Leadership That Actually Scales

Leadership is not a title, it is a choice you make when you decide to go first and bring people with you. Marc Hildebrand and Curtis Gray dig into what leadership actually looks like for creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs who are building a vision and trying to manifest without guilt. If you have ever told yourself “I am not really a leader” because you are a solo operator, a parent at home, or someone who prefers quiet over crowds, we challenge that story and show why influence is already happening around you.

We also get specific about introvert leadership. Being an introvert does not mean you cannot speak, sell, lead a room, or run a team. It means you recharge differently. The real skill is learning how to show up with intention, provide value, then step back to recover so your energy stays strong. From there we break down a core distinction that changes everything: bosses try to control, leaders try to understand. When people feel controlled, they do the minimum. When people feel understood, they buy in.

A major thread is emotional regulation in leadership, especially the moment between a trigger and your response. We talk reacting versus responding, using a pattern interrupt, and Curtis shares his “cardboard cutout” mindset to stop taking other people’s behavior personally. Then we zoom out to scaling a business: you cannot work harder forever, so you build a team with complementary strengths and you ask better questions instead of making assumptions.

If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who is building something, and leave a review so more leaders find it. 

What is one place in your life where you can replace an assumption with a question?

If you'd like to reach out to Marc or Curt, here are the links!

Marc: ModernLeadership.us 

Curt: CurtisGray.net 

If you would like to go deeper, join the KLS Inner Circle!

Transcript

Welcome And What We Build Here

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Lux Manifest the Podcast, where we empower people and inspire Kane. I'm Mark Elderbrand. I'm the founder of Modern Leadership Coaching. And I'm Curtis Gray, founder of Kane Legacy Studios. And we're here to help you manifest without guilt. Let's go.

Why Leadership Matters For Creators

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yo, welcome back, man. How are you doing? I am doing amazing. I've been waiting for us to get on episode number two, and I've been getting messages from some of the people who are listening, and they're like, what's going on here? So I'm excited, bro. I'm excited. And I know you shared some of the details of of uh today's uh podcast with me, but I'm curious uh why this came up for you and what uh what's the desire to talk about this today?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

The first thing I want to say is um I noticed after listening to our last episode, man, I had a sore throat. I had really, a really hoarse voice on that episode. Really? I don't know if it was good for the podcast or not. I didn't get any complaints, but I have been hearing from a lot of people who want to hear the next episode. So I'd like to talk to you today about a topic that you're very, very familiar with. And that is leadership. Leadership. So leadership begins with understanding. And one thing I had to learn to understand over the course of building my own business is why leadership? That was the first question. It's like if I'm a one-man band, one-man show, why should I even be worried about leadership? Like I know how to lead myself. Right? And I learned a lot from you on that topic. One of the things is that if I ever intend to scale, I have got to be ready to build a team. And in order to build a team and run it effectively, I have to be a good leader. And there's a difference between being a leader and a boss. So that is why I feel like this is a perfect topic for Lux Manifest, because we are teaching people not only to manifest their dreams without guilt, but how to build the vehicle to do so. And in order to do that in the scale, you have to be able to lead a team. Yep. So what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

I just

You Are A Leader Already

SPEAKER_00 2:12

want to start off with just the whole idea around leadership. I know a lot of people in this space, they don't consider themselves leaders, but if you slow down and you just think about it, right? Whether you're putting out, you know, DJ mixes or you're putting out YouTube videos or you're putting out like inspiration stuff or you're coaching, like what you're basically asking people to do is to follow what it is that you're putting out into the world. And and we all need leaders because we need people who are like not only willing to go the way, but they're also willing to show other people the way as well. And what we're doing here is being able to lead people more effectively. And yes, it starts with us being able to lead ourselves, but I I see so many people discount themselves and say they're not leaders. I work with a lot of like, let's say, stay-at-home moms who don't think they're leaders. I'm like, you are the most important leaders on the planet, to be honest with you, right? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

It's like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

And and people tend to like not think of themselves as leaders. And I think it could be, you know, because they're a little bit nervous about calling themselves a leader and what does that actually mean? But leaders are just people who go first. They're willing to go first, they're willing to go often, and they're willing to show some people the path once they've actually been able to travel down it, right? And no matter where you are in your life, there's people that you lead. There's people who are looking up to you, there's people who influence you. And so why not get better at something that is already happening that you're gonna be able to utilize and make a bigger impact in the world? So that's what comes up for me for leadership.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I love it. I love it, and it's so true. And it's it's crazy that you're a great leader, and you know, people say that I am as well. I'm working on it. We're all working on it. I'm working on it.

