June Museletter series 3/4: The Art of the Strategic Descent
Transformation isn’t about reaching for more; it’s about better incorporating the growth you’ve already achieved.
This week’s MuseLetter guides you through aligning your Thinking, Feeling, and Doing to ensure the wisdom of your summit stays with you when you head back down the mountain. It’s time to stop sprinting toward the next trailhead and start making your transformation part of your daily rhythm.
Adventurer, welcome back to the trail… We are three weeks into June, and we’re moving deeper into this sacred phase of our work: The Strategic Descent.
If you have been walking with me these past few weeks, you know that we have already done much of the heavy internal work… We acknowledged the “Success Hangover” as that hollow, unanchored feeling that hits when the adrenaline of the climb finally wears off. And we’ve begun the deep work of processing what that win actually meant to us.
We have spent time clarifying our Thinking t(he map we draw for our live), and we’ve spent time honoring our Feeling (the compass that tells us if we’re on the right mountain).
But today, I want to talk about the Doing part of the descent, which we often forget is also an active process. Today, we address our actions. This is the expression of our transformation in the physical world. It is the habits, movements, and tangible steps that give our internal shifts form.
Now, I have a question for you, and I want you to be honest with yourself:
When you come down from the summit of a mountain, big or small, do you walk back into your office, your home, or your team with the same way of doing things you had before you left?
Too many of us say “yes,” because when we finish the project, survive the crisis, or hit the target, we immediately pick up the same old tools, open the same cluttered calendar, and fall back into the same “grinding” rhythm we had before.
But we have earned the new wisdom, but we have the old Doing… And then we wonder why we feel “quiet,” or disconnected…
We wonder why the clarity we found at the summit doesn’t seem to translate into our daily work.
I am reminded of a little ritual that I did in my own life, when we walked the Coast-to-Coast path in England… It helped me to cement the feeling of having learned and accomplished.
We started at the start of that walk, as we stood by the Irish Sea, I picked up a stone and carried that stone for 192 miles—over bogs, moors, and steep, punishing fells.
That stone represented a physical act of “Doing.”
It didn’t make the walk faster, and it certainly didn’t make it easier… But it was a metaphor that helped me to make the journey whole… It gave my “Doing” a focus.
And when we reached the North Sea, I tossed that stone into the water.
It was an act of releasing the old me. It was a physical manifestation of the transformation I had experienced internally.
So, as you get to the end of a long journey, or are on the way down from a mountain
→ whether that’s a massive professional milestone or just the end of a long, chaotic week, you have to change what your hands touch.
And I want to be very clear about this: the change I’m talking about isn’t about reaching for more.
It is not about climbing higher or faster.
It is about better incorporating what you learned on the last climb and intentionally leaving behind the parts of yourself that you outgrow on the trail.
So, how do we use this “Doing” to deliver our transformation? Well, I want to guide you through one of my favorite alignment exercises. But remember, we aren’t doing an audit of your to-do list today; we’re aligning your rhythm.
So find a moment of stillness… perhaps you are walking, perhaps you are sitting in your car before you head into the office, or perhaps you are simply standing by a window… then, go through the following steps.
Step 1: I want you to bring to mind the most recent “summit” you achieved. It might be the project you wrapped up, the decision you finalized, the boundary you set, or simply getting out of bed after a tough day.
Now, bring your awareness to your Thinking. How do you think about that win? Do you see it as a checkbox, or as a new opportunity for growth? If your thinking is still stuck in the “ascent mode”—the “what’s next?” mode—you are not descending. You are sprinting on a cliff edge.
Take a breath, and make the shift.
Acknowledge that the win is done, and the “Doing” now is not to repeat the climb, but to celebrate and embody the climber you have become.
Step 2: Now, bring your awareness to your Feeling.
What is the resonance of that win in your body? Is there pride? Relief?
There should be.
If there is tension or a tightness, ask yourself: “Am I holding onto the fear that I felt along the journey?”
Maybe it’s time to let that go and consciously exhale the fear of the ascent.
Invite yourself to feel the solidity of the ground beneath you and the strength of the legs and feet that got you there.
Step 3: All right… This is the integration… This is a moment where we learn to do things differently moving forward.
I want you to choose one specific task—one small, mundane action you take every single week—and perform it differently.
Perform it from a new emotional place… think different thoughts… change when or how you do it so that it works better for you.
→ It might be the way you open your emails in the morning and, instead of diving straight into the chaos, you take three heart-centered breaths first.
→ It might be the way you sit in a meeting. Instead of leaning forward, ready to “defend” your climb, you sit back, centered and quietly confident.
→ It might be the way you speak to your team: instead of assigning tasks based on “ascent-urgency,” assign them based on “descent-learned integration.”
You see, this process of integration doesn’t have to be massive to be transformative. It just has to be conscious.
Because, when you take these actions with intention, you are telling your nervous system: “We are no longer climbing. We are integrating what we learned on the climb.”
The Hands of the descent need to learn a slower, more deliberate cadence. So that is your mission this week, and the point of this integration activity: Pick one thing. Just one.
An old process, an old habit, or an old way of speaking that doesn’t fit the person you are now that you’ve come down from your mountain.
And upgrade it…pack it away… or retire it completely.
Whatever you do, don’t let your old tools keep you from living your new reality. Because you’ve done the hard work of the climb, weathered the fog, and earned the view.
So realize this: the journey back down is not a chore, it’s not a bore, and it’s not yet another obstacle.
It’s the canvas upon which your transformation is finally painted.
So climb high and descend with care.
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