The Gift of Seeing Beyond Pain

My therapist recently said something that startled me. He observed that my mind could accept pain and still find the silver lining. At first, I thought it was simply optimism. But the more I reflected, the more I realized this was not about optimism at all. It was about leadership.

Because storms will always come. Phones get lost. Leaders leave. Hearts harden. Teams stumble. And yet, in the dark cloud, there is always a thin thread of silver. The question is not whether we see it. The question is whether we turn that silver into purpose.

Parenting in Chaos: A Living Parable

A few months ago, I brought my children to China. I knew what I was signing up for. Boys will be boys. They would run wild, lose things, and create chaos. And yes, they did. They lost a phone. They tested my patience.

But instead of reacting with anger, I saw it as an opportunity. Losing a phone became a lesson in responsibility. Chaos became a lesson in cost. I had already factored in the price of bringing them, and the price was worth it.

This is leadership. You do not control every storm. But you can turn storms into classrooms.

The Quiet Risk of Leadership Stagnation

In organizations, the greatest danger is not the outright failure of leaders. It is the quiet stagnation of leaders who believe that avoiding damage is good enough. They tell themselves, “At least I didn’t cause harm.” But not causing harm is not the same as leading.

Jim Collins warned in Good to Great that “good is the enemy of great.” Mediocrity is often harder to uproot than failure because it hides behind safety. John Maxwell’s Law of the Lid reminds us that leadership ability sets the ceiling for an entire team’s effectiveness. When leaders stop stretching others, they stop multiplying impact.

I say this not to accuse others, but to remind myself. Leadership failure does not always come in obvious headlines. Sometimes it comes quietly, in the best years of someone’s life never being elevated.

Respecting Elders, Refusing Mediocrity

I wrestle with a paradox. On one hand, I am taught to respect elders. On the other, I hope Stellar will be respected for the way we multiply leadership, not for titles or tenure.

Respecting elders does not mean repeating their mistakes. Culture must always come before strategy. Identity must always come before position. The quiet risk of leadership is to grow old without growing wise. And I remind myself often: I do not want to become the leader who looks back and realizes I never stretched anyone, including myself.

Circles, Pharaohs, and Hardened Hearts

Stephen Covey spoke of the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. When we fixate on concerns outside our control, our influence shrinks. When we nurture what we can influence, our influence grows. The grass is greener where you water it.

This principle is ancient. Pharaoh’s pride hardened his heart against Moses, and his rigidity led to ruin. Pride calcifies into stone. Leadership hardened by ego suffocates growth.

The truth is, there is a Pharaoh in all of us. At times, my own heart hardens. My challenge is not only to see the Pharaoh in others, but to guard against the Pharaoh in me.

Hiring Like Planting Trees

In Stellar we often speak of fit: person-job fit like finding the right shoe, person-to-person fit like choosing a reliable groupmate in university, role fit like musicians in an orchestra, and potential fit like planting fruit trees.

The first three are visible. The fourth requires faith. When you plant seeds, it makes little sense at first. You water, you wait, you see no fruit. But one day, roots deepen and branches bear. This is leadership. You plant even when results are not immediate.

As Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Planting people is not about quick harvests. It is about aligning them with purpose, values, and trajectory.

Silver Linings, Not Shortcuts

My therapist surprised me again at the end of our session. He did not ask for a takeaway from today. Instead, he asked me to recall the takeaway from the last session. I struggled. I could not remember. The week had been too full.

Eventually, I remembered. The lesson was that everything ends. Even the people we love most will one day leave us. That truth could crush us, but it could also free us. It reminded me to capture stories, document family legacy, and celebrate the days we have.

The silver lining is not in avoiding the ending. It is in treasuring the journey.

Leadership Is Not Calm Alone

When key leaders left recently, my team was shocked. I stayed calm. What once would have taken me a week to recover from now took two days. That felt like growth.

But here is my blind spot: maturity is not only about quicker recovery. It is about deeper presence. Teams do not just need to see a calm leader. They need to feel a present leader. Calm alone can become distance. True maturity is calm with connection.

Inconvenient Love

One night I cycled with a brilliant team member who had lost his way. The next day, my team strategized over lunch on how to help him. We decided to care in inconvenient ways.

That meant staying up late to talk. Sacrificing sleep. Pushing through introversion. Choosing relational investment when efficiency would have been easier.

This is the essence of servant leadership. Not convenience, but inconvenience. Not comfort, but contribution. Love is not efficient, but it is transformative.

Consumption Without Contribution

During COVID, the earth began healing in just weeks as human activity slowed. It was a reminder: the best thing for the planet, in purely ecological terms, would be no humans at all. Yet here we are, consuming resources every day.

If we consume without contribution, we are in debt to life itself. From the moment we were born, others have invested in us: parents, teachers, friends, colleagues. To live without impact is to waste their investment.

Mother Teresa once said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Consumption without contribution forgets our belonging. Leadership begins by remembering.

The Multiplying Power of Seeds

Gallup reports that 70 percent of employee engagement depends on managers. McKinsey notes that companies with strong leadership pipelines are 1.5 times more likely to outperform financially. Deloitte found that while 86 percent of leaders see leadership gaps as their greatest barrier, only 10 percent feel ready to address them.

The statistics tell a story. Leadership is not about heroic individuals. It is about multiplying seeds. Spark people with vision. Shape culture before strategy. Strengthen through daily growth. Send them out to multiply others.

The natural law is simple. What you plant, you will harvest. If you plant nothing, you harvest nothing. If you plant in silver linings, you will one day harvest in golden legacies.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

In the end, what is the true opposite of leadership? It is not following. Following is honorable when the mission is worthy. The true opposite of leadership is self-preservation.

Silver linings are not meant to be hoarded. They are meant to be shared, stretched, multiplied. To preserve yourself is to waste what others invested in you. To live inconveniently for others is to lead.

As Viktor Frankl wrote, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’” The silver lining is never the absence of the storm. It is the presence of purpose within it.