The smartest people I work with are often the worst at figuring out what's next.
They've spent decades getting brilliant at solving problems. Analysing, deciding, executing. It's what got them to VP, CTO, MD. Sure, it's what earned them scope and respect and a seat at the top table.
But now, somewhere in their late forties, something else arrives. It’s a question that won't go away. Something like:
'I've built a good life. So why does it feel like I'm just maintaining it?'
This is where the old tools stop working. You can't analyse your way to a new chapter. You can't run a strategy offsite on it. You can't even out-think it.
Because really, the answer isn't sitting in what you already know.
Watch what actually happens for the men I work with. The shift they experience rarely arrives in a bout of hard thinking. It arrives in a clearing. A moment when the mental noise drops and something underneath becomes visible. A direction the striving version isn’t capable of designing.
It takes a different kind of intelligence. One that's quieter than the problem-solving you've been rewarded for your whole career.
Most senior leaders never touch it, because they've spent their whole working life being paid for the other kind.
The direction you're after doesn't live in what you already know. It lives in the clearing on the other side of it.
Photo by Inggrid Koe on Unsplash