There are moments in life that burn lessons into you so clearly that you never forget them.

For me, one of those moments involved a tractor.

In the mid-1990s, my dad ran a Belarus tractor dealership and also sold their engines as stationary power units, many of which went to Amish communities. I grew up on a dairy farm and around a diesel repair shop, so machinery wasn’t foreign to me—it was familiar, even exciting.

Around 1997, there was an old Belarus 572 two-wheel-drive tractor sitting out front of the shop. It likely came from an auction. As a teenage farm kid with mechanical curiosity and big dreams, I was drawn to it like a magnet.

One summer afternoon, I climbed into the cab to clean it up. I started taking things apart, wiping grime off the dash, learning how it all fit together. At some point, I removed the nut holding the steering wheel in place.

A few days later, I decided to see if it would start.

I put my foot on the clutch, turned the starter, and after a few cranks, it fired up—smoke rolling. As the RPMs came up, I pushed harder on the clutch pedal just to be sure. And instinctively, I pulled up on the steering wheel to give myself more leverage.

That’s when everything went wrong.

The steering wheel came completely off the column.

In an instant, I lost all leverage. My foot popped off the clutch. The tractor—still in gear—lurched forward. The front wheels nearly lifted off the ground as it jumped ahead.

Belarus tractors had odd gear-shifting patterns, and the safety switch wasn’t working. It took what felt like forever to jam the clutch back in and slam the brakes hard enough to keep from demolishing the loafing shed.

I’m still not entirely sure how I got it stopped.

But I never forgot the lesson.

Leverage matters.

Most of us understand leverage instinctively when we’re fixing something physical. We grab a longer pry bar. We use a cheater pipe. We change the angle so we don’t have to rely on raw strength alone.

Leverage is how you move what’s stuck.

But here’s the real question:
How often do we apply that same thinking to our lives and businesses?

Many leaders live stuck because they’re trying to muscle their way forward with effort instead of designing leverage into how they operate.

Robert Kiyosaki illustrates this well in Cashflow Quadrant. One of the strengths of business ownership—and especially models like direct sales or team-based organizations—is leverage. Instead of doing everything yourself, your efforts multiply through systems, people, and structure.

At first, you do more work and earn less. Over time, if you’ve built correctly, you do less work while the system produces more.

The same principle applies when you hire employees. It increases again when you add managers. And it explodes when you document how things should be done.

Since time is finite, time leverage is one of the greatest gifts a leader can give themselves.

Anything you do repeatedly can—and should—be leveraged.

Ray Higdon often talks about building video libraries for teams so leaders don’t answer the same questions over and over. Instead of reacting, you redirect. That’s leverage.

The real question isn’t whether leverage exists—it’s whether you’re intentionally designing it into your leadership.

Leverage solves one problem.

But it doesn’t solve everything.

That’s where levels come in.

Most of us were trained early on to think in first-level reactions:
For every action, there is a reaction.

And that’s true. But it’s incomplete.

What about the second-level reaction?

What about actions that not only produce immediate results, but create momentum long after the initial effort?

Politics uses this principle constantly—often destructively—but the idea itself is neutral. It can be used for good or harm.

In leadership, the goal is simple:

That’s second-level thinking.

I once saw a clip where MrBeast lined up dominoes from tiny to massive. He tipped the smallest one, and it knocked down the next, and the next, until the largest domino fell.

That’s leverage plus levels.

But here’s the question that stuck with me:

What if you toppled the largest domino first?

In business, we often train ourselves to start small and “work our way up.” Sometimes that’s wise. But sometimes it’s fear masquerading as prudence.

What if you addressed the biggest objection first?

What if you pursued the most meaningful relationship earlier?

What if you made the hardest decision sooner?

I recently helped structure a breakout session for a roofing contractor conference by starting with the largest objection first—and building the entire presentation around it.

The result?

Second-level results.

Leverage without levels leads to efficiency without impact.

Levels without leverage leads to insight without scale.

But when you combine the two?

You get multiplication.

That’s the difference between staying busy and building something that lasts.

As leaders, our responsibility isn’t just to act—but to think ahead. To ask better questions. To design actions that keep working even when we step away.

That’s how legacies are built.

- Owen

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Choose one or two of the following activities and commit to doing them well. Small actions, applied consistently, create second-level results.

Start by identifying one task you personally repeat—something you explain over and over, answer questions about regularly, or handle simply because “it’s faster if I do it myself.”

This could be:

Now ask yourself: What would this look like if I never had to explain it again?

Your goal isn’t perfection. Your goal is capture. Write a simple checklist. Record a 5-minute video on your phone. Create a one-page document. That’s it.

Leverage isn’t built by waiting for the perfect system—it’s built by preserving what already works so it doesn’t depend on you forever.

Before your next decision—big or small—pause and ask:

Most leadership problems aren’t caused by bad intentions; they’re caused by short-term thinking. This question forces you to zoom out.

For example:

Write the answer down. Even one sentence helps.

Second-level leaders don’t just ask, “Does this work?”
They ask, “What does this produce over time?”

Think about the one issue you’ve been circling but not confronting.

It might be:

That’s your biggest domino.

Smaller changes won’t matter until this one falls. Set a date, put it on your calendar, and take the first visible step—schedule the meeting, outline the decision, or write down the hard truth you’ve been avoiding.

Momentum rarely starts with comfort.
It starts with courage.

Leverage compounds when it saves time repeatedly.

This month, aim to create one asset that saves you time every week:

Ask yourself, “If I invest one hour here, how many hours does this give me back?”

That’s the math great leaders use.

When you stop trading time for outcomes and start building systems that work without you, leadership becomes lighter—and impact grows heavier.

The first print edition was released on December 10, 2025, by Elias Raber and Owen Shrock and published by LeaderMinded Press at the Leadership Essentials Seminar in Niles, Ohio.

Now, the book is expected to be released on Amazon, and you can benefit!

When you join the pre-launch team, you’ll get ALL the 2025 Leadership Essentials Seminar recordings as our way of saying thank you.

Details at: https://thefournatures.com

Also watch the event highlights, at https://thefournatures.com