Change Comes in Waves

“You didn’t see me then? Watch what I become now.”I once said this on stage at a YPO event, speaking to a room full of successful leaders. I was talking about trauma. Specifically, how pain, especially childhood pain, often drives performance. Heads nodded quietly. Behind polished profiles, big titles, and billion-dollar success stories, I often meet a deeper story: the child who had to grow up fast, prove their worth, or survive an emotionally barren home. Sometimes the trauma is obvious. Sometimes it’s subtle. But the imprint remains.

Leadership is emotionally expensive.That’s not something they teach in business school—or write about in annual reports. But it’s something I hear again and again from leaders. The cost isn’t just time or pressure. It’s emotional depletion.Leaders set out with a vision. They feel they can change something—build something. And they often do. But along the way, something quieter gets lost.

It’s a rare and wonderful thing when who you are and what you do finally align. For years, I searched for that alignment, driven not by ambition, but by a quiet question I couldn’t shake: What makes a life well-lived?Like many, I chased answers through books, retreats, and a string of personal experiments. My friends once called me a “serial hobbyist.” But behind it all wasn’t a hunger to be better or more successful. It was a deeper yearning: to feel that my life was mine—and true.