First Man In: Leading from the Front

by Ant Middleton

This is why I always tell people, don’t try to better your life, don’t try to better your work, don’t try to better your relationships. Don’t try to be rich, happy, successful. Don’t do any of that. You’ll be wasting your time. It doesn’t work. Nothing will change, and you’ll get disillusioned and burned out. Instead, you should work at trying to better who you are as a character. Be the best version of you that you can imagine, and I guarantee that all the rest of it will

just fall naturally into place.

Fear of taking action is fear of the unknown. True leaders don’t underestimate the potential destructive power of what lies behind that door, but neither do they let that stop them bursting through it, as long as it’s done carefully and intelligently.

Your enemy is fuel. He is energy. Hatred can be the most powerful motivator there is. In life you’ll always come across jealous and negative people, or people who simply don’t believe in you. Every single one of them is a Duracell battery. Plug them in. Give yourself that edge by using their own electricity against them. Success isn’t only the most satisfying form of revenge – it’s the only positive one there is.

A lesson is a lesson. No matter how it comes to you, even if it’s in an apparently negative package, take that lesson as a positive.

These lessons never stop. If you’re paying attention, you’ll have a learning moment every day.

Make a habit of spending two minutes before turning your lights out, every night, working out what the lesson of the day has been.

Stand apart from the crowd. You’re a leader, not a follower.

But never forget – if you have your sights set at the top, you need to resist coming across as just another dog in the pack.

You quietly decide to deal, another day, with the sudden understanding that you’re so unhappy that, at some point soon, you’re going to have to grab the steering wheel and yank your life in a radically new direction.

You don’t need to be a leader to lead. Very often in life you’ll find yourself in a situation in which the person officially in charge is not doing the greatest job. If you decide to take matters into your own hands, you need to do it cleverly. A certain skill for manipulation is often what’s called for. You need to get under that leader’s skin, win their trust and discover what they want. As long as they think they’re getting it, you’re free to steer the ship.

I knew the smartest approach would be to keep the competition internal; make the battle solely with myself.

The smart people in the room aren’t the ones giving it out – they’re the ones taking it all in.

If I could train myself to be one of the most elite soldiers in the world, I could train myself to be one of the best civilians.

The only true war you’ll ever fight is with your own mind.

Waiting is a weapon. It’s human nature to want to steam straight in, especially for highly motivated people. It takes a stronger, smarter person to have the courage to wait. If it’s done as part of an overall plan, waiting can be a deadly and vastly underappreciated tool.

If you tackle enough problems, and tackle them well, then you too will inevitably become a leader.

courage.The first step is the hardest.

You should stand in front of the mirror and be brutally honest with yourself.

Step two. Blame yourself.

Looking backwards will not take you forwards.

Step three. Fix yourself. Stop doing those things you’ve identified as flaws.