We all feel tension at work. Sometimes it’s interpersonal. Sometimes it’s systemic. And sometimes we’re not even sure where responsibility begins or ends, but we know something isn’t working because we’re experiencing the impact.

That subtle, or not so subtle, friction that tells us something isn’t fully aligned is an important cue to pay attention to.

This week, I saw moments where Elevaters listened to that cue and took action. I also saw moments where the tension was named, but that’s where it stopped. People got stuck. Not sure what to say or what to do. Telling themselves some familiar stories:

• “I don’t want to bother anyone with this.”

• “I don’t know if it’s that big of a deal.”

• “I’ve said something before, and nothing happened, so what’s the point?”

I want to call out these beliefs because we’ve all been there. Ultimately, they keep us stuck in a dynamic where it feels like things are happening to us.

This is what it sounds like to slip into the Victim Mindset.

When we’re in the Victim Mindset, things are happening to us. When we’re in the Creator Mindset, we’re making things happen.

So, What Can We Do?

In the spirit of action, I want to highlight two tools from the Cohd Toolkit that I coach participants to lean on:

1. S.O.S. Feedback

Feedback isn’t about telling someone they’re taking the wrong approach or that their system is bad.

The first step is recognizing that our idea of what is “right” or what “should happen” is just that, a belief. It is not the truth.

When we tell someone they are wrong, it creates defensiveness. When we present our opinion as fact, we set ourselves up for a difficult conversation.

Instead, we focus on owning the impact.

For example:
“When you took X action, I felt frustrated. I really value transparency, and it didn’t feel like that was happening. Are there changes we could make to increase transparency?”

“I felt frustrated.”
“I value transparency.”

That is ownership. That is acknowledging that what we are offering is a perspective, not the truth.

The more attached we are to being right, the more likely we are to blame. And when we show up fixed in our beliefs, we invite the other person to do the same.

2. Perspective Taking

Not all tension is tied to a specific person. Often, we do not even know where the issue originates. Processes and systems span teams and roles, and breakdowns are not always obvious.

This is where perspective-taking comes in.

If we are unclear on who to give feedback to, that is a signal. There is something we do not yet understand. We may have stories about what is happening, but we do not actually know.

Perspective-taking is about asking questions to understand. It requires openness and humility about what we might be missing.

What does this look like in practice?

Identify someone who may have more insight. Share your intent. Name the tension. Then ask questions.

For example:
“Hey Jerry, I was hoping to get your perspective on the onboarding process. I am feeling some tension around not fully understanding my role as a hiring manager, and I have some ideas for how it could improve. But I also know there is a lot I do not see. Could you walk me through how the current process works?”

That acknowledgment, there is a lot I do not see, is key.

It requires a gut check.
“I think this is wrong.”
“I think there is a better way.”
“I think I know the best way.”

Maybe. But when we show up from that place, we are often met with resistance.

Perspective-taking shifts the stance.
“I have thoughts, and there may be something I do not yet understand.”

The Takeaway?

Being an Elevater comes back to personal accountability in so many ways.

Elevating ourselves means looking in the mirror, recognizing what we value, and choosing actions that align with those values.

If I think a process is inefficient, the most inefficient thing I can do is say nothing.

If I value transparency, I have to be willing to share my thoughts.

If I value a Creator Mindset, I need to take steps to build something.

If I want to be met with curiosity and openness, I have to start by being curious and open to the limits of my own perspective.

This is easier said than done.

But this is the unlocking move. The one that has the power to shift the environment we create for ourselves.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

This week on The Practice Plan, we’re diving into Healthy Conflict through the lens of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model.

When most people hear the word “conflict,” they immediately think of tension, disagreement, or even damage to relationships.

But in high-functioning teams, conflict is not only normal, it’s essential.

Healthy conflict is what allows teams to:

• Make better decisions

• Move faster with alignment

• Build stronger, more honest relationships

Without it, we don’t eliminate conflict… we just move it underground.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from understanding it, but practicing it.

To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture reflections and track your practice.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, this can also be done in the Cohd Learning Portal.

• Monthly subscribers can download the practice template below.

Read more

This week on The Practice Plan, we’re honing in on one of the most important elements of a coaching conversation: creating a robust and meaningful goal.

In my time training folks how to put on a coaching hat and support others through inquiry (check out our recent post on What Coaching Actually Is), one of the top mistakes I notice is our inclination to move quickly… especially when it comes to establishing the goal.

I think it’s because we crave resolution and action. We want to get into the “good stuff” and solve the problem. And it’s easy to assume that we’re all on the same page about where we’re trying to get to.

But I’ve noticed that when we can slow down. Pressure test our goal. Poke holes and create real clarity on what we want and why it’s important; we ultimately save time and achieve better outcomes.

So, to dive further into this topic, I spoke with one of our amazing Cohd coaches, Sara Hugo, to learn about her experience learning to coach, teaching others, and some of her favorite questions for creating a meaningful goal.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes from not only digesting it but practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

This week on The Practice Plan, we are discussing how and when to utilize perspective-taking.

This is one of the many tools that are simple to understand but can be difficult to apply in practice. Certainly, there are moments when we are deeply curious and look to learn more from the people around us. And I find the most game-changing applications of perspective-taking come in moments when we have a personal, deep conviction.

When we have an opinion or stance that we are deeply grounded in, it rarely feels instinctual to seek out our blind spots.

To recognize the power of perspective-taking and to refine our internal gauge for how and when to use the tool, I spoke with Jackie Lesser, another of our incredible Cohd coaches.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

Hi everyone,

I thought I would switch things up today and share a bit of a business update. We’re stepping into a new chapter at Cohd, and I want to bring you all along.

Q1 was a big quarter. Not just in the sense that things were busy or full, but as I step back and reflect, it’s a moment where the business itself has shifted.

We refreshed our brand identity.
We launched our new website.
We established our training tier on Substack.

The fundamentals of our work haven’t changed. From the very beginning, Cohd has been about creating cultures of human development. What feels distinct is our ability to communicate that clearly and execute it on a larger scale.

Since the inception of Cohd, our work has lived inside our cohorts. And there is something created in those spaces that can’t be replicated. But over the last year, it’s become increasingly clear that the impact of what we’re up to shouldn’t be limited to the people who can sit in those spaces.

So we set out to expand and launched The Practice Plan (our training tier here on Substack). It’s an important step toward making this work more accessible to individuals and organizations who believe in it.

What exactly is The Practice Plan?

The Practice Plan is our way of sharing the Cohd toolkit beyond the Elevate Program. It’s our way of training the tools, bringing in new voices, and, as always, anchoring the work in practice.

Every Monday, inside each edition of The Practice Plan, you’ll get:

• A conversation about a Cohd tool. I chat with fellow Cohd coaches and Elevate alumni about one of our tools and how folks are applying them in real leadership situations

• A clear written breakdown of that tool. So you understand the structure behind it

• Individual reflection questions. To help you think about how the concept shows up in your own leadership world

• Team discussion prompts. Which you can bring into meetings, coaching conversations, or development sessions

There are also a few things we’re especially excited about, including team discounts and a 50-week workbook that accompanies the weekly posts, so you and your team can take this work out of your inbox and into your day-to-day.

This is a way for alumni to stay connected to the work. For individuals to access the tools even if they haven’t participated in our Elevate Program. And it’s a way for us to start building a broader community of people who care about this kind of growth.

If we’ve piqued your interest and you’d like to know more, you can read all about The Practice Plan, here.

To celebrate the launch, we’re offering 30 days free for anyone who wants to explore. Just follow the link below. And, if you know someone in your network who might find it valuable, feel free to pass the link along.

Join The Practice Plan Free to 30 Days

And while this is a new phase in the business, it also represents a shift for me. For the majority of the past 4 years and 8 months, I was pretty committed to keeping this small. There was a simplicity, but also a comfort in that.

