October: The Work Nobody Sees

October has been an interesting month.

I've spent time working with young athletes, college players, parents, coaches, lawyers, and other professionals. Different ages. Different backgrounds. Different responsibilities. Different versions of what they believe success should look like.

And yet, something keeps showing up.

For people living very different lives, the underlying problems are often remarkably similar.

A young athlete struggling to stay focused during practice. A college student falling behind academically. A lawyer overthinking something they've successfully done hundreds of times. A coach frustrated that their players aren't improving. A parent who is physically home but mentally still at work.

Different circumstances.

Same questions.

Where is their attention?

What are they actually trying to accomplish?

Does their behaviour support what they say matters?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all:

Are they aware of the difference?

I've spent much of October examining those questions with other people. And, as life has a rather inconvenient habit of doing, it's forced me to examine a few of them myself.

Because awareness is easy to recommend when you're examining somebody else's behaviour.

It becomes considerably more interesting when the mirror is pointing in your direction.

Much of my work this month has reinforced something I've believed for a long time:

The quality of what we accomplish is often determined long before we see the result.

And if we want to change the result, we need to understand what is happening in the moments leading up to it.

The last domino is rarely the first problem.

This is something I've talked about for years, particularly in baseball and applied performance psychology.

We have a tendency to become obsessed with the final visible behaviour.

The swing.

The missed assignment.

The emotional outburst.

The poor decision.

The relationship that suddenly falls apart.

The athlete who appears to lose confidence.

The person who returns to a behaviour they've worked hard to change.

We see the final domino fall, and immediately start trying to repair it.

But here's the question I wish we asked more often:

How many dominoes had already fallen before we noticed the last one?

Think about a hitter.

He takes an ugly swing.

He's late. He's off balance. He chases something he had no business swinging at.

Immediately, the mechanical corrections begin.

Move your hands.

Stay back.

Change your stance.

Get your foot down.

And perhaps one of those adjustments is necessary.

But what if the swing wasn't where the problem started?

What if it was simply where the problem became visible?

Was he prepared?

Did he have a plan?

Was his attention directed toward useful information?

Did he recognize the pitch?

Did he make a clear decision?

Did he commit to that decision?

Or was the process already compromised before the bat ever moved?

Preparation.

Attention.

Recognition.

Timing.

Decision.

Commitment.

Movement.

Result.

The swing is what everyone sees.

But the swing may be the least interesting part of the story.

The outcome gets the last word. It just doesn't get the first.

And this is hardly exclusive to baseball.

Consider a student who's suddenly three weeks behind.

Everyone sees the missing assignments.

But perhaps the first domino was one missed day. Then a little avoidance. Then embarrassment. Then anxiety about asking for help. Then the feeling that the problem had become too large to address.

By the time someone notices the three weeks of missing work, the student may have been struggling for quite some time.

Or consider a relationship.

The argument gets everyone's attention.

But what about the conversations that never happened? The assumptions that went unchallenged? The frustrations that were quietly collected until there was no longer anything quiet about them?

We become very skilled at examining explosions.

We're considerably less interested in studying the conditions that preceded them.

And in recovery, this idea becomes deeply personal.

The most visible behaviour may be drinking or using. But changes in connection, routines, coping, communication, or willingness to ask for support may have occurred long before.

Those patterns aren't universal, and not every setback can be predicted.

But I've learned the value of examining what happens upstream.

What was changing?

What was I ignoring?

What had I stopped doing?

What did I already know was important but had gradually convinced myself was no longer necessary?

Sometimes the things we're most desperate to fix are simply the final expression of something we've been neglecting for weeks, months, or even years.

I'm not suggesting we need to obsessively analyze every moment.

That would be exhausting. And frankly, I think we already have enough people doing that.

I'm suggesting we become curious about the right things.

Stop staring at the last domino and start asking what knocked over the first one.

That's a significant part of the thinking behind TransferEQ.

Not just documenting what happened.

Understanding the behaviours, decisions, preparation, routines, and attention that may have contributed to what happened.

Because correcting the final outcome without understanding the process can leave us fighting the same problem repeatedly.

A couple of missed days can become three weeks.

One pattern I've noticed this October involves how quickly small interruptions become much larger problems.

It begins innocently enough.

A student misses two days of schoolwork.

An athlete forgets to complete a couple of assignments.

A professional postpones an important responsibility because something more urgent comes up.

Nothing particularly dramatic happens.

Life goes on.

Except the unfinished work hasn't gone anywhere.

A few days become a week.

A week becomes two.

Suddenly someone is three weeks behind, staring at a collection of responsibilities that now feels impossible to manage.

And here's where the psychology becomes interesting.

The original task might not have been particularly difficult.

But now the task has acquired something else.

Emotional weight.

Embarrassment.

Fear of being confronted.

Anxiety about how much has accumulated.

Attention that could be directed toward completing the next assignment is instead consumed by thinking about everything that hasn't been done.

So the person avoids it a little longer.

Which, naturally, makes the problem worse.

It's a remarkably efficient system for creating suffering.

I've seen versions of this with young athletes, college students, parents, and successful professionals.

And the solution isn't necessarily to tell someone to work harder.

They may already be working extremely hard at worrying about the work.

Sometimes the most useful thing we can do is reduce the problem to the next manageable action.

One assignment.

One scheduled block.

One conversation.

One responsibility completed.

Then another.

Structure doesn't eliminate difficulty. It can prevent manageable difficulty from becoming unnecessary chaos.

And more importantly, awareness can help us recognize the pattern before it becomes overwhelming.

That's the first domino worth paying attention to.

The transition nobody fully prepares you for.

Another significant part of October has been working with athletes navigating the transition from high school to college.

I've seen some very talented young people struggling.

Not necessarily because they aren't good enough.

Sometimes because they're trying so hard to prove they belong that they've forgotten they're allowed to be learning.

Think about the transition.

Different coaches.

Different teammates.

Different expectations.

Different competition.

Different academic responsibilities.

And suddenly, you're living away from the people and routines that have supported you for years.

Somebody who was one of the best players in their high school program may now find themselves surrounded by fifty other people who were also among the best players in theirs.

That's a significant adjustment.

But beyond the competition, I've noticed something else.

The pressure to appear as though you've already figured everything out.

To look confident.

To appear comfortable.

To pretend you understand something when you don't.

To hide homesickness.

To avoid admitting you're overwhelmed.

To act like you're supposed to be there while privately wondering whether you are.

That takes a considerable amount of energy.

And it consumes attention that could be directed toward learning, adapting, and improving.

