What We're Reading Now

Sometime You Need to Call Pause

13 October 2026

Janie read Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions by L. David Marquet and Michael A. Gillespie and reflected on how powerful it can be to pause and look at things from a different point of view.

Tags: coaching, communication, janie read

When you’re in the middle of a project, it’s easy to get so involved in the details that you lose sight of the big picture. You might get a feeling that something isn’t quite right, but you dismiss it and keep moving forward. In Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions, L. David Marquet and Michael A. Gillespie shared numerous examples of how distance can be helpful and offered tools to help us all get more of it.  

One method is to call a deliberate “pause.” To step away, get some distance, and come back to things with a fresh perspective.

One of my favorite examples of this came from a 2012 interview with Anne Hathaway. She talked about her role in Les Miserables and how she felt when it was time to sing “I Dreamed a Dream.” She remembered feeling incredibly anxious and how important it was to her to get it right. After her first attempts, she wasn’t happy. Instead of pushing through, she called a time-out. She said, “No, no. Stop. I’m sorry. The balance, it’s off.”

She put in her earpieces, closed her eyes, and said to herself, “Hathaway, if you do not do this in this moment, you have no right to call yourself an actor. Put aside all that bull**** and just do your job.” Then she opened her eyes, snapped her fingers and said, “Let’s go.” And she did it.

I love this example because Hathaway recognized that something was off, paused instead of pushing through, and found a way to refocus herself. She essentially became her own coach. Marquet and Gillespie describe one way to do this as “distanced self-talk.” Instead of talking to yourself using “I,” “me,” or “my,” you use your name or third-person pronouns. Rather than saying, “What should I do?” you might ask yourself, “What should Janie do?”

It might sound a little strange, but creating this distance can help us look at a situation as if we were advising someone else. Instead of getting caught up in our emotions, assumptions, or the details immediately in front of us, we can take a step back and consider what might be most helpful. Whether you’re trying to nail a solo performance or working on a group project, I think the ability to act as your own coach is a powerful tool. And sometimes, the same principle can help an entire group.

Recently, while working with a group to plan a large event, I noticed that we were very focused on how we had done things in the past. The parameters for the event had changed, but we were still trying to fit our old approach into our new reality. We were so focused on what we had always done that we weren't considering whether there might be a better way.

At one point, I spoke up and asked if we should make a change. Rather than continuing to debate what we should do based on what we’d done in the past, I suggested that we step back, look at the reality of what we had to work with, and consider how to make the best use of it. It was a small shift, but it changed the conversation. We moved away from trying to make our old approach work and started thinking about what would work best given our current circumstances. Looking back, I think that was a version of the same pause Hathaway took. We needed to stop, recognize that something wasn't working, and give ourselves permission to approach the situation differently.

The lesson I took from this book is that sometimes we don't need to work harder to find a solution. We need to create enough distance to see the problem differently. When you're stuck, frustrated, or moving quickly, it can be tempting to keep pushing forward. But whether you're working through a challenge on your own or trying to help a group make a decision, consider what might happen if you paused instead.

Notice what feels off. Step back from the immediate problem. Ask yourself, or your group, a different question. Sometimes, a little distance is all you need to find a better way forward.

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