I Was Drifting

Drift rarely feels dramatic. It feels like momentum. Or responsibility. Or being needed.

And then one night, you realize you don't recognize yourself in the reflection anymore.

I remember the night it finally caught up with me.

There wasn’t a dramatic collapse. No movie moment breakdown. Just a cold December evening in the driver’s seat of my car, parked under the harsh blue glow of a parking lot light long after everyone else had gone home.

I slid into the seat. Closed the door. Buckled my seatbelt out of habit.

And then... I just sat there.  Hands gripping the wheel. Engine off.  Silence except for the hum of the parking lot light overhead.

I was late getting home for dinner. I still had to turn around and take my kid to a Christmas orchestra concert. But I wasn’t ready to drive anywhere. I wasn’t ready to walk into my own house and pretend I was fine.

I wasn’t fine.

I was exhausted, but not the kind of tired sleep fixes. It was the kind that sits behind your eyes and turns the world gray. I had spent the day putting out fires, absorbing frustrations, making decisions that felt heavier than they used to, carrying expectations that didn’t feel sustainable.

I was President of the company. I had authority. Influence. Respect.

And I felt completely lost. Not lost like I had made a wrong turn. Lost like I had misplaced myself.

I replayed conversations. Decisions. Mistakes. Pressures. The mental hamster wheel wouldn’t stop. And underneath it all was a question I was too embarrassed to say out loud:

“What is wrong with me?”

The truth is, there was nothing wrong with me. I wasn’t failing. I was drifting.

I didn’t have that word then. I didn’t have language for what was happening. I was moving constantly, but not in any direction that felt true. I was responsible for so much and quietly losing my sense of who I was beneath it all.

It wasn’t fear or weakness. It was drift. A slow, relentless drift away from who I wanted to be.

Sitting there under the hum of those lights, I realized I had been navigating without bearings for months. Maybe longer. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt grounded. The last time the person making the decisions was actually me, and not a version of me trying to survive the storm.

I had been wearing masks. Not one. Many. Leader. Friend. Husband. Father. I wasn’t projecting myself. I was projecting what I thought others needed to see.

And I was losing myself trying to maintain it.

That’s the moment I knew I needed something different. Not motivation or another leadership book. I needed a way back to myself.

That need didn’t produce an answer that night.  I drove home. I attended the concert.  I kept leading, kept finding my way back when I drifted, and kept losing myself again when the pressure built.  For years afterward, I navigated by feel, returning to something I could never quite name, stumbling toward bearings I didn’t know I had.

The Compass didn’t begin that night in the car, but the need for it did.  And that distinction, I would eventually learn, matters even more than it seems.