When things feel hopeless, I go back to documentation – I open my own tracking notes across board mandates and reread how a past situation that felt unsolvable at the time actually resolved itself over two or three quarters. It reminds me that boardroom crises rarely stay static; they move, if you keep doing the next right, unglamorous thing. I don’t wait to feel motivated. I pick the smallest concrete action available – one email, one question, one document to review – and start there. Momentum follows action, not the other way around, and the record proves it every time.