The Activated Leader™ | Issue #43
In this issue:
The moment I realized I was in the messy middle, I had everything on paper.
The title. The comp. The results.
I also felt like I was running a race on a track I hadn't agreed to run.
For a long time, I called it restlessness. I told myself it was ambition. I figured if I just pushed harder, something would finally click.
What I didn't know was that what I was feeling had a name. And naming it changed everything.
This week's tool (get it now before you read further):
If we haven't connected on LinkedIn yet, come find me there. It's where I post every day and where this community lives between issues.
Here's the map.
Stage 1: The Crack.
Something shifts. A reorg. A promotion that reveals a misalignment you'd been ignoring. A moment of honest clarity you weren't ready for. You can't unsee it. The old version of success stops being enough. This stage has energy. It's disorienting but it moves.
Stage 2: The In-Between.
This is where people get lost. The old identity doesn't fit anymore, but the new one hasn't formed yet. You keep performing at a high level on the outside while quietly running on empty on the inside. You're still delivering. Still showing up. Still looking like the person everyone expects you to be.
And it is exhausting.
This is the stage most people spend years in. Not because they're weak. Because they don't know it has a name.
Harvard Business Review research backs this up. Herminia Ibarra, one of the world's leading experts on career transitions, has spent two decades studying this exact experience. One leader in her research described it this way: nobody warned them they were going to go through something that required a skill they didn't have. The skill of waiting. If that line lands for you, you're probably in Stage 2. Read her full piece here.
Stage 3: The Emergence.
Not a destination. Not a finish line. A new orientation. You stop performing a version of yourself that was built for someone else's definition of success. You start building something that is actually yours.
The four things that keep people in Stage 2
Waiting for clarity before moving. Clarity comes from motion, not stillness. The people who move through the middle fastest are the ones who take one small action before they feel ready.
Performing their way through instead of sitting with the discomfort. High performers are wired to execute. The middle requires something different. Reflection. Honesty. A willingness to not know for a little while.
Not naming what's happening so it stays formless and heavy. When you don't have words for it, it feels like something is wrong with you. When you name it, it becomes something you're moving through instead of something you're trapped inside.
Letting someone else's timeline define their urgency. The middle takes the time it takes. The people who rush it for external reasons tend to land in a version of Stage 3 that still doesn't fit.
This week's tool: The Messy Middle Locator
Five questions. One page. Designed to help you figure out exactly where you are and what moving forward actually requires. Download it here. [MESSY MIDDLE LOCATOR LINK]
If you want to go deeper:
The Messy Middle Locator is the start. But if you've been in Stage 2 for a while, a one-page tool won't move you through it.
That's what I do.
The Activated Leader Transition Program. Six weeks, structured, built for the high performer who is doing everything right and still feeling stuck. Hit reply and type LET'S GO for more details.
Or start smaller. Hit reply and type MIDDLE, and I'll send you a personal voice note with the one question that usually cracks this open in the first five minutes. I keep these personal, not automated, so I'll only be sending them through Tuesday.
If you're planning an event where this message needs to land, I'd love to talk. Book Me to Speak
P.S. Next week, I'm sharing what it looks like on the other side. A client story that shows what activation actually looks like in real life. You won't want to miss it.
