Changing Work

Changing Work is a movement deeply committed to revolutionizing the dynamics of the workplace from within.

Our Vision is to Change Work from the Inside Out.

Essentially, to make work a more humane, conscious, and nurturing environment that promotes personal growth, self-awareness, and compassion, while delivering value to all stakeholders. 

We recognize that profitability is important, and that it comes with a need for balance not only for shareholders, but for employees, customers, and the broader global community. A world that works for everyone.
Our Mission is to Elevate conscious business practices through community and best practice sharing.

Changing Work is a collective of business leaders, employees, and consultants. 

Fundamentally, we do two things. 

First, we build community. There’s something incredibly powerful about being on a journey together with people who are bonded by a desire for a common good. 

Second, we share best practices. This comes in many forms - jointly written books, a podcast, a newsletter, courses, cohort-based learning, and more.

If you're interested in getting involved to support the movement to change work from the inside out, or get support along your own conscious leadership journey, check us out at changingwork.org

Co-Founder, Changing Work Collective

Nicholas Whitaker Coaching

Coaching Mid-Career Tech Workers To Break Free Of Their Golden Handcuffs & Design Their Roadmap To A Life & Work They Can Love

I offer transformative coaching and consulting to limited number of clients.

Speaking Engagements:
I speak about wellbeing, mental health, and mindfulness.

Check my featured section for more on my offerings👆

Follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to my newsletter to learn more about me and my work with clients.

Master Certified Professional Coach / Certified Mindfulness Facilitator

Google

As a Lead volunteer and coordinator of Meditation and Mindfulness Programs at Google, I have a track record of successfully creating and implementing outreach and marketing initiatives at a company-wide level, building and scaling community, and deepening the practice of others.

My programs have included live streams, workshops, newsletters, podcasts, partnerships with employee resource groups, and team consultations, as well as daily guided and unguided meditations and facilitator training programs reaching over 5000 colleagues globally with mindfulness and wellbeing content.

In addition to my outreach and marketing efforts, I designed and launched custom wellbeing programming at the organizational and team levels reaching hundreds of employees with impactful, highly regarded and requested webinars, live events, and group workshops. 

I also developed and maintained relationships with external mindfulness and wellbeing vendors, agencies, keynote speakers, researchers, and luminaries in order to bring the best resources and expertise to our programs.

(gPause) Mindfulness Steering Committee Volunteer  / Wellbeing Champion / Community Organizer

As a People Operations Program Manager and People Programs Specialist I curated change management initiatives for a team of over 140 people.

People Operations Program Manager / People Programs Specialist

As a member of the Large Partner Solutions Team in the Global Business Operations Organization, I built and maintained strong partnerships with executives and account representatives at major national news conglomerates, leveraging my expertise in journalism and stakeholder management to generate over $100M in revenue.

I fostered strong relationships with strategic partnerships like Scripps, Media News Group, Dallas Morning News, and McClatchy.

I have a track record of innovating to find new uses for Google products to generate revenue, increase subscriptions, and leverage data for business decisions.

Strategic Partnerships Lead

On the Google News Lab team, I served as a Google Product Evangelist for thousands of journalists and newsrooms worldwide, and representing Google at global industry events. 

I managed an educational marketing outreach program and designed a custom LMS  supporting customer education marketing programs, and certifications for Google products, educating over 500,000 journalists in 25 languages.

I also developed, launched, and scaled a community network of 400+ universities in 40 countries offering grants, digital skills, and training on Google products for education and journalism. 

In addition, I managed agency relationships, scaling training and marketing outreach programs across APAC, EMEA, NA, MENA, and LATAM

Product Marketing Manager / Training & Development Manager

I evangelized Google's tools for research and journalism to over 30,000 journalists across 36 countries, working to establish the Google Earth brand as a trusted partner for news gathering and storytelling.

I also designed and launched new marketing, outreach, and data-driven approaches to building and maintaining relationships with key media outlets, bringing regional Google tools workshops to newsrooms worldwide, training 1700 journalists in EMEA, LATAM, and MENA.

