I had a completely different episode planned for today. I threw it out about an hour before I recorded this one.

Last night a friend stopped me. I'd told him I still had to record my podcast, and he asked, "You're still doing that tonight?" After he left I realized my mind wasn't in a good place and I needed to wait. So this is the episode that came out the next morning instead, and it's the most honest one I've made.

It's about how alone leadership can feel. I say early on that I've never felt more alone than I do right now and I've also never felt more supported, and I mean both of those.

There are three stories in here. My basketball coach, who told me when the going gets tough, the tough get going, back when I thought he was talking about basketball. My senior-year Spanish teacher, who told me I would never learn to speak Spanish in my life. And Chile, four or five months in, sitting in a room where the person next to me leaned over and asked whether I understood what I'd just said.

I get emotional telling that third one. There's a long pause. I left it in, because pretending it didn't happen would make this episode a lie.

Then two things from this week. A line my wife showed me: some people plot your downfall and end up paving your breakthrough. And a scene from a movie I watched with my daughter, where one character admits she doesn't want to be alone anymore and the other says, "Well, you have me."

That's the whole thing. Leadership is a lot of aloneness, and it was never supposed to be. So the next time you sit across from somebody on your team, ask yourself whether they feel alone — because it changes their work and it changes who they are.

And if you're the one who feels alone right now, and you don't have anybody: I'd like to be that person for you.

One correction: at 7:23 I say the wrong year. I left for Chile in August of 2007.

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