Have you ever walked out of a meeting, a sales call, or a difficult conversation and thought — I did everything right, so why didn't it land?

You had the framework. You had the script. You had the training. And yet... something was off.

Here's what I've watched happen over and over again with leaders, teams, and organizations: the skills aren't the problem.

The energy and intention underneath those skills is.

That's the whole premise of the IEP Method® and Intentional Energetic Presence®.

And once you see it, you genuinely cannot unsee it.

What Is IEP, and Why Does It Matter for Leaders?

IEP stands for Intentional Energetic Presence® — and at its core, it's about the energetic presence you bring to everything you do. The conversation with your team. The sales call. The feedback you're about to give. Even the meeting you're leading on a Tuesday morning when you're already exhausted.

The IEP framework breaks down into three interconnected parts:

1. Intention — What you want to have happen, why you want it, and the real subtext underneath what you're trying to create.

2. Energy — The actual stamina and aliveness you have to do what you say you want to do.

3. Presence — How you're actually showing up in the moment.

Here's the part that surprises most people: these three don't just move in one direction. Yes, your intention drives your energy, which shapes your presence.

But you can also reverse-engineer it:

Get more present, and you get clearer on your energy.

Get honest about your energy, and your real intention becomes easier to see.

The IEP Model: Working from the Inside Out

Most leadership development starts with skills. Communication training. Feedback frameworks. Sales scripts. Scaling strategies.

And those things matter. They absolutely do.

But here's the issue — if you skip straight to skills without doing the inner work first, you're going to hit a ceiling. Or worse, you'll burn yourself out, burn your people out, or both.

The IEP Model works in three layers, from the inside out:

Layer 1: Essential You This is your values, your vision, your purpose, your core intentions. This is you in your own energy — fully yourself, fully present, clear about what you're actually trying to create.

Layer 2: Energy and Presence This is where a huge portion of the work lives. How are you taking care of your energy? What is the presence you're actually bringing into the room? This layer has four quadrants: physical and environmental, mental and emotional, vibrational, and relational.

Layer 3: Skills, Actions, and Oxygen This is where your communication, feedback, cultural initiatives, business systems, and leadership frameworks live. EOS, Scaling Up, organizational health — all of it goes here.

The sequence matters. When you start with you — with intention and energy — the skills work. They land. People actually receive them. When you skip the first two layers, even the best skills will only take you so far.

The Intention Problem Nobody Talks About

Let me give you a real example. Last year, I was doing some work with a company — and somewhere in the middle of it, I noticed I was exhausted by it. Irritated. It had stopped feeling good.

When I slowed down long enough to look at what was actually happening, I realized my intention had shifted.

It started out genuinely in service of those leaders. I wanted them to thrive, to have more health and vitality, to create more impact in their company. That was the intention.

But somewhere along the way — because things got complicated, because some things in the agreement weren't being honored, because I started to feel like things were slipping out of control — my intention had quietly shifted to scaling the work and fixing the leadership team.

And here's the thing: I could still bring all my skills to that room. I could run all the frameworks. But the energy underneath? It was about forcing and fixing. The leaders felt it. The work was less effective. And I was depleted.

The warning signs were there — irritation, exhaustion, a creeping sense of dread. Those are flags. And once I saw it, the reset happened pretty quickly. It required truth-telling, ownership, and getting clean about the intention again. I actually shared what had happened with the team and we recalibrated together.

The turnaround doesn't have to take long.

But you have to be willing to look.

Crooked Intentions: More Common Than You Think

Here are a few intention patterns that show up constantly — maybe one of these will feel familiar:

• "I'm trying to help my team" (but really it's about control) — This one came up live on a recent webinar. A leader shared that she realized she was trying to get people to work in a certain way, pretending it was to help them, but really it was about needing to control the outcome. The moment you name it, you can start to work with it.
  
  
• "I want to close this deal" — There's nothing wrong with wanting to close a deal. But if that's the primary intention in the room — I need the money, I want to move this person out of my pipeline — your prospect will feel it. And no matter how good your sales script is, it will communicate louder than your words.
  
  
• "I hope they like me" — If your intention before a talk, a presentation, or a leadership meeting is please like me, please think I did well, that intention will show up in your energy and presence in ways that actually undermine your impact.
  
  
• "I want to look good" — A cousin to the one above. Perfectly human. But self-serving intentions are exhausting to sustain, and they rarely create the connection or results you're actually after.

This isn't about shaming yourself for having these intentions. Most of the time, there's something genuinely good underneath them — wanting to belong, wanting to be valued, wanting things to be smoother and easier. The work is to get curious, get honest, and find the cleaner, more sustainable version.

A Quick Energy Check for Right Now

Before you head into your next big meeting, conversation, or high-stakes moment — try this three-part check-in:

Physical energy (0–10): How is your body doing? If you're running on empty, it's going to affect everything else.

Mental energy (0–10): How present are you, really? Are you here, or are you already in the next thing?

Vibrational energy (0–10): What is the quality of the energy you're bringing into the room? Remember — the lowest energy in a room will win, unless someone with the tools and awareness is able to hold their own energetic state. That someone can be you.

This isn't about being at a 10 all the time. It's about awareness. Because awareness is where the power is.

The Bottom Line

You can have every skill, every framework, and every credential in the world — and still leave impact on the table if your intention, energy, and presence aren't aligned.

The good news? When you start working from the inside out, things shift faster than you expect.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this resonates, here are two ways to keep building on it:

The Presence Practice — For Leaders Who Want Real Support

The Presence Practice is a monthly live subscription program where we actually workshop this work together. It's not another webinar. It's a live room — real conversations, real coaching, real community. We cover one IEP topic per session in depth, and throughout the month you'll have access to an Ask Me Anything session, a resource library, and ongoing support.

Right now, we're offering a Founding Member rate of $77/month for anyone who signs up before April 1st. After that, it goes to $147/month.

If you've ever said "leadership feels lonely" — this is the antidote. Come do the work with us.

👉 Join the Presence Practice at the Founding Member Rate → activechoices.com/presence

IEP Team Immersion — For Leaders Ready to Transform Their Teams

Want to bring this work directly to your team? The IEP Team Immersion Experience is a live, facilitated engagement designed to help teams build the energetic foundation that makes all their skills actually work.

If you're seeing your team hit ceilings — communication issues, low morale, friction, or just a collective exhaustion that strategies alone aren't fixing — this is worth a conversation.

👉 Learn about the IEP Team Immersion → activechoices.com/team-iep

AI Transparency: This article was supported by AI to assist with organization and clarity. The content is based on Anese’s original work and was reviewed and approved by Anese.