Transcription
I'm going to share with you the three leverage skills that top leaders are mastering in 2025. It's important to understand that the rules of the games have changed. The skills that got you here won't get you to your next opportunity. Trying to get to your next career level by using today's skill set is kind of like navigating to your destination by using a paper map in this world, while everybody else has GPS and real-time directions.
Most professionals were taught how to work harder and how to improve their technical skills. Now, the new game is more about developing a different type of consciousness, one that is not taught in school and one that is not taught in most workplaces. After having coached and mentored thousands of executives in over 50 countries, I saw a pattern. I noticed that the top performers who stay relevant and competitive in today's workplace are the ones who develop multi-layers. They layer on their capabilities so that each new skill multiplies their value. That is leverage. So if you desire to achieve, if you desire to grow, if you desire to advance your career, these are the most important leverage skills to focus on.
Before we dive in, I want to share something special with you. Over the years, many of you have shared with me that you'd like to access some of my trainings, but maybe you weren't ready to join a coaching program, or maybe you wanted to experience my approach before making a bigger commitment. That's why I created Mastery Insights Academy, where I'm releasing some of my most proven, impactful trainings that top leaders have used to achieve exponential growth, and you can access the same ones at your own pace wherever you are. So click the link in the description below and browse through proven courses that will help you take you to your next level.
Leverage skill number one, impromptu sovereignty in the age of AI. We are in the age of AI, and more and more people are leveraging it to write their emails, to script their presentations, to even write their apologies. And working with AI is okay, but you've got to realize the neurological costs associated with that. You see, when it comes to communicating, eventually, you will have to talk and connect human to human. And AI cannot possibly replace your judgment, it cannot possibly replace the way that you build trust with another person, and it can't replace the way you connect with them. And move them into purposeful action. You see, when you show up, and when you really are speaking and connecting human to human, how you show up and how you communicate says a lot about you. It says a lot about your confidence, and as a result of that, I wouldn't leave that chance. And this is where it's important to understand that the essence of communication requires thoughtful deliberation. It requires critical thinking. It requires sharp discernment. All of these things, I do not advise you to outsource to AI.
What starts out as being convenient and fast is now turning into a dependence on shaping their identity, and therefore rewiring their brain. So what do I mean by that? If you don't use it, you lose it. If you are outsourcing your thinking and speaking, those areas of the brain involved in speaking and involved in articulation, if you're outsourcing that to AI, you start to lose your own identity, your own sense of how you would say things, and you start not trusting your own words because you don't know what your own words are. Sure enough, everything that AI will spit out at you, in terms of refining your emails, tweaking your presentations, and making your scripts sound perfect and articulate, I mean, all that sounds great. But you gotta understand that if they're not your words, then you start to trust your words less and less, and therefore that starts to affect your self-confidence, that starts to affect your ability to connect with other people, and more importantly, it stops your ability to develop your own communication skills. So if you're already struggling with impromptu conversations, which a lot of people are, you gotta understand that those unscripted moments are the ones that speak the most about you. And having effective communication, even when there are conflicting opinions, when there are really complex dynamics, being able to think on your feet and communicate precisely and confidently is the mark of a true leer, and that cannot be replaced with AI.
Leverage skill number two, the influence alchemy. Let's face it, in 2025, everyone has access to the same tools, the same information, and technical skills are important, but it's getting more and more difficult to differentiate yourself. But one of the key differentiators is the skill of influence, and influence is absolutely a skill that you can learn. Now let me offer you my definition of influence. Influence is the art and science of being able to communicate your convictions so strongly and so well that other people begin to accept your convictions and they change their beliefs and behaviors to champion your cause. You see, it is a reality distortion field in neurobiology. They adopt your idea thinking it was their idea and they champion your cause naturally, not through coercion, not through manipulation. This is an art and a science. The science piece is understanding how to read people, understanding why people do the things that they do, understanding human behaviors. The science piece also includes being able to make the right decisions, making better decisions. It also includes being able to navigate complexities and navigate through challenges. That is the science piece of influence. The art piece is now on understanding their behaviors and the other person you're trying to influence so deeply that you're able to connect with them human to human, build trust, and also build solidarity. That's the art piece. And when you put them all together, influence is a skill that can be taught.
Think about it this way. In your life and in your career, think about all the things that are meaningful and desirable to you. You want to have meaningful and equitable relationships at work. You want to have less challenges in relationships. You want more people to say yes to you and your ideas. And that's exactly where influence comes in. The possibility and the probability and then the inevitability of your ideas come into fruition and getting the support and the resources that you know you need to make a difference, to make your most valuable contribution, that's where influence comes in. You see, while others spray information out there and pray for recognition, instead, you will be activating mirror neurons with precision-timed authenticity. And that is the power of developing the skill of influence. And in doing so, you get to build your own confidence, you get to build greater trust in yourself, and people start to see you as a leader.
Leverage skill number three, self-mastery as anti-fragility. Self-mastery is the foundation of all exponential growth. And the reason why is because changes are happening relentlessly. There's always new roles, there's always new challenges, there's always new opportunities. And these changes happen almost overnight in cascades. So in order to thrive through these relentless changes, we need to develop anti-fragility, which is the ability to grow stronger through chaos. Not just merely to endure it, but to grow stronger. You see, anti-fragility emerges from self-governance. And self-governance can be had in all aspects of your life. You can have self-governance in your career, your vocation in your business, and you can also have it in all the other aspects of life that are important to you. If you neglect just one of these areas of life without self-mastery in one area of life, you're inviting chaos to come and exploit that area.
Self-mastery begins with ruthless self-knowledge in three key areas. Your purpose, your priorities, and your proclivities. Your purpose is the why behind why you do what you're doing. And it gives energy to your effort. Your priorities are the things that are most important to you because focus gives power and you're eliminating distractions. The third one are your proclivities, which are your innate strengths. And when you build upon your strengths, you can turn your weakness into make them irrelevant. And this area also includes any biases that you may have that you got to keep in check. You see, when you understand these three things, the triad, that's when you are getting to the root cause of things without this triad, you're just managing symptoms.
Self-mastery is your biological OS upgrade for accelerating change. It's not a mindset hack. A lot of people use that term and it is such a misnomer and you can't hack your way into self-mastery. It's not about that. It's about rewiring your primal response to uncertainty, your primal response. So what does that mean? It means that when you're faced with uncertainty and chaos, there's two things that can happen. Your primal response could be an amygdala hijack where your emotions take over, your unconscious programming takes over, and you don't even realize it because it's unconscious and you start reacting to the world. Another primal response could be, when you're faced with uncertainty and chaos, that your executive cortex takes over and your cortex is the one that is rationaled and reasoned and well thought out and thought through. And that's when you can turn fear into focused action. And this is exactly what antifragility does.
Antifragility is when you can really stop reacting to the world and you could start orchestrating it. You can always recognize antifragility by its signature. Decisions are made through core values instead of fleeting emotions. There's clarity and momentum, even among chaos and uncertainty. And setbacks serve as clarifying leverage points. Individuals with antifragility don't react to setbacks, but they dissect them and they use them to fly higher. And when all this happens, when taken together, you become a force of nature. You are adaptable, even unshakable. You are proactive among volatility. You see, because when you master yourself, you're able to master the opportunity and the ability to turn chaos into the leverage that you need to get to your next level.