Every Friday, I share concise, actionable insights for growing your business, optimizing your time, and expanding your mindset. Co-author of multiple million-copy bestsellers.
Reframing Leadership (3 Min Read) | Vol. 152
|
May 23, 2025 | Read Online
“This feels hard because it is hard, not because you're failing.” – Dr. Becky Kennedy Reframing Leadership One of the best leadership books I read last year was Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy. Here’s the thing. It’s not a leadership manifesto or a management how-to. It’s a parenting guide. One of her core ideas is that two things can be true. You can have a good kid who is having a hard time. And you can be a good parent who is having a hard time. How is that different than leadership? Only the title. Change “parent” to “leader” and the rest remains true. It's like finding leadership wisdom in a diaper bag. Unexpected, but surprisingly useful. As leaders, the day-to-day can feel like an unrelenting grind. Your team disagrees with the call you made. You had a tough conversation that could have been handled better. You’re stretched like a frayed Bungee cord between the demands of work and home. You’re supposed to have all the answers, but you're mostly questioning whether you’re cut out for this. Enter Dr. Becky. What if you’re just a good leader having a hard time? Dr. Becky is a psychologist, and she’d point out that this is reframing the moment. This feels hard because it is hard, not because I’m failing. Even the best leaders struggle, and we’d be foolish to imagine life will give us a VIP pass to skip the hard parts.
All these questions create space between us and our moments of doubt. They disconnect us from the crisis and reconnect us to our capacity. The goal isn't to eliminate all doubt, but to prevent it from hijacking our agency. Leadership, like parenting, is inherently difficult. We need tools to navigate self-doubt for both. Want to dive deeper? I was so inspired by the leadership parallels in Dr. Kennedy's work that I created a special two-part series on The ONE Thing Podcast called “Seven Leadership Lessons from a Parenting Expert.” Listen to part one and part two to discover how the struggles of parenting and leadership aren't just similar – they're practically siblings from the same difficult family. One question to ponder in your thinking time: How would my leadership change if I approached challenges with curiosity instead of self-doubt? Make an Impact! Not subscribed? Become a Twenty Percenter here.
|
Jay Papasan
Every Friday, I share concise, actionable insights for growing your business, optimizing your time, and expanding your mindset. Co-author of multiple million-copy bestsellers.
June 13, 2025 | Read Online “In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” — Coco Chanel The Red Sneakers Effect: How Strategic Nonconformity Builds Your Personal Brand When Jenny Wood arrived for her interview on The ONE Thing podcast, she sported a pair of dazzling sneakers. “I love your shoes,” I blurted, even though I’m not really a shoe person. They were just remarkable without being obnoxious. Jenny embodies one of the traits she writes about in Wild Courage –Weird. It’s...
June 06, 2025 | Read Online “A healthy loyalty is not passive and complacent, but active and critical.” — Harold Laski The Dog Who Waited 9 Years (and Why You Shouldn't) Every morning at 6 a.m., Hachikō would walk his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno, to Shibuya Station in Tokyo. And every evening at 3 p.m., the faithful Akita would return to wait for the professor's train. This routine continued for over a year until May 21, 1925, when Professor Ueno suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at work...
May 30, 2025 | Read Online “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” – Seneca The Nocebo Effect – The Side Effects of Negative Thinking I remember taking Gus to get his first round of shots at eight weeks. He was just starting to smile. Anxious, sleep-deprived parents always remember those first smiles–the first rewards of parenting. A vote of approval from the tiny being you’re clumsily caring for. Gus was grinning up at me, cooing and slobbering like a drunk pirate on shore leave...