I'm coach Carla. I work with leaders to help them get out of burnout and into a life by designing, on their own terms.

For two decades I was the person you called for high-stakes events: world tours, large corporate stages, festivals, sports events. In 2024, on what felt like a typical day, I was at Formula 1 Grand Prix, four days in without sleep after months without a day off. My legs suddenly gave out. I was on stage right, and I dropped to the floor. My legs refused to stand up, my vision was foggy, and my hearing distorted. I couldn't believe my body wasn't responding as commanded. The audience saw a flawless show that day. Nobody knew the woman they called boss behind the scenes was breaking down from exhaustion, numb, making mistakes so basic they embarrassed her decades of experience. By then my health was gone, my closest relationships were broken, and the business I'd built was fraying.

In the weeks after, I was deeply shaken. Everything felt wrong: pushing my body this far, risking my reputation, my career, my health beyond repair. I felt numb towards everything I had built and achieved. The praises didn't land. The life I was living had been built on dreams I'd set in my early twenties, and I was still carrying them into my late thirties, long after they'd stopped fitting. I never found time to pause and notice that, till this point. I was just, successfully surviving.

So for the first time, I took a different approach. I reduced the workload, and in that space I finally looked at my life. I saw what self-sacrifice had actually cost me, how not listening to myself had slowly eroded everything I actually valued. I realised burnout as a lifestyle is no way of living, not necessary, and most importantly, *not what I wanted*.

I wasn't sure what a different life could look like; events around the clock were all I knew. I decided to find my way out of burnout, and take the risk. Along the way I trained as a coach, and as I slowed down and reflected, I began to hear myself clearly for the first time. I understood what I was made of, what I wanted and didn't want, my core values, and how to make choices that actually served them. Everything began to align, and a life I had chosen, rather than inherited, started to take shape. With that, burnout was inevitably left behind, for good. That is the life I live now, and it finally fits.

I lived inside burnout for years, and getting out was the most powerful, rewarding thing I've ever done, which drives me to extend that possibility to others. When I hear your story, I get it. I recognise the pattern and the human experience underneath. I know how much energy it takes to keep it invisible, and how much courage it takes to talk about it, ask for help, or even choose change. What I bring is knowing the crossing from surviving to designing life is possible, because I've made it myself. That's why I can sit alongside you without judgement, and listen with care, as we find your way through.