The Fire Was Real. The Conversation Was Short. The Truth Went Deeper Anyway.

Tonight’s Spark & Fire Leadership Huddle with Tanya, Sanne, and Sandra did not unfold the way I imagined.

When I created these campfires, I pictured a circle.

Voices crossing the flames.

Stories offered from different hands.

A place where leadership would be explored not only through ideas, but through lived human truth.

Tonight became something else.

I read.

For a long time. The randomizer landed on a deep story-telling chapter 20 pages long. So we made a vote, read one page or dug into the complete chapter. The decision was made.

Others listened, reflected, encouraged, and shared some beautiful insights. But if I am honest, it felt less like a campfire conversation and more like a one-way offering with pockets of dialogue around the edges.

And honesty matters to me more than branding.

So I will not pretend it was something it was not.

It was meaningful.

It was intimate.

It was warm.

It held depth.

But it also showed me where this space still wants to grow.

Because a real campfire is not built by one person holding the flame while others watch.

It is shared fire.

It is many people daring to bring wood.

It is many people risking their own voice.

It is humanity moving in more than one direction.

And strangely, even though the conversation was shorter than I wanted, something powerful still happened.

I read from The Cracking Open.

A chapter from my book about burnout, identity, abandonment wounds, self-worth, survival patterns, and the painful journey of coming home to myself.

Years ago, I wrote that chapter from one layer of truth.

Tonight, reading it aloud, I could feel something unexpected.

I am in the cracking open again.

Not the same one.

A deeper one.

Faster.

More emotional.

Less polished.

Less defended.

When I was younger, I could not cry like I cry now.

I could not let emotion move through me the way I can now.

I could not name pain while I was in it.

I could not invite people in when something hurt.

Back then, strength meant composure.

Strength meant carrying it alone.

Strength meant never falling apart where anyone could see.

People thought I was incredibly strong.

They were seeing armor.

Now, I cry more easily.

I feel more deeply.

Sometimes I crash harder.

But the crash is healthier.

Because I move through it instead of storing it.

Because I recognize the dragons sooner.

Because I no longer confuse suppression with resilience.

Because I can ask for help before the castle walls are fully rebuilt.

That is what tonight reminded me.

Sometimes healing feels worse before it feels better because numbness looks stable from the outside.

When someone begins to feel again, it can look messier.

When someone begins to tell the truth, it can look shakier.

When someone stops performing strength, it can look like weakness.

But often it is growth.

A deeper cracking open does not mean you failed the first one.

It means there was more life beneath the first layer.

That is true for many of us.

We think healing is one breakthrough.

One insight.

One season.

One book chapter.

One brave decision.

But often healing is spiral-shaped.

We revisit the same wound with new capacity.

We meet the same dragon with stronger hands.

We face the same grief with more breath in our lungs.

We return to old pain carrying tools we did not have before.

It can feel repetitive.

It is not repetition.

It is depth.

Tonight I also heard something that keeps repeating itself in my leadership work:

People are hungry to be whole.

One participant spoke about how many mothers lose themselves inside motherhood and struggle to find their identity again.

Another spoke about never wanting leadership because professional spaces felt split, rigid, performative, disconnected from real humanity.

Another reflected on how universal the journey inward truly is.

And I found myself remembering what I have seen with hundreds of people in my programs:

Almost no one has always felt fully seen, fully heard, fully understood.

That longing crosses titles, industries, salaries, backgrounds, trauma histories, and personalities.

Almost everyone carries some ache around not being fully met.

This matters more than most leadership books admit.

Because leadership does not fail only through poor strategy.

Leadership fails when humans are treated like functions.

Leadership fails when people are taught to split themselves in two, the professional self and the real self.

Leadership fails when vulnerability is mocked, emotional truth is punished, and polished detachment is mistaken for competence.

Leadership fails when people are rewarded for performing strength while quietly drowning.

And leadership transforms when people begin to integrate.

When someone no longer has to memorize who they are in each room.

When someone can be grounded, capable, and human at the same time.

When someone can hold standards without losing softness.

When someone can lead others without abandoning themselves.

That is the kind of leadership I care about.

Not performative leadership.

Not LinkedIn quote-card leadership.

Not confidence theater.

Real leadership.

The kind born when a person faces their inner architecture honestly.

Tonight also gave me a truth about the future of these huddles.

I do not want this space to become a reading audience.

I want it to become a circle.

So next campfire, I want to experiment with something different.

I want to invite others to bring a story of their own.

A leadership moment.

A failure.

A turning point.

A dragon encounter.

A season of loss.

A moment they finally chose themselves.

A time they spoke up.

A time they stayed silent and learned from it.

A time they discovered what they need to thrive.

Not polished lessons.

Not TED Talks.

Just something real.

Because people do not only grow through advice.

They grow through recognition.

They grow when another person speaks honestly and something inside them whispers, me too.

They grow when truth passes hand to hand.

They grow when they realize their inner world is not strange, broken, dramatic, or too much.

It is human.

That is what I want The Spark & Fire to become more and more.

Not a stage.

A circle.

Not spectators.

Participants.

Not me holding all the logs.

All of us building warmth together.

And perhaps that starts with me saying something else honestly:

I am still cracking open.

Even now.

Even after the book.

Even after the workshops.

Even after the insights.

Even after helping others.

Maybe especially because of all that.

Growth does not exempt us from humanity.

Wisdom does not cancel wounds.

Teaching does not mean finished.

Sometimes the guide is still in the cave too.

And maybe that is exactly why the guidance can be real.

So if you find yourself in another cycle, another grief, another identity shift, another emotional season you thought you had already “dealt with”…

Please remember:

You may not be going backwards.

You may be going deeper.

There is a difference.

And if tonight stirred something in you, perhaps next time you come to the fire, bring a story.

Bring a truth.

Bring a question.

Bring a crack in the wall.

Bring the part of you that is ready to be seen.

That is where real leadership begins.

Not in certainty.

In courage.

Not in perfection.

In presence.

Not in having finished the journey.

In daring to walk it honestly, together.

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