Permission Slips: What Leaders Are Still Waiting to Be Told

Almost nobody gets handed permission. You decide you want something different, and then you wait. You wait for the right moment, for someone to agree, for the numbers to look better, or for a sign that it is safe. Most of the waiting is not about logistics. It is about permission we never knew we were asking for.

I talked about this on Close Up Radio, and it is the part of the conversation I keep coming back to. About 40 minutes in, the host asked me about giving ourselves a permission slip. I said what I still believe: "So many of us are waiting for permission in ways that we don't even realize."

Here are the permissions I named, and what I think each one costs us when we do not grant it.

Permission to change your mind

This is one I have always struggled with. I would say yes to something, and then, even when it no longer fit who I was becoming, I felt bound to it. In the episode I put it this way: "Oh, but I already said I would do it." The obligation can feel like integrity. Often it is just fear of letting someone down.

Changing your mind is not the same as being unreliable. A decision made with the information you had is allowed to be updated by the information you have now. Leaders who cannot do that end up defending old choices instead of making good new ones.

Permission to want something different

You are allowed to outgrow a goal you worked hard for. That does not erase the work. It means the work taught you something, and one of the things it taught you is what you want next. Wanting something different is not ingratitude. It is information.

Permission to disappoint someone

I said this one is a tricky one, and I meant it. "Permission to disappoint somebody." Then I added that you have to stand in your personal power to be okay with giving yourself that permission.

Every leader disappoints someone. The question is whether you do it on purpose, for a reason you can name, or by default because you never made the call. A decision made from clarity can disappoint a person and still be right. A decision made to avoid disappointing everyone usually disappoints the one person who has to live with it, which is you.

Permission to be ambitious, and permission to rest

I listed these together because they live in the same house. "It could be permission to be ambitious. Permission to rest." I told the host that rest is one I still work on, giving myself permission to sit down, to be still, and not attach that to being lazy or unproductive.

High performers often hold one of these and refuse the other. Some of us feel we have to apologize for wanting more. Others feel we have to earn the right to stop. It is and, not or. Ambition and rest can both be part of the same season of your life.

Permission to leave something that looks right on paper

This is the one that changes careers and companies. I described it as "permission to leave something that looks right on paper, but doesn't feel right anymore." I connected it to the time I walked away from a seven-figure income to start again, and to the permission slip that made it possible: trusting myself to jump in the deep end "without a floatie."

I do not tell that story to say everyone should walk away from what they have built. Some of the best answers are to stay, with your eyes open. The point is that the choice should be yours. Looks right on paper is not the same as is right.

Who is allowed to hand you the slip?

Early in the same conversation, I shared a filter I use before I take anyone's advice. When someone gives me an opinion, I ask whether they have something I want more of in my life, such as leadership, connection, or a kind of relationship I admire. If they do, I listen. If they do not, I thank them graciously and move on.

That is how I learned who gets a say. Everybody has an opinion. Not everybody gets a vote. A permission slip is simply the moment you stop handing out votes you never meant to give.

A way to try this tonight

I said the permission slip is really about coming back inside and asking, "What do I know to be true?" A few minutes later I put it as the question underneath: "What do I already know to be true? And what am I willing to trust myself enough to act on?"

Take a sheet of paper and write three headings: change, want, and leave. Under each one, write the thing you have been waiting for someone to approve. Then ask what you already know to be true about it. You may find the permission you were waiting on was yours to give the whole time.

This is the heart of The Alignment Code™ for me: your decisions get lighter when they come from what is true for you rather than from what the room might approve. If you want the longer version of the conversation, you can listen to the full episode on my press page, and you can find the framework in The Alignment Code. If you are building an event around these ideas, the speaking page is the place to start.

All is Well