Breaking Asphalt: Choosing the Steeper Path to Greater Goals
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The official manual for the S.E.P.A.R.A.T.E. Framework™. Stop managing burnout and start engineering alignment
About Breaking Asphalt:
You don’t need more "motivation." You need a system.
Most high-performers hit the "Asphalt" not because they lack drive, but because they are running on outdated software. They are driving a high-performance sports car on a gravel track—creating friction, wear, and eventually, breakdown.
Breaking Asphalt is not a memoir. It is the tactical documentation for the S.E.P.A.R.A.T.E. Framework™. Drawing on 27 years of product leadership at Meta, Microsoft, Nokia and Skype, this book provides the code to audit your career, identify the source of your friction, and re-engineer your work for sustainable flow.
This is the manual for leaders who are ready to stop managing burnout and start engineering alignment.
What You’ll Learn:
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The Misalignment Diagnostic: Identify the 5 specific signs of "Destructive Discomfort"—such as persistent boredom and chronic self-doubt—that are silently draining your capacity.
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The Values Inventory: A structured tool to categorize your priorities into "Non-negotiables" vs. "Nice-to-haves," giving you a decision filter to filter out busy work without guilt.
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The S.E.P.A.R.A.T.E. Operating System: The full 8-pillar framework for alignment, from building "Self-Knowledge" to "Embracing Continuous Growth".
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Transition Management: A practical roadmap for the "Action Planning" phase, ensuring you don't just quit a job, but strategically pivot to a new one using tools like Backcasting and the GROW model.
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The Friction vs. Flow Audit: How to move from the "Clearer Path" (Safety) to the "Steeper Path" (Growth) by leveraging the science of neuroplasticity and resilience.
System Architecture
Most high-performers burn out because they run on brute force. Breaking Asphalt teaches you to run on Sprints.
The SEPARATE Framework™ mirrors the product development lifecycle, translating agile engineering into human performance:
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The Audit (S - Self-Knowledge): Identifying the "legacy code" and behaviors causing friction.
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The Roadmap (E - Envisioning): Aligning personal ambition with strategic goals.
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The Sprint (P - Public Commitment): Creating accountability loops for behavior change.
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The Backlog (A - Action Planning): Breaking vague goals into executable tasks.
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Bug Bash (R - Removing Blockers): Clearing the calendar and cognitive load.
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Pivot (A - Adaptability): Building the resilience to handle market shifts.
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Retrospective (T - Tracking): Measuring progress vs. burnout.
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Continuous Deployment (E - Embracing Growth): The cycle of constant evolution.
This is the code for sustainable high performance.
About the Author
Lenn Pryor is an executive coach and the creator of the S.E.P.A.R.A.T.E. Framework™.
For over 27 years, Lenn led Product and Design teams at the world’s most demanding tech companies, including Meta, Microsoft, Skype, Nokia, and eBay. He spent decades optimizing products for billions of users before realizing that the people building them were running on broken systems.
He didn’t leave the tech industry to "find himself." He left to engineer a solution for the burnout and misalignment that plagues high-performers. Breaking Asphalt is the result of that engineering—a field-tested operating system for sustainable success.
Today, Lenn advises leadership teams and executives on how to stop managing friction and start engineering flow.
Get the free introduction chapter now!
Real Stories of Breaking the Asphalt
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