Marketing Manager / Media Outreach Lead

Whitaker Films / Nicholas Whitaker Photography

I have over a decade of specialized experience producing public service announcements, documentaries, corporate trainings, marketing content, live webinars and event coverage for a wide range of clients including Google, the NYC Department of Transportation, NGOs like the Regional Planning Association and Citizen's Union, as well as traditional media outlets like Hearst Media, BET, NBC, and CBS.

Founder / Producer

Eugene Lang College

Intro To Cultural Studies
Media Toolkit
Digital Moviemaking

Adjunct Professor

Marymount Manhattan College

Beginning Video Workshop
History of Communication Theory
Intermediate Video Production

Master time, energy & focus in 90 days. Coaching stressed out tech professionals to prepare for volatility, tame uncertainty & thrive in ambiguity | Co-Founder of Changing Work Collective | Conscious Leadership Activist

Even the most capable professionals struggle to balance immediate demands with their deeper aspirations. 

Sound familiar?

After 13+ years at Google guiding transformative initiatives, and more than a decade as an entrepreneur, 

I've dedicated my life to helping ambitious individuals get crystal clear on their current reality, their desired future, and the precise steps needed to bridge that gap. 

My approach, refined through years of working with hundreds of professionals, combines strategic clarity with conscious living principles. 

Each partnership is uniquely crafted to your specific situation, challenges, and aspirations. 
Through our work together, we'll establish new habits, challenge limiting beliefs, and create sustainable change aligned with your values.

Drawing on neuroscience, spirituality and proven methodologies, I've developed a 100-day process that helps people establish new habits, challenge limiting beliefs, and create sustainable change.

Imagine having complete clarity on your path forward, with the tools, confidence and support to empower you to make conscious decisions aligned with your values, and a renewed focus on what's truly important to you. 

My clients learn to navigate the tension between short-term demands and long-term vision, ultimately creating a life that allows them to bring something beautiful and meaningful into the world.

DM me to discuss your vision and how we can make it reality.

Here's something that compounds in value faster than your 401k, that most people overlook...



I've learned over and over, that it is always a good idea to invest in myself and my business, even when it feels scary to spend that money....especially when it does. 

And guess what?
It always pays off. 
Always.

After several years of refining my focus and DIYing my strategy and tactics to build my business... in this economy, in this market.... I knew I needed to call in support to get a handle on:

- What was going on in the industry
- The shifts in the culture of Big Tech
- Trends in the coaching industry
- How I could differentiate my services
- How I’m showing up online as a thought leader and professional

I was lucky to be connected with one of the most bad 🍑 analysts and researchers I’ve ever met: evante daniels.

His approach and tools at SEEQER gave me more than numbers. 
Evante didn’t send “research.”

He sent a full stack intelligence system mapping the psychology, economics, culture, and market mechanics of mid-career rupture - and the coaching industry that's been built around it.

His system revealed the deeper patterns shaping the people I serve, the ecosystems I’m working inside, and the moves I need to make next to stay relevant and effective. 

His research helped me:
- Understand my audience with far more precision
- Clarify where the market is actually heading
- See exactly how to position my work in a way that cuts through noise instead of competing with it.

All of this has sharpened the way I serve, strengthened the backbone of my business, and laid the groundwork for the next chapter I’m bringing into the world through The Rebellion Collective.

If you’re navigating your own pivot or building something that deserves better data than guesswork, connect with Evante. 

Follow him. 
Hire him.

His work will give you a clearer map than you’ve had in a long time, and we could all use one of those these days.

PS. The man has impeccable taste in music, literature and coffee. Looking forward to the next fancy pour over spot!

Nicholas Whitaker

Tech industry survivor turned trusted guide for rebellious professionals ready reclaim their capacity and sovereignty | Founder, Rebellion Collective | Author & Speaker | Be Rebellious!

I can’t talk to my wife about this anymore, my colleagues and managers are part of the problem, my kids wouldn’t get it....


I hear this from clients all the time, and I understand bette than most...
Because I’ve been there too.

When the pressure builds, the circle of people you can actually talk to starts to shrink.

Partners and friends mean well, but they don’t have the context.
Colleagues are entangled in the same system that’s wearing you down.
And kids… they shouldn’t have to carry it.

So you keep it to yourself.
You normalize the strain.
You start believing you’re the only one feeling this way.

