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While you're reading this, my inaugural Leading Well newsletter, I'm not even here. I'm off mountain biking with my husband Rod.

Yep, that is Rod way up there. He'll be waiting for me at the top of that hill.

If you've ever tried to schedule time with me, you've probably noticed that Friday mornings aren't available. Behind the curtain, there's a four-hour block from 8am to 12pm simply labeled "family."

In the summer we try to get on the trails early, before the crowds and the heat. We finish with coffee and, as our kids call it, a "sweet treat" at a rotating coffee shop. In winter, we ski. Sometimes I work during that block. But the time is held, and family is always first in it.

It's not always exciting. It's not always anything. But it's deliberately protected, and I have to choose something more important than "family" to put on it. That's a high bar.

It wasn't always this way. I used to measure my days by how many hours I could work, and my weeks by how many days. In the Army, I'd stop at the commissary after church on Sundays for groceries and then swing by the office for a few hours of paperwork while I was already on post. I no longer recall how things stayed cold. Once I joined the FBI, I promised Rod I'd quit working Sundays unless truly needed. I kept my promise, and Saturdays fell away because of our pay schedule (AVP - IYKYK) and long commutes. But the days got longer. Protecting the weekends just meant more hours fit into five days instead of seven. (Full disclosure: there were frequently times we had to work weekends and did, without hesitation. Outside those times, I rarely worked them just 'cause.)

Then COVID came and turned everything upside down. It was unclear what a workday versus an evening versus a weekend was anymore. Every edge dissolved.

Now I'm a solo business owner. I work a lot. Just not on Friday mornings. In fact, I often work for Friday mornings.

Recovery isn't what you earn after a hard week. It's what makes the hard week possible.

Most leaders treat it as a reward, what you get when the work is done. So they schedule it last, cut it first, and feel vaguely guilty when they take it.

But the science says recovery isn't passive. It's when adaptation happens, when the brain consolidates, the body rebuilds, the strategic thinking that can't occur under pressure finally surfaces. Research on elite performers consistently shows that stress is the stimulus, but recovery is where the gains are made. Skip it and you're not working harder, you're spending down reserves you're not replenishing. Your performance diminishes because your capacity diminishes.

The leaders who sustain high performance over time don't protect recovery because they've earned it. They protect it because it's load-bearing. That it's also something to look forward to isn't a contradiction. That's the point.

Three things worth doing this week:

1. Name it on your calendar. Not "free time." Not "tentative." A block with a label that raises the bar for what displaces it. Mine says "family." Yours can say whatever that means to you.

2. Set the displacement standard now. Decide in advance what's important enough to move it, before the urgent thing arrives and your judgment is compromised.

3. Start shorter if you need to. The length matters less than the commitment. Two hours you'll actually defend beats four hours you keep moving.

I'll be back on the trails next Friday. I hope you find your "Friday morning," and defend it like it matters. Because it does.

— Sarah

P.S. If this landed, forward it to one leader who needs to hear it.