The Season 4 finale is here.

And after a season filled with change, fear, uncertainty, new beginnings and plenty of messiness, maybe the biggest lesson isn't about having everything figured out.

Maybe it's simply:

BE ALIVE.

Season 4, Episode 10 — “Being Alive” — begins at Mae's wake and ends with almost every character stepping into something new.

This week on the Lead It Like Lasso Podcast, we start with the callbacks.

The Diamond Dogs return, with Alice becoming the very first Cat People.

Nate is now coaching the Polish national team, is married to Jade, and their daughter is named Athena.

Sam delivers a perfectly timed Wizard of Oz lesson about sometimes needing to leave before you understand where home truly is.

Keeley brings back the red slippers.

Ted leaves Roy an army man and a note telling him he'll be a great dad.

Beard's midlife-crisis transformation finally gets completely stripped away.

And after an entire season of watching Ted's chair mysteriously sink...

we finally discover the culprit.

Alice.

But underneath all those callbacks are some big leadership lessons.

Rebecca gives us the line that may summarize the entire finale:

“We laugh, we hurt, we fall, we get back up. We're a mess.”

Leadership isn't clean.

Parenthood isn't clean.

Relationships aren't clean.

Careers definitely aren't clean.

Growth isn't about getting your life perfectly arranged.

Maybe it's about becoming more comfortable living while it's unresolved.

For Seasons 1–3, we had:

BELIEVE.

Maybe Season 4 gives us:

BE ALIVE.

We're not quite finished with Season 4.

Next week, we're doing a full Season 4 review to look back at the character arcs, storylines, leadership lessons and predictions across all ten episodes.

Stay curious. Stay kind. And always keep leading it like Lasso.

Two matches left.

One win needed for promotion.

And the Lady Greyhounds are struggling.

Six weeks after Gemma's injury, Richmond hasn't figured out how to replace her offense. But in Season 4, Episode 9 — “Mae Rides the Bus” — the answer isn't necessarily working harder or completely reinventing themselves.

Sometimes you just need to think again.

Boots has to reconsider the gloves.

Gemma has to reconsider playing through pain.

Alice has to reconsider Shannon.

And Shannon?

She may need to stop thinking altogether.

This week on the Lead It Like Lasso Podcast, we dig into:

• Why great leaders help people learn to rethink their assumptions
• Adam Grant's Think Again and why coming at people head-on rarely creates real change
• How Boots adapts without losing what makes her special
• Why changing a behavior doesn't necessarily mean changing your identity
• “What brings no benefit to the bee brings no benefit to the hive”
• The difference between grit and burnout
• Why overthinking can turn something automatic into something mechanical
• Golf, pickleball, the yips and the power of flow
• Why coaching sometimes means removing interference rather than adding another instruction
• How small adaptations can create enormous results
• Why great teamwork doesn't require everyone to be the same
• How our differences can become a competitive advantage

And then there's Mae.

Ted brings her on the team bus to Bristol and eventually gives her the floor before the biggest match of the Lady Greyhounds' season.

Mae isn't a coach.

She's not a player.

She's not a sports psychologist.

She's a fan.

But she remembers something everyone else needs to hear.

She remembers why this matters.

Mae grew up wanting to be a footballer during a time when women weren't allowed to play. Now she's standing in front of a locker room full of women preparing to earn promotion.

She doesn't need a title to lead them.

She just needs her story.

We talk about leading from anywhere, why institutional memory matters, and the legacy Mae leaves behind.

Because sometimes when a team gets buried in tactics, metrics and pressure, they don't need another strategy.

They need someone who remembers why they're there.

We also dig into Keeley's pregnancy and why happiness and anxiety aren't contradictions. Keeley is thrilled and terrified, which leads to a broader conversation about our desire for certainty.

Parenting. Leadership. Starting a company. Taking a new job. Coaching a team.

Sometimes anxiety doesn't mean you're unprepared.

Sometimes it means you care.

And then there's the football.

Boots finally puts on the gloves.

Shannon finally gets out of her head.

The twins' almost supernatural connection becomes an actual strategy.

Gemma listens to her body.

Richmond comes back from 2-0 down and earns promotion to the Super League.