And, with that comfort comes a limit to the impact that can be made.

Over time, it’s been the participants’ responses (their growth, their feedback, the way they take this work and run with it) that have made it harder and harder to justify keeping it contained.

Hear from some of our amazing participants:

When it comes to this work, I’ve always felt the most energized after leaving a team practice. But embarking on the new challenge of communicating what we’re building, and making the toolkit accessible at a larger scale, is energizing me in a similar way.

Because of that, I couldn’t share this update without expressing my incredible gratitude to everyone who has supported Cohd in getting to this point.

To every leader who took a chance and introduced this work to this team. Every participant who showed up with an open mind. To every person who has shared Cohd’s work. And to our amazing Cohd coaches who are making it possible for things to become both bigger and better.

Thanks to everyone.

As we head into Q2, I have a sense that we’re just getting started.

And of course, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about bringing The Practice Plan to your organization.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

This week on The Practice Plan, we are discussing The Rescuer Role, one of the three roles that make up The Dreaded Drama Triangle (originally created by Dr. Stephen Karpman).

Of the three (victim, persecutor, and rescuer), the Rescuer Role is often the most eye-opening because many of us can fall into it without any malintent. We simply want to make things easier for the people around us.

But in practice, the habit of rescuing can actually undermine the growth of our teammates (or friends, children, partners, parents, etc.).

So, this week we wanted to explore what the Rescuer Role is, and how it often shows up in the workplace.

To do this, I spoke with Erin Van Galder, one of our amazing Cohd coaches, whom I have known since nearly the very beginning of Cohd and who studied and understood The Dreaded Drama Triangle long before our meeting.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

I’ve given them the feedback, so why isn’t anything changing?

This is a tension I’ve heard many times, and often the leader sharing it with me is equal parts frustrated and confounded.

It’s an easy moment to climb our ladder and start telling ourselves stories about our team member. They don’t care. They’re not listening. They’re not capable.

And while those things may sometimes be true, acting on those assumptions is a sure way to ensure nothing changes. When we believe someone isn’t capable or they don’t care, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We continuously notice only behaviors that support those conclusions.

As leaders, instead of pointing the finger at our people, we want to first take stock of our own actions and approaches. It’s easy for us to feel like we’ve been incredibly clear, and that’s not always the case.

If you find yourself in this loop, here are four places I would look first (and the tool I’d apply):

1. Are we assuming understanding or actually confirming it?

I’ve found managers often think they’re on the same page with an employee after delivering their feedback, but in reality, what feels so obvious to them doesn’t translate.

At the end of the day, how effectively we’ve communicated isn’t proven by what we’ve said; it’s provided by what the other person is taking away. And it’s pretty uncommon for us to check the latter.

We assume we delivered the message (which makes perfect sense to us), so the person on the receiving end should be on the same page.

The Tool to Use: Mirroring

Instead of assuming alignment, ask them to mirror back what you’ve said. Or share their understanding of next steps.

• What’s your takeaway from this conversation?

• What are you planning to do differently moving forward?

• Can you walk me through how you’re thinking about this?

When someone mirrors what we’ve said back, we get real information. It is the most true assessment of whether we’re actually aligned and our communication style is working.

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2. How clear were we, really?

Ambiguity is the enemy of accountability. How clear were your expectations?

It’s easy to say things like "be more proactive" or "communicate better," and to us, that feels straightforward. But there is a lot to interpret there. Those directions leave miles of space for the other person to define success in a way that may not match what you had in mind.

So, when we go back later and feel like progress hasn’t been made, it becomes frustrating on both sides. We feel like we’ve been clear, and they feel like they’ve been trying.

The Tool to Use: Committed Action Language

What precisely needs to happen? By when?

The more concrete the expectation, the easier it becomes to follow through. Your teammate knows exactly what to do, and you know exactly when to follow up if something hasn’t happened.

No more waffling or wasting time/energy wondering if they’re working on it.

If you asked them for a weekly project update by EOD Wednesday, then you know you can follow up first thing Thursday morning if you haven’t seen anything. (If you just asked them to “be more communicative,” we’re living in a perpetual grey area.)

3. Have we actually communicated the impact?

It’s also common for us to be really frustrated by a situation, but when we go to deliver feedback, we default to keeping things light and acting like it isn’t too big a deal.

Now, I’m certainly not a proponent of jumping into a feedback conversation heated. But it’s a disservice to our people to downplay importance.

If we act like something is minor, we shouldn’t be surprised when it’s treated as such.

The Tool to Use: S.O.S. Feedback

Instead of bringing emotion into a conversation, I recommend focusing on clearly articulating the situation's impact.

Instead of: Can you just make sure this gets done earlier?

We can say: When this comes in late, I feel a lot of stress because I have to shift all my priorities around to pull everything together. And, in turn, it affects how prepared we are as a team.

We don’t need to bring stress into the conversation, but it’s incredibly helpful to share that you feel stress in those moments. That level of context humanizes the request and lends it the appropriate weight.

People are much more likely to change their behavior when they understand the real consequences of not doing something, rather than just the instruction itself.

4. What’s actually getting in the way?

If you’ve confirmed understanding, set a clear expectation, communicated the impact, and you’re still not seeing change, then we are likely no longer dealing with a communication issue.

There’s something else that’s blocking execution. And this is where it’s so easy to double down on making assumptions, when what’s actually needed is curiosity.

The Tool to Use: Perspective Taking

Instead of repeating the same directive, we can shift toward trying to understand what we don’t see.

• We’ve talked about this a few times, and I’m not seeing the shift yet. What’s getting in the way?

• What feels challenging about this for you?

• What do you need support with to follow through?

• If you were in my position, how would you handle this?

These questions do two things. Firstly, they help us uncover context we may not have. And secondly, they invite the other person into the problem-solving process, rather than keeping them in a passive role where they’re just being told what to do.

This requires a level of humility, because it means being willing to admit there may be something you don’t fully understand yet.

And sometimes there is. And sometimes there isn’t.

But regardless, you’re now working toward a solution together instead of continuing the same unproductive conversation.

The Shift

When nothing changes, it’s very easy to conclude that the other person is the problem. And again, sometimes that might be where you ultimately arrive.

But Elevaters take a moment and ask a different set of questions.

1. Have I actually ensured they understood what I was asking?

2. Was I as clear as I think I was?

3. Did I make the impact of this visible?

4. Have I gotten curious about what might be in the way?

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Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

This week on The Practice Plan, we’re going to be exploring the strongest element of The Trust Equation: Intimacy. And, to take a quick step back, The Trust Equation is an incredibly useful framework created by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford for understanding exactly how we build (or rupture) trust in a professional environment.

When looking at all four components of The Trust Equation, intimacy is regarded as the “strongest”. It’s the component that builds deep, long-term trust.

So, this week we wanted to explore how to build trust when you’re starting from scratch or when you’re focused on strengthening a challenging relationship.

To do this, I spoke with Kayla Kilpatrick, an HR professional and an Elevate alum who recently started a new role. She offers a practical take on the impact of high-trust relationships at work and real-world examples of how to start small when building intimacy.

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes not only from digesting it but also from practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

Where this came from

Last week, I was in a Q&A session with a group of executives, and one of the questions that came up was:

“How do we actually work effectively with another department to solve a problem? We’re just not getting through to each other.”

In this case, she was specifically talking about working with finance. They were trying to move a project forward, and it felt like they were stuck, and not making real progress.

And as I was listening, I found myself thinking about our coaching toolkit.

Because on the surface, coaching might not feel like the most obvious answer to a question about cross-functional collaboration.

But in practice, it’s one of the most effective approaches we have.

Coaching (and how we usually think about it)

When we talk about coaching in the context of business, it’s natural to envision a one-on-one conversation.

A manager sitting across from their direct report. A moment in time that has been specifically carved out for development.

