Enough might be closer than you think

A while ago my dad brought me some honeycomb from his friend, Roy, who keeps bees in the Highlands of Scotland. I'd been saving it, while I finished up another jar of less-exciting honey from the lowlands of Aldi. But this week, I started it. Yum.

Then, in a bee-related coincidence, I watched My Garden of a Thousand Bees on BBC iPlayer, which is exactly what it sounds like and is excellent. I found it very calming to watch wildlife film maker, Martin Dohm, in his Bristol garden paying patient and quiet attention to the bees that live there.

My YouTube video this week was inspired by a story I heard of a man who spent nearly thirty years in a high-pressure, all-or-nothing, role in financial services. He retired recently and found himself asking not "what next?" but "why did I waste so much time?" He'd spent his best years chasing a security that ultimately cost him his sense of self, so busy securing the future that he never actually got around to living his life. The full video is over on YouTube.

That's a difficult realisation, especially if you've left it to retirement to think about. What would it take to consider the questions of purpose and fulfilment earlier in life?

When I sat down to write this newsletter I thought about these three different men, one in his former croft surrounded by Scottish forest, one spending hours upon hours filming in his Bristol garden, and one on a corporate treadmill for decades of his life. What if a good life is quieter or smaller than we've been told?

In leadership, we're very good at fixing things, or at least at telling ourselves we are. If I just manage this a bit better, or wait for the next restructure, or give it another year... We stay because of the financial security, because of what people will think, because the lifestyle we've built seems to demand it. A lifestyle that requires you to be unhappy is a very high price to pay.

What I've found, working with leaders at this stage of their careers, is that reinvention in midlife looks very different from the ambition of our twenties. Back then it was about climbing up the ladder, about trying different things. Now it's more often about mission and legacy. About leading in ways that actually feel like you.

If you're in that wrong-feeling place right now, the thing I'd suggest you think about is this: what do you actually need to feel secure? Not what your current lifestyle costs, but what would genuinely be enough? It could be that enough is closer than you think. And once you know where enough is, you can start to see what else might be possible.

If this is something you'd like to think through properly with someone, I wanted to let you know that I'm opening a waiting list for 1:1 coaching. If you've been wondering whether coaching might be useful for you, now is a good moment to put your name down. You can do that here.

Useful links 🔗

This is an interesting article on evidence that high-performance management techniques also improve diversity and inclusion - drawn from over 800 companies.

Quote of the week 📣

Shout out and solidarity to the woman I heard patiently asking some blokes:

Are you trying to mansplain the manosphere to me?

What am I reading? 📚

I'm enjoying Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's latest novel Dream Count but desperately sad to read that one of her baby twin sons died recently.

What am I watching? 👀

Bees 🐝

What am I listening to?👂

I find people who can express themselves with massive certainty fascinating as I'm very different. Brené Brown is one of those people so this discussion she has with Adam Grant about authenticity and apology is very interesting.

Joy-giving things 😍

New mural in the underpass by the Mailbox in Brum 💃

Wishing you all an excellent weekend,

Lucy

ChangeOut is created by Lucy Caldicott. You can find more about my work at ChangeOut.org.

If you're a purpose-driven professional wondering whether coaching might help you think through where you are and where you're heading, I'd love to hear from you. I'm opening up coaching spaces later in 2026. Express your interest here.

You can also find me on Instagram, and LinkedIn.

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If you like what you read and you'd like to show your appreciation in cash, you can do that here. I'd be very grateful!