Sometimes You Have to Get Naked First

Sometimes You Have to Get Naked First is the leadership rule coined by Shayne Fitz-Coy in 2026 for naming your own weakness before anyone else will. A group that stands at the water’s edge talks about jumping in and nobody does.

Sometimes You Have to Get Naked First in practice

Bob Iger opened his first conversation with Steve Jobs about Pixar by saying he had a crappy hand. Ed Catmull’s account is that Jobs decided on the spot this was someone he could partner with, and Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion the following year.

Where this comes from

Iger became Disney’s chief executive in 2005 with Disney Animation in decline. Ed Catmull has said Iger recognized that buying Pixar was his best chance of reviving it.

Jobs’s reported reply: he put his cards on the table and said we’re screwed, and I liked the guy immediately because that is how I work too.

Quoted by David Senra on Founders, 17 June 2026. The acquisition closed in 2006.

Uncertainty Is Toxic · Connect Like a Kindergartener · The Earned-Trust Balance Sheet · All of the glossary