The Golden Vortex

Picture This: It is a stunning June evening. You are having dinner outside. The waiter opens an epic bottle of wine to celebrate. But you are not sure you are in the right headspace to celebrate. A mix of tears in your eyes, a tiny triumph in your heart, but your mind is silent. The particular quiet that arrives right before something begins.

That was me on Friday, June 20, 2025. My last day at Valerie Wilson Travel/JPMorganChase. I closed a chapter on a thirty-year career. I was happy, but sad. And I was quiet. Perhaps not the best dinner companion that evening. I did not have the words to properly express what I was leaving, or what was ahead of me.

Here is what most people do not know about the company my mother founded.

Four years earlier, we sold. A few months later, the company that bought us, also a second-generation family business, was acquired by one of the largest financial institutions in the world. I stayed through both transitions. Which means I got to witness something very few people ever see from the front lines: what happens to two founder-built companies when the handoff is happening.

I watched which parts of the business transferred well, and I also saw which parts had been living inside the family business and the founder’s vision the whole time. Completely invisible until the moment someone tried to move them.

Going in, the executive team used a phrase constantly, from deal announcement through two-plus years of integration: Don’t crush the butterfly.

Protect what is working. Protect what we bought. Do not let the new systems flatten what made this business in the first place.

They meant it. For years, everyone tried to honor it.

But you cannot run a regulated financial institution on a family business mindset, culture, and legacy. And you cannot keep every decision inside one person’s head and scale it. I, and most of us, were naive that we could integrate and not crush the butterfly. And what would crush the butterfly?

Nobody had done anything wrong. It was not a failure of effort or intention. It was two operating systems trying to run inside the same company at the same time. One built on instinct. One built on infrastructure.

Every company is running two leadership systems. The one that built it. And the one it needs now. Most keep running on the first long after the second is overdue and they do not find out until the handoff, when it is too late to fix.

The Full Stop

I knew one thing for certain; I needed a break. Not the rolling stop we often make. You know the one I am talking about, when you are technically on vacation but still checking email, still mentally solving the next problem. I needed a full and complete stop.

I wanted to figure out who I am, especially when you strip away the Co-President of Valerie Wilson Travel or Head of Brand Culture at Chase Travel Group persona. Who was I without a family business? What mattered to me? How did I want to spend my time?

I am not good without a plan or stillness. I am an over-planner. I excelled in my career because I was typically one step ahead. Always with the answers. Anticipating the next move, solving the next problem before anyone finishes asking the question. So, last summer, I took a complete and full stop. It was wildly uncomfortable. I am not going to lie, some days it felt terrifying and risky. This was so out of character for me.

But each day, I got a little better at it.

I spent the summer without a plan. I let mornings be slow. I journaled. I slept. I let questions stay unanswered longer than was comfortable. I sat with my own company, just me, without a title or a to-do list or a company to run.

While in Stone Harbor, NJ (one of my happy places), I was out shopping. I thought I knew every store in this town, but explored down a little alleyway and discovered a shop that is a treasure chest of life and hope. Plants. Little bowls. Hand-painted gift cards. Even a year-round Christmas section in the back. This book, The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest, seemed to be pulling me toward it.

I picked it up. Read the back cover. Hmm…I was not sure. But I purchased it.

I read it slowly. A page a day. Not something you can rush. You have to be present and patient. I have highlighted lines, earmarked pages, and drawn hearts next to certain passages. I recommend it to anyone embracing change or a transformational time in their life.

I did not know then that the pause itself was the beginning of Keep Wondering Why.

Three Things The Year Taught Me

1. There Is Power In Not Knowing

“There is great power in not knowing. When you finally admit that you do not know what is next, you enter the golden vortex — the space between everything you know you’re meant for and anything you had previously imagined could be.” — Brianna Wiest, The Pivot Year

I spent most of my career being the person with the answers. Admitting I did not know what came after VWT/JPMC was its own kind of leadership lesson, one nobody teaches in a boardroom.

The golden vortex is uncomfortable. It is also, I have learned, where the real building happens. Keep Wondering Why did not come from a plan I already had. It came from the space I finally allowed myself to enter. My ideas. My dreams. My belief about what could be possible.

2. Self-Love Is Inward, Not Outward

“We can only exit the labyrinth of our own pain when we realize that self-love is not an outward measure but an inward nurturing.” — Brianna Wiest, The Pivot Year

Founder nerves are sneaky. They disguise themselves as productivity, as one more proposal, one more proof point, one more way to prove the decision to leave was the right one.

I also had a lot of baggage to unpack from selling and leaving the family business. This year taught me that the proof was never going to come from outside validation. It had to come from how I treated myself. On the bad days when I did not land a client. On the good days when I got a referral. And in all the hours alone, planning, strategizing, building.

3. Purpose Is Someone You Become

“Sometimes, your purpose in the world is not something you do, but someone you become. Someone you choose to be.” — Brianna Wiest, The Pivot Year

If I measured this year only by what Keep Wondering Why has accomplished, the list would be short. It has only been about eight months. But if I measure the past twelve months by who I have become, the list grows long.

I have more peace. I have found a different kind of joy and purpose. I have become someone who asks better questions. I have learned to trust curiosity over certainty. I am someone who chose to build a company around the very thing the corporate world rarely makes room for: wondering.

The Exercise (Give It 5 Minutes)

Find five minutes away from your calendar and your to-do list. Write down one thing you have been thinking about (a lot), but do not have an answer for it yet. It can be about your work, your next chapter, or yourself.

Do not try to answer it. Just let it sit on the page, unresolved.

Notice what it feels like to leave it there.

That discomfort is the beginning of your golden vortex. It is also, often, where the next true thing begins.

My Intention

I am happier than I have been in a long time and it feels amazing. Each day, I continue to try new things. I am embracing unfamiliarity, and I am getting better at letting nerves and pride sit beside me, at the same time. I don’t want to be the person who feels they have something to prove or justify; I just want to be me.

And allow my mind to wonder. To myself, out loud in public, but always with curiosity, purpose, and intentionality.

This company I am building, and the person I am still becoming inside it, keep wonder at the core.

I hope you will wonder with me.

With curiosity,

#KeepWonderingWhy #LeadershipDevelopment #AuthenticLeadership #ThoughtLeadership #PersonalReflection #GenerationalReadiness #FamilyBusiness #TheGoldenVortex #KWWInc