Twenty years as a beloved nonprofit CEO. Something was off. The kind of leader who shows up early, stays late, and remembers the receptionist's mother's surgery date. Beloved by her team. Devoted to the work. And quietly giving her family the dregs of her energy while over-giving to every organization she volunteered with.

We started simply with a sign on her office door:

The interruptions thinned and her workday got more efficient.

She put a post-it on her computer Pause-Notice-Choose. This mantra has become a guiding force, the intention before the action.

Then we did a nervous system inventory. "What energizes you? What depletes you? When did you last feel like yourself at work?"

It turned out she loved teaching. She loved people who wanted to grow. She loved untangling hard problems. None of which she'd been doing in years.

They came to our first call already crying. The kind of crying where the dam goes before the introductions do. They apologized — of course they did — and then said the sentence I'll never forget because of the raw pain in their voice:

Senior executive, smart and very accomplished. But they were exhausted in the marrow of their bones. They'd built a career most people would envy and somewhere along the way had traded their actual life for the appearance of one.

They quit their job and moved their family to Africa for a year.

Their partner taught and their kids — initially resentful — enrolled in an international school and discovered the joy of adventure. They rested, remembered themselves and with that spaciousness came innovation and creativity.