I promise you, you're not.

One client put it perfectly:

“One of the most valuable elements of your coaching is that you’ve lived through this yourself. Sometimes it's just helpful to share these things out loud and be heard and understood. You've been there, and get the shorthand. "

Yeah, not doubt...this is a basic human need that we get cut off from in high performance roles. 

That’s what this work really offers:

A place to tell the truth without performing,
To say the things you can’t say anywhere else, and not feel crazy.
To remember you’re not wrong or failing for wanting something more humane.

For the ones holding it all together in silence, your Quiet Rebellion starts here.

Be Rebellious 
In Solidarity ✊

If you're tired of walking this path alone, sign up for my Quiet Rebellion Mailing list or book a call to get clear on your options, and finally feel heard. 

links in my bio and featured section.

You know what the antidote to these new corporate buzzwords like quiet cracking, and quiet quitting is? 



Healthy teams
Career portability
Conscious leadership 
A thriving hiring market
Employee development and support

But for a lot of companies these days, these fundamentals aren't being prioritized or made available because... 

Well they will tell you it's because of budget, efficiency, doing more with less, hardcore mode, staying competitive in a changing landscape, AI, aliens.... 

but let's call it what it is. 

It's because of greed. 

Your suffering because of greed.  

And in this job market, another buzzword "Job hugging"seems to be the answer.

But that just leaves you feeling stuck and hopeless, waiting to be laid off or fired in an abusive environment.

You cant flip the table and walk out. 

But you also don't have to internalize it and assume it's because you can't hack it. 

You're not an AI agent. 
You're a real human being with real human needs. 

You need a why. 
You need clarity and direction.
You need a horizon that doesn't feel infinite. 
You need your capacity so you can pivot and find a better place to thrive. 

You need a guide to lead you back to yourself. 

The end of the quarter is coming. 
So are more layoffs...

Aren't you tired of living in fear and anticipatory anxiety? 

Get clear about your 2026.

Stop all this corporate buzzword nonsense and take control of your own experience.

Start your Quiet Rebellion today. 


--------
PS I see you lurking,and I get it. Most of my clients don't engage or comment on my posts because 👀. 

But DMs are private.
So are our conversations.

DM me and let's talk about your Quiet Rebellion and we can get you unstuck and back in control. 

Be rebellious! 
In solidarity ✊

Tech industry rebel turned trusted guide to high performers ready to reclaim their capacity and sovereignty, from systems that keep them feeling stuck | Founder, Rebellion Collective | Author & Speaker | Be Rebellious!

Most people think the hard part of taking a work break like a sabbatical, gap year, or mental health leave is stepping away from work.

It isn’t...

The real shock comes after the calendar clears, the pings stop, and you’re alone with yourself.

That’s when the old habits start to twitch.

The reflex to stay busy.
The panic that shows up when you’re not earning, producing, proving.

Clients describe it as disorientation.
I call it deprogramming.

It’s the moment your identity tries to reboot because the usual anchors of deadlines, meetings, and urgency aren’t there to hold you in place.

In these moments, spaciousness asks who you are without the armor.
Most people never prepare for that question, and many freeze or fill their days with "Busy" when confronted with it. 

When I work with clients stepping into time away, we map the space before they enter it. Not to cram it with productivity, but to orient it toward intention.

Values.
Needs.
Desires.

The parts of themselves that have been waiting for space. 

When structure of corporate life falls away, you meet the truth of your patterns...and if you’re willing, the truth of your potential.

The real fear isn’t losing momentum.
It’s seeing what becomes possible when you stop running.

What part of you is asking for more space than you’ve allowed?

Be Rebellious!
In solidarity ✊

Trusted guide for high performers on the edge of Rebellion | Reclaim your capacity, clarity, and sovereignty in uncertain times | Founder, Rebellion Collective | Author, Speaker, Coach

I don't know... I think this whole 2025 thing is a fad.

Most people assume the Sunday Scaries are about Monday...They’re not.

They show up the moment the pace drops and you finally have time to arrive.

Maybe it’s after the chores are done.
Maybe it’s a quiet coffee.

Maybe it’s late Sunday afternoon when the noise fades and you’re left with what you’ve been holding off all week.

