Last year didn't go the way I expected.

Some things went really well. I gave a couple of keynotes. I worked with some incredible Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 teams. But honestly, 90% of everything I did in 2025 was booked way back in Q1.

And then I kind of disappeared.

Not dramatically. More… quietly.

I'd post here and there. I just wasn't really engaging. And it wasn't because I didn't care about the work.

It was because 2025 was the last year of my dad's life. And the five years before that were filled with a Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis that slowly changed everything for our family.

If you've been through something like that, you know it doesn't show up neatly. It just sits in the background of everything you do.

So instead of pushing through — which is what we're all trained to do — I tried hard to practice what I preach. I paid attention to my energy.

I kept asking, "What do I actually have to give today?" And what I had to give was going toward things that didn't show up on social media.

I was really lucky. My husband had steady clients. My long-term clients stayed. I didn't have to force myself to be visible just to survive.

So I chose to be present where it mattered most.

Even quiet, I never stopped talking to high achievers, founders, leaders. High-capacity people who care a lot about their work and their teams.

And I kept hearing the same three things, over and over:

"I'm not broken. I'm just tired."
"I don't know what I even want anymore."
"I don't know why everything feels harder."

Not always full burnout. Honestly, "burnout" has become a word that almost doesn't mean anything anymore. Most of the time it wasn't that at all. It was just… out of rhythm. Out of equilibrium.

A lot of it comes down to not really understanding how your own wiring shows up under sustained pressure — and never getting the chance to recalibrate. That's not a behavior problem. It's a wiring problem wearing a behavior problem's clothes.

It's also the gap I've spent my whole career on. The space between how you read yourself on the inside and how the people around you actually receive you. I call it the translation gap. And grief, it turns out, widens it in everyone.

So here I am. Not coming back with some big splash. Just… re-entering. Re-engaging.

The Enneagram is still the backbone of my work. It changed my life. It's a map, not a stamp — and How to Fascinate® is still how I translate inner wiring into how people actually experience you. Internal read, external read, and the work that lives in between. That's the whole thing.

I've started naming the integrated version of all of it: The Translation Method™ — From Self-Aware to Operable. I'm playing with a few simple ideas right now, talking them through with people before I go any further. And I only want to do that with people who actually want to be here.

If you're leading people, or you're a high achiever inside a system, and you still care about how you lead, how you communicate, and not losing yourself in the process —

Stick around.

If you're not in that season anymore, that's okay too.

This is a season of renewal for me and my business. A lot has been happening behind the scenes, even when it didn't look like it.

My energy is finally coming back. My curiosity is back. And I'm ready to engage again.

Grief does strange things to you. But it also makes you really clear about what matters.

I'm here. And I'm glad you're here too.

— Hillarie Kay