2024 April 3 Be a great leader of yourself

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about being a leader. If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, tell your friends, and send me a message. Thanks for joining me tonight to talk about how and really why you need to be a leader.

Tonight is a different workflow because Facebook is still mysteriously not allowing live broadcast from my page. But change is opportunity, and I had been considering using a different workflow for some time, so it seems like the best time to do it is now. I hope you didn't miss that little golden nugget. Change truly is always an opportunity for those who are willing to act upon it. 

But back to the topic at hand, namely, being a leader. More specifically, why you have to be a leader in the areas that matter to you. I'm a big believer that life provides us many little hints if we decide to pay attention. Over the past few days, I've been seeing many references to leading your way to goals, to successes, happiness, and everything else. Sometimes life's hints aren't subtle. I started thinking more about it in the context of many things, not just work, but also life in general.

Most of us are pretty responsive to someone who is a leader. You've probably been in many situations where you show up and somebody starts handing out tasks. Most people probably either just start doing them, or maybe they offer some suggestions, but somebody stands out as a leader.

But in our own lives, and in our own immediate circle of friends, who is the leader? Are we actively leading ourselves to happiness and achievement? Are we waiting for someone else to tell us what to do? The danger here is that, if we don't lead ourselves, society and circumstances will lead us in directions that may not be in our own best interests.

We'll be led to consume excessively, to be like everyone else, to dress a certain way, but not be led towards working towards our own vision and goals.  One of the interesting things about life is realizing that every situation has a leader. There are no exceptions to that. Either you're leading your own life, someone or something else is doing it for you, or else the situation and circumstances themselves are dictating what happens.

I know people who truly are reluctant to take charge of their own life. Not surprisingly, they're not too often happy with the outcome. So I hope you see that you have to be actively leading yourself in your own life. That may be deciding to relinquish leadership to someone else in a particular situation. If your house is on fire, the firemen come in–obviously you follow their directions, but that’s a conscious decision. You're still setting the rules for how you will live. 

But what about all the other circumstances and situations in your life, such as work, recreation, relationships, faith, finances, and everything else? You have to be your own leader in all of them as well. It doesn't mean you have to be making all the decisions for the whole group, and you may elect to let someone else lead for a while and decide to follow them, but it always has to come from a position of leadership and power over yourself, not by letting circumstances dictate some unknown outcome.

You might be saying that sounds like a lot of work, being in charge of myself all the time. It's actually less work than not planning what you want to do and then trying to undo a situation you find yourself in. It’s probably a lot less taxing on yourself than being unhappy with your circumstances and having that weigh down on you all the time. Being your own leader brings you the freedom to live towards your vision and set meaningful goals in your life, both large and small. Think about how empowering it is to get up in the morning and think, Yes. Today I will accomplish the one thing that will allow me to make progress towards my goal. Sounds pretty powerful and enabling.  

Now think about getting up, dreading every moment of your morning until you drag yourself out to a situation you don't like, and the rest of the day is the same way. Sounds exhausting. It's very important–this doesn't mean every second is a bundle of fun, but–when you get up and you're working to accomplish the one thing you don’t want to do–it might be something distasteful, like cleaning out your basement or having a difficult conversation with a team member at work. There are a lot of difficult things to do, but it will be far less difficult because there's the built in reward of knowing it is moving you closer towards your vision and the ideal life as you envision it.

Obviously, we can take the discussion of leadership into many different areas, but the concept remains the same. Someone is going to control the situation, and as importantly, your role in that situation. Even if you don't want to be the overall leader, you will probably feel more satisfaction if you are at least actively leading yourself in whatever is happening to you.

Life is complex, but so are people. What is perfect for someone else may be very dissatisfying for you. So celebrate your own uniqueness and work to guide your own life towards the vision and goals that you've set for yourself and don't just accept some random outcome. Be your own advocate and leader and always keep your own personal vision in mind as you make decisions. Lead yourself to the outcome you desire. 

Your homework (always optional) is to think about a recent situation and your role in it. Were you the overall leader, your own advocate and leader, or did you just let the situation happen and go along with whatever then resulted? 

Extra points if you reframe that same situation in a way that led to an outcome more aligned with your vision and goals. Then really envision it and see if you think you felt more energized and pleased with the outcome and just happier overall by the fact that you were actively directing your own path through that situation. So that's it. 

Please remember UKR7.com. There are many links to ways to donate and support Ukraine. There are many wars active in the world right now. Please keep all those people in mind. Another organization I highly recommend is World Central Kitchen at WCK.org. They're active in many disaster situations around the world. 

Remember that always thinking outside yourself, thinking about the world around you, gives you a different perspective on the world. Even just walking down the street, smile at somebody and say hi. Something as simple as that can really turn somebody's day around. One of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. You can do that all the time. 

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along and please hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear. Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com. Thank you.