She wanted to buy the Barbie Dream House. Not to play with it...
To build it. Tear it down. Reconfigure it. Build it again.
That eight-year-old girl grew up to build the longest floating bridge in Iraq, command an 800-person battalion in Afghanistan, and earn a PhD in engineering. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, she also figured out how to defeat the most dangerous enemy she’d ever face.
Not the ones shooting at her base. Not the assassination attempts.
The mean little voice inside her own head.
That’s Jenn Donahue — engineer, Navy Commander, author — and last week she joined me for a Substack Live that I’m still thinking about.
Here’s the thing: I brought Jenn on because I knew her story was extraordinary. What I didn’t expect was how much it would land for the high-achieving leaders I write for every week. Because what she walked through, the success, the dark chapter, the clawing back out, this is the arc I hear over and over again in private conversations with senior executives. It’s not what you see on social media or in press features. But it’s what people are actually living. I know, I experienced it, too.
The details may look different. But the experience of being beaten down when you’re already carrying enormous responsibility, and then arriving home and finding nothing left of yourself? That’s not a military story. That’s a human story.
The Hardest Battle
In Afghanistan, Jenn was responsible for 800 people. Housing. Food. Safety. Everything. And at the same time, she reported to a leader who spent seven months systematically tearing her apart.
“He almost seemed like the enemy,” she told me, “and not the people who are shooting at us.”
She tried to make a game of it — putting tick marks on a whiteboard during meetings, counting down how many were left. She shielded other officers from the worst of it, becoming a kind of umbrella for younger leaders who needed guidance they weren’t getting from him. She protected everyone she could, even peers.
By the time she came home, she was completely emptied out. The glass-half-full person had nothing left. No joy. Nothing.
“I had to try to claw myself back out of that hole and try to find who I was before I left.”
She admitted she probably should have gotten help. She didn’t.
Instead — being an engineer — she started taking apart her own thoughts the way she would take apart a structural problem. And in doing so, she built something even stronger.
The 3 Voices in Your Head
Jenn started with identifying 3 different voices she heard regularly in her head:
MEAN LITTLE VOICE. This is the one who doubts you. It makes you question yourself: Can I really do this? Am I good enough? Someone else knows more, has more experience, is more likely to be successful. This is the one that keeps you small because it’s trying to keep you safe.
SNEAKY LITTLE BASTARD. This one distracts you. It finds ways to take you off your game by giving you reasons to delay, avoid, and stop staying focused on what actually matters.
THE WARRIOR. This is the voice that is clear, calm and knows the right thing to do. It’s the one that knows what you’re capable of, doesn’t think small, believes in you, and can do the work to achieve what you actually want. This is what Jenn was able to access more of through the framework she built.
The Warrior Framework: Four Steps that Changed Everything
Once she identified the voices, Jenn went back to what she knew: military rules of engagement. The same protocol she learned to identify and respond to a physical enemy. She wondered: “What if I applied this to the voices in my head?”
Here’s what emerged. She calls it Perceive, Assess, Ready, Act.
PERCEIVE. This is situational awareness — but for your inner world. What voices are actually running? Instinct? Intuition? The mean little voice? The warrior? Most of us have never stopped to notice there are multiple conversations happening inside us at once. Step one is just paying attention.
ASSESS. Friend or foe? In the military, you assess what’s coming at you before you react. Same with your inner voices. Is this voice rational? Is it genuinely protecting you — or is it just trying to keep you from feeling discomfort by keeping you stuck? Assess before you respond.
READY. This is where Jenn says most people get tripped up. You can acknowledge the mean little voice all day. But if you just stomp it down without engaging the warrior, it comes back louder. The Ready phase is about activating your internal warrior — your track record, your evidence, your accolades — so she actually has something to fight back with. “Warrior, wake up. You’re on the bench. Get off. We’re going into battle.”
ACT. One small, calculated step. Not a leap of faith. A step. In the direction of the goal, the dream, the thing you’ve been hesitating on. “A plan is great until the first shot is fired” — so don’t let the plan become an excuse not to move. Just move.
Why This Model is Different
I’ve seen a lot of inner critic frameworks. Most of them tell you to acknowledge the voice, then move on. And Jenn is clear about why that doesn’t work: if you just stomp it down, it comes back. Louder. More frequently. Harder to quiet.
The difference in her approach is that you have to understand why the voice is there in the first place. And then you have to counter it with evidence. Real, specific, written-down evidence.
This isn’t soft work. It’s backed by neuroscience. Jenn spent months reading peer-reviewed research — going three sources deep, as she was trained to do — before she built her framework.
The finding that stuck with me: when you physically write something down by hand, you engage multiple parts of your brain in a way that typing or thinking just doesn’t. Your brain actually begins to rewire.
