You have to read beyond your comprehension to improve your ability to comprehend.
You have to at least feel the back end of your car coming loose as you hit the apex of a turn, if you want to improve your ability to corner quickly. You have to perform perfect plank form push ups to the point beyond which you can push up, if you want to increase your push ups beyond your plataeu. You have to “cross the line” when it comes to challenging your team, if you want your team to improve their ability to perform under pressure. You have to dig digger than you currently “know how” to dig with good, piercing questions, if you want to improve your ability to get to the root.
Over time and through this struggle, you will gradually learn to endure. You keep reaching. You keep reaching. And you reach some more. Suddenly, you are able to grab hold of that branch that was seemingly beyond your grasp. You read C.S. Lewis for the third time and suddenly he makes some sense. You “saw” in the TRX for the tenth time and are amazed when you don’t go down. You push the team, under pressure for the umptenth time, and they not only push up, they push themselves and you beyond the plateau, the peak, and beyond what you thought possible.
Today, a CEO and a CEO in training pushed beyond their capability. Today, next years strength took root. Today, with nobody watching, a team practiced learning how to read each other. Today, the seeds of chemistry found some fertile ground. Today, nothing big happened. This is how leaders are built. Slowly. Actively. Purposely. Painfully. And, together we improve, not by luck, not by experience, not by more reps, not by an event, not by playing it safe, but by embracing the struggle, choosing to endure, and reaching, reaching, reaching until we finally grab hold.
Remember, your enemy is your comfort zone. The edge of your challenge zone is where you peak. And, you can’t find that edge without, occasionally at least, finding yourself smack dab in the middle of the panic zone. Peak performers do not panic under pressure because they’ve learned to place themselves in the panic zone when it’s safe, when it’s “practice.”
Do you have a builder pushing you to the point of panic? If not, you don’t have a builder, do you…
BUILT TO LEAD 