By Lewis English
I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to fix what I thought was broken.
Over the years, I’ve learned that my biggest skill is problem solving. I think ahead, plan, strategise, deliver. For business, that means I come in find the problem, solve the problem, leave. It works – but for my personal life, it used to mean that I’d constantly be thinking of every possible scenario, and would usually focus on the worst ones.
It took a long time to realise having a good place for my thoughts and energy was the key to feeling more content with life.
The issue wasn’t the energy – it was where it ended up.
The River
Running through me is a kind of river. It’s energy. It’s focus. It’s productivity. Whatever you want to call it; when I’m using it, I feel strong. Calm. Balanced. When I’m not, the river doesn’t stop. It just keeps flowing until it spills into a lake at the bottom – a lake of fretting and overthinking and anxiety and depression.
For years I tried to cure the lake. Sometimes it helped. But the truth is this: the lake only exists when the river has nowhere useful to go.
So I stopped trying to drain the lake from the bottom, or worse – cure the lake. Instead I built water-mills. Work, projects and hobbies. Useful things that catch the river’s flow and turn it into movement. They don’t have to be grand or public. They just need to be there. When I’m writing. When I’m fixing a process. When I’m running. The flow finds a channel. It doesn’t pool. It doesn’t stagnate.
And the difference is profound. I’m more positive. More present. More productive. Someone described me as ‘weirdly authentic’ the other day – it’s either that or ‘authentically weird.’
Why this matters for work, life and leadership
At Underpin, using that river of energy for good shapes how I work with clients and teams. People and organisations don’t need to be “fixed” in the sense of having every deficiency eliminated. They need channels. They need systems and behaviours that let their energy move purposefully rather than pool into pressure.
When you build a culture where energy is directed, not depressed, you get:
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Teams that are engaged rather than checked-out.
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Projects that feel meaningful rather than endless.
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Leadership that supports motion rather than micro-manages stasis.
We don’t manage by template because no two rivers are the same. We set a direction, keep communication simple, and adapt to the people doing the work. Some rivers will blaze ahead. Some will probe deeply. Some will need a pause. The job of leadership is to build the mills, not to dam the river.
