Reinvention - Stefan’s Week-notes 02/08/2025
Inspired by the weeknotes of friends and coachees including John Fitzgerald, Steve Messer and Nour Sidawi - I thought I'd give it a go.
Weeknotes 28 - 02/08/2025
Opening
A week of connection and disconnection - sometimes in the same breath. A sea swim with the kids. Strategy reviews. A transformation proposal. A quiet, necessary family conversation before my dad’s interment.
One of those weeks where everything interweaves. Life and leadership. Grief and growth. Stillness and movement.
And yes - also cycling. But you’ll have guessed that.
1. What went well
A grounding and open catch-up with the CEO of a charity I’m supporting. We reflected on the strategy and transformation day we ran with her team - the clarity that came, the tensions it surfaced, and the space we made for what’s next. There was honesty, alignment, and a shared sense of purpose. It reminded me again that real leadership doesn’t sit in slides — it lives in the willingness to keep showing up.
I also finalised a proposal for a transformation programme I’m genuinely excited about. It’s designed to help leaders understand change, lean into ambiguity, and coach their people through it not around it. This isn’t about surface-level skills or one-off interventions. It’s about growing the depth and confidence to lead when the path is unclear. Building leaders who can breathe in complexity and still bring others with them.
2. What lit me up
A day in Portsmouth with friend and my website designer; Andrew EBerlin - more a meander through meaning than a formal meeting. We talked websites and AI, life choices and creative decisions, then wandered off to photograph some bold brutalist architecture, including the stunningly strange Norris Library - a structure that wouldn’t look out of place next to the Guggenheim.
Something about the whole day lit me up: the presence, the play, the layers of thoughtfulness. Unexpected beauty in concrete and connection.
3. The chat I can’t stop thinking about
A deep and delicate conversation with my family on the eve of my dad’s interment. It stirred a lot. Some wounds began to heal. Others opened freshly. There was no fixing - just the rawness of being present to what’s real.
Grief is rarely tidy. Love, even less so. But this was a moment of honesty, and something in it felt sacred.
4. What shifted
Not a dramatic shift - more a softening. A gentle surrender to the not knowing. A willingness to be with what’s here, without needing to shape it or label it straight away.
Sometimes the real movement isn’t forward or upward - it’s deeper.
5. What I’m wrestling with
The interment. The looming closeness of it. The logistics have all been handled - the flowers, the words, the timings. And now the ache is louder.
I’m not just mourning a father. I’m starting to miss the man - the person behind the role.
Psychologist William Worden described grief as a set of tasks rather than stages. And one of those tasks is to find a new, enduring connection with the person who’s gone. That feels true. That feels current.
6. What I see at the edges
LinkedIn is starting to feel a lot like a school popularity contest again. Who’s playing the game best. Who sounds the most polished. Who fits the brand.
I get it. I’ve played those games - in boardrooms, at school, in more spaces than I care to admit. But I’m craving something real again. Less performance. More truth. More presence. We don’t have to opt out of the system - but we can choose how we show up inside it.
7. What I noticed
The CEO I spoke with said something I won’t forget: “You went further than I would - but we needed to.”
It landed with weight and gratitude. It reminded me of the role I often play - to stretch the space just far enough that new thinking, or feeling, or truth can enter. And to do it with care, not pressure. To push the edge without breaking trust.
It brought to mind Audre Lorde’s line: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
If we want different, we have to show up differently.
8. A word I’m carrying
Reinvention.
A word I’ve lived many times - reshaped, redefined, rebuilt. But this week, it feels like something quieter. I don’t need to reinvent everything. I just need the next iteration. The version that aligns with who I am now, not who I was before.
Life isn’t one big reinvention. It’s a cycle of refinement.
Test. Learn. Grow.
9. The question I’m living into
How do you make life simpler in a complex world?
Not smaller. Not less meaningful. Just simpler. Less noise, more clarity. Less chasing, more choosing. In a world of overstimulation and constant comparison, what does elegant sufficiency look like - and what does it ask of me?
10. What I’m grateful for
My dear friends - the ones who bring lightness, laughter, and spiritual nudges I might have missed.
My amazing children - anchors, mirrors, joy.
And this work — coaching, facilitation, transformation - that stirs the soul and pays the bills. That’s still not lost on me.
(P.S. Coaching spaces now open - if something here stirred something in you, reach out.)
11. Where I’m rooted
I’ve been thinking this week about where I came from - what that early grounding gave me, and how it still lives in me. But roots don’t always stay still. Sometimes they need replanting.
That’s what the Isle of Wight has been. A new soil. A different rhythm. A quieter strength.
And now I’m wondering: what part of my life needs replanting next?
12. What I’m reading
A friend handed me Wednesday’s Guardian. I haven’t read a paper in print in ages - and it felt different. The weight. The slowness. The invitation to pause.
It’s portent, as someone once said - and it is.
Somehow, it held more gravity than a thousand scrolling newsfeeds ever could.
13. Closing
A week of opposites meeting each other. Connection and disconnection. Strategy and sorrow. Movement and stillness.
A sea swim. A strategy review. A transformation proposal. A question I can’t quite put down.
And yes - also cycling.
Mostly, it’s been a week of stitching things together - family, work, grief, rhythm - and noticing how, if you let it, it all loops back in.
If this resonated…
With your week, your leadership, or your search for meaning - drop me a line. I’m here for those who want to live and lead more fully. Always.
Because we need more good people leading great things.
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For now; thank you
I am…
An executive coach who specialises in helping good people lead great things.
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it.
It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go. getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here