116: Stop Trying to Prove Yourself - Be a Leader

Most men build their value by being the guy who gets it done—until that same pattern starts costing them at home.

•  Snapping at your family isn’t about them—it’s accumulated overload 
•  Why modern work trains you to be reactive (and rewards it) 
•  The producer trap: fast responses, full plate, constant proof of value 
•  How being a producer quietly follows you home—and drains what your family gets 
•  The leader shift: pause, filter, and decide what actually matters 
•  Why leaders subtract, delegate, and protect their time instead of stacking more 
•  Letting go of the need to prove yourself in every room 

Practical takeaways:

•  Before saying yes, pause and ask: does this actually matter right now? 
•  Delay responses that don’t require immediacy—create space to think 
•  Cut or delegate one task this week that doesn’t move the needle 

If you keep operating like a producer, you’ll stay busy—but you’ll miss what actually matters. Start leading your time, your work, and your energy where it counts.

ADVENTURE TRIP:

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Transcript

The Kitchen Blowup Story

Work Chaos And Fast Responses

The Trap Of Being Reliable

Producer Versus Leader Mindset

Leading Without Instant Replies

Letting Go Of Proving Yourself

Recap And The Real Shift

SPEAKER_00 0:56

This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly, your family. Alright, what's happening? Episode 115. One of the guys that I work with took on a new role as a department head, and he was pumped about the position. He also didn't let anything go that he already had that he was already working on. And within the first month, he had a deadline approaching that he really hadn't taken any action on. And the week was getting away from him. He had some HR issues that were unresolved. He had a normal to-do list of things that were piling up. One night in his kitchen, he was on his phone, kind of scrolling, looking at the emails that hadn't been done yet. He was thinking about things that had to happen the next day. And across the kitchen, his wife and his daughter were kind of going back and forth in an argument, and they kept going while he's on his phone. All of a sudden, he slams his phone right onto the kitchen counter and is like, enough. And he said it louder than I said. And everyone froze. His daughter kind of looked at him with some fear in her eyes, and his wife looked at him with a pissed-off face. And he knew that their argument over there wasn't why he got pissed. He knew that he had too much on his plate, he was burning out, he was getting exhausted. And this isn't a random problem. This is how people are working right now. Microsoft pulled some data across Outlook Teams, their full product suite, and two things stood out. One, about 50% of meetings are scheduled within an hour. So we're reacting, we're not planning ahead. The second thing was that about half the people describe their work as chaotic and fragmented, which means that you're constantly switching from task to task, you're constantly responding to messages coming in and rarely closing things out. And this is the system, a work environment that rewards those quick responses. The more that you say yes to, the more that you take on, then you're seen as valuable, then you'll you're seen as a good employee, a good worker. And when you operate like this long enough, it doesn't just stay at work. You start to become the guy who's always available. And this isn't just in the corporate world. I see it in business owners and in entrepreneurs, the guy who responds quickly at home, the guy that people can rely on to get things done. And that feels good because the more people that rely on you, the more valuable you feel. And then you say yes more. And then it creates this cycle. You respond faster, you take on more. And over time, this pattern of doing more, saying yes, having a full plate isn't just something you do, it becomes who you are. So then what happens is that it doesn't just stay at work, you spend your whole day being responsive and solving problems at work, but then when you come home, your family gets the version of yourself that's exhausted. The best part of yourself was used throughout the day, and your family gets whatever the rest of you looks like. So think of this as being a producer versus being a leader. A producer is a worker who proves his value by doing more. A leader proves his value by deciding what actually matters. And being a producer works. It gets you noticed, it helps you move up. But after the first part of our life, once we start to have a family, our priorities change. And the problem is we still operate like a producer. So what does this look like? When a request comes in, a producer responds immediately, says yes, starts solving. A leader, when a request comes in, pauses, evaluates, delays, maybe declines. When messages come in, email, Slack, Teams, a producer clears them right away, wants to check off that box as quick as possible. A leader filters them. With workload, a producer adds more to prove their value. A leader subtracts, delegates to protect what actually matters. And what matters could be family, it could be their health, or it could be the work that actually matters, the strategic stuff, not getting caught in the weeds of the minutiae. And the hard part is that the producer gets rewarded for all of these tasks that they take on. A leader is rarely rewarded. And this is usually where I'll get some pushback because people think that their job requires them to be really responsive. And there's truth to that, but it's not about ignoring your work. It's noticing where you're choosing to respond immediately and when you don't actually have to respond immediately. There's this Taoist quote from Lao Tzu: a leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, We did it ourselves. That's the type of leader we want to be. A leader that doesn't care about external validation, that people barely know he exists. And if you notice your brain making all these objections, that's a sign that that producer identity is trying to hold on. It's there, it's pretty strong. That moment in the kitchen with my client that was over a year ago. And while we were coaching, he started to notice that it wasn't just about his workload. He had this pull to prove himself, to be the guy who gets it done, the guy who says yes, even if his plate is already full. Our brains do this. Our brains tell us that we can take on more. The shift for him this year, his words are you don't have to prove anything, just let it go. Don't jump into everything, don't put out fires. And last week, when we were talking, he said that someone came up to him and mentioned that he wasn't in a meeting. And last year, that would have totally pissed him off. That would have bothered him. This time, he just said, Yeah, I had something else that was a priority. It didn't trigger him. He didn't feel that urge to defend himself, to beat himself up for not being at that meeting. That is the shift that we want to make. So to recap this, at some point in our lives, usually in our late 30s, in our 40s, our priorities change. Family time is more important, our health starts to matter a little bit more. But if the way you work doesn't change with it, there creates a lot of tension and a lot of stress. And that's the shift we have to make. Not by doing more things, but by deciding what actually matters and having the courage to focus on those things. Put your time and energy there. All right, that's what I got for you guys today. I hope you have an awesome one, and I'll catch you next time.