At 19, I co-founded Resident Advisor with $400 and spent more than twenty years working alongside hundreds of people to build it.

It gave me energy, meaning and a deep sense of belonging within the music culture that inspired me. I devoted myself to the project and, for a long time, I couldn’t imagine wanting anything more professionally.

Over time, though, my identity became deeply tied to the company itself. Without really noticing, I had connected my sense of worth to the external validation of its success. From the outside, the company was thriving. Inside, I was depleted and increasingly disconnected from myself.

What started in love had drifted into obligation.

I knew I was no longer the best person to lead it, so I stepped away from the day-to-day and had to confront an important question:

Who am I without the thing I spent my life building?

That question changed the direction of my life.

Constantly striving meant I didn’t stop to truly enjoy what we had created. Stepping away gave me the space to investigate the hidden costs of devoting myself so completely to building a passion project into a global company that has always been driven more by purpose than profit. To explore what ambition looks like without enough awareness. And to understand more deeply the relationship between leading others and learning to lead oneself.

I began to see how much of my life had been shaped by unseen forces like approval, responsibility and expectation. Powerful drivers for moving a business forward, but less useful for actually feeling the fulfilment of what we were creating. Eventually, the fuel that drove me burnt me.

In six years of coaching founders, leaders and artists, I’ve seen the same pattern again and again.

People become incredibly good at pursuing a version of success that isn’t truly theirs.

The company grows. The work gets recognised. Even the Oscar nomination comes.

And they still don’t feel how they thought they would.