⏻
MAUNi — Blue Button Protocol · Executive Recovery
Pete.
Reframing executive addiction
from organisational liability
to unrivalled resilience.
90min
Intervention · £650
6wk
Sprint Review
3
Protocol Steps
0
Yellow Buttons
The Blue Button Framework · Targeted Addiction Recovery · Collins Window © · 15 Harley Street · Active Accountability Sprints · Professionalised Lived Experience · MAUNi · David Collins · The Blue Button Framework · Targeted Addiction Recovery · Collins Window © · 15 Harley Street · Active Accountability Sprints · Professionalised Lived Experience · MAUNi · David Collins ·
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The Blue Button Framework — explained

David Collins walks through the full framework — the Yellow Button failure modes, the Blue Button protocol, and why clarity is the only ethical foundation for executive recovery.

The Blue Button Framework

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The Premise
"Take a really clever person who believes in themselves… what do you get? Somebody who thinks they don't have to play by the ordinary rules."
The Intelligence Trap

High-performing professionals maintain a successful façade while experiencing internal chaos. The same tenacity that drives top-tier commercial output renders them impervious to standard help. Their self-belief is both their greatest asset — and the primary barrier to honest recovery.

This is Pete's story. And it is far from uncommon at your level.

High-Performance Hazards

The professional
conundrum

High-functioning professionals experience a specific psychological profile that makes standard corporate mental health pathways actively counterproductive. Understanding this profile is the starting point for any effective intervention.

⚡
The Intelligence Trap

High-performing individuals believe ordinary rules and physical limits do not apply to them. The same cognitive architecture that drives commercial excellence erects walls against conventional support.

🎭
Chaos Behind the Façade

Professionals maintain an image of success while their private lives experience extreme volatility. The performance of competence becomes indistinguishable from the mask itself.

⚖️
Finite Willpower Reserves

Relying on brute-force resilience to manage addiction eventually leads to total performance collapse. The strategy that built the career becomes the mechanism of its destruction.

Reference Infographic
High-Performance Hazards: The Risks of Workplace Addiction — infographic showing the Professional Conundrum and Systemic Institutional Risks, including the Yellow vs Blue Button pathways comparison

© David Collins / MAUNi · High-Performance Hazards: The Risks of Workplace Addiction

The Yellow Button

The status quo:
the murky unknown

Standard corporate support pathways create three compounding failure modes that guarantee non-engagement from the very executives who need help most.

Failure Mode 01
The Misfit Diagnosis

Forcing an alcohol or substance issue down an adjacent mental health pathway treats symptoms like anxiety, but ignores the primary driver. You cannot solve an addiction with a generic CBT referral.

Failure Mode 02
The Trust Deficit

High-profile executives reject internal help because it arrives laden with hidden caveats and professional risks. HR support is perceived as risk management for the firm — not protection for the individual.

Failure Mode 03
The Fear of Exposure

Without true professional privilege, disclosure is experienced as weaponisable vulnerability. The "Caveat Barrier" means employees avoid seeking help rather than risk triggering disciplinary action.

"We will only help you if we reserve the right to screw you." — That is how it reads to the executive who needs honest recovery.

The Cost of Passive Engagement
12 months
of full-salary paid absence — without accountability

The workplace passes the problem amongst itself, hostage to secrecy and shame, whilst paying a premium for zero commercial return.

Shifting the Paradigm

Two distinct
interfaces

The choice is structural, not stylistic. One pathway guarantees ambiguity and cost. The other delivers truth, accountability, and commercial resilience.

⚡ The Yellow Button ◉ The Blue Button
Approach Nebulous mental health support Targeted addiction recovery
The Rule Hidden caveats & threats Clear facts & unconditional boundaries
Mechanism Passive medical engagement Active accountability sprints
Disclosure Fear of "telling tales" to HR Protected professional privilege
Outcome Highly paid absenteeism Re-engaged commercial resilience
You cannot solve a stark, life-or-death problem with a murky, caveat-filled solution.
Executing the Protocol

Five steps to
unrivalled resilience

The Blue Button Protocol is a structured, time-bound engagement — not an open-ended wellness programme. Every step is definitive. Every outcome is measurable.

