The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Viktor Frankl’s Greatest Lesson: Ownership in the Space Between

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Stop reacting and start responding. In the premiere of the rebranded Own. Move. Anchor., Kevin Pannell explores the life-changing power of "The Space Between"—the split-second where you reclaim control, even when circumstances feel overwhelming.Drawing on the profound survival insights of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, this episode breaks down why we default to "automatic" reactions and how that cycle shapes our leadership, relationships, and results. You don’t rise to your plan when pressure builds; you fall back to the systems you’ve built.In this episode, you’ll learn:The Frankl Framework: Why "The Space Between" is a survival tool, not just a philosophy.Reaction vs. Response: How to identify the "fast" triggers in your day—from high-stakes meetings to traffic—that cause you to drift.Training for Mental Control: Why physical stress (BJJ, hard workouts) is essential for teaching your mind to "stay" when things get difficult.The Micro-Ownership Practice: A simple, one-breath habit to pause and choose a better response today.Own your mind. Move your body. Anchor your spirit.Resources:Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Own Move Anchor, Episode 1, The Space Between. This is where we start, and if you've been here before, you recognize the shift right away. It used to be about projects, process, getting work done, and that still matters. And I still do that every day, leading programs, building teams, delivering outcomes. But over time, I've realized something that sits underneath all of it. Something that shows up when plans fall apart, when pressure builds, when life doesn't care about your timeline. You don't rise to your plan in those moments. You fall back to what you've built.

So, this show evolves, not away from execution, but deeper into what actually makes execution possible. Own your mind, move your body, anchor your spirit. And today, we start with ownership and specifically the space between what happens to you and how you respond to it. When pressure hits, you don't rise to the plane, you fall back to what you've built. I'm Kevin Pennell, Navy veteran, program leader, Missouri Jitsu practitioner. The show is about building that foundation, how you think, how you move. and what keeps you steady when things don't go your way. Own your mind, move your body, anchor your spirit.

There's a quote that gets shared a lot and it's easy to read past it without really sitting with it. From Victor Frankel who survived Nazi concentration camps to World War II, the quote says, quote, between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And our response lies our growth and our freedom, end quote. Now, it's one thing to hear that, right, sitting in your car, walking into work or even after a tough meeting, it's another thing entirely to understand where that came from. Franco lost his family. He was stripped of everything, identity, control, comfort.

He was placed in an environment designed to break people physically and mentally. And what he observed and what he lived was that even there, even in that environment, there was still something no one could take. Choice. Not control over circumstances, not control over outcomes. control over a response. And that's where his work, Man Search for Meaning, a book that I've read four times now, I'm sure I'll read it more,

but that's where it comes from, not theory, not motivation, but his lived experience under the worst conditions imaginable. That idea, that space, that gap, between what happens and what you do next, that's not just philosophy, right? That's survival. Why does this matter now, 2026?

So let's bring it forward to today, right? You're not in a concentration camp. I'm not either. But pressure still shows up. Deadline stack, expectations build, people bring their own challenges into your day. Things don't go the way you planned at work, at home, on the mats, wherever you're putting an effort. And what I see in myself and others is how quickly we give that space away, right?

Something happens and we react. Frustration, irritation, shutting down, checking out, saying something we shouldn't or saying nothing when we should. It's fast, right? often it's almost automatic. And over time, those reactions become patterns. Those patterns become habits. And those habits shape everything.

How you lead, how you show up at home, how you carry yourself when things get hard. Frankel's insight wasn't just about extreme situation, right? It applies right here in the middle of a normal day or in the evening when it starts to go sideways. There is space there. It might be small, right? It might only be a second, but it's there. And whether you use it or not, is the difference between reacting and responding. For me, where it shows up, I've had to learn this to the hardware, and honestly, I'm still learning it.

There have been seasons where on the outside, everything looked fine and dialed in, work moving, projects delivering, staying disciplined with workouts, checking the boxes, right? But internally, things weren't as steady. Stress builds, pressure stacks, and instead of using that space, I was reacting. Short with people carrying things from one part of the day into the next, letting one. bad meeting bleed into the rest of the afternoon and then into how I showed up at home. No pause, no space, just raw reactions. It doesn't feel like a big deal in the moment. It feels justified and you tell yourself, this is just how it is right now. Or as some people say, it is what it is. But stack enough of those moments together and you start to drift. Right. That's where this ties into owning your

mind. Because ownership for me isn't about controlling everything around me. That's not realistic at all. It's about recognizing that space and actually using it. Sometimes it's as simple as taking your breath before responding in a meeting. Sometimes it's stepping away for a minute instead of firing off a message. Sometimes it's recognizing you're carrying something from earlier and deciding not to pass it on to the next person you interact with. And I'll be honest, movement has helped me here more than anything. Cold plunge, hard workouts, time on the mats, and pursuing jiu-jitsu.

Those are controlled environments where stress is, introduced on purpose. You're uncomfortable, your body wants out, your mind starts talking. In those moments, you can either react or you can learn to stay there. You breathe, you frame, you settle in, work through it. That carries over. You can start to recognize that same feeling in a meeting or a tough conversation or a long day and instead of reacting, you've built the ability to pause and that's the work. So what could this look like for you? So what do you do with this? Because this isn't about just understanding the quote, right?

It's about applying it. First, just start by noticing. Not fixing everything at once. Just notice. Where in your day do you react the fastest? Is it email? Is it meetings? Is it traffic?

Is it conversations at home? Where do you feel that immediate shift, that spike where you go from steady to reactive? And that's your signal, right? That's the moment the space is there. Next, let's shrink that down. don't need a long pause. You don't need to sit and reflect for five minutes in the middle of your day. You need a second. You need a breath. You need enough to recognize I have a choice here and what I do and how I react and then decide, right? Not perfectly, not every time, but more often

than yesterday maybe. Do I react the same way or do I respond differently? And this is where movement and anchoring come in. Right. If you're not training your body, it's harder to control your mind. If you don't have something grounding you, it's harder to stay steady when things don't go your way. Right. This is one system. You train your body so you can handle stress. You anchor your spirit so you have something steady to return to. And you use that to own your mind in moments that really matter. So let's, for our call to action, start using space. Right. Not 10 things, not a full reset, one thing. Pick one moment where you know you usually react. Maybe it's your first meeting of the day.

Maybe it's when something doesn't go the way you planned. Maybe it's when you walk in the door at home. And when that moment comes, don't change everything. Just pause, take a breath and recognize the space. And choose your response. That's it. Do that once today. Then do it again tomorrow.

That's how we start to take ownership. That's how this builds. Own your mind. Move your body. Anchor your spirit. Godspeed. helped you take something from it and put it to work today. Don't just let it sit. You can find more at own moveanchor.com. You can follow me in the show on X and

Instagram at own move anchor and on YouTube own move anchor. If you know someone who needs this share it with them. Own your mind, move your body, anchor your spirit. Keep showing up, keep doing the work. Godspeed y'all.