Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalachieving. This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovledo.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode three forty eight and let me start with a question. When your head hits the pillow at night, what runs through your mind? Is it the budget, the toxic team member, that big meeting tomorrow, the growing list of things you didn't get to today, or maybe it's that one conversation that you avoided because it was uncomfortable. As leaders, we don't get the luxury of flipping a
switch at five pm and shutting down. Our minds stay in motion. We replay the day forecast tomorrow in spiral through worst case scenarios. We might not admit out loud. That's the burden of leadership, being responsible for more than just ourselves. But here's the truth. What keeps you up at night reveals what kind of leader that you are. If it's fear of confrontation, it may mean you've avoided something that's long overdue. If it's guilt about work life balance,
maybe your personal priorities are being drowned out. If it's worry about your team, then you're probably a servant leader who cares deeply, sometimes too deeply. I've had my share of sleepless nights. When I first stepped into a senior leadership role. I can remember laying awake wondering if I made the right decision in a hiring situation. That single thought morphed into a web of worry. What if they underperform?
What if the team doesn't accept them? What if I lose the respect of the people who trusted me to lead That one decision it kept me up for a week. But here's what I learned. What keeps you up at night is often a signal, not a sentence. It's a signal that something needs attention. It's your mind poking you, saying hey, don't bury this. And as leaders, we can't afford to ignore those signals. We have to learn to
face them head on and translate sleeplessness into strategy. So let me offer you three practical strategies for dealing with the thoughts that haunt leaders at night. Number one, capture, don't carry. When something hits your mind late at night, write it down, keep a note, pat or your phone nearby. The goal isn't to fix it in the moment, it's to unload it. There's science behind this. Externalizing a thought reduces its emotional weight, and you'll rest better knowing it's
at least captured. Number two, categorize the concern. Ask yourself, is this a control issue, a clarity issue, or a communication issue. If you can't control it, acknowledge that. If you lack clarity, schedule time to get the answers. If it's a conversation you're avoiding, plan it, don't procrastinate it. And number three, convert anxiety into action. Worry is wasted
energy if it doesn't lead to movement. If something keeps returning night after night, make a plan, even a small first step is better than living on a hamster wheel of mental stress. And let's be honest for a second. Some of us lie awake because we care. We carry the weight of people's lives, their paychecks, and their futures. That's not weakness, that's leadership. But here's the leadership checkpoint. If your sleepless nights outnumber your peaceful ones, you're doing
too much alone. Leadership isn't a solo sport, Build a team, build a system, Build rhythms in your day so that your nights don't become the catch all for unresolved chaos. If you're leading an organization and you're up at two am worrying about that one toxic team member, you've got to ask yourself why is this still unresolved? If your mind races about money or mission drift, maybe it's time
for a recalibration. And if it's burnout, then it's time to admit you need a break or at least a breather. In leadership, silence can be loud, and nighttime has a way of amplifying the voices that we ignored all day. Don't run from that. Listen to what it's telling you, but don't camp there. Either write it down and capture it and use it as fuel to lead better tomorrow.
So tonight, when your eyes open at three am and that thought starts racing through your head, I had to ask yourself is this something I need to carry or something that I need to confront. Is it worry or is it wisdom knocking at my door? This has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
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