Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends,
welcome to your Motivational Gen
Z and Millennial Expert Podcast.
I am your host, my name is DrJason Wiggins and it is an
absolute pleasure to be heretoday.
Let's get our heads right and Iwant to first thank everybody
for your continued listenership,and everybody has been just
(00:20):
terrific, and I get so manygreat comments about the podcast
and I really greatly appreciateit.
So continue to share with yourfamily and friends and for those
who are looking to getmotivated, this podcast is for
those who want to get motivatedand help others get motivated as
well.
So today we have an excellenttopic on our podcast and it is
(00:44):
about how to become a leader orimprove our leadership skills,
and some of us may be at thepoint in our life where we may
never have been a leader and wewant to be a leader.
What does it take to be aleader?
Is a leader born or is a leadermade be a leader?
(01:08):
Is a leader born or is a leadermade?
Does a leader need to benecessarily a CEO, or can it
just be a supervisor or somebodywho is in charge of a group of
individuals?
So there's a lot of food forthought within that quick note
of what a leader can be and iswhy?
Because a leader cannot just bedetermined by a word.
(01:30):
A leader can be determined bytheir actions, by how they come
across, by all of thesedifferent type of leadership
skills that a leader truly needs.
Therefore, a leader cannot bejust developed overnight.
A leader is somebody who iswilling to take charge, who is
(01:53):
willing to be accountable fortheir actions and the actions of
others.
A leader is willing to do thethings that it's hard to do.
So, as you sit here and listento the podcast, I want you to
think about if you're a currentleader right now, what are some
of the things that you wouldlike to do to improve your
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leadership skills?
What are some of the thingsyou'd like to do to motivate
your team?
How do you feel like you canget certain individuals to up
their game, be able to improvethemselves?
Then?
These are the type of topicsand ideas that can help you
(02:37):
utilize these to teach, inspireand mentor others.
As we look at what a leader is,let's define a leader.
Well, let's start like thisDefining a leader is not just a
set of action words.
It is about the actionsthemselves.
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Therefore, a leader cannotreally be put into a box,
because a leader comes indifferent shapes, forms and
different ways and walks of life.
So right now, ask this questionis a leader born or is a leader
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made?
Well, guess what?
In this case, a leader can bein both ways.
Some are born with the innatequalities that they are able to
just have people gravitatetowards them and people are
confident in their actions,confident in their words, and
they are able to lead a teamwith very little work, while
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others have to develop skills,have a subset of skills, the
tools to be able to startutilizing and then learning how
to be a leader.
And those are the same leadersthat can be just as good or
better than those that are bornwith those leadership traits.
(04:05):
So let's talk about motivation.
A leader has to have theability to motivate.
Motivating is when you're ableto get somebody to do much more
than they're capable of doingwithout that extra push.
We are human beings.
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We all need to be able to havethat special person sometimes
push us to what we need to do toexcel, in whatever fashion it
may be.
Therefore, the more you areable to motivate a team, the
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better outcome you're going toget.
So today, when we look at how tobe a leader at whatever age.
That is a topic today.
How can you be a leader at anyage?
It could be young or old, itdoesn't matter and I actually
had a person that recently askedme.
(05:07):
They were younger and theyasked me how do you become a
leader?
And I thought to myself for asecond.
That is a loaded question.
I've inspired, I've helped,numerous leaders that were very
young and didn't have the toolsor skills that were needed at
(05:31):
the time, and that's fine,because everybody needs the
opportunity to be able to have achance to be a leader.
And so I said to this person Isaid the way you become a leader
is start by being yourself,start by utilizing the tools
(05:51):
that you already have, and thatis means could be anything that
you have from your tool chest,because we are all good at
something.
And they've asked me once Isaid that well, what if I don't
have any skills?
And my answer in response tothat was we all have skills.
(06:13):
That was we all have skills.
We all have the ability to notonly lead ourselves but to lead
others.
So the first step I told themwas you have to utilize the old
tools by leading yourself first.