It’s probably not particularly shocking to hear that I am indeed a fan of the above.

And, when we understand the principles of coaching, we don’t need to limit ourselves to only the most obvious application. (For anyone looking for a deeper understanding of how we define coaching, you can check out this week’s edition of The Practice Plan.)

Coaching offers us the skills, mindset, and frameworks for having different types of conversations. And I’d like to argue that coaching can be an incredibly effective approach in larger group or cross-functional settings.

Why cross-functional work gets hard

These collaborative settings are ripe for a coaching approach.

You have multiple teams, multiple perspectives, different priorities, and different constraints, all coming together to try and move something forward. Often, folks walk into those conversations (consciously or otherwise) with the intent to sell their point of view.

When each person comes into the room saddled with their institutional knowledge and a plan they feel conviction about, it can make collaboration difficult—even if the intent is good all around.

We need to remember that the beauty of collaboration is that no single person or team has the full picture.

And when we come in trying to dictate direction, we’re inviting resistance.

Enter the coaching approach

At its core, coaching isn’t about having the answer.

It’s about asking questions and providing a structure that helps whoever you’re supporting (in this case, a group) reach alignment and determine next steps.

If we strip most coaching frameworks down, they’re usually trying to move through a few core things.

1. We’re getting clear on the ideal outcome. What are we actually trying to achieve here?

2. We’re painting a picture of the current situation. What’s happening right now? What do we know to be true?

3. We’re exploring options. What directions could we take?

4. We’re committing to initial steps. What are we doing and by when?

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What changes in a group setting

In a one-on-one setting, that might look like a manager guiding a direct report through those questions.

But in a cross-functional or team setting, something powerful happens when those questions are opened up to the entire group.

Everyone’s voice is heard. The group owns the answers.

By working collaboratively through those questions (versus everyone fighting to share their “fully formed” plan) there’s more alignment and more genuine collaboration.

We still get to a decision because there’s structure.

But you’re doing it in a way that allows the reality to be more complete before the team decides what to do. Everyone gets to weigh all the data.

Why this works

When we feel like we’re simply being told what to do—or we feel like someone doesn’t understand our point of view—it’s incredibly easy to disengage or push back.

But when there is a clear structure that invites contribution, it creates a different level of ownership.

Coaching in a group setting leads to healthier conflict.

And no conflict in terms of finger-pointing or personal attacks. Conflict in the form of good debate and the wrestling of ideas.

A simple shift

So, consider your week ahead. If you’re leading a cross-functional or group conversation, instead of bringing the “best answers,” try facilitating with questions and structure.

1. Get clear on what success looks like

2. Build a shared understanding of the current reality

3. Explore a full range of options

4. Then commit to a way forward

The goal isn’t for one team to be right. The goal is for the best idea to rise to the top.

Want to learn more about coaching? Check out the latest edition of The Practice Plan.

We’re kicking off The Practice Plan by defining what coaching actually is to us. It’s one of the key skills we teach in the Elevate Program because:

1. It’s really counterintuitive for most of us, and we need reps and practice to become proficient at it

2. It’s a vital practice if we are looking to elevate the people around us

Before We Begin

Remember, the power of this work comes from not only digesting it but practicing it. To support, a reminder about the following resources:

• If you’re an annual subscriber to the Home of Elevaters, utilize your 50-week workbook to capture notes, answer questions, and formalize your practice plan.

• If you’re an Elevate Program Alum, you can do the same in the Cohd Learning Portal.

And, if you’re here as a monthly subscriber, you can download the practice template below.

Read more

If there’s one belief that sits at the center of all our work at Cohd, it’s this:

Real growth doesn’t happen because we read about a concept once.
It happens because we practice.

Self-awareness, thoughtful communication, coaching, and navigating team dynamics aren’t strictly intellectual exercises. They’re behavioral ones. And behavior changes through repetition, reflection, and intentional reps over time.

That’s exactly why Cohd’s Elevate Program is structured the way it is. Participants don’t just learn tools. They practice them week after week, reflecting on how they show up, experimenting with new approaches, and learning alongside others who are doing the same.

Over the years, one piece of feedback has come up again and again from participants:

One of the biggest gifts of the program is that it creates space each week to stop and think about how I’m showing up.

The Practice Plan was designed to bring that same spirit of intentional practice to a broader audience.

What the Practice Plan Is

The Practice Plan is our way of expanding the reach of Cohd’s Elevate toolkit and making these tools more accessible to individuals and teams who want to grow.

Every week, we focus on one concept or tool that we teach inside the Elevate program.

The goal isn’t just to introduce the idea.
The goal is to practice it.

Each Monday, subscribers receive a new Practice Plan that includes:

1. A conversation about the tool

You’ll hear me talk through the concept with a fellow coach, program participant, or Elevate alumni. Part of the conversation will introduce the tool itself, and part of it will explore how people have actually applied it in real life.

These conversations are intentionally practical. They surface different perspectives, examples, and lessons learned from people who are actively using these ideas in their work and lives.

2. A written breakdown of the concept

Alongside the conversation, you’ll receive a clear written explanation of the tool or framework so you can understand the structure behind it.

3. Individual reflection questions

These questions help you think about how the concept applies to your own leadership, relationships, and day-to-day interactions.

4. Team discussion prompts

For those who want to use the Practice Plan with their teams, we include prompts designed to spark meaningful conversations in team meetings or development sessions.

5. A practical exercise

Each week includes a simple way to practice or experiment with the tool in your real-world context.

The Role of the Worksheet/Workbook

One thing we are intentional about with the Practice Plan is this:

We don’t want it to become something you simply read and move on from.

The real value of this work comes from reflection and application. Taking a few minutes to think about how the concept shows up in your own leadership, noticing where you might experiment with it, and capturing what you’re learning along the way.

To support that, every Practice Plan comes with a structured place to work through the prompts.

If you are a monthly subscriber, you will see a downloadable worksheet each week. This is a simple template that walks you through the key pieces of the Practice Plan — space to capture your reflections, respond to the discussion prompts, and think through how you want to experiment with the concept in the week ahead.

If you are an annual subscriber, you will receive the full annual Practice Workbook. This is a PDF that includes space to capture reflections across 50 weeks of practice, so everything can live in one place over the course of the year. We also include a few additional prompts designed to help you notice patterns in your leadership and track your growth over time.

Whether you’re using the weekly worksheet or the annual workbook, the goal is the same:

To create a small, consistent space each week where you can pause, reflect, and intentionally practice how you want to show up.

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For Individuals and Teams

The Practice Plan was designed with two audiences in mind.

Individuals who want a consistent rhythm for reflecting on their leadership and continuing to develop their communication, self-awareness, and relational skills.

And teams who want a simple structure for bringing development into their regular conversations.

You might use it as:

• a personal reflection practice

• a prompt for a team meeting discussion

• a coaching conversation starter

• a leadership development touchpoint

The format is intentionally flexible so it can meet people where they are.

Bringing the Practice Plan to Your Team

Many teams choose to subscribe together so they can build a shared language around leadership and communication.

If you’re signing up a group, one person can act as the account admin and manage the subscription for the team.

Here’s how it works:

• Teams receive 20% off when 10 or more people subscribe on the annual plan.

• The admin can add or remove members at any time from the team subscription.

• If someone new joins your organization, you can add them and the cost will be prorated for the remainder of the year.

• If someone leaves, you can swap their seat for another team member.

This flexibility makes it easy to keep the Practice Plan integrated into your team as people join, transition roles, or move on.

For step-by-step instructions on managing a group subscription, see the reference articles below:

• I’m part of a group that wants to subscribe to a publication. Can we sign up for a group subscription?

• I’m the administrator of a group subscription. How do I add members?

Want your company to cover The Practice Plan?

If you’re an individual interested in the Practice Plan and think it could benefit you or your team, there’s a good chance your company may be open to covering the cost as part of your professional development.

