“Don’t be afraid to start over — it’s a chance to build something better this time.”

I saw this quote the other day, and something about it felt too neat. Too clean. Like someone took a messy, human truth and sanded off all the edges to make it fit on a Pinterest board.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in starting over. I believe in burning things down when they don’t fit anymore. But after a life full of fresh starts, relocations, pivots, and rebuilds, I can tell you this:

Starting over isn’t just a chance to build something better, it’s a chance to finally face why you built the wrong thing in the first place.

That’s the part no one wants to talk about.

We love reinvention. We romanticize the fresh start, the blank slate. But if you’ve lived through enough of them, you know the truth; you don’t actually get a blank slate. You carry every old belief, every survival strategy, every self-sabotaging pattern into the next thing, unless you consciously unpack them.

That’s what I had to learn the hard way. From London to the US and out again. Every move wasn’t just about finding the right place, it was about facing the fact that no place would feel right until I stopped running from myself.

And that’s why this newsletter isn’t just about starting over.

It’s about learning to stay.

Because, before you leave anything; a place, a job, a relationship, a version of yourself, you have to understand why you want to leave at all. You have to be willing to sit in the discomfort long enough to ask:
What am I really searching for?

So yes, starting over can be powerful.
But starting over with clarity? That’s where the real magic is.

Because:
You can’t leave until you can stay.

The First Fresh Start — And the Second, And the Third

London was supposed to be an adventure, and it was. But it was also a revolving door of temporary solutions. We moved house four times in 5 years, in London. Each time, we thought: This will be the one. The house that fits. The neighborhood that clicks. The place that finally feels like “home.”

It never was.

The houses leaked. The neighborhoods didn’t fit. But it was deeper than that. Each move whispered: Maybe we’re not supposed to be here at all.

That whisper became a conversation. A plan. A relocation back to the US. We told ourselves this was the reset we needed. Back on familiar soil, closer to family. Surely, that would fix it.

But within months of being back, I wanted to leave again.

It made no sense on paper. We had everything we said we wanted; space, support, fresh air. And yet, I was restless. That itch to “go somewhere else” came right back.

But,
It was never about the place.

London wasn’t the problem.
The US wasn’t the solution.
Every move was just a distraction from the deeper work I didn’t want to face.

— the work of belonging to my own life.

That’s when I said the words that changed everything for me:
“I can’t leave until I can stay.”

That became my mantra. My compass. My uncomfortable mirror. It forced me to stop romanticizing the next fresh start and ask:
Why am I so scared to sit still?
Constant movement can feel like progress, but if you’re not processing the lessons from the last chapter, you’re just dragging the same baggage into the next one.

What Starting Over Actually Means (It’s Not What You Think)

We love the idea of starting over. The clean slate. The fresh page. The fantasy that if we just change our environment, everything else will magically fall into place.

It’s seductive: the belief that a new zip code, a new business, a new relationship, or even a new parenting style will erase the old frustration.

But the truth is — and I learned this the hard way — starting over is never external.

Every time you pack a bag, update your website, leave a job, break up with a partner, or change schools for your kids, you’re bringing yourself with you.

• Every old belief.

• Every self-doubt.

• Every pattern you haven’t healed.

• Every story you tell yourself about who you are and what you’re capable of.

A fresh start can only take you as far as the beliefs you’re willing to unpack.

That’s why I kept wanting to leave; London, the US, each “next chapter.” It wasn’t the location that was wrong. It was that I kept expecting the place to do the healing I needed to do.

Starting over doesn’t work unless you’re also starting over internally.

And that work? It’s messy.

• It means admitting you made decisions out of fear, not vision.

• It means grieving the time you spent forcing something to work that was never yours to carry.

• It means getting radically honest about why you tolerated things you knew were wrong, and what you thought you had to prove by staying.

It’s not the leaving that’s hard. It’s the honesty required to leave well.

Because when you do that work, really do it, you realize:
You’re never starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience.

That experience is gold, but only if you process it. Otherwise, you’re not starting over, you’re repeating the past, just with different scenery.

This realization was uncomfortable at first. I wanted to believe the problem was external because external problems are easier to fix. Find a better house. Get a new job. Choose a new curriculum for the kids. Move to a place with more sunshine.

But every time I made those changes without doing the internal inventory, I ended up in the exact same place; restless, resentful, and searching for the next fix.

That’s when I saw the pattern:

• My restlessness wasn’t about the house, the city, or even the career.

• It was about leadership, my own leadership.

• It was about the fact that I was outsourcing my sense of safety to external circumstances, instead of stepping fully into my role as the architect of my own life.

Starting over is not a relocation. It’s a reclamation.

It’s reclaiming your power to decide what you need, what you value, and what you’re no longer willing to tolerate without needing permission from the world.

And that realization, the one most people avoid, is the real gift of every “failed” attempt, every fresh start, every time you have to admit, “This isn’t working.”

Because the thing you’re actually building every single time, is you.

The Playground is the First Boardroom

This all hit me, oddly enough, at the playground.

