Thanksgiving can be a complicated holiday. The history is whitewashed. The family dynamics can be messy. The expectations to perform warmth and connection are real. And the intense barrage of consumerist messaging can be absolutely exhausting.
And yet… it remains my favorite holiday of the year.
‘Tis the spooky season, y’all. The “Performance Cycle Season.” Whether this is the “mid-year” check-in point, or the year-end rack-and-stack exercise of deciding who gets a slice of the bonus pie, it’s that time of year when folks are doling out feedback and assigning ratings. The performance cycle is often viewed as a necessary evil: administrative, exhausting, and of low value. Something leaders try to survive rather than leverage.
Resilience is one of those concepts that gets tossed around a lot in leadership circles. Too often, it’s boiled down to toughness, grit, or the ability to “power through.” True resilience, however, is NOT about grinding ourselves into the ground. Instead, it’s about adaptability, responsiveness, and sustainability.
As both a coach and a former engineer, I can’t help but see the parallels between how we talk about resilience in leadership and how it’s defined in material science.
In Part 1, we explored how safety and compassion allowed two foster cats, Ophelia and Mr. Twisty, to reveal who they truly were, and how that mirrors the way humans behave under pressure. In Part 2, we unpacked how confidence is cultivated and how advice like “fake it till you make it” often undermines the very self-assuredness it aims to promote.
Now, in this final part, we turn our focus outward: How do our perceptions shape performance? What power do we hold, as leaders, mentors, colleagues, or community members, to either cultivate confidence or quietly diminish it?
In Part 1, we explored how patience, curiosity, and safety can allow an animal—or a human—to reveal their full self. We saw how behavior under stress isn't a fixed identity, and how presence and belief can transform outcomes.
In this installment, we shift from observation to introspection. What does it actually take to build confidence? And what well-intended advice might be quietly eroding it?
We’re embarking on a journey in this three-part series: from animal fostering to positive psychology, from Greek mythology to quantum physics. You might be wondering what all of these things have to do with confidence, compassion, and the power of perception. I assure you: they’re all connected.
Let’s begin with two stories about real cats. (We’ll get to Schrödinger’s hypothetical feline later.)
"It’s just easier if I do it myself."
This is a common refrain that comes up with my coaching clients, whether I’m working with an overwhelmed parent, a startup founder, or a C-suite leader. Most of us don’t think of ourselves as micromanagers or needing control. We just care and want things done well. In many cases, we’ve been burned before. Perhaps we have a pile of evidence that we can’t or shouldn’t rely on others. How often have we heard the tired cliché (often attributed to Napoléon Bonaparte*): “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”