It’s unfamiliar.
It’s uncomfortable.

So you keep busy to avoid feeling it.

Here’s the part most people miss:

Sunday Scaries are optional.

They’re what happens when you skip the small arrivals during the week.

When you never pause long enough to register what’s happening inside you.

When you outrun the signal until Sunday forces the confrontation.

If you practice arriving in small doses
one breath, one honest check-in, one moment of contact with what’s actually true

Sunday stops being the crash.

It becomes a checkpoint instead of a reckoning.

With the people I work with, the tightening usually traces back to a few patterns:

Anticipatory pressure: the version of yourself you’re expected to step back into on Monday.

Values friction:the small betrayals that pile up when you’re moving too fast.

Systemic instability: reorgs, layoffs, AI uncertainty...

and let's be honest...a nervous system that hasn’t felt safe in a long time.

When the Scaries hit, don’t override it or get swallowed by it.

- Name what’s rising.
- Let your body slow first.
- Choose one thing you can shape about the week ahead.

A single point of agency changes everything.

And if this happens every weekend, it’s not a Sunday issue. 

It’s a signal.

This is the work I do with high performers in transition

- rebuilding capacity
- restoring clarity 
- reclaiming a story that works for them.

If this rings true, pay attention to the part of you that’s noticing...It’s pointing toward what needs care.

Be rebellious!
In solidarity ✊ 

ps. Thanks for letting me drop into your feed with some Big Nick Energy this Monday

It's that time of the year again... 


Q4, pre- holidays, not yet to vacation, and there's still work to be done. 

You're not exactly counting down the days as much as holding your breath. 

"Soon. I can rest soon." you think. 

Funny how we put off rest until after. 

We talk ourselves into thinking we need to earn it by putting in the work first.

We confuse the need for rest, or pulling back our efforts with being a bad person. 

We feel guilty for not being at 110% all the time, and it's only best the holiday breaks that we really start to feel it... 

That heaviness. 
The weight. 

The burden of needing to be "a hard worker" to feel valued. 

That's just late stage capitalism and shareholder maximization fucking with you. 

What if you told yourself a different story?

What if you attached your value not to your output or being a "hard worker", and instead focused on....

The fact that you feel the need to be irreproachable in the first place.

That voice that says you can’t pull back.
That you have to be the reliable one.
The steady one.

The one who never gives anyone a reason to question your worth.

Most of us didn’t invent that voice.
We learned it.

We learned it in families where you had to “earn” safety.

In schools where being exhausted was a badge.

In companies that reward self-sacrifice right up until the moment they don’t.

And here’s the part that was the hardest for me to admit:

Toxic workplaces love people who can’t let themselves rest.

They love people who need to be seen as “hard workers.”

They love people who refuse to be anything less than perfect.

Because it means they can extract a little more from you.

Then a little more.
Then a little more.

And you’ll keep giving it, because the alternative feels like failing.

This is the real tension under Q4 fatigue.
Not the workload.

The story.

The story that says you must be flawless to stay safe.

The story that says easing up makes you disposable.

The story that says rest is dangerous because someone might notice.

But what if that story was never yours?

What if the discomfort you feel when you pull back isn’t guilt but the first sign that something old is starting to loosen?

What if the real rebellion right now isn’t grinding through another quarter but choosing not to let a system decide your value at all?

Sit with that before you sprint through the rest of the year...and then DM me with what you discover about yourself when you do. 

Be Rebellious
In Solidarity ✊

“I’m in a high-level moral quandary around work and tech..."
"I’d deeply appreciate a chat sometime this week.”


A message from a former client, manager, and old friend landed in my inbox recently.

What a perfect collection of words to describe what I do.

It captured something I’ve been hearing again and again.

That’s where people usually find me...In this kind of messy middle.

Doing their damned best to survive in ambiguity.

Where the old stories start unraveling and the next one hasn’t revealed itself yet.

They’ve usually tried everything else.

Self-care. Breathing exercises. Meditation. Therapy.

And the things that aren’t talked about as much:

Over performing, online numbing, substance abuse...

Thousands spent on distraction and recovery Band-Aids.

