I got The Book of Alchemy for Christmas by Suleika Jaouad.

It’s not a journal in the trendy, habit-stacking sense. It’s quieter than that. More deliberate…built around the idea of writing not as output, but as a way of staying in relationship with yourself when certainty thins out…when confidence feels unearned…when you’re standing at the edge of something new without proof that you’ll land squarely on the other side.

The opening chapter sits with that moment every writer, creator, and thinker knows…the blank page, the familiar internal chorus questioning legitimacy, relevance, timing, authority. The voice that asks why you think you can do this, who you think you are, whether this hasn’t already been done better, cleaner, louder by someone else. Dani Shapiro doesn’t try to defeat that voice. She doesn’t argue it into submission. She names it…and then writes anyway.

What I appreciated most is that the chapter doesn’t romanticize courage. It doesn’t promise brilliance. It simply insists that beginning matters…that confidence is not a prerequisite…that writing is often how fear gets metabolized into movement rather than something you wait to conquer first.

Only after grounding the reader in all of that does the book offer its very first prompt, and the framing matters.

You’re reminded that no one has to see what you write. That you can shred it, burn it, hide it, abandon it. That this is not about audience or performance or outcome. It’s about honesty before it gets edited for survival.

The prompt: What would you write if
you weren’t afraid?

I could have answered it privately but I chose to answer it publicly…not as an act of bravery, but as an act of alignment. Because I’m paying closer attention now to the cost of containment…the energy it takes to keep truth manageable, palatable, and small enough to coexist with systems that benefit from ambiguity.

Here’s what surfaced when I let myself answer without editing for tone, optics, or approval.

If I weren’t afraid, I would say that the people who need support the most are often the ones most convinced they already understand themselves. They hide behind knowing, behind experience, behind bravado and behind the posture of “I’ve been doing this for years.”

In leadership, especially at the C-suite level, that armor is rewarded.

In the Caribbean in particular, I see this pattern repeatedly. CEOs, especially men, are under immense pressure to be seen as having answers at all times. Vulnerability is mistaken for weakness. Curiosity is confused with uncertainty. Reflection is treated like indulgence. So the stance becomes omniscience…even when the system underneath is clearly strained.

Women CEOs face a different bind. Many see the cracks clearly but understand, intuitively, that revealing too much uncertainty can cost them credibility in rooms that were never designed to hold their full humanity. So they tighten they over-function, carry clarity privately and competence publicly, absorbing a cost no balance sheet captures.

And then a convenient narrative emerges.

• The problem is the middle managers.
• The team needs fixing.
• Execution is the issue.

If I weren’t afraid, I’d say this plainly:

You cannot repair misalignment downstream while protecting misalignment at the top.

No amount of habit-building, restructuring, or leadership theatre compensates for a leadership identity that has never been examined.

This is where the question Who am I designed to be—and what habits support that? actually matters. It is a refusal to keep forcing leadership behaviors that contradict how someone actually thinks, decides, leads, processes risk, or holds authority.

What I see again and again is not a lack of discipline or willpower. It’s exhaustion. Leaders trying to lead from an identity that isn’t theirs…copying operating systems that don’t fit…performing certainty instead of designing alignment.

And when that happens, the organization pays…

• In stalled growth.
• In quiet disengagement.
• In performative strategy.
• In teams compensating for leadership blind spots they’re not allowed to name.

If I weren’t afraid, I would say that most companies are not underperforming because they lack talent or vision. They are underperforming because the people at the top have never been given permission to stop performing long enough to realign.

Until that happens, everything else is cosmetic.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

If the real issue isn’t what you’re doing but who you’re leading from…what identity are you currently protecting, and what would need to be acknowledged if you asked honestly: Who am I designed to be—and what is this leadership posture already costing my organization?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, MCODE® Legacy Coach, writer and musician. I help leaders and independent professionals close the gap between strategy and execution by making invisible friction visible, so direction can finally translate into results.

If execution isn’t matching intent and you can’t quite see why, message me on WhatsApp. We’ll start with a brief Clarity Conversation to understand what you’re facing and decide together whether a focused Sensemaking Session is the right next step.