Lee Povey and Steve Mellor are leadership coaches and hosts of The Founders Catalyst, a podcast dedicated to helping founders, executives, and rising leaders navigate the complexities of personal and professional growth. With decades of combined experience in elite sports, executive coaching, and team development, Lee and Steve offer real-world insights, sharp coaching tools, and thought-provoking conversations for the modern leader.

📝 Episode Summary:

As Q2 wraps and the second half of the year begins, many leaders find themselves questioning: Are we still on track? In this timely and thought-provoking episode, Steve and Lee dive into why mid-year is the perfect moment to step back, reassess your goals, and ask the all-important question: Are these goals still relevant? They explore how to shift from reactive busyness to intentional leadership by focusing on what truly matters, your behaviors, your mindset, and how you use your time.

You’ll learn how to redefine success, eliminate the fluff, and make strategic adjustments that honor both your vision and your current reality. This isn't about doing more, it's about doing what actually moves the needle.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why being "busy" doesn't equal being effective, and what to do about it
• The difference between goals and commitments, and why commitments drive results
• How to determine if a goal is still relevant mid-year (and what to change if it’s not)
• The “optimal vs. perfect” mindset shift that helps you make better decisions
• Why leadership without trust, of yourself and others, leads to stagnation
• How to involve your team in goal setting so they actually buy in
• A practical strategy for organizing your priorities using the “rocks, sand, and water” analogy
• What it means to lead from privilege, not pressure

🔗 Links & Resources Mentioned:

• Traction by Gino Wickman (Rocks metaphor)
• Simon Sinek & Adam Grant podcast references (on creativity & meeting design)
• Join the Founder’s Catalyst LinkedIn Community
• Lee Povey's Leadership Coaching
• Steve Mellor's Executive Coaching

Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay tuned for more insights and discussions to help you thrive in both your personal and professional life.

Join Our LinkedIn Group!
Become a part of The Founders Catalyst, a free community for founders, start-up executives, and high achievers. Network, ask questions, and participate in our free monthly Zoom meetings. Connect with like-minded individuals and expand your professional circle. Join here.

Lee Povey and Steve Mellor are leadership coaches and hosts of The Founders Catalyst, a podcast dedicated to helping founders, executives, and rising leaders navigate the complexities of personal and professional growth. With decades of combined experience in elite sports, executive coaching, and team development, Lee and Steve offer real-world insights, sharp coaching tools, and thought-provoking conversations for the modern leader.

📝 Episode Summary: In this insightful and candid conversation, co-hosts Steve Mellor and Lee Povey unpack the hidden struggles of being a high performer in leadership. Drawing on personal stories, from elite sports to startup boardrooms, they reveal how their own perfectionism, drive, and “abnormal” standards shaped both their successes and their blind spots. Together, they explore the emotional disconnect many leaders feel when their vision isn’t shared, their intensity isn’t understood, and their expectations aren’t met.

If you've ever felt alone at the top, frustrated that others “just don’t get it,” or caught between your future self and your current reality, this one’s for you.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why high performers often create a warped sense of “normal” that others can’t relate to
• The emotional cost of resilience, from pushing through injury to avoiding support
• How leadership can feel incredibly lonely, even in successful, growing organizations
• The danger of measuring yourself against an idealized future version of you
• Why your team doesn’t “get it” yet, and how to help them catch the vision
• How to balance big-picture ambition with clear communication and compassion
• What to ask yourself when you feel misunderstood or disconnected as a leader

🔗 Resources & Mentions:

💬 Join the Founders Catalyst Community on LinkedIn

🌐 Lee Povey’s Coaching & Leadership Work

🌐 Steve Mellor's Executive Coaching

If you found this episode relatable or valuable, share it with another leader or founder in your circle. Be sure to follow The Founder’s Catalyst on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if this hit home for you, leave us a quick review, it means the world and helps us reach more high-performers navigating the same challenges.

Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay tuned for more insights and discussions to help you thrive in both your personal and professional life.

Join Our LinkedIn Group!
Become a part of The Founders Catalyst, a free community for founders, start-up executives, and high achievers. Network, ask questions, and participate in our free monthly Zoom meetings. Connect with like-minded individuals and expand your professional circle. Join here.

Lee Povey and Steve Mellor are leadership coaches and hosts of The Founders Catalyst, a podcast dedicated to helping founders, executives, and rising leaders navigate the complexities of personal and professional growth. With decades of combined experience in elite sports, executive coaching, and team development, Lee and Steve offer real-world insights, sharp coaching tools, and thought-provoking conversations for the modern leader.

📝 Episode Summary:

In this milestone 20th episode of The Founders Catalyst, hosts Steve Mellor and Lee Povey dive deep into the power and necessity of emotional regulation for leaders. Building on themes from the previous episode about ego, this conversation explores how unregulated emotions can derail communication, relationships, and business outcomes, and how curiosity, awareness, and conscious choice can lead to more effective leadership.

Lee and Steve share personal stories, coaching insights, and practical tools that help leaders move from reactivity to responsibility. You’ll learn how our evolutionary psychology wires us to react, and how you can rewire those instinctual responses to lead with clarity, compassion, and confidence.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Emotional regulation is a leadership superpower, it's not about suppressing emotion, but understanding and channeling it.
• The fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response is hardwired, but not destiny, you can reprogram your reaction.
• Understand your triggers: texts like “We need to talk” often prompt fear or assumption, but rarely mean what we expect.
• Replacing assumption with curiosity is critical for clear communication and relational trust.
• Leaders must recognize both internal (self-awareness) and external (others’ behavior) influences on emotional responses.
• Emotional regulation is best practiced in community, not in isolation, vulnerability builds trust.
• Coaching provides a powerful container for developing this regulation and improving team dynamics.

Resources & Mentions:

• Lee Povey Coaching
• Steve Mellor – Growth Ready Coaching
• Above and Below the Line model – The Conscious Leadership Group

Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay tuned for more insights and discussions to help you thrive in both your personal and professional life.

Join Our LinkedIn Group!
Become a part of The Founders Catalyst, a free community for founders, start-up executives, and high achievers. Network, ask questions, and participate in our free monthly Zoom meetings. Connect with like-minded individuals and expand your professional circle. Join here.