Why I Found a Mentor Before I Burned Everything Down

There is a point in a founder’s journey where momentum becomes a liability.

You keep moving because that is what founders do. You solve problems. You absorb pressure. You make it work. From the outside, it can look like resilience. From the inside, it can feel like erosion.

I reached that point during a period of significant transition. I was navigating the sale of one business while simultaneously laying the groundwork for another. At the same time, I was dealing with increasing strain inside a founding relationship that no longer felt balanced or sustainable.

Nothing was exploding. That was part of the problem.

When situations are clearly broken, decisions are easier. When they are quietly misaligned, founders tend to normalize the discomfort. You tell yourself it is temporary. That it will settle. That pushing harder is the responsible thing to do.

What changed everything for me was finding the right mentor.

I did not need motivation or tactics. I needed perspective. I needed someone who understood the realities of building, exiting, and starting again. Someone who could listen without agenda and help me see the situation as it actually was, not as I wished it to be.

That mentor was Darren Burke.

Darren did not tell me what to do. He helped me slow down enough to hear my own thinking clearly. He asked questions that cut through noise and ego. He named patterns I was too close to see and challenged assumptions I had been carrying quietly for a long time.

Most importantly, he treated the situation with the seriousness it deserved. Not just as a business problem, but as a leadership moment with long term consequences.

Those conversations helped me make decisions that were difficult, but necessary. Decisions that protected my future as a founder, not just the short term optics of staying the course. Decisions that allowed me to exit one chapter with integrity and begin another with intention.

I am sharing this because too many founders wait until they are depleted to seek support. We celebrate independence and grit, but we rarely talk about how dangerous isolation can be when the stakes are high.

Strong ecosystems are built on experienced people showing up for others. Halifax has that. I am a direct beneficiary of it.

If you are a founder navigating complexity, tension, or transition, find someone who has been there before. Not to decide for you, but to help you decide with clarity.

That choice changed everything for me.