Leadership

Okay, let us go. Leadership. Happy Friday, everyone. We are moving to the Leadership series because we are done with partnerships. So if you had any lingering questions about partnerships, please do send them to me on inbox at and I will respond to you personally. It is Friday, which means it's time to reflect on the week. My gosh, what a week it's been. How has your week been? Have you assessed yourself? Have you seen what went well this week? What were our wins? What happened? Well, what meeting was good? What idea did you have? What did you submit? What did you learn? How did you grow? There's so many small things we don't acknowledge ourselves for. Yesterday I was talking to someone and I was, like, proud of them and telling them, you did a great, productive thing today. And they were like, what? Like, yeah, even things that are emotional labor are productive. Even when you grow in something you do physically or spiritually, it's productive. Not everything is always mental or about work. So I think as we assess our days and what we do in the week or the month, remember to look at your life holistically. Not only how much did I put out this month? How much money did I make? Did I hit all these targets at work? Think about your whole life, because you need to grow in all directions. You need to have harmony mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. So you want to keep moving in those directions. Make sure you do your Friday assessment. See how the week went, reflect, measure, try and count how many things you did differently or you did well. What's important to you? What are you trying to grow in yourself this year? You. Is it speaking up in meetings? How many times did you speak up this week? Is it how many times you went to the gym? Is it how many glasses of water you drink per day? Is it how many times you made it to church or the mosque? Is it how many morning intentions you set? How many Fridays? Are you actually assessing how the week went? Count in a month and see. See how to assess these things in your life and then look for the obstacles. Why didn't I do what I needed to do this week? This week? I've had many days where I was not as productive as I wanted. So. So I sat there and I was like, why didn't I do this today? Was I tired? Was I distracted? Was I worried about something? Was I scared? There are many different things that come in the way. Was I busy with someone else's things? Was there a crisis? An extenuating circumstance? Assess these things in your life so that you learn and you Progress. What I always say is, I love new problems. I don't like the same problem to keep delaying me, slowing me down, derailing me over and over and over again. I like new problems. I need to figure out this problem. We put it aside because now I'm moving forward. Bring the next problem. It means I'm growing. There's always going to be problems. Nothing is perfect. But at least let us be moving forward. For me, if I have the same problem recurring in my life over and over, then I'm like, I'm not growing. There is a challenge here, actually. I saw this interesting tweet this week. This guy was like, I'm reflecting on myself. What was I doing this time ten years ago? How. How was I spending my time? What were my challenges? What were my fears? And then compare that to today. And I was like, oh my gosh, 10 years ago, what was I doing? What are the things in my life that are the same and what are the things that have changed and is that good? Do I feel like I'm making progress? Do I have the same challenges and the same fears or am I moving forward? Do I have new ones because I've overcome those? I realized some things because I feel very old right now compared to how I was 10 years ago. But there are so many good things that come with being older. I have so much less anxiety about things that I feel like make no sense now or are so petty yet. When I was 22, I was like, oh my God, I'm so stressed about this. So in that area, I was like, I feel much better. But it's important to do these reflections. I had never thought about it, like on a 10 year scale. I guess I never think I'm old enough to be able to reflect 10 years ago. I guess I am. But it was an interesting way to reflect. So I was grateful for that. I'm grateful that I follow people on Twitter that challenge my mind, that ask these questions to themselves. And it encourages me. It sparks me to ask these questions to myself and to put them to you. What were you doing 10 years ago? What was your day like? What were you worried about? What were your goals? How are you spending your time? Has it changed? Has it improved? Is this the direction you thought it would go in? Is it better? Is it worse? What do you need to change? You need to assess these things. Because if we don't reflect, we don't really know yet. Time is always moving. So that's my thoughts on reflection for this week. Leadership. I'm sorry I was so late today. I'm meeting ran late. Leadership. Leadership. This is an interesting topic, and this is something that we get lots of questions about. And I am happy to break the myth and tell you, leadership is learned. It is not born. I think too many people are like, oh, I'm not a natural leader. I'm not a born leader. I'm not a firstborn. I'm not an extrovert. I'm not loud. So they, like, discount themselves from being leaders. Guess what? Everybody got to be a leader. There's something in your life you're going to have to lead, whether it's your own children, it's your team at work, it's your fellowship group. You can be a leader in something. Everybody can. It has nothing to do with your personality. Of course your personality is a factor. It shows you which areas you need to work on to help your leadership. But do not let it be a limiting belief. Do not put in your mind, I can't be a leader. I should not be a leader. I'm not qualified to be a leader. I don't have what it takes to be a leader. Let's start by removing that from everybody's minds. We're gonna go through different topics over the next series about leadership in different areas for different people. Whether you're a student, an entrepreneur, you're someone in your career, whether you work in a family business, whether it's in your home, we can all be leaders. There are so many leadership skills, and every single one of them can be improved. It can be worked on. You can grow. I promise I'm not lying. If you don't believe me, ask me the specific question or tell me how you tried and failed. Tell me how you tried and failed that same thing 10 different ways. If you have 10 ways you tried this one leadership skill, you tried to improve, you tried this, it failed. You tried