Watching my kids fall, get back up, and keep going, I realized:
Resilience isn’t something we teach with words. It’s something we model in real time.

When they were babies, I made a decision:
I would never overreact to their falls.

Every fall, they’d look at me to decide:
Is this a disaster? Or just life?

If I gasped and panicked, I taught them that falling was dangerous.
If I smiled and said, “You’re okay, keep going,” I taught them that falling was part of the process.

How we respond to our kids’ falls becomes their inner voice for life.

That same voice will guide them when:

• They flunk a test.

• They lose a friend.

• They bomb their first presentation.

• They make a huge mistake in business.

I realized:
I wasn’t just shaping their childhood. I was shaping their relationship with failure itself.

That’s leadership.
And it’s the exact leadership most of us were never taught.

The Myth of Real Failure

Most people think failure is the thing to avoid; the red mark, the embarrassing moment, the wrong turn.

But that’s not the real failure.

The real failure is refusing to rise.
The real failure is avoiding the fall altogether.

We were taught to fear the wrong thing. We were taught to fear making mistakes, looking foolish, having to admit we didn’t know everything. We were never taught to fear staying stuck.

This is why so many adults are frozen, paralyzed between what they have and what they want, afraid to let go because they think letting go means the last chapter “didn’t count.”

We confuse endings with failures and that confusion traps entire families in mediocrity.

But what if the real failure isn’t in ending? What if it’s in refusing to evolve?

The most dangerous belief you can pass down to your kids is this:
If something isn’t working, just try harder.

Because that’s how you raise kids who don’t know when to pivot, who can’t recognize when a chapter has served its purpose and it’s time to write a new one.

That’s not resilience. That’s stubbornness dressed up as virtue.

And I had to unlearn it myself in real time so my kids wouldn’t inherit it.

The Real Root of Shame

Most people think they feel shame about what they did.
But more often than not, the deepest shame comes from what we didn’t do.

• The chances we didn’t take.

• The conversations we didn’t have.

• The changes we knew we needed but never made.

Because it’s not the mistakes that haunt us, it’s the moments we betrayed our own intuition to play it safe.

What I Want My Kids to Know

I don’t want my kids to fear mistakes. I want them to fear numbness.
I want them to fear wasting years in the wrong story because they were too scared to say, “This isn’t it.”
I want them to know that changing your mind isn’t flaky, it’s wisdom in action.

And I want them to know that every time I’ve had to start over, every time I’ve had to admit I got it wrong, I didn’t lose anything. I gained clarity. I gained courage. I gained data for what comes next.

The Real Parenting Lesson
What if we taught our kids that endings aren’t failures, they’re upgrades?
What if we taught them that pivots aren’t shameful, they’re proof that you’re awake, paying attention, and willing to lead your life instead of drifting through it?

That’s what I want my family culture to teach:
Falling is part of life. So is getting back up. But the bravest thing you’ll ever do is admit when it’s time to stop running and actually face why you fell in the first place.

The Real Reason People Fear Starting Over

If you ask most people why they fear starting over, they’ll say:

• It’s too much work.

• I’m too old.

• I’ve invested too much.

• What will people think?

None of that is the real reason.
The real reason is:
They’ve tied their identity to what they built — even if what they built is making them miserable.

• If I leave this job, who am I?

• If I change how I parent, was I wrong all along?

• If I leave this marriage, does that mean I failed at love?

We don’t fear the pivot. We fear losing the story we built around staying.

The Identity Trap

This isn’t just about parenting.
This is about being human.

Most people would rather cling to a painful identity than face the unknown of becoming someone new.

• They’ll defend a career that’s killing them because “This is who I am.”

• They’ll stick to parenting techniques that suffocate their family because “This is what good mothers do.”

• They’ll stay in a life they’ve outgrown because “This is what success looks like.”

But here’s the truth:
You are not your job.
You are not your house.
You are not your parenting style.
You are not your past decisions.

You are a living, evolving, constantly-expanding human being.
And evolving doesn’t mean you were wrong.
It means you’re awake.
It means you’re brave enough to tell the truth even when that truth changes.

The Parenting Reframe

As parents, every decision feels heavier.
Because it’s not just about us, it’s about what we’re teaching our kids about change.

Our kids don’t need us to be perfect. They need us to be adaptable.

They need to see us:

• Admit when something isn’t working.

• Take responsibility without shame.

• Change our minds without guilt.

• Model curiosity over rigidity.

Families that thrive aren’t the ones who get it right the first time.
They’re the ones who evolve, together.

The Final Aha

The goal isn’t to raise kids who cling to one identity at all costs.
The goal is to raise kids who know:
Identity is something they shape over and over again.

And the only way they’ll know that is if we stop fearing it for ourselves.

That’s what it means to Parent Like a CEO not defending the old plan, but evolving it with courage and clarity.

So here’s your question:
What story are you still defending — not because it works, but because you built your identity around it?

And what if the bravest thing you could do for yourself and your family was rewrite it?