The Buoyant Leader

Last week, I bought a gelato shop in Andalusia. I tell you this not to brag (or to admit to an extreme and fairly late mid-life crisis), but rather to tell you what I’ve learned about speed and focus and calmness in a business that can melt away your inventory if you’re a bit too languid or relaxed. And I say “learned,” because my understanding of speed was mostly theoretical until now. In fact, I...

“Sometimes responsibility means you’re the only one who can change things.” Whoa. That line, from Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made , rewired the word for me. Before I read How Emotions Are Made, I thought of responsibility as a weight that I’m obligated to carry. A should that I fulfill because I’m a good person (or because I want to be perceived as a good person). Barrett flipped it....

Are any of the following folks familiar to you? The project manager who’s always singing dirges in the key of risk, no matter how well things are going. The ops person who keeps flagging a vendor dependency nobody else is worried about. The client-facing account manager who can “just tell” the customers are starting to drift even though the dashboard looks like a winning slot machine to everyone e...

I talk a big game when it comes to achieving buoyancy in the face of stress and uncertainty. But that doesn’t mean I live a perfectly balanced, blissful life, facing all challenge and adversity with the ruthless grace and aplomb of an NBA starter at a neighborhood pickup game. I dove into the study of stress and resilience, neurological imbalance and rebalance because I freaking needed it in order...

Is it OK to get angry at work? How about scared? Or anxious? Or ashamed? Does being buoyant mean that you make yourself immune from emotions that get in the way of connection and productivity? Listening to an episode of the podcast The Telepathy Tapes , I was struck by a comment made by a therapist who works with profoundly autistic children and their families. Caregivers have to juggle the needs...

When I lived in London in my early 20s, I took up juggling. The city was a hot spot for the best jugglers in Europe, who could make a lot of money as street performers in Covent Garden, the South Bank, and Camden Market. I discovered that these elite jugglers practiced in a sports center in Blackfriars, at a weekly event sponsored by Max and Susi Oddballs’ Juggling Shop. I’d go every Saturday and...

In the original Karate Kid movie, Daniel spends what seems to be days of wasted time performing menial chores for Mr. Miyagi. Four days of waxing the car, sanding the floor, refinishing the fence, and painting the walls. The reveal comes when Daniel blows up and accuses Mr. Miyagi of taking advantage of him: “I’m being your goddam slave is what I’m being, man. For four days I’ve busting my ass and...

As a coach, trainer, and facilitator, one of my great strengths is empathy. I’ve learned how to tune in to other people’s emotions, which means that I can help guide them to better places. When I’m working, I can stay attuned to others while maintaining my own power. But as a civilian, living my life every day, I can easily get swamped by other people’s energy. My superpower turns into my kryptoni...

Fraud Today I feel like a fraud. On the one hand, it’s Monday, and time to draft this week’s Buoyant Leader newsletter. On the other hand, I’m feeling decidedly non-buoyant: sluggish, sad, scared, and stuck. I open my note-taking app and looked through all the newsletter ideas — and I got pissed off at my past self for offering all this smug advice that I really need right now. Because when you’re...

One aspect of taking care of yourself that’s often overlooked is nervous system maintenance. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll define your nervous system as the body’s opportunity/threat scanner. It’s constantly pinging your environment, looking for clues that you’re either safe (and should focus on finding good stuff, like food, mates, or season two of Beef) or you’re in danger and should foc...

A team of Swedish researchers recently set out to answer a question on everyone’s mind: What happens when you drug a bunch of baby salmon with anti-anxiety meds? They exposed Atlantic salmon smolts — young salmon making their once-in-a-lifetime migration from river to sea — to clobazam, a benzodiazepine. (Clobazam is in the same family as Valium and Xanax. It takes the edge off.) They watched what...

Augustus III, King of Poland, received a cover letter in July 1733 from a German musician — some fella named Bach — attached to a bunch of sheet music. Here’s part of that letter: “In deepest Devotion I present to your Royal Highness this small product of that science which I have attained in music, with the most humble request that you will deign to regard it not according to the imperfection of...

