Thanks for listening to The Upstream Leader Podcast. In the next few months, firms across the country will be flooded with tax season madness, so don’t wait to get your firm’s development plans in place. If your team is looking to strengthen leadership skills, elevate client service, or build a stronger firm culture, Upstream Academy has a full slate of programs ready for your firm, from our leadership academies, NMA, ELA and APA, to the Career Development Series and our 25th Anniversary HeadWaters Conference, there’s something for everyone on your team. Register early to ensure your firm won’t miss out on vital talent development. Once the busy season kicks into high gear, take your firm’s development even further with the Upstream Academy Network’s program discounts, year-round resources and ongoing development opportunities.
Set your team up for a successful year. Visit UpstreamAcademy.com to register for all programs. That’s UpstreamAcademy.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to The Upstream Leader. My name is Jeremy Clopton. Glad to be with you here today for a solo episode. We’re going to be talking about something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, working with a variety of professionals and working with my coach as well, and that is the difference between “becoming” and “being.” I hear a lot of the same phrases from leaders in conversations. They sound a lot like “the work we are going to be doing,” I am “working to become someone who does that,” or “the leader I want to be when I get this figured out.” All of those statements are great. It’s meaningful, they have intention behind them, they are not inherently bad, they are very well intended. The problem with all of these phrases is the mindset behind them. When we are focused so much on who we are becoming or what we will one day be doing, our mindset becomes incredibly passive. What it does is it pushes leadership and our ability to be into the future, into some distant time that we will hopefully one day get to.
And I catch myself doing this as well; I am always thinking about who I am becoming, who I want to be, all of those things. It was actually doing that that helped me realize I need to stop “becoming” who I want to be, and instead just start being that person—start being that person in the present. Am I going to be perfect? No. But I am going to be much better at it if I start being, rather than thinking that one day I am going to become. Because when we talk to ourselves that way, this future state, we delay the behaviors and the actions that are required to get us there. We keep telling ourselves we will start acting differently one day, once we are more ready, once we have more clarity, once we have more confidence. But the reality is if we do not start taking those actions now, we cannot become that person later. That’s really what I want to talk about over the course of this episode, is how do we figure out how to take those actions now?
I do want to clarify: It is important to reflect on the individual that you want to be. It is important to reflect, and think, and plan about “future you.” You all know that I am a huge fan of continuous learning, continuous growth and development, and we cannot do that intentionally if we are not thinking about the future. So I am not arguing that we shouldn’t think about the future. What I want to tackle here is the fact that we cannot let the reflection and the planning and the futuristic thinking become all of the work that we do, because when all of our energy goes into who we are going to become—thinking about it, reflecting on it, planning it—rather than the work that we’re doing, we lose sight of the present. We lose the opportunity to actually be the person or the leader that we want to be, and it’s because being that person requires action today, not some future clarity that we might one day get.
And I get it. It is tough. I struggle with this from time to time, and it is because I am very much a future-thinking individual. “Futuristic” has always been one of my strengths in StrengthsFinder. I am constantly thinking about next month, next quarter, next year, thinking ahead. What I have realized in doing that is if I am not careful, I can think so much about the future that I miss today, and I think so much about who I want to become that I forget to be who I am today and to take the action to be, rather than reflecting and thinking about becoming. So what I want to do over the course of this episode is really help you to shift from reflection to action; to figure out, how do you find this better balance between some future thinking and present behavior, and really help you understand how to be the leader you want to be, rather than constantly planning for the leader that you want to become.
To do that, I am going to start off with just a little bit of a pattern that I see people fall into, and it’s one that we think is great, we can justify it, but it’s a problem. When leaders get stuck in this future thinking, they start to become less effective in the present, and it’s because when they start thinking that they don’t gain their strength until some future date, tomorrow, maybe—a future thinker’s favorite day—when they don’t get their strength until tomorrow, they can’t use their power today, and that is really problematic for leaders. And it’s not just leaders, if you say, oh, Jeremy, I’m not yet a leader. For starters, let’s be, instead of becoming. But you can’t use your power today if you don’t believe that you’re going to gain any strength until tomorrow. And what happens is when you think in that way, you adopt that mindset, now all of a sudden you start to believe that you don’t have the ability, the opportunity, the authority to start to change things in the present, because that ability is something you’re going to get at some point in the future. And when you do that, you undermine your ability to be effective today.
