My client had come to me to help her manage a difficult boss. There had been a lot of changes in a business that she had helped start and lead, including the death of the founder.

From a business perspective, things were good. They were scaling, and my client was doing very well financially. But it was exhausting, and no longer inspiring her.

Her goal was, in her words, “To find a way to make it ten more years so I can retire and do what I want.”

She wanted passion. She wanted meaning. But the paycheck was holding her back.

What if she could have both, I asked. Money and meaning? A purpose she believed in? People she loved working with?

Suddenly she lit up.

“That could happen, couldn’t it?”

Is it worth a try?

Sometimes just knowing that something is possible is enough.

Ten months later she had a new job, making more money, plus an equity stake, at a firm whose purpose she really connected to.

Two years after that her new employer went public.

The insight she had was virtually priceless.

What are you not seeing? What’s really possible for you?

My client felt stuck. Her company was growing rapidly, and she had come to me wanting strategies for time management and “staying on top of things.”

As the founder, she was feeling like she needed to do it all. Because she always had. True, she had help. More than ever. But it was more and more people doing what she told them to do.

It was exhausting.

I asked her what she was best at.

“I love working with clients to get really clear on their vision.”

And what are you not good at?

“All the financial stuff. Budgeting, accounts receivable, project management. But my name’s on the door, so I feel like I have to be involved.”

Even though there are other people who are better at it?

Her demeanor suddenly shifted. Her shoulders slumped. Her voice softened. And it that moment, she and I both had a realization.

“I’m getting in the way, aren’t I?”

In that moment, I learned what true leadership looks like. Yes, you do the thing you love to do. You exercise your superpower.

You find other people to do everything else.

Everything.

In only a few weeks, everything changed for her. She went from overwhelm to ease and focus and joy.

She remembered why she founded her company.

To serve.

“Dad, I still don’t want to go. I just have this feeling that something horrible is going to happen.”

My son was invited to go skiing with a couple of his buddies.

He was worried about two things—

They were better skiers than him. He didn’t want to hold them up.

And for the first time, no other adults would be there.

My son and his friends are in sixth grade. I wanted him to go. And I was worried about him, and everything that could go wrong. The same things that he had talked about the night before, and now this morning.

But the time had come to choose.

I saw in that moment that I needed to choose, too. We both were deciding if I would protect him, or if he would continue to grow.

Here’s a picture of the boys at the base of the mountain. My son is on the left. He looks a little tentative to me. (And I was still tentative when I saw it.)

But he did it. And I asked him, what was it that made him decide to do it? Even though he was afraid?

“I just decided it would be fun, Dad.”

How often do we hear the stories in our heads about everything that could go wrong? Yet there is so much joy on the other side of that fear.

If only we can feel the fear and do it anyway.

Because we know it will be fun.