this, it failed. You tried this, it failed. If you have 10 times, please send me that story. I and I will clap for you and say, okay, you have failed completely. You should not be a leader. I will agree because I know it doesn't exist. There are so many areas of leadership, and I feel like this is an interesting topic. I was posting about it yesterday because I realized, yes, I'm a firstborn, and I have been trained to be a leader my whole life. I don't know if I was trained more like forced. You know, parents with their firstborn, they're always like, you have to do this. Where are your siblings? Make sure they do this. So So I guess I had some sort of training. I knew how to boss other kids around from a young age, but that was not really structured. And also, it's not very nice. You can easily become a bully when you're used to being bossy at home as a child. But it helped me because I think it made me a bit tougher by the time I was older. But when I was dropped in the workplace and I had to be a leader, I could not just bully around people who are much older than me. And also, I didn't have the confidence to do it. So there are very many areas I had to learn because as my father says, I'm going to drop you in the deep end and you'll figure it out. I don't know what kind of parenting technique that is. Just drop children in the deep end of a pool and hope they learn how to swim. He's very lucky that I did, but I guess he was also there watching and he was helpful. I could ask him questions and he'd guide me and tell me stories. So I hope I can be that resource to you because I realize all the challenges I had trying to be a leader in my early 20s. This is when we're talking 10 years ago, trying to lead people and trying to motivate people and get them to really, really. Leadership is about having the shared goal and getting the best out of everyone so that we all move forward to achieve these goals. So that's something I had to learn. And so whenever I was struggling or I didn't know what to do or was in a different difficult situation, my natural inclination is to seek information because that's what makes me feel more confident. If I understand what's expected expected of me, then I can do that. Whatever it is, I can learn it. It's hard sometimes, some easier than others, but a lot of them are hard. But as long as the information is there, I have the belief that I can learn it. So my option was always find the information. Watch a video, read a book, ask someone, how do you handle this? What do you do when this happens? What is this situation? What is this cold? How do I handle a meeting? I didn't know how to do any of these things. They don't teach you these things in school. This is how you chair a meeting. This is what you're supposed to do. This is how you discipline someone. This is how you inspire a team. This is how you structure things. But, you know, thank God for the Internet, because that is where I have learned so many things. I think first is about demystifying what you're scared of. So make your own leadership assessment. If you're one of the people with the limiting belief that you think you can't be a leader, that's the first thing you need to overcome. Whoever told you that was mean and you need to remove their voice from your head. You need to decide for yourself, do I want to be a better leader? Because you are all leaders. We are all leaders in different areas of our lives, whether we know it or not. In some areas you're the follower, in some areas you're the leader. And that's okay because in life you need both. So firstly, commit. I want to be a better leader. I need to be a better leader. It helps if you have a reason why you want to be a better parent. Do you want to get a promotion at work? Do to you want. Do you want your business to grow? So many people have businesses and they can't hire more staff and they can't grow because they are shy about this or they think they're handling everything or they don't have the time or the resources. So leadership encompasses all these different things. You need to sort of have a bird's eye view and see all the different aspects of what the project or the challenge or the company or the business that you're working with and see what do we need to do, where do we need to go. Leadership is about having that vision and, and then executing it. It's your responsibility to see the vision, communicate the vision and then get everybody moving so that we get to the vision in my understanding. So you need to first assess yourself. What do I need to do to be a better leader? There's so much you can read about leadership. You can listen, you can watch. There's so many resources these days. There are different skills within leadership, but first it's about your own confidence in you as a leader. I suggest empower yourself with information. The more you know about leadership, the more you know what you don't know and what you already have and what you need to work on. So you sort of have your game plan. These are the things I need to learn about. This is the person I'm going to ask about. This is where I'm going to learn this and find the medium that works for you. If it's a podcast, if it's YouTube, if it's a video, if it's a friend, if it's a mentor, see where you are going to get the information and don't stop there. First you assess, then you get the information, then you implement it. This is the challenge. Most people like to know things, but they don't apply it to their lives. And that is a skill that you need to develop for yourself. Because we can all sit and listen and watch and learn and listen, but if we're not doing those things, we're not embodying them, we're not practicing them, then we might as well have not learned it. You're just wasting your own time reading that book or watching this video if you have no intention of actually applying it to your life. What I find effective is apply it immediately, because then you cut down your learning time and you can learn so many things so much faster. I did not have the luxury of time when I had to become a leader. I had to learn how to do everything immediately. Because every day that I waste is a day now I'm doing my job badly. That's hurting other people, it's hurting the company. So I had to put this pressure on myself. Learn it applied. Learn it applied. Learn it applied. And as you're applying, you're going to get feedback. So those are like the four stages I like to use when I'm learning anything. So let's use this with leadership. Assess. Where are you now? Who are you as a leader? Do you know? There are many different leadership types you need to know what are the different types? You need to know what