The Strategy Gap: Why the Right Strategy Still Fails If You Don't Do These First

Bedtime in our house used to be something I got through, not something I showed up for.

I was reactive. Tired. Short-tempered. When bedtime got chaotic, I checked out. When my son struggled, I defaulted to lectures. “You’ve got this, buddy. Just be brave.” As if saying it out loud would make it true.

I had strategies. Books I’d read. Things I’d learned. None of it was working the way I thought it should.

I kept blaming the approach. Or my son’s energy. Or my own inconsistency. I was solving for the wrong thing.

What’s Inside

THE INSIGHT: Why the right strategy still fails, and what I learned the hard way
PARENT SKILL: The Rewrite, the step that comes after you catch the story
PICKS: Resources on strategy, habit, and the full framework
CHALLENGE: Run the full sequence before your next parenting moment

THE INSIGHT

What Changed When I Started Telling Stories

Then I started telling bedtime stories. And something shifted.

Not just for my son. For me.

Each night I sat down to create a story, I had to think about what I actually wanted him to believe about himself. What values mattered. What kind of man I was committed to raising.

And that forced a question I wasn’t ready for…

Was I living any of that myself?

Not always. I was telling stories about courage while feeling stuck. Stories about persistence while cutting corners. Stories about calm, steady leadership while losing my patience over things that didn’t matter.

The stories became a mirror. And they didn’t let me look away.

Tony Robbins calls this the State, Story, Strategy sequence. It’s one framework among many, but it’s a useful one.

State is whether you’re calm or fried when you walk into that bedroom.
Story is the voice in your head that says “this never works with him” or “I’m too tired for this tonight.”
Strategy is the bedtime routine, the story formula, the technique.

In the framework the order is not flexible. State first. Story second. Strategy third. Skip the first two and the third one won’t work the way it should.

It’s a common mistake to start with the Strategy. It’s the most visible layer. It’s what the parenting books sell and what the Instagram reels demonstrate. But Strategy applied on top of a dysregulated state and an unchecked story will underperform every time. It doesn’t matter how good the tactic is.

You can see it everywhere. The parent who reads a parenting book, tries the approach for a week, and quits when it doesn’t seem to work. The one who googles “how to get my kid to listen” at 11pm. The one who buys a new bedtime routine, commits to it for three days, and then blames the routine when the energy in the room is still off.

The routine isn’t the problem.

It’s never the routine. Most routines actually work… given the right environment.

With my son, I was applying the sequence deliberately. I knew what I was doing.

My own transformation ran the other direction. The strategy came first and worked on me sideways. The stories surfaced what needed to change. My state shifted. The story I was telling myself shifted. And once those two moved, everything landed differently.

Same method. Completely different result.

When you run the sequence the right way, something changes in the room before you even open your mouth. Your kid feels it. The story lands differently. The connection is there. Not because you found a better technique but because you showed up as a different version of yourself first.

I had to stumble through it to see why. You don’t.

When something isn’t working, the question isn’t “what should I do differently?”

It’s “what’s the foundation under what I’m already doing?”

That’s the gap. And closing it changes everything.

PARENT SKILL

The Rewrite

What it is: A simple next step after you catch the story. Not toxic positivity. A more accurate story.

Why it works: Naming the story creates a gap. The Rewrite is what you put in that gap. Without it, you notice the old story, then slide right back into it. With it, you have somewhere to go.

Here's how:

Step 1 - Catch it. Notice when a story is running. Feel the resistance, name what you're telling yourself, and ask whether it's a fact or a story. ('I'm too tired for this. Is that a fact, or is that a story?')
Step 2 - Rewrite it with AND, not BUT. Don't fight the story. Add to it. 'I'm tired AND I know what happens when I show up anyway.' 'This feels hard AND I've done hard things before.' The AND holds both truths. That's what makes it land instead of feeling like a lie.
Step 3 - Act from the new story. You don't have to feel it fully yet. You just have to move. The feeling follows the action more often than the other way around.

Pro tip: The Rewrite doesn't have to be inspiring. It just has to be more accurate than the story it's replacing. “Good enough” gets you in the door. That's all you need.

PICKS

🎧 Listen: Your BEST Contribution as Parents by Jim Rohn. Five minutes. Rohn talking directly to parents about who you need to become before you can give your kids what they actually need. Everything we covered this week, said differently.
📚 Read: The Art of Exceptional Living by Jim Rohn. The whole book is built on one idea: who you become determines what you get. Not what you do. Who you are. That's the foundation this week's issue is pointing at.
❤️ Quote: "For things to change, you have to change." - Jim Rohn