Candor isn’t cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we’ve experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one’s own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve - we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: supporting and helping each other as we try to make better movies.

Learning to lead yourself is hard because we are wired to look outward. We feel pain and we look up and out to see who’s hurt us. We feel loss, and the hurt gives rise to anger as we look for someone to blame.

Learning to lead yourself is hard because it requires us to look at the reality of all that we are—not to fix blame on ourselves but to understand with clarity what is really happening in our lives.

Learning to lead yourself is hard because it is painful. Growth is painful; that’s why so few choose to do it.

But what do we do to our organizations when we define ourselves by the existence of the Other? When we presume that the competitor in the lane next to ours is wrong, bad, or a threat, we are allowing our deepest fears about our own inadequacy to stand in as our ‘vision statement’ and ‘strategic plan.’ An unintended, whispered consequence is that our colleagues—our friends down the hall with whom we built this thing, this product, this service, this company—may fear that they, too, are ‘them.

His question in response to my exploration of how those things we’ve tossed into our shadow have a deep power that, when accessed with compassion and skill, can drive our creativity. He cried quietly when I noted that his struggle must be so painful.

Things like:

• The less I engage in gossip, the less I harbor suspicion, the more space I find within myself for miraculous experiences.

• When I fear the universe, I fear myself. When I love and am in awe of the universe, I love and am in awe of myself. Imagine then, the power when I align with the universe.

• Nothing is required of me more than being, and creating. Simultaneously being present with who I am, who we are as a species...and creating who we must become, and within that who I must become.