A lot of literature about leadership is focused on the ways previous leaders achieved their success, or how consultants suggest assisting leaders.

The literature thus has a strong focus on methods, skill development, or other ways to help people become smarter, more skilled, and more informed.

It fits the systems of scaling, growing, or adding as well as the aspiration to make things better.

And it follows the idea that other people’s success is available to oneself.

It’s a source of FOMO, the fear of missing out.

There is no doubt, that multiple people can experience success, nor that sometimes it’s based on their ability to follow someone else’s path. It can also be a quite motivating path as it comes along with the idea that one only has to become better and that it can be learned. It’s a pleasurable fantasy of being an intelligent, willing to learn, and open person.

It focuses on the future and leaves the present capabilities aside. And it leaves an escape. One of having tried or having done whatever was possible. Leaving failure to external circumstances.

Another approach, and yes, still a method, is to consider what is immediately possible and available. However, it might not feel as good and be more challenging. It asks one to step into the existing learning, make oneself aware of it, and requires a critical look at oneself. It’s an approach that asks to let go of some of one’s habits and perceptions of self.

It shifts responsibilities to oneself and leads to questions inviting oneself to reflect on how to be less dumb, less greedy, and less impatient. That is, less selfish and more realistic.

Maybe it’s worth following Napoleon’s idea of genius. He suggested that military genius might be about being “the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.”