I Don’t Want to Build Followers. I Want to Build Leaders.

I've never wanted to be the type of leader who needs to be the loudest person in the room.

I don't believe leadership is about a title, having people report to you, or being the person everyone has to come to for an answer. And I definitely don't believe leadership is about creating people who are permanently dependent on you.

To me, leadership is about who people become because you led them.

If someone works with me for years and still needs me to solve every problem, make every decision, motivate them every morning, and tell them exactly what to do next, I haven't built a leader. I've built dependency.

My goal is the opposite.

I want to build people who eventually don't need me.

I want people around me who can think for themselves, make decisions, handle uncomfortable conversations, solve problems, sell confidently, develop other people, and eventually become better at certain things than I am.

That might sound counterintuitive when so much of modern leadership seems centered around building followers.

I don't want followers.

I want leaders.

I Learned Leadership Through Sales

Sales has probably taught me more about people than almost anything else I've done.

It forces you to confront yourself.

You learn very quickly that confidence matters. Communication matters. Discipline matters. Emotional intelligence matters.

And excuses don't change your numbers.

• You can blame the leads.
• You can blame the market.
• You can blame your script.
• You can blame your manager.

Some of those factors may genuinely affect your results, but at some point, you still have to ask yourself a much more valuable question:

What can I control?

That question has shaped the way I approach both sales and leadership.

I don't expect perfection from people. I certainly haven't been perfect myself.

I expect ownership.

There is a massive difference.

You can make a mistake and still have ownership.

You can have a terrible week and still have ownership.

You can lose a sale, say the wrong thing, get rejected, become discouraged, or completely misread a situation.

The question is what you do next.

Do you look for someone to blame?

Or do you look for something to learn?

That mindset is one of the biggest differences I've noticed between people who temporarily work in sales and people who actually build careers and businesses through it.

The Best Salespeople Aren't the Best Talkers

One of the biggest misconceptions about sales is that you have to be incredibly persuasive.

I used to think selling was primarily about what you said.

Now I think it's much more about what you're capable of hearing.

The best salesperson isn't necessarily the person with the smoothest script or the most aggressive close.

It's usually the person who understands people the fastest.

• What does this person actually want?
• What are they afraid of?
• What problem are they trying to solve?
• Why does solving it matter to them?
• What are they not saying?
• And is what I'm offering genuinely the right solution?

That last question matters.

I don't believe great sales is about convincing everyone to buy from you.

Sometimes, good sales means recognizing that someone isn't a fit.

I would rather lose a transaction than build my business around pressure, manipulation, or making someone feel obligated to do something that isn't right for them.

Especially in financial services.

We're talking about people's families, businesses, retirement, protection, and money. Those conversations deserve more responsibility than simply asking, "How do I close this?"

The question should be:

"How do I understand this person well enough to help them make the right decision for their situation?"

When you approach sales that way, the entire conversation changes.

You stop becoming a product pusher and start becoming a problem solver.

I Believe Empathy and Accountability Belong in the Same Room

There is another misconception about leadership that I've never agreed with: that you have to choose between being understanding and having high standards.

I believe you can have both.

• I can care about what you're going through and still expect something from you.
• I can understand why you made a mistake and still expect you to correct it.
• I can support you without enabling you.
• I can believe in you without lowering the standard every time meeting it becomes uncomfortable.

To me, that's leadership.

I don't think constantly rescuing someone is kindness.

Sometimes, allowing people to experience consequences, solve their own problems, or work through discomfort is exactly what develops them.

My job as a leader isn't to make sure you never struggle.

My job is to make sure you're better equipped to handle struggle the next time it comes.

That distinction has become incredibly important to me as I've grown.

You Can't Demand a Standard You Refuse to Live By

I also believe leadership exposes hypocrisy very quickly.

• You cannot preach discipline while being inconsistent.
• You cannot demand accountability while blaming everyone else when you make a mistake.
• You cannot expect people to work hard for a vision you barely work toward yourself.
• And you cannot expect professionalism from your team while behaving unprofessionally behind closed doors.

People pay attention to what you tolerate, what you reward, what you ignore, and, most importantly, what you personally demonstrate.

That's why I believe culture starts at the top.

• If I want disciplined people around me, I have to practice discipline.
• If I want people who communicate directly, I need to communicate directly.
• If I expect someone to take ownership when they're wrong, I need to be willing to say, "I was wrong."

Having authority doesn't exempt you from accountability.

If anything, I think leadership should require more of it.

Being a Young Woman in Business Has Shaped Me

Building a career and stepping into leadership at a young age has forced me to develop quickly.

Being a young woman in a traditionally male-dominated side of business adds another layer to that.

There are rooms where people will underestimate you before you've said a word.

I've learned not to resent that.

I'd rather let results introduce me.