Introverts Can Lead Without Faking It

SPEAKER_01 3:44

But um, I'm gonna divulge something about us that people may not know. You and I are both introverts, which means we do not generally gravitate towards big groups of gatherings of people. We always we tend to want to lean towards doing things ourselves. Uh we see ourselves as the best possible expert in what we're doing. Well, nobody's gonna do it as good as us or as fast as us. So we're gonna do it ourselves. And it's like we're not the typical what you might say, like people persons. Is that uh good way? Yes. People persons. But but um share with the people like first of all, do you agree that you're an introvert? You better, because I know you.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I know force you to give out your business cards. People people say I'm a recovering introvert, but yes, like uh but when I think about introvert versus extrovert, I just think about like uh when I recharge, I typically recharge on my own. I need time to, you know, recover, sleep, rest, be by myself, and that helps me to recharge to be able to get back into those environments. And I just think of extroverts as is just people who they recharge when they're around other people. So I think one of the things that held me back for a long time was thinking that being an introvert meant that I couldn't go out and speak to people and be in front of people and talk and do presentations and public speaking and all that kind of stuff. And it had nothing to do with that. That was just like the belief that I was, I guess, getting myself to believe just because I wanted to play it safe. But realizing that I actually, that's where I thrive is when people can feel my energy. They can feel that I really want what's best for them. I can help them like uncover what's actually causing them to be stuck. And then also I can peace out and go back and take a nap afterwards, right? Because I remember, you know, we've been to a couple different uh couple different events like that, and you do the same thing, but but like to be honest, like you're the life of the party when you're there. But then at a certain point, you're like, hey, I'm gonna peace out. I gotta go back into my room by myself and like be able to recharge and recover, right? And then the next day you come out and you're, you know, the life of the party. So I mean, we're the line on a lot of things, right? The whole introvert thing, but it's also not a reason to like hold us back. And we've actually started to utilize that as like one of our strengths, knowing that we still have to recover on our own.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

And that's the thing, like a lot of people don't realize like leadership is a skill, but um, if you're overcoming that introvert nature and leaning into doing your best as far as providing value for people, that's a skill too. A lot of people use it as an excuse. Well, I'm an introvert. I couldn't be a DJ like you have been, or I couldn't be a a coach and speak to hundreds of people like Mark has done. You can. It's a skill. It's not an excuse. It's uh the whole thing with our brain is always trying to keep us safe. You say, Oh, I'm an introvert, that's basically your brain telling you, hey, stay safe where it's familiar at. Yes, where you're where you're comfortable at, and don't go outside that safety zone. So um you and I, I think have both done a pretty good job of not using that as an excuse or reason not to even try. But we built the skill set to become leaders in spite of being an introvert.

Boss Versus Leader Understanding Wins

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So um I'd like to get into some of the things that make people leaders. And I think one of the biggest things is uh understanding the difference between being a boss and being a leader. I think the main difference between being a leader and being a boss is understanding versus control. Leaders seek to understand and bosses just seek to control.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I love how you broke that down. So one of the things that I think about in this is kind of like what drives that behavior to want to seek to understand versus like to control, right? And so the way that I think about leaders and bosses is leaders want the best for everybody. They want to do everything they possibly can, not only to succeed for themselves, but also to help other people to be able to succeed. And it's just one of those things is like when you help anybody get what they want, you can pretty much have anything that you want. And it's just this idea of there is a way to make this a win-win. And I'm going to do whatever I can in my power to make sure that that comes through. Right. And when you think about like a manager or a boss, it's kind of like setting up rules in place to help whether it's the company or you or one specific person win. And it's just understanding that you're going to get more if you are a leader. You're going to be able to win as a team, go much further, faster, produce more, and feel so much better about it when you lead versus when you manage or when you're the boss. So that's how I frame it in my mind. And it just always reminds me to check in with the people that you're leading, see how they're doing, see what they're struggling with, see what their perspective is. Maybe get them to give you some feedback on what they see going on, right? And instead of like making assumptions, just asking them and just giving yourself more information to be able to decide with. So that's what comes up for me. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

