Pruning to grow

Autumn has arrived. The air smells of wet soil and change.

Nature isn’t building right now. It’s pruning.

What no longer feeds, can go, so that what’s truly alive gets the space to grow.

Last month, I joined a program called Illuminating the Hidden Dynamics of Founder-Led Businesses taught by John Whittington.

The theme struck a chord, because it starts from a truth I recognize deeply:

The family dynamic you grow up in often becomes the blueprint for the organization you build as a founder.

In other words, as a founder, you end up building the family you never had.

That realization stopped me in my tracks. Because I saw myself.

For years, I had played the role of the fixer, the responsible one, the rescuer, the person who finds solutions and carries the weight of everyone else’s problems.

A role that once made perfect sense in my family system and one I unknowingly carried into my work.

It explains why I ended up in coaching and consulting, why I stood in the trenches alongside clients, leading transition programs, working late and taking full responsibility for whether a project succeeded or failed.

Until I realized: I don’t want to do this anymore.

I don’t want to fix.

And I don’t want to take away other people’s chance to grow by taking everything on my own shoulders.

So, I began pruning.

Not from frustration, but from choice.

I let go of parts of my work that drained my energy. The ones that kept feeding the fixer in me.

And in the space that opened, something new began to rise: my inner teacher.

That part of me gets energy from sharing knowledge, offering tools and letting insights land. Then stepping back.

Not to rescue, but to make space.

So that the other person can take ownership and grow.

Pruning can hurt. It takes courage to cut what once bloomed.

But just like in the garden, pruning brings air, light, and future.

So I’m letting the fixer rest.

And giving my inner teacher more room to bloom.

Question

What could you prune this season, in your work or your leadership, to make space for what truly wants to grow?

If you’d like to explore that together, send me an email. Let’s plan a conversation.

Photo from Google, photographer unknown.