I sat across from a founder last year. Series B, backed by a well-known fund, team of 60. From the outside, everything was working. Valuation up. Press coverage good. Investors pleased. He looked at me and said: "I have never felt more alone in my life." I have heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count. From founders. From VPs who were just promoted. From CEOs who are, on paper, at the peak of everything they worked for. The success arrives — and the iso

Most countries celebrate their national day on the date they declared independence, won a war, or became a republic. France has Bastille Day. The United States has the Fourth of July. Ireland does something different. St. Patrick's Day, held on March 17th, marks the feast day of Ireland's patron saint — the anniversary of his death in 461 AD. Not a revolution. Not a founding moment. A death. And the man being honoured wasn't even Irish. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th c

A few months ago, a client came to our second session. She'd always been composed, strategic, the kind of person who thinks three steps ahead. That day, she was exhausted. "I quit," she said flatly. "Sent the email this morning. No backup plan. Just done." She'd been at the company for six years. Senior role. Respected. Good at what she did. From the outside, everything looked fine. But when we unpacked it, nothing had been fine for months. She'd been drowning in admin work t

Stepping into a management role is already a shift in identity. Stepping into a management role over people who used to be your peers is a different kind of stretch. This is where many new managers get stuck. They know how to do the work. They are less sure about how to lead people who knew them before they were “the manager.”

There's a Buddhist parable I come back to when I'm coaching leaders who shy away from visibility. A group sits in a room. It starts to rain. A leak appears in the ceiling. Water drips — quiet at first, then relentless. Everyone shifts their chairs. Someone grabs a bucket. The conversation continues, but now everyone's distracted, uncomfortable, trying to work around the problem. One of them is a plumber. She sees the problem immediately. She knows exactly how to fix it. She's

Inside the accelerating trend of C-suite leaders becoming entrepreneurs—and what it means for the future of work At 2:47 PM on a Tuesday,...

You’ve heard the hype. Wake up at 4 a.m., and you’ll float out of bed feeling like a feather, totally ready to conquer the world....