Freedom Friday: Who Are You As A Leader?

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.

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I'm your host, Ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where me or me and a friend of mine I keep saying that, but really it's just been me.

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It's just been me, me or me and a friend of mine I keep saying that, but really it's just been me, it's just been me.

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We'll come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free.

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So we are doing talks on leadership.

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So by now I think you have heard, or we have dropped part two of the leadership conversation and the talks with middle adults segment, and so, man, it's been a great.

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This is probably one of my favorite things we've talked about.

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I love the topic of leadership.

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I'm always listening to leadership podcasts, reading leadership books.

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I'm so fascinated by leadership and the way that leaders are able to move things in such a profound way.

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You know there are so many theories about leadership, so many different directions you can go when it comes to learning about it, understanding it, understanding how you fit into those things.

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You know, I do believe that everyone is a leader.

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I believe that leadership is inside of everyone and I also believe that there are certain levels right to leadership and there are certain people who are designed to lead things at different levels that may have an influence or impact over more people over a longer period of time, that have a bigger splash sometimes in history, and I'm so fascinated by that, and so sometimes I think it's important, first of all, you understanding that somewhere in your life you're leading something and someone.

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Somewhere in your life you're leading something and someone.

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If you have children, you're leading them.

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If you have at work, if you're working, you are in some leadership position.

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You have some level of influence over something right.

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And so I think that it is crucial If you're on a team, even if you don't have a leadership title, you lead in some way.

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It's important that you understand how that happens.

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It's important that you understand that you're a leader, and again, it's not going to look the same for everyone, and everybody's not going to have a leadership title, but you are a leader.

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And again, it's not going to look the same for everyone, and everybody's not going to have a leadership title, but you are a leader, and I think that is such an important reality, because once you grab hold of that, then you're able to approach life in a much more authentic way.

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For a long time I would not call myself a leader.

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I refuse to believe it.

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I didn't see it, I didn't want to see it.

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It's more so I didn't want to see it.

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I'm not going to say I didn't see it, but I didn't want to see it because I didn't really want to accept the responsibility of that.

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I didn't really.

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I didn't want to be held accountable to those measures and so I just didn't accept it.

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And I remember distinctly I had a couple of friends come into my house and we were talking about something and out of the blue, one of them said out of nowhere, you know, you're a leader, right?

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It's like what, what are you talking about?

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And where did that even come from?

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We weren't talking about that.

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It was as if I don't have a ton of moments like this so I don't say this lightly, but it's as if God in that moment was just determined to get into me that reality and that truth.

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And so he used someone who didn't even know me that well at the time, didn't know me very well.

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We had only met a few times.

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This is the first time we really spent much time together and she just said you're a leader and you need to stop.

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You need to stop trying to run away from that, and I remember that that was probably like 2017 or 18.

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I'll never forget that moment and I'm grateful for that moment because I had to accept that.

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So, if you're in that space, I need you to know you're a leader, and if people around you are trying to tell you that, then you need to accept it.

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Accept it, accept it, All right.

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So so, once you kind of accept the fact that you might be a leader, then there are I think there are four things as you reflect on who you are as a leader, that'll help you to understand how you do show up, or how you might show up as a leader.

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All right, we're going to call it the four Ps.

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That are just just opportunities to reflect.

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They're opportunities to reflect on how you show up in your leadership.

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What would it look like?

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What is it probably going to look like to lead in whatever capacity you're leading it, that's as a parent, as a positional leader of an organization, of a company, of a church, you know, in a social group, on a team, whatever that might be, just in your friend group.

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Whatever that might be right, how are you going to show up as a leader?

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The first way to kind of tease that out and my mom taught me this is look at the pattern in your life.

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Look at the patterns of your life.

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You aren't much different than the seven-year-old that was alive 30, 20, 30 years ago.

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Okay, you, you are.

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You are still that seven-year-old in there.

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So I say that to say this who you, you have been, whatever, whatever it is that you've been experiencing, has been on purpose and it's probably not going to change you, you how, how you've been since you were young is probably still how you are.

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And so you want to look at the patterns of your life, what that might look like for your leadership, right, what?

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What is what's been consistent for me?

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One of the things that's been consistent for me is, even though I know I'm a leader, I'm not, I'm not one of those leaders who's going to raise their hand to say I'll do something.

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That's, that's just not my style.

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I.

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I am a leader who will accept the responsibility if it is kind of shared.

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Hey, I think this is something that we would love for you to lead in.

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Right, that's typically the pattern.

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So what does that look like?

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How does that help me?

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I don't have to feel the pressure of sitting there raising my hand and say I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it.

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I don't have to feel the pressure of sitting there and raising my hand and say I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it.

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I don't have to do that.

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I don't have to do that.

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That's not been the pattern of my life, and so I don't have to believe that if I don't raise my hand, I won't have leadership opportunities.

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It hasn't been the pattern.

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That's me.

