Confidence And Leadership - How To Be The Leader Of Your Own Life

Are you the leader of your own life? We often think about leadership and we think about someone who's the CEO or president of the company or the head of the division, or a president or someone who's got some sort of vested authority by a state body or organization, but we fail to realize is that leadership, true leadership, starts from within. It starts from confidence and belief in yourself. And leadership that's given by some sort of power or authority, like I am the leader because I have this degree or I have this position. That's not true leadership. People don't really follow that, not at the highest level. So leadership, if you really want to break it down, starts from within. And if you want to break it down even further, it comes from confidence, it comes from belief in yourself. Because what is the most powerful thing when it comes to if a leader influences us or not? Well, it's certainty in themselves. They have to believe in themselves. If someone got in front of you and they're going to give a talk to what the next quarter is going to look like and they say, I don't really know, I mean, yes, we could try this, but I was also really doubting that and wondering if we should try X. You know, people are going to be inspired there. They're going to be like, why is this guy in charge? Right? And so leadership comes from having a certainty belief. Like, here's why I believe we should do X. We should do X. Because this, this and this. And I have complete certainty that that's going to be what's best for us. Now, I'm not so detached that I'm not open to other people's opinions. So if you want to share them with me, I'll listen to them and I'll factor that in. But ultimately I'm going to make decisions and I'm going to believe in myself and I'm going to learn from them even if they're not the perfect decisions. I'm going to grow and move forward from that. And this is something you have to learn if you really want to develop leadership. What are the building blocks of internal leadership? Because if you can develop internal leadership, then external leadership will naturally follow. So what are the building blocks, internal leadership? One is certainty. Being able to have a trust in yourself and in your perception of what's good, what's best and to go for it, to take a shot, to take action on it. Because if you doubt yourself and you hesitate and you second guess yourself, then you're not in a leadership role, you are in a follower role. You're looking for someone else to tell you what you should do to give you that certainty. But you have to create that certainty. And I love Tony Robbins, an amazing mentor and teacher of mine who really teaches people how to develop that certainty. So how do you get that? How do you do that? Well, one thing is you actively create it. How would you stand, like, in fact, right now? How would you sit or stand? In fact, if you're sitting right now, stand up. I know that sounds crazy, but stand up. How would you stand if you had an absolute sense of certainty and belief that you could do something right now in your life? There's something that you're wanting, wanting to pursue, and you just. If you wanted to generate that sense of complete certainty in yourself, how would you stand? You know, would you stand like this or would you stand upright? Would your chin be up or down, really feel it in your body? How would you breathe? How would you move? How would you walk? What would you say to yourself in your own mind to create that sense of certainty? You might even think back to a time in your life where you already had that. What were you doing? How are you moving? How are you interacting with people? What did you believe? What did you say to yourself? What? You can create that sense of certainty in yourself, and that's what you need to lead. So if you're in a situation right now where you're like, I'm not sure, should I do X or Y? X or Y? Get into a state of absolute uncertainty. And then here's the next thing that's part. A core component of leadership is decisiveness. You have to decide. Because if you're like, I don't know, should I do X or Y? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. X, no Y, no X, no Y, no X, then you're not leading, because leading is to move ahead. It's to take that step forward. So you have to decide. You have to say, okay, I'm going to analyze my options. I'm going to give myself some time to really think about this stuff, get into a state of certainty and decide. I'm going to do that. But what if it's the wrong decision? The wrong decision. I don't even know what that means. I'm going to. I have two choices. I'm going to choose path B. And path B has its own cascade of events, and I'm going to work with those events. There's no right or wrong when we say the wrong decision. Here's what we really mean. I want to make the decision that's going to give me the most pleasure and comfort and happiness. And I don't want to make the decision that's going to lead to pain, suffering, loss. And so we're choosing our options. We're saying A or B, A or B. But here's the thing. Each path has successes and gains and growth and loss. And so you have to pursue. You have to pick one and just say, you know what? I'm going to make the best of it, and I'm going to get all the things that I can out of it. I'm going to deal with the loss or setbacks or failures along the way. So you make that. You just have to decide. And a great way to develop that ability of leadership is to say, you know what? I'm just going to decide. And just start with small stuff. You know, it's a Friday evening. What am I going to do? Am I going to go to that party? Am I going to hang out with a friend? Or am I going to stay home and watch a movie? I don't know. Isn't it amazing how we can agonize about that kind of stuff, too? I don't know. This is really good, but that's really good. Oh, God, I can't decide. Think, sit with it for a minute and say, done. I'm going to stay home and watch a movie. I need to