You have earned the seat at the top table through decades of grit, insight, and results. Then, almost overnight, the pressure stops rising and starts converging. Board updates clash with operating reviews, strategic choices must be made on incomplete data, powerful stakeholders pull in opposing directions, your leadership team hungers for direction, performance expectations escalate, and your personal life waits quietly (or not so quietly) while the six pillars of health fade into the background.
I can tell you this isn’t ordinary 'busyness', and it isn’t fixed with a better calendar. It is the weeds, silent, cumulative, and eventually overwhelming. Ecosystems (organisational, relational, personal, internal) have expanded and begun to overlap. You are physically present in every room, but emotionally and cognitively elsewhere. You function at a high level, yet true presence, the calm, congruent, values-driven influence people rely on, has slipped away. And the higher you are, the more people feel the absence.
How do the weeds take over?
- Expanding ecosystems that now compete for the same finite bandwidth.
- Gradual erosion of the six pillars (sleep, nutrition, exercise, quiet time, communication, community).
- Collapse of the front-end work that used to keep you anchored: clear values, defined purpose, intentional presence, belief–behaviour alignment, liminal perspective, the disciplined pause, ecosystem awareness, emotional intelligence, and daily introspection.
- The dangerous illusion that “still getting things done” equals real presence.
The result? Decisions become automatic rather than intentional. Conversations you once recalled vividly now blur. You sit with your family, but mentally replay the day. You look composed on the outside while feeling unsettled within. My research shows that most senior leaders only recognise the drift in hindsight, after alignment has already cost them influence, relationships, or health.
Here’s the tough truth and the liberating one: you don’t reclaim presence by escaping the weeds (a sabbatical gives temporary air, not lasting capacity). You reclaim it inside the weeds, in real time, by leaning in deliberately every single day.
Start with brutal honesty: look directly at the biggest weeds, the unresolved tensions, the misaligned priorities, the weakened pillars, and deal with them at the source. Weeds ignored become structural; weeds addressed early stay small.
Rebuild your internal operating system:
- Reconnect daily with your values and purpose.
- Set a clear intention for presence before every key interaction.
- Learn how to use the pause not as hesitation, but as the moment you regain clarity and choice.
- Treat the six pillars as non-negotiable leadership infrastructure, not lifestyle extras. Consistent sleep, real nutrition, movement, quiet time, deep communication, and genuine community are what give you the physiological and emotional stability to lead from strength, not depletion.
Presence in Phase Two is never about eliminating pressure. The ecosystems will keep expanding. It’s about building the internal discipline to prune, recalibrate, and align faster than the weeds can grow. The leaders I’ve watched transform do not wait for life to slow down; they slow themselves down just enough to stay congruent while everything else accelerates.
This is not perfection. It is alignment. Showing up as the same grounded, purposeful leader in every ecosystem, every day, no matter the noise.
You fought hard for this level of impact. Don’t let the weeds rob you of the presence required to use it fully.
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