Chad Silverstein argues leaders can't take others further than they've led themselves. He traces system problems back to leadership, then prescribes journaling, measuring progress backwards, and small consistent steps as the path to purpose.
Chapters
You cannot lead others further than you've led yourself. Boy, is there truth in that. If you lead anything, then you know one how hard it is, because leading anything sucks. It's just hard. We used to joke around and tell people, don't be a leader, don't want to be a leader, because it's just so hard. And everyone's so quick to shoot the leader in the back, you know, when things are good, you know, kiss their ass. And when things aren't going so good, you know, and so sabotage and people who turn on you, you know, if you pay people even more so. And you know, if you lead anything, you're lied to more than anyone and you're the last to find out about things. So, again, it's just a hard gig to be a leader of anything. And especially as you grow and you get stronger, it gets even harder. But, you know, I think the most important part of building yourself is to understand that if you want others to follow you and be inspired by you and help you with your vision, then you have to model the way, and you have to show them what it looks like, and they have to believe in you. And so you can't expect others to do XYZ when you're not doing it. And it's one of the reasons why Built to Lead's model is only to start working with clients who are the number one or number two in the system. Because typically, you know, you've got those leaders who talk to Built to Lead, and they say, we want you to engage with our company, and we want you to train our leadership team. We want you to work with our sales team. They need the most help. We laugh at that because as the leaders in our own lives, we know we're the biggest problem. And so a leader who doesn't even realize that they're the biggest problem in their system, which, by the way, you lead something, you're the biggest problem. You may not know it, but that's what people are saying behind your back. It's the case for every leader because no one's perfect, and it's always a work in progress. So that's why on day three, that that reality just needs to sink in. So let that in and don't point the finger at anyone else. Point it back at you, and just accept the fact that you can't take other people around you further than you've led yourself. And so that's why this journey is so critical, to get off on the right foot, to start authoring your core and your Opus and all the things you're going to learn about and, and to get busy and to get busy. And again, I told you in the last day that you know, the amount of writing that you do will have a huge correlation with the results that you will see down the road. And that's why we encourage you to get a journal out and to be able to, like, look back and measure your, your progress backwards. It's important that you don't measure forwards. You're on day three. It's called the Gap Trap. You can see people in the Built Lee community and watch some of the inspiring videos and look at where you are right now and just be a little depressed, like, wow, look where I am compared to where these individuals are. That's, that's important that you don't do that. You measure backwards where you were. And it wasn't long ago that you weren't even connected to this community. And so if you look at the progress, you've already made steps in the right direction, and you just have to keep that going, keep that going and you will find, you'll find purpose and you'll find happiness in that. And there is something very powerful about aiming at something and then being on the right track and moving towards it. And that's why small, little productive actions, little baby steps in the right direction is how I define success. Because the result is out of our control. And you can't control that, but you can control what you do today. And so just get busy and do the hard work and take small baby steps. They will compound, I promise you that. There's no doubt about it.
