Follow in Order to Lead

Count money, man.

Money, man.

Stag riches.

I'm trying to talk, I'm trying to talk to my beast, but what's up, gang?

Welcome back to another episode of the grind cast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

We're going to talk about following well in order to lead well.

The, the, I think it was Plato that said the civilization of society is in peril when those

who have never learned to follow are given the power to lead.

Okay, so if you haven't learned to follow and you're given the ability to lead in the,

in the title to lead, over time, I agree, I have witnessed that become a problem and

issue.

And I think it starts with you being able to check your ego.

And here's the challenge because leaders are leaders for a reason, right?

They lead others.

And so it's easier for them.

A lot of it, it may be in their makeup to lead.

And so the more passionate that they are, the more difficult they can become to lead because

they are leaders themselves.

And so, but I think that that that will hold people down from the next level unlocking

their future.

If they haven't learned to follow, even though they have the gift of leadership because

there's always somebody further along than you.

There's always somebody that you can learn from and grow from.

You just got to first start with checking your ego because people's ego gets

in the way of their growth.

And if your ego gets in the way of your growth, you could be blinded by the growth that

you're currently having, but you're limited, you don't even know that you're limited because

you could have more growth than you're currently having if you got your ego out of the way.

And so the first place to check is let's check our ego.

Check it mean like check your coat, like put it in the closet, put it away, but also check

your ego and say, look at yourself and ask yourself, how have I done?

Has my ego gotten in the way of me taking coaching criticism, feedback, asking questions,

seeking out mentorship and guidance?

Because you, and then another thing is you should have compartments of your life that the

same person that you get mentorship from in health and wellness may not be the exact

same person you get mentorship from in leadership.

And the same person you get mentorship from in leadership may not be the same person

you get mentorship from in your marriage.

I think you get the understanding of it.

And so part of it in growing in leadership and being coachable and being a student and

all those things is developing empathy.

And what I mean by developing empathy is it goes both ways is if I'm looking at my leader

or I'm looking at somebody that I want to receive coaching from in this area of my life,

part of the ego thing that goes first is I must submit myself to this person's coaching

and leadership.

I don't care if they're 20 years old and you're 40 years old.

I don't care.

But if they're better than you in that area of your life that you're trying to learn

in, only your ego is in the way from being able to take coaching from that person.

If you're a girl or a female and you're taking coaching from a guy, don't let that get

in the way.

If you're a guy and you're getting coaching from a girl, don't let that or a female,

don't let that guy get in your way.

Don't let anything that has to do with your ego get in the way of learning from a person

that could provide to you mentorship and guidance because you're only limiting yourself.

And so what I mean by developing the empathy is you look up at the person that's mentoring

you and you have to put yourself in their shoes.

They're not perfect.

Not everything that they do, thing that they say, it's very difficult.

If you don't put yourself in that person's shoes, even dealing with you, looking at

the role that they have to play with everything, put yourself in that person's shoes and develop

that level of empathy and then the same thing for the people that you lead.

Put yourself in those people's shoes and develop a level of empathy.

That's what I mean by it's difficult to lead your best or civilization could be in trouble

if people that are given the power and influence to lead haven't learned to follow because

when you learn to follow, you learn empathy and for the leader that I'm going to listen

to this person.

I'm going to humble myself in order to follow.

But if you don't have humility and have empathy when you're leading others, you'll start

to limit yourself.

They may not admit it to you, but they'll leave you or you won't attract real leaders

because of that insecurity that you may only be able to lead followers because leading

leaders is going to take some of these things, patience and ego to the side and all that

stuff.

So, the next step is embracing a growth mindset.

And a growth mindset is one that's fixated on more solutions to things than it is on

the problems of things.

I'm looking at what does this person do well versus what does that person not do well?

I only need to learn this area of life from this person.

And so, I have a growth mindset.

I'm going to humble myself and I'm going to ask questions to this person so I can get mentorship.

At 40 years old, I'm still gaining and getting mentorship, not only from the books that

I read but from people that are further along the me and I plan on doing it for the rest

of my life.

Being an impeccable student, you know, try to be a great student.

What separates somebody from being a student versus others that are just coachable?

To me, being coachable is the coach tells me the play or tells me what to do and I execute

it.

That's great.

That is huge.

That's awesome.

That'll get you far.

Being a student would be somebody that is taking it a level further and it's the person

that's taking notes on every single thing that the person is teaching them.

They're taking notes on it because they're trying to teach it to somebody else and it helps

to make them to pay attention.

A student is going to bring questions.

If you're getting mentorship from somebody, I'm writing down, I'm putting thought into it

into my mind of, what do I want to ask this person?

What specifically, what specific questions do I want to pull out of this person's knowledge?

Those are some differences in being a student versus just being somebody that's being coached.

Be the best at everything that you do.

Try to be the best student.

Pay attention to the most.

Be the most focused.

Take the most notes.

Take the best notes.

Be on time.

All of those things come along with being coachable and having a coachable spirit.