A lot of us are, you know, especially being high performers, we get frustrated because we look at people, we're like, why aren't they performing and doing this the way I would do it? And it's so easy for me to get up and force myself to do this. Why can't they do it? And that frustration leads to resentment and you're just going nowhere. And a lot of people instead of trying to change course on that, they just lean heavier and heavier into the the boss mode and control, you're gonna do this because I have this threat hanging over your head. But that doesn't necessarily motivate people. You know what happens, I think, in those cases? People will do just enough not to lose their job.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

They'll do the minimum to keep themselves safe, but you're not motivating them. They're not inspired. You know? And how can you lead someone if you don't understand what motivates them, if you don't understand what lights them up? And that's that's that's how I see it. You know, as far as people not being you, you kind of want that. We especially if you're introverted, you tend to get stuck in your own thought bubbles a lot of the time. Yeah. And you need that difference of perspective, that difference of thought process to shake you out of that, to make you aware of things you may not have seen.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yep.

Build Teams With Different Strengths

SPEAKER_00 9:52

On that topic, like one thing that comes up for me in this space, whether it's entrepreneurs, business owners, even people trying to get healthy, is being in an environment with other people who struggle with the same thing as you. If you all think the same, you do the same things, and you're in that pattern, you're not going to be able to see some of the things on the outside that you could do, or maybe like a different strength that somebody would have that would work well with your strengths. And if everybody looks and sounds and acts the same, um, you're missing out on some stuff, right? I used to think of this all the time as like entrepreneurs are maybe they're struggling with like finding clients. Maybe they're struggling with understanding how to put together things in their business. And what they do is they find other people who are struggling with that same thing and think that, hey, we're just gonna get together and we're gonna be able to figure this out. And that's not how it works, is you got to find people who are in a different phase than you. You have to find people who are at different spots than you, you have to find people who have different strengths in you. And that's really where the wisdom will come from. Very much so, like when you're leading. When you're leading, you don't want to like have duplicates of yourself. You want to have different people, right? Different personalities, different ways that people show up. Some people are great when everything is going fine. And then some people are really great when the stuff's hitting the fan, right? And so everybody plays their own different parts. And being able to see that, especially as a leader, when you have like a total different array of people, personalities, and everything, that's when everybody's gonna thrive as a team, not everybody looking the same or or being the duplicate of you.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah. As far as like just even skill sets, building a team, you know, of duplicates makes no sense because if you hire somebody to do writing for a script for you or to do video editing, you want them to be better at that skill set than you are. Hopefully. Obviously, get me in some trouble. One would hope. You know, so so those those different skill sets make the team stronger than they could be as individuals anyway. So um it works on a logistic level as

Emotional Regulation Reacting Versus Responding

SPEAKER_01 11:41

well. And um as you were talking, I was just thinking about how much emotional regulation comes into play. And for people the way I understand emotional regulation, it's the space between the feeling you have as a reaction to something and the action you take as a result of that feeling. The bigger that space, the more emotional regulation. You feel a certain way, take a moment, take a beat, go for a walk, do whatever you have to do to create a buffer between that feeling and your action. And that's a strong leadership trait as well. Because if you can master that, then you're not going to respond emotionally to someone on your team when you don't necessarily understand their actions at the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

