JJ Vega

During my four years in the Air Force, I did heavy construction, deployed overseas, and worked alongside people who didn't care if I was agreeable: they cared if I could do the job. The physical demands forced me out of my shell. I learned to set boundaries, speak up, and lead from my body rather than just my head. For the first time, I wasn't just aware of what needed to happen. I was active in making it happen.

But when I transitioned into tech and knowledge work, those boundaries dissolved.

Without the physical grounding and clear structure of military life, I defaulted back to people-pleasing. I wanted to be liked, to be helpful, to be the leader everyone felt good about. I said yes when I meant no. I hid my real opinions to avoid conflict. I overpromised because I was afraid of disappointing people. My leadership became impotent - lots of good intentions, zero follow-through.

And then, it all fell apart.

When my marriage ended and I lost my job in the same season, I finally hit a wall I couldn't push through. It was the same pattern I'd lived my entire life - burning out by trying to be everything to everyone - but this time it was severe enough that I couldn't ignore it anymore.

I finally got the coaching and support I needed. I learned I had been using ruinous empathy to survive: trying to anticipate other people's needs before they could reject me. It felt safer to over-give and hide my real opinions than to risk being challenged or having my needs unmet.

I started setting boundaries.

It was terrifying at first. But when I learned to advocate for myself, take clear stands for what I believed in, and let my yes mean yes and my no mean no, something fundamental shifted. I stopped hiding my unpolished, unfiltered perspective. I stopped saying yes to things that didn't align. I started being willing to pick a path and go first, trusting that people would follow. Or not.

My spiritual practice deepened as I learned to integrate physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of my life. The boundaries I'd learned in the military finally connected to the inner work I'd been doing for years.

The results were surprising. The clearer I got about my boundaries, the more business came my way. I've never been more financially sustainable than I am now, even compared to when I was employed full-time. My relationships got better because I stopped feeling responsible for solving everyone's problems. I could sense when things were in or out of alignment much faster, so my work became more energizing. Even when chaos hit, my recovery was faster because I wasn't fundamentally burned out anymore. And because my yeses were yeses and my nos were nos, I stopped wasting energy on things that drained me—I became more focused, more effective, and more alive in my work than I'd ever been.

From that foundation, I started coaching technical leaders in a variety of organizations, from frontier AI to bootstrapped startups - people navigating the chaos of rapid growth, leading teams through scale, and trying not to burn out in the process.

My approach integrates the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of leadership. I work with leaders who know there's more to sustainable performance than tactics and frameworks—leaders who want to develop the kind of presence and groundedness that lets them lead from a place of clarity and conviction, not fear and reactivity.

Today, I see the same pattern everywhere: brilliant technical leaders who are exhausted from being the person everyone can count on but never the person who asks for help. They hide behind being agreeable, overpromise to keep people happy, and won't set a boundary or speak their real opinion because they're afraid of the conflict or rejection that might follow. They're conscious and aware, but they can't take action because their boundaries are too weak to support them.

If you're exhausted from leading this way, you don't have to stay there. Setting boundaries changes everything—your business, your relationships, your energy, and your capacity to lead from your deepest values.