2,500 Miles of Clarity: What the Red Rocks Taught Me About Growth and Transformation

I just drove 2,500 miles through Utah's canyon country.

As immigrants without extended family nearby, this has become our Thanksgiving tradition—trading dinner tables for desert vistas, crowded gatherings for quiet contemplation among ancient rocks.

This year's journey took me through slot canyons so narrow I could touch both walls, across expansive vistas in Canyonlands that stretched to the horizon, past carved Arches defying gravity, and among hoodoos standing like silent sentinels.

I came seeking rest and adventure. I found something more valuable: clarity about growth, transformation, and the patient work of creating something lasting.

As I walked these ancient paths, I wasn't just observing geology. I was learning about the art of growing through challenges. Here is what the canyons taught me about our own professional journeys.

💧 The River Doesn't Rush—It Persists

Standing at the edge of the Colorado River gorge, looking down at the water snaking through the bottom, I couldn’t help reflect: the river carved these massive canyons not through force, but through persistence.

Drop by drop. Year by year. Millennium by millennium.

The river didn't attack the rock. It just kept showing up, quietly carving, steadily flowing. Today, those "quiet" waters have created some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth—canyons over a mile deep, carved through solid rock.

The Lesson: We live in a culture obsessed with overnight success, rapid transformation, and dramatic breakthroughs. But lasting change—the kind that creates fundamental shifts in your career, your leadership, your life—doesn't happen through force. It happens through persistence.

The clients I work with who achieve the most profound transformations aren't the ones looking for quick fixes. They're the ones who show up consistently, who trust the process, who understand that reshaping a career is like reshaping a canyon: it takes time, but the results are spectacular.The CEO Clock vs. The Aligned Life

🌊 Destruction Creates Something New

Flash floods in slot canyons are deadly. The power of water rushing through narrow spaces can reshape the landscape in minutes, destroying everything in its path.

Yet those same floods create the stunning slot canyons we marvel at—walls polished smooth, curves carved with impossible precision, light filtering through narrow openings to create otherworldly beauty. Sometimes what feels like destruction is actually creation in disguise.

The Lesson: I see this constantly in my coaching practice. A job loss that felt catastrophic becomes the catalyst for discovering work that actually aligns with your values. A burnout that seemed like failure becomes the wake-up call that leads to redesigning your entire professional life.

The flash floods of your professional life—the layoffs, the burnouts, the moments when everything feels like it's falling apart—might be carving out space for something extraordinary. The question isn't whether you'll face these floods. It's whether you'll recognize what they're creating.

🌱 Life Thrives in Unexpected Places

The desert seems hostile to life. Yet everywhere I looked, life persisted. Plants growing from seemingly solid rock. Ecosystems thriving along river corridors. Animals adapted to extremes.

And it wasn't just nature. We stood in awe before ancient petroglyphs etched into the canyon walls—signs of human settlements that thrived here thousands of years ago. Even in this unforgiving landscape, people found a way to build community, create art, and leave a story that has outlasted them by millennia.

The rivers didn't just carve canyons—they created entire ecosystems. They brought water to the desert. They made life possible (and sustainable for humans) in impossible places.

The Lesson: Your unique strengths create ecosystems, too.

When I work with clients on career transitions, we don't just focus on their next job title. We look at the ecosystem they create around them. How do their strengths bring "water" to their teams? Where do they enable others to thrive? Just like those ancient artists left a mark on the rock, what is the mark you are leaving on your organization?

My own journey taught me this. As CEO, I was focused on singular metrics: revenue, margins, growth. But my actual strength—the one that now sustains my portfolio career—is creating ecosystems where people and ideas connect, where synthesis happens, where community thrives.

Your professional ecosystem might not look like anyone else's. That's not a problem. That's your advantage.

🏔️ The View from the Ridge: Perspective Changes Everything

I spent hours hiking steep ridges and walking across slickrock. The terrain challenged every limit. My legs burned. My heart pounded. Several times, I questioned whether I could make it.

Then I'd reach the ridge, and the vista would open up.

From ground level, the landscape looked chaotic—random rocks, disconnected features, confusing terrain. From the ridge? Patterns emerged. I could see how water shaped the land, how geology determined the landscape, how everything connected.

The Lesson: This is what coaching provides: perspective from the ridge.

When you're in the middle of career confusion, burnout, or transition, everything feels chaotic. You can't see the patterns. But from a different vantage point—with someone who's climbed that ridge and can show you what they see—the path forward emerges.

My journey from CEO burnout to multi-dimensional fulfillment gave me that ridge perspective. I can now guide clients to vantage points I couldn't see when I was in the valley. You don't have to climb alone.

🧘 Rest Creates Space for Clarity

I drove 2,500 miles. I hiked challenging trails. I pushed my physical limits. But here's what I really did: I created space.

Space away from email. Space away from meetings. Space away from the daily demands of running a business, serving on boards, coaching clients, managing family logistics.

In that space, clarity emerged. Ideas about how to better serve my clients. Insights about new programs to launch. Creative approaches to community building. Strategic thinking I couldn't access when my calendar was full.

The Lesson: Rest isn't the opposite of productivity. Rest is what makes sustained productivity possible. The most creative thinking, the deepest insights, the most strategic breakthroughs happen when we create space. When we step back. When we let our minds wander through canyons instead of through task lists.

Your Canyon: What Needs Carving?

As I write this, back home with red desert dust still in my hiking boots, I ask you:

• What in your professional life needs the patient, persistent work of transformation?

• Where might recent "destruction" actually be creating space for something new?

• What ecosystem are you creating with your unique strengths?

These aren't just reflective questions. They're the beginning of real transformation.

If you're ready to explore these questions with a guide who's walked this path—someone who can offer that ridge perspective, who understands both the slow work of transformation and the disruptive power of strategic change—I'm here.

Just like the canyons didn't form overnight, your transformation won't either. But with the right guidance, the right perspective, and the commitment to show up consistently—the results can be spectacular.

Ready to start carving your canyon?

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(P.S. To help you start your journey, I am currently running a 20% discount on all coaching packages signed through the end of 2025. Let's make this next chapter your best one yet.)