This is my forte, man. You're this is like my jam right here. So um so yeah. They said I don't know if you have anything to add to that. You did. I could I could talk about this forever. I mean, so a lot of the work that I do has a lot to do with the difference between reacting versus responding, right? Reacting is just going along with the first thought, the first feeling that comes in your body, and just having to apologize later. Cause usually you come back and you go, uh, that wasn't the best version of me, right? Versus what you were talking about, which is some people call it a pattern interrupt, which is like you start to go down that path and then you take a second, you you know, take a little bit of a breath, and you choose a different thought to focus on, right? You choose something else outside of yourself normally. And here's what I mean by outside of yourself. So normally when you have a visceral response, it is something related to protecting you. So it's about me. Why would this person say this to me? Why would they disrespect me? Why would they act that way? Why would they? And it's about me, me, me. It's victim mode. And that is how our visceral response is because it wants to protect us. It's like, no, we have to lash out. We have to be louder. We have to respond this way to let them know it's not. And when you take a breath and you realize that 99.9% of everything that happens outside of you has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with that person, now you can go, oh, I wonder what's going on. I wonder why my son yelled like that. I wonder why this person asked me that. I wonder why this happened, right? And then you can start asking questions like you were talking about earlier, which is like getting curious about like, hey, I know you don't normally respond like that. Is there something going on? There's probably something I don't know about that's going on. Like, what can I help you with? Right? Like, I'm an ear for you if you want to just like chat about it. But it's taking the chance to like slow down in those moments and not going down the path of this means something about me, but finding a way to go into the path of, hey, this is probably something else is going on for them.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, I love that. Thinking outside of yourself. You know, it's funny, I didn't know anything about coaching at the time, but one thing I did come up with is something called the cardboard cutout, and it helped me externalize things. So I was in the best at emotional regulation most of my life. Most of my life I was exactly what you were saying. It's like, how dare they say that to me? I really, really, really had a habit of making things about me. But then I realized, you know, DJing, I was DJing in some tough environments. And week after week, for years, some of the things you would hear, I would hear, you you wouldn't even imagine. And at some point I had to step outside of myself and make it not be about me. And so I came up with something called a cardboard cutout. I basically told myself, look, I could take myself out of this situation and put a cardboard cutout of myself here, and this person would respond the same way. It's not about me. They'd be responding to the person in front of them the same way, no matter who it is. It's not about the person they're talking to, it's about them. I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time.

unknown 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

But I was externalizing that. And it was it helped me keep my sanity. People that drive you crazy.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Well, no, I I I love the analogy. I'm gonna start using that myself. But um, but what's crazy in that scenario is like when we stop making it about us and start making it about the other person and we get curious, right? Like you said, like how it feels from that other person's perspective to like go, huh? It kind of shakes them at their core for a second. They're like, they didn't respond the way that I thought they were going to. And then like they're being curious, right? It just changes their mood and their flow too. I mean, that's what leadership is all about, right? I constantly tell this to every single person that I ever coach and all the people that I train. It's like leadership is not developed when everything is going well and everything's fine. Leadership is developed when it gets hard, when you're faced with something that you would normally react to, and you choose instead to respond because you want to show them what it's like to be an effective leader. And we don't allow emotions to take over how we can actually show up as our best self. And it's not the times that are going fine that we get to develop this. It doesn't work that way. It's the times that are hard, the times where it feels like you got punched in the face, but you show up as your best self anyway. That is where you learn, right? What's funny is like most people are afraid of those situations. They don't want them to exist, but it's those opportunities, those quote unquote challenges, those are the ones that develop us as leaders. You don't find people who are like, yeah, I'm a leader and I never went through anything in my life. It's like, no, they're like, I'm a leader, and here's the 10 things that have happened to me where I got knocked down and I got up 11. We've been through it ourselves. We're not trying to tell somebody to do something we're not willing to do. And it's those hard times that really, really matter. Just grab your cardboard cutout and it'll make it easier for you to process through it, right? Absolutely. Cardboard cutout.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

You grow through what you go through. Yeah. You know, a boxer has to be in the ring a certain amount of times before they become a champion, before they pick up the skills. It's not enough to know how to throw your hands. You gotta know how to take a punch. And that's where the toughness comes from. Yep. Yep. So growth does happen during the challenging times. Like success, I forget who said this, man. Maybe you could remind me, but success is the worst teacher. I can't remember who said that. Um, anybody in the audience, if you know who said that quote, um but it's something that's really stuck with me through the years. Success is an awful teacher, it's a terrible teacher because you learn most during the challenging times. You learn I've learned more through my failures than any successes I've had. I think there's a certain amount of ego in it for us as entrepreneurs because we want to say, look at what I built. I think leaders are best served to think look at what we can build together as a team and get everybody's buy in that way.

