Sustainable Success Nudge From Your Future Self

💬 "The way you lead yourself determines the way you lead everything else."

What we often call self-care is actually one of the most important forms of leadership.

Hi Melinda,

I've been doing something lately that has been surprisingly fun.

I've been randomly opening my own book and reading whatever page it lands on.

This week it opened to Chapter 6, and one sentence immediately caught my attention:

"For many entrepreneurs, the term self-care can feel like a mismatch for their busy world of high stakes and constant demands. But what if we reframed it entirely—not as a nice-to-have but as a form of self-leadership?"

Early in my entrepreneurial journey, I paid close attention to the business owners around me.

I watched colleagues, mentors, and other incredibly successful people.

And while I admired what many of them had built, I also noticed something I didn't want.

Their businesses seemed to consume them. Success looked heavy. They were losing themselves along the way.

I remember thinking, I don't want my business to feel like that.

I wanted my work to light me up, to energize me.

I wanted to build something that gave me more life, not something that slowly took it away.

Looking back, I realize I made a decision very early on.

I wasn't just going to lead my business differently.

I was going to lead myself differently.

That's why, today, I don't really think of self-care as self-care.

I think of it as self-leadership.

Because you're already an exceptional leader.

The question is whether you're leading yourself with the same level of intention that you bring to everyone and everything else.

Think about it...

How intentional are you about serving your clients well?

Leading your team?

Managing your projects?

I'm guessing you're pretty intentional and you’d give yourself a high score.

Now let me ask a different question.

How intentional are you about leading your own energy?

Your focus?

Your creativity?

Your well-being?

Would you answer that question with the same confidence?

One of the simplest ways I practice self-leadership is with a twist on the traditional to-do list.

Instead of one, ridiculously long list...

I divide my page into two columns.

On the left is Doing.

Things like projects, tasks, things that I have to do and that requires my attention and action.

On the right is Being.

For me that looks like playing my Tibetan singing bowls, meditating, reading, walking Oakley, being Mimi with my granddaughter.

Anything that intentionally cultivates the quality of the person who will be doing all the things in the left-hand column.

Because I've learned something that keeps proving itself to be true...

My beingness informs my doingness.

The quality of my inner world shapes the quality of everything I create in my outer world.

And when I intentionally lead myself first...

I naturally lead my clients, my projects, and my life better.

So here's something I'd love for you to experiment with this week.

Take out a blank sheet of paper.

Draw a line down the middle.

Label one side Doing.

Label the other Being.

Fill in your Doing column first.

Then pause.

Before you begin checking things off...

Ask yourself:

"What belongs in my Being column today?"

Because leading yourself isn't something you do after the work is finished.

It's one of the most important parts of the work itself.

With presence,

Melinda