Feelings aren’t random. They’re signals.

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THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of Awareness

My friend, we’ve been stepping through my entire framework for Mindset over the past few weeks. I’ve used the analogy of building a house to make it easier to follow. If you’ve been with me, you know the blueprint well by now:

• Foundation: Mindset work is a function of mindfulness (M = f(m))

• Skeletal framing: the Subject–Object shift

• Flooring: Detachment

The foundation, the frame, and the flooring give you a house you can live in. But what happens inside the house? That’s where you begin to notice how attachments show up in your daily life.

I promised you a framework for how you can identify those attachments.

This week, we’ll start with feelings.

I want you to imagine the thermostat in your home. It’s a small device tucked onto a wall, but the setting changes how the whole environment feels. That’s how your feelings work. They’re not the whole house, but they can make it warm, cold, stuffy, or comfortable.

Your feelings offer insight into how you’re relating to people, situations, and ideas. They reveal where you’re clinging.

How to Identify Feelings as Indicators of Attachment 🔑

You’ve experienced this before. It shows up as:

• Tightening in your chest when someone questions you.

• Heat rising in your face when you’re challenged.

• A flush through your ears when you feel dismissed.

These are more than random sensations. They’re signals. They show you that an attachment may be at play. That attachment may be to your ego, to being right, to how others perceive you, or something else.

Why the analogy of the thermostat?

Like a thermostat, your feelings adjust the “temperature” of your internal environment. When you’re attuned to them, you can recognize when something in you is overheating, freezing, or out of balance.

Effective self-leadership starts with noticing. The thermostat can’t run unchecked. It requires monitoring and adjustment.

In the same way, your body’s sensations must be monitored. This is what enables you to recognize how you are interpreting and assigning meaning to situations.

Reading the Thermostat (and Recalibrating) 👁

This is where the earlier parts of the framework empower you.

• Mindset work is a function of Mindfulness (Foundation): cultivates the stillness to actually notice your sensations without judgment.

• Subject–Object Shift (Framing): moves you from being the feeling (“I am angry”) to observing it (“I notice anger in me”).

• Detachment (Flooring): keeps you from clinging to the feeling as your identity. It lets you stand on solid ground rather than letting the thermostat dictate the climate.

When applied, these elements create the space for you to see the thermostat (your feelings) clearly and adjust the setting. Absent these elements, you may risk mistaking the temperature for an enduring reality.

This sort of thinking drives attachments that, when peeled back layer by layer, reveal behaviors aimed at protecting your ego, the need to be right, how others perceive you, etc.

Connection to Self-Leadership 🔗

Now, let’s bring it home. How does your ability to recognize feelings as an indicator of attachment relate to self-leadership?

When you read the thermostat of your body’s sensations, you gain a choice point. Instead of reacting from attachment, you can ask:

• What is this feeling pointing me toward?

• Is it showing me where I’m clinging?

• How do I want to respond in alignment with who I intend to be?

This isn’t about ignoring feelings. It’s about relating to them wisely. Your thermostat doesn’t tell you what to do; it tells you what’s happening. You then decide whether to open a window, turn on the fan, or adjust the heat.

In leadership, this matters.

Without awareness, you risk being defensive, avoidant, or controlling. 👈🏽

With awareness, you can pause, notice, and choose actions that create clarity and trust. 👈🏽

Final Thoughts 💡

Your feelings, which are the thermostat of your Mindset house, are always providing you with data. The question is whether you’re paying attention.

When you notice the tightening in your chest, the heat in your cheeks, the flush of your ears, you’ve just been handed insight. That insight is the doorway to greater freedom. It lets you see where you are clinging and gives you the chance to step onto the sturdy flooring of detachment.

This is where you execute the subject-object shift, practice detachment, and transition from being shaped by your feelings to shaping your response.

What is your thermostat telling you today?

How might noticing it change the way you lead yourself and others? 🤔

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD 📢

EXCELLENCE UNBOUNDED
How I Can Help You

High-performing executive teams don’t happen by chance. They happen by design.

Aligned Senior Leaders Are:

✅ 1.9x more likely to achieve above-average financial performance
✅ 2.5x more likely to have satisfied and engaged employees

Aligned Companies Are:

✅ 58% faster revenue growth
✅ 72% more profitable

Misaligned companies underperform in the following ways:

❌ 50% lower ROIC
❌ 18% lower EBITDA
❌ 25% loss of revenue
❌ Reduced productivity
❌ Slower strategic execution

Book a call to learn more about The Executive Alignment Playbook 🚀, an immersive, experiential leadership program.

Realign your leadership team. Accelerate execution. Drive measurable results.

🎤 Speaking Engagements: My mom can attest to the fact that I LOVE to talk. 😂 Now, I put that talent to work delivering talks on Mindset, Courage, Resilience, & Innovation.

A few past clients include KraftHeinz, Amazon Women @ Payments, PAHEi, & the Panamá Chapter of the International Coaching Federation (I delivered this talk in Spanish).

If you are interested in having me speak at your event, please fill out this form.