Your response is your responsibility
My mentor, Seth Godin, wrote a blog post last week that sparked a thought for me. It was called “The interaction cascade.” Here’s what he said:
“Walk into an office, and the person behind the desk begins an interaction. You respond (or react). They respond (or react) in turn.
Answer the phone. Caller ID tells you who it is—are you smiling? How much enthusiasm, disdain, annoyance, or delight comes through? The caller responds (or reacts). And so it goes.
Every interaction leads to the next interaction. But the first one starts the whole thing. And that one can be up to us.”
I always say to leaders that “your response is your responsibility.” No one can do that work for us. Yet somehow we blame (or want to blame) others for our responses all the time. You’re human, it’s normal... but that doesn't make it right. Taking control of our responses is a topic we circle back to all the time — it’s what BRAVE teaches you to do. We even came back to it in this week’s Implementation Lab (the live group coaching sessions that you get as part of your journey through the BRAVE course).
So, how are your responses?
Have you snapped at someone recently—maybe a teammate, family member, or friend? Did that sharp response bring you closer to the outcome you wanted? I didn’t think so. Did you do it intentionally or did it just happen because you were stressed, overwhelmed or simply tired or hungry?
Responses often feel automatic, as if we don’t have control over them. That’s why the self-help books and one-off training sessions you’ve tried haven’t delivered the change you hoped for. Because no matter how much we read about how to grow, change doesn’t respond to inspiration—it responds to practice.
And when life throws curveballs, that’s when the stakes are highest. That’s when transformation demands consistency — practice, not inspiration. Interestingly though, when we’re busy or stressed, that’s when we make excuses that we’ll address it later. It’s when we put our growth on the back burner. Maybe you’ve done that now and then?
A place to practice
BRAVE isn’t just about learning new tools—it’s about integrating them into your life and leadership, for the long haul. One of the things that sets BRAVE apart is that the course is designed with both the cognitive learning (the recorded lessons) AND the experiential component of our live Labs to bring the lessons to life (the place to practice). Our custom corporate BRAVE Immersions programs have the same components, for good reason. Think about learning a new language, if you only read the book and don’t practice conjugating verbs in real time, getting to fluency is nearly impossible. Neither cognitive learning nor inspiration alone will cut it.
Life can get chaotic. That’s exactly why our Labs exist, to give you the kind of support that keeps you growing through the chaos, a place to workshop real life situations as they unfold— not wait for things to settle down. Because the truth is: growth doesn’t happen when things are easy. It happens when things get hard and you choose to show up anyway. Life won’t wait for you. It needs you to be ready to take action no matter what.
Are you ready?
It’s a mindset. Leaders don’t see growth as one more thing to do, they know it’s actually the unlock that makes everything else better.
If you look at Seth's website, it prompts leaders with a question: “Will you be ready when it’s your turn to lead?” That’s the rub, you can’t predict when you’ll need to be ready. Life, the market, circumstances don’t consult you first.
So, if you’ve ever thought, “I just need to get through this busy season and then I’ll help my people grow, work on my relationship, take the class, do the thing that will elevate my game, etc.” remember Seth and ask yourself:
What might waiting cost me?
How many poor responses, missed connections or micromanaged moments will cost you opportunities, trust or momentum in the meantime? Too many is the answer.
Good intentions fall short
When it comes to our responses, good intentions amount to nothing. It doesn’t matter if we intended to show up a certain way. All that will matter in the aftermath is how your autopilot programmed you to respond. If you don’t know, scientifically, and haven’t practiced how to respond in a way that activates the part of the brain that makes humans more capable, more confident and more creative, if you haven’t internalized BRAVE or something like it, you'll always be fighting an uphill battle.
Like we talked about last week, life will never slow down, it is simply the raw material that we use to grow. It’s the clay we get to mould into our masterpiece. Or it’s the reason we’re stuck, behind, frustrated or unhappy. Your choice. And that’s exactly the point. BRAVE gives you the structure, accountability, and space to create a new version of yourself in real-time, not when things are perfect, but because they aren’t.
So, who are you becoming? And how will you respond when life tries to push you off course?
The BRAVE Course
This is why I’m so over the moon about The BRAVE Course. I created it (and each of our corporate programs) to be different from all the things you’ve tried that didn’t stick. It’s not just another training or class. It’s a commitment (and the clear strategy) to becoming someone who leads with clarity, and steadiness through any storm. Its the roadmap to becoming fluent in the language of leadership that will take you from where you are to where you want to be, because after all — what stands between us and the outcomes we seek is usually just a conversation.
Practice drives results
It’s the reason our BRAVE leaders get the results they rave about: turning around underperformance, addressing issues before they become problems, feeling confident in leading through challenging times packed with hard conversations, turning around relationships that they thought were doomed. BRAVE leaders don’t flinch for a reason. It’s because they’re not trying to do something they once read in a book or saw a keynote about, BRAVE LIVES IN THEM. That’s the key.
So, if you’ve been thinking about it, I recommend going for the six month option of the course (or the ALL IN version of whatever you’re committing to) because the real results come from sticking with it—not for a sprint, but for the marathon of life.
So, what will you blame your next poor response on? Or will you decide that now is the time to take ownership? The choice is yours— always. But you already know that.
Yours bravely,
Elisabeth
