Simon Verhoeven spent years dreaming about a particular German Film Award, and the moment it was finally in his hand, the first thing he felt wasn't satisfaction, it was "okay, so what's next?" He's one of the most successful directors in Germany, with films that became hits and got remade across Europe. The film that won for him, Ach, diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke, roughly "this gap, this terrible gap," is about loss, and he made it during the same years he was lo

Last night, I almost turned off the game that became the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. That urge to skip the hard part is one I know well at work and in my career, and one I watch the leaders I coach give in to all the time, usually right when it matters most.

Mike was 40, head of digital strategy and innovation at Bank of America, with a job that looked great on paper. He says that's the moment he realized he had become the corporate version of the person he'd spent his whole life saying he never wanted to be.

It’s a reasonable bet, and until this year it was a safe one. Then Meta cut about 8,000 jobs this May, a tenth of the company, and Groupon roughly a quarter of its workforce, both to move the money into AI, and the people cut were largely experienced, well-paid, and supposedly untouchable. Being competent but no longer engaged doesn’t protect you the way it once did.

The bonus clears, and for a few weeks, you can stop asking yourself if this is really what you want. Then the check settles into the account, time passes, and the question comes back.

Two weeks ago, I took her to Salzburg for her eighty-sixth birthday. While we were there, I finally let myself feel the full weight of what she survived, and what she chose to do with the rest of her life. She walked beside me on the cobblestones of a city we used to visit as a family, stopped for ice cream in a square we remembered, and looked up at the fortress on the hill the way we used to. I kept catching myself watching her, not because anything was wrong, but becaus

Most of the senior leaders I work with say yes too often, and they're paying for it in ways that don't show up on any quarterly report. I recently had Erin Holland-Collins on the Midlife Remix podcast, and one of the threads I keep coming back to is what I've started calling the "half-yes": agreeing to something not because you want to do it, but because the no felt harder than the yes.

Today I’m launching Remix Career. It gives you what I give my coaching clients: a clear read on who you are at this point in your career, where to take it next, and the specific steps to get there. You upload your résumé and walk through a guided reflection in your own words. The AI, trained on my coaching methodology, reads what you wrote and produces a Remix Report with your career archetype, recommended directions, a skills analysis, an AI impact read on each path, and liv

“I didn’t even realize that I wanted this promotion until someone else got it.” That came up when I was talking with Brittanni Hendricks on Midlife Remix, and she hears some version of it regularly from high performers. I keep coming back to it because it names what happens to the executives I coach, who have managed their own wanting for so long that, when it surfaces, someone else is already in the role.

While I was loving Kade without any expectation of who he would become, I was not doing the same for my oldest child. I was doing what a lot of parents do, especially parents who have achieved some professional success and are still carrying their own unresolved stuff. A lot of my ambition and struggles have been driven by trying to prove my worth to my parents, and, without realizing it, I was passing that same dynamic on to my own kid. Our children don't learn from what we

Most of the leaders I coach describe themselves as driven, strategic, maybe a little intense. But underneath the drive, there's often a vigilance that never turns off, a background calculation running before every decision: what could go wrong here, what am I exposed to. It doesn't feel like fear, it feels like being thorough.

Thomas had that question forced on him in the most extreme way possible. In 2021, he was six months from the exact age his father was when he died, and his grandfather before him. When he had a heart attack.

Most of the leaders I work with aren't stuck because they lack strategy. They're stuck because busyness has become the thing that keeps them from noticing what's actually driving their decisions — and it doesn't feel like avoidance. It feels ike responsibility.

In the latest episode of the Midlife Remix (full conversation link in comments), I talked with Molly Carroll, MA, LPC, a therapist, author, podcast host, and TED Talk speaker.

For twenty years, I did what most driven leaders do: I worked harder, earned more, rose higher, and assumed I’d eventually arrive at a life that felt right. And by most measures, it worked. I had the career I’d been building toward since my twenties.

Joao Viana left a successful corporate career and created something that didn’t exist before. He called it Walking Mentorship. He walks alongside people for seven days through places like the Camino de Santiago. Not as a guide. As a thinking companion. And what he’s found after hundreds of walks is that the insights that change people aren’t dramatic. Slowly, one day at a time, until you look back and realize you’re facing a completely different direction.

The behaviors that got you here, the control, the drive, the need to be the one with the answers, didn't just become habits. They became how you understand your own value. So when something asks you to let go of them, it doesn't feel inefficient. It feels like a threat to who you are.

I've been noticing something in myself lately, and I wonder if it's true for you too. My days are full. Work, kids, aging parents, and the constant demand for everything that needs attention. I'm rarely alone. And yet, something's missing. I think it might be loneliness. Not the kind where no one's around. The kind where you're surrounded by people but not really with any of them.

That response is cortisol—a hormone designed to help us escape predators. Tens of thousands of years ago, when a sabertooth tiger chased us, cortisol flooded our system, shutting down digestion, immune function, and anything else that wasn't essential for survival. The system was built for threats that resolve in minutes. When cortisol stays elevated for months, it stops protecting us and starts breaking us down.

He shared that leadership teams increasingly recognize that inner work is closely tied to high performance. He also offered insights on noticing when you’re avoiding feelings, blaming instead of taking responsibility, clinging to being right instead of staying curious, and developing awareness through meditation—all of which transformed not only my perspective on leadership but also how I engage day to day.