Leadership Under Pressure: What Fails First? | Ep. 99

Episode Summary

What happens when pressure becomes so overwhelming that clarity begins to disappear?

In this episode, Coach Mo sits down with resilience expert, TEDx speaker, and two-time cancer survivor Savio P. Clemente to explore what leadership under pressure really looks like. Together, they unpack the difference between external pressure and the internal pressure leaders place on themselves through overthinking, over-functioning, self-doubt, and the constant need to prove their value.

Savio shares powerful lessons from surviving cancer twice, revealing how silence, stillness, self-regulation, and adaptive resilience helped him navigate uncertainty without losing himself. This conversation offers a practical and deeply human perspective on leadership clarity, burnout recovery, and maintaining composure when life and leadership become difficult. 

Key Takeaways

Clarity Fails Before Performance

•  Most leadership breakdowns begin with a loss of clarity, not capability. 

Pressure Starts Internally

•  Overthinking, self-doubt, and the need to prove yourself often create more strain than external challenges. 

Create Psychological Distance

•  Separate your identity from your circumstances to maintain perspective during adversity. 

Use Silence as a Leadership Tool

•  Intentional silence and stillness create the space needed for better decisions. 

Adapt Before You React

•  Resilience is less about toughness and more about adapting to changing conditions with awareness. 

Transcript

Welcome And The SWAG Framework

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Welcome to the Let's Stick a Munic Podcast, where high achievers stop performing and start transforming. I'm Coach Mo, certified core energy leadership coach, founder of the inner arena, and creator of the Swag Framework. Self-awareness, my power, online action, and grip. And when I'm here, retrain your mindset, challenge your limits, and turn pressure into purpose. Subscribe now and join me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. So let's get your reps in.

Meet Savio And The Clarity Gap

SPEAKER_03 1:03

And his name is Savio P. Clemente. He's a keynote and TEDx speaker, journalist, board-certified wellness coach through the NBC ACC, best-selling author, and healthcare leadership strategist. He works with leadership teams after disruption. When the crisis is over, but performance has not fully recovered. Performance usually doesn't fail first, clarity does. And after 2,000 plus interviews with global leaders in his own experience rebuilding after surviving cancer twice, Savio developed the adaptive resilience leadership framework. His work helps leaders cut through cognitive overload, make clearer decisions, and avoid the quiet performance drop that often follows high-pressure moments. He focuses on the intersection of healthcare, leadership, and human performance, helping organizations operate with clarity and consistency when it matters most. Welcome to the show, brother.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Thank you so much for that intro. I really appreciate it. I'm excited. Let's see what we unpack.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Absolutely, man.

New York Roots And Pressure Moments

SPEAKER_03 2:16

But first and foremost, where are you checking in from?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah. So I'm calling in and logging in, zooming in from New York. I live about 40 miles north of New York City in a suburb called Westchester County. And I actually grew up in a different part of Westchester County when I was smaller. If people remember the show, the show, The Facts of Life, they talked about this little town called Peak School, New York. I'm from Peak School, New York. I went to school in the city. I lived in the city for many years, and I came back in a different town.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

It's exciting moments right now in New York.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

It's the Knicks win after 53 years. And I I, you and I had a little talk here. I was a huge Knicks fan in high school. And then I lost my way. And of course, they weren't winning, so there was nothing to latch on. But this win feels reflective and it feels like something that's overdue. And when you get something that's you feel that it's overdue, it's so inexpressible. It's Steven the even Jalen Brunson of the Knicks, when they asked him questions, he just couldn't even utter. He couldn't even form full sentences. It was just, it's that feeling that surpasses any level of explanation.

What Pressure Looks Like In Healthcare

SPEAKER_03 3:29

I want to get into this conversation about pressure, composure, leadership, composure under pressure. Talk about that. How would you define the pressure aspect? Because I have my version of it and I want to hear your version of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Well, I need to be specific. So I deal with healthcare leaders, and you can imagine that pressure is super difficult because it's not only high stakes, we're dealing with people's lives, not about the bottom line. It's not just about money or figuring out how the organization can make better retention. It's actually another human being. And if they make a mistake based on compliance or bureaucratic issues or the whim of the political system at the moment, that is a serious thing. So what I deal with is individuals that to a large degree, and we can talk about this, you and I can go deep here. There's a mask that they put on because the uncertainty, the need to eliminate risk is very high in that industry because you always have to feel like you're on top of the game. You have the answers, you know what to do. And then you have people who, as when it comes to changing anything in their life, it's not that they don't want to change. I think most people, and you can probably agree with me, want to change. They're just stuck. The pressure, the cognitive load, insanity that's happening socially, politically, now technologically, it's just too much to bear. And so what they do, they retract. And so the pressure that I speak with is the pressure that almost feels like I need to check out. I'm burned out. I don't want to do it anymore. This is too much. A lot of people that I talk to really like to echo this sentiment that a lot of people have been saying for decades is that it's soul sucking. And you know what I say, Coach Mo? I say, why can't we say it's soul searching? Why can't you search for pockets of things that actually light you up? Why don't you search for things that actually can alleviate that pressure? Why don't you actually figure out that first? And the way to do it is you have to resource self. So we can get into all that, but that's the basis of the pressure aspect of it.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

When

Internal Pressure And Energy Leaks

SPEAKER_03 5:39

we get into this environment of coaching, I think with leadership coaches, life coaches, whatever, they work with clients to help the external pressures, pressure coming from the executive team, pressure coming from deadlines that are due. See, those things are external. But I think in my approach to pressure, it's internal. It starts there. It starts with the overfunctioning, the overthinking, the decision fatigue, the consistent, I gotta prove myself narrative that you carry in your head, waking up every day, knowing that someone on your team doesn't really trust you, and you have to work extra hard, prove your worth to this person or to this team. That's draining in itself. And couple that with this internal weight that you carry, and that in itself creates what I call energy leaks. You're leaking energy because thought power is going to worrying of how I gotta prove myself and my worst. And over time it becomes draining. And then that's when you burn out. That's when you start feeling the external effects of stress, weight loss, health issues, and those things. So that's how I differentiate it.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

And it goes back to this idea and this concept of psychological safety. What is psychological safety? It's having trust, but it's also having vulnerability with your team so that you can, you're actually in cohesion of actually trying to figure out what it is. Because I have people all the time, leadership doesn't have to be a corporate structure. Leadership is who you want to be, who do you want to emulate, who do you want to follow, who do you want to mirror. And if you're not self-regulating in that sense, then people are like, well, I can self-regulate in the moment. No, you can't. Self-regulation should start before so that you can adapt quickly. You can actually figure out what other steps forward. That's what real self-regulation is. So completely on you on that. And I think I think what the problems is that most people feel like I can fix the external. So for example, in my situation, I can fix the crisis. But that's not where they win or lose, Coach Mo. They win or lose after the crisis. How do I regulate? How do I reorientate? How do I find a we you have to be an effective leader that actually channels or transmits that information in a proper way so that people can actually feel you? Like they can feel you and sense you and actually want to be a part of that. 100% in agreement with you on

Self-Talk, Identity, And Leading Self

SPEAKER_01 8:14

that.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

I think it also goes back to the narrative that you tell yourself about self. What is that dialogue? And is that dialogue positive or is it negative? Urgency that you're not good enough. And that affects how you lead self. And I think that's where leadership comes from first. Define self. How do you define the narrative every single day when you wake up? What's the lingo and the language in your mind that you have about self? Is it positive? Is it negative? And then if it is negative at times, because we all fluctuate, how long are you there? How long are you dwelling in this pity, guilt, feeling sorry self moments? And what's your strategy in pulling yourself out of that? And I think we don't talk enough about that because that definitely affects how we lead ourselves, and then ultimately what our leadership style becomes.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

We're a collection of the experiences. So when people are like, well, I have to actually be that way and do that way, like I got caught up in a little bit of that trap too. Because I'm like, wait, okay, I'm a coach, I'm a keynote speaker, I'm a TEDx speaker, I'm a journalist. And I realized I was being dysregulated. Not only that, but I was being disjointed. I wasn't actually being uniformed in that because then I realized, oh, or at least it came to me, or the information was embedded, was that, oh no, I'm just entering different doors of my expression.

Cancer, Credentials, And Who You Are

SPEAKER_01 9:50

And we didn't really touch a lot about, I know you mentioned about being a two-time cancer survivor. So I had cancer initially in 2014, 10 years cancer-free, and then it came back in 2024, went through a whole thing, including a stem cell transplant. But I told someone recently, I'm like, I can spend all day speaking to you about the wound, but I'd rather speak to you about the walk, because the walk is really what determines the next steps. The walk really determines the whole layout of the adventure, or I call life as an adventure, the adventure of what we want to do. But if you're constantly playing the role game, then you're only trying to emulate things you've seen, people you know, or the role that you feel that you deserve that you have. But trust me on this, as a two-time cancer survivor, that could be snatched away with you within seconds. Who are you? Who am I, Coach Moe, in that hospital bed tied to all those machines, having nurses come every four hours, being in the hospital for 29 days, in a quarantine room, losing 26 pounds, coming out, doing an immunotherapy for four and a half months, and then five months physical therapy. Who am I? What is my identity in that? Who am I? Am I this professional accolades, all the credentials? Am I that person? And this goes to a larger thing. We mentioned psychological safety, but for me, when I did it, I also created a psychological distance between me and my medical diagnosis. I was like, okay, well, who's the savio that's there? And this fell into this idea of metacognition. You know this well. Who's doing the thinking of the thinking? Who's the consciousness that actually is playing the tape? It can get a little trippy, but it really forces us to actually figure out for ourselves that if we don't allow ourselves to be clear, like I mentioned, performance doesn't fail first, clarity does. So if we're not clear first within ourselves, we can't lead anyone.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

I want to explore that. Thank you for sharing your success battle and winning the fight against cancer. But the framework around composure under pressure and receiving a diagnosis like that and seeing your health deteriorate in real time. I can imagine so much worry and thoughts around not being successful things initially. So my real question is get that mindset to see it through in times when your health was at its lowest points.

Staying Present Through Relapse Treatment

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So in 2014 is when I've got first diagnosed. I did six rounds of RCOP chemotherapy. Thankfully, it worked. In four and a half months, I got a remission status. I was cancer free, living the healthiest lifestyle I could possibly live. I had some stress. I was in a partnership with a few other people, but it is what it is. Ended up having a relapse in 2024, literally in a different part of my body, same cancer, different stage because and metastasized. So, what was I thinking? I really was not afraid of dying. Oh, this is counterintuitive to what most people think. Coach Mo for me, it was, did I actually fulfill what I came here to do? None of us have a printed assignment, none of us knows, but I felt, is this where the story ends? Am I disappointing myself and other people? What's actually going on? And it wasn't, I need to make $10 million. It wasn't any of that. It was more of, did I come to share? Did I come to give? Did I transform from this? Did I evolve from this? Did I become who I was supposed to be? And I felt this is it. I called a few people and they're like, one friend was like, Why are you talking to me like you're never going to talk to me again? I'm like, because I really don't know. People were telling me, they're like, oh, you survived it once, you survive it again. That's nice for a pep talk, but they don't know. I don't know. So I didn't fall into the machinations, what they were saying. I was more focused on, can my body handle this? Can my physical body? I know my mental self can. I know my psychological self can. I know my emotional self because I've dealt with the devil. I know this enemy well. So that wasn't an issue. But I'm like, can my physical body actually stand a stem cell transmit? Literally, your bone marrow is completely wiped, and you're given your stem cells so much so that they actually, in the hospital, called it a medical rebirth. They actually gave me another birthdate. I thought they were talking about some woo-woo concept. I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, no, we count your days after your stem cell transmit. You actually are a different person internally. Your body is reconstituting, you're rebuilding. So you have another birth date. So now I like to joke around and say I have a birth date in this in the winter, my official birth date, and have another birth date in the winter. Sorry, summer and then yeah, winter. And so for me, it was really figuring out for myself, how do I move forward from this? And my parents were rushing. They were like, okay, okay, you know what? You're got a complete response to treatment. Now go work. My parents are Asian Indian. It's like that's what they're thinking about. And I'm like, no, I can only better now. I can always make money in the future. So who is the identity? Who's who am I striving for? Who am I creating for? And when it comes to, I think the clearest leaders are the ones that allow you to express your individuality. If a leader is contorting and actually making you feel that you're not actually expressing your personality, your authenticity to some degree, then maybe you need to think about whether or not that can be changed, because things can change and you need to express that. Or it's maybe time for you to find other options. Because I think the worst thing that we can do is not express our full light. And that might sound a little woo-woo to people, but when I light the expression of what actually lights you up, what actually allows you to feel like not only that you're living and not only that you're thriving, but that you're actually creating things in the world. Because I think we're all here to create something. Some people are here to create children, some people are here to create businesses, some people are here to create money, some people are creating great sex. I don't care what you create, just make sure you're creating something that actually doesn't hurt you and hurting another person. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

And I think also, and I love your story because really took control over your thoughts and your being and put a lot of consciousness around thinking, how can my body is my body gonna be able to handle this? My head, my mind is great. I'm good conditioning that, but my body, end of the day, you're here, brother. And so excited that we're having this conversation. How did you get into this work anyway? Coaching and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

So I knew that when I had cancer the first time, if I survived it, none of us know. I knew I wanted to do something with it, but I kept hearing from all the medical people. And also back then, AI wasn't a thing. So Google kept telling me, after five years, it's less likely to come back. Everyone was telling me this. So I'm like, okay, I don't want to build something and then five years, and then I have it's just gonna crumble. So I waited five years and I got into it and got my board certification, I got my ACC certification with the ICF. I was a writer, so I just put out a lot more articles, became a journalist with getting access to a lot of people. I interviewed people like Venus Williams, ICE T, and at this point I put out over 2,000 articles with leaders, change makers. And so it really was born out of that discomfort, that pain. And I really figured out for myself, okay, how can I actually make it into some level of purpose, that pain into purpose? And not only that, but I think it also gave me a reason to want to actually allow myself to learn from I survived cancer, but what is this actually really teaching me? Who do I become after this? Especially the second one. I we spoke a lot about this idea of how do you come back from something like this? And one can say I probably was the post-childhood resilience for those 10 years before my relapse, but in the moment it was more of an adaptive mindset. I always like, okay, how can I be flexible? How can I muster some energy as though I was tired, diarrhea issues, tachycardia, heart issues, all these things. How do I meet the doctors when they come to the rounds? How do I greet the nurses when they come to do the vitals? How do I inform myself of what's actually going on?

Silence, Stillness, And Surrender Practices

SPEAKER_01 18:14

And a large part of this was also self-regulation. I've been a long time meditator. I started at one minute years and years ago, went to five, now 20. Now this is over 20 years now. But I tell other people prayer, breathing exercises, humming, journaling, walking in silence. But really, if someone was to take everything and distill what I'm saying, and I kid you not, it was two anchors, silence and stillness. And I think people don't take enough intentional silence. Intentional silence. I don't mean distractive silence, intentional one. But those two things, Coach Muller, were so available to me. I was in a quarantine room for 29 days. It was what I call it was my exile. I felt like that experience for me was my exile. And I felt like I needed those are my two anchors that were available anytime, anywhere. And that allowed me to actually sink so deeply into it that I actually realized the great truth. I realized that not only can I not control my red blood cells and my platelets and the all the things the doctors want to monitor, but I realized, oh, I need to actually submit and surrender to the experience, not surrender to dying, but surrender to the experience. Because if I don't allow myself to actually acclimate myself to the experience, then I'm losing what this is trying to show me. Forget about teaching, because I know I'm gonna get a lot of people, and I you get this talk in the cancer community where people don't like the word fighter. Some people I personally don't ascribe to F cancer and all that stuff. That's just my own personal belief. I just say do whatever really feels comfortable for you. But to a large degree, a lot of people actually feel that when cancer comes, it automatically a deficit rather than actually seeing it maybe as an opportunity to actually accept the deficit at the moment, but think of it as something much bigger that you probably couldn't even find without it. So in other words, it came into your life to maybe show you something, maybe not teach you something, maybe not because people don't like that kind of with cancer, but maybe it's there to actually give you something. Maybe it's a gift to some degree. Not a gift, meaning that you're going through the side effects and the treatment and they're horrible. At this point, I say this with great sincerity. I lost as of last month, it was eight people. This month it's about 10 people that I know who died of cancer. And some of them, it's their first journey in battle to it. So I have the utmost understanding, empathy, and compassion for that. But I also do know as someone who came through those experiences, that to some degree there is something here that we have to unpack and know. We have to get familiar with. Whatever it is, I think it behooves us to actually try to understand that. That's all I'm saying about that.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Man, that swag, bro. That swag, the self-awareness piece in the crisis, and understanding how important regulating your mindset was for you, the why power, the why power, purpose, and why are you going through this? And what are the opportunities while I'm going through this process of cancer? Aligned action from those thoughts of the mind, actions that you have. Have control over while in this state of fighting cancer. And then grit the ability to know that this was just a storm. And you have to stay persistent knowing that you're going to get through this storm. And that swag. That swag. And you live that, brother. You live that. And you continue to live it. Because I think it's extremely powerful to be in the state that you were in from a health standpoint and thinking, What's the opportunity here? That, bro, that's next level, right there, man. There's so much power in that. And that's what you created. You created choice. Because the choice within that health crisis of what you were dealing with in the fight of cancer, the choice, been sorry for yourself. You could have gone into depression. You could have carried all of this guilt. You could have really been fearful. But you know what? You chose what's the opportunity? What's the signs here? How do I get better? What do I need to learn from this? How can I use this time to pause my mind and be still and embrace the quiet? That's what you did. That is so powerful. But I want to ask you before we check off too.

Post-Crisis Leadership Gap And Rebuilding

SPEAKER_03 23:24

Is that where the adaptive resilience leadership framework came from?

SPEAKER_01 23:28

So it was born out of this idea that we all can, especially healthcare leaders, we know the signals and the patterns, know what's happening. And then part of it is also this idea of post-crisis, what I call a post-crisis leadership gap. It's like it shifts, it drifts, it creates larger, and then there's a chasm there. You can't reorientate yourself. Can't really figure out how to actually get to where you were before. And your summary was just fantastic because it actually relates to this idea that people actually get it. It's not someone asked me recently and they said to me, You knew you were gonna overcome this, right? I'm like, no, I didn't. They're like, No. I'm like, no, I don't know. No. I think anyone who tells you they can overcome anything doesn't really know because we don't have the answers. I just knew one thing. I just knew that I had to be alive, I had to be present, I had to be awake. That's all I knew. So I'm like, if I can keep myself awake and present, so I would survey the nurses, create dialogue with them. It was only one day, Coach Mall, that I faltered out of 29 days. One day, and I'll tell you why, and you're gonna laugh at this. One day I woke up and I tried to use my iPhone because I used it for music, things like that. Not really scrolling on Doom scrolling. My iPhone would not recognize me because my hair grew, my beard grew, it was all different colors, my skin was all droopy, I was on all these medications, my skin actually changed. My skin was four times darker and I lost 26 pounds. My iPhone didn't recognize me. I was so pissed off because it wasn't the fact that I needed the iPhone. It was the last thing that recognized me because I couldn't recognize myself.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

What's going on? She goes, It's only a phone, but she didn't really get it. And then thankfully, later that night for whatever, I don't know if it was a test or something sent to me, it worked. It wasn't the possession of the phone, it was the phone was the last remnant of my identity to some degree. And I felt like I had to lose it in order to gain it back.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Wow. That's a powerful, that's a powerful testament to your journey in what we're talking about. So thank you for sharing

Where To Find Savio And Final Words

SPEAKER_03 25:43

that. Can you be found help? Who do you work with and the audience that types of clients that that works with you?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I deal with mostly healthcare leaders, but leaders in general. When the pressure gets so much and just disruption and diversity affect so much that you just can't think clearly. You have to find a way to release that pressure or find a way to reacclimate towards your goals. And so my focus is clarity doesn't fail first. I'm sorry, performance doesn't fail first, clarity does, because once you have clarity, you really know your next steps forward. People can find me on my website, savio pclementi.com. There I have my keynote work. I have a couple more spots in 2026, my coaching, my executive coaching, also my book that's in there. And then every Wednesday I write a Substack newsletter called The Human Resolve, where right now I'm currently running an interview series with CEOs and CMOs on the healthcare leadership operating system. And I also talk about head, heart, and gut intelligence and how we navigate that way towards pressure and how we navigate our way towards clarity, because those are the two main things. And I call it the human resolve because what else do we have? Only human resolution and resolve in our lives. And if people want to find me on social media, I'm at the human resolve.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Thank you. Thank you for that. Any final thoughts that you would like to share for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah. There was a recent conversation I had with someone, and they said if you could define yourself in three words using un, what would they be? And so for me, it's uncertainty, which I went through, unraveling, and unbreakable. And when unbreakable, it doesn't mean that you always have to win. It just means that you are present to the moment. And I think that's all we can ask for. Everyone wants to win, but sometimes maybe it's not just the win, maybe it's just the experiencing.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Man, I appreciate you. I really do. Thank you for blessing us with this wonderful perspective on how we approach pressure, composure under pressure. And thank you for your insights. Savi, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Thank you, Coach Well. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. Self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Think About It podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, leave with your Y, act in the moment, and keep your grids flowing.