Micro Class: Law of Leadership: Foundation = Trust

Hey, this is Brian with a quick note before we jump into today's show. If you haven't signed up for the Optymyze Premium membership yet, A, what are you waiting for? And B, you can now get the first 30 days of optimizing for free. Just cruise on over to Optimize me and sign up. Over 10,000 people now start their days with Optymyze so they can actualize their potential, including best selling authors, leading entrepreneurs, and even NCAA championship teams. Two of them. So again, 30 days of free optimizing at Optimize Me. If you're already a member, thanks for your support. Now for the show. You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on foundation equals trust. Specifically, the foundation of leadership comes from trust. It's Inspired by the 21 irrefutable laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell. Awesome book. 21 laws, right? Number one equals the law of the lid. Basic idea here is that if you want to achieve your highest potential, you've got to recognize the fact that you have a lid that's preventing you from reaching your highest potential. That lid is your leadership ability. You need to increase your leadership ability if you want to reach your highest potential. One of the ways that we do that is by recognizing the fact that if we want to reach that highest potential, we need to have a really, really strong foundation. Maxwell says the leadership is all about trust. It's all about influence rather. And if you want to influence people, they must trust you, period. You will never get anyone to follow your lead if they don't trust you. He says, well, okay, so how do you get people to trust you? One word, character. You need to be worthy of their trust. You need to have a worthy character. Remember, the word character comes from the Greek word chisel. So imagine yourself as this statue and. And you've got to chisel away everything that's getting in the way of you reaching that highest potential. John gives us three things we can think about to optimize our character, such that we can have a strong foundation of trust with those who may be inspired to follow our lead. The first thing we want to think about is our integrity. Then he says, we want to think about our authenticity. I'll say what these entail in a moment. And then we want to work on our discipline. He says these are three core areas of character that we need to build in order to enhance our trust. The trust people have in us, integrity in this context, he says, is basically be 100% honest. Be unscrupulously honest. You just speak the truth, period. No white lies, no exaggerations, big or small. What you say is your truth, period. Authenticity. You don't play games, you don't politic. You're not trying to be anyone other than you. As I've shared before, one of my favorite quotes on this William Shakespeare, first quote I ever memorized. To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day, the night. Thou canst not then be false to any man. Be true to yourself. And you can't be false to anybody else. But if you're lying to yourself and you're pretending to be someone you're not to other people, you're violating this law of authenticity. Your character is flawed, it's disintegrating. You are not going to have the trust you could otherwise. And then the third aspect we want to focus on is discipline. Discipline, he says, basically, do what you say you're going to do. Do what needs to get done, whether you feel like it or not. We talk about this all the time as well. We need to go like this. You have a sense of your identity, who you aspire to be, that needs to drive your actions, which then drives your feelings. Most people say, how do I feel today? Okay, that's what I'm going to do, drives my actions. And then this is how I feel about myself, my identity. We need to reverse that. Start here. You aspire to be an extraordinary leader who helps people and makes a difference in the world. Awesome. With that as your guide, you take actions that are consistent with it, whether you feel like it or not. Then paradoxically, you wind up feeling pretty darn good. Integrity, authenticity, discipline. Create the foundation of character, which creates the foundation of trust, which is the foundation of your leadership. Hope you enjoyed. And how can you plus 1% get a little bit better today in one of these domains? Each of these domains. Whatever it is for you, think about that and get on it. Have another awesome day. See ya. Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history to. But somehow missed the class on how to live for some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well that's what I do is something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun inspiring Super Practical Optimal Living 101 classes on stuff like Purpose 101 Confidence 101 Business 101 Meditation 101 that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.