Clear Thinking Is the Leadership Skill AI Can't Fake
I'll admit something up front. About fifteen minutes into my conversation with Steve Barton, I told him I was struggling to wrap my head around what he was saying.
I'm an engineer by training. I've spent my career building data platforms, designing systems, and helping organizations make decisions with evidence. My mind wants a framework, a flow diagram, a measurable outcome. Steve was asking me to consider that some of my best thinking might start when I stop thinking.
By the end of the episode, I understood him better than I expected to. And I realized his message connects directly to what we talk about on this show: building organizations that can win in an intelligence-driven economy.
From flowers to frameworks
Steve didn't take a conventional path into executive coaching. He sold his first floral arrangement at eight years old and was hooked on entrepreneurship from that moment. He went on to spend 30 years as a florist in Portland, Maine, building a business around high-end destination weddings.
One story from those years stuck with me. Clients would sometimes ask him why he was so expensive. Steve's answer was a question: why did you come to me? The answer was almost always that they'd heard he was the best.
That's a lesson every founder I work with needs. You don't defend premium pricing by apologizing for it. You defend it by being clear about the value people already came looking for.
Steve's turn toward coaching came from a far more personal place. Thirty-four years ago, he had an experience he describes as an out-of-body, near-death moment. It took him weeks to feel normal again. What he came away with, in his words, was a clear understanding of who he is and what every person is capable of. He spent years coaching informally before formal training, and today he works with high performers, business owners and CEOs through a process he created and registered: The Game of Ten®.
Most of us are running on old data
The core idea behind Steve's work is one any technologist will recognize immediately.
Most people, he argues, live from their past. They use old data to solve problems that are happening today. He compared it to trying to type DOS commands into a modern system.
I've seen this pattern in organizations for my entire career. A company adopts new tools but keeps the old decision-making habits, the old approval chains, the old assumptions about what's possible. The technology changes. The thinking doesn't. And the results disappoint.
Steve's point is that the same thing happens inside individual leaders. Old fears, old self-doubt, old guilt and old shame become the operating system. A leader who would never run a business on a decades-old database is often running their decisions on decades-old beliefs.
Six phrases, done live
Steve's process starts with six phrases. He asked me to say them with him on the show, and I did:
I am ten.
I'm doing the best I can with the awareness I have.
I'm always right with the awareness I have.
I am enough.
I do enough.
I have enough.
His explanation is that the identity mind, the ego, constantly chatters, and these phrases answer the questions it keeps asking. He told a story about a fellow member of his local business group who arrived one morning after a sleepless night with his mind racing. They found a quiet room, went through the phrases together, and his friend started laughing because, for the first time in hours, he couldn't think. Steve's response: good. That quiet is awareness.
Steve was also honest that this takes practice. He works with clients over twelve weeks because that's roughly how long it takes to build new habits. Habits are great when they're good ones, and harmful when they aren't. Most of us don't even notice we're running on autopilot.
Why successful leaders still need a coach
I asked Steve a practical question: how does someone know they need a coach, and how do they find the right one?
His answer started with a challenge. Name an Olympic athlete, a professional athlete or an award-winning actor who doesn't have a coach. In business, though, many leaders feel that hiring a coach means admitting they aren't the superstar everyone assumes they are. Steve calls that what it is: ego.
Then he reframed what a coach actually does. It isn't handing out answers. It's accountability. He described a client walking into a tense board meeting where a couple of directors had wanted someone else in the role. The client stayed calm, didn't react to disrespect, held their confidence and moved on. A good coach is the person who notices that and says: you nailed it.
For leaders who are capable and self-driven but often alone in their hardest moments, that kind of witness matters.
The question unhappy leaders avoid
The most uncomfortable moment of the conversation came when Steve talked about leaders who look successful but don't feel it.
Most people ask, "How do I become happier?" Steve suggests a sharper question: "What do I get out of staying unhappy?"
When people answer honestly, he says, the payoff often surfaces quickly. Sympathy. Being liked for being self-deprecating. Being seen as humble. Once you see the benefit you've been collecting, you can decide whether it's worth keeping.
He pushes even further with clients. When someone tells him they're about an eight out of ten, he points out that claiming to be a twelve would sound arrogant, so why isn't it equally arrogant to insist you're less than whole? It's a provocative reframe, and it lands. Then the real work begins: letting go of the fear, self-doubt, guilt and shame that hold the number down.
Forgive the thought, not the person
One idea Steve shared felt especially useful for leaders carrying old conflicts. People often believe that to move on, they have to forgive a person or situation. Steve suggests you only need to let go of the thought about it. The event happened. You don't have to call anyone or pretend otherwise. You just stop replaying it.
He summed it up with a line I've already repeated twice since we recorded: you have to love everyone, but you don't have to have lunch with them.
Perception vs. perspective
When I asked whether coaching could ever become a plug-and-play platform, Steve didn't dismiss the idea, but he redirected it. Most people, he said, put the cart before the horse. Passion should pull everything else along.
He described the difference between perception and perspective. Perception is looking at the world through the lens of past hurts and disappointments. The further you drift from your best self, the thicker that lens becomes, until life looks like a funhouse mirror and you start believing the distortion. Perspective is seeing clearly.
His point was that this isn't logical in the way I'm used to, but it is practical. Once you understand it, it works like logic.
Where AI fits in
Here's where the conversation connected most directly to this show.
Early on, Steve said that what he has to offer the AI community is how to think clearly. He compared working with AI to a good conversation: say what you want, how you want it, what the context is, and what good and bad look like. Precision gets results. Vague requests get vague answers.
I've seen this play out in every AI implementation I've been part of. The organizations that get value from AI aren't the ones with the most tools. They're the ones whose people can articulate the problem.
Steve also drew a clear line. He spent a long time searching for a single word to describe deeply caring while being free from other people's opinions. He asked three different AI tools. Each came back with two words, essentially compassionate detachment. None gave him one word. So he created his own.
His conclusion: AI is strong at logic, but natural intelligence still leads on creativity. The goal is to align the two, using your imagination to set the direction and logic to build the path.
That's exactly how I'd describe the opportunity for leaders right now. AI raises the floor on execution. It doesn't replace the person who can see clearly, imagine boldly and decide well.
The takeaway
In Future-Proof Your Business, I describe how durable advantage is built: finding a niche, diversifying around your core, building a platform, assembling an ownership-minded team and investing in what comes next. Steve's story follows that same arc, from florist to coach to a registered method he's building into a brand that can outlast his own name.
But this conversation reminded me that every one of those stages depends on something underneath the strategy. The leader has to see clearly. Old data, old fears and old habits distort every decision built on top of them.
Upgrade the systems, yes. But upgrade the thinking first.
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Learn more about Steve Barton: stevebartoncoaching.com | LinkedIn
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— Arun