But they know it’s not sustainable... they know.
 
It’s not something they can fix on their own, otherwise they would have by now.

They’re too close to it.

They need a guide who’s been through it before and can point the way back to themselves. 

To the things that need their attention the most.

Through Quiet Rebellion, I guide high performers on how to slow down enough to see what’s true.

To rebuild the inner capacity to hold what’s next.

And to move forward with integrity and courage.

My question to you: What do you need to take the first steps and trust...that you'll meet the version of yourself you most need further down the trail?

---------
If the idea of Quiet Rebellion speaks to you,
subscribe to my mailing list.

You’ll receive reflections, tools, and frameworks to help you meet this moment with clarity and courage.

Link in my featured section.

Be rebellious.
In solidarity ✊

Most high performers aren’t struggling with competence.

They’re struggling with disorientation.

The ground keeps shifting.

Systems reward output and obedience instead of integrity.

People end up living lives that look successful from the outside but feel hollow on the inside.

The problem isn’t effort.
It’s alignment.

Most people only see the polished chapters of my career. What they never see is the list of jobs I worked just to stay alive.

Farm labor.
Coffee shops.
Distribution centers.
Car sales.
Restaurants.
Film sets.
Teaching.
Freelance production.
Freelance post-production.
Temp work, contract work. 
Then my own business.
Then a decade long detour into big tech
and back to entrepreneurship again...

Often more than one job at the same time just to make ends meet.

None of it was linear.
Most of it wasn’t dream work.
But it kept me moving when stopping wasn’t an option.

Those years taught me the same things I help clients uncover now.

Clarity rarely arrives on schedule.
Sometimes you take the job you don’t love
because rent is due and reality matters.

Courage is quiet.
It’s doing what you must
while refusing to abandon the person you’re becoming.

Compassion matters.
The part of you that hustled to survive doesn’t need shame. It needs acknowledgment.

Connection matters too.
Every role (aligned or not) built skills, instincts, and relationships
that later became the backbone of my work.

And commitment is the throughline.
Not to an employer.

To growth.

To staying awake to what your life is actually asking of you.

That’s the point where most of my clients find themselves.

Not stuck.
Not broken.
Just standing at a crossroads with three visible paths and a fourth they haven’t admitted yet.

Stay and learn to cope while planning their eventual exit 

Leave for something similar.

Leave and build something new.

Or… do nothing. Stay exactly where they are and slowly erode until they can't imagine any other way.

The real struggle isn’t the choice.
It’s everything underneath the choice.

They’re competent to a fault.
Rewarded for patterns that drain them.

Carrying quiet resentment.

Living out of alignment with their own internal compass.

Performing versions of themselves that no longer fit.

Worried that one wrong move will collapse the life they’ve built.

Afraid that changing direction means losing the identity that keeps them safe.

When we talk about options, we’re really talking about identity, agency, and grief.

The kind you only feel when the life you built
isn’t the life you want to keep living...but the alternative is terrifying.

The work isn’t choosing the path.

It’s choosing the one that brings you back to yourself.

It’s reclaiming the sovereignty to choose at all.

Be Rebellious! 
In Solidarity ✊ 

ps. If you find posts like these interesting and helpful, you're invited to join Dispatches from the Quite Rebellion, where you'll get Rebellion right in your inbox. 

No BS, no slop.  just immediately applicable tools and questions to help you start your own Quiet Rebellion. The same ones that helped me and thousands of others through our own career and life journeys. link in the Featured section and below once someone comments. 

pps. anyone else not ready for winter? Gotta go shovel some snow.

I saw this in Germany and might have panicked if I didn't know better…

“Detox your feelings.”
That’s what it said on the box.

Everyone's looking for the easy button aren't they?

If it actually worked, I’d be out of a job.

Talking with a consultant friend the other day… she was shocked by how much of my work involves feelings.

She’s used to deliverables.
Outputs. Metrics.
Things you can point to in a deck.

My work’s different.
Slower.
Deeper.

Harder to measure, but impossible to fake.

A recent prospective client call:

Big tech.
High-pressure environment. 
Fifteen-hour days.
Constant fire drills.

Colleagues dialing into meetings while on "vacation".