Are You as Smart as an Amoeba? A brainless, single-celled organism can navigate mazes, design efficient transit networks, and reliably find opportunity — with nothing more than raw sensitivity to its environment. Can your organization say the same? The organism in question is Physarum polycephalum — aka Mr or Mrs slime mold. No brain. No nervous system. Just a blob of goo that oozes around by exte...

If you ever want to make me feel inadequate, suggest to me that I “be fully present.” For a long time, that was my aspiration. A thousand yoga and meditation classes drilled into my head that the highest virtue is to “be here now.” I have no problem, in theory, with presence. One of the main themes of my work is to empower executives to tolerate their own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and urges. I...

Pretty much every leadership article about imposter syndrome says the same thing: dispute it, push through it, power-pose your way past it. Cut a mantra-groove in your brain: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me.” The assumption, of course, is that imposter syndrome is a terrible thing to have. Sometimes it is. And sometimes kicking it in the ‘nads is the right strateg...

You're in a one-on-one with a direct report. They're telling you about a problem — maybe a project that's off the rails, a team dynamic that's souring, or a client relationship that's circling the drain. About thirty seconds in, you get it. You can see the whole thing in your mind. You know what's going on, and you probably already know what they should do about it. Guess what? You're almost certa...

In How Emotions Are Made , Lisa Feldman Barrett explains that you don’t see the world “as it as,” but rather you construct it, moment by moment, by filtering and analyzing the torrents of sensory input that you receive. The main tool your brain uses to do this, once you’ve acquired language, is categories. What category includes the following?: a house, a fly swatter, a beekeeper’s suit, and a deg...

Are You Reading the Room, or an Old Wound? In her book How Emotions Are Made , neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett tells a story of going on a date with a guy from her lab that she wasn’t really into. As the date progressed, however, she found herself increasingly more attracted to him. Her face flushed, her heart rate increased, and she started feeling butterflies in her stomach. After agreeing t...

Your brain uses about 20% of your body’s total energy budget all by itself, before a single muscle moves or a single molecule of food gets digested. Which means it has to be ruthlessly efficient in how it spends those calories. It achieves efficiency by predicting what’s about to happen based on past learning. But not only that. It also predicts what’s happening right now . That sounds weird, righ...

I teach leaders two things that are both true, and mutually contradictory. One: know everything as soon as possible. Two: unplug often. Ruh-roh. How can you do both without losing your mind or your edge? Leadership Imperative #1: Consume Relentlessly Since the function of leadership is to navigate the unexpected, you have to be in the business of intelligence gathering all the time. You have to be...

“Why do we need leaders at all?” is a better question than you might think. We’re so used to hierarchical structures and others telling us what to do from infancy on, that the idea that leadership has a function — that it’s more than “just the way things are” may escape us. In We the People , Sharon Villines and John Buck write: “Unpredictable events will always occur as we pursue our aims. The pu...

A stubby-fingered piano player with little formal training who couldn’t read music composed and recorded one of the recognizable melodies that the US has ever produced. For many people of a certain age, hearing the first two seconds of the piece will bring back memories of childhood. When you pay attention to what’s going on musically, you begin to hear that the distinctive chords, funky rhythms,...

The Mindset Mastery Memo is for ambitious professionals who want to lead with clarity, courage, and confidence. Each edition offers practical tools, mindset shifts, and real-world examples to help you navigate pressure, build stronger teams, and break free from patterns that no longer serve you—so you can lead with intention, not reaction. Experience is a good thing. You definitely want seasoned p...

This episode requires taking a look at some visuals. You can find them here . Here’s the official logo for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Take a quick look at it before continuing to read this article. [IMAGE MISSING HERE] No sooner had it been revealed to the public when a commenter on Reddit noted that it looked like a facepalm. Other Redditers immediately chimed in, “CAN’T UNSEE.” The “Can’t Unsee” m...

The Mindset Mastery Memo is for ambitious professionals who want to lead with clarity, composure, and confidence. Each edition offers practical tools, mindset shifts, and real-world examples to help you navigate pressure, build stronger teams, and break free from patterns that no longer serve you—so you can lead with intention, not reaction. My ragged breathing is drowned out by the hard rock soun...