As you undermine that, we fall into this trap that I’m going to call productive procrastination: It looks like we’re doing great things. It looks like responsibility and continuous learning, because what we do is we seek more information, more training, more context, more content, more, more, more, more, more, more examples. And we think if we can just get all of that, then I will be the leader that can solve the problems. But the problem is that never comes. We keep thinking about all of these things, we keep seeking all of that. We end up waiting for perfect information instead of acting on the information that we already have. Don’t get me wrong: I want you to be a learner. I want you to grow and learn continuously. But if all you ever do is gain new information and you never act on it, all that learning’s wasted.
And leadership doesn’t work that way. You don’t become a great leader by thinking about how you will one day be a great leader. You become a great leader by doing the things that leaders need to do to get the experiences that will make you great. When you don’t do that, you are costing yourself, your team, your firm, a lot of progress, because instead of solving all of the problems that we need to solve today, now we push those problems out into the future: “Oh, when I’m better, I’ll be able to solve that. When I have all that training, I’ll be able to solve that. Once I’m a better leader, I’ll be able to solve that.” Here’s the problem: those problems will continue to grow. Those issues will continue to grow and stack, and unfortunately, if we’re not taking action, we’re just learning new information, all of those issues and problems, they stack up faster than our development will ever keep up.
This shows up a lot in people development. Simple example: In people development, I hear a lot of folks that, “Oh, well I just need to get better at feedback and coaching. When I’m better at feedback, when I’m better at coaching, I’ll be able to do this, I’ll be able to do that.” They don’t feel confident, so they just wait and they think, “Oh, one day I’m going to read another book on communication. I’m going to get better at communication and feedback.” They get more training. They get scripts on how to do things. More certainty about, “Oh, in this moment you’ll say this exact thing.” But the problem is that exact moment probably doesn’t come. The reality is the best way to get better at feedback is to start giving feedback. Don’t get me wrong, if you feel like you don’t have the knowledge or the skill to even do that, yeah, learn something. But as soon as you learn, apply it. Go to your team and say, “Hey, I need you to know I recognize I’m not great at feedback. I’m working on that, but I’m going to keep giving you feedback along the way so that I can get better.” That’s what leadership is, that’s what growth is, that’s what being is. You’re being someone who values growth and honesty rather than simply saying that I can’t do it yet because I’m not yet good enough, you’ve got to learn along the way.
That brings us to really what distinguishes between “becoming” and “being.” At its core, the difference is mindset. A “becoming” mindset is one that is constantly focused on the future. It’s about what you’re going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, next quarter, how you’ll eventually be able to show up and be the best version of yourself that you can be, eventually one day, but definitely not today. What that looks like in leadership oftentimes is a lack of confidence, avoiding situations where you don’t yet feel equipped to handle them. Realistically, you start outsourcing the responsibility of today to your future self. “Well, one day I’ll take care of this, one day.”
“Being” isn’t that way at all. “Being” is taking ownership for the present. It’s stepping into the difficult situations that you know you’re not necessarily ready for and fully acknowledging you may not yet be ready for them, but recognizing action is what matters. It’s recognizing you’ve got to do the hard work, And it’s a bit of a paradox, I get that, and I love the “man in the arena” quote by Theodore Roosevelt. I know some of you know me well enough that I have a poster of that in my office, and I love that quote where it’s not the critic who counts, it’s the man in the arena—that’s the very short version, you can look up the quote. We typically think about that quote in terms of other people: The critics versus the doers. They’re the ones criticizing, I’m the one doing. But I like to apply that internally. When we’re in that becoming mindset, the future state, let’s be honest, we’re the critic. We point out what we don’t yet have, we explain to ourselves why we’re not ready, we tell ourselves, “Oh, we’ll be able to do it better later, and as a result, we stay out of the arena,” because that’s super uncomfortable and we don’t want that. But when we are in a being mindset, we’re in the arena, we’re doing the hard work. We own the full version of who we are today and commit to doing the work anyway, even if we don’t feel like we’re ready.
There is no avoidance in the arena, there is only action. Is it uncomfortable? Oh yeah. Is it messy? You better believe it. But it’s also incredibly authentic because it’s real and it’s you where you’re at, being and growing along the way. When we choose to be who we say we want to become, what we do is we pull that future, that future self into the present by taking action. Where do I see this the most in firms? Typically, it’s when you’ve got to lead a change initiative or when you’ve got to make some really decisive calls, right? You’ve got to make that really, really difficult decision. When we approach those moments—change initiatives and really important decisions, as someone who’s becoming good at change or decision making or becoming good at leadership—what we do is we typically stall out. The decisions aren’t real decisive, change efforts typically fail because there’s not really full commitment, we don’t see it all the way through the end.
