you are. You can speak before you’re fully ready and still be deeply aligned with your path.

Your hero’s story doesn’t start when you feel certain. It starts the moment you decide to stop sitting in the stands and step into the arena.

Maybe that moment is today.

So this is me choosing myself — in this post. Not overly polished. Just the best I've got today.

P.S. If you’ve been waiting to begin, I hope this gives you the nudge you needed. And if you're already in the arena, I see you. Keep going.

Adam