We often paint childhood as a soft, golden time, carefree days, simple joys, and innocence untouched. But for many people, childhood looks very different. It’s a training ground. A testing phase. A place where resilience is born quietly, long before anyone ever calls you a “leader.” In Built to Lead, Steven Daniel Reitan opens the door to his own early life, a life marked by financial struggles, emotional wounds, and a constant feeling of instability. Yet, instead of breaking him, those experiences shaped him. They built the foundation for the leader he would eventually become. And that’s what this blog is really about: how the hardest moments of our early years can guide us toward becoming stronger, kinder, and more adaptable leaders. The First Lessons in Resilience Reitan grew up with a single mother, an absent father, and a home situation that never quite felt settled. Add emotional abuse and bullying to the mix, and you have the kind of childhood that could easily crush a young spirit. But here’s the thing, resilience often grows in the quiet, unseen moments. It grows when you keep waking up to the same challenges without applause, without comfort, and without a clear sense of when things will get better. For Reitan, those early struggles taught him that resilience isn’t about having an easy life. It’s about learning to push forward even when the world feels heavy. Leaders don’t gain strength from perfection; they gain it from persistence. Empathy: The Leadership Superpower Born from Pain One of the most beautiful outcomes of a difficult childhood is empathy. Not the textbook kind, the real kind. The kind that comes from having lived through moments where you felt invisible, unimportant, or underestimated. Reitan talks about how those experiences shaped him into a leader who sees people, really sees them. Leaders who’ve walked through hardship tend to understand what it feels like to struggle quietly. They know that behind every calm face, there might be battles no one talks about. And that’s what makes their leadership different. It’s not about authority. It’s about service. It’s about lifting people up, not because it looks good, but because they know what it feels like to need that lift. Adaptability: When Your Childhood Is Constant Change If there’s one leadership skill childhood hardship teaches flawlessly, it’s adaptability. Reitan’s story is filled with sudden changes, unpredictable environments, and emotional turbulence. When life keeps shifting under your feet, you learn something invaluable: how to stay grounded even when everything else moves. Adaptable leaders aren’t thrown off when plans change. They don’t panic when challenges appear suddenly. They adjust, pivot, and press forward, without losing themselves in the process. And that skill, born early, becomes a powerful tool later in life. Leadership Starts Long Before You Lead Anyone One of the most powerful ideas from Reitan’s journey is that leadership doesn’t start with leading a team, a company, or a project. It starts with leading yourself. When your early life is filled with instability, learning discipline, self-control, and hope isn’t just helpful, it’s necessary. And those inner qualities end up forming the backbone of true leadership. Because the truth is, you can’t guide others if you haven’t learned how to guide yourself through uncertainty. Childhood challenges often shape leaders in ways no classroom or corporate seminar ever could. Steven Daniel Reitan’s story reminds us that the hardest seasons of our early lives can become the strongest foundations of our future. Resilient leaders aren’t born, they’re built. They’re shaped by adversity, sharpened by experience, and guided by empathy. And maybe that’s the real takeaway: the struggles you face today might be quietly preparing you to lead tomorrow.