The story, I told myself — until my body told me the truth
If you can’t see your people clearly, you can’t lead them. For years, I couldn’t see myself clearly either.
Not because I was unaware.
Not because I wasn’t strong.
But because everything felt normal, until it didn’t.
Stress became familiar.
Overworking became expected.
Misalignment became something I tolerated because “everyone else seemed fine.”
Except I wasn’t.
My body whispered for years, and I didn’t yet have the tools to hear it.
The part I rarely talk about
My journey didn’t start with burnout.
It started with loss.
Personal loss that dismantled the structure of my life.
Grief reshaped my nervous system long before work ever touched it.
As Mary Frances O’Connor says, grief is not an event, it’s a process of reorganising a world that no longer makes sense.
I rebuilt what I could.
New responsibilities.
New routines.
New resilience.
And then I walked into workplaces that looked fine from the outside… but quietly eroded the inside.
Values misaligned.
Unspoken emotional expectations.
Systems under-resourced but high in demand.
I worked hard because I cared, and caring without support has a cost.
I now know I’d been balancing on the edge of chronic stress for years.
Back then, I thought it was me.
I thought I should be stronger.
I thought I should cope better.
That belief system is dangerous, and common.
The day my body said “enough”
Burnout isn’t always dramatic.
Mine was quieter.
A gradual thinning of capacity… until a moment where my body refused to negotiate.
Not mentally.
Physically.
The signal was unmistakable:
Rest. Reassess. Something needs to change.
And for the first time, I listened.
What I wish I’d had
Tools that made the invisible visible.
If I’d had:
• The OHFB Leadership Signal Analysis to show what was happening in my work environment
and
• HRV monitoring to show what was happening inside my body
…the story would have been different.
I wouldn’t have questioned myself so harshly.
I wouldn’t have normalised the abnormal.
I would have had evidence, not self-doubt.
Insight, not overthinking.
Data, not shame.
Most importantly, I would have seen what my nervous system was telling me long before breaking point.
Why I co-created Business Health Institute
Not to “help people thrive.”
The word has been used until it’s lost meaning.
I created BHI because I believe in something more grounded:
Humans deserve environments that don’t slowly erode them.
Leaders deserve clarity, not guesswork.
Organisations deserve visibility, not assumptions.
We work with stress, not around it.
We make unseen pressures measurable.
We create the kind of evidence I desperately needed back then.
This isn’t commercial.
It’s personal.
I am still a work in progress
And I hope I always am.
I study my nervous system with curiosity.
I pay attention to old patterns.
I listen for the signals I once ignored.
I practise the somatic work that keeps me connected to myself and my purpose.
Growth is not a finish line, it’s a devotion.
It’s the heart of my work now:
Helping leaders see themselves clearly so they can see their people clearly so the systems they lead stop doing harm they never intended.
If this resonates, here is my invitation
Not to push harder.
Not to be more resilient.
Not to pretend everything is fine.
But to see yourself, truly see yourself, with the clarity I wish I had.
Because leadership is not about how much you carry.
It’s about how clearly you read the signals… your own, and your organisation’s.
And when you can see clearly, you lead differently.