Your Next Move May Not Look Like a Move (067)

I went to Uluṟu expecting to watch the sunset. I stayed long enough to see the landscape become moonlit.

When something that has illuminated a significant part of our lives begins to change, we don't always need to hurry toward the next source of light. Sometimes our job is simply to stay present long enough to notice what is beginning to rise.

Your next move may not require you to become someone else. It may simply allow more of who you already are to come into view.

On 30 July 2026, I stood at Uluṟu, on the land of the Anangu people, watching the sun disappear.

I'm grateful to have witnessed this place, which has been cared for and held sacred by its Traditional Owners for tens of thousands of years. I share what I saw there with that in mind.

Behind me, one source of light was fading. Somewhere across the vast landscape, another was preparing to rise. For a brief period, both belonged to the same evening.

I wasn't leaving. I was waiting for the moon.

And then something extraordinary happened.

The landscape didn't suddenly go dark when the sun disappeared. It transitioned. Gold softened into pink. Pink gave way to blue. Shadows lengthened. The temperature shifted. Then, gradually, moonlight began to take its place.

I had gone there expecting to witness a sunset. Instead, I watched a landscape move from sunlight to moonlight.

I haven't stopped thinking about it. Because this is what a meaningful next chapter can look like too.

When accomplished leaders start thinking about what comes next, we tend to reach for familiar language: What's the next role? The next title? Which organisation? Do I stay or leave? Should I retire? Should I start a business?

These are legitimate questions. But I think they can also make our thinking unnecessarily small.

A next move doesn't have to mean a new job or a new title. It could mean changing how you inhabit the role you already have. It could mean remaining in your organisation while beginning to contribute differently. It could mean moving from one dominant professional identity toward several meaningful forms of contribution; leader, board member, mentor, coach, advisor, advocate, volunteer, writer, community builder - using decades of accumulated experience in several places rather than pouring all of it into one job description.

That is still movement. Sometimes profound movement.

Many accomplished people have spent decades building something valuable: expertise, credibility, relationships, influence, judgement, a body of work.

Yet conversations about the next chapter often begin only when something has gone wrong: burnout, redundancy, restructure, illness, a toxic environment, a loss of motivation so deep that staying feels impossible. Then the next move becomes an escape route. How quickly can I get out?

There is another way. You can begin thinking about what comes next while there is still sunlight, that is while you still have energy, choices, intact relationships, a strong reputation, while people still seek your judgement, while you still have the leverage to decide what you want to carry forward.

That changes the quality of the transition entirely.

Standing at Uluṟu, I noticed something else. Moonlight didn't arrive because sunlight had failed. The sun had done exactly what it was supposed to do, illuminated the landscape for the day. Then another form of light took over.

Perhaps there's something here for those of us who have built substantial careers. We can treat moving into another chapter as though we're rejecting the one before it. As if wanting something different means the career was wrong. As if stepping away from a senior role diminishes what we achieved within it. As if pursuing advocacy, mentoring, board work or something more personal means we've become less ambitious.

I don't believe that.

There comes a point when the question may no longer be how much further can I climb? It becomes how do I want to use what I've accumulated?

Your experience doesn't disappear when your job changes. Neither does your identity. It can simply change form; from one container of contribution into a portfolio of them.

This isn't only for people who carry the word "executive" in their title. A senior clinician might supervise junior colleagues, sit on a hospital ethics committee, mentor the next generation, or later bring that experience into advocacy, teaching or board work. A technical expert or engineer might advise a start-up, contribute to setting standards in their field, teach the craft they've spent decades refining, or continue in their role while mentoring others coming through. If you've never thought of yourself as a leader in the conventional sense, this still applies to you. What you're carrying isn't simply a title. It's deep, hard-won expertise, perspective and credibility, and those can be expressed in many ways: through a boardroom, a classroom, a professional body, a cause you've lived or witnessed personally, or something you've quietly cared about for years.

None of this requires you to stop being who you've been. It allows you to become more dimensional.

Perhaps that's one of the privileges of an accomplished career: you eventually have enough experience to:

That's a very different question.

Transitions have consequences. When we initiate change only after we're depleted, angry or disillusioned, we can unintentionally damage things that took years to establish; relationships, reputation, confidence, our sense of self, sometimes even our health.

Moving thoughtfully gives us the chance to protect those assets: to leave relationships intact, transfer knowledge generously, choose which doors remain open, decide how we want people to remember working with us. And, importantly, to separate who we are from the position we currently hold.

Because the title was never the whole identity. It was simply one place where your identity was expressed.

This may be the part of the Uluṟu experience that has stayed with me most. There was a period between sunset and moonrise when neither was commanding the landscape. Twilight. It would be easy to think of that as waiting - the gap between two important events.

But it wasn't empty at all. The landscape was transforming before my eyes.

Leadership transitions have twilight periods too. You may not know exactly what's next. An idea may be forming but not yet clear. You may feel less attached to what once motivated you without knowing what will replace it. You may be curious, experimenting, talking to people, trying something small, allowing another part of yourself to become visible.

We're often uncomfortable here, because accomplished people are accustomed to clarity: goals, metrics, plans, answers. But perhaps the twilight isn't a problem to solve. Perhaps it's part of the transition. A place to pay attention. A place to ask better questions before committing to the next answer.

1. What am I no longer prepared to sacrifice to remain successful? Not because you're giving up, because you now know what success costs when it's poorly designed.

2. What have I accumulated that could create value beyond my current role? Experience. Relationships. Judgement. Credibility. Perspective. Access. Voice. Where else could they matter?

3. If my next move wasn't another job, what else could it be? Perhaps your next chapter isn't about replacing one role with another. Perhaps it's about becoming a leader whose contribution is no longer contained by a single role.

A question for you: if you removed job title, position and organisation from the equation, what forms of contribution would remain?

Hit reply and tell me, even just one word, one role you'd add to your own list. I'd genuinely love to know what's beginning to rise for you.

Till next week,

Mary