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Welcome to the Impact Podcast. I'm Eddie Wilson, here to help you visualize what others cannot see, create opportunities where others have failed, and push you to build empires where once there was empty space. Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Hey, everyone, thanks so much for joining the Impact Podcast with Eddie Wilson. Today on the episode, we're going to talk about the mirror that you never want wanted. What is the mirror that you didn't ask for in business and in life, the. The higher you kind of go up the food chain, the less honest feedback we get as leaders. It's oftentimes our experience that the more authority, the more growth you get, the less people will just tell you the truth, the less they'll tell you, you know, that. That you lack in certain areas to kind of the. The emperor's new clothes kind of concept where this emperor's naked and no one will tell him he's naked. And it's just this crazy thing. And it's like as we. We grow, we have to look for the mirrors that are going to be honest with us back. And let me just give you a couple of them today, and I'm going to talk to you about the most important one. So the first mirror we. We know is. Is money. My. My business partner, Andrew Cordle, he has the Money Is podcast, and he asks people, what is money to you? And when I was on his podcast, I said that money is a revealer. Like, you can say money is freedom. You could say money is a tool, money is a game, money is energy, all these different things. I said money is the great revealer because I believe that money, when it enters into our. Into our space, doesn't create evil. It actually just reveals the evil within or it reveals the character within. I think money is the great revealer of all character. I think that whatever character you possess, money becomes the mirror that shows you exactly the character that's already within. I think that the mirror I want to talk to you about today, though, is not just money. I'll give you another quick mirror is your children. Oftentimes you see in your children all the things that you struggle with in your own life. You know, your children, especially me with three boys, I see all the inadequacies, all the insecurities, all of the things that I am most frustrated with in my own life revealed in my own children. And it's very interesting to see these mirrors around us. But the great mirror that I want to talk to you about today is the mirror of Your business. Your business is a mirror. And under pressure, mirrors don't lie. Just like wealth exposes character, scale or growth in your business exposes leadership, growth doesn't fix you. And many times people think that, like my. My business growth is what's fixing me or making me better. It reveals you. If you don't like what your business is showing you, don't smash the mirror. Fix the man, fix the woman. So as we jump into this, let me talk to you about what your business reveals about you. The first thing that your business is going to reveal about you is, is your emotional maturity. Pressure always reveals emotional maturity. How do you respond when numbers go down? When they dip? How do you respond when things aren't going your way, when sales aren't coming in? Do you get reactive, Controlling, avoidant? How do you react when things are not going well in your business? Because everybody can lead when things are going right. When you have money, when you have profit, when you have growth, it's easy to lead then. But when there's pressure, emotional maturity is always revealed. Calm under pressure isn't personality. It's always preparation. One of the things that I want to always exemplify in my own life and in my own leadership is no matter how hard or difficult the situation gets, I want to be that bedrock of. Of just emotional maturity or that calmness that our company needs so that when we're going through the turbulent times, people don't look to me to get charged up or to get emotionally charged. They look to me for that calmness that allows them to settle in to whatever pressure, whatever action, whatever is needed for success. Calm under pressures and personality. It's preparation. So, number one, pressure reveals your emotional maturity. Number two, scale always reveals your integrity. Scale always reveals your integrity. When you're scaling or you're growing and you're growing, you know, five, ten times what you were. It always reveals inconsistent values. Your values will. Will be either revealed or they'll be. They'll always be revealed in growth values. Are they consistent when no one is watching? That's what integrity is. Integrity is doing the right thing when no one's watching. When there's no accountability or when scale happens, growth happens. Do the shortcuts appear? Do does. When your margins tighten, are you willing to cut corners? Are you willing to short your customer? Are you willing to take things that aren't necessarily yours? Integrity isn't tested when things are easy. It's tested when survival is on the line and when you are scaling. Integrity is always the thing that takes the greatest hit and number three. Growth always reveals our ego. Growth always reveals our ego. So the three things that always reveals your business is revealing about you is pressure reveals your emotional maturity, scale reveals your integrity, and growth always reveals your ego. When you are growing, do you always have to be the hero? Or are there other people in your organization that are allowed to be propped up and shown as the success that they are? The larger the organization, the harder it is to be centralized on one figure as the person who is driving all success, do you need to be the hero? Do you resist delegation? Do you need all the credit? Right, like when you steal credit from someone else. That's strictly an egocentric play. Ego doesn't disappear with success. It gets louder unless it's disciplined. Our ego is necessary for us to typically