In episode 64 of the Potential Leader Lab Podcast, we unlock the power of self-awareness to become a greater leader. Discover how understanding your inner biological signals can transform your ability to lead effectively.

Our Discussion

We're going to get into the concept of "interoception"—the ability to sense and interpret your internal signals. Learn why acknowledging and acting on these internal cues is crucial for effective leadership and how it ties into psychological flexibility.

★ Key Topics ★

00:13 - Intro – The Importance of Self-Knowledge in Leadership

00:48 - Understanding Interoception and Its Impact

01:45 - The Role of Emotions in Our Actions

04:35 - The Significance of Slowing Down and Being Present

06:53 - Energy and Emotional Contagion

09:23 - Why Leaders Must Embrace Emotions

11:10 - The Three Components of Psychological Flexibility

12:32 - Moving from Accidental to Intentional Actions

18:29 - The Responsibility of Leaders to Impact Emotional States

19:36 - Action Steps for Enhancing Interoceptive Awareness

24:58 - Conclusion – The Path to Impactful Leadership

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Find Perry Maughmer

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/perrymaughmer

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Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2026 Perry Maughmer

Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab. I'm your host, Perry Maughmer, and this is where we explore how to create a better world for those we care deeply about by dismantling our delusions and acting our way into a different way of being. So today on episode 64, we're gonna talk about if you don't know yourself, you cannot lead others. So, today we're gonna talk about something called interoception and I'll I'll get into it, this the definition later. But the reality is that most of us walk around like kind of like detached heads, completely unaware of what's going on inside of our own bodies and, that's a problem. Especially, if you if you wanna be someone who actually makes a difference in the lives of others. So we're gonna talk about interoception today which is the ability to sense and interpret the internal signals internal signals of our body and why ignoring it is probably killing your ability to show up with impact. So, why this matters is because if you don't know how you feel and when I say feel, I mean physically, emotionally, cognitively.

How can you possibly expect to understand how you impact other people? And the reality is you can't. So if you don't know how you feel, if you're not in touch with your own with your own body, if you're not in touch with your own feelings, you can't be in touch with other people and understand the impact you're having on them. So, let's see if we can do something about that. So interoception is your internal GPS. It's the process of noticing and interpreting signals from inside your body, your heart rate, any kind of tension, your breathing, gut instincts. It's the foundation of EQ, resilience, and self awareness. So actually knowing how you feel in the moment, and we're gonna talk about cycle how this ties into psychological flexibility in a little bit. But most people think being self aware is just knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and that's not correct, actually.

Real self awareness starts in your body, not in your brain. Like I can I can know things intellectually up here, but I gotta know what's going on in here because that impacts? It's all connected. Right? The vagus nerve is very important in this process And in our brain and our gut are connected. And so to just think, to just imagine that we can think our way through everything and that having clear thoughts is all that matters is laughable. Really. Right? Because it's amazing to me the number of times I ask people how they feel or what they feel. And they respond to me with a highly intellectual answer. They respond to me.

They're telling me what they're thinking, not how they're feeling. And then I can even ask them again, thank you for sharing that, but what do you feel? Usually, it takes 2 or 3 times before I'll get them to say something that resembles a feeling. Because I think we've been programmed to avoid it. We've been programmed to, to avoid talking about feelings because somehow, somewhere along the way, we were convinced that they don't belong with us when we're at at work or in our professional lives, which is, again laughable. Because it's so funny to think that just because we want to ignore them, then then that means they don't exist. Well, they do exist and they actually drive most of our behavior. Because what we think we're rational. So we think the process runs like this.

Something happens, then we have a thought about it, and then we take action based on the thought. When in reality, what happens is an event happens, we have a thought, then we have a feeling generated by that thought, and then we act on the feeling. See, that's an important step because most of our reactions, most of the things we do are reactions because they're not they're not responses, they're reactions because we're not aware of how we feel. Emotions are really, really important. They're indicators of something that's going well or not well. But what we have to do is figure out what lies below it. Why do I feel that way? And take action on why I feel that way, not on how I feel. So if something makes me angry, it's important for me to understand why I'm angry and then take action about that, not take action about the anger.

