The Seth Yelorda Leadership Podcast

Most of your goals will die the day you do. And almost no one is honest about that.

In the finale of the BRAVE goals series, Seth tackles the fifth and final letter — E for Eternal — the filter that separates building a career from building a life. The one that asks the only question that matters in the end: when you're gone, does any of this keep doing good in the world?

You can set a goal that's Bigger, Risky, Aligned, and Vivid — and it can still be an ego goal. A monument to yourself dressed up as ambition. E is the filter that catches that. It strips away everything the goal gives you personally and asks what's left. Who else benefits. What still works after you've left the room.

Using the story of Fred Rogers — a man who never made a Forbes list, never built a unicorn, never closed a billion-dollar fund, but put on a cardigan and changed how generations of children understood love — Seth makes the case that Eternal goals are often quieter than we think. They're not always monumental. But they keep doing good long after the person who started them stops showing up.

This is the urgency episode of the series. You're not going to live forever. The version of you reading your goal list right now is going to be gone. Every goal that doesn't pass the Eternal test goes with you. That's not morbid. It's clarifying.

You'll walk away with three concrete moves:

• The Funeral Question that exposes which of your current goals would still matter if you died today
• The Hundred-Year Test that reveals whether what you're building has any chance of outliving you
• The One Goal Move — picking a single goal and rebuilding it through all five BRAVE filters this week

🎧 This episode closes the 4-part BRAVE series. Next week, we step into something new — "The Leader Who Won't Stop Talking" — on why the most respected voices in the room are almost never the loudest ones.

📩 If this conversation would serve someone you lead or love, share it forward. And if you'd like to bring this message to your team or organization, reach out at sethyelorda.com/contact-us.

Most people aren't chasing the wrong goal. They're chasing a blurry one — or one that was never theirs to begin with.

In Part 3 of the BRAVE goals series, Seth tackles the two letters that determine whether your goal actually has gravity in your life — or just sits on a list collecting dust: Aligned and Vivid.

You can hit a goal that's big enough, risky enough, and detailed enough — and still feel nothing on the other side. Because size and stakes only matter if the goal is actually yours, and clear enough for your brain to chase. Most ambitious people aren't pursuing their dream. They're pursuing a composite dream — a Frankenstein assembled from their industry's expectations, their parents' unspoken hopes, their LinkedIn feed, and the version of themselves they were ten years ago.

Using the story of Michael Jordan walking away from the NBA at the peak of his career to play minor league baseball — a goal that was big, risky, and crystal clear, but never actually his — Seth shows why even the greatest competitor of his generation ran out of fuel in eighteen months chasing a dream that belonged to his father.

The most expensive mistake high-performing people make is succeeding at the wrong thing for a decade.

You'll walk away with three concrete moves:

• The Private Goal Test that exposes which of your goals are borrowed from someone else
• The Tuesday Test that reveals whether your goal is actually a goal or just a category
• The Subtraction Move — the hardest and most important — for clearing out the dreams that were never yours to chase

By the end of the episode, you'll be able to see your real goal sharply enough to chase it. Not the polished version. Not the version that looks good on a slide. The one that's actually yours.

You don't need more motivation. You need a clearer picture of a goal that's actually yours.

🎧 Part 3 of 4. Next up: E — Eternal. The final letter in the BRAVE framework, and the filter that separates building a career from building a life.

📩 If this conversation would serve someone you lead or love, share it forward. And if you'd like to bring this message to your team or organization, reach out at sethyelorda.com/contact-us.

In Part 2 of the BRAVE goals series, Seth goes deep on the two letters that, if you skip them, the rest of the framework can't save you: Bigger and Risky.

The truth most of us are avoiding is this — the size of the goal is forging the size of the life. And most of us picked goals small enough to keep us comfortable and called it wisdom. We've gotten quietly addicted to wins we can guarantee. To certainty. To goals we can already hit. And then we wonder why hitting them doesn't feel like anything.

Using the story of Roger Bannister and the 4-minute mile — a barrier doctors swore was physically impossible until one man broke it and a hundred others followed within a decade — Seth shows why the ceiling holding most of us back was never actually out there. It was a story we were running inside of.

You'll walk away with three concrete moves:

• The "Year-End Self" question that exposes whether your goal is actually a goal — or just a treadmill
• The double-it test that uses your own nervous system to tell you when a goal is finally big enough
• The "name the risk" exercise that shrinks the fear that's been quietly running your decisions

By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly which goal on your list is keeping you safe instead of changing you — and what to do about it this week.

Bigger is the destination. Risky is the door. You don't get the life on the other side without walking through both.

🎧 Part 2 of 4. Next up: A — Aligned. Because once you've set a goal Bigger than you and Risky enough to scare you, the next question is whether it's even the right goal.

📩 If this conversation would serve someone you lead or love, share it forward. And if you'd like to bring this message to your team or organization, reach out at sethyelorda.com/contact-us.

Most of your best dreams die in milliseconds. The dream shows up — and before you've even finished imagining it, your brain has already filed it as either absurd or obvious. Obvious gets the calendar. Absurd gets buried. And almost everything worth doing with your one life is sitting in that absurd folder.

In this episode, Seth makes the case that SMART goals — invented in 1981 by a management consultant for corporate quarterly planning — were never designed for the life you actually want to live. The "A" in SMART stands for Achievable, which by definition filters out anything that would require you to grow, risk, or trust God to show up.

