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Donna Lichaw

Episode #77

Executive Coach and Author

Donna Lichaw Coaching

🚀Career & Leadership⚡Execution

📝Full Transcript

14,567 words
Donna Lichaw (00:00:00): When superheroes discover what their superpowers actually are, they wreak havoc and they make a mess, and it's uncomfortable. And even Superman tries to get rid of his superpowers. It's hard to know what you're really great at. Lenny (00:00:13): How does somebody identify their superpowers, their strengths? Donna Lichaw (00:00:17): Pull your superpowers out of your stories from your past, your present, and then eventually figure out how to apply them and transpose them to your future. Lenny (00:00:27): The person's story; this is central to becoming a better leader. Donna Lichaw (00:00:31): The most effective stories are the ones that we tell ourselves. They may or may not be true; our brain doesn't know the difference. Once you can really understand that, you may as well leverage it to be that hero. Lenny (00:00:46): Today my guest is Donna Lichaw. Donna is an executive coach, speaker and bestselling author. She helps founders, CEOs and executive teams level up their leadership skills and scale their impact while staying true to their mission, their purpose and themselves. Donna has worked with leaders at companies like Google, Disney, Twitter, Microsoft and Adobe, and she's also the author of the book, The Leader's Journey, which is what we spend our time on. (00:01:12): In our conversation, we talk about why the story that we tell ourselves has so much impact on our success and failure, why knowing your superpowers and also your kryptonite is so important to your career and how to identify these two things, how to reframe your feelings of imposter syndrome and actually use it as an advantage, how to identify your life goals even if you have no idea what they might be, plus a ton of examples from her coaching practice of people unlocking their career using her frameworks and how they went about doing this and so much more. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite podcasting app or ...

💡 Key Takeaways

  • 1Treat your leadership style like a product: conduct 'user research' with colleagues to validate if your internal stories (e.g., 'I'm too nice') match their reality.
  • 2Reframe 'Imposter Syndrome' by asking 'How does this serve me?'—often it functions as a mechanism to drive deeper preparation or learning.
  • 3Identify 'superpowers' by analyzing peak experiences from childhood, early career, and recent history to find the common thread, rather than relying on generic strength tests.
  • 4Use the 'Head, Heart, Hands' framework to evaluate behavioral experiments: analyze thoughts, emotions, and physical body sensations.
  • 5Apply the 'Gestalt Experiment' method: test scary behavioral changes in 30-second low-stakes increments before rolling them out to the wider team.
  • 6Leverage 'Kryptonite': Weaknesses often have a functional upside (e.g., anxiety driving diligence); the goal is to manage the dose, not eliminate the trait.
  • 7Start strategic planning with the ending: Vividly visualize the sensory details of the future state first, then work backward to build the roadmap.

📚Methodologies (3)

🚀 Career & Leadership

A framework that treats self-perception as a hypothesis that must be validated through 'user research' with colleagues. It replaces internal assumptions with data-driven reality to adjust leadership behavior.

Core Principles

  • 1.Identify the Story: Explicitly write down the recurring internal narrative hindering you (e.g., 'I am not authoritative enough').
  • 2.Conduct User Research: Interview peers and direct reports to validate this story. Ask how they actually experience your leadership.
  • 3.Analyze the Delta: Compare your internal story with the external data. (Often, 'too nice' is perceived as 'caring but needs to delegate more').
  • +1 more...

"The most effective stories are the ones that we tell ourselves. They may or may not be true; our brain doesn't know the difference."

#narrative#validation#audit
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🚀 Career & Leadership

A biographical analysis method to identify innate strengths by examining peak experiences across a timeline, rather than using multiple-choice personality tests.

Core Principles

  • 1.Select Three Data Points: Identify a peak experience from childhood, one from your early career, and one from your recent past.
  • 2.Define 'Peak': Choose moments where you felt most 'lit up', energized, and effective (not necessarily just happy).
  • 3.Pattern Recognition: Overlay these stories to find the functional theme connecting them (e.g., 'Connecting people' vs. 'Attention to detail').
  • +1 more...

"Pull your superpowers out of your stories from your past, your present, and then eventually figure out how to apply them and transpose them to your future."

#superpower#extraction#protocol
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⚡ Execution

A micro-experimentation framework derived from Gestalt therapy to test new behaviors in real-time through three distinct sensory filters.

Core Principles

  • 1.Define the Micro-Experiment: Choose a very small, immediate action (e.g., 'Listen for 30 seconds without planning a response').
  • 2.Run In-The-Room: Execute the action immediately in a low-stakes environment (e.g., with a coach or peer) rather than waiting for a high-stakes meeting.
  • 3.Audit Head (Cognitive): What thoughts arose? (e.g., 'This is boring', 'I need to speak').
  • +2 more...

"Life is like product thinking... You run it through three filters: head, heart, hands."

#head-heart-hands#experiment#execution
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