We've spent time in individual meetings and team conversations challenging the idea of competition itself.

Of course, competitive sports involve competing against other people.

There are roster spots, playing opportunities, opponents, statistics, and expectations.

I'm not pretending those things don't exist.

But I believe the most useful competition is often much closer to home.

The person you should be measuring yourself against most consistently is the person you were yesterday.

Not your teammate.

Not the athlete getting more attention.

Not somebody who appears to have everything figured out.

And not some imagined future version of yourself you're desperately trying to become overnight.

Yesterday.

Were you better prepared today?

Did you recognize something you missed before?

Did you handle a difficult conversation more effectively?

Did you complete the responsibilities you committed to?

Did you make a thoughtful adjustment?

Did you respond differently to a mistake?

That's competition available to everyone.

Every day.

And it directs attention toward something useful.

I tell athletes they don't have to pretend they've already arrived somewhere they're still learning how to navigate.

The same is true for adults beginning careers, rebuilding relationships, becoming parents, or making difficult changes.

You can be capable and still be learning.

You can belong somewhere and still feel uncomfortable.

And you can be confident without pretending to know everything.

In fact, I'd argue that being willing to admit what you don't know is one of the more useful expressions of confidence.

Leadership: Stop trying to look like a leader.

Another conversation that's come up repeatedly throughout October involves leadership.

I've spent considerable time talking with athletes, coaches, and particularly catchers about what they believe leadership is supposed to look like.

And I've noticed something interesting.

A lot of people seem to believe that becoming a leader requires becoming a particular type of person.

More vocal.

More demanding.

More intimidating.

More authoritative.

The person who takes charge of the room. The person who holds everybody accountable. The person who always has something to say.

In baseball, catchers are often told they're supposed to be leaders.

They're supposed to command the field.

Control the game.

Manage pitchers.

Be vocal.

Be tough.

Set the tone.

And none of those expectations are necessarily wrong.

But I think we need to be careful about what happens when we convince a young athlete that leadership requires them to become a character they've created in their head.

Because the moment you're more concerned with looking like a leader than understanding the people you're supposed to be leading, you may already be moving in the wrong direction.

The problem with playing the part.

I've watched people become so focused on demonstrating leadership that they stop paying attention to what's actually happening around them.

They want to say the right thing.

Deliver the big speech.

Hold somebody accountable.

Show everyone they're in control.

But are they listening?

Do they recognize when someone is struggling?

Can they tell the difference between an athlete who needs a challenge and one who needs a conversation?

Do they understand when their own emotions are influencing the room?

Are they responding to what people actually need, or simply behaving the way they believe a leader is supposed to behave?

Because those are very different things.

A catcher might believe leadership means constantly talking to his pitcher.

But what if that pitcher needs thirty seconds of quiet?

A coach might believe leadership means demanding greater effort.

But what if the athlete is overwhelmed, confused, or doesn't understand the objective?

A parent might believe leadership means always having the answer.

But what if their child needs someone willing to listen without immediately correcting them?

And a husband or wife might believe being strong for the family means never admitting they're struggling.

But what happens when that version of strength makes honest communication impossible?

Sometimes our idea of what a leader should look like prevents us from becoming what the people around us actually need.

You cannot lead people you're too busy performing for.

There's a strange contradiction in the way we sometimes approach leadership.

We tell people to be authentic.

Then hand them an imaginary description of what an authentic leader is supposed to be.

Confident.

Commanding.

Charismatic.

Decisive.

Always composed.

Always ready with the perfect words.

Essentially, a motivational poster with a pulse.

But real people aren't motivational posters.

They get frustrated.

They experience uncertainty.

They have difficult days.

They don't always know the answer.

And the people around them generally know that.

I don't think leadership requires pretending otherwise.

In fact, I think the performance of leadership can become a distraction from the responsibility of leadership.

When you're preoccupied with how you're being perceived, your attention turns inward.

Am I being assertive enough?

Do they respect me?

Do I sound like a captain?

Am I saying what a leader should say?

Meanwhile, somebody across the room might be having the worst day of their life, and you've completely missed it.

Because you weren't actually paying attention to them.

You were paying attention to yourself playing the role.

You can't be fully present for other people while being consumed by the image you're trying to project.

We've also become very good at selling leadership.

Here's where I might annoy a few people in my own industry.

I've attended conferences. I've watched coaches speak. I've listened to keynote presentations and seen the entire business that's grown around leadership, mindset, accountability, culture, and personal development.

There are some exceptional people doing meaningful work in this space.

People with real experience, useful information, and a genuine desire to help others.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being compensated for that work.

I do this professionally myself.

I'm not hating.

But I am becoming increasingly tired of how much selling surrounds an industry that's supposed to be about helping people become more aware, capable, and responsible.

Leadership has become a product.

An identity.

A brand.

Something you can apparently acquire through a weekend conference, a collection of inspirational quotes, and a photograph of yourself standing on a mountain.

Preferably looking thoughtfully into the distance.

We've become very good at marketing what leadership looks like.

I'm just not convinced we're spending nearly enough time discussing what it actually requires.

Because real leadership isn't nearly as sexy as some people would have you believe.

In fact, here's a thought.

Leadership kind of sucks sometimes.

Moms and dads know exactly what I'm talking about.

Leadership is making the difficult decision when nobody is going to thank you.

It's setting a boundary with someone you love.

It's having the uncomfortable conversation you'd much rather avoid.

It's admitting you handled something poorly.

It's staying calm when you're exhausted and frustrated.

It's listening to somebody explain a problem you've already heard seventeen times, because it's still a problem to them.

It's being consistent when consistency is inconvenient.

It's making a decision that benefits the people around you even when it costs you something personally.

Sometimes leadership is standing in front of a room.

Sometimes it's standing in your kitchen at 10:30 at night, exhausted, trying to figure out how to help somebody you love.

Nobody's selling tickets to that keynote.

And there certainly isn't a standing ovation when you finish.

You might get told you're unfair.

You might get accused of not understanding.

You might spend the evening questioning whether you handled it properly.

Then you get up the next morning and continue doing what you believe is necessary.

That's not glamorous.

That's responsibility.

And I think we've created a strange situation where people are increasingly interested in being recognized as leaders while sometimes being less interested in the difficult, repetitive, occasionally thankless work leadership requires.

We sell the confidence, the authority, and the influence. We don't spend nearly enough time selling the patience, humility, inconvenience, and emotional responsibility.

Probably because those things are harder to put on a promotional poster.

