As I sat waiting in the coffee shop, I was overflowing with anxiety and emotion. Tears brimmed from my eyes and I was shaking like a leaf... Yet underneath the surface I had accepted what I needed to do. Now I had to follow through on that and say the words out loud.

It was about to become one of my life's greatest defining moments. 

I knew that by saying the words out loud I was giving them form, making them real and that through uttering them I would open Pandora’s box… And deep down I had a knowing that my career and professional life as I knew it would be forever changed - but I had no idea what that would look like. 

So I waited for my boss to arrive and steadied myself to bring my failure full circle and admit defeat.

It was a HUGE admission.

I had spent all my energy holding things together for soooooo long to AVOID failure and now I was about to agree with all my critics - that indeed I wasn’t up to the...

“When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be.” ~Lau Tzu

Two years ago, I was trekking in the Himalayas challenging myself to achieve something I had never done before. It was a planned part of my transition from being a senior leader employed in Financial Services to an unemployed woman unclear of who she was or what she was here to do. I had taken a career break to take some time out from the life I had worked so hard to build over the last 16 years. Some people thought I was ‘lucky’. Some people thought I was ‘brave’. Some probably thought I was crazy or unappreciative to give up what I’d achieved. Only those who knew me best and intimately knew that I was broken and really what I needed was time to heal.

It’s a funny old thing the ego. Several years before, I had the wonderful opportunity to study at Ashridge Business School. I was studying a subject that was incredibly close to my heart and my head -...