Scale By Working Smarter Together

SPEAKER_01 18:01

But uh, why leadership? It's real simple. The numbers, right? If you are looking to build a business any bigger than I'd say one or two million dollars a year, you know, some of us maybe four or five. Look, most of us are working hundred-hour weeks as it is now to get to that first million or two. There's only 168 hours in a week. How are you gonna scale up from a hundred hours? You know, you can make your systems more efficient, but there's built-in limitations no matter what, if it's built around you as an individual. There's only been so many hours in a week. So now to get to ten million, twenty million, thirty million, how are you gonna do that without a team? And in most cases, the answer is that it's gonna be next to impossible to do. You're going to have to work with a team at some point. And of course, anybody in the audience who has a different point of view, feel free to reach out to us and let me know. But that's the way I see it.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Agreed. Agreed, agreed. One thing that comes up as you're saying that, I typically try to solve problems, or at least tried to solve problems. I'm sure that this resonates with you. But typically, whenever a problem would happen, my answer was always work harder, put in more time, put in more effort, take less things off my plate in personal life or health or remove that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

No, that doesn't resonate with me at all.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

You're like, wait, am I supposed to eat today? Wait, wait, wait. Is it Tuesday? Okay, I gotta eat today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

But uh and then wear that as a badge. Like, look how hard I work. I don't take care of myself at all. Look at me, I'm working myself to death, and you people should be worshiping your grandma.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

It's it's funny, it's funny, but but I still find my brain trying to go down that path. Whenever I coached people, especially like in the multi-million dollar ranges where I'm having a conversation with them, they always tell me about this transition that they had from instead of going the route of their personality, which is let me work harder, thinking through like, how can I work smarter? How can I work smarter? So, how could the fact that I build a team to help me, not only how could it help me reach more people, but give me the time to recover so that when I do reach those people, I'm on fire. My energy is next level and I don't feel like I'm exhausted, right? And what's crazy is when you start doing that, then you start developing a team. It feels amazing when you get to have a team that you work with that loves this as much as you, they're inspired as much as you. You're able to help as a team create more income for everybody. It feels amazing and the purpose just goes even deeper. I feel like that is the piece that we really need to grab onto is not thinking about things as how can I work harder, but instead thinking about how can I work smarter?

Ask More Assume Less Final Mic Drop

SPEAKER_00 20:36

A lot of what we talked about today is kind of having understanding and being curious. And a lot of times what I find is we'll sometimes make assumptions because we think it is faster just to assume that this is what this person wants, or this is what they like, or this is what the audience will want, or this is what is happening in this person's life. And we actually don't know. And not only does it not help us go faster, but we actually sometimes have to apologize and come back and go, ah man, I got it wrong. So I want the audience to really think about where is some place in their life or their business that they're making an assumption. They're just assuming what's going on, what's happening behind the scenes, what's going on in somebody else's brain, assuming what people want, assuming what kind of music they want to listen to. Like instead of assuming, literally just ask. And I would love to hear, like, instead of assuming what they got out of just slowing down and just asking the person. Like, hey, I'm curious, what is going on? Or what would you want? And just like slow down enough to ask those questions, and you'll be amazed, not only at the relationships that you create, but also the impact that you make when you just take a second and not allow your ego to take over and instead just ask, what do you think? I mean, you could do this with your relationship or your business, and I promise you, you'll come out on the other end with some information you would have never known, and now you'll be able to take more action in the right things instead.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

I think that's great. We'd love to hear from you in the show notes, if it's on YouTube in the comments, or reach out to us. We have our contact information all over the podcast. We'd really love to hear from you guys on that. I have a closer thought for you guys, and that is the best leaders are not simply the people who understand themselves. They're the people who stay curious enough to understand others. Leadership is not about getting people to become more like you. It's about understanding people well enough to help them become the best version of themselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Mic drop. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Let's go. He got some work to do, bro. Let's go. Don't assume that Mark didn't like hip hop because he does. Oh, yeah. Let me get some overdrive going.