Hi {{ first_name | friend }}, 

If you’ve been here from the beginning, you have read more than six letters, including the ones where I told you why I left a decade in corporate cybersecurity, what I was carrying in those years, and the full context of why I started this business and why these letters exist.

In those letters, I have shared scenes from my own life. Today’s is different.

I am not the one with the story this time. I want you to meet Nick.

You may remember a Nick from a recent letter, my physical therapist in Austin. This is another person.

This Nick is a CISO, a professor, a startup founder, and a father. He came to our sessions with a healthy degree of skepticism and left calling it the most intentional time he had spent all year. He agreed to sit down with me on camera and tell me, in his own words, what those four sessions actually did for him.

His story is below. For anyone new or looking to go back, the earlier letters are waiting for you here.

This reflection comes from a real conversation. Nick agreed to share his story so others in similar seasons could recognize themselves in it. Every coaching session remains private and confidential.

Nick came into our first session wearing multiple hats and holding different roles he had taken on. His days were split between being a CISO, building a cybersecurity startup, and keeping family responsibilities at the top of his list. When I asked him what was happening in his life at that time, he was clear: he was not in a low place. He was not dreading his days. He had energy and he loved what he was doing.

"Just because I loved the things I was doing doesn't mean that it wasn't taking a toll on me."

Physically, he was in the worst state of health he had ever been in. Warning signs had started to show up, the early symptoms of potentially having heart disease or diabetes. A “giant wake-up call”, he called it. He had no bandwidth to track what he was eating, how much he was sleeping, and how he was showing up for the people around him.

"I can't remember so much because I was in that mode where I couldn't stop and take things in," he said.

He had also learned, in his early 40s, that he has ADHD and PTSD. He was actively working through both. He knew he needed intentional time to process these diagnoses, but he did not have a way to create it.

He was physically in the same room as his kids however his attention was elsewhere, cycling through whatever needed handling next. They were right there and he wasn’t taking any of it in.

He came to our sessions with a healthy degree of skepticism. He had tried different things over the years and knew the pattern of doing something and falling back into the same habits. He also, by his own admission, agreed partly because we are friends. "Victoria's my friend. I'll do this for her, that was my mentality." He said.

Four sessions later: "You turned a skeptic into a believer."

Over those four sessions, he cleared his calendar, silenced his notifications, and locked the door. He identified it as the most intentional time he spent during that entire period, professionally or personally.

When I asked him what made that time worth protecting, he told me:

Hypnobreathwork became an additional tool in his toolkit, something that helped him process PTSD, stay grounded, and bring his priorities back into focus. "Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) on steroids," he described it.

When I asked what he would say to someone skeptical about breathwork: "I dare you to try it. Double dog dare you."

At the end of our conversation, Nick said one of the best-kept secrets about working with me is that I come from cybersecurity too. I understand what it is like to be in his shoes. We held different roles, but we know the same space: the demands, the rigor, the expectations, and the pressure.

"You've walked the path already, and that was really important for me." He said.

"Just because I loved the things I was doing doesn't mean that it wasn't taking a toll on me." — Nick

See you Saturday.

Victoria Grandury
CEO & Founder, Limitless Rebel
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