Dance, Dance, Dance

Under festival lights, community connection and transformation unfold—proof that leadership begins in real life

(Not your typical leadership blog)

Last weekend, I attended a music festival in rural Japan with my community.

Hang on, I’ll get to how this connects to leadership in a minute.

After a soak in a local onsen and a gorgeous kaiseki breakfast, we headed out to set up our small glamping village. Picture an espresso machine at the campsite. Luxurious, right?

It was my third time at this festival with this beautiful group of humans. It’s become a ritual, something annual, something sacred.

Bathe, build, camp, dance, cook, eat, share a fire, repeat.

Each time, I’ve shown up a little different. And this year, my life was different. This gathering has become an inflection point; a moment to take stock, to close one circle and open another.

This year, I closed a big one.

Inside the tent—where solitude, ritual, and reflection shaped a new chapter in the leadership journey

Last year, I was here with my husband of sixteen years. This year, I came with my friends. I slept in my tent by myself for the first time.

It was a quiet act of closure; grateful to let go, sad about the loss, and ready to honor that chapter as part of my story, without letting it define who I am.

One night, someone asked me on the dance floor how it’s felt to go through everything I’ve been through and still hold space for my clients.

My answer was simple: It’s made me a better coach.

And that’s where leadership comes in.

Old-school advice tells us to keep the personal and professional separate. That emotions have no place in leadership. That reason alone rules “the big chair.”

But we know that’s not how humans work. There’s no switch in the brain separating personal from professional. Your system reads it all as connection or disconnection. As belonging or isolation. As safety or threat.

So instead of repressing or over-compartmentalizing, what if we embraced the lessons our personal lives offer?

What if we used them to become stronger leaders, to better understand what motivates or holds back our people?

To meet others with empathy, clarity, and depth because we’ve been there too?

That’s the dance of leadership.

And if you want to learn how to move with it as I’ve learned to move with it, let’s talk.