When the mountain is wrong, everything feels harder than it should.
There comes a time in some people’s lives when they realise the mountain they are climbing in their work is not the one they were meant to climb.
The weather is hostile. The terrain is hard going. Others are trying to push past, climb over, or knock you off altogether.
From where you are, you can sense there are other peaks. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of them through the mist. Something in you knows there may be a different life, a different way of working, a different mountain that fits who you really are.
But still you wake up each day and keep going. One more step. One more push. One more day spent living to work instead of working to live.
It is relentless.
And it is exhausting.
But it does not have to stay that way.
I’m Simon Pollard, and for many years I climbed the wrong mountain.
From the outside, it looked like a good life. I had what most people would consider a good job. I was well paid, reached a senior position, and displayed all the usual signs of success.
But the cost of that path was high. Inside I felt empty.
I had spent most of my working life doing what other people wanted or expected of me. The Default Path felt safe, known, respectable, and responsible. I told myself it would eventually lead somewhere right, even though I could not have clearly said where I wanted to be.
I could feel the strain building every day.
I relied on other people’s permission to do work in the way I believed it needed to be done. I depended on colleagues doing things they had no real intention of doing. Corporate politics was a part of daily life. My inbox filled with thousands of emails, many copied in simply to create an audit trail. I was expected to be immediately available, while also being told that work-life balance was a priority.
I stayed on that path long after something in me knew I shouldn't. People close to me told me not to carry on. I told myself I had to.
Then in 2025, burnout came. My body had been warning me for some time, but I had ignored the signs. I returned to work believing I had recovered, but instead found myself in hospital shortly after with blood clots in both lungs.
So I came off the mountain. I had to. And now, looking back, it was one of the best decisions I had made in a very long time.
And it was while I was recovering and preparing to get back on the mountain, I had a major stroke.
That sequence forced a truth into the open.
The mountain I knew, the one I’d been climbing most of my life, and the one I was close to re-entering, was not my mountain to climb.
There comes a point when you realise there simply is no more time to waste.
Coming off the mountain was not the end of the story. It was the point where a different kind of work began.
First, I needed enough calm to hear myself think again. I had to step out of survival mode and allow the noise to settle.
Then I had to take stock of what was still true. What still mattered. What still felt like me beneath all the roles, expectations, societal programming and pressure.
From there, I began to identify the mountains that might actually be worth climbing, not the ones that looked respectable, but the ones that felt honest and worth the effort.
And then, instead of trying to solve my whole future in one leap, I started running small experiments. Practical steps to test direction, rebuild trust in myself, and see what had real life in it.
That is the kind of journey I am now shaping for others with a working title of "Between Mountains", as that best describes the space where I found my true way forward.
You do not have to leave your current work to begin.
This will be the calm place you can return to as often as you need while meeting what life currently requires.
Between Mountains is for people who know their current path no longer fits, but who may still need to keep walking it for now.
It is a structured place of reorientation, a calm space to return to while life still asks things of you, so you can think more clearly, reconnect with what matters, and begin to identify a more honest next direction.
It is not counselling or therapy. It is not about diagnosis or treatment. It is a guided developmental process for making sense of where you are, what is no longer yours to carry, and what kind of mountain may actually be worth climbing next.
You do not need to have everything figured out. You do not need to leave your work. And you do not need to rush. You move when you are ready to move truthfully.
Between Mountains is not a demand for immediate answers. It is a place to find your footing again.
I'm building Between Mountains for people who feel they can no longer keep walking the wrong path, and who want to find a more honest way forward in a structured, caring and supportive environment.
If what you have read here resonates, I invite you to register your interest.
This is not a commitment to join the final programme. If you register you will be invited to an early group call where I will share my current thinking in more detail, show you how it has started taking shape, explain how I see the group working and offer some of the possibilities I see ahead.
If you stay in the conversation, you can expect occasional emails, surveys, invitations to live calls, and opportunities to help shape the early direction of the programme.
From there, you can decide whether it still feels relevant to you. If it does, you are welcome to remain part of the conversation as the programme develops. If it does not, you can simply step away.
There is no commitment to take part. You can leave any time.
My aim is to build something serious, grounded, and genuinely useful, not only from lived experience, but from years of thinking, writing, and designing structured development in professional settings. Creating clarity from chaos is what I do. Now I want to use that to help you find a mountain worth climbing.
If that feels like something you would like to be part of, I would be glad to hear from you and welcome you personally to be part of a tribe of people working on their best way forward.
Your true mountain is waiting.
If Between Mountains speaks to where you are, leave your details below. You will receive occasional updates and invitations to contribute as the early version takes shape.
No spam. Just occasional updates, optional invitations to contribute, and early supporter access as Between Mountains takes shape.