Sometimes leadership means being the unpopular person.

I think about this as a coach and a father.

There are times when doing the right thing for someone doesn't make them particularly happy with you.

Sometimes an athlete needs to hear that their preparation hasn't matched their ambition.

Sometimes a coach needs to acknowledge that their approach isn't working.

Sometimes a parent needs to establish a boundary their child doesn't understand or appreciate.

Sometimes a husband or wife needs to have a conversation that might create discomfort before it creates understanding.

And sometimes you make the best decision you can with the information available, knowing full well that somebody may disagree.

That's part of the responsibility.

But here's the distinction I think matters.

Being willing to make an unpopular decision doesn't automatically make it the right one.

And being forceful doesn't make you strong.

You still have to examine your motives.

Are you protecting somebody?

Are you helping them grow?

Are you responding to something important?

Or are you trying to establish authority because your ego feels threatened?

Because those can look remarkably similar from the outside.

Leadership isn't the freedom to impose your emotions on other people. It's the responsibility to recognize how your decisions and emotions affect them.

Leadership starts when nobody is watching.

This is where my thinking on leadership connects directly to everything else we've been discussing throughout October.

The last domino.

Attention.

Daily structure.

Emotional regulation.

Doing what you say you're going to do.

Because I don't believe leadership begins when somebody gives you a title.

It doesn't begin when you're named captain.

It doesn't begin when a coach tells you to take charge.

And it certainly doesn't begin when you start referring to yourself as a leader.

It begins in the behaviours you repeat when nobody is reminding you.

Do you show up prepared?

Do you follow through on commitments?

Can people trust your word?

Can you recognize when your emotions are influencing your decisions?

Are you willing to acknowledge a mistake?

Do you treat people consistently, including when there's nothing to gain from doing so?

Are you available when somebody needs you?

Do you notice the person who's gone quiet?

Can you listen without turning every conversation into an opportunity to demonstrate what you know?

Those things aren't particularly glamorous.

Most of them won't earn you recognition.

Nobody is making a highlight reel of somebody quietly doing what they promised to do.

But over time, those behaviours become visible to the people around you.

And that's where trust begins.

Respect isn't something you manufacture through a performance. It's something your repeated behaviour gives people reason to develop.

Your emotional regulation is part of everyone else's environment.

Another part of leadership we don't discuss nearly enough is the influence our emotional state can have on others.

Think about a catcher whose pitcher is struggling.

The pitcher walks two batters.

The catcher becomes visibly frustrated.

His body language changes.

His communication becomes sharper.

His urgency increases.

Now the pitcher isn't only managing the challenge of throwing strikes.

He may also be responding to the frustration of the person who's supposed to be helping him navigate the inning.

The catcher might believe he's demonstrating intensity.

But what's the actual effect?

The same thing can happen with coaches.

With parents.

With spouses.

With managers.

You enter a room carrying frustration from something unrelated, and suddenly everybody else is adjusting to your emotional state.

That doesn't mean leaders aren't allowed to experience difficult emotions.

Of course they are.

But there's a difference between experiencing an emotion and allowing that emotion to become everybody else's responsibility.

You don't have to control every emotion to lead effectively. But you do need to become aware of how you respond to those emotions.

Sometimes leadership is taking five seconds before you speak.

Sometimes it's recognizing that the person in front of you isn't responsible for the frustration you're carrying.

Sometimes it's admitting you handled something poorly.

And sometimes it's simply having the awareness to recognize that your presence is influencing an environment, whether you intended it to or not.

Leadership is attention directed outward.

This is perhaps the most important part of the conversations I've been having.

I think leadership requires a shift in attention.

Away from constantly evaluating how you're being perceived.

Toward understanding what's happening around you.

What does this person need?

What am I not noticing?

What information am I missing?

Am I listening to understand, or listening for an opportunity to respond?

Is my behaviour helping this situation?

Do I have the capacity to contribute meaningfully right now?

And if I don't, am I willing to acknowledge that?

This connects to our performance framework:

Awareness × Capacity = Outcome.

Leadership requires awareness of yourself, but also awareness of others.

Your own emotional state.

Your habits.

Your preparation.

Your limitations.

And the people who are affected by your decisions.

Capacity isn't just how much knowledge or authority you possess.

It's also your ability to use those resources appropriately.

Knowing when to speak.

Knowing when to listen.

Knowing when to challenge.

Knowing when to support.

Knowing when to step forward.

And knowing when somebody else should.

Leadership isn't always about taking up more space.

Sometimes it's about creating enough space for someone else.

The people closest to you know whether you're leading.

It's easy to talk about leadership in sports.

Captains. Coaches. Teams. Clubhouses.

But I've been thinking about how much more broadly this applies.

A father who says his family is his priority but is never mentally present.

A mother who wants her children to communicate openly but reacts harshly whenever they share something uncomfortable.

A husband or wife who wants trust but repeatedly avoids difficult conversations.

A friend who promises to be there but rarely follows through.

A professional who expects accountability from colleagues but consistently makes exceptions for themselves.

Those are leadership conversations too.

And perhaps they're even more important because there isn't always an audience.

There's no captain's designation.

No leadership seminar.

No recognition for showing up.

Just people living alongside one another and developing trust through the accumulation of ordinary experiences.

I've had to examine this in my own life.

As a father.

As a husband.

As a coach.

As somebody who's relied on other people during difficult periods.

I can talk about awareness and accountability all day long.

But what matters is whether those principles are visible to the people who experience me outside my professional role.

Am I present?

Am I listening?

Am I doing what I said I would do?

Am I willing to admit when I've gotten something wrong?

And am I capable of recognizing when somebody else needs something from me, even when it's inconvenient?

Those questions matter more to me than whether somebody considers me a strong leader.

Maybe the goal isn't to become a leader.

Here's the part I think people might disagree with.

I'm not convinced we should spend nearly as much time teaching people how to be leaders as we currently do.

I think we should spend more time helping them become people others can trust.

People who are prepared.

People who are emotionally aware.

People who can regulate their responses.

People who follow through.

People who listen.

People who understand their strengths without needing to constantly advertise them.

People who recognize the needs of others without abandoning responsibility for themselves.

Because if those behaviours are present consistently, leadership often develops without the person needing to announce it.

That doesn't mean leadership requires no deliberate effort. Leading people involves learning difficult skills, making decisions, communicating expectations, and sometimes having conversations nobody particularly enjoys.

But those skills should grow from a foundation of authenticity, self-awareness, and service.

Not an imaginary character we're trying to imitate.

