Language gives you away.
It slips out before you notice—those tiny turns of phrase, those habitual scripts. And suddenly, there it is: the map of your mindset, the architecture of your unconscious.
I’m a stickler for language—not in the red-pen, grammar-police kind of way, but more like: “Wait, who is writing this story, anyway?” Let me explain. For me, language is often the canary in the below-the-line coal mine. When I listen to a leader speak, I’m not just listening to what they say—I’m listening to understand where they’re speaking from. Above the line? Or below? With radical responsibility? Or blame and criticism?
In Conscious Leadership, words are the clues that lead us back to presence. They reveal whether we’re authors of our experience—or actors in someone else’s script. The language we use tells us a lot about how we’re seeing the world—and how we’re holding the pen in our story.
The smallest shifts in language often reveal the biggest shifts in awareness.
Before changing others, effective leaders get honest about the script they’re following—often one they didn’t even realize they were writing. And the quickest way to catch the plot? Listen to your language.
Words shape how others experience you—and how you experience yourself. Change your language, and you change your leadership.
Here are two subtle but powerful shifts that open the door to clarity, presence, and full authorship.
The First Shift: From You to I
It happens all the time. A client shares a story and says, “You know when you just get overwhelmed and lash out?” Or, “You go into a meeting, and you can tell no one’s really listening.”
Who is you here?
More often than not, you is actually I. It’s a subtle, unconscious trick of language—a way of stepping one degree away from our experience. A way of avoiding authorship. It suggests we’re reacting to life, just another player in someone else’s story.
When I say you, or they, or everyone instead of I, I blur the edges of my reality. I dissolve my authorship. I give away the pen. I live life as if it’s inevitable.
But conscious leaders know life isn’t inevitable. If we own that we’re creating our current circumstances, then we have the capacity to change them.
“I got overwhelmed and snapped.”
“I walked into that meeting and felt invisible.”
Why does that matter? Because when we take responsibility for our experience, we get access to choice. If I created this moment, I can create a different one next time. That’s the first shift—from being at the mercy of life to being the author of it.
Here’s an example. Recently, I was prepping for a family party. I heard myself say:
“You just have to show up for your family.”
It sounded noble—but also like a complaint. Ironically, I was talking to Jim Dethmer, co-founder of CLG (and my stepfather), and he caught it: “Sounds like you’re at the effect of our family, Michael.”
So I slowed down. I realized I wasn’t talking about you—I was talking about me. I’d absorbed this as a social rule, and if I’m honest, I felt a little resentful about it.
I tried again: “I believe I have to show up for family.”
That felt truer and heavier. I started to see that I was creating the rule, that I felt like a character in someone else’s story about family.
From there, a new possibility emerged:
“I choose to show up for my family, authentically and creatively.”
The behavior didn’t change (I still went to the party), but the energy did. I wasn’t dragging myself from obligation anymore. I wanted to be there. And I chose to create a different experience.
Same action. Different Energy. That’s the power of I.
The Second Shift: From They Made Me Feel to I’m Feeling
Now, let’s talk about emotional responsibility—the great unsexy frontier of adult development.
Here’s the pattern:
- “That email annoyed me.”
- “That meeting was boring.”
- “Her story scared me.”
Harmless, right?
We say these things all the time. But when we say someone made us feel something, we’re handing over the pen to our emotional experience. We believe others are writing the story, and we just have to react. Maybe we imagine what it would be like to be the author, “If she didn’t work here, then I’d be okay,” but we don’t own that we’re writing the plot right now.
That’s the essence of victim consciousness: the world is happening to me.
But what if you’re writing the story? What if your feelings aren’t caused by someone else? What if your feelings were a collection of your thoughts, perceptions, and stories?
Here’s how we play with holding the pen:
- “That email annoyed me” becomes “I annoyed myself when I read that email,”
- “That meeting was boring” becomes “I bored myself in that meeting.”
- “Her story scared me” becomes “I scared myself listening to her story.”
Does it sound strange? Totally. Being an author can be weird (just ask Franz Kafka). But this is the language of freedom.
I worked with a founder recently who said, “This investor disempowers me. I can’t make my own decisions around them.”
That sentence might seem harmless, but his language revealed something deeper: he was placing the cause of his feelings and behavior outside himself.
He believed he was at the effect of someone else’s story.
As we explored it, he took the courageous step of seeing that he’s holding the pen in the story. He was disempowering himself. By staying quiet and compliant, he didn’t have to admit he didn’t trust the investor. He didn’t have to feel his anger. He kept the story “good founders don’t push back” going.
But once he shifted his language—and with it, his mindset—everything changed. He stopped saying, “They disempower me,” and started asking, “How am I giving away my power?” That simple shift helped him gain clarity on the next chapter of the story and what needed to be said.
The result? After a clear and honest conversation, the investor responded with respect—and funded another round with no additional conditions.
This is the power of language. When we change the script, we change how we see.
And when we own our authorship fully, we lead from choice, not reactivity.
At CLG, we like to take this even further—sometimes inventing new and bizarre phrasing to make ownership playful and embodied (if Shakespeare can do it, why can’t we?). We’ll say things like:
- “I’m anxiousing myself,”
- “I’m exciting myself,”
- “I’m exhausting myself,”
- or even “I’m turning myself on.”
It sounds silly, but I promise, it’s a first step towards liberation.
Because what you’re really saying is: I’m at choice here. I’m the writer, director, and star of this movie. And if that’s true, I have the power to change the script.
Conscious Leadership begins in the smallest of places—in a single word, a casual phrase, a moment of self-betrayal disguised as habit. But if we’re willing to slow down and listen, our language becomes a mirror. It reveals the story of blame and criticism we keep writing. And it also shows the way back to presence. These tiny shifts—from you to I, from they made me feel to I’m feeling—aren’t just linguistic tweaks. They’re invitations to see how you’re holding the pen, and how you can change your story at any moment.
Start Listening Differently
This week, notice the words coming out of your mouth.
Track the subtle giveaways: the yous, the theys, the everyones.
Pause. Ask yourself:
- Who am I actually talking about?
- What am I really feeling?
- How am I holding the pen in this story?
If those questions land—if you’re willing to own your authorship—then you’re already in the work.
This isn’t just about semantics.
Changing your language is a first step through a gateway of transformation.
It’s about reclaiming the story you tell about who you are.
I work with leaders who are ready to speak like a creator and are owning how they’re holding the pen.
If that’s you, start by owning what story you’ve been writing, so we can dream what story you’d like to tell next.