The Intervention

Direct, fact-based confrontation. A 90-minute session that strips away the façade — not to wound, but to locate solid ground for what follows.

Imposing Boundaries

Strict commercial boundaries with clear employment stakes. The executive is given a challenge worthy of their capability — not a passive suggestion.

Holding the Space

Active, professionalised support keeping the executive accountable during withdrawal. Recovery Coach available. The space is held — never abandoned.

6-Week Sprint Review

Definitive, time-bound assessment of progress and compliance. Facts replace conjecture. Performance metrics replace speculation about wellbeing.

Resilient Re-Entry

Structured return to high-performance output — weaponising new adaptability. The executive returns stronger than they left. The organisation gains what the addiction was costing it.

The Psychology

Unconditional
boundaries

High-performers require a challenge to solve. Generic wellness pathways fail precisely because they offer comfort rather than contest. The benefit lies in persevering through friction — not in the destination.

Clarity is the therapeutic instrument, not its absence. Executives process difficult facts better than vague support. Ambiguity creates fear; stark reality creates focus.

"If you know you're used to dealing with challenges, rejection, and judgment… it's not frightening. It's the unknown that's frightening."

© David Collins — The Blue Button Framework

Clarity Over Comfort

Executives process difficult facts better than vague support. Ambiguity creates fear; stark reality creates focus.

The Imposed Boundary

Define the stakes immediately. "You do not engage with clients for 6 months. Your job is on the line. Prove your performance." This is not punishment. This is the structure that makes recovery possible.

The Uphill Track

High-performers require a challenge worthy of their drive. The Blue Button Protocol is that challenge — structured, time-bound, and genuinely difficult.

The Synergy of Survival

Recovery and resilience
are the same skill set

The Culture of Recovery
  • Navigating personal crisis with radical honesty
  • Brutal truth-telling as daily practice
  • Dismantling denial — the core executive pathology
  • Rebuilding from failure — methodically, not wishfully
The Culture of Corporate Resilience
  • Managing commercial chaos under pressure
  • Resolving conflict without escalation
  • Adapting to adversity at speed
  • Maintaining performance through sustained difficulty
Professionalised
Lived
Experience

Where these two cultures meet

The tools required to survive addiction are exactly the same tools required to lead an organisation through extreme adversity. David Collins does not offer therapy. He offers a structured transfer of the most battle-tested resilience methodology available.

Collins Window © | CPRC © | 4Q Model ©

© 2026 David Collins Coaching — All rights reserved

The Commercial Reality

You are not saving
a career

You are igniting organisational transformation. The return on a structured Blue Button intervention extends far beyond the individual.

01
Cost & Benefit

Replacing nebulous, year-long paid absences with structured, highly accountable 6-week performance sprints. The intervention costs a fraction of a single month of full-salary absence.

02
Risk & Reputation

Neutralising the threat of unpredictable executive behaviour impacting high-value client relationships and firm credibility. The risk is quantifiable. The Blue Button makes it manageable.

03
Talent & Transformation

Retaining uniquely brilliant individuals who possess the rare drive to overcome friction — then leveraging their recovery to upskill the entire team's resilience architecture.

You are not just saving a career — you are igniting organisational transformation.

"

The tools required to survive addiction are exactly the same tools required to lead an organisation through extreme adversity. Professionalism — not just sobriety — is the foundation of sustainable recovery.

David Collins · Master Recovery Coach · 15 Harley Street
Download

The Blue Button Framework
full deck

The complete Blue Button Framework — 10 slides covering the Blueprint of a Brilliant Liability, the Status Quo analysis, the paradigm shift, the Protocol, and the Commercial Reality. © David Collins / MAUNi.

⬇ Download PDF

10 slides · 8.5 MB

Wednesday Mornings · 15 Harley Street · London W1

Press the blue
button.

Initial consultation — 90 minutes. £650. A tangible deliverable: a structured, bespoke protocol built around this specific executive, this specific organisation, and this specific moment.

Book Wednesday consultation MAUNi organisation

Follow-up sessions £350 / 60 min · Ongoing retainer available · Train arm contracts · Treat referral arrangement