Thirty-plus years across banks, fintech and platform businesses in Australia and Europe. Turnarounds, growth roles, interim leadership and ventures — including Credit Savvy, a startup I founded that grew to more than a million users with the backing of Commonwealth Bank.

Then I stepped away, on purpose.

I was curious to see what would happen if I let go of everything I knew. That curiosity became a physical move too. We left the city and headed bush — two hundred acres of ancient bushland in a World Heritage area north of Sydney.

Not long after we moved, the world stopped.

COVID. Lockdowns. Bushfires after years of drought. Then floods.

Everything arrived at once, externally and internally.

Out here there's a lot of space, not much distraction, and no familiar rhythm to hide behind.

At first, I did what any sensible modern person does in the face of stillness: I kept busy. Building, fixing, clearing, repairing. Learning the land — its seasons, its trees, its wildlife.

That worked for a while. It took longer than I'd like to admit, and it wasn't comfortable when it stopped working.

And then, annoyingly, I was left with myself.

What remained had always been there.

I began to recognise something I had encountered throughout my career: activity can obscure the question that most needs our attention. So can certainty, habit and the identities we have learned to inhabit.

Stepping away changed how I see and how I work. It gave me a different relationship with uncertainty and a deeper appreciation of what can become visible when we stop trying to resolve things too quickly.

That perspective now shapes how I work: beginning with what is visible, while remaining attentive to what may be happening beneath it.

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DJ