A quiet catcher can be an exceptional leader.

A soft-spoken coach can command tremendous respect.

A parent can demonstrate strength by admitting they were wrong.

A friend can lead simply by being the one who consistently shows up.

And sometimes the person talking the least is paying attention to the most.

Leadership isn't about convincing people you're somebody worth following. It's about becoming somebody whose presence, behaviour, and decisions give them a reason to trust you.

And perhaps that's the real challenge.

Stop asking yourself what a leader is supposed to look like.

Start asking whether the way you live makes life better for the people around you.

Because leadership isn't a performance.

It's what remains when you stop performing.

Sometimes the reset only needs a few seconds.

We've spent considerable time this month working on attention resets, nervous system regulation, and the ability to interrupt unhelpful patterns.

One example involves a pitcher whose attention can become heavily focused on velocity.

He wants to throw harder.

Understandable.

Most pitchers do.

But as his attention becomes increasingly consumed by the number he wants to see, his movement can begin to change.

Direction becomes inconsistent.

His body moves off line.

Timing becomes disrupted.

The ball misses its intended location.

And then something interesting happens.

Now he's paying attention to the fact that he's missing.

He's trying harder.

Thinking more.

Adjusting everything.

Sometimes all in the same throw.

Which is generally a wonderful way to turn one problem into six.

This is where we introduce a reset.

Not a lengthy mechanical explanation.

Not a new pitching philosophy between every throw.

Not twelve instructions delivered in rapid succession.

A brief interruption.

Recognize the pattern.

Take a deliberate breath.

Use a familiar reset cue.

Find a simple timing mechanism.

Return attention to direction.

Then let the movement happen.

Five seconds.

Seven seconds.

Perhaps twenty.

The exact duration matters less than the purpose.

We're creating an opportunity to interrupt a response that isn't helping.

The next pitch still might miss.

That's baseball.

But the athlete now has a process for returning attention to something useful rather than carrying the previous mistake into the next attempt.

The reset isn't about forcing a successful result. It's about creating the conditions for a more effective response.

Now consider how frequently that applies elsewhere.

A parent about to react to a frustrated child.

A lawyer preparing to deliver an important argument.

A professional entering a difficult meeting.

A student becoming overwhelmed during an examination.

Different situations.

Similar opportunity.

Notice.

Reset.

Redirect.

And then trust the work enough to act.

Are we developing athletes, or just keeping them busy?

This is where I might irritate a few more people.

And that's fine.

Disagreement is useful when it makes us examine what we're doing.

I see a lot of athletes working.

Batting cages are busy.

Facilities are full.

Training videos are everywhere.

More swings.

More throws.

More drills.

More hours.

More evidence that someone is supposedly outworking everyone else.

Wonderful.

But I have a question.

What exactly are we accomplishing?

An athlete takes fifty swings.

Then another fifty.

Then another fifty.

There is effort.

There is sweat.

There is activity.

But ask the athlete what they're working on.

Can they explain the objective?

Can they tell you what a quality repetition looks like?

Do they understand what they were doing two weeks ago and what they're trying to improve today?

Is there a baseline?

Is there a measurable change?

Is there evidence that the work is producing the intended adaptation?

Or are we simply hoping that enough repetitions will eventually become improvement?

And here's the question that might make the room a little quieter.

Does the coach know the answers, or are both the athlete and the coach guessing?

I'm not saying every coach needs a laboratory.

I'm not suggesting every swing requires a spreadsheet.

And I'm certainly not advocating for removing creativity, exploration, or enjoyment from sports.

Athletes need opportunities to play.

They need to fail.

They need to experiment.

They need to discover things without an adult standing two feet away offering a mechanical correction every twelve seconds.

But when we're deliberately investing time, money, and energy into development, I think we should be able to explain what we're trying to develop.

A video of someone working hard isn't evidence of improvement.

A bucket of baseballs isn't a development plan.

And two hours in a facility doesn't automatically mean two productive hours.

Effort matters. But effort without direction can become an extremely convincing imitation of progress.

It's possible to work very hard and still be moving in the wrong direction.

It's also possible to become exceptionally skilled at repeating the very problem you're trying to correct.

So yes, I want athletes working.

But I want them understanding the work.

And I want coaches capable of explaining why that work deserves the athlete's attention.

We're changing what counts as a quality repetition.

A major focus this October has involved building more intentional systems for tracking repetitions.

Swings.

Tee work.

Throwing movements.

Windups.

Different arm slots.

Fielding repetitions.

Position-specific actions.

But I'm not particularly interested in collecting large numbers simply because large numbers look impressive.

I'm interested in the quality of attention behind the repetition.

What was the objective?

Did the athlete understand it?

Was the movement intentional?

Did the athlete recognize what happened?

Were they able to adjust?

Did the repetition meet the standard established for that particular task?

Here's a distinction I think matters enormously.

A quality repetition does not always produce a successful immediate outcome.

A hitter can execute an intentional swing and miss.

A pitcher can establish the intended direction and still miss the target.

An infielder can make the correct movement decision without executing the play perfectly.

That doesn't automatically invalidate the work.

We're trying to develop useful processes, not convince athletes that every imperfect outcome represents failure.

In some of our current programs, we're working toward quality-repetition rates around 90%.

But I'm very careful about what that number means.

Ninety percent of what?

Repetitions completed with clear intent?

Repetitions meeting a defined movement standard?

Repetitions in which attention remained on the prescribed objective?

Those are different measurements.

And if we can't explain the distinction, the percentage becomes decoration.

A number on a dashboard is only useful if the underlying information means something.

That's part of what we're developing with TransferEQ.

Not simply the ability to count more things.

The ability to better understand what we're counting.

The goal isn't to count the work. It's to understand the work.

Is it always fun? No.

If you asked some of the athletes working through these programs whether every repetition is exciting, I suspect you'd get a fairly predictable answer.

No.

And I can live with that.

Not every part of development needs to feel like a highlight reel.

Sometimes improvement is repetitive.

Sometimes it's slow.

Sometimes it involves working on something small when you'd much rather be doing something impressive.

And sometimes it requires resisting the temptation to move on simply because you're bored.

But here's the important distinction.

I don't want athletes blindly following instructions.

I want them understanding why the work matters.

When an athlete knows what they're trying to improve, what success looks like, and how they're progressing, the relationship with practice can begin to change.

It becomes less about satisfying a coach.

More about taking ownership.

And yes, that's demanding.

But meaningful commitment usually is.

Doing ordinary things with extraordinary attention isn't glamorous. It is, however, a useful way to get better at ordinary things until they become extraordinary.

