Why naming what we carry is the first step to finally putting it down There is a moment when what you have been carrying finally breaks the surface. It does not ask for permission. It just arrives—unscripted, sharp, and often in places that seem unrelated to stress. For me, it happened under fluorescent gym lights. […]

For generations, the workplace was more than just a place to earn a living. It was where men forged some of their closest and most enduring friendships. Lunch breaks, project deadlines, and shared struggles created a rhythm of connection that often outlasted the jobs themselves. Today, that landscape looks very different. As work has shifted, […]

Rethinking mental health in a system that was never made with them in mind He did not fall apart. He did not fall to his knees. He just stopped coming in. A few weeks before that, he was pulling longer hours, snapping more easily, laughing less. You would not have called it a crisis, more […]

Rethinking equity in a system that forgot half the room Over the past decade, leadership development has undergone a necessary and overdue shift. Programs focused on women’s advancement have rightly received attention, funding, and strategic energy. These initiatives aim to correct historical inequities and open doors previously closed by outdated systems. However, alongside this momentum, […]

Do you worry too much? I am not talking about once-off panic. I am talking about that low-grade, constant mental pressure—the quiet scanning, the worst-case rehearsals, the running tally of what might go wrong. You are in the middle of a task, but your brain is already in the future, calculating risk, playing out scenarios, […]

Have you ever noticed the voice that does not stop when you do? Your body is tired, the lights are off, yet your mind is still running. “What if this happens? What if that does not? What if tomorrow is worse?” That voice loops at night when the world is quiet — a constant background […]

The Steady Drift: How We Lose Ourselves Without Noticing There is a specific kind of quiet that settles in over time—not peace, but detachment. For me, it started with emotional flatness. I was still doing the things—work, family, tasks—but everything felt dulled. I was not sad. I was not angry. I was not even stressed. […]

In every organisation, there are two kinds of load. The first is the work itself — the goals, projects, decisions, and delivery. The second is invisible: the cumulative strain people absorb while doing the work. Leaders often believe their job is to manage the first and leave the second to individual resilience. In reality, both […]

High-Functioning Anxiety, Inward Mindsets, and Organizational Decline In many high-performing organizations, success stories often conceal quiet suffering. Individuals who appear composed, consistent, and tireless—those who never seem to falter—are frequently driven less by confidence than by compulsion. What appears to be resilience may, in fact, be fear of not being enough unless they are seen […]

Some fires do not roar. They smoulder. They are not always loud. They do not always flare. Some fires burn low and slow—quietly, invisibly—until the foundation begins to weaken. That is the kind of fire many high performers carry. There is no dramatic breakdown, no visible collapse. Just a steady burn beneath the surface. A […]

There is something both beautiful and unsettling about wild horses. They move with strength, untamed and unbroken, galloping across open fields. From a distance, they seem free. However, watch closely, and you see something else: the herd does not always stay together. A single stallion can veer away, running hard, driven by instinct and independence. […]

Not every heavy load makes a sound. Some of the most overloaded people in your organisation are also the quietest. They still show up. They meet deadlines. They respond to emails within minutes. They are the ones others rely on most — and precisely because of that, they rarely allow anyone to see the strain. […]

There is no name for it. That in itself is the problem. The quiet pressure. The low-grade ache. The sensation that you are holding more than you can articulate, but there is no safe space to let it out. No release valve. Just another day of showing up, solving, adjusting, and pretending that everything is […]

Beyond the Brink: The Art of Clearing Your Own Vessel There is a lie I lived by for years: If I stop holding everything, it will all fall apart. It was never said out loud. However, it ran beneath everything—beneath the long hours, the quiet pressure, the steady tone in meetings. Holding it all became […]

In an ideal world, pressure would be like that guest who visits occasionally — intrusive for a moment, but gone by dinner. Instead, it moved in, claimed the best chair in the house, and convinced us it belongs there. Many people no longer even question its presence. They wear it like furniture. Stress has stopped […]

When leaders burn out, they do not just fail quietly—they take others with them. Leadership does not make you immune. It makes you invisible Despite decades of workplace research focused on employee wellbeing, one group remains conspicuously absent from the mental health conversation: leaders. For years, scholars and organizations alike have operated under an unspoken […]

The Calm Before the Internal Storm. I used to think the people who burn out were the ones who fall apart. You know—miss deadlines, cancel meetings, stop showing up. However, I never missed a deadline. I never showed visible strain. I held my tone in meetings. I delivered the work. I stayed calm. So, I […]

We are told that resilience is about grit. Push harder. Endure longer. Never give up. But anyone who has leaned against an immovable wall knows the truth — no amount of effort changes what cannot move. The more you press, the more exhausted you become, until strength itself turns against you. I learned this lesson […]

A quiet crisis is unfolding among men that rarely makes the headlines. It does not announce itself with protest or noise, but in the empty chairs around dinner tables, the unanswered messages, and the birthdays that slip by unnoticed. Researchers have begun calling it the “friendship recession,” and it is hollowing out the social lives […]

Why Traditional Stress Interventions Miss the Point—and What You Can Do Instead “If your people had a fire escape for stress, would they use it? The Offload Room is that fire escape.” It is a bold metaphor. A fire escape does not fix the fire. It does not resolve the faulty wiring or prevent another […]

Busyness looks like productivity. It feels important. In reality, it is killing focus, morale, and performance. Always On, Always Behind Somewhere along the way, being busy became the new professional currency. The moment someone asks, “How are you?” the default reply has become, “Busy.” That one-word signals status, effort, importance, and ironically, exhaustion. The workplace […]

Sometimes a dam looks immovable, holding everything back with quiet strength. Yet even the strongest dams are built with sluices — deliberate openings to release pressure before it becomes destructive. Our inner lives work the same way. If feelings are never expressed, the build-up eventually forces its own escape. Releasing them in smaller, intentional ways […]

I used to think the people who burn out were the ones who fall apart. You know—the ones who miss deadlines, cancel meetings, stop showing up. But I never missed a deadline. I never showed visible strain. I held my tone in meetings. I delivered the work. I stayed calm. So, I assumed I was […]

We charge our phones every night. We know that if we don’t, the battery will run out of power. Yet many of us treat our own bodies differently — running on 5%, telling ourselves we will catch up later. The result is predictable: performance drops, emotions spike, clarity blurs. The system collapses, not from weakness, […]

( PART 1 ) PS: This article is written within a leadership context and for leaders but applies equally to everyone. A day at the office (a glimpse) According to research, people send, on average, forty emails daily and receive ninety (with all the associated tasks). Many people, however, receive far more. Imagine receiving two-hundred […]

Why do men stay silent even when the weight is too much? There is something most men will not tell you. Not because they are hiding. Not because they are distant. But because somewhere along the way, life taught them: “No one wants to hear it.” He is not fine. He just thinks silence is […]

The story of men’s friendships is often told as one of decline. Fewer close friends. Less emotional intimacy. Longer stretches of isolation. The statistics are sobering, but they only tell half the story. The other half is this: connection does not have to disappear. It can be built, rebuilt, and strengthened when men choose to […]

Every structure has a load limit. We accept this in engineering without argument: bridges are built to carry a certain weight for a certain time. Ignore those limits, and the structure does not simply snap — it begins to strain in ways you cannot see. Bolts loosen. Supports bend. Surfaces crack beneath the paint. By […]