I was an overachieving busy business owner, physiotherapist, presenter and wife. For years, I believed leadership and business growth lived in the mind— technical ability, logic, planning, decisions, KPIs.

And here’s the harsh reality. I struggled managing team members and became bogged down in performance analysis.

But life has a way of breaking us open. And that breaking was what transformed how I lead my business.

The truth is, the shift that changed everything for me didn’t come from a new qualification, training, a clever system or a productivity hack.

It came from grief.

Raw, unfiltered, life-stopping grief. And it opened my heart in a way that no leadership textbook ever could.

When our son died, my world collapsed in an instant. One moment I was the ambitious, energetic business owner, and the next I was sitting at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at a surface I wasn’t sure I’d ever reach again. My brain fog was relentless. Decision-making felt like wading through mud.

I questioned everything—my choices, my path, my identity.

And for a while, I stayed small. Quiet. Unsure. I lost all confidence in myself, filled with self doubt. And fatigue was setting in. Yes I tried counselling, yes I tried psychology.

But I soon got tired of retelling my story in a circular path. Reviewing the past without any clarity on how to move forward. I wanted to find a pathway through, I just didn’t know how.