A manager setting the pace for the team through her own workaholism and distraction...

He’s anxious if he’s not visible...and disgusted by what the visibility game requires.

Distracted. Procrastinating. Miserable.

It’s not sustainable, and he knows it.

But he blames himself for not keeping up.
Believes the stories his anxiety tells him.
Takes it all as personal failings.

Some hard choices need to be made but what? 

How?

In just an hour, we 

Uncovered the game he doesn’t want to play anymore.

Named the story he's telling himself about what he's supposed to be doing...

Found compassion for the part of him still trying to do it "right".

Flipped on the light of possibility, and a rough map of an exit strategy.

That’s what this tea gets wrong.
You can’t detox feelings.

But you can start using them as data.

Cairns along the trail.

–––

The ROI of deep coaching isn’t a number on a survey...

It’s a nervous system that’s finally steady.

Clarity instead of panic.
Sovereignty instead of masking.

And the capacity to get unstuck, and blaze a path through the suck.

People find me in the middle of transitions like this...during some of the hardest decisions they’ll ever make.

They come looking for confidence.

They leave with courage, clarity,
and a nervous system that can hold it all.

Thank god the tea doesn’t work.
Otherwise, I’d be out of business.

What tea are you drinking?

Be rebellious!
In Solidarity ✊ 

Ps. Download my complimentary Quiet Rebellion Reflection and Journaling Workbook, and get started on your own Quiet Rebellion today. 

It's packed with daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly prompts to help you build awareness, collect data (not drama), and get clarity on what matters most.

Follow the links in my featured section for this and other ways to be Rebellious. ✊

Most mid-career professionals I talk to are stuck in a quiet no-man’s-land.



Too seasoned for lateral moves.
Not “executive enough” for the next tier.

Early-career support long gone.

And the story that got them here is starting to fall apart.

That’s the space Rebellion Collective is being built for.

A membership community for people who’ve lived inside high-pressure systems long enough to feel the cost.

People ready to work differently.
Not harder.
Not faster.
Differently.

We rebuild the inner operating system first.

Time, energy, attention.
Capacity and humanity.

The pieces most professionals lose on the climb.

Then we work on five capacities that carry you through any transition:

clarity
capacity
courage
compassion
connection

It’s practice-based.
Community-held.

Light on tools.
Heavy on truth.

Stillness before strategy.

Two gatherings a month.
Small circles.
Weekly touchpoints.
Curated introductions.
Field Manuals and guided practices when you need structure.

Founding Circle opens December 2025.
Ten spots.
Lifetime rate.
Help shape the thing from the ground up.

If you’re in a transition and want to be part of building something human and steady,
message me “Rebellion Collective” and tell me where you are right now.

I’m listening.

Be rebellious! 
In solidarity ✊

Most of the people I coach are successful in ways that leave them strangely empty.


They’re smart.
Respected.
Trusted.

They know how to play the game.
They know how to get promoted.
They know how to keep the masks on.

But there’s a moment that keeps showing up.

Usually at night.
When they walk through their front door.
Or in the shower.
Or right before sleep.

When the performance stops and something quieter creeps in.

A thought that sounds like:

“I’m spending my life on things I don’t actually care about.”
“If I stay or leave, am I going to regret it?”
“How do I know the right choice?”
“I’m going to die someday.”
“This can’t be all there is.”

Different clients. Same struggles.

High-functioning.
High-achieving.
Deeply misaligned.

Done pretending that competence equals fulfillment.

That’s the near life experience.
Not the disillusionment.
Not the burnout.

It's the moment they stop pretending the traditional measures of success are enough. It's the moment they finally surrender.

Most of my clients tell me they have no one else in their life they can say these things to.

Therapy helps, but this is something different.

This is being seen and heard in a way they’ve never been before.
This is a space to be raw, imperfect, honest.
This is not having to figure it out alone.

If you're starting to hear that voice nudging you, you’re not imagining it.
It’s the beginning of your Quiet Rebellion.

and you’re not alone.

Be Rebellious
In Solidarity ✊

PS. Sound familiar? A lot of people are in this place right now. 
DM me and we’ll help you get clear on what comes next.

Many of us are seeing the cracks in the foundations, Defining ourselves by other metrics beyond titles and paychecks....