Not let the anger drive the behavior. Because that will get us nowhere. And it will make us highly ineffective if we're trying to create a better world for those we care deeply about. So here's the thing. Again, most people think being self aware is about knowing or strengths and weaknesses, important. I'm not saying it's not important, but it's not the core of this. Our nervous system is actually running everything. Right? It's giving us messages all the time.

We have to learn to listen. And that will require a couple things. And one is that we have to we have to slow down. And I'm not talking about hours days. I'm talking about seconds. We have to just slow down and be in the moment. Now, you can call this present. You can call it presence.

You can call it mindfulness. You can call it whatever you want. All I'm saying is we have to be self aware in the moment. We have to understand how what's going on outside of us is impacting inside of us. Because if I'm aware of those things, then I can be responsive. And I can take action directed towards my goal and not be reactionary or react to what's going on. And blindly hoping for the best. Because I gotta tell you, lots of people, we we imagine that we're thinking our way through this and we're not.

We're allowing our brain to react to what's going on around us. And our brain, we've talked and talked and talked about this, but it comes up here again. Our brain has only a couple things that it's meant to do. Evolutionarily, it's guided to do one thing and that is keep us safe. Now part of that, the the reason it's trying to keep us safe safe is because it wants us to procreate the species. Right? So we're trying to pass on our genes. That's why the safety matters. But part of safety is energy conservation.

Right? It doesn't want us to use up too much energy. And by the way, again, this this, 2 this 2 to 3 pound, mushy sponge in our in our cranium here only takes up about 2 to 3 percent of our our mass in our body, but it requires about 30% of our resting calories to run. So it's really expensive. Right? It's really expensive to run. So we have to be careful because most of the things we talk about, if we're talking about, self development, if we're talking about changing our behavior, if we're talking about evolving, those are risky things that take a lot of energy. So our you're gonna be fighting your brain every step of the way because your brain is not did not sign up for this. This ain't part of the deal. You don't need to you don't need to self actualize to achieve your brain's objectives.

And that's that's something you have to be really careful about because if you're not careful, you are the passenger on the train, not the conductor. If you think, you don't have to pay attention to what you're thinking. So remember, energy is transmission. Right? It's an your internal state is contagious. There is such a thing as emotional contagion. You don't just act like you're calm or confident. People pick up on what you actually feel. I I had, the benefit of seeing a great speaker.

His name is Mitch Harrison. And he, he said he told everybody in the room. He said, you have a duty. If you're in a leadership role, you have a responsibility to show up as an 8 out of 10 every day. If you show up as an 8 out of 10 every day, then you're doing your job. And he go he went through and he said, if you show up as an 8 out of 10, how do you feel? How do other people see you? And they we had a whole list of words. You know, confident, patient, you know, happy, all these things. Well, when you show up as a 3 out of 10, how does that look? And we made that list of words.

Well, you can't be a 3 out of 10 and act like an 8 out of 10. You can't be, you know, tired and angry and upset and have anxiety and frustrated, but then act like you're happy and focused and all of those things and supportive and all of those things. It just it just there's an inauthenticity to it that people sense. So what think about this question. When you walk into a room, what are you broadcasting? Because no matter what you think you're broadcasting, what you're broadcasting is what's in here, and people feel it. And I've I've long been a proponent that when a when a leader, a great leader, walks in the room, the temperature comes down, not up. Like, when you walk into a room, everybody relaxes because that's the state in which people do their best work. And every every major decision you made, you have to pay attention to your gut.

Because they're they often call your your gut your second brain. Right? You're operating on a different level if you acknowledge all those things you're feeling and process them. You don't just wanna try to think your way through everything. We have to we have to figure out how am I feeling, what am I thinking, all these things matter. And and this is not about emotional suppression. Like, again, I'll go back to what we talked about. Everybody thinks they have to hide their emotions or suppress their emotions or not show their emotions, which is complete and utter bullshit. Right? It will backfire.

