Chad Silverstein reflects on building a team at Choice Recovery—largely entry-level female hires—and describes his goal to develop them into confident leaders through his "Built to Lead" practice. He introduces the "shoot in your eye" metaphor: a visible, intense clarity and determination that signals true leadership and mastery. He warns about others who may resist that strength, stresses focusing on self-growth rather than changing others, and advises journal work and sustained effort toward mastery.
Chapters
When I first started building my team at Choice Recovery, I was hiring all entry level folks and most of them were females. I don't know why, I don't remember why. I just remember that all the applications that came in for the jobs that I was hiring for, whether they were the type of roles that I was hiring for, we had mostly females working at the company. And a lot of them were entry level and didn't have the confidence, they didn't have that edge that you'll see a lot of strong leaders have. And my goal was to give them this gift of built to lead so that they can become a strong core centered leader. And over time, when I saw them building out their worldviews, working on their core, pointing at a big dream and giving them the freedom to come into Built to leave practice and kind of live it out, even knowing that a lot of them weren't going to stay with me. And you know, that was the, that was the joke. It was built to leave. But there were always a few that had this shoot in their eye. You'll hear Chet talking about it and his, his insights, and you'll also see a little something in the playbook about it. So my take is that there is something very attractive about somebody who knows who they are, knows what they want, and can clearly articulate that with their words, but also their body language and their eyes and, and you know what I'm talking about. Because when you see someone who's really serious about something and you can kind of just tell there's a vibe about that person, this is what we're after. This is what a built to lead. Someone who's built to lead, this is what they have. This is who they are. They just have this shoot in their eye that when they are after something that they are very clear about, you know, there's. There's no stopping them. You get out of their way. You do what you can to support them if you're aligned with them. And, and there's also the concept that people are going to come out of the woodworks to sabotage you. People don't like to see that kind of strength around them, especially if it's a reminder for them that they're not strong. But that's what we're after. Make no mistake about it. You're after that shoot in your eye, whatever it is that you're going to be pursuing, if that's right now, personal excellence that you're working on yourself, and if that means that you're pointing at your opus and wherever you find yourself on the journey right now, you're after that 10,000 hours, the mastery, the ability to, you know, be able to say things and act in a certain way that's consistent with what you believe. And it just kind of oozes out of you. It's. It's that shoot in your eye. And it is. It is what, what you're after. And you don't have to ask people feedback about it because most people will just kind of just feel it from you. And you'll start to get feedback from people about you're different and lately they've seen differences in you. And this is a really good sign when you start to hear that pop up in your life from people that are close to you. You know, one thing that's really hard about changing is that it's really hard to change around the people that you love. They're used to seeing you a certain way, and all of a sudden now you're different. And you could be a reminder of what they're not doing, maybe what they should be doing. Some people take it the wrong way and they start trying to change other people. Your aim is you and your growth. It is not for you to be telling other people what to do. Just show people what to do it if you want to have an influence, and that's the best way that you can influence others around you. And my best advice and a mistake I made was I took Built Lead home with me, and I was so excited about it, and I wanted to share it. I wanted other people around me to do what I was doing, but that's just not how it works. So just for what it's worth, be a little careful with that. You know, keep the right secrets. We like to say at Built to lead and just work on you, focus on you, and you'll start to see other people, the right people, the people who really care about you, kind of come in for a closer look. And when you start to get those comments, you know you're on the right track. So go get some shoot in your eye by putting pen to paper, getting more clarity, working harder.
