I pulled my laptop onto the floor and opened it. For a split second, my puffy eyes and tear-streaked face reflected off the black screen before the pixels came to life.

I navigated to an old folder and double-clicked an audio file from fifteen months earlier, when I was living in Chiang Mai. It was an Akashic records reading done by a kind stranger — a Chinese-American woman named Jiayuh.

It was funny how that came about, actually. I had a major argument with my cofounder, Sam, the same week that Jesse moved to France. We weren't seeing eye to eye on CodeMakers, and it was getting to breaking point. We wanted different outcomes from the business.

He'd said a lot of things to me in the heat of our argument. "You're a disappointing cofounder" was one of them. Those words slipped out of his mouth and stabbed me straight in the heart. I looked down to find my dress soaked in blood. All my worst fears, confirmed.

Disappointment. That word held so much power over me. It was a dark creature hiding in my shadow, whispering in my ear, waiting to attack when Sam finally shone a light on it. It was what I believed about myself, but didn't want to acknowledge; another hidden color of my rainbow. I always felt like I was disappointing everyone in my life; like I was never good enough; like I was not who people wanted me to be. Sam just articulated that subconscious fear and reflected it back at me.

However, on further analysis, the data didn't confirm Sam's claim. We'd just publicly launched CodeMakers, and I'd built out the marketing campaign that was generating sales at a killer ROI. I was on the phone all day, closing sales and talking to customers. I'd sold hundreds of classes in our first month, and now we just needed to figure out how to fulfill them.

Prior to that, I'd also learned a new programming language, and spent some time reverse-engineering an open-source library so I could monkey-patch it with some essential modifications for our 'minimum viable product.' I'd also built a few Minecraft modding libraries, and made curriculums, and designed promotional materials, and interviewed customers, and taught students.

And yet, I wasn't good enough. I was a disappointment to him. That cut me really deep. My imposter syndrome reared its ugly head, yelling, "See! He knows your secret!"

Sam also told me I was a terrible planner. I assessed the evidence, and that claim was true. I wasn't a good planner. It was hard to make plans in a business that was young and changing by the minute. I tended to just flow with it, so I could see why he'd said that.

Sam and I decided to part ways, but we remained friends. Unfortunately, the business relationship didn't work out, but he was still a great person, and we got along well. He was incredibly skilled at drawing a distinct barrier between his professional and personal relationships, whereas I struggled with that. My life was a holistic ocean, where everything flowed into everything else. However, I had introduced him to his girlfriend, Jackie — Bryce and Pandora's new roommate — so he was always hanging around with my crew. Our split was water under the bridge within a week.

A few months later, I landed in Chiang Mai. An email about a planning and execution course landed in my inbox. Ah, how convenient, I thought. This is exactly what I'm looking for. The price was steep for a cash-strapped founder, but it was an investment in myself and my skills. I wanted to learn how to execute more methodically. Since Sam left, I'd been struggling as the single mother of my young business. I signed up for the course and joined the cohort in a three-month program.

Because I'd invested so much money in the course, I took it really seriously. I executed 200 percent, and my business took off. See, Sam! I thought. I'm not a bad planner. I'm an execution machine! Look at me go! You left, and I'm thriving. Thank you for the criticism, because I'm proving you wrong.

One day, a woman in my cohort asked for help with something I had some experience in. We organized a call, and I answered her questions as best I could. She was an Akashic records reader. I'd never heard of the Akashic records before.

"It's a depository of information that transcends space and time," she said. "You can ask your soul questions to find out who you are on a deeper level. It's like having a conversation with your soul."

Cool, I thought. Sounds like fun. I'll give it a go.

She did a free twenty-minute reading for me. I was floored by how much it resonated with that deep feeling I'd always had in my heart.

As I sat on my floor in Phuket more than a year later, I began listening to the recording again.

The first impression your records share with us is... you are dancing. So, all the information the records share with me will be metaphor, because that's just the way I can put it in words. So it's not like this is really what happened. They're just showing me so I can describe it for you.

So, the first thing when I access your records and the whole thing opens up... they show that you are a dancer, and you are dancing... it's not ballet... it's almost like modern dance — very beautiful in movement, incorporating ballet and also free-flow modern dance. And then it shows that you're in this bodysuit. It's not a tutu. It's modern dance, so you have the suit so we can see your whole body. And then your movement is so free. And you are just following what's calling you as you move around. It's a beautiful, beautiful dance.

But the sensation coming up with this image is... you are allowing your creativity... you are allowing yourself to be guided with the creativity, with the inspiration, with the flow of life that you are aware of. Nobody taught you, really. You just have this feeling that there is this river of life, it has its own rhythm, and you are allowing yourself to embrace and to sense... whatever you have been doing, you're allowing yourself to sense this rhythm of your own flow of life. And you are actually tapping into that because you're just allowing... And then this beautiful dance is allowing you to... even though you're living in this 3D dimension... this beautiful dance is a metaphor for you allowing yourself to move freely so you can actually work with the rhythm of your life, so that rhythm of your life actually works for you.

So your records want you to know that the way you're doing it, based on feeling good versus other people saying this is the right thing to do... When you do that, the records show that there is this white light coming down from the divine source that is connecting with you. When you do your thing and you live your life based on feeling good, that actually aligns you with this divine source power because you are so open to... you're so open to all the possibilities. For some reason, you have this innate ability to not be put in the box that society put you into. It's just comes naturally to you, for some reason. Because of your innate ability for that, it actually allows you to be able to align with the divine guidance very easily. And because you allow yourself to just live your life with the flow... and so your records actually do want you to know about that.

And you will actually be utilizing this helping more people than you can see now. Like, of course you have a business, and you run your business and all that. But your records want you to actually have this understanding... what you are doing and the way that you're doing it, is actually pretty valuable.

The reckless way I live my life is actually pretty valuable, huh?

I rewound that last sentence. There was something about the way she said that word: valuable. That's what I craved. I wanted to add value to the world.

Or was she talking about money? Was she saying that merely living my life — being, instead of doing — could lead to my success?

I continued listening.

So down the road when you feel called to do it, just do it the way you always do it. Allow it to happen. If you're called to share with people about how you live your life and how things work for you, feel free to share it. So this is just something your records want you to have some heads up about. Because your gift is not just teaching kids coding for the game. There is a lot more that you'll be able to share with the world.

Your records just want you to know that they're really very excited for all the different possibilities that... It's not just all the possibilities that are able to happen for you, but there's a bigger picture behind that, which is how you will be able to share all of these infinite possibilities with the rest of the world, however you choose to.

A year ago, that part had made no sense to me. All I cared about was growing my little coding school. But now? Well, I'd begun to feel the tide shift, just like she said I would.

Was she my Oracle? Did she know I was going to be crying on my bedroom floor, feeling a call to share some kind of story with the world?

I pressed play again.

They show this image that's you, but not in this lifetime. The wardrobe is more like an ancient lifetime, but everything they show is metaphor. What they show is a tiara... it's almost like you're in a ceremony or something and it feels like it's a king or queen or a royal kind of feeling. You're in a ceremony and a tiara is being put on you.

So the records want you to know... the message is... at some point in time your soul actually chose to accept this mission that you're going to complete in this lifetime. You actually decided before you became a person here, you had decided that you were going to do this. This is part of your mission, in terms of what you are going to be sharing with other people. You have accepted that this is going to be a part of the knowledge that you're going to spread and share when the time is right for you.