WHY BREAKDOWNS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF LEADERSHIP

In this post, I want to talk about one of the most sophisticated ways our ego keeps us in check — by strategizing and trying to avoid the breakdowns of the past.

Whenever we take on a project with the potential for real transformation, we’re stepping into unknown territory.

A transformational result, by definition, requires something beyond just incremental effort. It’s not about grinding harder or doing more of the same; something fundamental has to shift. And that shift inevitably brings us face-to-face with something we’d rather avoid.

For example, let’s say in the past you built a lot of wealth, but it came at a steep personal cost—your well-being, your family, your peace of mind. You got the financial success, but it was driven by an obsessive work ethic that left little room for anything else. Eventually, you recognized this and course-corrected, pulling back from the intensity and choosing a different way of living.

Maybe now, you keep anything that feels like it could pull you back into that same level of intensity at arm’s length. That includes not just the opportunities that could reignite that earning potential, but also the part of you that thrives in that space—the hunger, the drive, the full immersion in something meaningful.

Then one day, you realize you miss that fire. You want to create something big again, but you’re afraid of what might happen if you go all in. You don’t want to lose yourself again. So now you’re facing a transformational challenge: how do you step into that kind of impact without recreating the old patterns that led to burnout or imbalance?

The first instinct is to try to solve the problem preemptively—to strategize, to analyze, to figure out the perfect way to ensure the negative parts don’t resurface.

You start thinking, How can I structure this so I don’t get pulled in too deep? What’s the perfect plan to avoid the pitfalls?

The hope is that if you can just crack the right code, you can create the result you want while sidestepping any of the difficult parts of yourself that you don’t want to deal with.

And that’s where we get stuck.

Because no amount of strategizing will work. You can’t think your way out of a transformational breakdown.

The reason is simple: the parts of you that created those past results—the drive, the intensity, the inability to pull back—haven’t been unwound. They’re still there, waiting. And the moment you start moving toward something meaningful again, those parts will wake up and come online.

The only way to ensure they never come online is to suppress or cut off that part of yourself entirely—to neuter or castrate the part of you that hungers, that feels passionate, that wants to go all in. But that just leaves you in the opposite problem: disconnected, uninspired, playing it safe. And that’s not what you’re after either.

So the real work isn’t about avoiding the breakdown. It’s about stepping directly into it. It’s about saying yes to the fact that these old patterns will emerge, and choosing to surround yourself with the right support to navigate them differently this time. It’s about recognizing when you’re caught in the cycle and, in that moment, making a different choice.

And that’s the hard part—it’s not something you can pre-plan. You can’t map out every possible way this will go sideways and decide in advance how to handle it. That’s not how transformation works.

Instead, you set out with the best of intentions, hoping you won’t run into the old breakdowns, and then—bam—they show up anyway. Right on schedule. That’s the moment where most people quit, because it feels like proof that the fear was justified.

But in reality, that moment is the doorway to transformation. If you can stay the course, get supported, and choose to show up differently inside the breakdown, you start to create a different experience for yourself. And from that new experience, a different result emerges.

So the question isn’t, How do I avoid the breakdown? The real question is, What would I need to create, that would be worth confronting this once and for all?