rest. Done. I've decided. I have a buddy of mine who's really good at this, and it's amazing. I learned so much from him and the way he carries himself. And he goes to a restaurant and he sits down to look at the menu, and he says, I decide what I want from the menu. Within five to 10 seconds, I just look there, I pick a thing that looks good. Take it. That's awesome. That's a high level of decisiveness. I like to plan things a little more. So that's not my style when it comes to eating at a restaurant, but I love that decision. And I ask them, well, don't you ever have, like, you know, have you ever had meal envy where you order something and then the person next to you gets their meal and you're like, oh, man, wish I'd order that. And he's like. I was like, don't you ever have meal envy? He's like, sometimes, but most of the time not. And so it's just he made a decision, he sticks with it. So that's the second core component of leadership. You have to just make decisions. And take action. The third thing is you have to have a clear sense of how things can be better for you in your life and then ultimately for others. Like, no one wants to follow a leader who says, so I'd imagine that next year we're probably going to earn about the same and still stagnate. And then the year after that, we're probably going to just lose it all. I mean, I don't really anticipate anything good happening. I've been losing sleep over this. I think we're just going to fail. Who wants to follow that? And it's the same thing in our own lives, right? I know when I created my own business, and I go deeper into this in the creating your own business section, I had the same fear that everyone has. What if it doesn't work? What if I fail? And so if you're a leader in your life, you know, the follower, this person who's looking to someone else to decide for them, says, what if I fail? I'm not going to take action until I have absolute certainty that I know it's going to work out. And I'm just going to kind of wait here and hope things change in my life. But if you are going to move towards that, you have to say, I'm going to take that action even if I fail. And that's the key component of leadership, is to be able to take action. And in the face of potential failure and being able to see it how you want it to be, you have to be able to say, oh, here's how I want to create it. Here's what I'm going to do. Instead of saying, will it work? What if I fail? Say, how can I create X? How can I make this happen? How can I grow a business that prospers and brings money, but also brings fulfillment and satisfaction? How can I create that? So leaders see a vision for what they want to create and they pursue it. And you have to be able to have certainty and belief in that. Those are skills that you can develop. If you've seen that movie, Kon Tiki, it was an old book, and they made a movie of it recently in the last couple years. And what really struck me about that, it was really fascinating. I don't know if you know the story, but it was this guy who was convinced that he can travel from God. I don't remember the specific islands, but across the Pacific Ocean in a raft, because he theorized that people traveled from certain islands in the South Pacific to different places to populate. And it's like thousands of miles across the ocean. And at the time, the only technology they had for maritime travel was rafts. He's like little rafts with wood. Not like huge boats with sails and galleons or anything like that, but little rafts. And he's like, no, I'm convinced that that's how people did it. And everyone said, you're crazy. He says, I'm crazy? I'll show you. I'm going to build a raft with the same materials they had and I'm going to sail in the path thousands of miles that I believe they did, and I'll show you. And everyone thought, this guy's crazy. Who's this guy? He's going to die. So he assembled his team. I think he was in the military. And he got his boys from his platoon or whatever that really trusted him, that worked with him in the past. They assembled it and they built this thing. And then they are, they're sailing off and it's big news at the time. Like, everyone's like, hooray for them, Good for them. And they have this send off and then they're out on the ocean and they're progressing along, but it starts to not go well. They have to get past a certain thing. They're making slow progress. They don't have a sail, they can't direct where they go. They're on a raft on the currents and if they get into the wrong current, they spiral out and they die. You know, they have a radio so they could call back, but the radio shorts out. What if they sink more rapidly? What if they get fall in the water and there's sharks? I mean, this is not a walk in the park here. Death is on the line. And so certainly as time goes on, there's one particular guy in the boat who like starts to see the logs are like breaking apart. The rope is starting to fray. And so instead of being a solid raft, the logs are kind of like, thunk, thunk, they're separating a little bit. And he's just staring at it. And they're out in the middle of the ocean. They're not making progress. They're gonna get stuck in this bad current. And he's like, we're gonna die out here. We're gonna die. And the leader, the guy London, said, we'll catch that current. We're gonna make it. We're going to make it. And he had this absolute certainty. And the guy said, how can you know that? How do you know that? I'm so freaked out and he said, I know it. We will. And he just held his gaze. And the certainty in was so strong, it was compelling, it was moving. This guy is powerful. You want him to follow him so that if you can develop that in yourself, and again, I say it starts from within. Because if you don't have that in your own life, then there's no way you can pretend to project that. You can do it for a little while, but people see through it, and you can't keep up the facade. You have to start creating that in your own life. So where are the areas in your own life where you're held