Strategy isn't a document. It's a chain.

This afternoon, I went for a run.

On the surface, completely unremarkable. Midday. Lunchtime. One foot in front of the other. But here's what was actually happening.

I ran to the masjid (mosque) for Thuhr - the midday prayer. One action. Two spheres ticked - health and spiritual. Not by accident, by design. 

Now you might not think it, but that's strategy. Not a PowerPoint deck. Not a five-year plan reviewed quarterly. A chain - invisible to most people, completely intentional to those who've taken the time to build it.

And most people haven't. Which is why I want to talk about it.

Why strategy has a reputation problem
Mention the word "strategy" in a room of senior leaders and watch what happens.

Some lean in, others glaze over. A few quietly check their phones.

I've seen this enough times to know that strategy aversion rarely means what it looks like. It's not that people can't think strategically. It's that somewhere along the way, strategy got confused with the performance of strategy. The document. The framework. The two-day offsite that produces a beautifully formatted plan that nobody looks at again until the next offsite.

Real strategy isn't any of those things.

Real strategy is the thread that connects what you do today to what you're ultimately trying to become.

The chain
Let me walk you through mine - not as a template, but as an illustration.

At the top of the chain sits purpose. For me, that's about pleasing my Creator - living in a way that's aligned to something higher than my own ambitions or comfort. Your version of that will be your own. But something needs to sit at the top. Without an anchor, the chain has nothing to hang from.

Below purpose sit what I'd call spheres - the domains of life that matter. Spiritual. Health. Family. Financial. Professional. Community. These don't change much. They're the permanent architecture of a life.

Within each sphere sit outcomes - what I'm actually working toward. Not tasks or to-do lists. The meaningful results that would tell me, over time, that I'm moving in the right direction.

And then there are tactics - the specific actions I take to move toward those outcomes. These change constantly. They adapt to circumstance, season, capacity and context. 

The run this afternoon was a tactic. The sphere is health - and spiritual. The outcome is a body that's strong enough to show up for everything else I'm called to do. The purpose is something deeper than fitness.

One lunchtime run. The whole chain, activated.

When the tactic breaks down
A few weeks ago, I took a significant knock to the head during a football game.

No contact sport for a while. Personal orders to myself. This, in itself, is such a different approach for me - but that's a conversation for another time.

For someone who plays football to stay fit, to stay connected to community, to get outside and move - that's not a minor inconvenience. It touches multiple spheres at once.

But here's what I didn't do: I didn't abandon the goal.

Because the goal was never "play football." Football is a tactic. The outcome - staying fit, maintaining the physical capacity to show up fully in every other area of life - that remained. The strategy didn't change. I just needed different tactics to serve it. 

So I ran. Different types of runs than I'd normally do. Slower. Longer. Building toward the 90 minutes plus stoppage time that a full football match demands. The sphere stayed intact. The outcome stayed intact. The tactic shifted.

That's not adapting the strategy. That's understanding the difference between strategy and tactics - and it matters enormously when life doesn't go to plan. Which it regularly doesn't.

The ultra marathon I haven't said yes to (yet)
A friend recently challenged me to work toward running events again and eventually, an ultra marathon next year. 

I haven't discarded it. It genuinely appeals. It would contribute to health, community and probably spiritual discipline in ways I find compelling.

And I still haven't committed. For now.

Because being clear on your strategy also means being clear on what doesn't belong in it - at least not yet. The next two years have specific priorities: the book, the business, the season I'm in. An ultra marathon training programme, taken seriously, would pull energy away from those things in ways I'm not prepared to accept right now.

Saying no to a good idea isn't a failure of ambition. Sometimes it's the most strategic thing you can do.

Meeting people where they are
One of the things I've noticed in coaching - with professionals, with leaders, with students just starting out - is that people can only engage with purpose at the level they're ready to face.

I've worked with university students whose entire horizon is getting through their degree and landing a job that sets them up financially. Trying to open a conversation about legacy, about higher purpose, about what they're ultimately here to do - it often lands nowhere. Not because they're shallow. Because that's not where they are yet. 

The strategic conversation has to start where the person is. A student's purpose right now might be financial stability. That's real. That's valid. That's the thread you work with - and you trust that the chain will lengthen over time as they're ready to reach further.

The same applies in organisations. Leaders who try to align everyone to a soaring purpose statement before meeting people at their current level of engagement wonder why nobody moves. Strategy doesn't land from the top down. It lands when people can see their own thread running through it.

Values and your value
Two more elements that often get overlooked - and without them, the chain is incomplete.

Values are simply what you value most - the criteria, often invisible, that filter every decision you make. When your actions are misaligned with your values, you feel it. Not always loudly. Sometimes just as a quiet sense that something isn't right. Because it isn't. It's incongruent with what you actually stand for. 

And then there's your value - what is uniquely yours to bring to the world. Not your job title. Not your qualifications. The particular combination of experience, perspective, strength and story that nobody else carries in quite the same way.

These two elements round out the chain. Without them, strategy becomes a plan without a conscience and a contribution without a signature. 

What sits at the top of your chain?
I've been honest about mine: it's about pleasing my Creator. Living in alignment with something beyond my own preferences and ambitions. That's what sits at the top and it's what gives everything below it - the running, the football, the book, the business, the family - its meaning. 

Yours will be your own. It might be faith. It might be legacy. It might be love, or service, or the kind of person you're determined to become. But something needs to be there.

Because without a top to the chain, you're not building a strategy.

You're just making a list.

Final thought
So here are the questions worth sitting with:

• What sits at the top of your chain - and have you named it clearly enough to actually use it as an anchor?

• Do you know the difference between your spheres, your outcomes and your tactics - or are you changing the goal when you should be changing the method?

• Do you know what you actually value and what you uniquely bring and are your decisions reflecting both?

• And what good idea are you currently saying yes to that might actually be pulling you away from what matters most right now?

Because strategy isn't something you do once a year in a planning session.

It's the thread you build - consciously, intentionally - between your lunchtime run and your deepest purpose. 

Go on. Take the Next Step.