A Rule I Broke- and Why it Worked

It wasn’t actually about the coffee.
It was about being real — and what happens when leaders stop performing and start actually connecting. 

In this episode, I unpack the egg white moment that sparked 80,000+ views… and why it resonated so deeply. We’ll talk about the pressure to be polished, the power of sharing the unfiltered truth, and why being human is one of the most strategic things you can do as a leader. 

If you’ve ever screwed something up and chose not to hide it?
That’s not a failure.
That’s leadership. 

ps. If you want to join the Friday F*ckup conversations, find me on LinkedIn! Most of the week we talk about how to be Strategically Unruly, but on Fridays, we share when it all goes wrong.

Transcript

Kim Bolourtchi: 0:00

This is Kim Bolourtchi, and you're listening to Get Unruly. I can't believe I'm still talking about this, but here we go. So the other morning I go to make coffee, the first cup of the day, the last bit in the pot, you know, the one that really matters. And instead of grabbing the cream, I accidentally grab liquid egg whites. And I don't just pour in a cute little splash. I am fully committed to putting egg whites in my coffee. It's my first cup of the day, and unfortunately, the last of the coffee in the entire house. I was way too devastated for it to be appropriate. But in my defense, I am completely addicted to caffeine. I had zero recovery plan and no backup. It was just betrayal in a mug. So I took a picture, wrote a quick Friday fuck up post, told the story, and went to Starbucks and the post, well, it blew up over 80,000 views, 400 plus comments. People were cracking up, tagging their coworkers, sharing their own I wasn't awake yet. Moments, it was funny and it was real, but also it landed harder than almost anything I've ever said about leadership. And then, of course, there were the other comments, you know the ones. Is this even a real post? So this is what we're doing now on LinkedIn. Just don't screw up your coffee next time. Yeah, that was my favorite. Thank you, sir. That's so helpful. Just let me say this, if your instinct is to correct or shame someone for a mistake they already owned, I genuinely hope that's not how you lead your team or talk to your kids or show up in a relationship, for that matter, because that's not leadership. That's ego, and truly, we don't need more of that. Somewhere along the way, we built this weird little religion around polished leadership, and that's what I really want to talk about today, where the less human you look, the more authority you supposedly have, where showing up real is somehow less professional than showing up fake. And I'm just here to say, no, that rule doesn't hold. And frankly, it never did. Here's what I know. I screw something up at least once a week, and if we're being honest, I think most of us do, and I run a successful business. I advise powerhouse leaders, I speak on stages, I deliver work I'm damn proud of, and I lead boldly. It's not either or, it's both and, and I want to just sit here for a second because this part gets lost. We've been taught that we have to pick between being powerful or being vulnerable, being polished or being human. We either win or we're a mess up. And the second that something goes sideways, we panic. We start editing ourselves, shrinking over correcting or distancing ourselves from people who are messy so we don't have to sit with the discomfort of being messy too. I have felt the urge to shift into impressive mode, to perform leadership instead of practicing it. And look, I could perform. But it never felt honest. It never built actual connection. It really just built distance. The irony of this is that the more I allowed space for the full story, the mistakes and the mastery, the more respect I got, the more impact I had, and the more I liked myself in the process that egg white moment, it wasn't about coffee and it wasn't about clarity, it was just about being real and choosing to share it publicly was a strategically unruly move, because I could have kept it quiet. I could have shared something more expected, a polished insight, a structured takeaway, something a little more LinkedIn approved, right? But I didn't, because part of being strategically unruly is breaking the rule that says there's only one right way to show up as a leader, and clearly this way resonates, not instead of a framework, but alongside it. Because people don't just want tools. They want truth. They want to know that the person behind the post is actually living it. And that's what lands. And here's what we need to say out loud, it works better that one real moment created more trust, more reach, more relevance than any well packaged leadership post I've shared and listen, I've shared a lot, not because it was so brilliant. I mean, it was a freaking post about egg whites and coffee, but because it was honest. So if you've been waiting for permission to lead as your full, bold, unfiltered self, this is it do. Because the future of leadership, it doesn't belong to the most polished person in the room. It belongs to the person with the courage to be real, to break the rules that no longer serve them, and to go first in doing it differently. That's who I want in charge. Thanks for being here with me, and listen, if you screwed something up this week, you are not alone, you're not off track, you're actually just doing it real, and I'm here for all of it. Let's keep going. This is kimberlotchi, and you've been listening to get unruly. I'll see you next time. If you're enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple and share it with somebody who needs it. See you soon you.