It's critical for us to educate ourselves and understand what we're subscribing to, and I mean that in all the ways... 

Our ideas
Our beliefs
Stories we tell ourselves
Things we celebrate or recoil from
What we pay attention to and what we practice
Communities and relationships we invest in

What we betray our sovereignty to

As my friend Joshua David Mardice says, enough autopilot, it's time to wake up. Follow Josh for insights on the real state of creativity and culture in the world, and my goodness hire the man already, he's the real deal when it comes to brand strategy, and storytelling.

Chief Brand Strategist | Strategy Consultant | Digital Executive | Social Media | Visionary Storyteller | 10+ Yrs Scaling Culture-Driven Brands | Former Head of Digital @ EBONY | Advisor to Founders, Builders & Creators

I know this won’t be popular, but if you’re still defining your worth by the grind, the title, and the “hustle,” you’re running a race you didn’t even choose. I know you think you’re choosing it and that’s fine but there are ways, and then are ways… it’s imperative that you’re aware of the one that you’ve chosen and that requires you to just listen right now. 

Good morning to my western civilization humans. Y’all are not gonna like this post, so I’m just warning you right now.

There is a shift happening. I’ve been talking to a lot of people on LinkedIn these last couple months, and not a single conversation started with careers, because I don’t play those games. I’m trying to meet people where they’re at as humans first. And I know that’s alarming in a space like this, because LinkedIn can be super weird. But there’s a real shift taking place, and you need to pay attention.

Here’s what I want people to understand: there needs to be a reset in your concept of why you’re doing what you’re doing. I’m talking about your career, the path you’re on, the people you associate with, and why you’re doing any of it. This is not just a color thing. This is a people thing.

A lot of you aren’t going to realize until it’s too late that you’re trapped in a cage you built yourself, chasing an idea of success that never belonged to you in the first place. For the sensitives out there, the empaths, the ones who pattern-recognize and connect the dots before anyone else: that’s a gift. Stop letting society label it a disorder. You have discernment. You see the world louder and clearer than most. Use it.

Here’s the real: there is a structure of business and success built on running your energy to zero and telling you to keep moving. You’re told if you stop, you’re lazy. If you take a break, you’re not passionate. If you don’t grind yourself to the bone, you don’t care enough. That whole mindset? That’s rooted in the education and system of the oppressor.

And this is not just a color thing, it’s a people thing. Even white folks are impacted. The corporate machine convinces you that you’re supposed to kill yourself to “make it.” But until you actually learn your own nervous system, get into therapy, do the spiritual work, inner work, build boundaries, know when to say yes or no, and honor when you’re uncomfortable, you will keep getting sick. Maybe not now, maybe not in five years, but eventually it’s coming if you keep playing this rigged game.

That’s not paranoia or cruelty, it’s your wake up call this Sunday morning.

If it’s too much, unfollow me. That’s cool. But if this hits, really think about what you’re chasing and who you’re actually running for.

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO YOUR INSTINCTS. 

you need to stop idolizing all the many people you think that have it more figured out than you do, collect yourself and reevaluate why and how you’re doing what you’re actually doing. 

Title: Grind Culture, Burnout, and the Trap that YOU Built

The word "productive" comes up a lot in conversations with my clients, but few really know what it means...


It comes from prōdūcere: “to lead forth.”
To bring something into being.

But somewhere along the way, it stopped meaning creation and started meaning output.

Factories needed proof.
Corporations needed metrics.
Shareholders needed measurement of ROI

And somewhere along the way we learned to measure our worth by how much we could produce.

It's more than a behavior now, it’s an identity.

We don’t ask, Was the work productive?
We ask, Was I?

That’s why burnout throws us off so badly.

This approach to "productivity" doesn’t just drain energy.
It attacks your sense of enoughness.

For me, working in Big Tech made this worse.

Optimization became the mantra. 
Meditation and wellbeing initatives became performance enhancement.
Even rest had to justify itself as recovery so you can come back and be....

Productive?

Now, as companies push “return-to-office,” “hardcore mode,” and whatever other euphemism they invent for extraction, the same logic comes dressed up as culture.