But when we show up in those moments as someone who is being a leader, we move forward much more decisively. It’s not that we believe that we have every perfect answer or all the information. What we know, though, is that we’re going to learn and adapt along the way, so nothing fails. We may make mistakes, we have issues, but we’re going to commit and we’re going to show up and take action. That’s where the mindset of being shows up in behavior. It shows up the most when things get really uncomfortable, when someone’s in those awkward moments where it’s an incredibly difficult decision. Maybe it’s a situation where they’ve got to have an uncomfortable conversation.
When you are being the person that you’re thinking about becoming, when you pull that into the present and you start being that person, you don’t avoid those difficult situations, those hard decisions, those uncomfortable conversations. Instead, you enter into those moments with intentionality. You may not enter perfectly, you may not even feel ready, but you do go in with intentionality. And you’re also going to look to get some feedback in it because you recognize, I am being the leader that I want to be, and I may not be great yet. I may still be learning, so I’m going to solicit feedback along the way. It may be in the midst of it that you get that feedback, and that’s what allows you to grow and learn in the moment. You don’t wait until you feel like you’re ready to take action; instead, you take action and then improve while you’re in the midst of it.
Another key difference between becoming and being is where leaders place their focus. Strong leaders are clear about where they should focus: what they can control and what they can’t. Leaders can control decisions, leaders can control communication, leaders can’t control how others react. They can influence it through their decisions, their communication, and their follow-through, but they can’t control how others react and they don’t pretend that they can either. Being a leader means doing what needs to be done, making the decisions, while recognizing and remembering that all of those business decisions that you’re making, those actions that you’re taking, have to be executed with people, and people have emotions. That is so important. You see leaders that are thinking about becoming someone who can do that. They don’t want to make those decisions because they don’t want to have those conversations. They don’t want to have to deal with that. They think that everything has to be under their control. But instead, when you are being, you are willing to say, “You know what? I know what I can control and I’m going to work to take control over those things, and then I’m going to respond and react where needed with the things that I can’t control, with the decisions and the communication that I can.”
We know so often when we are becoming, rather than being, because we start to tell ourselves some stories. And this becoming versus being paradox, it shows up in the areas that make us uncomfortable. I can’t say for you what that area is—it’s different for every individual. For some, it’s when they have to make a tough decision. “Oh wait, I’m becoming the leader that can do that. I’m going to wait. I’m not going to do it yet.” Maybe it’s having a difficult conversation. Maybe it’s taking on too much responsibility. Maybe it’s avoiding all of these things altogether. We’re telling ourselves, “I’m avoiding it because one day I’ll become the leader that can do that, but until then, I need to avoid it.” When we can recognize that, we can pull that action to the present and say, “It’s uncomfortable, I’m not ready, but I’m going to be the leader that tackles that. It may not be pretty, it may not be perfect, but am taking that action.” That starts with self-awareness. You have to know where your discomfort lives because that is likely the area where you’re becoming rather than being. And again, that delay, “I’m not going to do it yet, I’m not going to do it yet,” it doesn’t mean that you’re being reflective and thoughtful, it means that you’re productively procrastinating. You’re really just procrastinating, aren’t you? It’s a nicer way to say “procrastinating” in productive procrastination—we are putting off, we are avoiding what we should be doing today.
So what I want to do is I want to leave you with a question: What current issue are you delegating to your future self? I want you to think about that a minute. What current issue are you delegating to your future self? If you’re honest with yourself, that’s the question that will surface where you’re using “becoming” as a form of procrastination; where you’re planning, you’re thinking, you’re reflecting instead of being. And then the solution for that is actually quite simple. It’s not easy by any stretch, but it is fairly simple, I’d say. Once you understand the issue that you’re currently delegating to your future self, I want you to ask a second question, and that is this: If I were already being the leader that I say that I want to become, what would I do in the next week to address that issue? I’ll say it again. If I were already being the leader I say I want to become, what would I do in the next week to address this issue?
You don’t have to have a full plan, you don’t have to have an entire perfect approach. I’m looking for you to take one meaningful action, so that instead of waiting to become someone that can deal with the issue, you start being someone that deals with that issue. It can be major, it can be minor, but I need you to take an action. Maybe it’s initiating a conversation you have been avoiding, making a decision that you just keep putting off. Maybe you need to set a boundary and enforce that boundary that you know you need to put into place. This is where you move from intention to action, moving from becoming to being. We’re not going to wait for perfect clarity, we’re going to create clarity through action. Being a leader, being successful, does not mean that you have it all figured out. It means that you are willing to show up for yourself, to enter the arena, to take action, to learn, to adapt. Often the things that you are putting off while you are becoming someone are the things that will actually develop you into that individual that you want to become the most. So with that, I want you to stop delegating leadership to your future self. If leadership matters, action cannot wait. Be who you want to become—today.
