Let's Go for a Walk

There are moments in life when the weight you're carrying becomes so familiar that you stop noticing how heavy it is.

Until one day...

You can't carry it any further.

Early in 2026, I found myself in one of those seasons.

Outside of work, Mum had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The doctors had given her only weeks to live.

Anyone who has walked that road knows there is a strange tension between hoping for more time and trying to prepare for saying goodbye.

It's a season where your heart is never fully present because it's constantly torn between what is and what's coming.

At work, things weren't much lighter.

Over the previous months, I had just completed one of the most emotionally demanding periods of my leadership career.

Through a lengthy performance management process, I had eventually made the difficult decision to terminate the employment of four of the five managers in my leadership team.

Leadership books rarely talk about those moments.

They celebrate promotions.

Growth.

Success.

Very few talk about the emotional cost of making decisions that profoundly affect people's lives, even when those decisions are necessary.

At the same time, my own role was changing.

The organisation needed something different.

My role was becoming increasingly operational.

More workforce planning.

More cost models.

More twenty-four-hour rosters.

More technology workarounds.

Less coaching.

Less leadership development.

Less of the people work that had always made me come alive.

There was nothing wrong with the work.

In fact, I was good at it.

But capability and calling aren't always the same thing.

I could do the job.

I just wasn't sure it was where I was meant to spend my energy.

Eventually...

Everything collided.

"Why Am I Here?"

One afternoon I found myself standing beside my manager in the kitchen.

The weight of everything I'd been carrying finally caught up with me.

Without thinking, I blurted out,

"I feel like I haven't achieved anything here..."

Then, almost as if the words had been waiting to escape for months,

"Why am I here?"

It wasn't anger.

It wasn't self-pity.

It wasn't even frustration.

It was exhaustion.

The kind that settles much deeper than physical tiredness.

The emotional exhaustion that comes from grieving, leading, making difficult decisions, and quietly carrying more than anyone else realises.

Now it's worth mentioning that my manager happened to be a psychologist.

Which meant she was probably both the best...

...and the worst...

...person I could have accidentally said that to.

She didn't try to reassure me.

She didn't tell me I was wrong.

She didn't launch into a motivational speech.

She simply looked at me and said,

"Let's go for a walk."

Circular Quay

We wandered through Circular Quay on a warm February afternoon.

The harbour was doing what the harbour always does.

Ferries came and went.

Tourists gathered around the Opera House taking photographs.

Street musicians played to passing crowds.

Sydney carried on as though nothing had changed.

While, in my world...

Everything had.

What I've always found remarkable about that walk is this.

She never answered my question.

In fact...

She never even asked it.

The question I'd blurted out—

"Why am I here?"

—simply disappeared into the background.

Instead, she asked completely different questions.

Questions about me.

Questions about what I was experiencing.

Questions about what mattered.

Questions that gently moved my attention away from the immediate circumstances and towards the bigger picture.

At the time, I didn't realise what she was doing.

Looking back now...

She wasn't trying to answer my question.

She was helping me ask a better one.

Better Questions

One of the biggest misconceptions about coaching is that great coaches have great answers.

They don't.

At least the good ones don't pretend to.

Sometimes the greatest gift a coach gives isn't an answer.

It's a better question.

I'd asked,

"Why am I here?"

But beneath that question were dozens of others.

Have I made any difference?

Does any of this matter?

Am I becoming the person I hoped I'd become?

Is this really where I'm meant to be?

If she'd simply answered my original question, she may have made me feel better for a little while.

Instead...

She helped me think differently.

She gave me something far more valuable than certainty.

She gave me perspective.

The Gift of Distance

One of the greatest gifts another person can offer us is distance.

Not emotional distance.

Perspective.

When we're overwhelmed, our world becomes incredibly small.

Every disappointment feels defining.

Every problem feels permanent.

Every setback feels like failure.

We lose the ability to see beyond what is directly in front of us.

That's why coaches matter.

That's why mentors matter.

That's why trusted friends matter.

They're standing outside our circumstances while we're standing inside them.

They can often see what we've become too close to notice.

Not because they're smarter.

Because they're standing in a different place.

Sometimes all we need is someone willing to walk beside us long enough for our perspective to catch up with reality.

Looking Back

I've reflected on that walk many times.

Not because everything suddenly became easy.

It didn't.

Mum still passed away.

The role still changed.

Life still required difficult decisions.

But something inside me shifted.

I realised that my value wasn't measured by how exhausted I felt.

Nor by how many problems I solved.

Nor by how many spreadsheets I built.

I also realised something else.

Great coaching isn't about rescuing people from difficult questions.

It's about helping them discover better ones.

These days, when someone sits across from me in a coaching session feeling overwhelmed, stuck or questioning whether they've made any difference, I often think back to that afternoon around Circular Quay.

I remember how convinced I was that nothing I'd done had mattered.

I also remember how wrong I was.

Not because someone argued with me.

Because someone created enough space for me to see what I could no longer see for myself.

That's what great coaches do.

That's what great leaders do.

They don't rush to provide answers.

They create the conditions where clarity can emerge.

They understand that the first question someone asks is rarely the real question.

People often arrive looking for answers.

More often than not...

They leave with better questions.

And better questions have a remarkable way of leading us towards better lives.

Reflection

The next time you find yourself asking a difficult question, pause for a moment.

Ask yourself:

• Is this really the question I'm trying to answer?

• What might someone standing outside my circumstances see that I can't?

• Who has permission to challenge my perspective?

• Am I trying to solve the problem, or understand it?

• When was the last time I walked beside someone instead of trying to fix them?

Because sometimes clarity doesn't arrive with an answer.

Sometimes...

It begins with a better question.

Or perhaps...

With five simple words.

"Let's go for a walk."