are the different skills? You need to know where you are at according to each of them. Do you understand what they are? Are you living that already? Do you have a natural style? Do you. You have a way that your personality is coming out in the way you are as a leader? Are there areas that you're scared about? Are the areas you're already good at? Are they areas that could use some work? First, assess. Know where you are. I always say this. You know, when you're starting a journey, you can't know. You can't get to the destination if you don't know where you are. You know, like when you're in a mall and it has like a map and it says you are here, you need to have the. You are here. Where is here in your life? You know, when you use Google Maps in your phone, there's a starting point and an ending point. So let's first look at the starting point. Assess who you are as a leader. What does leadership mean to you? And then you can see what is the ideal leader? What kind of leader are you trying to be? Are they celebrity leaders that you look At? Are they bosses or CEOs or people you follow on Instagram? Is it a movie character or a TV show character? I love Jessica Pearson on Suits. I think that's one of the first women leaders. I was like, wow, I just want to be like her. She never gets frazzled. She always looks so nice. She's so tough, but yet, like, likable. She was such a wonderful balance for me as, like, an example of a woman leader in a corporate situation. So I think it's helpful to have different ideas, different inspirations, people you know in your real life, whether it's a colleague or a friend or a relative, someone you're like, oh, wow. I appreciate their leadership style. So once you can identify that, you can identify why, what, what do you like about them? Is it the way that they handle things? Is it the skills that they have, the way they present, the way they present themselves, the way they handle difficult conversations, the way they negotiate, the way they give instructions? Some leaders are super fun and energetic, and some people like that. Some are very serious and, like, very instructional. Communicating a certain way. The more information you can gather paints a better picture for you. So you can have the end destination. You know where you are, you know where you want to go. Then it's about the journey. How are we going to get there? Right, so this is part of the assessment. So when you know what you're trying to be or aspire to be, like, because everyone is slightly different, but it's good if you have aspirations and you're moving in the right direction, you grow as a person. So that is the assessment part. Then you have to gather all the information and arm yourself with it. Do an online course, go on YouTube, a podcast, a book. Go to one of these inspirational people and ask them questions. How did you learn this skill? How did you practice this? What was it like the first time you had to do this? How did you figure out how to do that? I had a really good mentor 10 years ago. I was so young, and I had never had a female mentor. My dad had taught me so much, and all I knew was going to things with him, how he handles things. So for me, that's what leadership looked like. That's the only model I had. But then when I had a female mentor and I started going places with Sonia, I. I would just sit in the car with her and go, like, on all her errands and site visits every day. I was working in real estate and construction, and she used to work in those sectors, and she had way more experience than me. And I would learn and listen and see, this is how she talks to these kinds of people. This is how she handles this kind of situation. This is what she does when there's a problem. This is the shoes she packs in her car because she knows she's going from sites to board meetings. Girls, you gotta be changing your shoes. So these are small things that I had to pick up that I could never have learned from my dad. Because it's different for men, not in this, for women. It's different from sector to sector. There's different skills, there's different ways to handle things. There's different challenges, there's different opportunities. So that helped me. And I could ask her questions. Why did you say this like this? Why did you say that like that? Why are you making jokes with this guy when he just made a big mess? And she would explain things. She had patience and time because she was a mentor to me and she took it seriously. So maybe find someone like that in your life that you can ask these things. Look at the different books on different leadership styles on different areas, because there are some things you want to be like and some that you don't. Yesterday I was doing an Instagram story about this productivity influencer that I love, Brendon Bouchard. And I realized when I was explaining about him and his book, I like him because he inspires me and he pushes me in a positive way most of the time. I would see these inspirational guys who are like, productivity people who are trying to make you do more are mean, and they're like, ex military, and they shout at you, and they're telling you what to do. Get up and grind. And I was like, I'm just. I don't want to be shouted at every day in the morning on my Instagram. It's not motivating me, but I know that I need to become like that. So I was stuck. And then I found Brendan, who is super sunny and fun and enthusiastic, but he's still telling you, get up and grind. Do this. Make sure you're doing this. Have you done this today? But in, like, the nicest way. So it was like a completely different type of energy. And so when you explore what's out there in the world, you can find these things. You can find these people. And, oh, my God. Brendan liked my story. I was like, that's so cool. He knows that I love him. It was very fun for me. But the information is out there. You don't have to be one way. And that's one of the first things I had to learn about leadership, and I encourage you to do that. Just because your current boss is a certain way or your parents are a certain way, they it doesn't mean that's the only way to lead. There's so many ways. There are so many ways to lead in different ways that you've never seen before. And until you expose yourself to that, you don't even know it exists. Another leader I love is Gary Vee. He seems kind of mean because he's, like, crunchy. You know, he's not sweet and enthusiastic, but he's the sweetest person. He's, like, so compassionate. I just finished reading his book 12 and a half the emotional Ingredients for Business Success. Such a good book. Most business books are telling you all the technical, hardcore stuff.