To make that process easier, we’ve put together a short note you can share directly with your manager that explains what The Practice Plan is and how teams are using it.

Home Of Elevaters Sponsorship Request

146KB ∙ PDF file

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The Community

One of our core values at Cohd is Growth in Community.

We believe development is rarely something that happens in isolation. The most meaningful growth tends to happen when we’re reflecting alongside others, hearing different perspectives, and learning from how people approach similar challenges.

Inside the Elevate program, that shared learning environment is one of the most powerful parts of the experience. Participants aren’t just learning tools. They’re practicing them alongside a group of thoughtful peers who are navigating similar leadership moments in their own work.

Subscribers to the Practice Plan also get access to the Home of Elevaters community space here on Substack.

This space is designed to support that same spirit of shared development.

You can use it to:

• ask questions about the tools we’re practicing

• share how you’re applying something in your own work or team

• learn from how others are approaching similar situations

• reflect on what’s working and what isn’t

Human development becomes much richer when it’s something we’re working on together.

The community space simply gives us a place to continue those conversations.

A Final Thought

There’s something we say to every participant when they begin the Elevate program:

You get out what you put in.

These tools are powerful. The language can open new ways of thinking about conflict, feedback, accountability, and leadership.

But the real shift happens when you pause long enough to reflect and intentionally try something different.

If you spend 30 minutes a week engaging with the Practice Plan — thinking through the prompts, experimenting with the exercise, and noticing what happens — you’ll start to see the impact.

And if you skim it quickly and move on, that’s what you’ll get out of it too.

Growth isn’t a solo activity.
And it isn’t a passive one either.

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One week at a time.

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We get promoted to management because we’re highly capable. At some point, people began to see you as someone they could count on to get things done. You understood the work and solved problems quickly. And very likely, you once did the job your direct reports are doing now, which means you know exactly how you would handle things in their position.

This is why managers often have strong instincts and opinions.

So when someone on your team is struggling and the path feels obvious to you, the natural impulse is to help. To jump in and nudge them in the right direction.

From the inside, this feels like great leadership. We’re supporting our team and making sure they win. But there is a shadow side to that instinct.

Sometimes the thing that feels like helping is the thing that quietly holds your team back.

When Helping Becomes Hurting

When we jump in, become the superhero, and fix the issue, there is an unintended message embedded in that pattern.

Even if you never say it out loud, your actions begin to communicate that your team isn’t capable of solving things on its own.

And even if we don’t consciously believe that, behavior, especially when it becomes a pattern, speaks louder than intention.

When the solution consistently comes from you, people eventually learn that the safest and easiest move is to wait for the hero to arrive.

Gradually, people stop building the muscle required to work through problems independently because they don’t actually need to. They know that if things get messy or unclear, someone else will step in and clean it up.

This doesn’t happen because people lack capability. Most of the time, the capability is there. What’s missing is the opportunity to develop it.

So the manager stays busy solving problems while the team remains dependent on that person. From the outside, it can even look like strong leadership. The manager is deeply involved, the team relies on them, and work keeps moving.

But growth is quietly stalling.

Hold Space. Ask Questions.

So how do we adjust?

If the instinct to jump in and solve is the trap, the alternative is learning to create space for your team to think their way through the work.

One of the most powerful shifts a manager can make is to ask, not tell.

What options are you considering?
What could you try first?
What could we change for next time?
What do we want to make sure to repeat?

This will feel slower, and sometimes the solutions they propose won’t be exactly what you would have done. But their confidence will grow, their capability will strengthen, and their sense of ownership will increase.

Sometimes They Fail. That’s Ok.

Holding back is relatively easy when you believe your team will figure it out. It’s much harder when you can see the train coming.

When you know the presentation is not quite right. When you can sense that the client conversation may go sideways. When you are fairly certain that if they continue down this path, the outcome will not be ideal.

This is the moment when many managers instinctively jump in. We’re wired to avoid mistakes. The trouble is that the moments most ripe for growth and learning often come when things don’t perfectly go to plan.

Sometimes, as a manager, our job isn’t to prevent mistakes. It’s to make sure our people are learning and growing from them.

When to Step in Vs. When to Step Back

And, stepping back doesn’t mean abandoning your team. There are absolutely moments when stepping in is the right move.

It is reasonable to step in when there is an obstacle that your team member genuinely cannot remove themselves. Sometimes, access, authority, or context sits at the manager level.

It can also make sense when someone is early in the learning curve. That hands-on guidance can be necessary when people are building a foundation.

And occasionally, the stakes are simply too high for the learning opportunity to justify the risk.

But there are more moments than we often realize when it is worth pausing before you jump in.

If the person is capable, but it would simply be faster for you to do it yourself, pause.

If you notice you are getting involved out of habit because you are used to being in the weeds, reflect.

Ask yourself: Am I helping them grow, or am I jumping in to manage my own stress?

How Elevaters Are Different

When we take on the role of an Elevater (and not simply a manager), our call to action shifts.

Our job is no longer to get our teams across the finish line, our job is to grow our people. That’s a much harder ask. It takes longer. It’s more uncomfortable.

It requires trust (in yourself and your team). It requires patience and the ability to let people stumble.

But we end up elevating the people around us. And we create a more confident, accomplished team as a result.

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There’s a difference between a smart team and a healthy team.

And most organizations spend an extraordinary amount of energy optimizing for the first while quietly assuming the second will take care of itself.

You can assemble ten incredibly intelligent people in a room. People with deep expertise, impressive credentials, strong opinions, and sharp instincts. People who know how to build models, design strategy, spot market opportunities, and solve complex problems. On paper, it looks like a dream team.

And yet, those teams don’t always perform.

Not because they aren’t capable. Not because they lack ideas. But because intelligence alone does not create alignment, and it certainly doesn’t create trust.

If the people in that room don’t know how to admit when they’re wrong, ask for help without feeling exposed, challenge an idea without attacking the person behind it, or separate their ego from the outcome of the work, then it doesn’t really matter how smart they are. If they don’t know how to have hard conversations, how to say “that bothered me” without it turning into a rupture, how to hold each other to high standards without defensiveness creeping in, then the collective intelligence in the room stays locked up.

It’s remarkably easy to find smart people. It is far rarer to find a group of smart people who know how to operate in a healthy way together.

The Assumption We Make at Work

I was in a team practice a month or so ago when someone made an observation that has stuck with me ever since. She said, “It’s funny how much time and energy we put into how we engage with our spouses or our families… and then we show up to work and don’t really think about it at all.”

She was right.

Think about the level of intentionality most of us bring to our closest relationships outside of work. We reflect on our tone. We learn what triggers the other person. We try to repair quickly when we’ve hurt someone. We negotiate differences. We read books, listen to podcasts, go to therapy, have long conversations about how to communicate better. We understand, instinctively, that relationships require effort.

And yet at work — where we spend eight to ten hours a day, often under pressure, with people who have different communication styles, different stress responses, different backgrounds, and different ambitions — we somehow assume that things should just function.

We assume that because we are professionals, because we are smart, because we are adults, the relational side of the equation will run smoothly without much attention. And when it doesn’t, we are surprised.

But why would work be the one relational environment that doesn’t require maintenance? Why would a group of high-achieving, opinionated, driven humans under stress magically operate in harmony without tools, language, or structure?

That assumption is not only unrealistic; it is one of the quiet reasons so many teams underperform.

Strategy Is Not Enough

Strategy matters. Of course it does. You cannot build a strong organization without clarity of direction and good thinking. But there is a subtle overconfidence in many workplaces that if we just get the strategy right, everything else will fall into place. If we just hire the smartest people. If we just design the perfect plan. If we just make the “right” decision.

What often goes unexamined is that the quality of our decisions is directly influenced by the health of the environment in which they’re made.

