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.

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.

“The people whose identity is tied to their work… when that work goes away, many get lost. For them, work is purpose, importance, growth, learning, making money. But once it ends, they’re stuck. The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”“The people whose identity is tied to their work… when that work goes away, many get lost. For them, work is purpose, importance, growth, learning, making money. But once it ends, they’re stuck. The only difference betw

Couples can drift apart without realizing it, somewhere between careers, kids, and simply trying to keep life moving. My wife and I have...