A Good Exit is a Mantra

On leaving without losing what matters

A good exit is like a mantra.
A rock in the pond.
A step from one side of the bank to the other.

You don’t throw the rock away once you’ve crossed.
You leave it there, knowing you can always walk back.
Visit. Remember. Honour what was built.

Because if you’ve poured yourself into something that mattered,
it doesn’t disappear when you step aside.
The clients you served,
the team you grew,
the community you helped shape,
these don’t switch off with your title.
They remain.
Alive. Breathing. Becoming their own.

A good exit holds that truth.
It doesn’t slam the door.
It doesn’t burn the bridge.
It lets you return,
not to take control,
but to witness the life that continues without you.

And like a mantra,
an exit is not meant to be permanent.
It’s a resting place between worlds.
A rhythm that carries you across.
Not somewhere you stay forever,
but a bridge that delivers you back to yourself.

To linger too long in the mantra
is to miss the silence it points toward.
To linger too long in the exit
is to miss the chapter waiting to open.

The gift of both is movement.
Forward.
Lighter.
Wiser.

And when you look back across the pond,
you’ll see it clearly,
what you built, what you loved, what still lives.
Not as a weight,
but as a reminder:
you were always more than what you made.