Playing catch might be one of baseball's greatest missed opportunities.

Another area we've been developing this month involves structured throwing and practice programs.

And I keep returning to an obvious question.

How much developmental opportunity are we wasting during activities teams already do every day?

Take playing catch.

Nearly every baseball practice begins with it.

Two athletes stand apart.

They throw.

They gradually increase the distance.

They throw some more.

Then everyone moves on to the important work.

Except perhaps we've misunderstood something.

What if playing catch was already part of the important work?

Consider a position-specific approach.

An infielder can work on alignment, exchange, footwork, direction, and different throwing actions.

A catcher can emphasize transfers, throwing footwork, body positioning, and release patterns.

An outfielder can practice gathering momentum, directional movement, trajectories, and the relationship between the feet and the throw.

A pitcher can reinforce timing, direction, delivery awareness, controlled intensity, and specific movement cues.

The activity hasn't necessarily become longer.

It's become more intentional.

And when coaches have a practical plan they can implement consistently, that time becomes an opportunity for development rather than simply another box to check before practice begins.

I'm convinced that a well-structured catch-play period can accomplish more targeted development than some loosely organized practices.

Not because coaches aren't working hard.

Most coaches I know work incredibly hard.

But hard work and effective organization aren't necessarily the same thing.

Sometimes we don't need more practice.

We need more purpose inside the practice we already have.

"That seems like a lot of work."

I know what some people are thinking.

Tracking repetitions?

Position-specific throwing plans?

Practice objectives?

Attention monitoring?

Individual development structures?

That sounds like a lot of work.

And I understand the reaction.

But I think we're looking at it backward.

If an athlete is already taking swings, why wouldn't those swings have a purpose?

If a team is already throwing, why wouldn't we organize that period around useful developmental objectives?

If a coach has ninety minutes, why wouldn't we think carefully about how to use those ninety minutes?

I'm not proposing that coaches become full-time administrators.

I don't want athletes spending more time completing forms than actually training.

That would defeat the purpose.

I want simple, practical systems that make the work more effective.

A little thought before practice can eliminate an extraordinary amount of wasted time during practice.

And once a structure becomes familiar, it becomes easier to repeat, review, and improve.

It's not necessarily more work. It's more thought going into the work we're already doing.

That's an important distinction.

And one that applies well beyond sports.

The longer we track behaviour, the more we can understand.

Individual repetitions matter.

But the patterns that emerge over time are even more interesting.

How many throws is an athlete making?

How is the workload changing?

What movements are being repeated?

How often are repetitions meeting their defined objective?

When does attention appear to decline?

What happens when someone becomes frustrated, tired, distracted, or rushed?

Are the same problems appearing repeatedly?

Are we seeing improvement in the things we're deliberately trying to develop?

We're not just trying to understand what somebody can do once.

We're trying to understand what they repeatedly do, under what circumstances, and how those patterns change.

But this requires intellectual honesty.

A high throw count doesn't automatically mean effective development.

A high quality-repetition percentage isn't a guarantee of future success.

And an attention rating doesn't provide a magical window into someone's mind.

We need to understand the limitations of the information we collect.

Otherwise, we risk replacing one kind of guessing with a more expensive version that happens to have a dashboard.

Useful information requires context.

Observation.

Athlete feedback.

Workload.

Performance evidence.

Patterns over time.

And the willingness to acknowledge when we don't know enough.

Data should make us more curious, not more certain than the evidence allows.

That's the direction we're continuing to build toward.

October baseball: When development gets its moment.

October also brings playoff baseball.

Which means even more conversations about the game.

And this year, I couldn't be more excited about the World Series matchup.

The Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays.

No Dodgers.

No Yankees.

Two organizations that haven't been able to approach roster building with the same financial flexibility as some of the sport's largest spenders.

And now they're meeting for a championship.

Milwaukee finished the regular season with 103 wins and swept Los Angeles to reach the World Series.

Tampa Bay swept New York and eliminated Cleveland in six games.

And one of these franchises will win its first World Series title.

I love that.

Not because spending money is wrong.

Professional baseball is a business, and money matters.

Payroll provides opportunities.

It provides flexibility.

It allows organizations to acquire established players.

But it doesn't eliminate the need to make thoughtful decisions.

And it certainly doesn't guarantee a championship.

Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have developed reputations for identifying talent, making intelligent roster decisions, using information effectively, and finding ways to compete without simply purchasing every solution.

They aren't perfect organizations.

They don't develop every player themselves.

They make trades, sign players, and make mistakes like everyone else.

But their success offers a useful reminder.

You can buy talent. You still have to build a team.

Think about the last-domino principle.

What do we see when somebody wins a playoff game?

The home run.

The strikeout.

The defensive play.

The celebration.

The champagne.

That's the last domino.

But what happened years before it?

The scouting.

The draft evaluations.

The developmental decisions.

The minor league coaching.

The adjustments.

The identification of overlooked abilities.

The decision to remain patient with a player.

The willingness to change an approach when the evidence suggested something wasn't working.

Those decisions don't generally appear on television in October.

Nobody interrupts a playoff broadcast to show us a particularly effective player-development meeting from three years earlier.

Although, admittedly, I'd probably watch it.

And that's exactly what interests me.

The decisions that eventually become visible through performance.

We spend so much time teaching young athletes to chase outcomes.

Velocity.

Exit velocity.

Scholarships.

Commitments.

Draft positions.

Recognition.

And those outcomes can be meaningful.

But how often do we teach them to understand what contributes to those outcomes?

How often do we celebrate the development plan?

The adjustment that took six months?

The movement pattern that finally became consistent?

The athlete who learned to manage frustration?

The coach who recognized something others overlooked?

Recognizing potential and developing potential are two very different things.

And whether you're running a Major League organization or coaching twelve-year-olds, that distinction matters.

I don't know who is going to win this World Series.

But I know what I'll be watching.

Preparation.

Adjustments.

Defensive execution.

Decision-making under pressure.

How players respond to mistakes.

And the small moments that influence an inning before the obvious big moment ever arrives.

Because that's baseball.

And frankly, that's life.

You don't need to possess the most resources to be exceptional with the resources you have.

But you do need to pay attention to how you're using them.

The championship is the work everybody sees. Getting there required years of work most people never noticed.

Awareness × Capacity = Outcome.

This is an idea we discuss in our performance work.

Awareness × Capacity = Outcome.

It's a conceptual framework rather than a literal mathematical prediction.

But the principle is important.

