Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six twelve. There is a story playing in
Speaker 2: your head right now. You tell it when you wake up,
Speaker 2: You repeat it on the drive to work. You quietly
Speaker 2: confirm it after a rough meeting, a missed opportunity, or
Speaker 2: a decision you wish you handled differently. That story sounds
Speaker 2: like this, This is who I am as a leader,
Speaker 2: This is how people see me, this is how far
Speaker 2: I can go. And here's the problem. Most leaders are
Speaker 2: living inside a story they never intentionally wrote. It was
Speaker 2: shaped by an early failure, a bad boss, a promotion
Speaker 2: that did not go the way they expected. A mistake
Speaker 2: that's stuck longer than it should have. Over time, that
Speaker 2: story hardens, and once it hardens, it starts driving decisions.
Speaker 2: You stop raising your hand. You play it safe. You
Speaker 2: avoid certain conversations. You lead smaller than your actual capacity,
Speaker 2: not because you lack skill, but because your internal narrative says,
Speaker 2: that's not who you are. I want to talk about
Speaker 2: rewriting that story. Not motivational poster rewriting, not pretending the
Speaker 2: past didn't happen, Real leadership rewriting, grounded in ownership and action.
Speaker 2: Let me say this clearly. Your leadership story is not
Speaker 2: your resume. It's not your title. It's not your worst day,
Speaker 2: your loudest critic, or your biggest mistake. Your leadership story
Speaker 2: is the meaning you assign to those moments, and meaning
Speaker 2: is editable. Most leaders think their story is fixed because
Speaker 2: it feels true, but truth and familiarity are not the
Speaker 2: same thing. Here is where rewriting begins. You stop asking
Speaker 2: what happened to me and start asking what did that
Speaker 2: season teach me that I now lead with? That One
Speaker 2: shift changes everything. The leader who says I failed publicly
Speaker 2: stays stuck. The leader who says I learned how to
Speaker 2: prepare under pressure moves forward. Same event, different story, different
Speaker 2: leader action. Step Number one, Name the chapter that you're
Speaker 2: stuck in. If your leadership story were a book, what
Speaker 2: chapter are you replaying over and over? The one where
Speaker 2: I blew it, the one where I would overlooked, or
Speaker 2: the one where I lost confidence. Write it down literally.
Speaker 2: Leaders avoid this because it feels uncomfortable, but clarity always
Speaker 2: starts with honesty. You cannot rewrite a chapter you refuse
Speaker 2: to acknowledge. Action Step number two. Separate facts from commentary.
Speaker 2: Facts are what happened. Commentary is the meaning that you
Speaker 2: layered on top fact you were passed over for a role. Commentary,
Speaker 2: I'm not leadership material. Fact a team member quit. Commentary
Speaker 2: I am bad with people. One is data, the other
Speaker 2: is a story you keep telling yourself. Leadership growth accelerates
Speaker 2: when you stop confusing commentary with evidence. Action Step number three.
Speaker 2: Choose your narrator. Right now, someone is narrating your leadership story,
Speaker 2: and it might not be you. It might be a
Speaker 2: former boss who doubted you appear, who underestimated you, an
Speaker 2: early mentor whose voice still echoes louder than it should.
Speaker 2: And here's a hard leadership truth. If you do not
Speaker 2: choose your narrator, someone else will. Strong leaders decide whose
Speaker 2: voice gets authority in their head. They replace old narration
Speaker 2: with earned confidence built from action, which leads to the
Speaker 2: most important rewrite of all. Action Step number four. Prove
Speaker 2: the new story in small, repeatable ways. You do not
Speaker 2: rewrite your leadership story with affirmations. You rewrite it with evidence.
Speaker 2: You show up prepared when you used to wing it.
Speaker 2: You have the hard conversations you avoided. You make the
Speaker 2: decision you once delayed. Every small win because comes a
Speaker 2: paragraph in the news story. This is where seven minutes
Speaker 2: a day matters. Seven minutes reviewing your decisions, seven minutes
Speaker 2: preparing for tomorrow's leadership moment, seven minutes reflecting on what
Speaker 2: you did right, not only what went wrong. Over time,
Speaker 2: the story shifts from I hope I can, to I
Speaker 2: know I can, and eventually to I already have. So
Speaker 2: let me leave you with this. Leaders who feel stuck
Speaker 2: are often not lacking opportunity, they're trapped in an outdated story.
Speaker 2: Rewriting your personal leadership story does not erase the past.
Speaker 2: It redeems it. Your experience has become tools, not weights.
Speaker 2: Your failures become proof of resilience, not limits. Your growth
Speaker 2: becomes intentional, not accidental. You're allowed to outgrow the story
Speaker 2: that got you here, pick up the pen, write the
Speaker 2: next chapter with clarity, ownership, and action. This has been
Speaker 2: the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfelloalito dot com,