Let the Foxes Eat Your Bones

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Aug 18, 2025

Good Morning, leaders, readers, and casual observers,

I hope you are having a great start to the week, I know I am so far; I took time to recharge over the weekend, and it was time well spent.

And wouldn’t you know it, something from my creative, detach-from-work activities bled over into work this morning as I sipped my coffee, looking at the sunlight coming through the trees in my holler.

I have something I’d like to share with you.

In order to not think about building Cultivar constantly (it is a passion of mine, and if I don’t catch myself I will burn myself out working), I have to find equally interesting things I am passionate about to rabbit hole down.

Thankfully, in this regard, I have ADHD and enjoy writing of all kinds, not just theoretical leadership principles. Given what you know about me, it likely won’t be a surprise that I’ve been world-building a fantasy novel series for quite some time, and that is what I have diving into the past few weeks when I’m not working or being a dad and partner.

To this end, I’ve been researching and studying all kinds of things from all over the world regarding belief structures, world-views, and the specificities of how people live their everyday lives throughout history; in that process, the algorithms brought this video to me yesterday.

I don’t think I’ve found too many other plausible explanations for the consistency and enduring levels of burnout I’m seeing across the board (at least from a personal perspective, societal reasons not withstanding).

After watching this video, I was reminded of a good conversation I had recently with someone regarding authenticity as a leader, specifically my belief that mid-life crises are simply authenticity crises. One of their concerns with the concept was that “people change, so what is authentic will change,” and I answered with an emphatic “yes!”

Authenticity, the act of understanding and living in your authentic self, and presenting that self to the world, using that to lead, is not static. We do change. But most of the time, we don’t like to admit that.

There have been so many times I’ve had to cut loose dreams I wanted to chase, not because they were not worthwhile dreams or that I couldn’t pursue them, but because I had outgrown them. The problem was that I still wanted to achieve them because they had once existed. I was not willing to let them die.

It’s the same mentality for when people get stuck on what they want to achieve, how they want to achieve it, and what label they should ascribe to the achievement.

We do change. We grow, or we stagnate. It’s up to us to recognize the changes in our ecosystems, adjust to the elevation, and cultivate ourselves. That process is authenticity.

Not chaining yourself to assumptions and ideals about who you wanted to be or who you thought you should be. Focus on who you are now, and where you go from here.

I will say I think healing from things is important, and that is actually the grieving part of burying your deaths, but on the same token …

Let the Fox eat Your Bones.

Until Next Time,

Chris

Let the Foxes Eat Your Bones

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