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

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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.

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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.

In this deeply personal and thought-provoking episode, Lee and Steve dive into the elusive and complex nature of ego... what it really is, how it forms, and why understanding it is essential for great leadership.

They explore how ego shapes our perception of ourselves and others, its conscious vs. unconscious effects, and the journey from defensiveness to authenticity. With real-life stories, candid admissions, and practical insights, this episode unpacks how ego can either hinder or help leadership depending on how well we understand it.

Listeners will walk away with a framework for greater self-awareness, emotional regulation, and authentic leadership, plus a few laughs along the way.

Key Takeaways:

• The ego isn’t just arrogance, it's your self-identity, both conscious and unconscious.
• Leadership starts with self-awareness: know, understand, and then own who you are.
• How “the shadow” (unacknowledged traits) can shape how we lead and relate.
• The power of curiosity as a tool to diffuse ego and invite growth.
• Authenticity builds trust, trying too hard often does the opposite.
• Parallels between elite sports and leadership: the pursuit of self-improvement.
• Personal anecdotes on how unresolved ego issues can show up in coaching, communication, and conflict.
• “Leadership is an act of service”, how humility and vulnerability increase your influence.

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.