If you’re a dreamer, an overcoming, or an achiever at any level, you’ve probably got oversized goals. I know I do.
But sometimes it seems as if the path from “where you are” to “where you want to be” is riddled with obstacles.
As I say that, I visualize a narrow path through the forest, overgrown, with fallen trees blocking the way. Or a mountain road that’s been washed out by a mudslide or blocked by fallen rocks.
The road to success, which you’ve been told is “The Way,” is actually impassable.
And it’s hard not to blame yourself. You wonder if your life circumstances are the problem. Your age. Or gender. Or heritage.
In truth, while those issues can slow us down, they’re not the problem. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from. You can achieve your biggest, most audacious goals if you simply allow yourself to grow into it naturally.
Less Striving, More Growth
You heard that right.
In the Age of Hustle, where “working till you drop” is hailed as the secret to reaching your goals, I’m telling you that you don’t need to strive quite so hard.
Success hinges on your ability to step into your personal and professional authority. And the process of building authority is more like human growth and development than it is like mining for ore.
Your Authority already exists. The real question is whether you’ve developed it yet. And that takes time, not hustle.
Essentially, you need to grow into yourself.
You’ll need to hustle at times, sure. But you can’t force growth. It’s built on five distinct stages of development that every Legacy Leader has passed through — even those who look like an overnight success.
So what are these stages of growth? Let’s take a look.
Introducing the Authority Journey
Stage 1: X-Factor
At the beginning of your journey, you’re unfocused and unsure of what you want to be or do. There’s likely a lot of experimentation as you try your hand at different options. You may show promise or discover innate talents, but you’re still largely an unknown.
Just as “x” is an unknown in algebra, your Authority is an unknown. No one knows where you’ll land, so you’re the X-Factor.
Stage 2: Craftsperson
Once you find focus — you’ve chosen your destination and have possibly set a goal for yourself — you’ve achieved the Craftsperson stage.
Here, it’s about putting in your 10,000 hours: doing, learning, refining your skills. And as you do, you begin to identify the levels of achievement that are open to you.
With greater knowledge, you begin to focus your energies even more. You become a specialist.
Stage 3: Expert
When you’ve mastered your craft enough to achieve consistent results, you qualify as an Expert. You’re seen as one of the best at what you do. You also catch people’s notice and may even impress yourself with the things you say or do.
At this stage, it’s time to lean into personal branding. You have focus. You’re confident in your expertise, and you have something to offer those who come behind you. So you begin to share your knowledge, passion, and insights.
How do you do that? Most professionals become active on LinkedIn at this stage. But you may also write a book or develop a course. You’ll probably be called on to speak or lead. It’s time to step into it.
Stage 4: Leader
As your personal brand gains equity, you become a leader. In your work, you may lead a team. Socially, you’re beginning to be seen as a thought leader. Either way, at this stage, your focus is on leading others to do their best work.
But leadership isn’t just about spouting your deep knowledge and experience. It’s about seeing trends before others do, figuring out how to prepare for them, and inventing best practices — then sharing them with your followers.
You see, to lead, you have to be breaking the path and tearing down obstacles, so people can follow. And you have to be going somewhere.
No leader stands still.
Stage 5: Legacy Leader
Most people will be content to be a Leader — at that stage, you still own your own time. You can still be private. As a Legacy Leader, you’re something of a celebrity.
You’re in the limelight, so people ask for more of your time than you have to give. A lot of your energy goes to fielding these requests, but you’re also focused on giving back, inspiring, serving, and enabling other people to progress in their Authority Journey.
That said, as a Legacy Leader, you aren’t necessarily leading individuals. You’re leading the industry. You’re influencing thinking and changing the way things are done. You’re solving huge problems and setting new trends.
We usually admire Legacy Leaders (and think we want to be one) because it looks like they (finally) own their own time.
They’ve arrived, we think.
But it only appears that way because they aren’t usually doing grunt work at this stage. They are, however, deeply invested in the growth and progress of the space they lead. Which means they’re rarely able to “turn off” and relax.
If they’re ready to slow down, in addition to everything else they do, they’re looking for leaders who they can groom to take over when they retire. They’re focused on passing the baton.
Where Are You on the Journey?
If you’ve got big goals, your first step in achieving them is to figure out where you are on the Authority Journey.
At each stage, you have an activity focus — work you must do to uplevel your skills. You also have a growth focus — work you need to do to prepare for the next stage of your Journey.
As an X-Factor, you need to find your focus. That takes work. Your growth focus is to spend time evaluating your skills, talents, likes, and dislikes. Your activity focus is spending time in the sandbox trying out different types of work.
As a Craftsperson, you need to be doing and learning, refining your skills. That’s your activity focus. Your growth focus is all about learning how to get consistent results.
You get the idea. You have to do the work of the stage you’re at, and you need to begin developing the skills you’ll need at the next stage.
It’s not about hustle.
It’s about giving yourself the time and tools to grow into your own Authority.