If people are withholding concerns because they don’t want to be perceived as difficult, if they are protecting their territory rather than focusing on what is best for the team, if they are silently frustrated but unwilling to speak up, or if they are afraid that vulnerability will be used against them later, then even the most elegant strategy will struggle in execution. The cracks show up in subtle ways first — delayed decisions, passive resistance, misalignment — and eventually they compound.

Healthy teams do not eliminate conflict. They create a structure for navigating it productively. They don’t avoid hard conversations; they build the muscle to have them earlier and more directly. They don’t pretend ego doesn’t exist; they learn how to notice it and move past it in service of something larger than any one person.

And none of that happens by accident.

Health Is Built, Not Assumed

There is a pervasive belief that healthy dynamics are something you either have or you don’t. That some teams just “click.” But in my experience, that clicking is almost always the result of intentional effort. It comes from shared language. From agreed-upon norms. From practicing feedback. From leaders modeling vulnerability and repair. From making space to talk not just about what we are working on, but about how we are working together.

It doesn’t make a team weak to need those structures. It makes them human.

Under stress, every single one of us reverts to habit. We become more defensive, more certain, more reactive, or more withdrawn. We misinterpret tone. We assume intent. We carry our history into the room. The question is not whether those dynamics will appear; they will. The question is whether the team has the awareness and the tools to navigate them without derailing performance.

When you take a group of smart people and teach them how to function as a healthy team, something shifts that feels almost disproportionate to the effort. Meetings become more efficient not because people are quieter, but because they are clearer. Decisions get made faster because dissent happens early rather than festering underneath the surface. Standards rise because accountability is no longer personal; it’s shared. Energy that once went toward politics or avoidance gets redirected toward progress.

The magic is not in finding smarter people. Most organizations already have plenty of intelligence. The unlocking move is helping those smart people work well together.

Smart teams can design a plan.

Healthy teams can carry it through.

And if you want sustained performance rather than sporadic brilliance, you need both.

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I was with a participant yesterday, helping her to develop her PDP (Personal Development Practice), when she paused mid-sentence and said, almost half-laughing, “Oh… that’s going to be really uncomfortable.”

And I laughed along with her.

Awesome.

That means we’re on the right track.

In the second half of the Elevate program, everyone defines a PDP. It’s deceptively simple: identify an old habit — a reflexive way of showing up that isn’t fully serving you or the people around you — and pair it with a new habit, a more intentional way you want to respond instead.

The old habit is usually something that once made sense. It likely helped you succeed at some point. It might even still “work” in certain contexts. But under stress, under pressure, in the moments that matter most, it can create friction.

The new habit, on the other hand, almost always feels unnatural at first. Slower. More exposed. More effortful.

Which is why her comment didn’t concern me.

It encouraged me.

Because if behavior change feels seamless, we’re probably not actually changing anything.

What Shows Up Under Pressure

Most of our default patterns show up when we’re under stress. When deadlines tighten. When a stakeholder pushes back. When a teammate misses the mark. That’s when our backhand appears — the instinctive move we reach for without thinking.

Some of us shut down.
Some of us get sharp.
Some of us take over.
Some of us avoid.

We rarely choose those reactions consciously. They’re conditioned. Practiced. Rehearsed over years.

So when someone decides, “Instead of withdrawing, I’m going to speak up,” or “Instead of jumping in with the answer, I’m going to ask a question,” or “Instead of controlling the outcome, I’m going to delegate and tolerate the discomfort,” it should feel uncomfortable.

You’re interrupting muscle memory.

“What Are They Going to Think?”

What I loved about this conversation yesterday was that her discomfort wasn’t about capability. It was about perception.

“What are they going to think?” she asked. “If I start doing this differently?”

That question comes up all the time.

We assume people will be confused. Or skeptical. Or quietly judging.

But here’s the beautiful thing about PDPs: we don’t do them in secret.

We share them.

When you tell your team, “Here’s the habit I’m working on,” you remove the guesswork. When you behave differently, it’s not random — it’s intentional. And instead of people wondering what’s going on, they understand the context.

Even better, they can support you.

This week, I heard from someone who said her manager checks in on her PDP in their weekly 1:1. Not in a performative way. Not as a scorecard. Just enough to keep it front of mind. That small act changes everything. Growth doesn’t drift to the bottom of the to-do list. It stays alive in conversation.

In another team practice, someone flagged for a colleague, “This is usually the point in the year where stress ramps up for you. This might be the moment your old habit wants to kick in.”

And they weren’t wasn’t defensive. They were appreciative.

That’s the unlock.

Don’t Do Growth Alone

Trying to rewire behavior in a vacuum is incredibly hard. Trying to show up differently in the exact moments your nervous system is lit up? Even harder.

But when the people around you know what you’re working on, they can help you notice the moment. They can hold the mirror steady. They can remind you of who you’re trying to become.

And that’s what makes change stick.

Leadership development can sometimes feel tactical — frameworks, meeting structures, question prompts. And those tools matter. They create shared language and clarity.

And the deeper work — the work that actually transforms us — lives here. In the uncomfortable space where someone says, “This is going to be hard for me,” and chooses to do it anyway.

Embodying a growth mindset isn’t just a belief that we can improve. It’s the willingness to tolerate the awkward, effortful middle. The stretch. The friction. The temporary dip in fluency.

It’s choosing discomfort now because you believe the future version of you will operate more effectively, more intentionally, and more generously as a result.

In Practice

So I’ll leave you with this:

• When you are under stress and pressure, what is your instinctive move? What’s your backhand?

• And if you were to define a new habit — one that feels slightly unnatural but ultimately more aligned with the leader you want to be — what would it be?

• And who could you tell, so you don’t have to practice it alone?

Because if it feels uncomfortable, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

It might just mean you’re growing.

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When someone on your team is struggling to perform, the most common instinct is to zoom in on them.

What are they doing wrong?
Why aren’t they more motivated?
Why can’t they just figure it out?

When outcomes matter, when timelines are real, when the work affects other people, it’s stressful to watch someone fall short of what’s needed.

But great leadership starts somewhere else.

It starts with ownership.

When someone on your team is struggling, the first question isn’t, “What’s wrong with them?”
It’s: “What do I need to do differently to give them what they need to succeed?”

That doesn’t mean people don’t have responsibility. They do.
And it doesn’t mean every performance issue is solved by better leadership.

But before you point the finger, before you get frustrated, before you decide this is a “them problem,” there’s a more useful move:

Audit your leadership first.

Here are four big buckets worth looking at when someone on your team is struggling.

Not as a checklist to interrogate them—but as a way to pressure-test your side of the equation first.

1. The Learning Curve & The Support They Actually Need

The first thing I want to understand is: where are they on the learning curve?

• Do they actually know how to do this yet?

• Or am I expecting performance before mastery?

Sometimes what looks like underperformance is just someone still learning.

Some people need more hands-on direction in the beginning.
Some people need coaching and problem-solving.
Some people need clear structure before they can confidently improvise.

Different stages require different leadership.

And this is where a lot of leaders get tripped up: we all have a default leadership style. Some of us are more hands-on. Some of us are more hands-off. Some of us jump straight to problem-solving. Some of us default to giving space.

The mistake is assuming our default style is what everyone needs, all the time.

A more useful set of questions sounds like:

• What kind of support would actually help this person succeed right now?

• What have I tried so far?

• What’s their learning style?

• Do they need more direction?

• Do they need more coaching or encouragement?

• Do they need clearer structure, or more ad hoc support?

• Am I giving them what they need, or what I would need in their position?

I’ve written before about strategies that can make it easier for our people to tell us what they need. If we employ them, it keeps us from needing to be mind readers. The better we get at matching your leadership to where someone actually is, the fewer “performance problems” we end up having in the first place.

2. What They Actually Care About (And What Motivates Them)

The next bucket is motivation and values.

Do I actually understand what’s important to this person?

