One of the biggest insights for me was realizing how much of my thinking was still shaped by a previous burnout — and by the assumption that I hadn’t fully recovered from it. Somewhere along the way, I had kept using an outdated estimate of my own capacity.

Going through the exercise made me reassess the resources I actually have now — time, energy, focus.

The most surprising part was the sorting. The biggest bucket by far was “things I can directly control.” The “influence” bucket was roughly half its size — and only a tiny fraction of my fears actually landed outside my control.

That visual completely changed how the whole problem felt.

I ended up with a few simple actions that will give me better data before I make any bigger decisions — and a very different sense of agency.

Thank you for this practice. Such a simple tool, and it unlocked much more than I expected. ❤️

I found 5 fear points, some probably come from one another, but been glad to work them out and get some ideas on how to approach them.

Most interesting part for me was - if you really allow yourself to think about what is the actual cause of the problem you trying to reinvent and start digging - you might found surprising points which you were not aware of 🫣

A significant part of this seems to stem from questioning my own potential and feeling overwhelmed by the initial step—the uncertainty of where to begin and the fear of taking that first step.

For me, fear and influence feel like one bundle, because they are deeply intertwined and influence each other. In a way, expanding my sense of control and influence helps me move through the fear rather than be governed by it.

Within the consulting reinvention my fears are: Compromise morals, Make pest of myself by selling, Wasted efforts and time.

Within recovering my fitness: An incident by exercising too hard, An incident when alone, Unknown reasons for incidents.

I can control compromising my morals (assuming I can find financial support along the way, which I can by tapping pension). I can control wasting potential (by giving whether or not I charge for the services). I can control small sessions of exercise (even if we don't know all the details).

I am not totally in control of whether my selling irritates another, nor whether my efforts will influence things for the better. I can work toward refining my skills and efforts to have these become more successful in future. But these are not in my direct --- and next --- control.

So, my next step will be to go ahead and feel the fear --- and count to 90! Let it develop and flow through me and away. Then look again at the things that I can control.

Brenda Sullivan

25 August

My biggest personal realization was how much of my self-doubt came from my own mind spinning out potential negative outcomes. I was constantly building worst-case scenarios in my head, when in reality, those thoughts were just moments of pure fear that only made things worse.

During this process, the phrase "I'm not stupid, I'm scared" completely shifted my perspective. It unlocked a totally new way of looking at my thoughts, my approaches, and the way I react to challenges, helping me realize I wasn't lacking capacity; I was just navigating fear.

Mapping everything out forced me to audit the personal resources I actually possess right now: my energy, my time, my core skills, and my support network.

I don't like that. It's good news, but it also means there isn't much left to blame.

The one that got me was "I'm not doing enough." I've been arguing with that thought for years and never won once. So I stopped trying to feel differently about it and just set a number instead: a few hours a week, written down. If the hours are there, the week counts.

I live in Detroit Lakes, MN where the summer is gorgeous and fall will be here soon which is equally gorgeous. Then it is winter and it gets really cold here. So we travel during the winter to escape the cold.

More about me later with Day 2 Homework.

Because global warming significantly affects coffee production worldwide, I used these labs to conduct some research.

This maps coffee farmers as the "customer," using the seven factors the source list keeps surfacing: yield/volume, price stability, traditional shade-grown quality, climate resilience infrastructure, pest and disease resistance, cooperative/market ties, and shade-tree diversity.

Before the crisis (teal curve): farmers competed mainly on raw output and price — yield and price stability were the high-importance factors, quality practices and cooperative ties were secondary, and resilience infrastructure, pest resistance, and shade-tree diversity barely registered.

After the crisis (coral curve): the sources show that shift inverting. Gabriel-Hernández & Barradas project a 58% yield loss under a 5°C warming scenario, so raw yield alone stops being a reliable lever and drops to medium importance relative to everything else.

Great tool, though, that I hope to use in the future not only internally but with my clients! Thank you.

I chose to look at myself as the customer — and realized that I’ve been designing parts of my life for an outdated version of me: someone recovering from burnout, dealing with immediate pressures, and mostly optimizing for survival and self-protection.

The current version of me is ready to build a life, not just make life manageable. And that creates completely different criteria.

Some things stayed consistently important — flexibility, curiosity, pleasure, and being mindful of the cost to myself. But several entirely new criteria appeared: future freedom, reliability, clearer commitments, and an architecture where responsibility actually creates more freedom rather than taking it away.

My favorite insight was that freedom itself has changed meaning for me. It used to mean being able to step away from commitments when I needed to choose myself. Now, it increasingly means choosing my commitments carefully, keeping them — and protecting everything outside them as genuinely mine.