It does mean that you have tobe self-aware, be understanding
(06:38):
of what's going on around youand that people are paying
attention to what you do.
And for you to be able to dothat, you have to have personal
strengths.
You have to be able to build onthose strengths and then
understand the situation that isgravitating around you and why
people look up to you as aleader.
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Do they look up to you as aleader because you have a title?
Do they look up to you as aleader because you have
integrity?
Do they look up to you as aleader because you lead by
example?
You're really good at what youdo and people want to be able to
be just as good.
So that was the first thing Itold the individuals lead
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yourself first, lead by example,be yourself and then, at the
same time, look at yourselfobjectively, by treating
yourself with objectively, bytreating yourself with
compassion and admiring some ofyour, some of the things you've
done before.
Sometimes you have to look atwhat you've done and appreciate
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and admire, but you also have tobe honest and assess yourself
in a way that is being honest.
Sometimes we're not good ateverything, and that's okay and
that's why you have to acceptthat your work can always be
approved.
(08:05):
You can always find a way to bebetter.
And then the other thing Imentioned was to have that
desire to help others.
It's not about the title youhave, the money you make, the
stature you have.
It's about putting others first, helping them.
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A leader is someone who helpsanother person move from what
they currently are at to whattheir potential is.
That is the power of motivation.
And you know there's alwaysgoing to be opportunities for
you to help.
You can help people at school.
You can help them in theirpersonal life.
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You can help them in work.
You can just be a good listener.
You want to be able to graspthe opportunities that are in
front of you to help you becomea leader.
A leader is not about justbeing by title.
Anybody can be a leader andthat's how you start out.
(09:09):
Now what I like to talk about iswhen I was very young.
Unfortunately, I did not havevery good leadership skills.
When I was in my early 20s,late teens, I was always the
type I wanted to be a motivator.
I wanted to inspire others.
That was my key leadershiptrait.
But my weakness, my weakness.
(09:29):
When I assessed myself, I wasrather immature, and immaturity
caused me to fail in a lot ofopportunities, and that is a
defining moment for me, becausethe reality was my maturity, or
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lack thereof, was getting in theway of me being able to inspire
, motivate, and that was my keystrength.
So sometimes your weaknessbalances out your strength, and
that's where you find aconundrum.
That's where you find what yourlimitations really are, and so,
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as I talked to this person andtried to mentor them, I could
have spent two hours going overat you know what it is to be a
leader and what age that you canbe a leader, but you have to
focus on certain key attributesthat you need to be able to be a
leader, and there's a lot ofthem.
(10:35):
I could literally sit here foran hour or two and go over all
the additional traits.
You know taking initiative,building trust, being able to
focus on developingcommunication skills, and you
know being adaptable, seekingopportunities, being a team
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player you know we talked aboutleading by examples.
You know, yet, leveraging yourexpertise, and those are just
some of the key traits abouthelping others.
Others be not only great teamplayers, but being able to lead
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others, being able to inspireothers, motivate others.
If you're able to do that andcreate trust.
The earned trust separates thereal leaders from the pretenders
.
What do you mean?
How can you be a pretend leader?
A pretend leader is somebodythat is.
They just, basically, they tryto pretend.
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They try to pretend thatthey're leaders.
They try to build trust, theytry to do things, but what
happens is they don't have theinterest of the team at heart.
They have the accolades, theyhave what's in it for them as
their main drivers andmotivators for them to pretend
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that they are leaders.
A leader can be made, a leadercan be born, but a true leader
cannot pretend.
If you do all of these things,you create trust.
You continue to improve yourcommunication skills, you have
the desire to help others, youlearn from great leaders.
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I always say surround yourselfwith great people, great leaders
that have the intangibles, thathave the tangibles.
And then also look at yourselfobjectively, know what your
strengths are, know what yourweaknesses are and then lead
yourself first.
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If you can't lead yourself andbe accountable for your own
actions and look at where youare within your spectrum, then
how do you expect others to beable to look in that spectrum
and have the desire to followyou, and those are the key
(13:02):
aspects of keeping yourself inthe game.
