When the "right" path stared to feel wrong for me

For a long time, I was conventionally ambitious.

I wasn't chasing titles for their own sake — I was building a career. Taking on bigger roles. Expanding my scope. Moving forward.

Then I found myself choosing between the role that looked right and the work that felt right.

And that decision changed how I think about success.

I remember noticing how different kinds of work left me feeling.

After a long session with analysts — challenging assumptions, sharpening ideas, watching someone's thinking evolve — I was tired in the best possible way. Energised, even in the exhaustion.

After some senior leadership meetings, I felt something else entirely. Drained. Flat. As though I had spent a full day working, but not necessarily on the work that mattered most to me.

That's when I realised something important.

The return on a promotion is easy to calculate.

The return on your energy is not.

Titles are visible. Compensation is visible. Prestige is visible.

But the real cost — the hours, the relationships, the kind of thinking a role demands of you — rarely makes it into the spreadsheet.

Too many high performers optimise for what they can see, while quietly absorbing the rest.

And that cost often doesn't arrive dramatically.

It arrives as depletion.

As a calendar full of things you're good at, but no longer excited by.

As sustained performance at the expense of the work that made you exceptional in the first place.

This week in The ROE Letter, I write about the career decision that forced me to ask a better question:

What is this energy actually building — and is it the thing I want to be building?

https://substack.com/@charmianlong

When did you last examine whether the return you're generating is the one you actually want?

#ReturnOnEnergy #HighPerformance #ExecutiveCoaching #Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #CareerGrowth #InvestorTurnedCoach