Every leader carries mental clutter, fear, doubt, overthinking, and old emotional patterns that Renie Cavallari brilliantly calls “head trash.” It’s the internal noise that distorts reality, steals energy, and hijacks confidence. Cavallari, Founder & CEO of Aspire, has spent decades mapping how the brain works during stress and why leaders fall into spirals of negativity. Her message is both compassionate and actionable: while head trash is inevitable, it doesn’t have to run your life. “When you shift how you think, you shift how you feel…and you shift the outcome,” she teaches. Her step-by-step method empowers leaders to identify the trash, interrupt it, and reclaim their emotional power.

Cavallari explains that head trash comes from sliding into the Protective Side of the brain, the emotional survival zone where fear, ego, anger, insecurity, and defensiveness live. “When you’re in the Protective Side,” she said, “your energy sinks, your creativity drops, and everything feels harder.” The alternative is the Connected Side, a state defined by confidence, curiosity, openness, and resourcefulness. The goal, especially for leaders, is not to avoid negativity, but to recognize it and shift out of it before it derails your decisions or relationships.

1. Notice the Story: Awareness Is the Beginning of Change

The first step in dumping head trash is awareness. Cavallari teaches that you must name the thought before you can change it. “You can’t change what you don’t notice,” she emphasized. When leaders catch themselves spiraling, catastrophizing, overanalyzing, assuming the worst, or replaying old narratives, they weaken the emotional hijack. Naming the pattern (“I’m overreacting,” “I’m making up a story”) disrupts its power. Awareness turns reactivity into choice.

2. Ask the Two Reality-Checking Questions

Cavallari’s signature tool is a simple but transformative pattern interrupt. When head trash appears, she instructs leaders to pause and ask: 1. “What is the story I’m telling myself?” 2. “Is it true?” These questions expose exaggeration, assumptions, and distorted narratives. Cavallari explained that questioning the story slows the emotional reaction: “The moment you challenge it, you stop your brain from running wild.” Instead of reacting to fear, leaders begin responding to facts.

3. Ask the Most Important Question: “Who Do I Want to Be Right Now?”

This is the heart of Cavallari’s method, the question that transforms emotional clutter into intentional leadership. After naming the story and checking its truth, she tells leaders to ask: “Who do I want to be right now?” This question shifts attention from the problem to the leader’s identity. It invites composure, courage, connection, and clarity. Cavallari described it as the pivot point: “When you choose who you want to be, you take your power back.” Leaders move from reaction to intention, reclaiming how they show up in the moment.

4. Shift From Protection to Connection

With clarity restored, leaders can consciously choose to operate from the Connected Side of the brain. Cavallari teaches that connection feels open, confident, and grounded: “On the Connected Side, you feel capable and curious. On the Protective Side, everything feels like a threat.” This shift doesn’t require perfection, just a deliberate reset. Sometimes it’s a breath, a reframe, or a physical movement. The key is choosing connection, not fear.

5. Take the Next Best Action

To prevent overwhelm, Cavallari encourages focusing on the Next Best Action (NBA). “You don’t have to fix everything,” she said. “You just need to decide what the next right step is.” This small, intentional movement toward progress keeps leaders grounded and restores momentum.

Closing Reflection: Quiet the Trash, Choose Your Power

Renie Cavallari’s approach offers leaders a path out of emotional noise and back into clarity. By noticing the story, questioning its truth, choosing who they want to be, and taking the next best action, leaders learn to shift from reactivity to purpose. Dumping head trash is not about silencing your thoughts, it is about refusing to let them control you. When leaders master the shift, they show up with confidence, connection, and calm. And when the mind is clear, leadership becomes both more effective and more human.