Introduction
For the first time ever, Sope Agbelusi switched LinkedIn off his phone. No scheduled posts, no drip fed content, nothing. People told him it was reckless, that you can't just disappear from the platform that built your business, that at the very least you should schedule something. He did it anyway, for a month, and came back to find the podcast still running, his audience still there, and his business no worse off. What he found on the other side of that silence, and what it means for how leaders should be approaching the final quarter of the year, is the real subject of this episode.
Why I Switched Off
Sope took a full break from social media, the first time he'd ever switched LinkedIn off his phone completely. He was warned it was a mistake, that at minimum he should schedule posts to keep the algorithm fed. Nothing happened. The podcast kept getting listens, his social accounts were unaffected, and the business carried on. The point he wants to make isn't really about LinkedIn, it's about refusing to be a slave to things that are supposed to be tools. Money is the example he reaches for: the moment it stops being a tool and becomes the goal, people quietly stop leading with value and start leading with whatever keeps the money coming, a shift he says is easy to drift into if you're not intentional.
What Rest Actually Gave Back
The break wasn't wasted time. Sope describes coming back with improved creativity and clearer thinking on problems he'd been circling for a while, feeling refreshed and revitalised rather than just rested. He points to neuroscience as backing this up: stepping back is consistently linked to better thinking, not worse output. As he puts it, sometimes stepping back is the ultimate step forward.
The Family Trip That Reset Me
The time off was spent travelling with his family, first to Haiti, where they watched coffee being made from scratch, seed to brew, and tried homemade peanut butter mixed with cayenne. Some areas were off limits for safety reasons, but they spent time with locals, learning about the country and how tourism was directly supporting the local economy and schools. From there it was Jamaica, seeing family and stocking up on rum and other ingredients for Christmas cake, then the Bahamas, for beaches, games and simply being together. The destinations mattered less than what they made possible: uninterrupted time with the people he loves most, who, in his words, also challenge and annoy him the most.
It's Not About How You Start, It's About How You Finish
A phrase from his years as an athlete has stayed with him and now shapes how he thinks about every area of life: it isn't about how you start, it's about how you finish. Heading into Q4, he poses three questions worth writing down, not just thinking about: what's crucial for your year end game plan, what audacious steps could actually change the game for you, and what you want to be able to say, by 31 December, that you've achieved. Writing it down matters. Ideas left in your head are far easier to lose than ones committed to paper.
The Coaching Myth Costing You Growth
A misconception Sope hears often is that coaching is only for people who are struggling. He pushes back on this directly: elite athletes, musicians and actors all use coaches, not because they're in crisis, but because they want to keep getting better. Coaching isn't reserved for crisis moments, it's for people already performing at a high level who want the next one.
Sarah's Story: From High-Performing to Fulfilled
To make the point concrete, Sope shares a client story, calling her Sarah, not her real name. Sarah was a c-suite executive of ten to twelve years' tenure, around thirty years of experience, and by any external measure a high performer. But she had no boundaries between her personal and professional life, and had been sitting on a career move she'd wanted to make for five or six years, held back by fear. The coaching process worked through reflection, then clarity, then what Sope calls authentic action: unpicking beliefs and fears, writing things down, and then acting in a way that was aligned to who Sarah actually was, not a generic formula. The result, by Sope's account, was a meaningful step forward within her company \[CHECK\], along with a happier, healthier, more fulfilled personal life.
Harmony, Not Balance
Sope is explicit that he doesn't use the word "balance." He prefers "harmony," a recognition that there are ebbs and flows: times when he can show up fully for his kids, and times when he has to fall back and go hard at work instead. What changed for him wasn't the ebb and flow itself, it was communicating it differently to his children and his partner, which reduced the guilt and regret that used to build up around it. That same clarity gave him the confidence to push back with his own CEO on things he'd previously just gone along with. Leadership, he argues, isn't only strategy and execution, it's also personal growth, self-awareness and emotional intelligence: leading from the inside out. If you don't grow as a person, he says, how can you lead the people around you, whether that's as a husband, a father or a leader at work.
What's Coming This Quarter
Sope closes with a look ahead: a devotional project launching soon, built with someone from his local church, more speaking engagements, listener Q&A sessions, and a deliberate shift toward sharing more of his own thoughts and work, in response to listener feedback that they want to hear more from him directly, not just from guests. He also outlines his own coaching accountability rule: after three sessions, if a client hasn't taken action on what's been discussed, the engagement ends, with no refund. Coaching, as he frames it, is an investment of time and money meant to produce real change, not a therapy session or a chat with a friend.
