On identity, pace, and staying in the story

Ninety days after surgery, I picked up a 25-pound dumbbell and squatted with it. Same weight as before. My trainer, Tracy White, didn’t say much. She didn’t have to. We both knew what it meant.

Physically, I’m back. But the real recovery wasn’t physical.

What I Used to Believe About Momentum

Before this experience, I thought I had a clear understanding of momentum. Momentum meant forward motion. Progress. Execution. Things moving. When momentum was present, it felt like alignment — effort producing results. And when it stopped, even temporarily, I assumed something had been lost.

Momentum, in my mind, was fragile. If it broke, you had to rebuild it from scratch.

The Reality of Interruption

The past ninety days challenged that belief completely.

There was no gradual slowdown. No controlled transition. Just a hard stop. And with it came the assumption — almost reflexive — that momentum had disappeared.

But something interesting happened during that period. Even though my external activity was reduced to the essentials, something internal remained steady. I was still engaged with my advisees. Still managing due diligence on a live transaction. Still turning ideas over, still thinking about the work.

The engine was running. Just at a different RPM.

Changed Altitude, Not Direction

I didn’t lose momentum. I changed altitude.

For a stretch of time, my role wasn’t to build, expand, or accelerate. It was to stabilize, recover, and protect the asset the entire mission depends on. That asset is me.

That realization sounds simple, but it’s not easy to accept — especially for those of us who are used to producing, building, and measuring our days by what we moved forward. The identity of a builder is tied to building. When you can’t build for a while, the question becomes: are you still a builder?

The answer, I’ve learned, is yes. You’re just building something different. You’re building back.

Rethinking What Momentum Actually Is

Here’s what I understand now that I didn’t before:

Momentum is not just about movement. It’s about continuity. Continuity of identity. Continuity of engagement. Continuity of purpose — even when the form changes completely.

During this period, I was still thinking about my work. Still engaging with people who needed my judgment. Still reflecting — more deeply, in fact, than I might have if I’d been running at full speed. That’s a form of momentum. Just not the one I was used to recognizing.

I’ve spent 25 years working with business owners, and I see this same blind spot in the ones who are approaching an exit. They equate momentum with activity. They stay busy — running the business, putting out fires, saying yes to every meeting — and they mistake that busyness for progress toward a transition they haven’t actually started planning. When the activity pauses, they feel lost. Not because the direction is gone, but because they never separated direction from speed.

Pace is not direction. That’s one of the most important things this experience taught me.

Restart One Engine

Another insight that emerged, and one I think about often now:

You don’t restart your entire life after an interruption. You restart one engine.

For me, that was my workouts. Three sessions a week with Tracy. Simple. Structured. Repeatable. It wasn’t about fitness — not really. It was about re-establishing identity continuity. A signal to myself that I was still in motion, still choosing to show up, still building something.

Once that engine was running, the others followed. My work sharpened. My energy returned. My focus on CEOIQ Renaissance came back with more clarity than before, not less.

I’ve watched this same pattern with business owners preparing to sell. The ones who navigate the transition well don’t try to solve everything at once. They don’t wake up one morning and tackle their financial records, their succession plan, their advisory team, their personal readiness, and their tax strategy all before lunch. They pick one thing. Get the diagnostic done. Have the first honest conversation with their CPA. Take the call with an advisor. And that first engine — that one act of motion — pulls the rest forward.

What Reinvention Actually Looks Like

During this recovery, I came to a realization that connects directly to everything I’m building with CEOIQ Renaissance:

I was modeling what reinvention looks like under real conditions.

Not when everything is aligned. Not when energy is high. Not when circumstances cooperate. But when something unexpected forces a change you didn’t choose, on a timeline you didn’t set, with energy reserves you didn’t budget for.

That’s reinvention in the real world. That’s the Arete Shift — not a motivational concept, but a response to what is. The pursuit of excellence when excellence requires patience instead of speed, restraint instead of force, presence instead of production.

Each Day Is a Page

One idea that helped me reframe this entire experience, and I’ll carry it forward:

Each day is a page — not a countdown.

After a health event, it’s easy to start thinking in terms of time lost. Days diminishing. Opportunities narrowing. But that framing leads to a place that isn’t particularly useful.

A better framing: some pages are full. Some are shorter. Some are quieter. But each one is still an opportunity to write something meaningful. That’s true after surgery. It’s true after selling your business. It’s true after any transition that strips away the familiar structure and asks you to build a new one.

Where I Am Now

I’m back working. Back training. Still a little worn out some days. But clearer than I was before this started. More grounded. More intentional about where I place my energy.

And with a deeper understanding of something that feels both simple and important:

I have resilience. Not theoretical resilience. Tested resilience.

And I’m not done.

A Question to Consider

What if momentum isn’t about moving faster… but about staying in the story?

* * *

A note from Ben…

I work with business owners navigating the most consequential transition of their careers — selling the company they built. What I’ve learned about momentum, identity, and reinvention over the past 90 days has only sharpened my perspective on that work. The parallels are real: the disruption to routine, the challenge to identity, the question of what comes next, and the discovery that momentum doesn’t require speed — it requires staying in the story. If you’re a business owner thinking about your own transition and wondering where to start, I’d welcome the conversation. Reach me at [email protected].

Author: Ben Griffin

Facilitator - CEO Peer Advisory Group; Executive Coach; Photographer