The year everything fell apart — and I didn’t

Here’s what happened:

• In December 2023, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.
• In January 2024, my brother and I shared responsibility driving here one hour each way to her daily radiation treatments.
• In March 2024, she underwent surgery, and needed months of rehab.
• In August 2024, I myself had a health scare and was told I could become paralyzed if I didn’t act fast.
• And then in October 2024, I was laid off.

By all accounts, I should’ve been overwhelmed. Stressed. Anxious.

But I wasn’t.

I was able to weather these storms with strength, energy, and optimism.

And that surprised me! What was keeping me from falling apart?

Upon reflection, I came to realize it’s not because I’m built any differently than other people.

It’s because I’d been quietly building the tools I needed, long before I ever “needed” them.

The hidden ROI of inner work

For years, I’ve been training myself to think differently.

When faced with the daily mundane challenges that life brings us, I’ve been working hard to frame it in more productive ways.

🛠 A few small practices that helped me stay grounded when the chaos came (feel free to steal them):

• Frame the moment: When something goes wrong, I ask: “What story do I want to tell about this six months from now?” and I literally say out loud “This is the challenge I was given — and I’m grateful it’s not worse.” and “The outcome of this moment isn’t in my control, but how I show up is.
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• Gratitude loop: At dinner, my wife, kids and I each name one small thing we’re grateful for — even on terrible days. It forces my brain to scan for the good.
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• Optimistic Repetition: When setbacks happen, I tell myself: “This is for the best, even if I don’t know how yet.” Not because I always believe it — but because saying it reshapes how I respond over time.

These weren’t flashy habits. Just small, consistent ones.
And it turns out that when life got loud, these practices spoke louder.

Resilience didn’t come from being raised in a special way or 3 day quick-fix transformational seminars.

It came from years of quietly practicing how I wanted to show up — long before life put me to the ultimate test.

This awareness of my resilience is what’s made my 2025 possible.

It’s now May 2025, and that same inner steadiness is carrying me forward.

After going through the health scares and coming out on the other side, I knew that I have what it takes to deal with uncertainty.

And so when I got laid off in October, I was able to meet the moment with sober curiosity and clarity of how I could use this as an opportunity to build a professional future that I am more fully engaged with.

And so far, that’s meant:

• I’ve said no to engineering manager roles to build my own coaching business
• I am teaching an Engineering Leadership course (starts this week!)
• Shown up on podcasts and live videos​
• Published honest, vulnerable content that has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people​

The doubts still show up:

But I meet them with this:

And this never would have been possible had I not gone through years of my mundane bootcamp training, and a year of crisis to bring to light what that cultivated in me.

Real change is slow. But it speeds you up.

What we can take from this is that resilience is built through consistency, through choosing again and again how you want to show up — no matter what’s happening around you.

And then through the crisis, your resilience can propel you even higher than you were heading before the winds began.

Build the foundation before the storm.

Imagine if you invested just as much in building inner tools as you did learning frameworks?

The best investment you can make isn’t in your career — it’s in the you who carries it.

And it’s never too late to begin.

Whether you’re navigating change right now — or simply want to be ready when life throws the next curveball — now is always the right time to start.

And here’s an Alignment Check-In exercise you can get started with right now.

• Set a timer for 20 minutes.
• Identify three words that represent how you want to show up every day. Kind? Brave? Loving? Brain dump as many as you can in 5 minutes, group similar words, and then select the top three.
• For each word, write down
  • How does this show up in small, everyday ways — especially in tough moments — with colleagues? Family? Friends?
  • Why is this important to me?
  • What’s the cost of not showing up this way?
  • What would it look like to bring more of that into the week ahead — in even the smallest way?

With your three words of being clearly defined and evaluated, now you can start making small moves every day to live by them.

You’ll be amazed how often clarity is already inside you — but just hasn’t been given space to emerge. And what having this clarity can do for you.

I am here to help

If you’re an engineer in a moment of transition — or simply want to grow before the next big shift — feel free to reach out. We can accelerate the kind of clarity and transformation that usually takes years to stumble into on your own. No perfect moment required.

The tools that helped me are the same tools I now help other engineers build — not through crisis, but through small, deliberate shifts that create long-term change.

Here’s to slow growth. Steady transformation. And strength that lasts.

All my best,
Michael
Coach + Founder, The Complete Engineer
📬 contact@thecompleteengineer.com
🌐 thecompleteengineer.com​

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