Roy Kent recreates the entire match using Keeley's makeup.

And Keeley whispers some enormous news in Roy's ear:

“That's the best fucking thing I've ever heard in my life.”

But the celebration doesn't last long.

We learn the mysterious investor trying to gain control of AFC Richmond isn't Rupert.

It's Zelda.

And Mae collapses in the stands.

So we finish with our predictions for the finale.

What does Zelda really want?

Will the Milk Sisters sell?

Could Mae's shares become the key to saving Rebecca's control of Richmond?

Could Mae's ownership pass to Baz, Jeremy and Paul?

What happens with Roy's unsigned contract now that Keeley is pregnant?

Is Alice being prepared to take over the Lady Greyhounds?

And was Henry's comment about Ted missing another one of his matches more important than it seemed?

Oh...

and apparently Beard really did get hair plugs.

We were right about that too.

Stay curious. Stay kind. And always keep leading it like Lasso.

The Lady Greyhounds are winning.

They're climbing the table. The BELIEVE sign is filling up with Post-it notes. Gemma is emerging as a star.

And then everything changes.

In Season 4, Episode 8 — “Follow the Anger” — Gemma injures her knee while chasing a hat trick, throwing Alice and the entire team into a tailspin.

And Alice gives us what might be one of our favorite lines of Season 4:

“I think on the other side of you being scared is you being free.”

Fear is everywhere in this episode.

Gemma is afraid of what her injury could mean.

Alice is afraid she's responsible.

Keeley is afraid Roy will leave again.

Roy is afraid he's not worthy of Keeley.

Rebecca learns that someone is secretly trying to gain control of Richmond.

And Higgins gets some wonderfully cryptic advice from Mae:

Follow the anger.

This week, we dig into:

• Why the real question isn't how to stop being scared, but what we do while we're scared
• How psychological safety gives people permission to acknowledge what they're actually feeling
• Why sometimes the best thing a leader can do is sit down, shut up and simply be present
• Ted calming Alice without a speech, metaphor or solution
• Why support doesn't always require a solution
• The danger of giving someone advice that's really meant for a younger version of yourself
• Why parents, managers, mentors and coaches shouldn't confuse their stories with someone else's
• Why a terrible outcome doesn't necessarily mean you made a terrible decision
• How anger can be valuable data without becoming direction
• Why core values have to become behaviors, not posters on a wall
• What happens when someone can no longer produce for the organization
• Why people need to know they still matter, not just as performers, but as people

That last lesson becomes especially powerful through Gemma.

After an injury, everyone initially checks on you. Everyone is concerned.

Then people start moving on.

The calls slow down.

The messages stop.

And eventually the person who is still struggling can begin to feel like they're disappearing in real time.

Alice refuses to let that happen to Gemma.

And when Gemma arrives for her MRI, she discovers her entire team waiting for her.

Sometimes leadership isn't fixing the problem.

It's making sure someone doesn't experience it alone.

And then...

Roy and Keeley. FINALLY.

Their disastrous trip to Chelsea becomes one of the best dates they never planned.

Roy tells Keeley:

“There's no one else I'd rather be wrong with than you.”

Keeley finally admits why she's been keeping him at a distance:

“There's no one else I'd rather be scared with than you.”

Roy even pays off Keeley's earlier warning about putting her on a pedestal. The answer isn't pulling Keeley down.

It's recognizing that Roy is worthy of standing beside her.

Because he's Roy fucking Kent.

And she's Keeley fucking Jones.

Which sounds remarkably similar to something in the foreword of Lead It Like Lasso.

Coincidence?

We're choosing to believe otherwise.

We also break down Shakespeare, A League of Their Own, Alice's panic attack mirroring Ted's, Storyworthy, another terrible Derek, Zelda's mysterious scarf, Beard's strange new look, and the continuing mystery of Ted's sinking chair.

Finally, Mae helps Higgins discover who's secretly buying shares of AFC Richmond.

Rupert.

With only a couple of episodes remaining, we make our predictions about Rupert, Zelda, Alice, Ted, Roy and that damn chair.

Stay curious. Stay kind. And keep leading it like Lasso.