Create Space

How can you lead, think, and live well when everything around you speeds up? In Create Space, Derek Draper argues that the defining challenge of modern life is not scarcity but saturation. For the first time in human history, we are not struggling to fill space but struggling to create it — mentally, emotionally, and physically — so we can act with intention rather than default reaction.

Draper begins with two vivid scenes: an open valley seen from Mount Longonot in Kenya and a jam-packed London airport canteen where he and Katya, a supply chain manager, can’t find a quiet seat. These contrasting spaces become metaphors. On the mountain, you can breathe, think, and see far; in the canteen, you drown in noise, interruptions, and competing demands. His assertion is simple yet radical: your ability to create space is the foundation for all growth.

The Four Domains of Space

To make the idea practical, Draper maps four domains — Think, Connect, Do, and Be — each with three sub-themes: reflect, learn, decide; check in, share, relate; plan, deliver, lead; dream, balance, grow. Across twelve chapters, he shows that overwhelmed leaders don’t mostly need new techniques; they need the capacity for depth. Without that foundation, life becomes a blur of reacting rather than choosing.

Evidence backs this up. Draper’s analysis of 1,000 leadership assessment reports found that 93% of leaders had development needs related to creating space. Nearly half lacked time to think; three-quarters struggled to connect meaningfully. Space, not more activity, is the missing ingredient for resilience, strategy, and emotional intelligence.

From Saturation to Sovereignty

Draper emphasizes sovereignty — regaining control of attention and time. Modern life indiscriminately fills your bandwidth: meetings, emails, notifications, and micro-decisions drain energy. Creating space means making deliberate choices about when and how to think, relate, act, and rest. This isn’t about doing less for its own sake; it’s about doing better with more awareness.

Core insight

“We have become the first generation in a thousand generations who, rather than having the need to fill space, have the need to create it.”

The Path Forward

The rest of Draper’s framework helps you operationalize this idea: in the Space to Think chapters, you’ll learn how to reflect, learn, and decide more effectively; in Space to Connect, how to build emotional presence and psychological safety; in Space to Do, how to plan, deliver, and lead without burnout; and in Space to Be, how to align your life with purpose, balance, and growth.

Each domain explores practical habits and psychodynamic insights. The stories of Raku, Hans, Nick, Beata, Yulia, Oscar, and others illustrate real transformations — from compulsive reacting to conscious creation. (Note: Draper’s approach blends executive psychology, leadership science, and personal development in the tradition of contemporary thinkers like Daniel Goleman and Carol Dweck.)

The message is clear: stop letting life fill your space by default. Instead, choose space — time to think deeply, connect authentically, act wisely, and be fully alive. It’s not indulgence; it’s mastery. That act transforms both work and self into something deliberate, sustainable, and profoundly human.

Thinking well begins with slowing down. Draper’s story of Raku—a pharmaceutical general manager constantly rushing decisions—shows that high performers often believe speed equals competence. Her pattern derived from a deeper Core Pathogenic Belief (CPB): 'If I don't hurry, I’ll never catch up.' This distorted her leadership until structured reflection revealed the root cause.

The Reflecting Cycle

Draper offers a simple, repeatable tool: ask three questions — What do I think? How do I feel? What could happen instead? You use this before and after events to frame learning. This echoes Kolb’s experiential learning loop and turns reflection from vague introspection into disciplined cognitive practice.

Building Conditions for Thought

You can’t think deeply amid distraction. Draper outlines four types of space that enable reflection: temporal (protect calendar blocks), physical (find your best environment), relational (a coach or talking partner to externalize thought), and psychic (breathing and journaling to calm and track mind). The Harvard Business School study he cites shows that 15 minutes of deliberate reflection can boost productivity by nearly 25%—proof that slowing down enhances output.

Making Reflection Habitual

Small rituals make reflection stick: breathing after calls, jotting learnings, scheduling visible “thinking time.” Without defenses, culture consumes it through urgency. Raku’s one-thought journaling reprogrammed her “rush” disposition. By naming patterns, you move from reaction to curiosity and regain mental sovereignty.

Creating space to think isn’t academic—it’s survival. When you install protected moments for reflection, you refine judgment, reduce error, and upgrade your leadership architecture from reactive to intentional.

Connection with others starts by connecting with yourself. Draper’s case studies—Nick’s brittle defensiveness and Beata’s over-nice team—show that emotional awareness and psychological safety underpin strong collaboration. Where relationships fail, unprocessed emotion or fear of conflict is usually the culprit.

Checking In with Yourself

Draper proposes simple check-in practices: “Feeling & Number” (describe emotion and rate intensity), “Blue Sky” visualization, and “How old do I feel?” (to reveal regression and projection). These micro-tools insert awareness before reaction. Nick transformed from an adolescent-like need for approval to mature responsibility by articulating what he felt and telling his boss about his growth focus.

Sharing and Psychological Safety

Psychological safety—shown by Amy Edmondson and Google research—is the spine of creative teams. Safety differs from trust: it is collective permission to take interpersonal risks. Draper’s “Challenging Conversations” format uses ten structured questions to convert discomfort into constructive dialogue. When Beata’s “too nice” Spirits Team surfaced tension, they moved from polite stagnation to energetic accountability.

