The 25th Hour: How Leaders Can Stop Giving Away Time with Neal Schore
Where does a leader’s time actually go? It is not only swallowed by meetings and email. Some of the biggest drains on our time never appear in the calendar.
In this episode of the Thriving Leaders Podcast, I speak with Neal Schore, co-founder and CEO of The 25th Hour Group, former founder, president and CEO of Triton Digital, executive coach and author of The 25th Hour: How to Thrive (And Gain Ridiculous Amounts of Time) by Getting Out of Your Own Way.
Neal challenges the way we typically think about time management. What if the problem is not simply an overloaded calendar, but the patterns quietly consuming our attention and energy?
Neal offers a different perspective on where leaders lose time without realising it—and what it takes to break the pattern.
In this episode, we cover:
Why conventional time-management tactics only address part of the problem
How fear, defensiveness and the need for control quietly consume time
Why commiserating can masquerade as collaboration
How asking yourself a simple question can prevent misinterpretation and improve performance
How to stop reacting, interrupting or assuming the worst
How the 10% meeting rule creates space and sharpens focus
The words to eliminate from your vocabulary that can create avoidable ambiguity
How small disruptions to familiar routines can strengthen awareness and creativity
Why leaders need to become more comfortable with discomfort
How probability-weighting a fear can stop hours of unproductive “swirling”
Why “It’s my fault” is an exercise in agency rather than blame
How a leader’s behaviour becomes a model for the wider team
Neal’s message is not that leaders will never overthink or react defensively. It is that we can notice it sooner, manage ourselves more deliberately and stop giving away so much time.
If you are working flat out but still feel as though there is never enough time, this conversation offers a different place to begin.
Links and resources:
Visit Thriving Culture website
Brown, D. (2016). Compliance Test [video excerpt from Derren Brown: Pushed to the Edge]. Channel 4. Later released by Netflix as Derren Brown: The Push. Watch the excerpt on YouTube.
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