Such an interesting exercise. ❤️

It does give me a clear picture of how much has changed in my life & inside myself, so restructuring my week days is very possible... And I'm choosing to make the change, as its just old habits & unfound fears limiting the change :)

This restructure is an important foundation on which I can then build the reinvention of my wellbeing business, as well as consulting offerings.

Thanks so much Dr. Nadya & team for such awesome practical tools & reinvention process 🙏🏼🌀✨

This resonates with one of the outcomes from yesterday's homework - FEAR. Fear that 'technology' is something I will 'never master enough to overcome glitches'. I will never 'keep up' and all my decades of deep knowledge and insight will stay right where they are in the tiny skull-shaped kingdom between my ears. Unheard and impactless. Worse - unmonetised!

The hardest thing about fear I think is how it doesn't negotiate. It doesn't have language. Frankly it's thick as a plank sometimes. It just pounces and we feel it when there's no need.

So my homework post is image free. Now the fear becomes - will anyone read it if it doesn't come with a clickbait pic? If my Linked in experience is to be believed no-one has even read THIS far... so maybe not?! What is in my control right now is to post anyway, to share written reflections around both the first two days.

My work largely comes down to helping people to shift the conversations they are having around change - so for me this is sweet spot space anyway.

And I am reading it! ME! That matters. Working on our inside game before getting to the external game is going to become a more important type of intelligence for all of us the era of continuous reinvention.

The thing I want to call out in any case is not about the tool itself (it's great, it works and I appreciate seeing the picture of other people's matrices) but the power of integration between the first two tools. I imagine this will continue to be a thing - I predict all the tools we find in Reinvention Lab will bring the magic in how they mutually support and reinforce the heavy lifting done by each other. This is my favourite insight so far.

With decades-deep experience in helping leaders lead through change the value of simple, relatable, actionable tools that make what's complex simple is crystal clear to me. But the magic to is less in the (great) tools and more in how, collectively, they shift the mindset with which we enable people to engage in the conversation. The right conversation. In the right way.

One more thing I have to share out loud (and alas, right now, image free!)

It's this: I have so many questions! So many! Where do I take these questions?! Here are a few, to share a flavour of what I want to share in chat but it doesn't seem the place for it.

• if reinvention is needed at the frequency we agreed (and it is) then what about values and culture? They are intended as 'the rock in the waves', an unchanging 'North Star': but do we still need a rock in this new era? Or should we be advised clients to drop that idea and consider, a flexible value sets and temporary cultures? Here I can see that Blue Ocean Canvas could help to reframe, refocu and redirect conversations about culture, and values, and what they are for moving forward. Especially combined with a conversation about FEAR - I suspect it will be quite scary to suggest turning on it's head all that we ever knew about organisatinal But I cannot see how it escapes the work we are doing Reinvention Academy.

  Another example...

• If the blue ocean canvas is necessarily retrospective (before vs after, then vs now) how can we use it to good effect in the context of much being unknown? This is the space I am in with clients now: most of their leading change challenges are about convincing people to step into the unknown, in full awareness that 'there be monsters' and when they themselves are playing in the grey without knowing what's coming next. Here's where I'm thinking a combination of FEAR and Blue Ocean Canvas work would be immensely powerful here too. Either tool alone is insufficient to get past the 'yes, but....' repsonse; but together an alchemy happens and it's a different sort of conversation.

And here I am going to stop. (And take my macbook to the macbook hospital ER.)

If you managed to get to the end of this, thank you for your tenacity and for reading it. I would LOVE to 'kick the tyres' with you on such things - these questions are tip of iceberg, and I can't see what i can't see so other questions are something I would love to kick the tyres on too.

Meanwhile, can't wait for Wednesday and to see where we are then.

Love to all, keep the faith, hold your nerve, and let's keep reinventing together.

Cathy

Mapping out the "before vs. after" priorities showed me that I was over-delivering on things that no longer matter while ignoring what truly creates value.

The most eye-opening part was treating my future self as the main client. I stopped holding myself to old standards and realized that my "future me" simply needs sustainable habits, peace of mind, and focused execution to thrive.

I've experienced a true refreshment in my thoughts that I had needed for so long.

I printed out multiple copies of the strategy canvas page, so that I can drill down a little from the macro situation to program level.

Looking forward to today’s session. I’ll only be live for the first bit due to a scheduling conflict but will look for the replay this afternoon.

Today, I was my own Customer, solving my own problem.

The problem was about my personal next level growth after retirement. I had looked at an avenue but kept postponing it due to self doubts and supposed "requirements" which I was not having, and the difficulty levels of getting into that level.

The Day 1 workshop busted a few of the personal fears and led me to take action and dig deeper into that field. The information gathered provided support to the Day 2 workshop.

The Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas was revealing. The criteria considered were all those "requirements" which I was supposed to not possess and hence the barriers. Plotting the "Beliefs of Before" and the "Data of After", made me realize that the barriers were not barriers at all, and that my own expertise will actually help me scale that level.

Today I realized the value of the Tools used in the Day 1 and Day 2 workshops!

I loved and take away: we are dealing with fear, not 'stupid' - in my experience with change in teams - so many people are traumatised by being treated as stupid when they are just afraid. Love this... thank you.

Atholl Williams posted 26 August 2026

The synchronicity of Athol Williams post was not lost on me.

I Still need to discover how can I adapt to the new reality the canvas is showing me.

Hope my exercise and conclusions so far are helpful for someone else!

Writing this out really helped me see things differently and feel ok with it.

I am stuck with my book and I am working through how to organize my time to be more productive so this is incredibly helpful.

Day 1 was "Bust the Fear" tool. Day 2 was "Overcoming the Barriers" tool. Ready to take on the next level.

In the Day 3 Homework, I brainstormed on what to decrease / increase / remove / add. The list that came out was what I had wanted to do since a long time but had kept putting off. Now the prioritization - impact first, readiness next. The chart of the plot of the priorities gave me the direction I need to tread to achieve my goal. That was truly a wonderful feeling!

Day 3 was the Tool for showing the way to positive action! Amazing!

The 3 day exercise simply demolished the myths, false beliefs and resulting inaction and showed the way on how seemingly distant and hazy Goals can be reached and fast.

Look forward to Day 4 and Day 5!!

This simplified approach to ranking two dimensions was easy, quick and right on target. I now feel confident in how our nonprofit organization will roll out our fundraising campaign. Understanding the customers mindset gives us a strong starting point. I'm thrilled! Without this tool I would have followed a traditional linear timeline. I can't wait to see the results!!!!

These exercises are great because they do make you really think. I look forward to the next session to hear the strategy for keeping this learning top of mind and in my vision going forward.

Realised how much I have to do to get my online presence into a revenue source. Work to do but now I have clarity.

This tool is so simple, pragmatic and accessible I decided to try it out in reinvention of a small aspect of a real previous piece of work I had done.

The work was with a senior pharma team in a global pharma company. They had a massive job thinking through their influence strategy to redirect attention and resources into the new work they were launching, and away from the areas from which the organisation had traditionally become rich.

The organistaion is a machine set up for doing what they have always done. Like a tanker, hard to redirect!

And they were starting to do change the conversation about who we are and what we stand for - very much swimming against the tide on almost EVERY dimension you can think of.

Information overload was a huge issue, and synthesising all the moving parts was causing burnout, headaches and analysis paralysis.

We didn't think of this method of prioritisation, but when i gave it a try this morning on the above brainstorm (who do we need to influence and why?) what emerged was a clear action plan for where to start and what message to start with.

I started by using the approach on who to influence (IMPACT)

Then I repeated it with 'readiness to hear this message' (why?).

The result was very helpful. Where to start in a sea of different options and conversations. (I did this bit on my kitchen table - so simple.)

This particular brainstorn was around 10% of the total work done by the team on that day, so imagine if we'd applied the same principle to the rest of the charts we produced on the walls back then. (We raised a lot of questions about what was needed - it was a very complex scenario)

It's eye-opening to see how much clarification emerges when you do it this way. The day was considered a success in any case, but we could have taken it to the next level and really sharped up next steps with more laser focus. This would have shortened decision loops and feeback loops, which is increasingly important as Nadya has already told us. Pace matters. Clarity matters. Simplicity in sea of complexity is at a premium.

The readiness-impact matrix exercise made me think about the criteria I use to decide whether something is ready, and about how impact shifts when factors interact with each other.

Some of the actions felt hard at first, but with the right incentives, I know I have the discipline and curiosity to follow through. That's why I decided to push my boundaries and design an experiment to test my assumptions. This may not be the right approach for everyone, but if you're curious whether your own fears actually hold up, the tool I'm proposing here might help.

Feel free to ask questions. And if you'd like the tracking template, based on the structure I used here, just let me know.

With the reinvention methods, what could have taken 18 months to 2 yrs can now be accomplished in 3-6 months. Wow!

That was great, but it was mainly her answer that inspired me, which was that she started to find the champions, the ones ready to change.

That got me thinking: how do I engage the energy that's already out there to change some of the bigger things more quickly? So I updated my portfolio to taking the "big" cultural change, combine it with just one action to begin to build learning communities with founding members who are already prepared for Reinvention.