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.

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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.

What happens when two high-performance coaches admit they're not walking their own talk? This raw and revealing episode is an honest look into the burnout cycle that even the most disciplined leaders can fall into.

Steve and Lee unpack how their carefully curated schedules have spiraled into overwhelm, despite their best intentions, and what that says about the challenges leaders face in protecting time and energy.

They reflect on personal experiences, cognitive fatigue, perfectionism, and the sneaky belief that high capacity means endless availability. If you've ever felt stretched thin or caught in the trap of productivity guilt, this one will hit home.

Whether you're a founder, coach, or creative, you'll walk away with powerful insights on setting boundaries, embracing rest, and finding the courage to adjust your plans, even when you're the one who made them.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why high-performing leaders are especially vulnerable to burnout
• The cognitive cost of constant context-switching
• “Borrowing from the future”, the hidden danger of postponing rest
• The difference between time management and energy protection
• How emotional awareness can help you break reactive patterns
• Practical ways to reset, audit your energy, and say “no” with integrity
• Vulnerability as a strength: why sharing struggles helps normalize them

🔗 Resources & Mentions:

• Conscious Leadership Group – The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
• Lee’s famous smoothie recipe (coming soon in a future episode! 😉)
• Upcoming episode teaser: A follow-up conversation on how Steve and Lee implemented change and restructured their time

Feeling like you're stuck in the overwhelm trap? This episode is a must-listen. 🎧

👉 Tune in now to hear two leadership coaches get radically honest about burnout and recovery
👉 Share this episode with a friend or fellow founder who needs to hear it
👉 Rate & review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help others discover The Founders Catalyst

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.