August 2021 – The Day Everything Stopped (and Finally Started) - From impact, to reflection, to true growth.

There are moments that interrupt everything we think we know about ourselves.
Moments we don’t plan for.
Moments that force us—not gently—to slow down, to look inward, and to ask different questions.

For me, that moment came in August 2021, on a quiet training day.
What started as a normal bike ride ended with a crash—and a serious knee injury that changed everything.

I still remember the words from my doctor:
“You won’t be able to run for at least twelve months.”
At the time, I didn’t realize how much more than running I would lose. Or gain.

Losing what defined me

I had spent most of my life building something: A career in leadership. A reputation for discipline and performance. Years of endurance training, competing in triathlons and IRONMAN races. The mindset was clear: push forward, stay consistent, always show up.

But after the accident, I couldn’t show up in the same way. Not physically. And, eventually, not mentally.

When the structure fell away—no training, no running, no clear goal—it wasn’t just my body that was injured.
It was the system I had used for years to cope, to perform, to avoid stillness.

For the first time in decades, I had to slow down.
And I didn’t like what I found at first.

The discomfort of stillness

There’s something confronting about not being able to “do.”
We are so used to filling our lives with momentum, goals, deadlines, metrics.
I certainly was.

But sitting still? Being present with discomfort, with emotion, with the unknown?
That was unfamiliar territory.

And yet—it was exactly where I needed to be.

Because beneath the frustration, fear, and doubt, I found something I had been missing for years: Honesty.
Not the kind we speak to others. But the kind we whisper to ourselves when we stop pretending we’re fine.

A new kind of progress

It took months—many of them filled with uncertainty—before I was able to start walking, then jogging, then slowly rebuilding my body. But somewhere in that process, something else started to rebuild as well.

My relationship to pressure changed.
My identity became less about performance and more about presence.
And I stopped chasing milestones to prove something—and started moving from something deeper.

When I eventually stood at the starting line of IRONMAN Thun 2023, nearly two years later, it was more than just a race.
It was a quiet declaration:
That I had come back. But not as the same person.

Growth through challenge, not despite it

This experience didn’t just change how I train.
It changed how I lead. How I coach. How I live.

Today, I support others through similar turning points.
Not always through injury, but through the kind of inner pause that forces us to reconsider:
Who am I—when I’m not performing?

In my coaching, we don’t rush to rebuild. We listen. We reflect. We ask the right questions.
And from there, we begin again—not from pressure, but from presence.

Final thought

If you’re in your own moment of disruption—whether it’s loud and sudden, or quiet and creeping—I want you to know:
You’re not broken. And you don’t have to go back to who you were before.

You can start again—wiser, clearer, and more aligned.

Growth doesn’t happen because we push harder. It happens when we pause long enough to notice what’s really calling us forward.

Ready to reconnect with what matters most? Let’s start with a conversation.