The cold sweats began on the flight home.
10 hours from Munich to Denver.
I started with one blanket. Then quickly added a second. Then grabbed a sweater from my bag in the overhead bin.
Shiver. Relief. Shiver. Relief. Rinse and repeat.
This sucks I said to myself no less than 150 times. Sydney Sweeney would have to try to fix me through all 150 from the comfort of the headrest movie screen.
I was concerned about whatever sickness was lurking over me, sure.
But I also had a pit in my stomach that I couldn’t shake. It’s the pit that can only be attributed to intuition - some pesky version of ourselves that knows more about life than we do, and nudges us back on course when needed.
I had spent the past 2 days in Munich meeting with executives and potential future colleagues from a fitness technology company - the culmination of several months of Zoom conversations from across the pond.
I was supposed to make a final decision in the next couple of days. There was plenty to like about the opportunity. The business was thriving across Europe, and they were hiring their first North American sales leader. That was me, they thought.
But that damn pit in my stomach…
It was something no comp package or go-to-market plan could alleviate.
2 days later the cold sweats were still around and had worked their way through the majority of my wardrobe. But at least I was home.
Amidst the havoc of the worst sickness of my adult life, I fired off an email that arrived in German inboxes as they were settling into their Friday evening.
I wasn’t moving forward with their offer.
It’s not you, it’s me. But in business casual terms.
And it was true.
Because my heart is in coaching. I love coaching in a way that isn’t easily replaceable with comp guarantees or term sheets.
It’s true that I miss leading teams.
But at the expense of giving up the thing I love? The thing I’ve been building for the past year and a half?
My intuition wouldn’t allow it. So I burned the boats.
A curious thing happened after I turned the offer down.
I was flooded with a renewed energy for my coaching business.
I may have been bedridden, but that didn’t stop the endless stream of ideas, insights, and clarity for where to take my coaching business next. Comfort amidst the discomfort.
Where had these ideas and this energy been hiding?
Nowhere it turns out. I had simply been diverting them frivolously into the ether.
See…it’s impossible to serve two compelling futures.
Our conscious and subconscious minds don’t know what to do with that. We’re wired to focus. With so much noise in the world, this is how we filter.
When I introduced this potential of another job into the mix, the muse simply moved on. She doesn’t wait around until we ask her to dance.
But when the boats were burned? That was her cue to return.
We’re dancing again.
And I won’t be turning off the music anytime soon.
If you find value in the things I publish here, it’d mean the world if you’d share it with someone else. It’s the only way this space and community continues to grow.
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin