Courage and Self-Control Emerge

Consistency nurtures seeds from bad situations, turning quiet efforts into visible growth and preparation for bigger roles. During my second year as an evening shift manufacturing employee, I applied the same persistence I was developing during my shift to my new found love for working out. Throughout Leveraging Leadership Growth, I referenced how I never felt like I was overly talented. Disciplining myself to workout four or five days each week, especially after getting off work around 2am and getting up by 9am to head to the gym, did as much for my mindset as it did my overall fitness. Make no mistake, though, I still made time for every bit of the nonsense I could find on days off.

Before expanding on the courage and self-control that began to emerge through even just that initial persistence on and off the job, I’ll share how much developing that kind of discipline in the gym has served me since. While I certainly haven’t maintained a gym routine through all the years since, I’ve averaged more than five workout days each week since late 2019. Even through all that, my diet was out of control - until August 2024 when my chiropractor told me that I’d never outrun my fork. Dennis DaPonte challenged me to give up sugars and starches for three months. Applying the same discipline I learned in the gym as a twenty year old, I dropped around fifteen pounds in that three month period. More importantly, I had more energy than I remember since my late twenties. I’ve stuck with his suggestion since and I’m down over 50 pounds total. Oh, and as I share this, I’ve only missed logging some sort of workout on 21 days over the last ten months.

Funny thing, though… The more discipline I developed through consistency, both in my work and in the gym, the more I experienced those small wins. And through even minor daily victories on and off the job, courage and self-control became a normal part of my routine. Still yet, all bets were off when the weekends rolled around. Rome wasn’t built in a day. One of the primary things that unfolded gradually was me being willing to admit to my weaknesses. As I owned them, I could begin overcoming them. And just those small steps forward, through what seems like the slightest of adversities as I look back now, helped prepare me to navigate bigger challenges as I moved forward.

Adversities, when we actively engage them, build the courage we’ll need in order to form the bedrock of influence. That influence is essential in earning respect without a title - and we’ll pick up there next. Before we do, I want you to reflect on how a past bad situation tested your discipline or self-control and plan one way to strengthen it moving forward.

Earning Respect without a Title

Working from 3:30p to 1:40a, at least Monday through Thursday with mandatory overtime frequently scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays, for most of my first two years in manufacturing was clearly part of God’s plan; I certainly wasn’t doing much planning of my own and that point. Any planning I had a hand in was focused on avoiding being scheduled to work on Saturday nights and fully embracing any mischief I could find from the time I walked out of the building on Friday until I passed out on Sunday. That said, the small wins I was beginning to stack up through consistency, both on the job and in the gym, were gradually building an authentic kind of courage I hadn’t felt previously. And with that courage came a minor degree of self-control, even if I only practiced it in certain situations.

As my two-year anniversary in manufacturing grew near, the discipline I had been practicing was beginning to yield results - professionally and personally. At work, I continued to learn about more and more equipment throughout my department and I was volun-told to be part of a two-day training process for some new corporate initiative that most of the old timers were bitching about. Off the job, the courage grew into confidence, and that occasionally quelled my boisterous alcohol-induced rants. As fate would have it, that may have been part of the reason a former co-worker called me in late January of 1998 to ask if I’d serve as the bouncer while his younger sister and her friends went dancing. More on both of those scenarios soon… I had no title whatsoever, not in the workplace and definitely not in my off hours, but I was beginning to earn genuine respect from many of the folks I associated with.

My persistence increased throughout 1998. Although I had discontinued college classes completely at that point, I was more determined than ever to outwork anyone I needed to and earn a promotion; I just wasn’t sure what kind of role I was looking for. And while I didn’t have a ton of interest in the new corporate initiative I was forced to participate in, I recognized at least some kind of opportunity hidden within it. That may have been the first actual seed of great benefit I ever found, even if I didn’t realize it as such at the time! Away from work, I was even more fixated on winning over my friend’s younger sister. He asked me to keep the other rednecks away from her; he didn’t say anything about me staying away… As the months passed by, I was earning influence with her too.

