Last week, I was with a group of entrepreneurs when someone asked a question that caused the conversation to pause: what does it actually take to show up at your best?

Not your average best. Your best best. The version of you that your team needs, your clients expect, your business demands, and your family wants and deserves.

The honest answer surprised a few people in the room. Mine did, anyway.

It starts with being selfish.

I know how that sounds. Selfish carries baggage. It implies you're taking something that belongs to someone else. 

But I've come to believe that the most effective leaders I've known, and the periods where I've led best myself, are rooted in a particular kind of selfishness. It’s where you guard your energy, protect your time, and tend to the relationships and routines that keep you sharp.

How does that look for me? Hands down it’s fitness. Not because I love every early morning or every workout on the road — I most certainly do not. It’s because I've learned the hard way what happens when I let it slip.

Frequent travel has a way of stripping everything back. Long days, back-to-back cities, no rhythm, no routine. Eating clean is hard. Sleep is short and disrupted.

And the first things I've sacrificed in those stretches are always the things that help me perform — movement, recovery, the mental space that exercise creates. By the end of a long road trip, I feel it. And not just physically, but in how I think, how I manage stress and how much bandwidth I have left for the hard decisions.

And then you come home.

The road has taken from you all week. You’ve been “on” and tried to give so much. And now, the people who matter most are standing at the door. Your family doesn't need your calendar or your title. They need you — present, engaged, actually there. Rolling in exhausted, stressed, and running on empty isn't a homecoming. It's just a different kind of depletion for a different audience.

That's when I know it’s time for a reset. And that's also when I most regret not having protected the habits that would have made the difference in the first place.

Our capacity to manage stress and think clearly at the same time isn't a fixed resource. It's something we actively maintain, or it actively erodes. And the choices that maintain it are almost always the ones that look, from the outside, like selfishness. Leaving early to work out. Blocking time that isn't for anyone else. Saying no to something good so you can show up fully for something better.

What helped me understand this about myself was taking inventory of what actually moved the needle. If I could understand what impacts my energy, then I could recognize why I’m feeling a certain way, and over time, correct my course to protect what I need.

For you it may not be fitness. It could be sleep, time in nature, a hobby, or a standing dinner with people who have nothing to do with your business. The specific habit matters less than the permission to protect it. 

But, I believe you first have to ask the questions of yourself so you can recognize what impacts your energy, your thinking, and the other things that enable you to perform at your best. 

Because here's what I've seen over and over: when the leader is running on empty, everyone around them feels it before they do. Your team reads it. Your clients sense it. And your family — they just miss you, even when you're standing right there.

Selfishness, done right, isn't about taking. It's about maintaining the capacity to give — fully, consistently and when it counts most.

So here's what I'd ask you to sit with this week: What's the one thing you've been sacrificing first when the pressure rises? And what would it mean for the people around you if you protected it instead?

Hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear from you and read every response.

Until next week,
Cabot