Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and GOLA giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fell of Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five twenty three. Today's message is simple, but
Speaker 2: it's one of those phrases that leaders forget far too easily.
Speaker 2: Progress is progress, no matter the pace. There's this myth
Speaker 2: in leadership that progress only matters if it's fast, flashy, invisible.
Speaker 2: We've all felt it, the pressure to show results, the
Speaker 2: need to hit milestones, the expectation that success looks like speed.
Speaker 2: But let me tell you something I've learned from years
Speaker 2: of leading teams, managing crisis, and building organizations from the
Speaker 2: ground up. Progress is rarely fast. It's usually slow, uneven,
Speaker 2: and messy. It's a series of half steps, retries, and
Speaker 2: lessons learned the hard way. In leadership, progress sometimes looks
Speaker 2: like keeping the lights on one more day when morale
Speaker 2: is low. It's holding a tough conversation you've been avoiding.
Speaker 2: It's showing up even when you don't feel like it.
Speaker 2: That's still progress, and too many leaders discount it because
Speaker 2: it doesn't look big enough. But the truth is slow
Speaker 2: progress doesn't mean no progress. The ground you cover slowly
Speaker 2: still moves you forward, and that's what counts. Think about
Speaker 2: a plane taxiing on a runway. It's not flying yet,
Speaker 2: it's not in the air, but it's moving slowly in
Speaker 2: the right direction. That's still leadership. Some seasons of leadership
Speaker 2: are takeoff speed, others are taxi speed, but both are
Speaker 2: necessary to get you where you're going. Sometimes your progress
Speaker 2: is obvious, new hires, new contracts, new wins. And sometimes
Speaker 2: your progress is invisible. It's in the discipline, the consistency,
Speaker 2: the decision to not give up today. But let me
Speaker 2: tell you what separates real leaders from the rest. They
Speaker 2: don't measure progress by pace. They measure it by purpose.
Speaker 2: So let's get practical here for a minute. If you're
Speaker 2: in a slow season right now, I want you to
Speaker 2: do something for me. Pull out your notebook or open
Speaker 2: your notes app, and write down three areas where you've
Speaker 2: made progress this month. It doesn't matter how small. Maybe
Speaker 2: you rebuilt trust with someone on your team. Maybe you
Speaker 2: got your inbox down from one thousand to two hundred.
Speaker 2: Maybe you just made it through a week that tried
Speaker 2: to break you. That's progress. But here's the truth. The
Speaker 2: leader who keeps showing up, even slowly, will always beat
Speaker 2: the one who gives up because it's not fast enough.
Speaker 2: We live in a highlight real world. Everyone posts their wins.
Speaker 2: Nobody posts the late nights, the setbacks, or the failures
Speaker 2: that led up to those wins. But behind every viral
Speaker 2: success story is a long list of days where progress
Speaker 2: looked like crawling. Leadership isn't about how fast you can move,
Speaker 2: It's about how long you can keep moving when things
Speaker 2: get heavy. There's a quote I love. Direction is more
Speaker 2: important than speed. Many people are going nowhere fast. Just
Speaker 2: let that sink in for a minute. If you're heading
Speaker 2: the right way, even a slow crawl will still get
Speaker 2: you to your destination. But if your sprint in the
Speaker 2: wrong direction, all you're doing is burning energy. So stop
Speaker 2: beating yourself up over the pace of your progress. Focus
Speaker 2: on the path, focus on consistency, And I have one
Speaker 2: more thought about this. Think about the tortoise and the hair.
Speaker 2: That story has survived thousands of years for a reason.
Speaker 2: It's not just about speed. It's about endurance. Focus in
Speaker 2: the refusal to quit in leadership, it's the tortoise mindset
Speaker 2: that builds legacies. Fast winds fade, sustainable habits last. Every
Speaker 2: slow step compounds into something bigger later. You just have
Speaker 2: to stay in motion to get there. Because the truth is,
Speaker 2: no one ever looks back and says I wish I
Speaker 2: had moved faster. They look back and say I'm glad
Speaker 2: I never s stopped. So whether you're crawling, walking, or running,
Speaker 2: keep moving. The ground you cover slowly still counts. This
Speaker 2: has been the seven minute Leadership podcast, and I thank
Speaker 2: you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com