get our businesses off the ground. We need to believe in ourselves. We need to sometimes have an unnatural belief in ourself to actually step out and move away and create. But oftentimes it's that ego that then gets in the way of everything we want. And ego doesn't disappear with success. It always just gets louder. It gets more obnoxious unless it's discipline. So those are the three things that your business is revealing about you today. And the business is always the great mirror. Let me give you a historical example. So if you've ever read my book on the Titan doctrine, you know, one of the titans that I talk about is Napoleon Bonaparte. And I, I use him as one of the titans that show how to, to systemize or how to grow and scale through systems. The Napoleonic Code is something that even our current government uses. And Napoleon was a master at building systems and processes. It's how he scaled the French Empire. However, as a brilliant general, he was strategic, he was disciplined, he was a visionary. And his early success in France reformed institutions. It reformed the way that Europe thought and it governed. But as his power increased, so did his unchecked ego. You hear oftentimes people or historians talk about his stature and how he was small and he had what, what they referred to as little man's disease, right? Like he always had to prove himself. And his unchecked ego was really the center piece of this. It was the cornerstone. And as he grew his empire as he was younger, he began to have massive success. And that early power increased and expanded his ego to a place where the early Napoleon was so specific to systems and processes and data and discipline, it then began to go completely unchecked. So what changed over time? He stopped listening to advisors. He overextended himself, he trusted his instincts over reality. Instead of following those systems and processes and the data that he had, he began to listen to his gut. He began to, to buy into himself being the hero of the story. And when he did that, the result was the downfall of the entire empire. He had this massive, disastrous invasion of Russia, if you ever read history. And it was that invasion of, of Russia. Even though he was going against the advisors that were in his cabinet, he was going against the data that he possessed, he violated the very systems and processes that allowed him to scale the empire. And he takes on Russia at an inopportune time with inadequate numbers and with inadequate data and against all the people that told him not to do it. And in that one moment, in that one decision, and I know that a lot of things led up to it, but that was the one crowning moment that essentially collapsed his army and the empire fell. So it's, it's this, it's this thing that happens in all of us is as we, we grow, we began to feed into that ego. And that mirror of your business should always be showing you exactly who you are. And as you begin to grow, that mirror should show you if the ego is, is growing, growing if the ego is being fed or if the ego is being diminished and it's being disciplined. Power didn't ruin Napoleon, and this is important to note. Power didn't ruin Napoleon. It wasn't that he had all this authority and that ruined him. It revealed who he was, and he refused to correct it. So Napoleon was starting to get that feedback from all the people around him, but he wasn't, he wasn't intuitive enough to watch it in himself. He was listening to those around him. And he had a lot of the people that were the yes men that were telling him all the things he wanted to hear. He began to believe and buy into this epic saga of this man who came from nothing and ultimately built the empire. And he began to believe this. And it wasn't the authority, it wasn't his position that ruined him. It just revealed who he was. And in that, he refused to correct it. Your business will expand your strengths, but it will also accelerate your blind spots. Your business will expand your strengths, but also will accelerate your blind spots. That's what happened in the case of Napoleon is his strengths were the systems and processes. His strengths were his ability to lead the armies. His strengths were all those things that allowed him to grow, but it also, it also showed his greatest weakness. Here are three questions I want you to Ask yourself. As this business mirror that you're staring at is telling you all the things that you need to know and grow and change in your life. Let me ask. I want to give you these four questions that I want you to ask. Number one, where am I the bottleneck at? Only you can be honest with yourself about this. Is your need for control, slowing growth? Stop telling yourself that you are the catalyst for all growth and look around and see where that bottleneck is being created to that's slowing down your growth. Are decisions today waiting on you? Are there things that are in your world that are dependent on you? That if you don't take a few moments today and answer those questions, it'll slow everything down, it'll stop all progress? If everything flows through you, nothing will ever scale beyond you. If everything flows through you, nothing will ever scale beyond you. So where are you the bottleneck, number one? Number two, what am I avoiding in confront? Like there are things you need to confront in your business and what are you avoiding? What am I avoiding confronting a team issue, a broken offer? In your offer process, in your marketing? Leadership gaps. What is it that you know you need to confront and change? Avoidance is leadership debt. Avoidance is leadership debt. Meaning the more you avoid the harsh conversation, the hard conversation, the reality about money, the, the avoiding getting deeper into measuring your KPIs, your key performance indicators, whatever it is that you're avoiding, it's just debt that's stacking up that only you can repay. As you push things down the road instead of, instead of delegation and trust and bring