Because interoception, if we focus on interoception, it helps us regulate. It acknowledges what's happening both inside our head and our body, and then choosing how to respond instead of reacting. So psychological flexibility, which which I believe is the very core of great leadership. If you wanna be a leader in any way, shape, or form, you have to exercise and practice psychological flexibility, which has essentially three components. I'm present, I'm open, and I'm accepting. And what I mean by that is I'm present. I'm I'm here right now, feeling everything that's going on. I'm I'm all of my senses are open.

I'm in this moment. Now, when it says, I'm open, the second part of that means, I'm open to all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations. So again, three things. Right? Thoughts, what's going on up here? Feelings. What's going on in my body? Like what am I feeling? What's my emotional state? And then, sensations. So are my hands sweaty? Am I starting to am I starting to breathe shallow? Is my pulse straight up? What are those things that are going on? And I'm open to all those things. I'm taking all of those in and I'm not judging. I'm just I'm noticing.

I'm noticing how I feel. What am I thinking? How am I feeling? What's my body doing? Right? And then, the last part of that is acceptance. I'm okay with all of it. Because once I'm okay with all of it, now the important part comes into play. So if I can be present, I can be open, and I can be and be accepting, now I can take action in accordance with my values towards my goal. That's the most important part of that because I can take in all of that stuff. I can be in a very heated discussion with somebody, But I can still take actions in accordance with my values to further my goals. And in accordance with my values is really important.

And the way you know you've accomplished this is if you come out of that conversation without the thought in your mind, I wish I wouldn't have or I wish I would have. That's what psychological flexibility enables us to erase. It's that that feeling of I wish I would have or I wish I wouldn't have. Because we need to be in that moment, understanding what we're doing, taking all of it in, being present, open, and accepting of all those things, all those feelings, sensations, and thoughts. But then I still take action. I still I still am responsive. I take proactive action in alignment with my values towards my goal. So this the the the few the relentless few perspective on this is we're gonna act our way into being, and it starts with feeling.

You know, we're gonna be intentional. We're because if we here's the thing. If we don't do this, our actions are accidental, not intentional. That's the truth. The truth is, if we're not being psychologically flexible, we are on autopilot. And our actions are accidental not intentional. And I think we'd all want to be intentional and not accidental. I think we've that we all do it.

Like we've all done this thing accidentally. And how does that feel? And what is our what is that we're sending out into the universe when that happens? What am I broadcasting when all my emotions are accidental? When all my actions are accidental driven by my emotions? And so we want to react, not respond. We cannot ignore the interoception. We cannot run on autopilot. We can't turn these things off. Because if you turn those things off, you're now a passenger on that train. Like, you're just along for the ride, and it's not gonna work out. It's not gonna work out well for you, and unfortunately, it's not gonna work out for those you care deeply about.

Because if you're not the here's the the difficult truth. If you're not willing to sit with yourself and feel that discomfort, the tension, the truth of where you're at, then you're not cut out to make an impact. Period. You gotta sit with that discomfort. That we should not we have this issue right now, by and large in our society, where we don't we think we should never be uncomfortable. And I like the term discomfort instead of uncomfortable. But we think we should never suffer discomfort. We should.

There's a ton of stuff that should make that should be discomforting to us. Because, again, that shows us where there's opportunity. Everything can't be comfortable all the time. If it is, then what are we doing? Like, what where where are we where are we growing? Because growth is horribly discomforting. Because it's uncertain. That's what gives us discomfort is the uncertainty. Because we don't know what's on the other side. That's what growth is.

It's it's going beyond what we know into that realm of the unknown and uncertain and ambiguity, and we don't like that. By our our nature by nature by human nature, we don't like that because it's not safe. Again, back to why our brain our brain's keeping us safe. If there's something that's risky, our brain is gonna fight like hell to get us to not do it. If so, if you if you wanna turn that on autopilot and you're not aware of what's going on in here, all the way, top to bottom, right, interreception, if you're not if you're not buying into that and figuring out how do I feel in these situations, but then continuing to act in accordance with your values towards your goal, then what shot do you have? And why should you why should anybody follow? So here's here's what you can do to build interoceptive awareness. Number 1, slow down, check-in. Right? It's easy. Just set it if if you gotta do it this way, do it this way.

