Mark Alan Fish

A Guiding Principle for a Life Well Lived

Most people don’t lose their way because they’re incapable.
They lose their way because they’re moving too fast to notice when something no longer feels true.

Life becomes a series of reactions.
Days fill up. Calendars stay full.
And somewhere along the way, the quiet knowing inside gets drowned out by momentum.

That’s why the guiding principle behind my coaching work is this:

Live with Presence. Create with Intention.

Not as a mantra.
Not as an aspiration.
But as a way of being and a way of choosing — moment by moment.

Live with Presence

Living with presence means showing up fully in the moment — grounded, aware, and connected to your mind, body, and energy.

It means you’re no longer tangled in yesterday or fast-forwarding into tomorrow.
You’re here.
Tuned in.
Letting life meet you exactly where you are.

Presence is felt before it’s understood.

• It’s the pause before you respond.
• The sensation in your body that says yes, no, or not anymore.
• The awareness that something is aligned — or quietly asking for your attention.

When presence is missing, life speeds up.
We rush. We override. We push past ourselves in the name of productivity or performance.

Presence doesn’t ask you to slow your life down.
It asks you to inhabit it.

“Presence creates awareness.
Intention creates alignment.
Together, they create a life well lived.”

Create with Intention

If presence is about being, intention is about doing — on purpose.

Creating with intention means choosing your next move consciously — not from habit, fear, or autopilot, but from alignment.

It’s the difference between reacting to what’s in front of you and designing what comes next.

Creating with intention means:

• Designing your path instead of drifting into it.
• Acting from clarity rather than pressure.
• Choosing the energy you bring into your work, your relationships, and your decisions.

Intention isn’t about control.
It’s about authorship.

When intention is missing, people stay busy — but disconnected.
They achieve, but feel oddly unfulfilled.
They move forward, yet something essential feels left behind.

Intention brings coherence.
It aligns what you do with who you are.

Why This Guiding Principle Matters

Most of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable, and successful by external standards.

And yet, they sense a gap.

A quiet misalignment between how they’re living and what feels true.
Between the life they’ve built and the life that wants to be lived.

What’s missing isn’t motivation.
It isn’t discipline.
And it certainly isn’t potential.

What’s missing is awareness and alignment.

Presence creates awareness.
Intention creates alignment.

Together, they move us from:

• Reaction → Choice
• Performance → Authenticity
• Endurance → Design

This is where sustainable change begins — not by fixing yourself, but by listening to yourself.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

It looks like a leader who notices their internal state before entering a difficult conversation — and chooses how they want to show up.

It looks like a professional who pauses long enough to ask, “Is this still aligned for me?” before saying yes again.

It looks like someone in transition who stops rushing toward the next chapter and instead listens for what’s asking to emerge.

This work isn’t about becoming someone new.
It’s about remembering who you are — and building from that place.

A Simple Reflection

Before your next decision, meeting, or transition, ask yourself:

• Am I fully present with what’s happening right now — within me and around me?
• Am I creating from intention, or reacting from habit?

You don’t need to overhaul your life.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.

You just need to start choosing consciously.

That’s how a life well lived is created — moment by moment, choice by choice.