The Advice I Give That I Almost Didn’t Take Myself

I caught myself doing the exact thing I coach clients out of doing, in real time, while I was talking. A few weeks ago I sat down with my team to explain the shift to going all in: the weekly coaching, the day blocked for my Ph.D. work, what would change and what wouldn’t. I’d rehearsed it as a plan, and what came out of my mouth sounded more settled than I actually felt.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C – Clarity: I know the advice cold. I still almost didn’t take it.

I tell high performers constantly that saying “I don’t know if this will work” to the people who look up to you builds more trust than always sounding certain. I believe that, and I’ve watched it change how leaders are followed. Yet in the room with my own team, deciding something that mattered to me, my first move was still to perform certainty I didn’t fully have. It wasn’t because I don’t know better. Knowing better and doing it in the moment aren’t the same skill.

H – Hear: Do you not teach yourself?

“You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?” (Romans 2:21)

This is not a comfortable verse, and I’m not going to pretend it lands as comfort. Paul is writing to Rome, addressing a man confident he is a guide to the blind and a teacher of the foolish. He isn’t gently noting a growth area. He’s naming the hypocrisy of instructing people in a standard you haven’t let govern you. In the Greek, two words sit against each other: heteron, “another,” and seauton, “yourself.” The pointed question isn’t “do you also fail sometimes,” which everyone does. It’s whether the teaching has actually reached the teacher.

Just before this, Paul reminds the same reader that God’s kindness is meant to lead him to repentance (2:4). God’s love is patient enough to expose the gap rather than leave you in it. I’ve told about hundred people that certainty isn’t the same as trust, and you could say my own team was the hundred-and-first.

E – Exchange: Trading the Tidy Decision for the True One

Here’s the honest version. I told my team the Ph.D. day was blocked, final, not up for negotiation, which was true. What I didn’t say was that I don’t yet know how it will hold when a client crisis lands on a Wednesday, or whether I’ll protect it the third time it’s tested instead of just the first. I let “here’s the decision” stand in for “here’s the decision, and here’s what I’m still not sure about,” because the second half felt like it would undercut the first. It wouldn’t have. I’ve watched it not undercut a single client I’ve coached through the same fear. God’s love was never waiting for me to finish practicing what I teach. I’m not writing this because I’ve resolved it. I’m writing because I noticed it happening again and decided not to pretend otherwise. The gap between what I teach and what I do under pressure isn’t something to hide. It’s the truth about where I am.

Because God’s love is not waiting for you to finish living out what you teach before it meets you, how does that change what you’re willing to admit to the people who look to you for answers?

W – Walk: Say the Uncertain Part Out Loud

Set a timer for sixty seconds and ask where you actually stand on taking the advice you give most easily. Then pick one thing you’ve decided and announced with more certainty than you actually feel. Go back to the person or the room and add the part you left out. Don’t reverse the decision, just tell the truth about where you are with it. Notice whether trust breaks or holds.

Closing question: What’s the advice you give most easily that you’re still the worst at taking yourself?