I am dropping into your inbox mid-week because I have something I am super excited about and I wanted you to hear it first.

As I am sure we all know high performance has a cost. At some point the pressure, the pace and the responsibility stop feeling energising and start draining you. I know you already know this. You can feel it.

You are performing, delivering, leading well but behind the scenes something has changed. The decisions that used to feel clear now take twice the energy. 

You are lying awake at 3am running through tomorrow before it has even started. 

You are snapping at people you love because by the time you get home there is nothing left. You are present but not fully there and there is a version of you that remembers when this all felt different.

And the higher you go, the less space there is to say any of this out loud.

Because who do you say it to? Your team looks to you for answers. Your peers are managing their own pressure. At home, people care but they do not fully understand the pressure you are carrying. So you keep going. Keep delivering. Keep holding everything together and keep performing. 

But it is costing you more than it should.

This is what happens when your current way of thinking, leading and deciding stops matching the level you are at. 

You have not reached your limit. You have just outgrown the patterns that got you here. 

And you're not alone 71% of leaders have experienced burnout. 

60% of founders say it directly impacts their decision-making. 

50% of CEOs report that loneliness at the top affects their performance.

Unfortunately this isn't rare, in fact it is the reality of leadership at this level. What is rare is having the space and the community to actually work through it properly.

After years of working with senior leaders and founders across organisations including the NHS, Metropolitan Police, Deloitte, KPMG, BBC and many more, I kept noticing the same things.

Stephen, COO. Highly experienced, consistently delivering results, but increasingly short-tempered with his team and struggling to make decisions without worrying about the results. The confidence that had got him to COO level had quietly disappeared and he had no idea why.

Within 12 weeks he was making decisions without the paralysis, had rebuilt trust with his senior team and he told me that it was the first time in years that he had felt like himself at work again.

Tanya, Founder, e-commerce business. Was privately feeling like she was one bad month away from it all going wrong. She could not delegate, could not switch off and had started to wonder whether it was worth it.

By the end of the programme she had started to let go of the day-to-day, developed a team she actually trusted and she finally stopped dreading Monday mornings.

Charlie, Senior Director. Promoted into a role that required influencing and presenting at board level, he was terrified of being found out. Brilliant technically but convinced that everyone in the meetings knew more than him. The imposter syndrome had started to affect his performance and his relationships at work.

Twelve weeks later he was presenting with genuine confidence, had stopped over-preparing out of fear and he told me the shift happened when he understood where the self-doubt was actually coming from.

This is what changes when you change how you think, lead and decide. And none of them thought it was possible for them either.

This Is What I Created Elevate For

No more winging it. No more carrying it alone. No surface-level leadership advice that sounds good and changes nothing.

Imagine being in a room full of people who are done pretending they have it all figured out. Leaders and founders who are brilliant at what they do and exhausted by how they are doing it, where for the first time you get to stop performing and just be honest.

Someone just had the difficult conversation they have been avoiding for months and shares exactly how they did it. 

Someone is three months ahead and has already solved the challenge you are facing right now. 

Someone celebrates a win and for the first time in your career you are in a room where people genuinely understand why it matters.

Their wins become your wins. Their breakthroughs become your permission to believe it is possible for you too.

The most powerful moments I have ever witnessed in coaching are not just the ones in 1:1 sessions. They are the ones when a high performer realises they are not the only one. When someone shares something they have never said out loud before and the whole room nods. When you overcome a challenge with people who actually get it because they are living it too.

I'm so excited to introduce you to Elevate: The Roundtable a 12-week group coaching programme for leaders and founders who are ready to think, lead and decide at a higher level without the self doubt and without the burnout. 

Clinical psychology meets executive strategy. Deep subconscious work, neuroscience-informed coaching and Harvard-grounded leadership frameworks all in a room with people who finally get it.

Psychology first. Strategy second. I go deep. That is the point.

The 3-Month Structure

Month 1: Identify and Rewire We start where most programmes do not, your subconscious. The 3am wake ups. The thought loops you cannot switch off. The inner critic that gets louder the more successful you become. The identity lag keeping you leading like the person you were three years ago.

By the end of month one you will understand what has been driving your exhaustion, you will have overcome the self-doubt and stopped spiralling in overthinking.

Month 2: Lead With the mindset work in place we bring in strategy. The difficult conversation you have been avoiding for six months. The team member you have been managing around instead of managing. The decisions you are making from fear rather than clarity. Harvard-grounded leadership frameworks applied to your real situations, not hypothetical ones.

By the end of month two you will hold difficult conversations without spiralling and make decisions with genuine confidence.

Month 3: Elevate Integration. This is where we pull everything together from understanding your leadership style to developing a culture that thrives. You leave with your personalised Resilient Leader Blueprint, a complete system for leadership and decision-making that you can implement long after the programme ends.

What You Get

3 x 1:1 sessions- a kick-off to define your starting point, a floating session to use when pressure is highest and a close to lock in your progress and map your next steps.

6 x fortnightly group sessions- 90 minutes every two weeks, part peer work, part guided reflection, part hot seat coaching. You leave each session with one clear shift and one thing to act on immediately.

Weekly training drops- 20 to 30 minutes of deep psychology delivered straight to you every week. The kind of insight that lands on a commute and stays with you all day.

Peer accountability pods- small group check-ins with leaders at your level. Honest conversations, no performance required.

Elevate Collective- a private community with direct access to me and your peers between sessions, for when things come up and you need support in real time.

Elevate HQ- all recordings, resources and audio drops in one place, available whenever you need them.

Your Investment

Starting May 2026. Limited places.

Paid in full: £1,350 or £1,250 with your exclusive reader discount using code ELEVATE100.

Payment plan: £500 x 3 months. Use the code ELEVATE100 for £100 off your first payment.

Book before 15th April and your kick-start 1:1 upgrades to a 90-minute deep dive worth £395.

Secure your place here

Is This For You?

This is for you if you lead a team and you are ready to lead from clarity rather than pressure. If you are ambitious, capable and aware that something needs to change. 

If you want a space where you do not have to perform and peers who actually understand your pressure.

This is not for you if you are looking for quick tactics or surface-level advice. Or if you are not open to the deep reflective work that creates real and lasting change.

If you have been reading this newsletter and thinking something needs to change, this is where that happens.

Find out more and secure your place: www.nicolahladky.com/elevate

Or if you want to talk it through first: calendly.com/nicolahladky/roundtable

I would love to have you in the room.

Nicola x

P.S. Places are limited and the reader discount and early bird both close on 15th April. Once they are gone, they are gone.