Episode 461: The Hardest Part of Leading Yourself | The Culture Captain: Level Two

Episode 461: The Hardest Part of Leading Yourself | The Culture Captain: Level Two

Podcast accessible on: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Every coach I talk to in our community eventually asks some version of the same question: how do you get someone to lead without losing who they are as a teammate? It comes up in DMs, in Skool threads, and in just about every culture conversation I have this time of year.

This week’s episode goes right at that tension. JP Nerbun sits down with Betsy Butterick and Nate Sanderson to dig into Level Two of his new book, the part focused on leading yourself before you ever try to lead anyone else. They get into obsession, effort, the Caitlin Clark debate, and what it actually takes to move an athlete out of a victim story.

I have listened to this one twice already. If you have ever wondered whether your best leader and your best teammate have to be the same person, this conversation will change how you think about both.

TOC 3-2-1

3 QUOTES WORTH WRITING DOWN

“Two things can be true. I can uphold the standard and it increases the value or the connection with my teammate.”

— Betsy Butterick

“My performance does not determine my worth or value in this world.”

— Nate Sanderson

“It’s not any single leadership behavior that unlocks leading yourself. It’s putting in the work on ourselves, knowing that this is a lifelong journey.”

— JP Nerbun

2 QUESTIONS FOR YOUR TEAM

Q1: When you rate your own effort this season, are you rating it the way your teammates and coaches would, or the way you wish they would?

Q2: Is there a part of this season where you are telling yourself a victim story? What is one choice you actually have right now?

1 RESOURCE TO GO DEEPER

The Culture Captain by J.P. Nerbun

JP’s newly launched book breaks leadership into three levels: knowing yourself, leading yourself, and leading others. This episode digs into Level Two, covering responsibility, effort, authenticity, compete, mental fitness, and selflessness.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Leading yourself is not a formula. It is a personal journey. We talked through why JP resisted writing a one-size-fits-all prescription for self-leadership in his new book. Effort, obsession, and motivation look different for every athlete, and forcing one standard of intensity onto a team misses the point. The takeaway for coaches: stop measuring buy-in against a single definition of intensity, and start asking what intentional effort actually looks like for the individual in front of you.

A great leader is not always a great teammate. We used Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, and Caitlin Clark to test whether leadership and likability always travel together. Nate pointed out that the gap between the two is far riskier at the high school level, where players often lack the maturity to separate an abrasive style from real value. Know which kind of leader you are developing, and coach the relational skill right alongside the influence.

Curiosity beats correction when a leader cannot reserve judgment. We dug into why both male and female athletes hold back effort to protect their standing with teammates, even though the stated reasons looked different by gender. JP shared that male athletes in his coaching often overestimated their competitive level compared to how coaches saw them, while female athletes were more self-aware but more cautious about outshining their peers. Name the fear directly instead of assuming low effort means low care.

Moving an athlete from victim to creator starts with naming a choice, not an excuse. We connected the drama triangle to a learned helplessness that builds over the years, where blaming circumstances feels safer than risking failure on your own terms. Betsy traced this back to a fear that performance is tied to being loved, which is exactly why separating care from performance matters so much as a coach. Help the athlete find one small choice they can own, and build from there.

The hardest part of leading yourself is the moment you let yourself down. We closed on JP’s question about what is hardest about leading yourself. Betsy named the discomfort of falling short of your own standards as the real challenge, while Nate tied it to detaching self-worth from performance. JP brought it together by framing self-leadership as a lifelong practice rather than a single skill to check off, and the work of leading yourself never finishes.

ACTION ITEMS FOR LEADERS AND COACHES

AUDIT THE EFFORT GAP

Ask your team to self-rate their compete level this week, then compare it to your own read as the coach. Use any gap you find to open one honest conversation.

NAME ONE CHOICE

Identify an athlete who is currently telling a victim story, and ask them directly what one choice they actually have. Practice this once this week.

SEPARATE PERFORMANCE FROM CARE

Tell at least one athlete this week, specifically and out loud, that how you feel about them does not change based on how they perform.

ASK THE HARD QUESTION

Pose JP’s closing question to yourself or your team this week: What is the hardest part of leading yourself? Use it to start a real conversation.

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