The inner game

Leaders often ask me what they should say or do. Maybe what you say in the boardroom doesn't seem to command the respect you know you deserve. Maybe your team nods along in the meeting, and then nothing changes. Maybe you feel constantly stressed and under pressure, anxious about what tomorrow might bring. Every week feels like a roller coaster ride.

So what's going on? The people in the room read your tone, your face and the way you hold yourself long before they weigh your words. And yet most of us keep working on the words. When what you feel underneath does not match what you say, they believe what they feel.

So we try harder. We watch every gesture, rehearse every line and hold it all together under pressure. It's exhausting!

We all carry strategies like that. The perfectionism that got us through university, the habit of avoiding a hard conversation, the sharp reaction that once got us what we wanted. They worked when we were small, and many of them quietly stop working as the stakes rise. They run on a kind of subconscious autopilot that effort alone cannot override.

The inner game is the work underneath. Together we look at what you believe about yourself, other people and the world, where those beliefs came from, and which ones still serve you. As those beliefs shift, your presence shifts with them, even under pressure, because the autopilot itself has changed. The faster the technology moves, the more this inner work matters to the leaders I sit with. At the stakes and pace of change we now live and work within, we need to be able to rely on our autopilot.

I have developed more than 7,400 leaders around the world. I work one-on-one with a small number of leaders at a time, by referral only. If someone has pointed you my way, email me and tell me a little about where you are.