This is one of the most common disconnects I see. Many leaders are highly self-motivated. They care about growth, impact, winning, building, pushing. And when someone on their team isn’t motivated in the same way, it can feel confusing and frustrating.

So we start asking: Why don’t they care as much as I do?
When a better question is: What do they care about?

Is it:

• Stability?

• Recognition?

• Mastery?

• Autonomy?

• Time?

• Competition?

• Belonging?

None of these are wrong. But they are different languages.

If you’re trying to get buy-in and commitment from someone, it helps to speak in terms that actually resonate with them—not just in terms that motivate you.

Useful questions here are:

• What does this person value most right now?

• What are they trying to protect or grow?

• What do they optimize for when they make decisions?

• Am I framing goals and expectations in a way that connects to their drivers—or just mine?

Clarity about motivation doesn’t guarantee performance. But misunderstanding it almost guarantees friction.

3. Clarity, Expectations, and Real Feedback

The third bucket is communication.

Have I actually been clear about expectations?

Not just “I think I said it once,” but:

• Could they clearly tell you what success looks like?

• Could they tell you what matters most right now?

• Could they tell you where they’re falling short?

• Could they tell you what “good” looks like versus “great”?

A good litmus test for clarity is this: can the other person accurately mirror it back to you?

If not, there’s probably a clarity gap somewhere.

This is also where feedback comes in—and this is hard for a lot of people.

The kindest thing you can do is be clear.

Not cruel. Not harsh. Just clear.

When we avoid being direct, we often think we’re being nice. But what we’re really doing is leaving people guessing. The fairest thing you can do is let someone know where they stand and what, specifically, they can do to improve.

So I ask myself:

• Have I named the gap directly?

• Have I given feedback that’s specific and usable?

• Or am I hoping they’ll just “pick up the signal”?

If you haven’t named it, you can’t be surprised it isn’t changing.

4. The Stories You’re Telling Yourself

The last bucket is the quietest—and sometimes the most dangerous.

What assumptions am I making about their intent or effort?

It is incredibly easy to start telling ourselves stories about people:

• They don’t care.

• They’re lazy.

• They’re not cut out for this.

• They’re not trying.

Once we start telling those stories, they shape what we notice. They shape how we show up. And over time, they can limit what we’re even able to see in someone.

A few honest questions here:

• What story am I telling myself about why this is happening?

• What evidence do I actually have?

• What might I not know about their context, capacity, or constraints?

• If I went into this conversation assuming positive intent, what would change?

If you want productive performance conversations, you have to be able to see people clearly—including their strengths, their capabilities, and the tools they already have in their toolkit.

Because if you’re telling yourself a narrow story about someone, that’s usually the version of them you’ll keep getting.

Here’s the throughline I keep coming back to:

When someone on your team is struggling, that struggle is a signal. And the first responsibility for interpreting that signal belongs to you.

Owning that doesn’t make you weaker as a leader. It makes you more effective.

Because the moment you shift from blame to responsibility, you move from frustration to influence.

And influence is the only thing that actually changes outcomes.

That’s where better leadership—and better results—actually start.

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I’ve been working with one of our clients on what the “next level” version of the Elevate Program looks like for alumni.

Going into those conversations, I realized I was carrying a pretty strong assumption.

In my head, the natural next step was: Great, now let’s really focus on using these tools inside your direct teams. Manager with their team. Peers with their peers. Day-to-day, real-time application. It made sense to me. If the tools are meant to help you navigate real work, then surely the best place to practice is right there, with the people you work with every day.

So I asked the alumni for feedback.

And the response was… basically unanimous.

They don’t want that.

They want the practice space to stay cross-functional.

They want it to stay a space where their boss isn’t in the room. Where their direct reports aren’t in the room. Where they can show up without having it all figured out.

I’m so glad I asked. Because what they helped me see feels really important.

1. We don’t outgrow practice. And practice spaces work because they’re safe.

One of the things I love most about the Elevate Program is that it’s not a performance space. You don’t show up because you already have the answer. You show up with the tension. The messy situation. The thing you’re not sure how to handle.

You get perspective. You get coached. You try on tools. You hear how other people think about it. And ideally, you walk away with something clearer, more grounded, and more usable than what you walked in with.

What the alumni reflected back to me is this: that kind of space doesn’t stop being useful just because you’ve “graduated.”

Having the tools doesn’t mean you no longer need a place to prepare to use them.

In fact, most of the time, the stress or tension we’re dealing with comes from the people we work most closely with. Our peers. Our boss. Our team. And when you’re in the middle of that system, it’s hard to both be in it and think clearly about it at the same time.

A cross-functional space gives you a little distance.

You’re not posturing. You’re not managing optics. You’re not trying to lead and process at the same time. You can just show up and say, “Here’s what I’m dealing with. I don’t know the answer yet.”

That’s not something you “outgrow.” That’s a practice you keep.

It actually made me think about athletics.

When I played in college, every single practice—and every single game—we did our “dailies”. For outfielders, that meant the same fundamentals over and over: practicing our do-or-die footwork and glovework with a motionless ball, tossing balls in the air to ourselves and catching them on the correct shoulder. Stuff you could easily think, We’re playing at a high level. We’ve been doing this forever. Why are we still doing this?

But that’s the point. You never get too many reps. Professional athletes don’t stop practicing because they’re “good enough.” They practice because fundamentals are what hold up under pressure.

Leadership is the same. You don’t graduate out of needing a practice space. If anything, the more responsibility you carry, the more valuable that space becomes.

2. Cross-functionality fights silos (and builds empathy)

The second thing this really clarified for me is how important cross-functional spaces are as organizations grow.

As companies get bigger, it’s almost inevitable: you get more siloed. You talk to the same people every day. Other teams make decisions that affect your work—but you don’t always have context, or relationships, or an easy way to understand the “why” behind those decisions.

So what happens?

“It’s accounting.”
“It’s logistics.”
“It’s marketing.”

We start talking about functions instead of people.

But when you’re in a cross-functional practice space, something different happens.

You bring in a situation that’s stressing you out. Maybe it does involve another department. And suddenly, someone from that world is in the room. You get their perspective. You can ask the question. You can see the fuller picture of what’s actually going on.

And just like that, things get more human.

Names and faces replace labels. Context replaces assumptions.

Over time, that does something really important: it builds trust and empathy across the organization.

It builds our emotional bank account. When that account is full, we’re more generous in our interpretations. More curious. More willing to assume positive intent. Less likely to climb our ladder and get defensive.

When that account is empty, we do the opposite.

Cross-functional practice spaces quietly keep that account funded.

The surprising (and beautiful) side effect

What struck me most in these conversations is that this wasn’t just about skill-building.

Yes, these spaces help people sharpen how they think, how they communicate, how they use the tools.

But they also make the business better in a really human way.

They reduce silos.
They increase empathy.
They create shared language and shared understanding.
They give people a place to think before they have to act.

And maybe most importantly, they preserve something rare at work: a place where you don’t have to have it all figured out yet.

I went into this thinking the “next level” was about pushing practice deeper into existing teams.

What I’m leaving with is something different, and honestly, something better:

Sometimes the most advanced move is protecting the practice space itself.
Keeping it cross-functional.
Keeping it human.
Keeping it safe enough to not know… yet.

And trusting that when people have that kind of space, everything else gets better too.

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On Tuesday, I wrote about reducing my screen time from over six hours a day to just one. It began as a productivity experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I removed the reflexive phone use—the unconscious scrolling and constant checking that had quietly become background noise in my day. I assumed I’d gain focus and time.

What I didn’t anticipate was that the most meaningful shift wouldn’t be efficiency.

It would be mindfulness.

That theme continued to surface throughout the week. In 1:1 check-ins and in team practices, people described moments where they caught themselves in real time. Someone noticed their energy spike in a meeting. Someone else realized they were reacting instead of responding. One participant shared, “I feel this frantic energy, but I’m not exactly sure how to address it, and I don’t want it impacting my team.”

