What if the reason your wins never feel like enough isn't a motivation problem, but a decision you made at age 3 that you don't even remember?

Executive coach and former RAF pilot Will Steel joins Nick Urban to unpack how unconscious childhood decisions become the invisible architecture of an adult life.

Will trained in ontological coaching under Werner Erhard's lineage and now works with CEOs, Buddhist monks, imams, and aspiring heads of state. His core message: limiting beliefs aren't abstract thoughts you can affirm your way out of.

They're precise decisions made in specific moments, and they keep generating evidence to prove themselves right until you get to the exact words you said to yourself.

Meet our guest

Will Steel is an executive coach, former RAF pilot, and author of Free to Lead. He helps leaders build authentic, high-performing teams by focusing on identity, purpose, and behavior. His work blends military discipline with deep ontological inquiry, and he won't coach anyone for less than 12 months because real identity work takes time.

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Key takeaways

Limiting beliefs form from silent decisions made in specific childhood moments, not from the events themselves
Your behavior produces the exact evidence that proves your hidden decisions right
"I am depressed" fuses you to a state, "I have depression" treats it like a stomach ache and releases identity
Body symptoms often communicate unsaid words — sore throats, sprained ankles, and digestive issues can map to suppressed messages
"Fly the airplane" is the RAF drill Will uses in boardrooms: wings level first, checklist second
Subtraction beats addition when you're stuck, get the facts before adding more strategies
Real coaching happens in the listening, not the prescribing
Fitra is an Arabic word for true essence, the seed that grows into a perfect plant in any soil

Episode highlights

00:53 Unidentified past decisions limit what's possible

02:13 How belief loops form and lock in

07:22 "You should have been a girl" — the 40-year story

12:44 What ontology actually is

18:08 "I am depressed" vs "I have depression"

22:00 Body symptoms as unspoken communication

33:04 Fly the airplane: the emergency drill for life

43:28 Why subtraction beats stacking skills

46:14 Coaching CEOs, monks, and imams

51:32 The scientist whose $600 rate hid an 11-year-old story

56:33 The art dealer and the $17 million question

1:05:15 What fitra means and why it matters

Links

Watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eaBLmzfqf1s
Full episode show notes: https://outliyr.com/258

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Nick