If you’re just finding this episode, welcome. This is part four, the last one, in a four part series on self leadership. And if you haven’t caught the first three episodes, let me get you caught up in about a minute, because you’re going to want the context for what I’m handing you today.
In episode one of this series (actually ep 291 of the pod), I talked about what it feels like when the ground moves underneath you. The job market has gotten strange and hard. Talented, skilled and experienced people are getting screened out by technology they can’t see and can’t control. I made the case that when circumstances stop responding to you, the one thing you can control is how you respond. That’s self leadership.
In episode two of four (aka ep 292 of the pod), I asked you to look at the actual structure of your life. I used the picture of a roof held up by a single column, and for a lot of us, that one column is our work. A life balanced on one support isn’t strong. It’s just upright, until the day it isn’t. I gave you five pillars that a real life actually stands on: Health, Fitness, Career, Relationships, and Legacy. These pillars represent the foundational platform for all my work in leadership.
And in episode three of four (aka ep 293 of the pod), I told you something that surprised many of you. The person who lost their job and the person who climbed all the way to the top and quietly thought, “wait, is this it,” are standing in the exact same spot. One drifted through loss, one drifted through winning, but it’s the same structural problem. And I told you that before either one of them decides what to do next, they need to take an honest inventory of where their life and their values actually are right now.
That’s where I left you. With an inventory call to action, but no plan.
So today, on episode 4 of 4 in this series (aka ep 294 of the pod) I make good on the promise I made you back in the first episode. Today’s the day I hand you the tool!
I’m Bernie Borges, CEO of Fulfilled at Work Academy, and I’m glad you’re here for this one, because this is the episode the whole series has been building toward.
Why a tool, and not just more talk
My style is to shoot straight with you. Here’s the thing…Insight doesn’t change your life. I could give you the sharpest three episodes ever recorded on self leadership, and if that’s all you walked away with, you’d probably feel something for a few days (if you’re lucky) and then life would swallow it back up. That’s not a knock on you. That’s just how insight works. It fades unless you build something around it.
So the last thing I wanted to leave you with was another idea. Another insight. What you actually need is a plan. Not a vague one. Not a list of good intentions on a sticky note that you write in January and forget by February. A real plan, built around what you actually value, that’s designed from the start to survive a busy week, because a busy week is exactly what’s going to try to kill it.
That’s what I built. It’s called the 90-Day Self Leadership Blueprint, and it’s free. You can find it in the show notes.
Walking through the blueprint
Let me walk you through what’s actually in it, because I don’t want this to be a vague mystery box. I want you to know exactly what you’re getting when you download it.
Incidentally, if you’re listening to this on an audio podcast player, I encourage you to click over to the video when your situation allows, because I’m showing screenshots of the blueprint on the video. So, this is one episode I strongly recommend you watch on video.
The 90-Day Self Leadership starts with your anchor.
Before you commit to a single action, the blueprint has you acknowledge the why behind it. When a week gets hard, and it will, this is the line you come back to. Most plans skip this part and jump straight to tactics. That’s usually why they fail.
Then the blueprint narrows to three moves.
Not ten goals. Three. Enough to create real change, few enough that you’ll actually do them. And for each move, you’re not just writing down what you want to happen. You’re identifying the specific action, the repeatable system behind it, and what I call the two-minute start, which is the smallest possible version of that move you could do this week, so starting never feels heavy.
You’ll also set a cadence and a signal, some way of knowing it’s working before the big result ever shows up. Because if the only feedback you get is the end result, this plan will be like others you’ve attempted before, and you’re more likely to quit long before you get there.
Then the blueprint gets into accountability and visibility.
You’ll identify one person who’s in this with you, that you can turn to at any moment for support and accountability. Pro tip…Offer to be an accountability partner to this individual for high-powered, mutual accountability.
You’ll also identify one physical reminder that puts the plan in front of you when you’re not thinking about it. An old fashion sticky note, or an item in your calendar are just a few examples of how you can approach this. Out of sight is out of mind, and a plan that lives only in a PDF and in your head doesn’t survive contact with a real week.
