The quality of your attention shapes the quality of your decisions.

I learned this in my twenties, advising leaders in the European Parliament. I'd watch the smartest people in the room receive exactly the right advice, then struggle to act on it. Same pattern, again and again.

Until I understood: it wasn't a knowledge problem. It was a capacity problem.

So I spent the next decade studying what most leadership programs ignore: 15+ silent retreats, intensive work with secular Buddhist scholars, direct mentorship from the pioneers of boardroom coaching.

What I found: self-awareness isn't soft. It's the edge.

This is the paradox of my work. I help ambitious CEOs by slowing them down. Stillness isn't the opposite of performance. It's the source of it.

I work at the intersection of three things most advisors keep separate: inner work (seeing your own patterns), organizational systems (governance, strategy, culture), and peer wisdom (learning from others in the same seat).

Today, I create protected spaces where CEOs can surface what they haven't been able to see: through 1:1 advisory, organizational development mandates, or the Wise Leaders Fellowship, a CEO community that begins with silence.

If you're sensing there's something you're not yet seeing, let's talk.

Leadership means doing hard things in a human way.

Yours,

Nikolas

Nikolas Konstantin 🌱

You champion everyone but yourself. Not because you can't. Because no one ever taught you to translate your own impact into words that get heard.

I know because I lived it.

I walked into my first corporate role after 15 years in oncology.

I'd done this before.

Deep expertise in leading teams through impossible situations.
A track record of holding people together when it mattered most.
Genuine care that got results.

For years, I delivered.
Quietly. Consistently. The way I always had.

But the people work was invisible.

The trust that made results happen.
The care that kept people delivering.

None of it fit their "definition".
So none of it existed.

The environment made it clear: the problem was me.

That I needed to toughen up.
Perform.
Become someone else to be recognized.

And it finally broke me.

At that point I held on to what I knew.
My oncology roots.

I had already been taught not just to see, but deliver this work as impact.

Corporate had not trained it out of me.
It just had no mechanism to see it.

So I built one.

I've helped over 100 human-first leaders in traditional corporate do what I learned to do - build an executive-ready Impact Portfolio.

So you can advocate for scope, promotion, or compensation:

→ Translate - Name and own your impact in language that lands
→ Advocate - Know exactly what to ask for, with the words to get it
→ Decide - Have a plan: what, by when, and what you'll do if it doesn't happen

Without becoming someone you're not.

Oncology-trained. Corporate-tested.

DM me "CLARITY" to start.

Laurie Banfi

Championing others has a cost.

Never championing yourself.

This was my story:

I did everything they said I had to.
Still passed over.

Working harder didn't change it.

Waiting to be noticed didn't either.


Here's what changed everything:

I already knew how to advocate.

I did it constantly. For my team. My peers. My direct reports. 

Translated their impact into language that got heard and moved the needle forward.

The skill wasn't missing.
It was pointed in every direction but my own.

This isn't a deficit. It's a redirect.

Here are the 5 steps I take:

1. Name one win you'd champion if it were theirs
2. Write the case you'd make for them
3. Read it back as if it's yours
4. Notice your own resistance
5. Acknowledge it all.

Because if you can't see what you've done,
why should anyone else?


I learnt from experience:

Keep pointing it outward and nothing changes. 

Another year of being valued in words and invisible in decisions (including your own).


Redirect it at yourself and watch what shifts:

Your impact gets heard by who matters - yourself first.
You advocate from that acknowledgment
You choose what's next from clarity, not exhaustion.

Same skill. Finally pointed at you.


What win did you downplay this week?


♻️ Repost to help someone acknowledge their own impact

➕ Follow Laurie Banfi for more on closing the recognition gap as a human-first leader.

Exhausted from effort that no one sees? DM me CLARITY - harder isn't the answer.

Valued in words but invisible in decisions? | For human-first leaders in traditional corporate | Oncology-trained. Corporate-tested | DM me “CLARITY”

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The Battle

Nikolas Konstantin 🌱

Laurie Banfi

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The Battle

Nikolas Konstantin 🌱

Laurie Banfi

Followers

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Laurie Banfi's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreLaurie Banfi's LinkedIn Performance