Being a man or woman of your word, having integrity is also a part of that process.

Being adaptable, embracing change.

Things are going to change.

Things aren't always going to go exactly the way that you plan for those things to go.

Part of that growth phase or having a growth mindset is adopting a solution oriented mindset

of, I'm not going to focus only on the problem.

I'm going to bring solutions to you as a player.

I heard the term one time that in life, typically, everybody's a player and everybody's a coach.

Your coach and somebody else typically, but you're also playing as a player for somebody

else or with somebody else.

A person, there's a book by John Maxwell that's a 360-degree leader.

It talks about you being able to create impact and influence regardless of your position

and your title.

You can influence people above you.

You can influence people below you.

The side of you, you can influence people around the whole organization.

What I know from being in that situation is the better you are with your humility, the

better chance you have at being able to influence everybody.

The more that you lead by your example, the better that you have a chance to lead everybody

because people are always watching you.

I can't tell my kids to treat their mother with respect and talk to their mom with respect,

but I talk to their mom horribly.

I can't tell my kids it's important for you to work out and eat clean and they watch me

not work out and not eat clean.

Look at your own life, look at the people that you're leading and ask yourself about

your own integrity.

Am I asking these people to do things that they don't see me do?

Saying, well, I'm special.

For me, I don't have to do it, but you got to do it.

Use to settle for average things.

Once you master being a great follower, you'll teach others by your example.

I've watched leaders on the come up, struggle with being coachable, and then as they get

a team of people, some of the people on their team start not being coachable to them.

Now watch the frustration that comes with it.

I've tried to teach and explain to them, you may not realize it, but you not being as coachable

as you could possibly be, is influencing them to not be as coachable as they could be

to you because they're watching the way that you're lacking the ability to be coachable

or you go against the play call or you say things behind the scenes.

They're watching you do that to your leader or to your coach or to your parent or to you

whoever.

And so whether they realize it or not, that's what ends up happening to them with you at

some point.

Not everybody, but some people will be influenced that no matter what leadership is influenced.

And I don't know if there's a more powerful influence than what you do and how you live

your life.

Look for ways to humble yourself.

Look for ways for your people to see how you are still working on being coachable, how

you have enough humility to humble yourself to learn from someone.

And I think that you'll watch other people learn to become that way even more so with

you.

I've watched in my personal experience, I've watched the best leaders climb the fastest

by being the most coachable.

The shortcut to the top is by learning from others mistakes and that only comes from humility

and being coachable and being a student of the game.

So just remember, as we go into this next week, check yourself, one to ten, how are you

doing with being coachable?

How are you doing with letting people impact your life?

Are you seeking out guidance, mentorship?

Are you taking constructive criticism from your coaches, from your leaders?

Are you showing others that you have enough humility to do things?

I think part of being coachable is doing the things that you don't want to do that your

coach tells you to do.

Doing the things that you don't feel like doing that your coach tells you to do, it doesn't

mean that it's a dictatorship because part of me being in a position of leadership is a

lot of the best ideas in our organization that have come, have come from people that

I'm providing leadership to that have a difference of opinion or they're giving me a different

perspective to look at here's how we can get better in technology or here's how we can

get better with this or here's I think these meetings need to get shortened or whatever,

not a hundred percent of the time do I go with what everybody else wants to do, but there's

a large portion of time where we implement things that the people that are quote below us,

I hate that term of who are you underneath or who are you nobody's below me.

I just have a title and a position of influence over these people's lives that they're gracious

enough to give me, I think the second level I've talked about in the five levels of leadership

is permission.

Leadership is not a position where your people are slaves to you, they're giving you permission

to make impact on their life and you can't abuse it or take it for granted.

And so some of the best things are going to come from people giving you things that you

can't see that you're providing coaching to if you're open to it.

But as the player from your coach, you also got to understand probably the things that

are going to give you the biggest growth in your life are going to be the things that

you struggle to want to do.

I don't want to get up in the morning and work out, but that's what my coach is telling

me to do.

I don't want to go to church, but that's what my coach is telling me to do.

I don't want to get better at my temper, but that's what my coach is telling me to do.

I don't want to go to bed earlier, but that's what my coach is telling me to do.

I don't want to get all referrals.

I'd rather just stay on leads.

That's what my coach is telling me to do.

I'd rather deal with these clients

that I already deal with versus going to get...

new business, that's difficult, but that's what my coach is telling me to do.

You got to look at the things that your coaches or the people that you're getting coaching

from are telling you to do that are challenging to you, that you don't feel like doing and

dive in deeper there because that's where you separate yourself from others with your

coachability and being a student.

It's easy to be coachable and be a student if you hear the things that you want to hear

and implement the things that you want to implement.

But the next level is hearing the things and being able to implement the things that

you don't necessarily want to hear or want to do.

That's where the biggest growth is at.

And understand, if you're going to be the best leader, start with being the best follower

that you could possibly be today before you get into that position.

So follow well to lead well, ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Grand Cascade.

Get ready.

It's a new day.