...when I was told for the umpteenth time "you have to make sure"... "you must ensure", "you've got to make sure"...

When you are in the trench with your sleeves up day in and day out shoveling dirt with your team all you want to hear is "let me send some help!" not the next big shot telling you to "make sure you have it all under control".

Right?

Of course my reaction was out of line, I did that in front of everybody... unforgivable, but that is what happens when you let the grind, grinding you to the ground... literally...

I was once taken away by the ambulance for a kidney stone attack.

I remember the love and care of my team while they took me in the meeting room and laid me on the table while waiting for the red cross.

I clearly had to learn a big lesson, but you know what did I do as soon as I got a couple of jabs of painkillers at the hospital?

I went back to work!

Fortunately there was an angel, a senior leader who came from the US to help me empty the ocean with a bucket, that loved me and saw how crazy and out of control I was and waited for me outside "to make sure" that I did not enter the building pointing the finger at me not to dare and just go back home.

That was about 20 years ago, more or less.

I loved my people, I felt I had to be there with them, for them... I was their leader damn it, and I just had to be there.

If you are anywhere near this craziness, please take a moment to reflect on what you call rationality.

Reflect on the true meaning of leadership, and the example that you are giving with your behavior.

Reflect on the toxins with which you are feeding yourself and unconsciously everyone around you.

I had to breakdown to breakthrough, and I did it with the same old pattern... alone.

But it took me years and left ashes behind.

Lucky me, from those ashes I grew and had an even greater career without the slightest need to "grind".

A completely different world opened up to me and I am now here to be the buddy I did not allow myself to have when I was where you might be right now.

You really don't need this, unless you are a thick head like I was, too proud and so unconsciouly driven, in which case good luck.

But if you resonate with the above, at whatever level, reach out.

Being alone, in power and control, being the master of your destiny, is the illusion with which the ego feeds itself.

Be free from it and be freedom for those you lead.

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise" said W. Blake -- or not, I add.