Leadership and Business Growth

I am in the process of writing my first leadership book, which is set to release in late Q4. 

More specifically, Im working with an editor to crystallize the content I have poured on hundreds of pages over 12+ months of Sunday writing sessions.

My initial intent was to write a book about leading others.

Yes, that will come.

However, the writing process has been a therapeutic exercise in reflection, which has created great clarity.

It opened my eyes to the simplicity and complexity of leadership.

While not everyone desires or should be a leader of others.

Every human on Earth has to be a self-leader.

You are responsible for leading yourself; no one else is!

Using “First Principles” thinking, it only makes sense to begin at the foundation.

Self-Leadership.

The good news?

My experience has shown me that leading yourself is about 80%+ of the battle of leading others.

So my lesson today is this.

Leading yourself well (otherwise known as self-mastery) should be your biggest priority.

It’s the foundation of leading a beautiful life and will equip you to lead others if you so choose.

Without strong self-leadership, nothing else matters.

This lesson hit home, so please pay special attention. 

2 weeks ago, Barrett and I hosted my dear friend Petra on a Fit Body Mastermind call. 

Petra is a survivor of the hard socialist rule of East Germany. 

She was 22 years old when the Berlin Wall fell.

On November 9, 1989, she waited 5+ hours to walk through a little crevice in the fractured wall with terror and excitement to taste freedom for the first time.

Something most of us took for granted.

It was an inspiring interview with a lot of takeaways, including a massive perspective shift. 

However, 1 question I asked her hasn’t left me.

“Petra – what’s the #1 thing North Americans take for granted?” I asked. 

Her response:

“Americans take the ultimate freedom for granted: Freedom of Speech.”

You see, this is a liberty not granted to most of humanity even today.

Using “first principles” physics thinking, all of our entrepreneurial freedom hinges on this.

While this has societal and political implications that hit near and dear being, Barrett and my great grandparents escaped the communist regime in Poland like many of our ancestors.

I look at her feedback from a leadership framework, which is the spirit of today’s lesson.

Leaders create a strong feedback culture where people are comfortable sharing the good, bad, and ugly.

This is mission-critical to ensure your team and clients are heard.

This will improve your product and service when feedback can be shared freely.

The dichotomy of this is that just because you can say something, it doesn’t mean you should. 

There can and will be consequences for what you say, rightfully so, which is the dichotomy.

With great freedom comes great responsibility.

However, strong leadership leans into the danger and creates space for a feedback culture.

Short term, this can sting.

Long term, this is beneficial to your organization as human nature can analyze both good and bad ideas. 

With space, eventually, the good rise to the top.

The opposite is true.

However, this can only be done if you, as the leader, create the space for dialogue, which is today’s lesson.

 After all, Good Leaders Create A Strong Feedback Culture!

This past Friday was a great reminder as we hosted a team bonding event at Fit Body HQ.

We carved out a few hours to play a competitive game of kickball and have lunch together.

Why is this significant?

In the hustle and bustle of business.

It’s easy to get task-focused, especially with the mountain of work we have.

Yes, executing tasks is important.

However, connecting your people is even more important.

It’s the foundation of your leadership success. 

When you take time at least 1x per quarter to go off-site, have some fun, and break bread together.

Short term, you might feel some anxiety like I do.

However, you are investing in your people and relationships.

Long term, it creates a healthier organization and stronger value for your clients.

Easy to do on paper but harder to do in practice.

Thank you to my amazing leaders in Britt and Jessica, for being rigid on our team-building process.

Just remember, with all the hustle and bustle:

Leaders prioritize people and relationships. 

The higher in leadership you go.. 

The heavier the weight, pressure, stress, and 911 emergencies you will encounter. 

Bryce 1.0 would get riled up, pissed off and lose his cool.

I remember kicking my office door back in 2012, almost breaking my foot after a 1-hour botched video attempt.

Not good and a recipe for leadership disaster.

True story. 

While I have a ways to go, thankfully, I’ve learned and leveled up along with way.

Instead, strong leadership requires you to handle true disasters cool, calm, and collected.

Why?

Your composure gives you clarity around the situation and influence from your followers.

This is not easy because you must override your limbic system programming, which is why self-mastery is critical towards your leadership development.

In fact, self-mastery is your leadership north star, which is a journey worth pursuing. 

Just remember: Leadership requires you to be cool, calm, and collected through the chaos.

Politics aside, I was inspired last week by Elon Musk and the Space X team, along with NASA, who saved 2 American astronauts stuck in space for nearly 10 months.

This was an incredible accomplishment and am still in disbelief at what we saw!

What a giant win for space travel, human ingenuity, and for all of mankind!

I could have never dreamed of a day where a private company could save the day by serving the biggest superpower the world has ever known.

Well, it happened, and there are many lessons to be derived.

One of them is this:

Leaders challenge what’s possible.

Hats off to Elon Musk and Space X for leading the way and challenging what is possible!

I am here with a tough leadership lesson today grounded in truth.

As a leader, you won’t be liked in the short term.

Why?

As your leading responsibility grows and in most situations, you will be confronted with the need to make hard decisions.

Hard decisions that even if it’s the right decision, will upset people.

This is unavoidable. 

Want an example?

Think about putting your kids down for bed.

This is the right decision for their well-being and that of your family dynamic. 

However, at the moment, they are not happy with you because they want to stay up and play longer.

Hard but the right decision.

This is leadership my friend so embrace it.

I will leave you with a good life and leadership quote by the late Eleanor Roosevelt to put this lesson in context:

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

Here are 2 truths when leading. 

You will never have all the desired information before you need to take action. Yes, it’s important to source as much data before you begin to move. 

This will increase your probability of success.

Then once you do, charge hard with passion around the direction you believe is right.

However, you also have to be flexible enough when presented with new evidence that conflicts with your initial belief.

When this happens, you need to be able to pivot.

This is the dichotomy of leadership.

Today’s lesson:

Charge hard with flexibility my friend!

In the words of Jocko Wilink.

Discipline = freedom.

Here’s a 2nd truth.

Discipline = leadership.

You can only lead someone else as far as the discipline in which you possess.

So my leadership lesson is this:

Want to be a better leader?

Dial up your discipline.

Then watch your leadership explode!

Stay tuned for next week’s lessons as I will give you a strategy on how.

Leadership is like fitness.

You can get fit.

But you can always get fitter.

You can learn to lead.

But can always become a better leader. 

Depending on how you view it, this can be exciting or depressing.

Exciting because there’s an endless opportunity to improve. 

Depressing because it’s overwhelming to know you need to to improve. 

That’s why leadership can be fickle.

My lesson today?

Realize that Leadership is a journey.

Sometimes you are ahead.

Sometimes you are behind.

The road is long.

The secret is to keep your head up and develop more skills every day.

“1 day at a time” as they say in my 12-step group.

This will help you navigate the fickle waters of this thing we call leadership.

Working with people is hard.

Building a team is hard.

Leading is hard.  

This is the hard truth of life, leadership, and business.

However, here’s the 2nd truth.

While hard.

This is where the value lies.  

My lesson today is this: 

When things get hard.

When people’s issues stack up.

Reframe your frustration to gratitude.

After all, your ability to lead and problem-solve through people issues is where your value & opportunity lies.

So embrace the hard!