Today, I want to talk about something that’s not just important—it’s non-negotiable. Congruency. And let me be clear right out of the gate: this isn’t theory.
When I became a business coach almost 13 years ago, I felt something shift. I had been given a responsibility—a quiet, unwritten commitment to show up as the very best version of myself. If I was going to lead business owners, teams, and organizations to grow and succeed, I had to grow myself first. That was not a suggestion. That was the job.
Over these 13 years, I’ve come to recognize a clear path—one I walk every day and encourage others to walk too:
Learn. Study. Master. Teach.
First, I had to learn. Learn who I was. Learn what I didn’t know. Learn how and where I needed to grow. And yes, I had coaches to help me along the way. Some lessons were taught, others were earned the hard way. But the learning never stopped.
Then came the study. I immersed myself in the principles of success. I studied the people who were doing it right—people who were building lives and businesses worth modeling. Currently, I’m leading a deep-dive mastermind on Think and Grow Rich, based on 25 years of research by Napoleon Hill. That is what studying success at the deepest level looks like.
Next came the mastery. Because learning and studying are just the start. Mastery comes from practice. From repetition. From application; doing it day in and day out, refining and strengthening those skills until they become second nature.
And only then—only then—can you teach.
If someone is teaching from a place they haven’t yet mastered, it’s theory. If they’re reading lines from a book or quoting a system they haven’t implemented, it’s theory. A new financial advisor struggling to gain clients can’t teach you how to manage wealth. A leader who hasn’t mastered communication can’t expect their team to communicate effectively.
If you want to be a great leader, you have to become one first.
That’s what I encourage in my clients. That’s what I practice in my own life. I ask others to take on challenges I’ve already walked through myself—because I know they work. It’s not theory. It’s truth earned through experience. That’s Mastery!
So, if you’re serious about growth—yours or your team’s—remember the process:
Learn. Study. Master. Then teach.
You are the first student, always. Teach yourself first. Study and master the principles. Then you can teach others the same.
COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud ActionCOACH Franchise Partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation—a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice.
BusinessCoachMichaelDill.com