people into your world, all you're doing is stacking up a debt that can only be repaid by you. Oftentimes when we go into businesses and we teach and train the Empire operating system, we're dealing with all the past debts that the leadership has stacked up that only they believe they can answer. Business will collect debts with interest, meaning there is going to be a bottleneck of debt stacked up. Of all the things that you've put off or avoided, it's going to start collecting interest, meaning all of the opportunity cost that you're creating in your business because it's not flowing and fluid. And number three, who am I becoming under pressure? Who am I becoming under pressure? Under pressure, it shows who you really are at your core. Under pressure. Are you more sharp? Are you more directive? Are you more dictatorial or are you more patient? Right, like when pressure happens, are you sharp or are you more patient? Are you more frantic? Is it more, I gotta get this stuff done And I'm just throwing things at the wall, and I'm just trying to move paper, and I'm trying to, you know, flush out these things. Or do you get more prayerful and more introspective under pressure? Are you more frantic or are you more prayerful and introspective? Are you in internal internalizing? Are you taking it in and deciding what the best course of action is? Are you more defensive or are you more decisive? Are you more defensive or are you more decisive? When. When those big pressure moments come, do you have clarity and thoughtfulness and you make decisive decisions, or are you defensive? In all the things that have caused whatever that moment of pressure is, Your business doesn't just produce revenue. It produces a version of you. When you are under pressure, a version of you comes out. And that version of you is that business putting a mirror in front of you and making you see exactly who you are. Now, those around you also see it, but oftentimes when you rise to a position of leadership, they can't express it. So the three questions I've asked so far, I'm gonna ask you one more here at the end. Number one, where am I the bottleneck? Number two, what am I avoiding confronting? Number three, who am I becoming under pressure? And here's the fourth one. Who do I want to be? Who do I want to be? Instead of always looking in the mirror and deciding who you were in the past or who you are in this moment, look at that mirror and decide, who do I want to be in this business? Do I want to be someone who is stable, who's calm, who's emotionally ready for the pressures that are coming? Do I want to be that bedrock that is holding and lifting up my employees? Do I want to be that stable source that. Decide who you want to be? And in that mirror, start shedding the things that are revealed in you that you don't want to be. And start putting in that person that you're staring at in the mirror, that business mirror, the person that you want to be. Be intentional about who you are. In closing, your business is not your enemy. It's your greatest teacher. Your business is not your enemy. It's your greatest teacher. The stress that you're feeling right now, the stress, the pressure, the hardships. It's not punishment. It's the greatest feedback that you could ever receive. Almost all things that are happening in your business are a result of some action that's been taken. Most oftentimes, that action has been directed by you. So it's the Greatest feedback you could ever receive. If you listen, if you adjust, if you mature, the business will begin to grow you. There was often a phrase that I heard for churches, and it was a pastor that said, I won't use my people to grow the church. I'll use the church to grow my people. And I think that that should be said of your business. It's not that you should be using you to grow your business, it's that you should be using your business to grow, grow you. If you listen, adjust, and mature, the business grows with you. I believe that God uses businesses just like he uses money to show us who we are and ultimately who we're becoming. If you will listen and you will look at this mirror, you can not only correct the things that are improper, things that are wrong, but you also can choose the path that you want for who you're going to be. Instead of asking, how do I fix the business? Ask yourself this, what is the business asking me to fix in myself? The business will only grow to the level of the leader who's willing to be exposed and refined. The business will only grow to the level of the leader who is willing to be exposed and refined. Life isn't about conquering all things. Life is about growth. It's about the journey. It's about refinement. Think about Napoleon Bonaparte. I told you the end of his story. The end of his story was a horrible decision. The invasion of Russia that ended up crushing the empire. It would have been a better story had we talked about how Napoleon in his younger years grew, built a system, scaled, did amazing, amazing things, and later on refined himself and became a better leader and then elevated those around him. And there was this wake of these amazing leaders that were in the path and in the, in the toe of all that Napoleon was. And not only was Napoleon a great leader, but he also created other great leaders. And then he has this lineage of leadership. But that's not the story of Napoleon. The story of Napoleon is he grew to great power. He was a brilliant mind, and in the end, his ego got the best of him and it was his great disaster, was his great demise. How will your story end today? Your business is giving you the mirror that tells you what you're ultimately suffering with for the things that need to be refined and the path that you ultimately get to take. And it's your choice. Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast and for listening today. Love to connect with you further and you can connect with me on social media at Eddie Wilson official on any of the social media channels.