This is a YouTube video titled "Inspiring the Heroes of HR" containing a motivational talk or presentation recorded in January 2024. The speaker, identified as Sam, discusses the nature of inspiration, leadership, self-awareness, motivation, and the roles of bosses and employees in creating and sustaining inspiration in the workplace. The content is a monologue focused on personal and professional development rather than a conversation.
Sam, Inspiration is not a precursor to action. But what's the definition? What's the dictionary definition? It's actually on your screen, someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something. Okay. This is the definition that makes the problem for us. If that is true, then it's a precursor to action. So what is it? If it's not a precursor to action, what is inspiration? It's the thing that keeps you going. Action creates inspiration. Inspiration cannot consistently create action. It's a different word. Have you ever met somebody that thought they were the best leader in the world and they sucked, or they thought they were the best communicator in the world? What? They just droned on? You've met these people, right? How do you get self? Aware? You just like, think about it and say, I'm self aware. How do you get self aware? You have to ask other people, what's it like to be on the other side of you. It's not what you think, it's what they think that stunts our progress. When we're not self aware of the progress that we need to make, it rolls over into so many other parts of our life. We have to be self aware. Progress moving the ball forward creates the inspiration to actually continue, not in reverse, because it doesn't stay when it's in reverse. Success is hitting the big goal. Here's the problem with that. I'll use a big goal example real fast. When my comp. When I first started my companies back years and years ago, like, hitting a million bucks was the goal. And we hit a million bucks, and what did we say 30 seconds later, let's go to 2 million. We hit the goal and we move on. Because it's not that big of a deal. We get to 5 million and it's like, okay, that means we could do more. But it was all the work that got us there that kept us excited about getting there. Success is being able to take the process and move it forward. But is there a possibility we have the model upside down. Is it easy to buy into the myth that inspiration hinges on somebody else or something else doing something? For me, half of it, at least, is that possible? Think about this for a second. If you're walking around thinking, somebody's gotta inspire me, what did you do with all the control you have in life? But think about it. How many times have you gotten up and I'm just not motivated to go to the gym. I'm not motivated to go to the conference today. I'm not motivated to go. Like, how many times have you done that? Okay, so here's the second question. If, if that's true, how do you get started with zero motivation? Well, it's actually, can I do it? Is the first one, which is kind. Do I have the skills, the training to be able to do it? What's the second one? Will it work? Is the method you're asking me or the method I'm putting forth, will it work? One is training, one is education. The third one is, are the consequences big enough, important enough? And I mean consequences both positive and negative. There's your why. But let's face it, our why can be really powerful. And if we don't believe that we can do it, or if we don't believe that the method will work, am I going to do it? When people aren't motivated, when they're not inspired, you need to ask them. And I'm going to suggest you ask yourself those questions. Is it truly it's not a big enough why, or you don't think you can do it, or you don't think the process will work? Those are three very different questions that if you can answer yes to all three, you can actually get it done. We create our own inspiration. If we don't, we're at the mercy of everybody else. But we have to change our definition of what inspiration is. But here's the thing. We're either a employee and report to somebody, or we're a boss and have employees and may have a boss as well. Fair? Okay. If you're an employment of you are an employee, you actually report to somebody, the majority of the folks here. So you have a boss. And if your boss is here, do not use this rating just for the record, but let's just say a number one boss is like really freaking incredible. A number two is pretty good. A number three kind of sucks, but isn't too bad. And the number four is like, get me the hell out of here. This is why we leave. I'm not going to ask you to rate your bosses, especially if they're here, but let's look at the numbers. About 10% of bosses, leaders are in that number one category. That's it. Even if you have a number four boss who sucks, what's the role of a leader anyway? What's the role of your leader? What is their only role? To inspire. So my job with my team, the only thing I need to do is inspire my team. That's my only job. What's the role of the boss beyond that? I do think that's a component of it. What's that? Lead them, train them, give them feedback. Give them clarity. If you spent your entire day or your boss spent their entire day inspiring you, how the hell do they get anything else done? Is it really their job to make you a better person? Is it really your boss's job to actually inspire you every day? I'm not saying it's not their job to bring inspiration, to create an inspiring, inspiring opportunity, but is it their job to inspire you every day? To do your job, to inspire you to grow? Whose job is that? Oh, my gosh. Wait a minute. But inspiration. Somebody's got to inspire me. I got to inspire them. Why do you think we have this in the. And if I'm the boss, I'm not going to spend all my time, 100% of my time, inspiring. And if I report to the CEO, do I go to the CEO and say, kyle, you're the CEO. It's your job to inspire me every day. What's the CEO going to say? They're going to laugh at me. What? It doesn't make any sense the way we think about this idea of inspiration.
