Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven oh four. I want you to picture something.
Speaker 2: You walk into your workplace on Monday morning. Same people,
Speaker 2: same problems, same conversations, same frustrations, same results. Tuesday looks
Speaker 2: the same, Wednesday looks the same. Friday rolls around and
Speaker 2: you feel like you worked all week, but nothing actually
Speaker 2: moved forward. Then next week starts and it repeats. That
Speaker 2: is the infinite loop. And here's the dangerous part. Most
Speaker 2: leaders don't even realize they are stuck inside it. They
Speaker 2: think they are working hard, they think they are busy,
Speaker 2: they think they are leading, But what they are really
Speaker 2: doing is replaying the same leadership week over and over again.
Speaker 2: Different dates on the calendar, same leadership behaviors. The infinite
Speaker 2: loop is not caused by your team. It's not caused
Speaker 2: by your workload. It is caused by a lack of interruption.
Speaker 2: Leaders who never interrupt their own patterns will repeat them forever.
Speaker 2: Let me give you a real world example, a leader
Speaker 2: walks into the office every day and complains about communication problems.
Speaker 2: They say things like, my team never tells me anything,
Speaker 2: or nobody communicates around here. So what do they do?
Speaker 2: They send another email, they hold another meeting, They repeat
Speaker 2: the same instructions. Then they get frustrated when nothing changes.
Speaker 2: That is the loop, because they never stop to ask
Speaker 2: a different question, what am I doing? That is creating
Speaker 2: this communication problem? The infinite loop survives because leaders keep
Speaker 2: asking the same questions in getting the same answers. If
Speaker 2: you want to break it, you need to disrupt your
Speaker 2: own thinking first. And here's the truth that most leaders
Speaker 2: don't want to hear. You're not stuck because of your situation.
Speaker 2: You're stuck because of your pattern. And patterns feel comfortable
Speaker 2: even bad ones, especially bad ones, because they're predictable. You
Speaker 2: know how the day is going to go, you know
Speaker 2: who is going to frustrate you, you know what is
Speaker 2: going to go wrong, and there is something strangely comfortable
Speaker 2: about that. Because it requires zero growth, The infinite loop
Speaker 2: rewards familiarity and punishes change. That is why breaking it
Speaker 2: feels uncomfortable. And let's take this deeper. There are three
Speaker 2: signals that you were trapped in the infinite loop. First,
Speaker 2: your problems never change. If you were dealing with the
Speaker 2: same exact issues you were dealing with six months ago,
Speaker 2: you were not managing problems, you are maintaining them. Second,
Speaker 2: your language never changes. Listen to yourself. If you are
Speaker 2: saying the same complaints, the same phrases, the same frustrations,
Speaker 2: over and over again, your mindset is on repeat. Third,
Speaker 2: your results never change. If your team, performance, culture, and
Speaker 2: outcomes look identical quarter after quarter, that's not stability. That's stagnation.
Speaker 2: Now Here is where great leaders separate themselves. They do
Speaker 2: something very simple but very hard. They break their own loop.
Speaker 2: They don't wait for the system to change. They change
Speaker 2: their behavior inside the system. They disrupt the pattern. Let
Speaker 2: me give you a few ways to do that. Number one,
Speaker 2: change your questions. Instead of asking why is this happening?
Speaker 2: Ask what am I allowing? That question forces accountability. Number two,
Speaker 2: change your response time. Most leaders react immediately, same trigger,
Speaker 2: same reaction. Instead pause, even for thirty seconds. That pause
Speaker 2: breaks the automatic loop and gives you space to choose
Speaker 2: a different response. Number three, change your inputs. If you
Speaker 2: are surrounding yourself with the same voices, the same information,
Speaker 2: the same perspectives. You will get the same outputs. You
Speaker 2: need new data, you need new coms, new friction. That
Speaker 2: is where growth comes from. Number four, change one behavior
Speaker 2: per day, not ten, not twenty, just one. Because the
Speaker 2: infinite loop is not broken by massive change, it is
Speaker 2: broken by consistent disruption. You don't need to overhaul your leadership.
Speaker 2: You need to interrupt it. Now. I want to bring
Speaker 2: this home. Some of you listening right now are stuck
Speaker 2: in a loop. You have been in for years, same meetings,
Speaker 2: same complaints, same leadership habits, and you have convinced yourself
Speaker 2: that this is just how it is, that this is normal,
Speaker 2: that this is leadership, and it's not. It is repetition
Speaker 2: without reflection, and repetition without reflection is where leadership dies.
Speaker 2: Because growth requires awareness and awareness requires interruption. You have
Speaker 2: to be willing to look at your own leadership and
Speaker 2: say I am part of the problem. That's not weakness.
Speaker 2: That is ownership. That is red key leadership. That is
Speaker 2: the moment where you stop playing the same track and
Speaker 2: decide to write a new one. So here's your challenge today.
Speaker 2: Identify one loop you are stuck in one. It could
Speaker 2: be how you handle conflict. It could be how you
Speaker 2: run meetings, it could be how you communicate expectations. Pick one.
Speaker 2: Then ask yourself, what is the one thing I can
Speaker 2: do differently today to break this pattern? And then do it,
Speaker 2: not tomorrow, not next week, today, because the longer you
Speaker 2: stay in the loop, the harder it is to see
Speaker 2: that you're in it. And the leaders who break free
Speaker 2: are the ones who refuse to let repetition define them.
Speaker 2: They choose awareness over autopilot. They choose growth over comfort.
Speaker 2: They choose intentional leadership over recycled behavior. That is how
Speaker 2: you escape the infinite loop as you head into your
Speaker 2: next shift, your next meeting, your next conversation. Remember this
Speaker 2: leadership is not about doing more of the same. It's
Speaker 2: about seeing what others miss, including yourself. Break one loop
Speaker 2: today and you will start to see everything differently tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And if you want more free leadership resources, head over
Speaker 2: to Paulfalovalito dot com and click on free Stuff. I
Speaker 2: have over twenty five free leadership documents you can download
Speaker 2: and start using today. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 2: leadership podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito Podcasts visit Paulfellowalito dot com,