"We’re more effective in person.”
“We need hallway ideation.”
" We need more efficiency and productivity from our staff"
 
Translation: We need to see you to believe you’re producing.
We need proof of productivity to fuel the growth at all costs approach to leadership. 

Presence as proof.
Belonging as performance.
But there’s another definition still waiting for us...the original one.

To lead forth.
To bring something meaningful into being.
When we reclaim our time, energy, and attention, we rebuild capacity
Not to do more, but to live more.

That’s the quiet rebellion.

If this version of “productive” feels closer to the truth than the one you inherited, pay attention.

It’s usually the first sign you’re ready for something different.

And that difference begins with reclaiming your capacity from the systems that have been living off of it.

That’s the work I help people do.
Quietly. Deeply, and for keeps.

Some questions to sit with: 
- What are you bringing forth in your life these days?
- Where do you need to reclaim some of your capacity so you can bring that forth more easily? 

Be Rebellious!
In Solidarity ✊

4,680 boxes. One for each week of the average human lifespan. 
How many have you lived so far? 
How many were you actually present for?

There’s a life calendar on my wall.
Most of the boxes are blank. Only one is filled in.

The week I left corporate.

Not because it was a surprise. I’d known for years it wasn’t a fit. But getting laid off removed the last excuse to ignore what was already true. It forced me to look directly at how I was spending my life instead of how I was compromising it.

This is why I use TEA=CH with clients now.

Time.
Energy.
Attention.
Capacity shaped by an honest accounting of all three.

Most people think they’re starved for time.
What they’re really starved for is clarity.

Where their attention leaks.
What drains their energy before the day even begins.

How often they move through a week reactively instead of intentionally.
When we track TEA, the patterns become obvious.

Stress cycles.
Sleep quality.
Decision velocity.
Creative bandwidth.

You start to see how much of your life is happening while you’re looking somewhere else.

Andre Martin’s post today reminded me to take another look at my poster. 

We talk about time like it’s the scarce resource.

It isn’t.
Presence is. 

That single filled-in box on my wall isn’t about the layoff.

It’s about the decision I made to stop pretending I had more time to waste and to stay present to what my life is calling me to do. 

4,680 boxes.  One life.
Which of your next boxes will you inhabit fully rather than sleepwalk through?

PS if you haven't come across Andre Martin and his book Wrong Fit, Right Fit, it's a must read for navigating our current world of work. 

I'll drop a link below along with the link to the calendar once someone comments. 

What boxes would you fill in and how? 

Be Rebellious!
In Solidarity✊

I don't know about you, but this is one of the most unstable times I've experienced in my life, and I'm grateful for the coaches and support networks I've built, to help me continue to thrive.

Today I'm kicking off my morning with a powerful roundtable of master coaches hosted by SelfFull.

If you've ever been curious about what coaching can do for you, your career and your life...this is a great way to get a diverse set of perspectives, and a hear directly from coaches about what they are seeing that is working (and not working) with their clients.

Join moderator Earl Talbot ☯️, as well as Katia Triggiani, Madeline McQueen and me for a conversation on The Impact Of Coaching in Unstable Times.

Follow the other panelists, and RSVP below for this live conversation.

Guiding Purpose-Driven Founders, Solopreneurs & Leaders to Sustainable Success | Building Mindsets for Resilience and Wellbeing | Best Selling Author | 20+ Years Empowering Conscious Leaders

Happy to share that I'll be hosting the Master Coaches Roundtable! Make sure to attend it today.

But how will you know when you've reached "enough"?

well if this doesn't just encapsulate the state of things....

taplio

Nicholas Whitaker's Linkedin Analytics

Nicholas Whitaker

Performance ScoreNicholas Whitaker's LinkedIn Performance

What is Nicholas talking about?

Who is engaging with Nicholas

Nicholas Whitaker's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Nicholas Whitaker's Linkedin Analytics

Nicholas Whitaker

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nicholas Whitaker's LinkedIn Performance

What is Nicholas talking about?

Who is engaging with Nicholas

Nicholas Whitaker's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Nicholas Whitaker's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreNicholas Whitaker's LinkedIn Performance

Nicholas Whitaker's Best Posts (last 30 days)