Good Morning Reader
Last week I told you that clarity comes before purpose.
This week I want to tell you what clarity actually costs.
Nobody wants what comes next.
"You have had the insight. You have had the conversation. You have felt the shift. And then you went back to exactly what you were doing before."
In my executive coaching contracts, I have a rule. It is written clearly and it is written in bold.
If we meet three times and you have not taken action on what we have talked about, I cancel the contract. You do not get your money back.
My role is to create space for you to think and ask uncomfortable questions. To help you explore what is actually going on beneath the surface. But the real change, the real work, that requires you. You need to take the steps. You need to take the action.
If you do not, we are wasting each other's time.
Nobody ever asks the person at the top "What can I do to help you grow?"
You are expected to have the answers, keep the momentum going, and deliver. And you do. Every single time. But when is it your turn?
That is exactly the conversation I want to have with you.
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The reason intentionality falls into the gap, the reason clarity remains out of reach for so many people, is not because they do not understand what needs to happen. It is because the actions required to get there are not easy.
You can have the conversation. You can unearth what needs to change. You can sit in a room with someone who asks you the right questions and feel, genuinely feel, the shift beginning.
And then you go back to your life. And the moment passes. And the gap widens.
I was working with an exec in the C-suite & her boss, the CEO, was a narcissist.
I say that carefully because the word gets used loosely now. Thrown at anyone who is demanding or self-assured or difficult in a meeting.
This was something else entirely.
True narcissism has a particular texture. The praise that makes you feel chosen, followed by the criticism that makes you feel worthless, sometimes within the same conversation. The Jekyll and Hyde behaviour that keeps everyone around them walking on eggshells, permanently recalibrating, permanently trying to manage the unpredictability. The absence of genuine empathy dressed up as vision and high standards. And the absolute refusal to be wrong, ever, about anything.
It was not just her experiencing this. Other members of the board were navigating the same reality. And it reverberated all the way through the organisation. When the person at the top operates this way, the whole system learns to survive around it.
Our work together was not abstract. It was specific and it was hard.
How do you handle a narcissist? How do you put boundaries in place? How do you begin to shift a relationship that has been years in the making? What are the risks of doing that, and are you prepared to face them?
We had those conversations. We had real talk. We had understanding.
The first catch up after we had mapped it all out, she had not done anything. The second catch up, same. Nothing.
So I told her directly. If this happens one more time, I am out. But more importantly, here is what it is costing you. You think the fear you are feeling right now is the problem? Let me show you what the cost of staying exactly where you are actually looks like.
She did it.
She pushed back on the CEO. She put her boundaries in place. She stopped taking calls outside of agreed hours. It created a significant argument. It was not clean or comfortable. She grew in power and presence. She started to challenge the space she was in. And she encouraged others around her to look at things differently. One woman, taking one uncomfortable action, shifted the entire C-suite dynamic.
It took time. But it happened.
And eventually she left. Not because she was pushed out. Because she was ready. Because the real work had been done.
She left that job on her own terms.
Here is what is really happening when someone cannot take the step they know they need to take.
It is not fear well not exactly.
It is identity.
Your brain is not a goal-setting machine. It is a casting director. And once it has cast you in a role, it will fight to keep you in that part. Not because it wants to limit you. Because consistency feels like safety.
The woman I was working with had been cast as the person who holds things together quietly. The one who manages. Who absorbs. Who keeps the room stable while the storm moves around her. Every year she did not push back on the CEO, she was accepting the part. Confirming the casting. And she called it professionalism.
The moment she pushed back, she was auditioning for a different role.
One that fit who she was becoming, not who she had been.
And here is the part that matters for you. Your brain needs evidence to update the cast list. Not affirmations. Not intention. Not another conversation about what needs to change.
Evidence.
- The email sent before you feel ready.
- The boundary named out loud instead of managed quietly.
- The step taken before you feel certain.
That is what updates the story your brain tells about who you are. And when that story changes, behaviour stops feeling like effort. It becomes who you are.
That is why the clause in my contract exists. Not to create accountability in the conventional sense. But because without action, insight becomes just another layer of self-awareness that leaves everything exactly as it was.
Your brain needs evidence, not understanding.
The step is the evidence.
This Week's Reflection Questions
- You know the action you have been avoiding. Not the one that is genuinely impossible. The one that is just uncomfortable. What is it?
- What is the real cost of staying exactly where you are? Not the story you tell yourself about why now is not the right time. The actual cost.
- Where in your life are you having the conversation but not taking the step?
- What role has your brain cast you in? And is it still the part you want to be playing?
If this newsletter made you pause, that pause is worth paying attention to.
The scorecard turns that feeling into clarity. [Take the scorecard here]
If you recognise yourself anywhere in this, hit reply. Even just to say which part stopped you. I read every response personally.
See you next Monday.
Closing The Intention Gap
Sope Agbelusi - Executive Coach, Facilitator, Strategist
