Part II: On Leadership, Lineage, and the Weight of the Seat
As I continue this research, I’m realizing something important: my pull toward the monarchy isn’t about crowns, castles, or nostalgia. It’s about leadership, how it’s claimed, how it’s justified, and what happens when systems begin to strain under their own weight.
I don’t study monarchs because I want power. I study them because I want to understand what happens when someone has it. It matters to me to say this clearly: I don’t dislike the British monarchy. Like many, I admire its continuity, its symbolism, and the way it holds history in plain sight. I read the stories. I understand the fascination. And I genuinely admire the grace with which figures like Kate Middleton move within an incredibly demanding role. But admiration doesn’t require illusion.
When I look at the monarchy without the fairytale lens, I remember something deeply personal: my own ancestors crossed the Atlantic to leave that system behind. Not because they rejected beauty or tradition, but because they were living under a form of leadership that no longer left room for conscience, dissent, or accountability.
That realization deepened when I learned that my tenth great-grandfather, William Adams, left England in the 1630s during the reign of King Charles I. That detail matters more than it first appears.
Charles I ruled with a firm belief in the divine right of kings, that monarchs were appointed by God and answerable only to God. His reign was marked by mounting conflict between the crown and Parliament, religious tension and persecution, suppression of dissent, and a growing distrust between ruler and people. By the time my ancestor left in the early-to-mid 1630s, England was already showing visible cracks. Within a decade, civil war would erupt. The king would be tried and executed. The monarchy itself would be abolished, if only briefly.
So my ancestor didn’t just leave a king.
He left a system on the brink of collapse.
And that timing, 1636, feels uncannily resonant.
As I sat with that history, I realized why it felt so familiar. Because in many ways, I find myself standing in a similar position now, watching systems strain under certainty, watching authority lean heavily on righteousness, watching structures designed to protect power struggle to adapt when people begin asking deeper questions. This isn’t about judgment. It’s about pattern recognition.
What’s been most striking to me is that the question history keeps returning to is not how someone arrives at leadership, whether by inheritance, conquest, appointment, or success, but what they do once they’re there.
Not: How did you get the seat?
But: How are you carrying it now?
That question applies everywhere leadership exists, royal, political, professional, spiritual. Because leadership doesn’t truly begin at coronation or promotion. It begins when someone becomes aware of the responsibility the seat carries.
I don’t judge the monarchs of today, or even most of those who came before. They were shaped by the systems they inherited. Though I’ll admit, William the Conqueror and I may always have a difference of perspective.
Still, I can’t ignore the quiet poetry that both origin stories hinge on a William.
One in 1066, taking the seat by force and divine justification.
One in 1636, stepping away from that same framework entirely.
And here I am, generations later, feeling called not to seize a seat, but to build something alongside others that offers an alternative way of living, leading, and relating. A way that steps outside systems designed to keep power concentrated, rigid, and unreachable. A way that invites people to reclaim agency, alignment, and accountability in their own lives.
The calling to lead, whether in a nation, a company, or a community, is not about certainty. It’s about stewardship. About humility. About staying awake to the weight of influence and choosing, again and again, to carry it with care. Leadership is not proven by how tightly you protect the chair. It’s revealed by how honestly you sit in it.
And the work that lasts, the work that truly serves, comes from those willing to keep learning, keep listening, and keep their moral compass steady, even when systems around them begin to shift.
What this research has clarified for me is that Thrivewell was never meant to be built on authority, hierarchy, or certainty. It was born from a different impulse entirely, one rooted in discernment, agency, and care. The work here isn’t about telling people what to believe or how to live but about creating spaces where individuals can step out of systems that keep them small and remember their own capacity to lead their lives with intention. If leadership is a seat, then Thrivewell is my commitment to carry it lightly, responsibly, and in service, not above others, but alongside them. This is the work I feel called to do now, and I hold that calling with humility, curiosity, and a steady respect for the weight it carries.
With intention,
Kelley