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.

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.

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.