Set a timer 3 times a day. Right? Just and sometime mid morning, afternoon, evening, and say, what's happening? What's going on? How's my breath doing? Am I tense? Am I grounded? You know, what do I feel right now? Because then, you're gonna become more attuned with those inner signals. And kinda go from top to bottom. How do I feel? Are my shoulders tense? Am I holding am I holding, anxiety? You know, what do I feel right now? And then use that. Use the moment of choice. We talk about it all the time. We are always at the moment of choice. So before you respond to anything, an email, a question, an argument, you know, whatever, use that moment of choice.

What who do I choose to be? What do I choose to broadcast? Because that split second of awareness will change everything. So all of this helps us train our nervous system. So things like breath work and movement and cold exposure, any of those things get us out of our head and back into our body. Like that's what that stuff does. Any of the stuff I just mentioned. You know, just moving, taking a walk, being a you know, doing a doing a cold plunge, going into a sauna, breath work, all of those things bring us back into our body. Right? That you we know how we feel. That's what we wanna do.

We wanna get out of our head and back into our body. And then if you're gonna journal, just do what I call journaling without bullshit. Don't do this. What happened today? Oh, this and that. No. No. How did I feel? Truly ask yourself, how did I feel today? What did I what did I do today? How did I feel about it? And track those patterns. How did I how did I how did my body feel? What thoughts was were I having? What emotions were I having? Did I did did at some point, did I get kind of anxious during the day? What happened? Look at those things so you can find those patterns.

So interoception is not a nice to have skill. It's the foundation of everything. The better you know yourself, the better you show up. Plain and simple. The better you know yourself, the better you show up. And back to my buddy, Mitch, you're gonna show up as an 8 out of 10. If you know if you if you are highly interreceptive, you're gonna know what it takes to be an 8 out of 10 and you're gonna do those things. So those are 2 different things, by the way.

So you gotta be accountable to yourself. If you know how you show up as an 8 out of 10 and you owe that to people, then are you doing those things that enable you to show up as an 8 out of 10? So you have to have that accountability. And understand that your your internal state is already shaping your impact. The question is, are you gonna be aware of it or you're just winging it? Right? You you control you. That's what you gotta focus on. This is it. Like, this is all I control. What what I can wrap my arms around here.

So I gotta become highly attuned to those things. And here's the thing nobody really wants to hear. Being in a leadership role, job number 1, being leadership role, have a positive impact on the emotional states of other people. End of story. Have a positive impact on the emotional states of other people. Now, how can you do that if you don't understand your own state? If you don't understand your own emotional state, your own physical state, your own cognitive state. You show up as any out of 10, you got a shot at positively impacting the emotional states of other people. Because when you do that and you put them in in in the same state you're in, if they show up as any out of 10, then they're gonna do their best work.

Cause nobody does their best work when they're 3 out of 10. Nobody does their best work when they're they're in their emotional state is in the cellar. So as a leader, part of your job is to positively impact the emotional states of other people. So, you know, back to the back to the slow down and check-in. Do me a favor this week, 3 times a day, stop and check-in with yourself. What's happening? What's your body telling you? Do this for a week, and then tell me it doesn't change how you show up. Just do it for a week. And and you know that it will impact positively impact your ability to do the things you want to do.

Whatever those things are, it will it will help you. Because if you want to create a better world for those you care about, you have to feel first then act. Because all of your actions come from your feelings. You got you gotta know what's going on in here. You deserve it, and the folks around you deserve it. So if you're ready to stop waiting and start doing, you're in the right place. Keep questioning. Keep pushing.

And remember, growth isn't comfortable, but comfort wants you dead. So I'll see you next time in the Potential Leader Lab.