People tend to fall into two camps when it comes to our feelings on vulnerability—you either think it’s unnecessary weakness and oversharing, or it’s everything to you and you’re constantly emotional purging—but both miss the point. Drawing from Dr. Jeff Polzer’s research at Harvard, I want to talk about what he calls the vulnerability loop: the small, human moments when one person signals “I don’t have it all together” and someone else responds in kind. Those tiny exchanges are what build trust, safety, and high performance in any team or relationship. Vulnerability isn’t just spilling your innermost thoughts; it’s about signaling honesty, courage, and openness, and modeling that for others. When we lead with small, authentic signals of being human, we create cultures where people can connect, learn, and perform at their best.

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Remember when LeBron James said about his decision to join the Miami heat that, “I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James”? Everyone called it arrogant, but looking back, it’s actually a perfect example of emotional intelligence in action. Psychologist Ethan Kross calls it distancing—the ability to step outside yourself and make decisions from a calm, rational place instead of reacting from emotion. When LeBron spoke about himself in the third-person, he wasn’t being narcissistic; he was creating psychological space to think clearly under pressure. And that’s something we can all use in business and life. When emotions run high it helps to zoom out and ask, “What would Danny do?” or “What will matter in 10 days, 10 weeks, or 10 months?” That small shift activates your prefrontal cortex, quiets your stress response, and brings clarity back online. Distancing means leading yourself through chaos with composure and perspective, just like the greats do.

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There’s a disturbing trend on the rise: burnout. No matter who I’m working with, burnout is the number one issue I run into over and over again. People all over are dealing with a chronic physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, and the effects of this exhaustion are far reaching. Our daily energy is finite, so today I’m sharing how to fuel, manage, and sustain those energy levels so we can feel and perform better every day.

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Leadership starts with leading yourself first, with taking full responsibility for everything in your life. But while agency and ownership are powerful, I’ve noticed more and more leaders taking it too far—working 12-hour days, saying yes to everything, carrying blame for things that were never theirs to hold. What begins as responsibility often morphs into shame, suppression, and burnout. Research and wisdom from voices like Gabor Maté, the Buddha, and even Nobel Prize winners all point to the same truth: real strength isn’t in doubling down on self-sufficiency, but in compassion, balance, and knowing when to let go. So instead of tightening the strings until they snap, remember to tune your leadership, and your life, just right. Ask for help, say no when needed, rest when you can, and give yourself the grace to be human.

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I don’t work with a ton of people who explicitly say that they hate themselves, but when I get to the root of their thoughts and behaviors, they don’t treat themselves like someone they like. I do this too! We’re extremely critical of ourselves, we constantly judge ourselves for the millions of things we think we “should” be doing but aren’t, and by the end of the day we have no emotional capacity or bandwidth left to do anything but zone out with food, endless scrolling, Netflix, or all three. We think its useful to beat up on ourselves but these self-critical feelings aren’t conducive for change in any capacity. If we wan’t to improve our lives, we have to learn to like ourselves.

(This episode is a replay.)

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As leaders, our behavior is never neutral and every word, action, and even our mood ripples outward to shape our team’s energy, trust, and performance. Success is amplified when we work together rather than trying to shine alone, which is why our ability to inspire, empower, and multiply others matters more than individual achievement. Today, I wanted to share some practical ways to become a “force multiplier”—a leader who creates conditions for others to thrive. From modeling trust and vulnerability, to giving people space to own solutions, to recognizing that culture is built in small moments, our greatest legacy as leaders isn’t what we achieve alone, but the compounding impact of helping others rise.

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Competency is only one part of the equation on what makes a person influential. Believe it or not, making mistakes can actually make you more likable, trustworthy, and effective. Perfectionism keeps us stuck—fueling all-or-nothing thinking, fear of failure, and burnout—while ironically making us harder to work with and less inspiring as leaders. So if you want to make an impact, ditch the idea of needing to be perfect. What truly connects us is our humanity, and sometimes, the coffee spills and stumbles are exactly what make us more effective leaders.

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In this episode, I’m digging into one of my favorite topics: leadership—but not the way you’ve seen it packaged into personality tests or “5 love languages” style frameworks. I wanted to share how to develop a leadership style that’s as individual as your fingerprint, rooted in your values, shaped by your personality, and reinforced by your boundaries and standards. Leadership isn’t about fitting into a type or pre-existing framework, leadership is about building a style that reflects who you are and leaves the world just a little better than you found it.

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Motivation isn’t a cause-and-effect process. I hear a lot of coaches and managers getting frustrated with a lack of motivation, complaining that their clients or employees “don’t buy in” to what they’re being taught. But all I hear is, “my client isn’t acting how I want them to act.” You’ll rarely, if ever, motivate someone externally, but with the right habits and tactics, you can uncover and pull out the motivation that already lies within.  

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You don’t need more discipline to create lasting change. Willpower is overrated, misunderstood, and often blamed for struggles that really come down to stress, environment, and misaligned goals. Too many people beat themselves up with “shoulds” or rely on shame as fuel, only to spiral into guilt and inconsistency, when the truth is that discipline isn’t a sudden switch to flip—it’s a gradual practice cultivated through supportive environments, intrinsic motivation, and small, sustainable steps. Fueling change with joy, self-compassion, and purpose works far better than white-knuckling your way through life.

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