Every leader eventually faces a moment when their old playbook stops working-when past success no longer guarantees future results, and the pressure to perform collides with a creeping sense that something fundamental needs to change. If you're in that space right now, this book was written for you.
Caterpillar Soup at 30,000 Feet is a leadership transformation guide for executives, business owners, and high-achievers navigating major personal and professional change. Using the little-known science of butterfly metamorphosis as its central metaphor-the fact that a caterpillar must completely dissolve into liquid before a butterfly can form-this book reframes transformation not as a failure to be managed but as a necessary and navigable process. Through nine phases of the "cocoon experience," readers develop the awareness, resilience, and clarity of identity needed to emerge from disruption stronger and more aligned than before.
Unlike typical leadership development books that focus on skills and strategies, this is a guide to the uncomfortable middle-the cocoon itself-where real transformation actually happens. It draws on hard-won lessons from high-stakes military aviation, Fortune 500 consulting, and the deeply personal experience of rebuilding identity from the ground up.
If you're ready to stop optimizing who you were and start becoming who you're meant to be, this is your roadmap.