Building Influence through Real Relationships

In “Relating for Influence,” Amir learned stakeholder mapping—rating relationships from 1–10—to reveal emotional blind spots. Micro-actions (asking about a colleague’s dogs, gratitude notes, honest apologies) built trust and reshaped perception. Influence arises not from hierarchy but from human connection deliberately cultivated.

Space to connect means making the emotional and relational room for truth, learning, and trust. By checking in, sharing vulnerably, and managing relationships strategically, you transform interpersonal friction into collaboration and growth.

Doing well demands disciplined planning and attention. Draper’s chapters on Red Technologies and Tamsin reveal that most leaders confuse activity for achievement. Planning, focus, and delegation are not bureaucratic; they are acts of intentionality that enable clarity and reduce chaos.

Planning: The Strategic Backbone

Planning buys freedom. It transforms anxiety into roadmap. Draper highlights Eisenhower’s paradox: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” A clear goal (SMART or BHAG) and a broken-down timeline shift your brain from worrying about unfinished tasks to directing effort. Red Technologies collapsed partly because Darren resisted planning—mistaking spontaneity for leadership heroics—until structure restored coherence.

Delivering Through Personal Operating System

Tamsin’s crisis showed overwork destroys focus. Draper prescribes a personal operating system (pOS): time-blocking, batching, Pomodoro sprints, and prioritization with the “4D rule”—Do, Defer, Delegate, Drop. Neuroscience confirms multitasking halves accuracy; therefore, monotasking and protected work zones are vital.

Leading by Creating Others’ Space

Leadership, presented through Yulia’s story, is about cultivating “Third Space”—the co-created zone between people where originality emerges. Instead of feeding answers, ask questions. Delegation follows a disciplined four-step checklist, ensuring clarity of outcome, authority, and rhythm of review. Growth demands allowing discomfort—Yulia’s initial boredom—until autonomy and capability spread across the team.

Creating space to do is not “being effective for its own sake.” It’s about structuring thought and time so you deliver what matters, protect attention, and elevate those around you to perform independently.

Beyond performance lies being—your sense of meaning, balance, and growth. Draper’s final sections connect purpose, health, and long-term development. Without this existential foundation, even efficient leaders collapse under hollow success.

Purpose and Dreaming

Oscar’s story—a banker rediscovering his passion for rural life through the Dual Life and TELOS720 exercises—demonstrates the power of aligning inner values with outer choices. Imagining a constraint-free life and identifying “life-giver” words (e.g., outdoors, animals, practical work) makes unconscious motivation visible. Reflecting on mortality, Draper notes, clarifies priorities (echoing Steve Jobs’s dictum that awareness of death refines purpose).

Balance and Energy Management

Trevone’s burnout teaches that success without rhythm leads to collapse. The Wheel of Life reveals neglected areas. The “Corporate Athlete” model invites you to manage energy across four quadrants—intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual. Sleep, movement, and mindfulness are not optional extras but performance infrastructure. The “Daily Six” and “Three Buckets” offer minimal daily habits to sustain vitality and connection.

Growth and Opportunity Cost

Growth requires trade-offs. Almantas accepted temporary decline in KPIs to gain promotion through learning. Draper codifies discipline as the “No.1 Meeting” — weekly self-review to track progress, emotions, and priorities. Scheduled reflection ensures you invest in long-term capability despite short-term pressures.

Space to be therefore fuses purpose, balance, and structured growth. It completes the progression from presence to mastery—the point where living and leadership converge into coherence.

To make these practices endure, Draper ends with three gateways: personal strategy, productivity baseline, and space mindset. Without them, all earlier habits—reflection, connection, planning, and balance—remain fragile.

Gateway 1 – Personal Strategy

Strategy gives direction and prevents diffusion. Choose a few goals, design stages, timeline, and resources, and reflect regularly. Simplicity breeds momentum. This personal strategy mirrors organizational clarity—Eisenhower and Lincoln reappear as metaphors for sharpening focus before execution.

Gateway 2 – Productivity Baseline

Sleep, rhythm, monotasking, and time management form the physical base of space creation. By improving these fundamentals first, you’ll reclaim hours and energy. Draper calls this “raising your operating baseline”—only then can strategic and reflective work thrive.

Gateway 3 – Space Mindset

Mindset is psychological infrastructure. Draper’s five polarities—focus ruthlessly, prefer good enough over perfection, allow waiting, tolerate mistakes, trust yourself—translate space from action into identity. Creating space thus becomes both external structure and inner philosophy.

Creating space is first a strategic, then habitual, then psychological act — a sequence that sustains growth.

93% of real-world leaders studied showed need for these spaces; knowing the gateways ensures the improvement sticks.

Through these gateways, Draper integrates all themes into a coherent system. When you build space as strategy, habit, and mindset, you stop surviving the noise and start shaping your narrative with intention and calm mastery.