Capacity represents what you have available.

Your knowledge.

Your skills.

Your preparation.

Your physical ability.

Your experience.

Awareness influences how effectively you recognize and access that capacity.

You can be exceptionally talented and still struggle to perform when your attention is constantly somewhere else.

You can have a brilliant business plan and spend every day reacting to things that have little to do with it.

You can care deeply about your family and still miss important moments because your mind is permanently occupied by something that happened three hours earlier.

And I think we live in an environment where attention has become one of the most contested resources we possess.

We don't even need to talk about phones.

It's everywhere.

Expectations.

Responsibilities.

Conversations.

Comparison.

Pressure.

Deadlines.

Noise.

The feeling that whatever you're doing right now isn't quite enough because you should also be doing something else.

It's an extraordinary way to spend a life.

Constantly somewhere other than where you are.

And if we don't learn to protect our attention, we can spend entire days responding to everyone else's demands without deliberately directing it toward what matters to us.

Now, I'm not suggesting every minute needs to be optimized.

Quite the opposite.

Sometimes protecting your attention means stopping.

Breathing.

Thinking.

Recognizing how you're feeling.

Sitting quietly without feeling obligated to produce something.

Being with your family without mentally conducting tomorrow's meetings.

Awareness doesn't require perfection. It requires the willingness to notice.

And once you begin recognizing the difference between being distracted and being present, it becomes difficult to ignore what that difference gives you.

Which creates an interesting challenge.

Because the better you become at understanding attention, the more important it becomes not to turn that understanding into another obsession.

We've become very good at announcing things.

Here's another pattern that's been difficult to ignore.

People talk a lot about what they're going to do.

Their goals.

Their plans.

Their transformations.

Their businesses.

Their new identities.

The season they're about to have.

The person they're becoming.

And sometimes I wonder whether we've started confusing the announcement with the accomplishment.

It's understandable.

Announcing a goal can feel good.

People encourage you.

They congratulate you.

They tell you how inspiring you are.

You receive attention and validation before you've actually done anything.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with sharing ambitions.

Public commitments can be useful.

Support matters.

But there's a problem when the emotional reward of announcing change becomes a substitute for doing the work required to change.

We've become very comfortable celebrating intentions.

The uncomfortable question is whether we're equally committed to celebrating follow-through.

Consider how ordinary real progress looks.

You said you'd complete three assignments.

You completed them.

You said you'd follow a schedule.

You followed it.

You said you'd have a difficult conversation.

You had it.

You said you'd practice with a specific objective.

You did.

No dramatic announcement.

No motivational soundtrack.

No cinematic footage of you walking into a gym at 5:03 in the morning.

Just a person doing what they said they were going to do.

How terribly unmarketable.

And yet, how valuable.

Doing what you say you're going to do isn't particularly glamorous. But it's one of the clearest ways to build trust in yourself.

Now consider the opposite.

Repeatedly announcing commitments without following through.

At some point, we need to become curious about that gap.

Why did I make a promise I didn't keep?

Was it unrealistic?

Did I fail to prepare?

Was I overwhelmed?

Did I underestimate the commitment?

Was I more interested in how the goal made me look than in what accomplishing it would require?

These aren't comfortable questions.

But they are useful ones.

And the answers aren't always about laziness or a lack of discipline.

Sometimes people are struggling.

Sometimes circumstances change.

Sometimes our ambitions exceed our current capacity.

But those realities deserve honest examination, not another dramatic announcement that everything will be different on Monday.

The boring work is still the work.

This may be one of the least exciting truths about meaningful improvement.

A great deal of it is ordinary.

There's no dramatic music.

No audience.

No guarantee of immediate recognition.

Often, it's simply doing the same useful things consistently enough to understand whether they're helping.

Preparing.

Practicing.

Following through.

Recovering.

Communicating.

Reviewing.

Adjusting.

Repeating.

It's not always enjoyable.

And it doesn't necessarily make for compelling social media.

But it matters.

The danger, of course, is turning discipline into another form of punishment.

I don't want athletes terrified of missing a repetition.

I don't want parents believing that an imperfect schedule makes them failures.

I don't want professionals evaluating their self-worth by how many tasks they completed before lunch.

And I certainly don't want to become somebody who can no longer enjoy a perfectly ordinary afternoon because I haven't extracted enough productivity from it.

That's not awareness.

That's captivity dressed up as discipline.

The objective isn't to become perfect at following a system. It's to develop the awareness and capacity to return to what matters.

Miss a day?

Notice it.

Lose attention?

Recognize it.

Find that your plan isn't working?

Adjust it.

Experiencing something difficult?

Acknowledge it.

Ask for help if you need it.

Then return to the work.

Not because you're trying to become a machine.

Because you're trying to become someone who can rely on themselves without demanding perfection.

The lesson keeps coming back to everyday life.

What's fascinating is how consistently these principles extend beyond sports.

The student who's falling behind may not need another lecture about responsibility.

They might need help identifying the first manageable task.

The pitcher who loses direction after a bad throw may not need more effort.

They might need five seconds to reset.

The professional who feels overwhelmed may not need another productivity system.

They might need to determine what actually deserves their attention.

The coach who wants more practice time may not need another hour.

They may need to use the existing hour differently.

And the parent who wants to develop accountability in their child might benefit from examining how expectations, structure, and follow-through are being modelled at home.

Different people.

Different pressures.

Different consequences.

But similar questions.

What are you paying attention to?

What are you trying to accomplish?

Does your behaviour support that objective?

What needs to change?

And are you willing to acknowledge the answer?

Returning to the room where I once sat.

Of everything October has brought, one of the most meaningful experiences had nothing to do with baseball.

I returned to the treatment centre where I spent two months getting sober almost nine years ago.

I was invited to share my recovery story.

The room was full of patients and staff.

And going back was interesting.

I can't say it was what I expected because, truthfully, I don't think I had any particular expectations.

I'd prepared what I wanted to discuss.

I'd thought about what might be valuable to share.

But standing in that room was different from preparing to stand there.

I remembered sitting in those chairs.

I remembered watching people come in to speak.

Listening to their stories.

Hearing about what had happened in their lives, what they'd struggled with, and how they'd found their way forward.

And now I was the person standing at the front of the room.

Almost nine years later.

There's something difficult to describe about that experience.

I've spent years coaching, teaching, challenging people, asking difficult questions, and helping others examine their behaviour.

But that day, I wasn't there to coach anybody.

And I had to remind myself of that.

My responsibility wasn't to tell anyone how to change their life. It was to be willing to talk honestly about mine.

