Last week, I shared the story of The Six-Year Gap — how a dream born in 2013 didn’t come to life until 2019. But I left out the hardest part: what happened during those six years.
This is the part of the story most leaders don’t tell. We share the before and the after. The struggle and the breakthrough. But we skip the middle — the long, unglamorous season where nothing seems to be working and you’re not even sure you’re on the right path anymore.
I call it the grinding season. And it nearly destroyed me.
The Double Grind
When I left the corporate world and entered full-time pastoral ministry, I thought I was stepping into my calling. In some ways, I was. But what I didn’t anticipate was a leadership culture built on exhaustion.
The pace was unsustainable. There were no boundaries — every hour belonged to the ministry. Rest wasn’t a rhythm; it was a sign of weakness. If you weren’t busy, you weren’t committed. If you weren’t tired, you weren’t giving enough.
But the exhaustion wasn’t even the worst part.
The worst part was the conformity. The culture demanded I become someone I wasn’t. My leadership instincts — the ones shaped by running a company, by studying heart-centred leadership, by the vision I’d been carrying since 2013 — were treated as threats, not gifts. I was expected to lead like everyone else, think like everyone else, and never question the system.
So I ground myself down in two ways at once: I was grinding at an unsustainable pace, and I was grinding in the wrong calling. The first exhausted my body. The second crushed my soul.
What I Lost
During those years, I lost clarity. The LFTH vision was still somewhere inside me, but it was buried under layers of obligation, performance, and survival. I didn’t have the bandwidth to dream. I barely had the bandwidth to breathe.
I lost authenticity. I was wearing a mask — performing a version of leadership that wasn’t mine. And the longer I wore it, the harder it became to remember who I actually was underneath.
I lost rhythm. My days had no structure beyond reaction. No intentional input. No protected rest. No space for reflection. Just output, output, output until there was nothing left to give.
What I Didn’t Lose
But here’s what I want you to hear — because this is the part that matters most.
I didn’t lose the dream.
It went underground. It went quiet. There were seasons where I honestly forgot about it. But it never fully died. The vision for a different kind of leadership — one built on love, faith, and hope instead of fear, performance, and exhaustion — survived every toxic season I walked through.
And it survived because it wasn’t just an idea. It was a calling. Ideas can be killed by circumstances. Callings survive them.
What the Grinding Taught Me
I wouldn’t wish the grinding season on anyone. But I can’t deny what it produced.
It taught me, in my own body and soul, exactly what happens when leaders have no rhythm. I don’t teach “rhythm over hustle” as a theory — I teach it as someone who lived the alternative and nearly lost everything.
It taught me what toxic leadership looks like from the inside. Not from a textbook. Not from a case study. From years of experiencing it daily. That knowledge now shapes every retreat I design, every leader I coach, every system I help build.
It taught me that conformity is the enemy of calling. The moment you start performing someone else’s version of leadership, you begin to die inside — slowly enough that you don’t notice, quickly enough that the people closest to you do.
And it taught me that the dream you carry through the fire is the dream worth building.
If You’re in Your Grinding Season
Maybe you’re reading this and you recognise yourself. You’re tired — not just physically, but in your soul. You’re performing a version of leadership that isn’t yours. You know there’s something more, but you can’t see how to get there from where you are.
I want to tell you two things.
First: name it. Call the grinding what it is. Don’t spiritualise exhaustion. Don’t confuse busyness with purpose. If your current rhythm is destroying you, that’s not faithfulness — it’s a warning sign.
Second: the dream isn’t dead. It might be buried. It might be quiet. But if it was placed in you by God, it has survived every season you’ve walked through — and it will survive this one too.
The grinding season isn’t the end of your story. It might be the chapter that makes the rest of it worth reading.
Next week: The Making of a Leader — Part 3: Rhythm Over Hustle
Silas Achu is the Founder of Lead from the Heart, a leadership development consultancy empowering African executives and emerging leaders through the Leadership Heartbeat methodology. Learn more at www.leadfromtheheart.co.uk
