What About Them?

05 Nov What About Them?

Today I want to talk about the idea of “other people’s opportunities” in the context of leadership.

If you want to be a leader, first ask yourself these questions:

• Am I only looking out for myself?
• Is my focus solely on me?

Leadership is the ability to influence and empower someone else to lead.

It’s not about gaining followers but about helping people that follow us learn how to lead.

We have to be the person who is constantly looking for opportunities to help others. This means our attention can’t be on just gaining more attention for ourselves. Our attention and focus have to be locked onto looking for opportunities that will help other people succeed.

I know that’s crazy thinking in today’s world. The world screams to “go get yours” and “look out for yourself.” However, that’s not the attitude of a champion. That’s more like the attitude of average.

Leaders aren’t average and they aren’t for everyone. They set themselves apart because of how they live. Increasing your influence and leading better comes down to your ability to identify opportunities to help other people.

Those opportunities could be as simple as connecting two people in your network who would benefit from knowing each other.

For example, my friend Sonny reached out asking about a coach.  She knew I’ve talked about how coaches have not only been an instrumental part of my career but also in helping me reach certain goals. She had some specific goals and asked if I knew someone I could connect her with.

I absolutely did! So I called one of my coaches.

You can also spread the word about a friend’s business by sharing a post on social media or emailing people who are their target audience.

A lot of times starting a business, going after a goal, or working a side hustle is super lonely. You might have a lot of people that are close to you that try to talk you out of it. I’m speaking from experience here.

We can be different though. As we’re going through the process of leading, we can be looking for how to help people.  We don’t just have to open our wallets, we can open our network, our social media, or we can talk to friends.

Share opportunities that you receive, that aren’t a good fit for you.

As a speaker, I get a lot of people reaching out to me about their events. A lot of times it’s not a fit for what I talk about (mindset, leadership, and culture). So if I get asked to talk about something that wouldn’t be right for me, I think about who in my network it would be. Who I can introduce them to.

You see as leaders, we have to expand our vision beyond what’s just in it for us and more toward the idea of “who do I know that could benefit from this and how could I help them?”

This week, don’t focus on building your following, focus on empowering the people that already follow you.

Be the leader others need, Competitor!

Go win your day!

I’m cheering for you!