The Trojan Horse: Evolving Outdated Structures, Patterns & Beliefs from Within

By- Nicky Rowbotham

Three years ago, I thought I was leaving the corporate arena after over 20 years of leadership. I was done. I’d seen behind the curtain and the emperor had no clothes. Ego driven career paths and long held ambitions were no longer resonant as I started to tread a more soul aligned path. One where I didn’t abandon my intuition and authentic, creative expression in slavery to achieving a title or winning the approval of a corporate bastion. My path outside of corporate was established and I waited for the door to slam shut, or for the perfect exit cue where I could transition into my wellness business and intentionally created brands.

These were the arenas where I’d established outlets for my creative expression through writing, speaking, journal design and service to others with authenticity, whilst leveraging all aspects of myself and not just the ones that were valued externally according to a generic list of attributes. But the door to corporate remained propped open and the breadcrumbs of magic and impact kept popping up back in corporate, as well as in my businesses. Trusting my knowing that nothing is random, I followed the trail.

As time passed, I had a foot in both worlds: corporate and conscious entrepreneur. Granted, my role in corporate was no longer management by title, but leadership by influence and example with a larger impact than before. As both my business and corporate domains expanded, I was challenged in how I’d always showed up. My capacity would not cope with doing more, given all that was on my plate. Rather, I was expanding my ability to hold more space for things to get done in a way that was no longer reliant on my productivity and energy alone. I was energising my work and businesses – the containers of space that I held – but it wasn’t all reliant on my energy and what I did every day. There were also bumps along the road that taught me some valuable lessons. I had to become ruthlessly discerning on what my energy was a ‘no’ for; to abandon acquiescence and accommodation of others’ needs to the detriment of my own, whilst becoming clear that I would not tolerate words and actions that were not aligned.

I started to see where I had been shrinking and dulling my power to accommodate others, and I was re-aligning in the environments that had previously challenged me. I wasn’t leaving and taking my shadows with me, superficially by-passing some of the deep evolution that needed to happen, claiming an awakening or more conscious state in a social media status. I was in the fire, forced to face my patterning and beliefs in all aspects of my life at work, home and with family (often simultaneously) whilst still holding myself with the grace of unconditional love. The path of mastery and conscious growth is an upward spiral that delayers you from within – shedding one uncomfortable (and often unconscious) pattern or belief at a time. I was re-balancing and re-integrating a more balanced energy as I let go and detached from old identities, paths, patterns and projections. Especially the projected identities that I had created to feel safe or appear successful in certain environments. I didn’t need to chase, force or control the outcomes. Rather I allowed them to unfold knowing that trust in myself was all I needed.  External validation was no longer my fuel, as I aligned to my internal authority and intuition.

Integral to this was really learning to value and love all parts of myself – especially the parts I’d previously kept hidden thinking that they would not be valued. When others had been specialising or niching, I embraced being multi-passionate. Even outside of corporate, many wanted to label me or put me into a convenient box of just one thing that I did. I started to abhor being introduced by a role or a title and quickly realised that doing what lights you up is an act of defiance – and no one else needs to get it. And many people around me didn’t get it or what I was doing any more, which had some lonely moments as I followed the path and where it led. When I tried to vision board my path and channel how I wanted things to end up, I hit resistance.  For me, manifestation is often another disguise and spiritually acceptable tool for our need to control. Our intuition and knowing as our guiding North Star never steer us wrong as we take inspired action – and we don’t need to know where they will lead. That is the surprise party of life. The secret sauce lies in the unexpected detours, rather than the staid controlled path that society told us we had to design and follow, even when it is no longer resonant.  The magic is in the moments we create along the way.

How I showed up in a corporate environment had evolved so much, that friends commented that I’d done a 180-degree turn. I’d brought a new and irreverent style of leadership into a corporate environment and was still able to be successful, yet in a different way. I was led by how I felt, rather than milestones hit or promotions achieved. I’d become a Trojan horse within the arena of a corporate entity, providing a different example of leadership.  A Trojan horse is never what it first appears.  It blends and assimilates into an environment, yet it contains something different under the façade. In ancient Greek mythology in the city of Troy, the Trojan Horse disguised an attacking army unleashed from within – the equivalent of a modern-day computer virus intent on effecting a changed state from within the code.  But a Trojan horse does not always have to be malicious with ill intent. It can rather have the intent to catalyse change.  In my case, I’d realised that one cannot change a system from outside whilst criticising the corporate regime and ways of being that I no longer identified with. Sometimes you must change a system from within and provide an example of leadership that lights a different path: one of authentic, soul driven service to self and others. I realised that this approach had become pervasive and that I’d remade myself from within in all aspects of my life. I’d become a Trojan Horse in every sphere, evolving outdated structures, beliefs and patterns from within.

Staying in corporate also allowed me to build my businesses from the right energy without fear, lack and scarcity. I wasn’t expecting my business to provide abundance and support for me with all my eggs in one basket financially, upending beliefs that service equates to poverty and financial struggle. I believe that service from the right conscious energy should be rewarded and I redefined abundance for myself as not just being financial. Abundance for me is many opportunities to create, connect and be stimulated. I have many levers to pull to support myself and be supported in return.

Nassim Taleb advises that we should not pursue a narrow goal, rather increase your surface area exposure to positive upside optionality – basically increase your chances of getting lucky. We never know where opportunities may lead. Abundance is also not something we get – it’s a belief. It is who we are at our core and the values we hold that bring abundance into our lives. We have been attached to what we perceive financial abundance brings us – feeling secure, at peace and at ease. We want the feelings it provides and should focus on these rather than chasing the destination. That comes as a by-product. With that energy of abundance, be the Trojan Horse in your own life. Allow outdated structures, patterns & beliefs to be dismantled from within. If we don’t examine and dissolve what no longer serves, we just take our baggage with us.