Who's holding space for you?
Gerren asks it about halfway through this week's episode — and Jonathan Pride, combat veteran, author, and founder of the Caterpillar Leadership Institute, has to sit with the question a second before answering. Because when you're the one everyone else leans on, the question itself lands a little differently.
Part two of a three-episode arc. This one is about the emotional cost of always being the rock — representational weight, the impossibility of redeeming everyone's wrongs, the line between real resilience and quiet suffering, and where a leader actually replenishes. Jonathan gets into a funeral that reframed his understanding of his father, the Obama Fellowship moment that birthed his brand, and a permission slip exercise you can try tomorrow morning.
Also — the SOAR framework broken down (Storytelling, Ownership, Abundance, Resilience) and which pillar Jonathan admits is hardest for him to live personally.
Neither of them settled it. Part 3 next week.
Key Topics:
Representational weight in predominantly white rooms, systems change vs. surface change, the SOAR framework as a leadership operating system, the Obama Fellowship, micro-communities as replenishment, the fringes of daily life where identity slips, the permission slip exercise, and a regret about a favor asked and never repaid.
Guest:
📚 Caterpillars Don't Fly by Jonathan Pride — Available on Amazon
🌐 Caterpillar Leadership Institute → caterpillarleadership.org
💼 LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/jonathan-pride-831b3875
The Full Arc:
🎧 Part 1 — Who Are You Proving It To?
🎧 Part 2 — Who's Holding Space for You?
🎧 Part 3 — [coming next week]
Find Us:
🌐 https://www.moreincommonent.com
📸 https://www.instagram.com/moreincommonent
🐦 https://twitter.com/MoreInCommonent
📘 https://www.facebook.com/moreincommonpod
Gerren Taylor:
🎵 https://www.tiktok.com/@gerrent
💼 https://linkedin.com/in/gerrenT
Thinking out loud about what gets in the way of connection.
Like what you heard? Leave us a comment in your podcast app. See you next week.