back by fear? And you say, I can't do it. I'm not going to do it. It's not going to work out. How do you create that vision and have an absolute certainty and say, this will work out? And one way I've done that in my own life, because I found that sometimes is challenging. Maybe you want to do something you've never done before, and it can be hard to develop that certainty. But here's one thing that I found is like a bedrock of certainty for me, and maybe it can be for you, is to say, you know what? It might not work out on the first time. Sure, maybe my business would fail. Maybe I'm going to pursue that woman and take a risk and she's going to reject me. I don't know that. How do I have absolute certainty that that particular time is going to work out? But here's one thing I'm absolutely certain about that I am relentlessly going to pursue. I am determined, and I will find a way. So if that first one fails, I'll try another one. If that one fails, I'll learn and I'll adjust my approach and I'll try another one and. And if that one fails, I'll learn and I'll try my approach and I'll do another one again and again and again with relentless determination, and then I'll get it. And that's something that really rings true for me. We can never really know if that one particular situation is going to work out, but we can have certainty that we will continue in spite of failure and setback and learn. And eventually we'll learn what we need to and we'll get it. So where can you find your bedrock of certainty? From you. These are the core components of leadership. And if you develop this stuff and you live that way, people will naturally follow you. You will start getting more. I was working with a guy on this stuff, and he started also practicing Assertion and watched the videos about how to public speak, speaking up in meetings. He started to do all that stuff. And then all of a sudden, every time a new project came along, he got called into the superior's office. And they're like, so we're thinking of doing this new thing. We want you to do it. He's like, the first time that happened, he's like, okay, I'm not sure if this is really all the work I've been doing. Maybe it was just coincidence. But then it happened again, and then it happened again. And all of a sudden people just naturally started to follow him. And he didn't get up there and say, listen, I am going to change the direction of everything here. All you underlings, I'm different from you now and better follow me. He just started to become a leader. He started to speak up in the meetings. He started to be decisive. He started to have certainty in what he saw and what he believed. And here's the other thing. Not only do you have to have certainty, but you have to have the ability to speak up and to share that, to take those risks. Because if you're a leader inside, but you never put it out there, then no one's going to follow you. But if you do that, people will start to gravitate towards you and follow you. And that's where true leadership is, because that's where you can get to the next level, because you can inspire people to do. To do that in themselves. And then people will follow you willingly, because the last thing you want is for people to follow you because of your position, your status, your authority, your level of education that doesn't work very well. You know, I had a supervisor when I was doing my training in therapy to be a psychologist. And I remember in her office, she had all of her degrees and diplomas all over the walls. I mean, there was like. And every little thing, you know, like a certificate of this completion of that. And it was like seven or eight, 10 things on our walls. And I was just like, okay, you're really trying to establish something. And she believed, like, she was my supervisor, and she believed that I have the answers. I'm the supervisor. You'll do what I say because I'm the supervisor. And that's not how I think about leadership. I'm like, well, wait a minute. You have to demonstrate to me, I have to believe that you have more knowledge, more experience, more insight, that you can teach me something, that you can lead me, that I want to follow you because I believe in you. And if not, you know, I didn't want to lose my position there in the clinic. So I followed along. I played the game. I didn't challenge her authority too much because she couldn't handle that. And so I just sort of played it through and got through that year there and was like, I'm done with that. But it was not inspiring me to give my most. It was not truly leading me. I was a sort of supplicant to her, but I was not a loyal follower who wanted to take it to the next level. And if she said, I'm starting my own company, I wouldn't be like, yes, I'm going to go there with you. But that's the kind of leadership that you want. And that comes from leading out front. Leading not because you have some authority or are the king, but because you're willing to get to the front lines and fight alongside everyone else. And you've sculpted yourself and become an amazing person, fighter and leader just like everyone else. And that is going to inspire people to follow you. So these are just some of the basics of leadership. If you want to go deeper into how to be a leader in your own life, how to stop looking to others to determine what you should do and being decisive and following what you believe in, then contact me for confidence coaching, because that's one of the most. My favorite things to work on with people is how to develop your leadership. And we're going to find that in you and help you sculpt it to whatever level you want. Because the more powerful you can get in leadership, the more doors open up for you. The more you can influence people in the world, the more salary you can make, the higher positions you can hold, the more you can create, and life just really starts to open up. So I look forward to talking to you more in the future about leadership and other things. Contact me about confidence coaching if you're ready to go deeper.