In this solo podcast episode, Bradley Hamner reflects on the universal safety instruction to put your own oxygen mask on first and translates it into a core business principle: lead yourself first. He shares a recent personal struggle caring for his mother and a coach’s advice that underscored the need for self‑care before serving others. Hamner explores the tension entrepreneurs face when personal caregiving duties, family obligations, and business responsibilities collide, noting how the lack of clear boundaries can leave them exhausted, irritable, and ineffective. He outlines concrete self‑care actions—adequate sleep, hydration, downtime, journaling, reading, and “time in neutral”—as essential practices to replenish energy so they can show up for teams, customers, and loved ones. Throughout, he acknowledges his own recent lapses (short, curt communications, reduced outreach) as evidence of the problem, and he offers these reflections as a “forcing function” for listeners to prioritize their own well‑being, hoping the episode serves as a reminder that caring for oneself enables better leadership and caregiving for others.
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Hey everyone, so whenever you get on a plane, all of you know you probably have your headphones on, so you probably don't hear it, but they talk about that in the event of loss of cabin pressure that you need to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. Then the idea is pretty simple, like, ultimately, if you can't take care of yourself first, then you can't take care of other people. And I think that this is certainly true in business. One of our principles is actually very first principle is lead yourself first. But the other day I was on a call, uh, with one of my coaches, and someone asked him on that call, he said, I'm going through a lot personally. And he was specifically saying, um, uh, some people in his family, he's having to give care for them. Kind of relevant to me, honestly, right now, um, some things with, with my mother at the same time. And so it kind of resonated with me. And he said, I'm struggling with kind of where to be able to put my attention. And he said in a very emphatic tone, if you can't first take care of yourself, you're not going to be any good for everyone else. And so whether that's adequate sleep, if that's eating, etc., eating right, working out, doing those sort of things. You have to be able to do those things. And I think that those are the things that for me personally, they slip when all these other things, because I want to shift my priorities and it feels, if I'm being totally transparent, feels kind of vulnerable with, with doing those sort of things. And so I have chewed on this and sat on this now for, I don't know, maybe the better part of a week about this. And I was trying to reconcile and I thought, this podcast may even be a forcing function, but may be helpful for all of you, whether you have family members that you need to be able to take care of, elderly parents or grandparents, or a husband or wife, a child that you may need to be able to give some attention to, yet still run a business, yet still give of your time to your team. How do you, how do you do all of that? Because you begin to kind of feel stretched very thin and pulled in a lot of different directions. I don't know. I don't know exactly the perfect way to be able to answer that. But I do believe that when I think more clearly, and in the moment when I heard that, I was exhausted, I was tired, I was run down. And so as I chewed on this, and even journal— I used to use Day One as kind of my digital journal app of choice. But as I was thinking through that, I thought, you know, how do I want to show up for the other people in my life or for the people in my life, friends and family and people that you need to care for, let alone your team and your customers? I mean, this podcast is predominantly business focused. I mean, maybe not even predominantly, it's solely business focused, but these things come up and I think that as an entrepreneur— now, this is separate whenever you're an employee, but as an entrepreneur, there is no lines. Like, the lines get blurred or really even deleted between our personal life and the business life. And I think that that's the beauty of it, but that also becomes the challenge and the complexity of it as well, is that all— everything gets kind of somewhat intertwined. You know, you, you go on vacation and you're kind of talking about business, whereas people who or employees in no fault of their own, maybe even some of your team members, when they leave at 5 o'clock or when they check out on a Friday, peace out, sayonara, they're gone. I think the entrepreneurs and the business owners can relate to this. And so what does that mean for us? I think at the end of the day, when we want to show up a certain way for our team, our customers, our families, people we need to give care for, etc., friends, I don't want to show up exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed. I don't want to show up that way. And so to do that, what are the things I need to do to make sure that I'm right? I need to get right first in a lot of areas so that I can show up in the best version of myself and give focus and energy and attention and not have to apologize for being tired or worn out or drained, etc. And I, I absolutely do not have this licked by any stretch of the imagination. So my hope is, is that by sharing this with you, I'm kind of almost bringing you to the forefront. I try to, as many times as I can, or maybe all the times, to be able to share, here are the things that we've done that have worked. Here's a tool we've got. Here's a concept that has been helpful to me. But this one is more— this is kind of what I'm wrestling through myself too, is what does it actually look like to put my oxygen mask on first place? Because I want to give to other people. I have a family member that needs time and attention and, and effort, and some of it is physical time there, some of it is putting together schedules and timelines and coordinating a lot of people. And so some of it is actually getting on the phone, some of it is actually time being focused on, okay, what's the right thing, how do I think through this, who's— what about next week, what doctors do we need to call. Like, all of that, it takes energy, it takes time, it takes focus. And so for some of you that have dealt with some of those things, you probably know what I mean. And so I think that the ideas we give of that all of that, but we're not showing up in the way that we want to. I certainly know the last few weeks I haven't showed up for my team and for the family in the way that I want to. Been a little more on edge, a little quicker to get a little sharp and edgy with some of my communication in Slack with the team. Some messages have been a little more short, curt. Text messages to friends have, have not been as Um, I haven't reached out specifically to see how other people are doing and, and other, uh, men in my life. And, and I say that as, again, somewhat of a forcing function for me to be able to say, if nothing else, I need to put my oxygen mask on first. I need to do certain things, which is really make sure I'm doubling down on my water intake, getting to bed at a certain time. You know, don't sacrifice sleep have periods of downtime. Actually, I heard this, um, uh, before— time in neutral. I tend to want to go fast, and then I want to go faster, but sometimes I need to spend more time in neutral. So I debated about whether or not to, to put this episode out there, um, because even the title, Put Your Oxygen Mask On First, is more— it says like you, you need to, uh, okay. And, and it's not intended that way. It's actually more of I need to put my oxygen mask on first. That probably should be the title of this is Bradley wants to put his oxygen mask on first. But at the same time, if this helps even a single one of you listening to this, also, you know, someone else I know, very successful business owner, is going through a lot with a family member too. And, and we talked about this. We spent probably 30 minutes on the phone, and there was no solutions. It was just sharing. It was just sharing about, yeah, it's heavy. It's a lot, a lot going on. And just trying to remind one another that, hey, we got to take care of us too. So we can be the best version we can for that person, and for the other people in life. So if this helps one of you, as a reminder, do the things— sleep, rest, um, time in neutral, reading a book. What are the things that calm you, center you, so you can show up in the different places? I hope this helps. Till next episode, lead well.