Interestingly enough, becoming engulfed in those two priorities limited both my time and my interest (at least a little bit) in most of the other nonsense I had been filling so much of my life with prior to that. Those relatively minor yet extremely consistent steps in the right direction were keeping my new girlfriend’s attention. That may also have been what caught the attention of the new maintenance supervisor whose office was near the press I operated daily. I still wasn’t leading anyone around me, aside from during the occasional shenanigan I found time for, but I had started to lead myself. Demonstrating those early changes earned quiet respect and previewed what true leadership would look like later on.

Influence begins in how we handle our own bad situations; quiet consistency builds trust that titles can’t force. Thankfully for me, discipline played a much greater role in all that than talent ever could have. We’ll dig into that next. First, think about one way your handling of a bad situation could earn quiet respect from the people around you - and act on it intentionally!

Discipline Outweighs Talent Every Time

Even at fifteen years old and riding a bicycle to the job sites each day, showing up on time consistently and giving it everything I was capable of - even when I wasn’t capable of all that much - helped me earn moderate respect from the men I was trying to keep up with. Carrying that same work ethic into manufacturing yielded opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And yet again, consistency led to wins that earned the respect of my peers. We’ll look at how much that respect was needed just a couple years later soon enough. For now, don’t lose sight of my comment about never feeling overly talented; that’s not fodder.

Quite honestly, I can say with confidence that the only reason I maintained employment in construction and in manufacturing - at least early on in each role - was the effort I was willing to put in consistently even when my skills were lacking. At some point in my late 30s, I remember hearing John Maxwell say that “You’re never good the first time.” While I had indeed been willing to display a tremendous work ethic in every job I had held, the feeling that so many of my coworkers had more natural talent than me often weighed on me; would I ever be able to work hard enough to compete, let alone get ahead? John’s comment, albeit decades later, helped me understand that each of them had been just as inexperienced as me at some point. No one starts off as an expert.

Looking back, I can think of so many examples of kids from high school or former coworkers who had more natural ability than me. In many of those cases, though, they weren’t willing to put in anything resembling the effort that I was. Make no mistake, my willingness to consistently control the one thing I knew how to control at that time (my effort) was what got me through each of the adversities I faced - as minor as they were in the grand scheme of things. Talent without discipline produces mediocrity, at best. But nurturing seeds through effort builds enduring leadership muscle. 

Consistently developing that muscle is why discipline outweighs talent every time. All in all, that’s likely the most powerful lesson I learned through my teens and early twenties. By making the best of our setbacks through this lens, we can transform potential into prepared influence. Bad situations expose talent’s limits; discipline, nurtured from the seeds we pull from those bad situations, is the true driver of leadership growth. We’ll take a focused look at what we need to do to mine our foundational seeds next, and then we’ll move the calendar forward a bit to see how some of my earliest seeds were starting to sprout. Right now, though, I want you to commit to one discipline-building habit this week; link that to a past bad situation and observe how it strengthens your leadership readiness.

Mining Your Foundation for Seeds

I can barely wait to push forward in sharing more about how impactful serving as bouncer for my friend’s sister was as well as how my working relationship developed with the maintenance supervisor who walked by my machine a few times each day. We’re not quite ready for that yet, though. First, we need to close the loop on some of our earliest bumps in the road. Make no mistake, I will never pretend that I’ve found all the possible seeds of greater benefit from even the minor adversities I fought through in my late teens or early twenties. And the ones I have found often took me years to uncover through very intentional reflection, but praise God I found them!

As I close this look at that “chapter” of my life, and how I hope it helps you make the best of YOUR bad situations, I’ll stress that actionable reflection on early bad situations cements their lessons, creating a personal chain of leadership preparation. To truly make the best of bad situations, we must start mining our foundational adversities for seeds - and that’s where targeted reflection comes in. If you’re willing to actively engage in the “homework” I assign, I believe from the bottom of my heart that you can turn some of your earliest setbacks into leadership gold for your journey ahead.

Right now, before doing anything else, I want you to write down specific responses to each of these questions:

1. What one “mediocre” or rocky period from your past can you revisit?
2. What specific “seed” was hidden there?
3. How could nurturing it strengthen your resilience?
4. How might it improve your leadership, regardless of your title or position?
5. What’s one thing you can act on immediately to plant that seed?