Of course, we talked about tools or strategies, but I also thought it was really important to acknowledge that noticing is a win in and of itself.

So many of us move through our days like fish in water. We don’t question the environment because it feels constant. Frantic becomes normal. Distraction becomes baseline. We don’t notice or question the low-level tension we’re operating with.

Mindfulness vs. Mindlessness

When people hear “mindfulness,” they often think meditation. I personally love meditation, and I think it can be really transformative. But after nearly a decade of teaching and practicing this work, I’ve come to see that mindfulness doesn’t have to look like a formal practice.

There isn’t one right format.

For me, mindfulness is simply the opposite of mindlessness. Mindlessness is when we are physically doing one thing while mentally doing several others. We brush our teeth while mentally running through the day. We eat lunch while responding to emails. We walk while layering in podcasts, messages, and planning for what’s next.

Planning and reflecting are useful. The issue isn’t thinking ahead; it’s the lack of intention. We default to being out of the moment without choosing it.

That was the core realization behind my screen time shift. I wasn’t consciously deciding to pick up my phone most of the time. It was reflexive. Automatic. Unexamined. That pattern wasn’t just about time lost—it was about awareness lost.

When I interrupted that reflex, I didn’t just gain hours. I gained space. Mental space. Emotional space. The ability to notice what was actually happening internally instead of constantly buffering it with input.

The Power of Noticing

What I’ve seen repeatedly this week is that noticing is often the hardest part—and the most important part.

When you pause long enough to ask, “How am I actually feeling right now?” you interrupt autopilot. You create a moment of choice. You may not immediately solve the tension or anxiety, but you are no longer unconsciously operating inside it.

That’s where agency begins.

Without noticing, we normalize everything. With noticing, we regain authorship.

Making Mindfulness Practical

One of the reasons I like defining mindfulness as “noticing” or “presence” is that it makes it incredibly accessible. It removes the pressure to overhaul your routine or adopt something intensive.

You can practice mindfulness inside the life you already have.

Pick one activity you do every day—brushing your teeth, eating lunch, walking the dog, driving to work—and choose to do it with intention.

Mindless brushing looks like mentally drafting emails while your body goes through the motions. Mindful brushing means paying attention to the sensation, being physically present for those two minutes.

Mindless eating looks like working through your lunch at your desk, barely tasting it. Mindful eating might mean sitting at a table without your laptop and actually noticing what you’re consuming.

Mindless walking often includes layering in constant stimulation. Mindful walking could mean removing those inputs and simply noticing your feet hitting the ground.

This is not about being mindful all the time. That’s unrealistic and unnecessary. It’s about building the muscle by interrupting mindlessness.

Just once is enough to start.

Why This Matters Now

We live in a time when speed is rewarded and constant input is normalized.

Technology makes it easy to stay perpetually stimulated and perpetually distracted.

Entire days can pass in reaction mode—moving from one task, message, or conversation to the next without ever checking in internally.

Mindfulness, in its most grounded form, is the ability to return to the present moment and recognize your internal state. It often requires slowing down, which can feel uncomfortable precisely because we’re so accustomed to operating at a steady hum of activity.

But that discomfort is instructive. It reveals how rarely we sit with ourselves without distraction.

Reducing my screen time wasn’t powerful because it optimized productivity. It was powerful because it broke a reflex and forced awareness. It shifted me from reacting to choosing.

In a culture that keeps accelerating, the ability to notice your energy, your emotions, and your patterns is not optional. It’s foundational. It’s what allows you to respond intentionally instead of being carried by default.

In Practice This Week

Instead of adding something new, choose one small moment to do differently. Pick one daily activity and do it without layering in additional input. Or pause once a day and ask yourself, without judgment, “How am I actually feeling right now?”

You don’t have to fix the answer.

Just notice.

That’s where change begins.

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The Moment It Clicked

Last November, I had an honest moment with myself.

It had finally dawned on me that my screen time had gotten out of control. I was averaging over six hours a day on my phone, and I remember thinking, how is this even happening?

It wasn’t intentional. It just crept. A little more here, a little more there. And then, all of a sudden, I paused—this is not thoughtful, and it’s definitely not sustainable.

I don’t think this is a groundbreaking realization. Phones just suck you in. They trap you. Half the time you don’t even realize it’s happening.

For me, this started as a productivity decision. I have a lot I’m trying to get accomplished. I have a lot of work I want to do. And spending over six hours a day on my phone just didn’t align with that.

So I started making changes.

What Changed

I didn’t do one dramatic thing. I did a lot of small, practical things.

I rewired parts of my day. I built new habits. I conditioned myself to stay off my phone instead of defaulting to it.

Last week, my average screen time was one hour and one minute a day.

I’m genuinely proud of that. And it’s not surprising to me that January felt like one of my most productive months in a long time. I’m getting a lot done. The productivity payoff has been real.

But what surprised me is that productivity hasn’t been the biggest benefit.

The Bigger Payoff: Awareness

The biggest payoff has been awareness.

I talk a lot in the Elevate program about mindfulness versus mindlessness. And when I say mindfulness, I don’t mean sitting cross-legged for twenty minutes every morning if that’s not realistic for you.

Meditations are great. They’ve worked for me, and I love them. But to me, mindfulness is about practicality.

It’s about:

• how I’m showing up in my day

• whether I’m aware of how I’m thinking and feeling

• whether I’m choosing my responses or just reacting

Mindlessness is going through the motions without being present.

Looking back, unconsciously picking up my phone and scrolling was the clearest example of that for me. I wasn’t choosing it. I wasn’t enjoying it. It was just… happening.

Being more analog has given me white space. And that white space has changed how conscious I am of myself.

What That Looks Like In Real Life

Last Friday, I wrote about catching myself in “problem mode” and walking myself out of it.

What I didn’t fully spell out is that this whole internal conversation happened while I was walking in the park.

Normally, I would’ve thrown on a podcast and kept moving. I actually did at first. Then I caught myself and switched to a guided meditation instead.

On the back end of that meditation, I started reflecting. Coaching myself. Shifting my energy.

I ended that walk more aligned, more energized, and clearer than when I started.

That shift happened because I didn’t immediately fill the space.

If I had stayed plugged in — if I had just kept consuming — I don’t think I would’ve had access to the tools. The white space is what created room for awareness.

This feels like a perfect example of what it looks like to bring mindfulness into my day. At the same time, I’ve also put some very real strategies in place to bring my screen time down and my awareness up.

What I Actually Did to Reduce My Screen Time

A few people have asked how I did this, so here’s what worked for me:

• Turned Do Not Disturb on almost all the time
  I don’t need notifications constantly pulling my attention. If something’s urgent, the people in my life know they need to call twice to get through. For everything else, I’ll see it when I see it. Most things are really not that urgent.

• A real clock in my living room
  My apartment is shockingly void of clocks. Not a single one on any kitchen appliance. Which means, I was grabbing my phone just to check the time— and then getting pulled into everything else. One large digital clock purchase later and I solved for that.

• A Physical Kitchen Timer
  For cooking, using the Pomodoro technique, anything. One less reason to pick up my phone.

• My Phone Lives in the Kitchen at Night
  Around 8–8:30 p.m., it’s plugged in and done for the day. I have an alarm clock in my bedroom, so really, there’s no reason to have my phone bedside.

• A Fitness Tracker Instead of My Phone
  I’m no longer tethered to my phone just to track activity.

• Hard limits on Instagram
  Instagram was my biggest time suck. It was so easy to go on my phone for any of the above reasons and then end up on Instagram. So, I instituted an app blocker. I can’t go on for more than 10 minutes at a time. And at this point, I’m down to checking it once a day with intentionality. I watch the latest videos of my nephew, check my messages from friends and then I’m out. Usually, I don’t even make it 10 minutes.

