As I write this, I have Lotta Spjut's interview open in one window and a view of my July garden in another, and I keep coming back to three words she said.

The red thread.

She was talking about her career — the way it looked scattered from the outside (teacher, leadership coach, health professional, dog trainer) and, from the inside, felt like one continuous question asked in different rooms: Why do we behave the way we do? What creates trust? What helps people grow?

The job title changed. The thread never did.

I have been thinking about this a lot.

Because I think most of us have one. A thread. A through-line we can only see clearly when we stop long enough to trace it back. The decision that felt random at the time. The pivot that looked like giving up but was actually leaning in. The chapter everyone around us found baffling that turned out to be the most important one.

The theme of Issue 68 is The Long Game.

I chose it because I think we are all playing it. What we're less good at is trusting it.

We tell ourselves the women ahead of us had clearer plans. Better timing. Straighter lines (thanks Instagram).

But we are wrong. Spectacularly, reliably wrong.

We round down on our own trajectory and assume the decade of learning was a detour rather than the foundation. We expect the long game to feel like a sprint in disguise, progress at pace, visible results, a clear next step.

It does not.

The Long Game is patient. It is built in the invisible hours. It is the decision to slow down at 52 and be more present, the way Lotta did, when every piece of ambition in you says push harder. It is Lotta looking at Ecco — the dog who cannot be fooled, who responds not to what you say but to what you actually are — and realising she had been teaching self-leadership for decades and still had something to learn about her own.

"Success is not only about what I build. It is also about how I live while I build it."

That line will stay with me for a long time.

Lotta's cover story is extraordinary. So is everything else inside this issue.

Gem Dentith on the leadership skill most of us are skipping. Jacqueline Shaulis on the quiet architecture of legacy. Laura Pearman on why visibility is not the same thing as authority. Anna Daphna on the ADHD traits that drove her forward until they drove her into the ground. Jackie Wilson on the Loom Principle. Ilana Jankowitz on the relationship we have with money that we never stop to examine. Ambila Nath on what manifesting actually requires. And seventeen voices in total, all circling the same truth from different angles.

You are not behind. You are right in the middle of it.

The thread is there. You tied it yourself, one decision at a time. Perhaps you just can’t see the full picture yet.

Trust it.

I believe in you (always),