What's The Audience Screaming

It's so obvious. Why are you ignoring it?

Some friends and I meet once a month for breakfast in Coconut Grove. Same crew. Same table. To move past small talk, we added a ritual: one thoughtful prompt to kick things off.

Last week, I brought the question:
“Imagine you’re in a movie theater. The film playing is your life. The scene on screen is today. What is the audience screaming at the screen?”

Silence.

Not because no one had an answer—everyone did.
But no one wanted to go first.

Because deep down, we all know:
There’s something we’re avoiding.
Something we’re pretending not to see.
Something the universe has been shouting at us… but we keep pressing mute.

The Comfort of Cognitive Bias

Blind spots aren’t just psychological quirks.
They’re baked into how we process reality.

We rely on mental shortcuts—cognitive biases—to simplify life. But they distort it, too.

The big one here? Confirmation bias.
We filter out anything that contradicts the story we already believe about ourselves.

So if you see yourself as ambitious and productive, you’ll ignore every signal telling you to slow down.
You’ll brush off rest as weakness.
You’ll mistake stillness for failure.

Meanwhile, the people around you are screaming at the screen:

“You’re missing the moment.”
“You don’t have to prove anything anymore.”
“You’re allowed to just be.”

But your internal narrator drowns them out.
Louder. Smarter. More persuasive.
And dead wrong.

Open The Johari Window

There’s a tool I’ve always loved: the Johari Window.
It maps self-awareness into four quadrants:

• Open – known to you, known to others

• Hidden – known to you, unknown to others

• Blind – unknown to you, known to others

• Unknown – unknown to both

The magic is in the blind spot.
That’s where the growth lives.
That’s where your potential is trapped.

But don’t ignore the first box either—what you know and still choose to avoid. That’s not blindness. That’s fear.

The fix?
Ask for the mirror.

Sit down with someone you trust. A partner. A friend. A peer group. Give them permission to be honest, and ask:

• “What do you think I’m missing?”

• “What’s obvious to you that I keep denying?”

• “What would you write on the movie screen that I refuse to read?”

Then shut up.
Don’t justify.
Just listen.

That’s how you shrink the blind spots.
That’s how you move forward.

You Already Know

Let’s be real.
You don’t need another self-help book.
You don’t need 40 prompts or a weekend retreat.

You already know the thing.
You’ve known it for a while.

You’ve just been hoping no one would say it out loud.
Or that it might go away on its own.
It won’t.

Growth doesn’t begin with more hustle.
It begins with more honesty.

So I’ll ask you again:

You’re in the theater. Your life is on screen.
What’s the audience yelling?

And this time…
What would it look like if you listened?