Listening to the Whisper of Color

How a Simple Quiz and a Moment of Surrender Rewired My Soul’s Compass

When Helen Ye Plehn asked me on air, “If you already had a billion dollars in your bank account, healthy and happy, what would you still wake up and do?” I felt my pulse quicken. I could almost hear my own heartbeat in her question.

For years, I chased every metric of success—downloads, sponsorships, guest bookings—believing those things would somehow lead to fulfillment. Yet in that moment, I realized something profound: I had drifted so far from what I truly loved that I could no longer distinguish the hum of my soul from the roar of my ambition.

For the first time in a long time, I began asking deeper questions. What actually makes me feel alive? What have I been gripping so tightly about the future that I have let the present slip through my fingers? That question didn’t just provoke reflection. It changed something in me.

What My Aura Revealed About a Hidden Wound

I’ve spent much of my life helping others move toward purpose, yet I had rarely paused to ask what my own inner compass might be trying to reveal. Then Helen introduced me to her Aura Color Wheel, and what emerged surprised me. My predominant color was indigo, associated with deep listening, intuition, and quiet wisdom.

There was something healing in seeing gifts I had sensed but not fully claimed reflected back to me so clearly. But what struck me even more was not my gift color, but my wound color. There, woven into the chart, was an echo of old perfectionism and self-doubt—patterns I had carried from my Navy days into every boardroom I ever entered. I remember writing in the margin of my notebook, “Here lies my next mountain to climb.” And honestly, that was the moment everything began to shift.

What Happened When I Finally Confronted It

What happened when I began facing that wound changed how I show up—in conversations, in leadership, in strategy sessions, and in the quiet moments I spend alone.

But the transformation did not come through some grand breakthrough. It arrived through small, repeated acts of self-compassion. I began speaking my truth earlier in meetings, even when my voice trembled. I gave myself permission to unplug without a plan, wandering the shoreline until the salt air reminded me what it felt like simply to be.

I leaned more deeply into listening—to my daughter’s laughter, to the spaces between my thoughts, to what silence itself was trying to teach me. Again and again, those small practices returned me to something more authentic. Over time, I realized healing wasn’t about fixing myself. It was about remembering myself.

The Meditation That Changed My Answer

After we stopped recording, I sat down for meditation and returned to Helen’s question: What would I still do if I had everything? This time I answered with a kind of raw honesty I hadn’t allowed before. I thought about writing, mentoring, walking the coast with a notebook, sketching ideas into the sand.

And then I simply breathed and allowed the question to linger. Something softened. A wave of relief moved through me as I realized I could let go of the impossible checklist I had been carrying. I didn’t need the whole path laid out before me. I only needed to trust the next right step.

The Surprising Lesson Hidden in the Colors

What the Aura Color Wheel ultimately gave me wasn’t a label; it gave me a compass. It helped me see that beneath the data, deadlines, and ambitions, there is an energetic blueprint asking to be honored.

Strategies still matter, and planning still fuels progress, but I no longer confuse motion with meaning. Every meaningful leap begins as something deeply personal—a spark, a whisper, a truth asking to be trusted. Sometimes the work is simply learning how to hear it. That, more than anything, is what Helen helped me remember.

A Question for Your Own Soul

As you move through your own journey, I invite you to notice what colors feel alive in your inner landscape. Are you drawn toward the clear blues of creative expression, or the warm golds of leadership and generosity? Where does your inner light brighten, and where does it dim?

These are the kinds of questions Helen challenges us to explore, and they may reveal more than you expect. Sometimes the path toward transformation begins not with finding answers, but with learning how to ask better questions.

Final Reflection

Thank you for being here, for leaning inward when the world pulls outward, and for daring to seek the kind of change that begins within. Our most passionate work is never about simply checking boxes; it is about tuning ourselves to what makes us feel awake, alive, and unmistakably ourselves. Here’s to the next right step, illuminated by the colors of your soul. I can’t wait to see where it leads you.

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