For the past fifteen months, Joan Scarrott and I have been hosting taster sessions for our Mortal Leader programme.
It’s a slow build, and even though the topic is not the greatest draw for generating bums on seats, we feel we are creating something of a movement. A movement of people willing to wake up to, and live life in relationship with, rather than in resistance to, their mortality. Mortality not as morbid fixation, but as grounding force. A way of remembering that time is finite, that life is precious, and that how we choose to live and lead matters.
When I say leaders, I don’t mean only those with “Leader” in their job title or pay grade. I mean all of us. Whether we like it or not, we are always leading something — a family system, a team, a community, a way of showing up in the world. The question is not whether we are leading, but from where. Most people who come to our taster sessions don’t sign up because something is broken in their lives, but because they sense that a part of them has gone missing — perhaps their sense of agency, aliveness, or even an orientation to themselves and their lives.
Our experience, over and over, is that when people allow their mortality to come a little closer to their daily life, something both softens and sharpens at the same time. People become more honest, more intentional, more alive. This is as true for people in mid-career or midlife, feeling stretched thin or vaguely restless, as it is for those closer to the end of life.
Today we hosted another taster session. There were just two registrants. One pulled out because of work — the eternal story. And to be clear, there is no judgement here. Life can feel over-full. Work matters. Sometimes the timing simply isn’t right. And… sometimes it’s worth noticing patterns. How often do we say, often without much reflection, “I’ll cancel my personal growth, my inner work, my deeper listening — because of work”? And how many times can that choice be made before something essential is postponed for too long?
So we were down to just one participant today. A very special man named Walt Hopkins.
Walt is a wise elder and mentor to both Joan and me. He has taught us so much about how we “be” in the world, in our work, in our lives. Now into his eighties, with multiple health issues, he genuinely did not expect to still be alive in 2026. But here he still is, and he chose to spend his morning with us, in a Mortal Leader taster session. What matters to say here is that Walt did not come because he is “at the end”. He came because he is living intentionally in whatever time he has. And in that remaining time, he still wants to learn.
Rather than the session being shorter because there was only one participant, the opposite happened. We followed what wanted to unfold and spent more than two and a half hours together. The conversation today, always rich in these Tasters, was particularly full of riches.
Part of the depth, I think, came from what I myself was carrying into the space. The past week has been a particular kind of stretch for me: facilitating a multi-day leadership offsite near Paris, and somehow within that timeframe, travelling to London for my brother James’s funeral. Holding two worlds at once — France and the UK, professional and personal, life and death, leadership and love. Impermanence at its most present. James’s recent and sudden death has (again) sharpened my awareness that postponing what matters is never without consequence; it shapes the life we end up living.
In our Mortal Leader tasters, we offer people embodied, reflective and relational experiences that invite a lived sense of time, finitude and choice. We work with images, music, words, and silence. We slow things down enough that something new and honest can surface. We create a space where people can feel, rather than think about, what it means “to live this one wild and precious life”.
One quote that landed strongly today was: When you die, do you want to be waste or compost? Waste is what gets discarded. Compost is what nourishes life beyond itself. It’s a question that doesn’t belong only to the dying; it belongs equally to those still postponing their deeper questions for “when things calm down”.
Walt spoke about how, as he very consciously approaches the end of his life, he is actively giving things away — books, ideas, stories. Physical and non-physical aspects of him, his life and long, full career. Walt is allowing others to carry his work, his thinking, his questions forward. “This is my compost”, he said. Listening to him, it was hard not to wonder what many of us are carrying that wants to be shared now, rather than held tightly until it’s too late.
Leadership as nourishment rather than achievement.
At one point we worked with a strip of paper, representing our lifetime. Folding away time already lived. Folding away time we will spend sleeping. And holding what remains. What struck Walt was not how little time he might have left, but that there was still time. Usable, valuable, meaningful time — a reminder that mortality awareness is not about panicking, but about choosing consciously while there is still time and choice.
Walt has a practice of writing haikus. He aims to write at least one each day. He wrote a number during our session. They go like this:
A bit of paper
minus sleep and more sleep and
still more can be done
Less and less time does
not mean no time left so use
some of it wisely
A mortal leader
is who I am now and who
I still am today
Emma and Joan know
death and know life and share both
with me forever
Share my stories and
my immortality will
go on beyond me
Tears today are the
kind I long ago named as
the tears of meaning
There is something about poetry written from within mortality awareness that can only tell the truth.
As I reflect on our precious moment together, I am reminded of some core leadership truths.
Mature leadership is not self-sufficiency: it is discernment about where and with whom we allow our hearts to be held. Compost matters more than accumulation. Time remaining, however limited, is still time. Not everything can be let go of — some truths need to be lived with, studied, and accompanied. And our stories are a kind of immortality. When something comes alive in others because of us, something of us continues.
This morning reminded me, again, why Mortal Leader feels so vital for these times. It invites us into the heart of what makes life precious — not later, once things have finally settled, but now. Today. Yes, tears often come up. Tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of gratitude.
Tears of meaning, as Walt wrote.
Tears of aliveness.
Perhaps leadership is not about leaving a mark after all, but about leaving the soil richer than we found it.
This feels like a conversation worth continuing.
If any of this appeals, you are so very welcome to join a future session.
Our next taster is planned for Friday 6th March, 14h00-16h00 CET, 13h00-15h00 GMT. Registration is here.
A few images related to some of our conversation threads – the three of us, books, stories, love, and of course, connecting all of us, our mortality.
