I love to think.
When I’m building something, a new idea, a framework, a creative project, my brain catches fire. It’s one of my favorite feelings. Like sinking your teeth into something with real substance.
I’ve been in that season. Deep work on my business, a revamp, a rebrand and two things emerged that I’m genuinely lit up about.
The first is The Coach Approach to Leadership, bringing the tools of transformational coaching into corporate leadership. The best leaders don’t just direct.They ask, listen, they create conditions for the people around them to grow.
The second is SheFirst, the higher standard for how women live and lead. Two tracks: one for corporate advancement, one for the woman ready to work her soul line and her goal line. For the woman who knows real change starts from the inside out.
Coming up with the name was its own thing. Rapid-fire: She lives. She wills. She owns. She stands. Her authority. I became obsessed with SheEO, until I found out it was trademarked and had to grieve it for forty-five minutes before my mind found something better.
That is thinking working for you.
And then there is the other kind.
My dad had heart surgery recently. I was 300 miles away, not in the waiting room, not able to be there. And instead of sitting with my fear and my love and the helplessness that was actually true, my mind redesigned the surgical procedure. I had theories. Opinions. I am not a cardiologist. But for those hours, I was convinced I knew better than the team holding my father’s heart.
I’m heading to Thailand soon, bringing The Coach Approach to Leadership to a corporate offsite, which is exactly the kind of work that excites me. And instead of sitting in that excitement, part of my mind has been circling monsoon season. What will the rain mean? How will my hair hold up when I present? I have spent real time on this.
I have been replaying an old friendship in my mind. Turning it over. Assigning meaning. Building a case the other person will never even know exists.
The thinking wasn’t creating anything. It was consuming me.
Our minds don’t distinguish between a thought that’s building something and one that’s burning through us. Same energy and focus. The brain that went rapid-fire on SheFirst will happily spend an hour on monsoon hair.
And here’s what I’ve noticed about high achievers specifically: the smarter you are, the more convincing your loops sound. We dress them up in analysis, in strategy, in concern for the people we love. They feel productive. They feel responsible. They are still loops.
What we think about, we feed. What we feed, we grow. One of my favorite scriptures, one I come back to again and again, says it better than I ever could: think on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. Not forced positivity. A directive to be intentional. To ask: is what I’m feeding right now actually true? Is it building something or is it just running?
An Exercise: The Thought Audit
Take three minutes. Write down every thought that has been taking up space in your mind this week. Don’t edit. Don’t judge.
C — Creative. Generative. Moving me forward.
L — Loop. Circling. Not arriving anywhere.
For every L, ask:
What am I actually afraid of underneath this?
Is this thought true or is it a story?
What would I choose to think about instead?
You don’t have to clear every loop. You just have to stop being unconscious about them.
Your mind can build companies, birth ideas, and hold the people you love with extraordinary care.
It can also spend forty minutes on monsoon hair.
You get to decide which one it does more of.
This is exactly the work we do inside SheFirst and The Coach Approach to Leadership, not just setting goals, but learning to manage the mind that has to execute them. Because the gap between where you are and where you want to be is almost never a strategy problem. It’s a thinking problem.
Much love,
Gretchen
THE COACH APPROACH TO THINKING
A Framework for Leading Your Mind
Most thinking problems are not intelligence problems. They are awareness problems.
We don’t notice when a thought has stopped being useful. We don’t question whether what we believe in the moment is actually true. We don’t ask what the thought is protecting or what it’s costing us.
The Coach Approach to Thinking teaches four moves:
Capture it. Name the thought. A thought you can’t see clearly is a thought you can’t choose.
Question it. Is this true? Not does it feel true, is there actual evidence for it?
Investigate it. What is this thought protecting? Find the fear underneath the loop.
Redirect it. Stop feeding it. Choose deliberately where your mind goes next.Your mind is your most powerful leadership tool. The leaders who learn to manage their thinking don’t just perform better. They live better.