None of this is about rejecting technology. It’s about not letting it run me.

The Punchline

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology lately — how it fits into our lives, our work, and how what we’re doing at Cohd is more relevant than ever because of technology. (There’s more I’ll be writing about on that front.)

But at a very personal level, this is what being more analog has taught me:

I want technology to be something I use on purpose, not something I default to unconsciously.

Used mindfully, technology is an incredible tool.
Used mindlessly, it quietly erodes our attention, awareness, and presence.

This shift hasn’t been about less technology.
It’s been about more intention.

And that — more than anything — has changed how I move through my days and show up for myself.

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Most of us are far more problem-oriented than we realize.

It’s second nature to focus on what isn’t working—what we don’t want, what we want to get away from, what’s frustrating us. And when we’re oriented this way for long enough, it creates a steady undercurrent of stress, anxiety, or irritation.

That stress doesn’t just live in our heads. Our bodies want it gone.

So when we’re in problem mode, our reactions are usually less about solving the problem and more about relieving the discomfort. We become reactive. We default to whatever version of fight, flight, or freeze is most natural for us.

Here’s a concrete example.

Let’s say there’s someone on your team who isn’t performing at the level you expect. You notice everything they’re not doing. They’re not listening. They’re not improving. They’re not carrying their weight. And the more you focus on that, the more stressed you feel.

From there, different people react differently:

• Some avoid the issue entirely and just take on the extra work themselves.

• Some get short, passive-aggressive, or visibly annoyed.

• Some complain to their closest work confidant.

• Others confront the person in a way that’s more reactive than productive.

These reactions are the fastest way your nervous system knows how to relieve or avoid the stress.

What’s most important to notice is this: while these behaviors may reduce discomfort in the short term, they often move us further away from what we actually want.

In the example above, if you pause and ask a different question—What do I actually want here?—the answer is usually something like:

• I want to trust this person to follow through.

• I want a working relationship where the workload feels fair.

• I want us to be effective together.

Now look at the reactive response of “I’ll just do it myself.”

It may be the quickest way to make the immediate problem go away, but it doesn’t get you closer to trust, fairness, or an effective working relationship. Over time, it actually creates resentment, reinforces the same dynamic, and guarantees you’ll be dealing with the same stress again.

This is where anchoring your decisions in what you want to create changes everything.

When you orient around the outcome you want—rather than the problem you want to escape—you start making different choices. Choices that often require holding more tension in the short term, but lead somewhere better in the long term.

If what you want is a fair workload and a stronger working relationship, the next step might be:

• Offering clear feedback

• Having a candid conversation about impact

• Identifying learning gaps and creating a plan to close them

None of those are quick fixes. They don’t instantly remove the discomfort. But they move you closer to the outcome you actually care about—and prevent the same issue from resurfacing over and over again.

This pattern shows up everywhere. We react to stress in ways that help us cope, but quietly sabotage the thing we want most.

Putting this into practice

Think about a recurring stress or complaint in your life right now.

• How do you typically react to it?

• Do you default to a fight, flight, or freeze response to cope with the discomfort?

• If you painted a clear, affirmative picture of what you actually want in that situation—big picture, ideal scenario—what would it be?

And how might anchoring your actions in that outcome change how you show up?

I wanted to cover this dynamic in today’s Substack because it was a tool I personally relied on this week. I caught myself stuck in a problem-oriented loop for over a week—frustrated with how someone was showing up, low on empathy, spinning my wheels.

When I finally paused and asked myself a more honest question—not How do I want this person to change? but How do I want to be? What actually matters to me here? What do I want to create? —everything shifted.

My initial frustration was a good data point. It was pointing me toward what I value. But once I re-anchored in what I wanted to create, the situation stopped feeling like a burden and started feeling like an opportunity.

I could show up with more clarity, more empathy, and far more alignment with who I want to be—without carrying unnecessary stress.

We never outgrow these tools.

We’re human. We will get frustrated. We will slip into problem mode. The work is noticing when it’s happening—and learning how to flip the script.

This time it took me a week. Sometimes I’m caught in the problem mode for months before I recognize what’s happening. Often, it’s only a few minutes.

Remember, all of this is a practice. But each time I apply the tool, I feel lighter and more fully myself.

When we anchor our decisions in what we want to create, life doesn’t just get easier. It gets more energizing.

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One of our core values at Cohd is growth in community. Not because you cannot grow on your own, but because the ceiling on your growth is meaningfully higher when you are doing the work alongside other people.

You can absolutely sit with yourself, reflect, journal, read, learn, and make progress. These are all skills and principles we build into the Elevate Program.

What I see again and again, though, is that people grow faster, more sustainably, and with a lot less unnecessary pressure when they are not doing it alone.

That belief sits at the center of why we use a cohort model.

You Are Not Going to Do This Perfectly

Yesterday, in a team practice, we were discussing fixed versus growth mindsets. As often happens, the conversation drifted toward a familiar question:

If we care about learning and improvement, doesn’t that mean we’re growth-minded?

What I offered in response was this: it is not a question of whether we are growth-minded or fixed-minded. We are all going to be both.

That is not a failure of mindset. That is called being a human being.

It is easy to turn this work into a binary. This is how I want to be. This is how I do not want to be. Having ideals matters, and intention matters. Of course, we want to operate from a growth mindset most of the time.

But the idea that we will never slip back into a fixed mindset again is unrealistic.

You will feel defensive when you get tough feedback.
You will feel challenged when something you care about does not go the way you hoped.
You will hit moments of self-doubt, limiting beliefs, or old internal narratives.
You will sometimes rely too heavily on past expertise and resist a new way of thinking.

That does not mean you are doing the work wrong. It means you are under pressure, stretched, or human.

The goal is not to eliminate a fixed mindset entirely. The goal is to recognize it faster and pivot more intentionally.

That is the unlocking move.

Growth is not about never slipping into old patterns. It is about shortening the amount of time it takes to notice what is happening and choose a different response.

And when we try to do all of that alone, the bar quietly becomes really daunting. If we expect ourselves to be endlessly self-aware, perfectly objective, and consistently regulated… that’s a lot to carry by ourselves.

This is where community starts to matter in a very real, very practical way.

Shared Language Changes the Equation

When a group of people works with the same language and tools, personal growth stops being a solo pursuit.

Other people can notice patterns you miss.
They can reflect things back to you more quickly.
They can help interrupt cycles before they become deeply entrenched.

The onus is no longer on you to create self-awareness in a vacuum. Instead, you are surrounded by people who understand how you are trying to grow and who have the language to support that process.

This does not remove accountability. It distributes it in a way that is more realistic and far more effective.

Progress accelerates when you are not relying solely on your perspective to guide you.

Your Team Is Part of the Toolkit

Last week, in a team practice, a participant said, “One of the tools I am appreciating the most right now is the team.”

That landed because it is exactly right.

Your team can be a tool.

When people share a common vision for how they want to work together, and when they have clear language for how to give feedback and support growth, they become part of the practice itself.

There is also something important about being on the other side of that equation.

Supporting someone else’s growth feels good. It builds trust. It strengthens relationships. It creates cultures where people are invested not just in outcomes, but in how those outcomes are achieved.

When there is a shared toolkit, helping one another becomes easier and cleaner. Feedback feels less personal. Conversations become more productive. The work feels more human.

Reflection Needs Perspective

Self-reflection is an important part of growth, but it is not sufficient on its own.

You can spend hours thinking about how you are showing up and still miss key pieces of the picture. The people around you, especially the people who feel the impact of your behavior, hold information you simply cannot access alone.

Community adds perspective.

Not because you cannot grow without it, but because it expands what is possible when you are willing to learn with and from others.

That is why we care so deeply about doing this work in community. Not as an abstract ideal, but as a practical approach to growth that actually works.

Growth is a practice. Practices are easier to sustain, refine, and deepen when you are not doing them in isolation.

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