Peter Mutabazi Recap: Overcome Extreme Adversity

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As a child, he ran away from an abusive home, but was helped by the kindness of strangers. Peter Mudebazi is just an incredible human. Our last episode was a full length interview with the one and only Peter. His story is heart wrenching and inspiring. He grew up on the streets, ran away from home at a very young age because of an abusive household on the African continent. And as an adult, he has found himself in a position of being able to help foster children. So he began taking children into his home many years ago to give back what was so freely given to him by a stranger on the street. And it's his mission to give back as much as he can to the vulnerable amongst us. That's what drives him and his whole ethos. The title of his book, his Mission is Now I Am Known. And it's about bringing a message of, of hope to the hopeless. It's the same message that he needed so badly to hear as a child. So I wanted to share some of the key takeaways from that incredible interview with Peter. And if you want to go back and listen to the entire episode, please go back at the previous episode. We've had so much feedback from many of our listeners since it went live a few days ago. Just to say how touching it was. And Peter is a true leader in every sense of the word. You know, as a kid, he was never called by his name. He was called everything but that by his father. And there was a lot of abuse that went on in the house and he ran away. And I mean, when you hear of the story of him running away, he didn't run away, you know, five minutes from his home, he ran away like a day's worth of travel on a bus into the unknown, into a city he'd never been in in Africa. He was in a very dangerous, precarious situation as a kid. Had to live on the street, had to steal. But there was one man who took Peter into his family. He was the first man to ever call Peter by his name and asked him, what is your name? And when that happened, that changed everything for Peter, you know, because he felt like he was seen, he felt like he was now known. And the lesson here is that I feel we really need to start seeing people around us. And I want to underline that. Seeing people around us now, that's not looking at people, but seeing them when they feel seen. They know that they're valued, that they're loved. We want people to feel known.

People to feel like they belong in the community, in the family, in the team, in the organization. That takes leadership, that takes empathy.

I want to ask you, what are you doing to make sure people around you feel seen and known? And it starts simply with by giving people space to talk, by acknowledging their feelings, acknowledging their ideas, their challenges, their frustrations, calling them by their name. When you call someone by their name at a subconscious level, it really hits deep. You know, when I hear someone say James, I turn around, you know, anytime. Often I turn around and it's some parent talking to their like 5 year old kid who's running away. But I turn around, it catches my attention. So when someone says James, it makes me sit up and listen. When I'm interviewing one of my guests, whether that be a prime minister, a president, a CEO, and during our interview, they use my name. It makes me feel so valued, makes me feel special just by simply using my name. So one key takeaway that I'd love you just to embody is that the more you use someone's name, the more influence you have with that person. Now look, Peter and his siblings, none of them had ever went to school and university. His new adopted father, who essentially brought him into the family, sent him to an incredible school. But Peter felt like he wasn't worthy of school. It was too far fetched almost in his opinion. He said it was like going to the moon and he had to work through so many layers of self doubt and not feeling worthy. And what's interesting about that, I know in my life I have had moments when I have self doubt. Should I be here? Am I good enough to be here? Why am I here? Who wants to hear this? I want to ask you, where do you feel that self doubt.

And where does it hold you back? Because we all have it. We all have some level of self doubt or a lack of self love and that holds us back. But actually shining a light on it is the starting point to moving forward. So just take a moment and ask yourself, where do I have self doubt? Is that in your career? Is it in your relationships? Is it in your finances? Is it in your ability to communicate in a public setting? Once you shine the light on it, you can start to move forward.

Now look, kindness is something that keeps coming up again and again. In a lot of my interviews, the act of kindness from a stranger, and the stranger was called James, in fact allowed Peter to change the course of his life and get a college degree and then go back to his village and help his siblings do the same thing.

This individual James, really showed Peter leadership and kindness, which in turn modeled the way for Peter to live his life. And really, let's think about this, and if there's one takeaway from this short recap, is that leadership is about influence. And I've said that a million times. And I'll continue to say that leadership is all about influencing and inspiring other people. It's not about telling people what to do. It's about leading from the front by example, with congruency, with humility, owning up to our failures, but influencing others and inspiring them to take action. So where in your life do you have leadership capability? Where could you be developing it? Where could you be doubling down on it? This week, I want you to answer that question, where in my life am I a leader? Is it at home? Is it in the boardroom? Is it within a team setting? And the next question is, once you've answered, maybe you have multiple leadership caps, what can I do to influence more authentically or inspire more authentically in that area? And if there's anything you do is from this, this recap, I want you to make sure that the people around you feel seen, heard and known. And please go and get Peter's book. He's an incredible guy doing amazing things for foster kids all over North America. Now I Am Known is available in bookstores. It just got released. Go and support this beautiful man's work. And if you haven't, do, go back, please do go back and listen to the full episode. It was just simply inspiring. And hey, for those of you who are listening at a more local level, here in New Zealand, we have the High Performance Leadership Event, which is brought to you in partnership with Brannigan's and VVV Real Est Estate. It's 26th to 28th October in Christchurch, New Zealand. We've got former Prime Minister joining us, Sir John Key, former All Blacks head coach Sir Steve Hanson, and current CEO of Christchurch nz, Ali Adams. If you'd like to attend, we have a few tickets left. You can head over to jjlochlan.com to check that out or get in touch with someone on my team. But between now and our next guest, we've got an amazing guest lined up this coming weekend. I just want to encourage you to get out there and lead your life on purpose.