10/04/2026
Three mornings a week, I strap sixteen kilos to my back and walk.
I choose the load. I choose the route. I carry it, and it builds me. The weight has a purpose. It strengthens my back, my legs, my capacity to endure.
You put it on deliberately. You can put it down.
But there is another kind of weight I carried for much longer. The weight of expectation. Unlike the rucksack, I never chose it, I rarely noticed it, and for years I mistook it for commitment.
It showed up before I stepped onto a stage. Before I hit record on a podcast. In leadership conversations, in rooms where part of me was trying to be useful while another part was quietly scanning for approval.
The rucksack builds me because I know what it is for.
The expectation didnโt build me. It just wore grooves.
In my latest Substack reflection, Iโm digging into why "Expectation" might be the most dangerous word in a leaderโs vocabulary.
Inside this piece:
- Why Ben Crowe (mentor to Ash Barty) wants to ban the word entirely.
- The difference between scaffolding and the building (and why we often confuse them).
- How AI can quietly become a "faster treadmill" that recruits us back into Human Doing.
- A simple, powerful reset for when you feel that internal tightening: "Itโs not about me, it's about them."
Expectation sharpens us when it serves intention. It hollows us when it serves identity.
The discipline is not to eliminate the pressure. It is to notice, in each moment, whether the pressure is tuning the instrument or simply tightening the grip.
https://open.substack.com/pub/innovabiz/p/the-expectation-trap-not-every-weight