What hadn't worked.

What eventually had.

What I learned.

What I continue to practice.

And perhaps most importantly, what worked for me that I eventually stopped doing along the way.

Because that matters too.

We learn things.

We create routines.

We discover behaviours that help us.

We begin moving forward.

And sometimes, when life gets busy or things begin going well, we quietly abandon the very practices that helped us get there.

Not necessarily because we've forgotten their value.

Sometimes because we've convinced ourselves that we're doing well enough without them.

I've experienced that.

And I think it's important to say it.

I didn't want to stand there and perform.

One thing I was conscious of was not turning the experience into a polished presentation.

I didn't want to deliver a motivational speech.

I didn't want to stand there as a coach with a collection of answers.

I wanted to tell the truth.

I took my time.

I made eye contact.

I spoke about difficult parts of my story.

I acknowledged mistakes.

I talked about things that are working today and things I still need to pay attention to.

And I allowed myself to be vulnerable.

That isn't always easy.

Especially when your professional identity involves helping other people navigate their challenges.

Sometimes it's considerably easier to examine someone else's behaviour than to stand in front of a full room and discuss your own.

But that's precisely why I think it mattered.

You can't spend your life encouraging people to be honest with themselves while avoiding opportunities to practice that same honesty.

Afterward, I spoke with a number of people and answered questions.

Those conversations meant a great deal to me.

You go into an environment like that hoping something you share might make a difference.

Maybe somebody recognizes a part of their own story.

Maybe something you say helps them reconsider a belief.

Maybe they simply see someone who once occupied the same chairs continuing to move forward, even while dealing with the ordinary and sometimes extraordinary difficulties of life.

I hope my story was useful.

But here's something I know.

Going back made a difference to me.

It reminded me where I'd been.

It reminded me what I needed at that point in my life.

It reminded me of the people who helped me.

And it reminded me that some of the most valuable things we learn don't necessarily become less important because we've been practicing them for years.

Sometimes growth isn't about discovering something new.

Sometimes it's about returning to something you already know matters.

The same principles. Different environments.

There's a connection between that experience and much of the work I've been doing this October.

With athletes, we talk about noticing when attention has drifted.

With students, we talk about recognizing small interruptions before they become larger problems.

With coaches, we talk about intention and structure.

With professionals and parents, we talk about whether daily behaviour reflects stated priorities.

And in recovery, many of those same principles have been important in my own life.

Awareness.

Honesty.

Structure.

Accountability.

Connection.

Recognizing patterns.

Being willing to ask for help.

Returning to practices that support the life you're trying to build.

Now, I'm not suggesting addiction and a missed baseball assignment are equivalent problems.

They're not.

The circumstances and consequences are very different.

But the importance of understanding behaviour, recognizing patterns, and taking meaningful action can apply across very different situations.

And returning to that treatment centre reminded me of something I never want to forget.

I'm not separate from the work I ask other people to do. I'm still doing that work myself.

I still have responsibilities.

I still make mistakes.

I still overextend myself sometimes.

I still occasionally recognize something in another person's behaviour and then have to admit that I've been doing a version of the same thing.

That's not a contradiction I'm interested in hiding.

It's part of being human.

And it's one of the reasons I believe awareness is more useful than pretending to be perfect.

I don't need to have everything figured out.

Neither does anybody else.

But I do need to remain willing to look honestly at what's happening.

And take responsibility for what I choose to do next.

Learning to trust the work I've already done.

There's another lesson I've been working on this month.

And it's one that might sound slightly contradictory coming from somebody who spends so much time studying behaviour and performance.

I've been trying not to analyze everything.

Not every decision.

Not every conversation.

Not every moment.

Because being aware of what you're doing doesn't mean you need to constantly evaluate what you're doing.

This is something I work through with high-performing professionals, including lawyers and athletes.

People who are already exceptionally capable.

They've studied.

They've prepared.

They've practiced.

They've spent years developing skills.

And yet, when the moment arrives to perform, they can become so consumed by evaluating themselves that they interfere with the very abilities they've spent years developing.

They start thinking about how they're doing instead of doing it.

A lawyer who has prepared thoroughly begins second-guessing every word.

An athlete who's rehearsed a movement thousands of times begins trying to consciously control every component.

Sometimes the solution isn't another strategy.

It's recognizing that the preparation has already happened.

Trust the work.

Trust your experience.

Trust your ability.

And give yourself permission to perform.

This is something I've been deliberately practicing myself.

Not every moment requires improvement.

Not every day needs a score.

Not every conversation needs to be reviewed afterward.

Sometimes I need to trust the structure I've created and simply participate in the life it's supposed to support.

There's a difference between living intentionally and attempting to control every part of your existence.

I'm still learning that difference.

Four birthdays in three days.

October is always a big month in our family.

My wife and three daughters celebrate four birthdays within three days.

Our twins turned five.

My oldest daughter turned eighteen.

And my wife turned thirty-two.

Again.

We're sticking with that number. I've learned there are some things a husband doesn't need to audit.

But beyond the birthdays, the celebrations, and the general chaos that comes with having three daughters, October has been a reminder of what I want my attention directed toward.

Because it's very easy to be physically present while mentally somewhere else.

I've done it.

Running through tomorrow's responsibilities.

Thinking about a conversation.

Working through a business problem.

Planning the next thing.

All while something meaningful is happening directly in front of me.

And here's the uncomfortable part.

Those moments don't come back.

My twins aren't going to turn five again.

My oldest daughter isn't going to turn eighteen again.

My wife, apparently, will continue turning thirty-two.

But even that joke has a point.

Life moves.

Families change.

Children grow.

And professional achievement doesn't give us the ability to replay the moments we weren't fully present to experience.

I've been making a conscious effort this month to protect that time.

Not by abandoning my work.

Not by pretending I've discovered some magical balance.

But by becoming more deliberate about what I agree to, how I structure my responsibilities, and when I need to stop.

I can have ambitious goals without saying yes to everything.

I can follow a schedule without being controlled by it.

I can work hard without believing every available minute must be converted into productivity.

And I can recognize when I'm beginning to overextend myself rather than waiting until everyone around me experiences the consequences.

Sometimes protecting your attention means recognizing that enough work has been done for the day.

Service, relationships, and remembering who has been there.

Another thing I've been thinking about this month is service.

Not in some grand, self-congratulatory sense.

Just showing up for people.

Family.

Friends.

Aunts.

Uncles.

Cousins.

Parents.

Neighbours.

