⏳ Read Time: 4 min

New here? Read about the BETTER Team and Mission here.

📌 What’s inside:

• 🪞 What makes working on yourself so hard — and so necessary

• 🧠 The research: Why self-awareness separates resilient leaders from reactive ones

• 💡 3 ways to start leading yourself better this week

PowerBook 2 — Know Your Voice, Coach From Identity, which is the second chapter in our book Lead Yourself First, comes out in less than two weeks on November 3rd! Only leaders who have pre-ordered (see below in the body of this newsletter) will receive it, along with a downloadable guide. The Pre-Order is only $10! Get it today!

📖 The Work Beneath the Work

Every coach can write a practice plan.
Far fewer can honestly self-assess their leadership.

It’s easy to stay busy with the visible work — practices, meetings, recruiting, and fundraising. The external work feels urgent, measurable, and often rewarded.
But the most challenging work in leadership isn’t what happens on the field, in the office, or during a staff meeting.

It’s what happens inside.

It’s the quiet work of confronting your own patterns, your ego, your blind spots, and your emotions under pressure. The inner work doesn’t show up on the schedule — but it shows up in every interaction, decision, and reaction you have.

As we wrote in You Are The Culture:

And the above takes disciplined, daily, consistent work on yourself. It demands systems.

📊 Research Insight: Why Inner Work Matters

Research on leadership effectiveness consistently shows that self-awareness is the foundation of every other leadership skill.

Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich found in 2018 that while 95% of people think they’re self-aware, only 10-15% actually are. And that small percentage of truly self-aware leaders have stronger relationships, higher-performing teams, and lower burnout.

In other words, you can’t improve what you can’t see.

And yet, most leadership development still focuses on external performances — not internal clarity.
Coaches spend hours reviewing film of their players, but rarely review their own internal patterns: How do I respond under stress? What do I default to when things go wrong? What emotions drive my decisions?

The leaders who last are the ones who make reflection part of their rhythm.

🛠️ Putting It All Together:

💡3 Ways to Do the Inner Work

1. Audit your reactions, not just your results.

   1. At the end of a tough day, don’t just review outcomes — review yourself

   2. Ask: When was I steady? When was I short? What triggered me?

   3. Growth starts with noticing patterns before they become habits

2. Schedule Time For Yourself

   1. This seems so simple that it’s not even worth saying. Yet, every leader we interact with who feels stressed, overloaded, and ineffective, we ask, “When do you get time to yourself (even at work!)?” The answer? “I don’t.”

   2. Stillness isn’t laziness. It’s maintenance.

   3. Quiet time — even ten minutes — recalibrates your perspective. The best leaders protect it like they protect practice time.

3. Seek mirrors, not just cheerleaders.

   1. Everyone needs people who tell them the truth in love.

   2. Invite feedback from those who see you up close. Ask, “What’s it like to be led by me?”

   3. The right mirrors don’t bruise your ego — they build your growth.

🏁 Conclusion: The Work that Impacts the Rest

The hardest work is quiet work.
It’s the kind that happens in silence — the kind no one applauds for but everyone on your team benefits from.

The inner work shapes the outer culture.
And in time, it becomes the difference between leaders who last and leaders who just work hard.

If you haven’t read our first PowerBook, You Are The Culture, this week’s reflection was lifted straight from it — practical tools and prompts to help you do the inner work that builds outer impact.

Pre-Order The Full Book: Lead Yourself First!

When you pre-order, you’ll get:
✅ Immediate access to the next two PowerBooks as soon as they’re released
🗒️ A downloadable implementation guide for PowerBook 1 - You Are The Culture
🎥 Access to our monthly leadership webinars inside the BETTER Community
📗 A physical copy of Lead Yourself First when the full section is complete

A Shoutout!

BETTER was highlighted in Zac Selmon’s Maroon Friday newsletter. We included a screenshot below.

Kevin and Seth have both had opportunities to share the Coach’s Control Panel from You Are The Culture with leaders during sessions over the past couple of weeks—Seth with Mississippi State and Kevin with Florida State. We’re thrilled to see and interact with leaders who are immediately impacted by the work in the PowerBook.

🛠️ Want to win more? Know Yourself First.

Just last week, nearly 60 leaders signed up for our 5-day leadership course based on your Voice!

It will be sent to your inbox starting the Monday after you take the assessment and run for that week.

The assessment takes 10-15 minutes. Take it below.