The Practices that Actually Work
These are the specific tools Jenn shared that she used herself and now uses with clients:
Write down one win per day. By hand. Doesn’t matter how small. Woke up on time. Closed a deal. Cooked a good dinner. After about a month, your brain starts to look for the wins instead of cataloging the losses.
Write down your full list of accolades. All of them. Going back as far as you can remember. This is your evidence. When the mean little voice says you can’t — this list says otherwise. Read it. Internalize it. That’s your warrior right there.
Find a Battle Buddy. Someone who knows your track record. Someone the voices can’t reach — because the voices live only inside your head. Your battle buddy sees what you can’t see in yourself yet.
Stop focusing on failure. Start thinking about risk. Risk is a continuum — the probability of failure combined with the consequences if you do. Most of the time, when you actually do the math, the probability is lower and the consequences are smaller than the mean little voice has convinced you they are.
And when it comes to taking action: small, calculated steps. Celebrate each one. “This is my favorite part,” Jenn said.
Don’t make the plan so rigid that a missed step feels like failure. Make it flexible enough to keep moving.
On Being Fully Emptied Out
What stayed with me most from this conversation was Jenn’s willingness to describe what that dark period really felt like. She’s sunny. Bubbly. A glass-half-full person by nature. And she told us there was literally nothing left. No joy. Nothing. (If you watch the recording, you can feel it and see it in her eyes, in her tears.)
I think about the leaders I coach — and the leaders reading this right now — who might be sitting in something that looks a lot like that. Maybe not from a war zone. Maybe from a relentless boss. A job that’s slowly been hollowing you out. A season where you’ve given everything to protect everyone around you and arrived home with nothing left for yourself.
Here’s what I want you to hear from Jenn’s story: she clawed back. She didn’t just survive the experience — she turned it into a framework that now helps other people find their way back to themselves. The warrior was there the whole time. She just had to learn how to find her.
Yours is there too.
Your Turn
Jenn’s advice is rich with actions you can get started on today. Whether in you’re a dark place or feeling buoyant, there’s value in any one of the practices above. Pick one or start off by simply identifying your voices. Can you tell the difference between each?
I’d love to hear what worked for you or if you have questions about any of these in the Comments below.
Stay Connected to Jenn
Jenn’s book “The Warrior Framework” comes out March 24th. Pre-order now at thewarriorframework.com and you’ll get early access to the first chapters, a free workbook, and a few other surprises. If you’re a leader who’s been fighting battles on multiple fronts and running low... this is the book I’d put in your hands.
You can also find Jenn on LinkedIn at Jenn Donahue, PhD, PE or at jendonahue.com. Ping her if you’re looking for an experienced leader to deliver a memorable and actionable keynote or workshop.
A Final Thought
I really enjoyed this conversation with Jenn. Her work mirrors much of what I’ve learned in my mindfulness practices and through the Positive Intelligence program. The idea of accessing your inner warrior or wise version of yourself was life-changing for me. If you’ve been worried that this was just woo-woo mumbo jumbo — I hope Jenn’s extensive scientific research makes you reconsider.
We all have these voices. The leaders who break through and reach their full potential and help their teams do the same are the ones who know how to access their warrior and how to quiet the rest.
Your warrior is always ready to guide you. It’s up to you to listen.
May you lead without limits,
TIMESTAMP GUIDE — Skip to What You Need
Use these to jump to the parts that matter most to you:
00:00 — Introduction to Jenn Donahue: engineer, Navy Commander, PhD, author
04:00 — How an 8-year-old’s obsession with building became a lifelong mission
06:30 — From Barbie Dream Houses to the longest floating bridge in Iraq
07:20 — The hardest part of Afghanistan: 800 people, enemy fire, and a tyrant boss
11:50 — What “fully emptied out” actually feels like after 7 months of being beaten down
14:40 — How Jenn started clawing back: applying military rules of engagement to her own mind
17:15 — Defining the enemies: the mean little voice, the sneaky little bastard, and the internal warrior
19:45 — How to amplify your warrior voice: writing wins, accolades, and rewiring your brain
23:10 — The battle buddy: why you need someone the voices can’t reach
24:50 — The Warrior Framework: Perceive, Assess, Ready, Act
30:35 — The neuroscience: why writing by hand actually rewires your brain
33:15 — Why “acknowledge and move on” frameworks don’t work — and what does
36:35 — Writing the book: how Jenn used the Warrior Framework to push through her own resistance
39:10 — Why you need a plan — and why it needs to be flexible
40:55 — Failure vs. setback vs. risk: Jenn’s reframe that changes everything
43:05 — If you’re stuck right now: the very first steps to take
44:45 — How to get the book, pre-order bonuses, and how to reach Jenn
