How to Achieve Self-Mastery and Become a Better Leader

An entrepreneur who isn't interested in building their leadership skills will struggle to be an entrepreneur for long. Wherever you are in your journey - either starting out or managing a large team of high-performers - the ability to lead is nearly as essential as knowing how to breathe.

If leadership doesn't come naturally, you're not alone. It's easy to look at the entrepreneurs we admire and think that their ability to move people and control results is second nature to them.

I've spent my whole career misunderstanding what leadership meant. During my twenties, I presumed that being a leader is how you appear in front of others. When in reality, I should have focused all of my attention on my own self-awareness. 

What might be tripping you up is a desire to leap immediately to the end result. We want to get right to the point where we're the kick-ass leader we've always wished we were. But that can't happen until you're willing to step into the internal work, first adopting the mindset of a leader before bringing it out into the world.

If you can't lead yourself, you can't lead others. Self-mastery must come first. 

Determining the Circle of Influence

So what is self mastery, exactly? 

I read an interesting take from coach and therapist Vincent Infante, that the first step to self-mastery is understanding what you can and can't control. He referenced Stephen Covey's circle of concern and circle of influence from the 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Too often we stress over things that we have no agency to control. When we do this, we lose control over the elements of our life that we can actually impact.

If we worry about the things that are out of our hands, it's impossible to take leadership over the things we can. As a result, self-mastery begins for those who can draw out their circle of influence and start acting within it.

Infante says that the only things within this circle are our thoughts, feelings, language, behaviors, and actions. Taking these, let's start looking at the ways that successful leaders manage these elements of their mindset.

Taking Accountability

When you think about thoughts, feelings, languages, behaviors, and actions, do you feel like you have control? For most of us, the answer is a resounding no. We all get caught up in the feels, succumb to bad habits, or think negatively about ourselves, at least on occasion.

The trait of a good leader is the ability to understand that you can be in control of these things and you are the one who is responsible for them.

When you say "this person makes me so angry," you're giving away the control of their feelings to another person, keeping them from being the leader they are meant to be.

If the first step to self-mastery is letting go of that which you can't control, the second is taking responsibility for the things that you can.

Put In The Work

It's called self-mastery for a reason. If it were easy to control your thoughts, feelings, languages, behaviors, and actions, everyone would be a fully-in-tune leader all the time. But it takes practice. 

In my own entrepreneurial journey and quest toward self-mastery, I've found having connections with coaches, such as Infante, is instrumental to my progress. Coaching and mentorship allow you to interface with experience, knowledge, and wisdom that would take you years to interface with otherwise. But when push comes to shove, even Infante would tell you that the success of a leader ultimately comes down to the work that an individual is willing to put in.

It's a process of healing from past hurts (from times when we tried to control what we couldn't and were let down). It's sharing our story with a mentor, then using their outside experience to reveal the things that we have the power to change. It's taking accountability for it and putting in work that makes us leaders of our own thoughts, feelings, languages, behaviors, and actions.

It's self-mastery. 

Authority isn't a title. Leadership skills are rarely innate. True control -- whether it be over your emotions, your team, or the condition of your business -- is established when you have put in the work to create a mindset of agency.

People don't want to follow a leaf in the wind -- they want to stand behind a tree that has a firm grasp over things. 

So are you being led by things that you can't control? Are you taking accountability for the things that you can control? It doesn't matter where you are on the road to self mastery. All that matters is that you never give up on walking it.

Sean Kim

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Empower Employees Through a Culture of Ownership: A Guide for Leaders