The Hat and the Hill

A woman hit rock bottom… and politely apologized to the rock.

That’s not the kind of tale I recite in leadership seminars or in the moments of silence where I guide people back to themselves. This wasn’t the polished kind—it bled before it bloomed.

This is the real one—the behind-the-scenes origin tale of this book, which, like most acts of creation, didn’t start in a straight line. It began with tears, fever, and the quiet realization that waiting any longer would cost me more than failure ever could.

This book was conceived in December 2023.

I had spent years waiting for the “right” conditions to write—space, silence, structure.

Despite the degrees—literature, international relations, a PhD in politics—despite the vocabulary, the training, the sharpened academic tools…

I still couldn’t write this book.

Not because I wasn’t capable.

Because I wasn’t allowed.

By life.
By fear.
By the quiet myth that a woman must first earn her worth before she is permitted to speak her truth.

And then—something broke.

Not elegantly. Not privately.

A simple question landed harder than expected:

“What are you really afraid of?”

That I’m not allowed to write.
That it’s indulgent.
That I’ll never be able to live from it.

It wasn’t just about writing.

It was about permission.

And for a woman like me—ex-athlete, PhD, advisor, mother, system survivor—that permission had been overdue.

Still, I didn’t write.

2024 unfolded differently.

Misaligned collaborations.
Time invested.
Energy spent.
Returns that never came.

Promises delayed.
“Next month, next month.”

Nothing came.

I started questioning everything—my voice, my direction, my place.

I even considered becoming employable again.

Not desperate.

But disoriented.

And then—December.

One year later.

A business conference behind me, a storm building inside me.

I landed in Florida with something I couldn’t ignore anymore.

That night, my body made the decision for me.

A 41°C fever.

Not the kind you sip tea through.

The kind you confess through.

The kind that doesn’t ask politely.

It forces.

It burns.

It strips.

In yoga, they call it tapas—the inner fire that burns what no longer serves.

Sacred, yes.

But not gentle.

Not aesthetic.

Not optional.

Unpleasant truth:

I had been living in something dangerously close to mediocrity.

Not failure.

Not collapse.

Just… tolerable.

Polite.
Functional.
Forgettable.

And something in me refused to stay there.

“Hell no. Not this life.”

Not this careful version.
Not this reduced version.
Not this muted version.

I would rather burn it down than stay invisible inside it.

That wasn’t illness.

It was expulsion.

A forced exit from a life that no longer fit.

And what emerged wasn’t polished.

Not elegant.

Not finished.

But awake.

That fever wasn’t illness.
It was initiation….