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About

Lane Wallace founded No Map. No Guide. No Limits. in 2009, with the goal of providing thought-provoking content and support to anyone pursuing the lifelong adventure of forging their own path, with their own voice, in the world.

Discovering who we really are and bringing that grounded, mature and authentic self into the world can be incredibly rewarding, but it’s also not easy. (See “Why is Being Yourself an Adventure?”)  Even if we possess the personal courage and will to explore who we are and what we care about most, there are many pressures and expectations that make it difficult to pursue and stand up for that truth in our lives.

We feel pressure to please our families, and conform to their expectations of success. We feel pressure to conform to media and social images of success, glamour, and happiness. We feel pressure to provide, and to fit society’s rules and expectations for how our gender should look, behave and feel. We feel social and professional pressure not to rock the boat or open ourselves up to group rejection. We need to please bosses and those who hold the power to harm or impede our dreams and progress. And as we grow, we take on responsibilities for a greater number of people in our lives, which means our choices no longer impact ourselves alone.

Those pressures loom large for anyone, and being an authentic person in the world always requires a balancing act of self vs. others. But gender expectations for women are even more limiting than they are for men. And the challenge is greater not only for women, but also for any minority, because they’re not at the top of the societal power pyramid.

If a woman wants to have autonomy and impact in the world, it’s not enough to just “be herself.” She has to figure out how to be herself while simultaneously navigating a professional world whose cultural norms aren’t geared toward her way of being or communicating; where her “voice,” authentic or not, is given less respect and weight, and where some portion of that central power group has a vested interest in keeping male-centered norms and privileges in place, and in enforcing their own ideas of who a woman should be and how she should behave.

So being ourselves—our full, mature, authentic, and inspired selves—and forging a life path that not only nurtures our vision, values, and joys, but also allows us to have meaningful impact on the world—is a lifelong challenge, journey and adventure.

The goal of No Map. No Guide. No Limits. is to help make that adventure easier and less lonely. The content it offers is about navigating an uncharted journey successfully, whether that journey is physical, entrepreneurial, professional, or personal. It’s about how to overcome fear and find the courage to explore both within ourselves and the world at large. It’s about gaining the core strength and understanding to navigate a man’s world more effectively, without losing ourselves in the process. It’s about decision-making under pressure, and evaluating what risks are worth taking. And it’s about the rewards that come from forging your own path, and finding your own voice, in life.

This website is also about finding the strength to embrace the discomfort of uncertainty and endure the challenges of adversity, so we can reap the benefits that new territory and change bring. It’s about exploration, innovation, and creativity. It’s about finding the strength to be independent, and the wisdom and skill to work well as part of a team. It’s about finding meaning and purpose, and bringing the power of an authentic voice, and authentic passion, to those pursuits.

Navigating with no map and no guide can be challenging. But if we learn how to make our way through uncertain and uncharted terrain, there are also no limits to where we can go, the impact we can have, and what we can become. Finding that strength, and making the journey both joyful and meaningful, is what No Map. No Guide. No Limits. is all about.