I don't feel the need to become the loudest, toughest, or most stereotypically "masculine" person in the room to prove that I belong there.

I think women can lead differently without leading less effectively.

• I can be empathetic and ambitious.
• I can be feminine and competitive.
• I can care deeply about people while making difficult business decisions.
• I can be kind without being a pushover.
• And I can have high standards without becoming cold.

Those things don't contradict each other.

Learning that has influenced the type of leader I'm becoming.

I'm not interested in copying someone else's personality because they became successful before me.

I want to learn from successful people, take the principles that work, and still build in a way that feels authentic to me.

There's a Difference Between Making Money and Building a Business

Sales can make you money.

That doesn't automatically make you a business owner.

I think this is one of the hardest transitions for high-performing salespeople to understand because the skills that make you successful individually aren't always the skills that allow you to build something bigger than yourself.

Eventually, you have to stop asking:

"How much can I personally produce?"

And start asking:

"What can I build that produces without everything depending on me?"

That means systems. Training. Recruiting. Culture. Processes. Leadership. And, most importantly, developing other people.

If the entire company collapses the moment the founder stops working for a week, there's still work to do.

I want to build something bigger than my personal production.

That requires learning when to work harder and when working harder is actually the wrong solution.

Sometimes, the next level doesn't require another 12-hour day.

Sometimes, it requires building a process so something doesn't require 12 hours anymore.

That's the difference between hustling and building.

I Don't Want to Be the Smartest Person in My Company

I think some leaders become uncomfortable when the people underneath them start becoming exceptionally good.

I want that.

• I want someone I trained to eventually outsell me.
• I want someone on my team to understand something better than I do.
• I want people who challenge my ideas.
• I want someone to build a system and make me wonder why I didn't think of it first.

Because if I'm always the smartest, most talented, most productive person in the organization, then I haven't built a very strong organization.

I don't think leadership is proving that you're better than everyone underneath you.

It's creating an environment where talented people can become exceptional.

The goal isn't to collect people who constantly tell me I'm right.

The goal is to build a room where good ideas win.

Money Matters to Me - But So Does What Money Represents

I'm ambitious.

I'm not going to pretend money doesn't matter to me.

It does.

I want to build wealth. I want freedom. I want an exceptional life. I want to build something successful enough that it changes what is possible for my future family.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that.

But the older I get and the more I build, the more I've realized that money becomes more meaningful when it's attached to something larger.

Financial services became interesting to me because money touches almost every part of people's lives.

• It affects their options.
• Their families.
• Their stress.
• Their retirement.
• Their businesses.
• Their ability to take risks.
• Their ability to leave something behind.

That's part of what I'm building through Fortune Financial.

I don't want our work to simply be about selling financial products.

• I want people to understand what they're doing with their money and why.
• I want families thinking beyond the next paycheck.
• I want business owners thinking beyond the next quarter.
• I want conversations about protection, wealth, legacy, and generational planning to become normal conversations.

And internally, I want the people working with me to develop skills that stay with them regardless of where life takes them.

• Sales.
• Communication.
• Leadership.
• Financial literacy.
• Emotional intelligence.
• Discipline.

Those skills have value far beyond one commission check.

I Don't Believe Leadership Means Being Needed Forever

The older definition of leadership was often centered around authority.

• The leader knew everything.
• The leader made every decision.
• Everyone else followed.

That's not what I want.

If Fortune Financial becomes everything I envision it becoming, it won't be because I personally controlled every detail.

It will be because I developed people I could trust with those details.

And because those people developed other people.

That's scale.

But more importantly, that's legacy.

• I want to look around one day and see leaders who started with me now building teams of their own.
• I want to see people who once lacked confidence teaching someone else how to become confident.
• I want people who were once afraid of sales mentoring someone through their first rejection.
• I want people who originally came into this industry because they wanted to make money eventually realize they're capable of building something much bigger.

That's the part of entrepreneurship that excites me most.

Success, to Me, Is Multiplication

I'm still building.

I'm still learning.

I'm still changing my mind about things.

And I actually think admitting that is important.

Being a leader doesn't mean pretending you've figured everything out.

I don't have everything figured out.

I don't think anyone does.

What I do have is a very clear idea of the type of company and the type of leader I want to become.

• I want high standards without ego.
• Ambition without losing empathy.
• Confidence without pretending I know everything.
• Sales without manipulation.
• Money with purpose.
• Leadership without dependency.
• And a company where success isn't measured only by how much the person at the top accomplishes.

I want success to multiply.

Because ultimately, I don't think the greatest measure of my leadership will be how many people worked underneath me.

• It will be how many people grew beside me.
• How many became more confident because someone believed in them.
• How many learned to lead themselves.
• How many eventually built something of their own.
• And how many reached a point where they didn't need me anymore.

Some leaders might see that as losing people.

I see it as proof that I did my job.