Think about a comeback season for a second.
Not a running one.
Yours.
The season in your leadership, your business, your team, or your life where you were rebuilding after something that knocked you back.
Where the gap between where you were and where you wanted to be felt uncomfortably visible. Where you had to show up and do the work without the guarantee that it was going to pay off the way you hoped.
Because most leaders I know are either in one right now or have just come out of one. And almost none of them talk about it openly.
Last week, I shared about my race in Siquijor in the Philippines. I started at 3am in 28 degree heat, and fuelled on sour worms and coke. Race two of my running comeback season. A whole 19 minutes outside my personal best… and I could not have been more positive about where I am heading.
Not because the result was impressive. Because I showed up. Because my foot held up. Because every honest effort in a comeback season is a deposit into something that will matter later, even when the evidence is not fully there yet.
And that is exactly what I want to talk about this week. Because comeback seasons don’t just happen in running. They happen in boardrooms, quarterly reviews, team meetings and in change rooms. They happen after a restructure, a losing streak, a failed campaign, a leadership change, or a season where everything that could go wrong did. And the way a leader navigates that season determines everything about what comes next.
Here is what I have learned from my own comeback and from watching leaders navigate theirs.
The first thing comeback seasons demand is honesty.
You have to be honest about where you actually are. Not where you wish you were. Not where you were twelve months ago. Where you are right now.
Because one of the biggest mistakes leaders make in a comeback season is pretending they are further along than they are. They project confidence that the team can see through. They set timelines that are not grounded in reality. And when those timelines are inevitably missed, the team’s trust takes another hit on top of the one that started the comeback in the first place.
Honest leadership in a comeback season sounds like this. We are not where we want to be yet. Here is where we actually are. Here is what we are building toward. And here is what I need from every single one of you to get there. That kind of transparency doesn’t weaken a team. It unites one.
The second thing comeback seasons demand is patience with the process.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you’ll know The Run Within comes down to the battle of two voices. Two voices we all carry. Two voices fighting each other every single day. If you’re new here, Voice One wants comfort. It’s lazy and it’s fearful. It looks for the easy way out. Voice Two is calm, and it demands the work. It asks for discipline when discipline is the last thing you feel like giving.
Voice One is loudest in comeback seasons. It compares where you are to where you used to be. It points out the gap between your current performance and your personal best. It whispers that maybe this is as good as it gets now. That the best days are behind you.
Voice Two knows something different. It understands that comeback seasons aren’t linear. Some days my foot holds up. Some days it doesn’t. Running 19 minutes outside my personal best is not failure. It is data. It’s simply a marker on my road back. Voice Two doesn’t let me sit with that data. It sends me back out for the next session.
Voice One says you are behind. Voice Two says you are in a comeback season. Same facts. Different story. The story you choose shapes everything you do next.
The teams that come back strongest are the ones where the leader keeps Voice Two loud enough for everyone to hear. Where the standard is maintained even when the results are not yet reflecting the effort. Where the process is trusted even when the scoreboard is not yet agreeing.
The third thing comeback seasons demand is joy.
And this one surprises most people.
In Siquijor I raced at 3am with strangers who became friends for a few hours on a dark road in the Philippines. There was a Zumba warm up before the start that had me genuinely laughing. The local runners were magnificent. The energy was infectious. And in the middle of a comeback that is still very much a work in progress I felt pure uncomplicated joy.
That joy was not a distraction from the comeback. It was fuel for it. Because when you can find genuine enjoyment in the process before the process has fully rewarded you, you have unlocked something that most high performers spend their whole career chasing. Sustainable motivation. The kind that does not depend on the result to keep going.
The best leaders I have worked with through The Run Within understand this intuitively. They find ways to make the comeback season worth being in, not just worth getting through. They celebrate the markers even when the destination is still a long way off. They protect the culture of enjoyment and connection even when the pressure to perform is at its highest.
Because a team that is only motivated by results will fall apart the moment the results stop coming. A team that genuinely loves what they do and who they do it with, will find a way through almost anything.
I am not back to my best yet. My running comeback is still very much in progress. I am building. I am racing. I am finding joy in the process. And I am more certain than ever that the best is still ahead.
So here is your question this week.
What does your comeback season look like right now? And are you leading it with honesty, patience and joy? Or are you just trying to get through it as fast as possible?
Because the fastest way through a comeback season is rarely the best way. The best way is the one that builds something worth having on the other side.
Thanks for reading.
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Sean