What does that mean?
It means you need to beruthless in finding time for
yourself, and finding time foryourself Self-care is extremely
important.
What is self-care, for example,for me?
I absolutely love playingbasketball.
Basketball is my outlet.
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It's my way of exercising,along with spending time with my
family.
When you're looking atexercising.
It releases the endorphins, itreleases your objective of
exercise.
It improves your basketballgame.
But that's why I always say isput yourself first.
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Be selfish when it comes toself-care.
Find something that allows youto not only help yourself, but
will then give back to helpingothers, being able to help them
improve.
So that's why I always sayleadership is about helping
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others become better than whothey are now.
There is no I in team.
A team is able to conform andthat when they conform, they're
able to operate at their best.
That's why coaches, managers,ceos get paid a significant
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amount of money.
Because how?
It's because they're able toformulate a team.
They're able to managepersonalities.
They're able to formulate ateam.
They're able to managepersonalities.
They're able to communicateextremely effectively.
Imagine this If you have a CEOof a large company.
Do you think that they are ableto communicate effectively?
Do they get their messageacross the way they should?
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The answer, in most terms, isyes if they're the right person
for the job.
But if they can't communicate,if they're not able to basically
conform to the group and ensurethat they all know what they're
doing, from top down, no matterwhere you are in the division
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of the company, if you're ableto strike the message across the
whole company, then you'regoing to be a successful leader,
because if you can communicateand you can act with trust,
integrity, become adaptable andbe somebody that people
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effectively want to follow, thenyou're going to be able to be a
great leader.
So when that young person askedme how do you become a leader, I
always like to say it's notabout becoming a leader.
It's about becoming a greatleader, because a great leader
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is one that is going to be ableto have people morph around them
and be somebody that everybodywants to follow.
So I'd like for you to take asecond.
Think about a great leader thathas impacted your life.
They could be work, school,family, friends, groups,
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whatever it may be.
Think about that leader.
What do you think made them agreat leader?
What were some of the traitsthat you loved about that person
and how did they effectivelydemonstrate they were a great
leader?
And if you surround yourselfwith all of those types of
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individuals where you can sharethose leadership skills and they
can be a mentor to you and thenin return, you can be a mentor
to somebody else, then that iswhat I consider great leadership
.
I want to leave everybody withthis last message leaders are
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born and they're made.
Great.
Ceos understand what it takes tobe a great CEO because they
were able to effectively utilizeall those traits.
But if a leader cannot utilizeall those traits or a leader of
a country or a leader ofanything, if they're not able to
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effectively communicate, theydon't have the integrity, they
don't have the trust, they don'thave the trust they don't want
to help you in a way, to helpyou become successful then that
is where they're going tostruggle.
So the first steps in becominga great leader, remember, are
lead yourself first.
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If you're able to lead yourselffirst, then you're able to lead
others.
Look at yourself objectively,remember you have to look at
your strength and weaknesses,and that will help you
understand what traits you havethat are great and ones you need
to improve.
Surround yourself with greatleaders, help others leaders
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help others.
Remember to continue to improveyour communication skills,
create trust with your team andtake initiative.
If you want to be a greatleader, you have to demonstrate
those qualities.
So, again, I want to thankeverybody for the opportunity to
share with you and helpmotivate you and inspire you,
and I hope that you take theselessons to help others and share
(18:40):
with others.
I am very thankful.
I would not be here without you.
So we've had individuals fromover 75 countries continue to
listen.
I have a great listening base.
So thank you to all thoseindividuals all across the
countries that follow us, fromJapan to Germany to Eastern
(19:02):
Europe I mean, I could go on andon and on because we have some
great listeners all over theUnited States.
So, wherever you may fall, fromCanada to all these countries,
thank you for your continuedlistenership.
At this point, I want to thankyou and if, wherever you are,
have a great day, a great night,and we'll talk to you later.
(19:23):
Take care, bye, bye.