So Seth introduces a different framework: BRAVE.

B — Bigger than your current capacityR — Risky enough that you could actually failA — Aligned with who you were built to beV — Vivid enough to see before it existsE — Eternal — the fruit outlasts you

You'll learn why goals you can't fail at don't shape you, why alignment is the difference between a life that looks like a win and one that feels like one, and why absurd isn't your warning sign — it's your address.

If you've ever hit a goal and felt nothing, this one is for you.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠
• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠

Most leaders confuse clarity with certainty — and it's the most expensive mistake in leadership. One is a guarantee about the world that's never coming. The other is a commitment about you that's available right now. Stop chasing the wrong one.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠
• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠

Most senior leaders are gifted operationally and one-on-one. But put them in front of three hundred of their own people, and something different happens. They deliver something competent, the room claps politely, and by Friday, nobody can repeat what was said.

In this episode, Seth unpacks one of the most overlooked disciplines in senior leadership: vision casting to a large group. Drawing on William Wallace's iconic battle cry in Braveheart, Gallup's 2025 Global Leadership Report on what followers actually want from their leaders, and Dr. Shelley Kirkpatrick's research on the four characteristics that make a vision statement actually move people, Seth walks through three things the best leaders are doing right now to close the gap between informing their teams and elevating them.

If you've ever walked off a stage knowing whatever you just delivered was not enough — or if you've quietly told yourself you're "just not the charismatic type" — this episode is for you.

Inside this episode:Why vision casting is a separate discipline from operational leadershipWhat Gallup's global research says employees actually want from their leaders (it's not what most executives think)Why even the most iconic speeches in history were team efforts — and what that means for you

The truth about charisma that the research keeps confirmingThe four characteristics every effective vision statement sharesOne question to ask yourself before writing a single word of your next big speech

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠
• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠

Sources referenced in this episode:Gallup, Global Leadership Report: What Followers Want (2025): https://www.gallup.com/analytics/656315/leadership-needs-of-followers.aspxGallup, Anemic Employee Engagement Points to Leadership Challenges (Q2 2025): https://www.gallup.com/workplace/692954/anemic-employee-engagement-points-leadership-challenges.aspxKirkpatrick, S.A. (2017). Understanding the Role of Vision, Mission, and Values in the HPT Model. Performance Improvement, 56(3).Antonakis, J., et al. Charismatic Leadership Tactics research, University of Lausanne.

Most senior leaders are not struggling because they are lazy. They are struggling because they are carrying weight they were never meant to carry alone — and the instinct to solve it by working harder is making the problem worse.

In this episode, Seth walks through the real equation behind stress, the two moves every leader has when the load is too heavy, and the capacity-building work most leaders have been treating as optional. He also names something honest about what leaders quietly reach for when the weight stays heavy too long — and gives permission to put it down.

One episode. One idea. One move you can make before Friday.

Note: This episode is not a substitute for mental health care. If you are experiencing significant depression or distress, please reach out to a licensed professional.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠
• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠

Researchers studied over 40,000 people across eight countries for more than four decades.

And they found one thing that separates high performers from everyone else — and it isn't talent, resources, or work ethic.

In this episode, Seth Yelorda breaks down the science behind why most senior leaders are operating with goals that are designed to be achievable — and why that quiet conservatism is costing their organizations more than they realize. Including the one simple discipline that makes you 42% more likely to hit the goals you actually care about.

One move. One sentence. Written down before your day ends.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠

1.7 million people lost their jobs in a single month. Oracle. Amazon. Microsoft. UPS. Atlassian. And here's what makes this moment different from every disruption before it — many of these cuts were explicitly described as not performance based. Senior leaders. High performers. People who had given decades to their organizations.

Gone.

So if performance doesn't protect you — what does?

In this episode, Seth shares a personal story about someone close to him who spent years delivering at the highest level — and discovered the hard way that her contribution had never existed beyond the walls of one building. No brand. No presence. No answer to the question every senior leader must be able to answer: what do I uniquely bring to the world that no one else can?

This episode is not about fear. It's about a mindset shift every senior leader needs to make — not when the email comes, but long before it. A shift from building your value inside one organization, to building it for the world.

In this episode:

• Why skill, education, and work experience are no longer enough
• The one thing that survives every restructure, every reorg, and every 6 AM email
• The four zones every senior leader needs to understand
• The one question that will tell you exactly where your brand stands right now
• Your single action step to start building value the world can see

Your contribution to the world is not a product of your organization. Your organization has been the beneficiary of it. It's time to start building it somewhere the world can see.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: ⁠https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/⁠

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: ⁠https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec⁠

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/⁠
• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda⁠
• Contact: ⁠[email protected]

The CEO of Southwest Airlines just admitted publicly what every senior leader already feels but won't say out loud — meetings aren't the work.

In this episode, Seth breaks down what Bob Jordan, Jensen Huang, and Jamie Dimon have quietly figured out: your calendar is not your strategy, your presence is not your impact, and the most important leadership move you can make this week takes exactly two hours and zero meetings.

If you need to bring this message to your leadership team, reach out to me here: https://sethyelorda.com/contact-us/

//NEWSLETTER

Ready to lead with clarity and transform your organization? Join thousands of leaders who receive actionable insights in Seth's newsletter: https://vision-clarity-consulting.kit.com/6548d8fbec

//CONNECT

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-yelorda-25b2aaa7/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sethyelorda
• Contact: [email protected]