For the female founder, the creative entrepreneur, and the local business owner who is pouring her heart into her work but feeling overwhelmed, overstretched, and under-rewarded.
Running a business can be a lonely journey. You're the visionary, the maker, the marketer, and the bookkeeper, all rolled into one. But when the weight of it all leads to burnout, it's time for a new approach.
From a young age, I trusted an inner compass—a felt sense of integrity and direction. Following it gave my life meaning, but it also led me through loneliness, grief, and a painful reckoning with the belief that meaning guarantees safety.
This is a reflection on will, integrity, and what changes when we stop outsourcing our safety and learn to sail with the forces within us.
I grew up believing that rest had to be earned. For me, there was a magic number: 38.4 — sick enough to be allowed to stop, but not too sick to enjoy being cared for. Years later, I can see this pattern clearly in myself and in my coaching work:
so many of us learned to rest only when our bodies, minds, or lives force us to.
If you had to imagine your organisation in a metaphoric way, what would you pick? An oiled machine, clicking and clocking? or a bee hive, ever changing, ever buzzing? What if the future of work looked more like a living system — one designed by women, for people — where growth isn’t forced, but allowed to unfold in its natural rhythm?