The people whose lives intersect with ours in ways that may have absolutely nothing to do with professional achievement.

I've relied on people throughout my life.

During difficult periods.

During recovery.

During times when I needed support, patience, encouragement, or simply somebody willing to show up.

I haven't forgotten that.

And I don't want to become so consumed by my own goals that I lose the ability to do the same for someone else.

Sometimes service is helping somebody with something ordinary.

Making a phone call.

Listening without immediately offering advice.

Checking in.

Being available.

Having the difficult conversation.

Or giving someone your attention without trying to turn their problem into another project.

That last one can be particularly difficult for coaches.

We're trained to look for solutions.

Sometimes people don't need us to solve anything.

They need us to listen.

And I think there's a larger question here.

What are we actually pursuing all this success for?

If we're becoming more productive but less available to the people who matter to us, is that progress?

If we're achieving professional goals while consistently neglecting relationships, what exactly are we accomplishing?

If our lives look impressive from a distance but feel disconnected to the people closest to us, perhaps there's something worth examining.

Being successful at what you do and being available to the people you love shouldn't have to be competing identities.

Both require attention.

Both require boundaries.

And both deserve to be taken seriously.

Practicing what I spend so much time talking about.

October has been a particularly good month for me physically, mentally, and spiritually.

I've been consistent with the gym.

I've paid attention to sleep.

I've been more deliberate about nutrition.

I've made a point of communicating with friends and staying connected.

And I've tried to create enough space in my schedule to recover, think, and enjoy what I'm doing.

None of those things are especially revolutionary.

Which, of course, is precisely the point.

A remarkable amount of what supports us is ordinary.

Sleep.

Nutrition.

Movement.

Relationships.

Communication.

Structure.

Reflection.

And consistency.

I spend a great deal of time encouraging other people to pay attention to those areas.

So I need to pay attention to them myself.

As I sometimes say, I need to drink my own Kool-Aid.

Not perfectly.

Not obsessively.

Not as another opportunity to criticize myself for being human.

But enough that the principles I discuss professionally are reflected in how I live personally.

That includes talking honestly about what's happening in my life.

Being willing to acknowledge when things aren't going well.

Recognizing when I need support.

And remembering that some of the things that helped me rebuild my life still deserve my attention today.

I don't want to teach awareness as a concept while refusing to practice it as a behaviour.

And I certainly don't want to become somebody who's so committed to improving life that he forgets to enjoy it.

You can be committed without being consumed.

This may be one of the most important lessons I've been reflecting on.

You can have high expectations without punishing yourself.

You can be disciplined without becoming rigid.

You can pursue improvement without constantly reminding yourself of everything you haven't accomplished.

You can take your responsibilities seriously without taking every moment of yourself so seriously.

And you can trust your preparation without obsessively reviewing every performance.

I see talented people struggle with this constantly.

Athletes.

Lawyers.

Coaches.

Parents.

Professionals.

People who are incredibly capable but sometimes become so focused on doing everything correctly that they interfere with their own ability to perform and enjoy what they're doing.

I've experienced versions of that myself.

And I'm continuing to work on it.

Because the objective of awareness isn't to provide us with more material for self-criticism.

It's to help us recognize what's happening and make better choices.

Sometimes that means working harder.

Sometimes it means preparing more carefully.

Sometimes it means having an uncomfortable conversation.

Sometimes it means recognizing that you've fallen behind and need to begin again.

But sometimes it means stopping.

Taking a breath.

Trusting what you've already done.

And allowing yourself to experience the moment without turning it into another assignment.

The point of building a more intentional life isn't to become better at managing every minute. It's to create more freedom to experience the minutes that matter.

That distinction has been an important part of October for me.

What I'm taking from October.

We're a little over halfway through the month, and what stands out isn't particularly complicated.

People don't always need more information.

They don't always need to work harder.

They don't always need more technology, more hours, more drills, or more motivation.

Sometimes they need to understand what they're already doing.

Sometimes they need to recognize where their attention is going.

Sometimes they need a structure that supports their priorities.

And sometimes they need somebody willing to ask an uncomfortable question without immediately offering a comfortable answer.

But there's another side to this.

People also need to know when to stop analyzing.

When to trust their preparation.

When to enjoy their families.

When to acknowledge that life is difficult without treating every difficulty as a personal failure.

When to ask for help.

When to serve somebody else.

And when to recognize that imperfect progress is still progress.

That's what we're continuing to develop through our coaching, our athlete development programs, and TransferEQ.

Not simply another way to record what happened.

A more thoughtful approach to understanding how things happen, what may be contributing to them, and how people can make better decisions.

Because the problem isn't always a lack of effort.

Sometimes it's effort directed toward the wrong thing.

Sometimes it's preparation without trust.

Sometimes it's ambition without structure.

Sometimes it's responsibility without boundaries.

And sometimes it's being so obsessed with who you're trying to become that you forget to pay attention to who you are today.

We spend a remarkable amount of time imagining our future selves.

The successful athlete.

The accomplished professional.

The better parent.

The disciplined person.

The respected leader.

The version of ourselves who finally has everything figured out.

But that person doesn't arrive because we've talked about them enough.

They emerge, imperfectly, through the decisions we make and the behaviours we repeat.

And some of those decisions are so ordinary that nobody else will ever notice them.

That's okay.

Not everything meaningful requires an audience.

I've spent October asking people to look more closely at their behaviour.

To examine their attention.

To understand what they're trying to accomplish.

To recognize the difference between being busy and making progress.

To stop confusing the last domino with the first.

To stop performing leadership and start examining whether they're living its responsibilities.

And I've spent October reminding myself to do the same.

But perhaps just as importantly, I've been reminded that awareness is supposed to help us live better, not make us afraid of living imperfectly.

To be more present.

To be more honest.

To be of service.

To follow through.

To trust the work.

And to keep doing what matters, including when nobody sees it.

Your life is telling on you.

Not through the goals you announce.

Not through the identity you promote.

Not through how busy you appear.

Not through the title on your business card or how convincing you sound standing in front of a room.

But through what you repeatedly do.

And if you don't particularly like what those behaviours are revealing, that doesn't have to be a verdict on who you are.

It can be information.

An opportunity.

A place to begin.

Because you don't have to knock down every domino tomorrow.

Sometimes the most meaningful change begins by recognizing which one you're about to touch today.

The work nobody sees is often the work that changes everything.

Curtis Pelletier

Performance Intelligence Consultant

Applied Performance Psychology Coach

Founder, TransferEQ

TransferEQ — Understanding the behaviours behind performance.