#7 Leading Yourself First

#7 Leading yourself first
Welcome to episode number seven of Different Points. I'm here joined with my co-host, Catrin. What does self-leadership look like? I'm asking you, Catrin.

Are you contemplating the question? Because sometimes we need that as well, like we did in an earlier episode, the pause, the power of the pause. The power of the pause. Yes, I know you've implemented it, or else I forgot to pass it over to you.

So you were probably thinking, am I going to start first? Well, it was a bit of that, but it was also a bit of, that's a really big question. What does self-leadership mean? I think a lot of us were kind of trained to believe that leadership has to come from somebody else. We're told what to do at school.

Our parents are our leaders for as long as they are, et cetera. And that leaders are going to save us and leaders are going to show the way and all that kind of thing. And for a lot of us, self-leadership is not something we've even thought about.

For me, I started thinking about self-leadership very early in my life, but I didn't really know what it meant to begin with. I thought it meant being really stubborn and not letting anyone tell me what to do. Just always saying no and being a difficult, just being difficult, but that's not really leading yourself.

That's just refusing to cooperate with other people, refusing to play. I think self-leadership is more about saying, if I am my own leader, how do I want to show up? How do I want to manifest that? It's nothing to do with resisting other people or pushing other people around. It's an internal thing about what are the values I want to follow? What's the example I want to offer? And it's nothing to do with other people.

It's a very personal, internal thing, I think, self-leadership. A few things to add upon that. I suppose I class it as kind of self-motivation because some people need the coach to tell them what to do in the business and, you know, oh, you're here and you need to be doing this, this and this.

I mean, I've been entrepreneurial for a long time and I'm in Poland for 20 years. I'm always accountable to myself, so I know what I want to do. And even if we look at kind of like going to the gym, because I go to the gym nearly every day and I've seen a lot of people have coaches.

So the first day I went there, because I was never into gyms, I used to play squash, I used to do kung fu, I used to play football. I was always doing things. Gym wasn't my kind of thing.

But then there's a gym nearby and they kind of just threw a few injuries. I wasn't able to play squash anymore. So I started doing it.

And the first time when I joined, a coach was included for a half an hour or something like that. So I just got to show me the different machines, how to do the different things, and that was grand. And even now, a few years later, I go there and I work hard.

I use, you know, I do 20 minutes on one machine and a few other things. Sweat is just dripping off me. And I see a lot of people having coaches, both men and women.

And all they're doing is chatting, chit chat, chat, chat. They come in, they might do 30 minutes, they might do an hour. None of them sweat like me.

And it's like, sometimes they're not even showing them the right thing to do. And they're just standing there, the boss is on the thing, and they're just next to them. I think it's a waste of money.

For me, if you have a coach in a gym, I want him to push me to make me sweat harder. And I don't see anybody like that with the coaches in the gym. It's just kind of like a friend, a buddy to be in the gym with.

And that's self-leadership. I mean, I'm able to do it myself without, and I know I'm watching stuff as well. So if there's a new machine or a machine I haven't used, I'm watching how they're doing it and I'm learning myself.

So I think we just have to stop thinking we need somebody. Like for example, if you're doing a sport or something, it's good to get a coach that's showing you how to hold the racket right, whatever you're doing, get all your stance right. But there's times when you don't need that, you can do it yourself.

Yes. And I will just say another angle on that, because I've had a personal coach a lot for fitness work. And what I've done with them, I've let them carry the burden of the responsibility for the session because I'm carrying the responsibility for everything else in my life.

So I say to them, I'm subcontracting my motivation to you for the next hour. I'm in your hands, mate. And then they really do push me because the self-leadership there is I've taken them on, I've committed and I've said to them, I want you to push me.

And so I'm not actually holding them accountable for my shift or improvement. You know, I'm responsible for that, but I'm letting them be the guide. Excellent.

Yes. And it's a great thing to think about everybody watching and listening, because your self-leadership will be unique to you and personal to you. And trust that.

Don't ask someone else what your self-leadership ought to be about. So thanks for watching and listening and see you on the next episode. Perfect.

Thank you.