Then come the checkpoints.
Day 30, day 60, day 90. Three honest check-ins on what’s working, what’s drifting, and what you’ll adjust. Progress you can’t see is easy to abandon. These checkpoints keep it visible.
And then there’s the part I’m proudest of, the Friction-Proofing Plan.
Here’s the honest truth about plans, most of them don’t fail at the start. They fail the first time life pushes back. So the blueprint has you identify, in advance, the exact moment most likely to knock you off track, and it identifies three enemies almost every plan runs into. They are: 1. Time Compression, when the week gets busy and the new behavior is the first thing dropped. 2. Identity Friction, when one missed day turns into a story in your head about who you are, and that story becomes an exit ramp for your plan. And #3, Re-Entry Failure, when you miss a few days, feel behind, and quietly walk away rather than just restarting.
Once you know your enemy, you choose your defense. If you’re wired for systems, you’ll build an if-then protocol for your hardest moment. Something like: if I can’t do the thing I planned today, I’m going to put it in my calendar for not less than three days from now.
If you’re wired for meaning, you’ll build a daily reinforcement and an identity anchor instead. Something like, if I can’t do the thing I planned today, I’m going to revisit my why statement to remind myself where this fits in my life’s priorities.
Either way, you’re not hoping the plan holds. You’re building it to hold.
And last, the blueprint doesn’t stop at one life pillar.
Once you’ve worked through Health, or Fitness, or Career, or Relationships, or Legacy, whichever one you’re prioritizing first, there’s a template built right in so you can come back and run this same process for the next one. This isn’t a one-time worksheet. It’s a tool you can use again and again.
Who this is actually for
I want to be clear about something. This isn’t only for the person who’s in the middle of a hard job search, and it isn’t only for the person secretly wondering why they’re empty at the top. It’s for both of you, because you’re closer to the same place than you think. If any part of this four-part series landed for you, whether you’re rebuilding a support that got knocked out, or building width and depth under a life that’s been standing on one tall column for too long, this blueprint is where that work actually starts.
Why 90 Days?
I want to address something else. You might be wondering why is this a 90 day blueprint? In short, 90 days is a reasonable and measurable time period to plan and take action. Action that can move the needle in one of your pillars. Life goes on beyond the initial 90 days and it’s my hope that you’ll use the blueprint to evolve your plan well beyond 90 days.
Are you wondering why I’m doing this?
Is’t simple. This is the process I’ve gone through myself. And, it’s the process I use in my group coaching programs. In fact, I remember the first time someone in one of my coaching programs asked me why I didn’t share this blueprint more broadly with others. I didn’t have a good answer. I believe that question came to me for a reason. For this reason. To share it with you and anyone you think should have it. Because it’s free. And, it’s in the show notes.
Get your 90 day self leadership blueprint.
Here’s exactly where to get it. Go to the show notes on this episode, and you’ll find the link to fulfilledatworkacademy.com/self-leadership-blueprint. It’s free, it takes about fifteen minutes to work through, and I’d encourage you to actually sit down with it rather than skimming it on your phone at a red light or in a waiting room. Give it the honesty that it deserves. That you deserve. No one is going to grade your blueprint. No one that is, except you.
So, If this series landed with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs it. Maybe that’s a friend in the middle of a hard job search. Maybe it’s someone who looks like they have it all and can’t figure out why it’s not enough. Either way, they deserve to hear it. Even if you only share this episode, I’ll I’ve linked to the first three episodes in the show notes. Just share it. If you share it on social media use hashtag #90dayblueprint.
If you want to explore participating in the 90 day self leadership group cohort, which is comprised of between 5 and 10 people, you can let me know by responding to the email you’ll receive when you download the blueprint. I intentionally keep these cohorts small and I only do a handful of them throughout the year due to the demands that my corporate programs put on my schedule.
If we’re not connected on the socials, you can connect with me, and subscribe to my weekly newsletter where I unpack leadership and self-leadership topics every week. The subscription link to my newsletter is in the show notes.
I’m Bernie Borges, your fulfillment architect and your self-leadership architect. I’m glad you were here for this series, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.
