Masterclass in Coaching Leaders

Brian Miller and Rev. Dr. Brian Tracy keep the January theme rolling—escaping the tyranny of the urgent—but this episode zeroes in on leadership coaching: why leaders get stuck, what beliefs jam the gears, and how a coach helps a leader climb out of survival mode and back into purpose. It opens with some playful “Brian spelling reform” banter (the Y can repent), then turns into a surprisingly practical coaching framework for leaders who feel like every week is “sludging through the mud.”

Key Highlights

• Why leaders stall out: Many leaders know the hill they want to take… but their Monday–Friday reality feels like mud, and they can’t translate vision into Tuesday afternoon.

• Triple-loop coaching lens: Brian frames the problem as actions → strategy → identity. Tracy agrees most leaders stay stuck at the surface level (tweaking actions) without addressing strategy or identity.

• Balcony view: They talk about moving leaders from minutiae to perspective using “psychological distancing” and future-oriented questions: “Where do you want this to be in 5 years?” “What would 10-years-from-now you tell you to focus on?”

• Unsticking the gear: Brian describes a coaching move that creates safety—“I’m not holding you to this”—to help a frozen leader name a first step and regain momentum.

• Beliefs that sabotage leaders:

  • Scarcity vs. abundance (closed-handed vs. open-handed leadership)

  • “If I’m the leader, I should know everything” (which kills curiosity and learning)

  • “If I’m leading right, there won’t be complaints” (spoiler: change creates complaints)

Takeaways

• Coaching gives leaders a place where every sentence isn’t a grenade. In leadership, words carry 10x weight; coaching offers a safe lab to think out loud without collateral damage.

• A good leader reviews and prunes. Tracy describes doing a regular “stop/start” review twice a year because clutter expands like glitter—once it’s in the room, it’s everywhere.

• Don’t build everything around yourself. Brian reflects on leaving “holes” when he exited organizations earlier in life—and names that as a leadership mistake. Healthy leadership equips others until the organization can run without you.

• Empowerment is the job. Tracy grounds it in Ephesians 4: leaders equip others to do the work, not hoard the work to feel needed.

• Criticism isn’t a sign you’re failing—sometimes it’s proof you’re leading. If you’re changing anything meaningful, pushback is part of the fee. Even Jesus had bad Yelp reviews.

Memorable Lines & Moments

• “Survival” as a strategy is still a strategy… just a terrible one.

• “The more authority you give away, the more authority you have.”

• “If I’m successful, it’s not because I got the job done—it’s because they got it done.”

• Moneyball reference: “The first guy through the wall always gets beat up.” (Accurate, and also why most people prefer to be the second guy.)