6d • Daily Reflections
Lead Yourself First
“In training the excellence of another, a man must necessarily train his own.”
— Seneca
There is something demanding about helping another person grow.
You cannot teach patience without practicing patience.
You cannot encourage discipline while continually abandoning your own.
You cannot ask someone to face difficulty with courage while running from every uncomfortable moment in your own life.
Seneca understood that developing another person inevitably exposes the condition of our own character.
The teacher is being trained too.
The leader who asks for accountability must become more accountable. The parent teaching restraint must practice restraint. The friend offering perspective must examine his own thinking. And the person in recovery who reaches back to help someone else is reminded of the principles that helped him move forward.
Service has a way of sharpening us.
Not because we need to become perfect before we can help anyone, but because helping another person gives us another reason to live what we say we believe.
That is one of the quiet gifts of being useful.
We begin by trying to strengthen someone else and discover that the work is strengthening us too.
Resilience grows the same way.
We pass along what has helped us. We encourage someone who is struggling. We model steadiness when things become difficult. And each time we do, the principles become a little more deeply rooted in our own lives.
The lesson is simple:
Don’t just tell people what strength looks like.
Practice it beside them.
Daily Practice:
Think of someone you are trying to encourage, lead, teach, sponsor, mentor, or simply support.
Ask yourself:
Am I practicing what I’m encouraging in them?
Then choose one quality you hope to strengthen in that person and practice it yourself today.
Sometimes the person we are helping to become better is quietly helping us become better too.
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Lead Yourself First
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I help people get sober. Recovery is the foundation. Resilience is the goal. Sobriety, fitness, service, community, and purpose. Win the next 24.
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