I had been growing my hair for a year and a half.
Not because I forgot to cut it, or because I particularly loved having it long, though I usually do. I was growing it purposefully, for a specific reason, toward a specific day I knew was coming.
Thirteen inches. That was the goal. Thirteen inches to donate to Children With Hair Loss, an organization that creates free custom wigs for children and young adults experiencing hair loss.
It sounds straightforward. Grow your hair. Cut it. Send it. Simple.
What I did not fully account for was the year and a half of growing it past the point where it felt like mine, into the territory where it was genuinely getting on my nerves. I was ready to be done with it but also anxious about the moment of finally being done with it. I have almost always had long hair. I get anxious every time I cut it. This time the stakes felt different because the length felt different and because something meaningful was attached to what happened next.
So I kept growing. Every time the irritation crept in, I remembered what it was for. Every time I thought about just trimming a few inches to make it more manageable, I remembered the child on the other end of this decision who had no such option.
Last week I finally sat down in the chair.
The ruler was in hand, the braids were plaited, the scissors came out, and the actual cut took approximately four minutes. I even helped, getting to cut the first braid (gasp!). It felt liberating. Then I handed over the scissors. Four minutes. That was the whole thing. The thing I had been building toward for eighteen months, the thing I had spent weeks feeling anxious about, the thing that felt significant, weighty, and complicated. Four minutes.
What followed was unexpected.
Not just relief, though there was a lot of that. Not just the lightness of suddenly having significantly less hair, though that was real and immediate and genuinely wonderful. It was something quieter than either of those things. A sense of having sent something meaningful forward into the world and then releasing it completely.
I will never know which child is going to wear my hair.
I will never see her put on the wig for the first time. I will never see how she carries herself differently because it fits well and feels like hers. I will never know whether it changes how she walks into a room or how she feels when she looks in the mirror on an ordinary Tuesday morning. I sent thirteen inches of hair toward someone I will never meet, and I have no way of knowing what it will mean to her.
That is completely okay. It might even be the point.
Most of what actually matters happens somewhere you are not looking. We make a decision, we take an action, we send something forward, and then the impact unfolds in a life we are not watching. We do not get to see most of the difference we make. We send it forward and trust the rest.
I think about this in my work with founders…
The most significant shifts I witness happen inside a 90-minute diagnostic session. A founder sits down carrying something she has been circling for months: a decision that has been avoided, a dynamic that has been draining her, a way of operating that stopped working long ago but never got redesigned. We name it. We look at it clearly. We build a recalibrated plan around who she actually is as a unique individual and how her business actually needs to function.
Then she takes that clarity forward.
That first Tuesday when she realizes she has not opened her laptop on a Sunday in six weeks, that moment happens when I am not in the room. The internal shift is hers alone, however, I hear about it later, sometimes in an advisory session, sometimes in a message from her EA. But the moment itself, the exhale, the realization…that unfolds somewhere I am not.
I do get to witness what comes next with my clients, since founders either continue into advisory work with me, and/or who decide to partner with one of my EAs to implement and sustain what the diagnostic surfaced; those are the relationships where I get to watch the transformation unfold over time. Those are some of my favorite conversations. Not because I need to see the outcome to trust the work, but because watching someone step fully into a business that finally works for her life is genuinely one of the best parts of this.
The resistance to doing the meaningful thing is seldom proportionate to the actual thing. Eighteen months of growing and weeks of anxiety for four minutes of cutting off the braids. Months of a founder circling the Diagnostic for a 90-minute conversation that changes how she operates for the next several years.
The anticipation is seldom about the thing itself. It is about what we imagine the thing will require of us. What we imagine we will have to face, give up, or feel on the other side of the decision.
Almost every time, the thing is four minutes. Almost every time, the lightness that follows is real and immediate and worth every anxious moment leading up to it.
If you have been contemplating donating your hair, Children With Hair Loss is the organization I chose, but there are several incredible organizations out there from which to choose. The process is simple, and the impact is anything but.
If you have been circling something in your business – a decision you have been avoiding, a way of operating that is no longer working, a shift you know needs to happen but have not made. The Executive Anchor Diagnostic is designed for exactly all of that. Not to overhaul everything at once (far from, actually), but to name what is actually causing the root cause strain and build the right recalibrated plan from there.
To date, my Executive Anchor Diagnostic has a 100% continuation rate, not because I sell the next step, but because the clarity creates its own momentum. Founders do not continue because I convinced them; they continue because they finally felt what it is like to stop circling and start moving.
The session is 90 minutes. The clarity lasts considerably longer.
If you want to know what that looks like for your specific business, visit my LinkedIn or email me to learn more: hayden@handledbyhayden.co.
One more thing: if you want more of this kind of thinking delivered monthly, I write about leadership design and sustainable success (sometimes, with a nautical metaphor sprinkled in), in Notes From The Helm. Click here to subscribe.
Small actions. Longer reach than you expect.