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I don't know about you, but I have not.

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That is something that I feel like I've had to unlearn is like all leaders are not, don't have the same personality and aren't going to enter into that leadership space the same way.

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That's one way, and then there are other ways, and so I've had to unlearn that, and so I'm comfortable with that.

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I'm comfortable with being in the background until somebody says, hey, can you help us with this?

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Sure, I can help you with that.

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So what is the pattern of your life been?

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What are things over time that you can say this has just not changed.

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This seems to be pretty consistent.

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What is the next thing is the passion of your life?

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What thrills you, what excites you, what is the thing that seems to always get you going?

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I love new projects.

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I love new projects.

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I love projects that are difficult, that are challenging and that are new.

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I love projects that push the envelope.

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I love projects that people often don't think are possible to do, or even you know a good idea sometimes, because it might be a little too risky.

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I love stuff like that, and so I get real passionate about about new, new ideas, new ideas that haven't been tried, and I love to be a part of those things.

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So, like, what are what is the thrill of your life?

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Like what are the passions that's going to help you to understand how you show up as a leader?

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I have, I have been a part of for 15 years, I've been a part of uh, I think at this point, five different founding teams of, of of organizations, whether I'm on staff or on the board or, in the case of the organization I lead, now a co-founder of it.

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That has been where my professional life has been, is in the very beginning stages of things.

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That, again, is another pattern for me and it's a passion.

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I love doing it Right.

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I I really, really enjoy doing it, and so I have to understand that A lot of my leadership is going to show up at the beginning of things, because that is something that I'm passionate about.

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So what's the pattern of your life?

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What's the passion of your life?

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What's the position that you are right now in your life?

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The timing of your life.

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Okay, Also very important the leadership roles I was taking on in college are different than the leadership roles I take on now.

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The leadership roles I was taking on in college are different than the leadership roles I take on now.

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And the leadership roles I would take on before I was married with a child are different than the leadership roles I would take on now.

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Right, the leadership roles I took on when I was new to Memphis and new to the city are different than the ones I take on now.

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You have to understand what's your timing in your life, what's the position you have in your life right now, and understand that's going to also determine how you show up as a leader.

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The last thing is purpose Purpose how is your life being impactful?

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What is the impact of your life and, specifically, who are you impacting?

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I think that is usually the biggest question of purpose is the who, because purpose means very little if it's not attached to other humans.

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Okay, so who are the who's of your life?

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What purpose?

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What's your purpose?

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Who are you here for?

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What purpose?

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What's your purpose?

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Who are you here for?

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Again, that could be seasonal, right, but also sometimes those are very.

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They're not always, sometimes they're still, they're consistent.

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I, I have, I have learned that my purpose, most of the time it touches uh, my life, is going to touch people who are younger than me, and so that has been my experience for quite some time.

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And so, like, my purpose is attached to the generation below me, Right, and it's, at times, my generation, the people who are around my age.

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That's kind of where I live and that's for whatever reason.

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That's what, that's the way that God has wired me.

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And so, what is your purpose?

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Who are you here to impact?

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And then in what ways?

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In what ways are you here to impact them?

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Those are opportunities to reflect.

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You may not get answers to this stuff, you know, in five minutes, it may not come to you quickly, but these are opportunities for you to say, okay, I will probably show, especially for those of you who are kind of just now, uh, getting into the comfort zone of your leadership, Like, hey, I've accepted, I'm a, I'm a leader.

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In some way I wear that pride.

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I'm not trying to hide from it anymore.

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Okay, so how do I then show up as that?

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And then for those of you who have been around for a while in that mindset like I'm a leader I know that I've been living this leadership life for a minute this will help you to kind of tease out sometimes what you allow your leadership to touch, Because sometimes as a leader, you can feel pulled in a lot of different directions.

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But if you can work through this and understand this is typically how I show up.

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And show up as my best self, like what are the patterns, what are my passions, Where's my position and what's my purpose, It'll help to narrow down some of the opportunities that might be coming your way, because people see that gift in you and they see that you are a leader.

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So we can't let people pull and, pull and pull on us.

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We have to be very particular of where we put our gifts and our skills and our talents.

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So, whether you're just now coming to that realization or you've been there for a while.

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I think this will help you to know how to show up or how you will show up as a leader.

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So that is it All right.

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I hope that was helpful.

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This has been another edition of Freedom Friday.

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Like, share, subscribe.

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Let somebody else know.

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If you have somebody in your life who is either a new leader or a seasoned leader, it's like I think this might be helpful.

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These you know this 10 minutes of of you know it's 10 minute kind of talk.

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Shoot it to them and and share it with them.

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Don't keep it to yourself.

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Help them out.

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So that is that.

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We will see y'all next week.

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So let's keep on learning together so that you can experience more burrito Peace.

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Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.

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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.

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Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.

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We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.

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See you then.

Freedom Friday: Who Are You As A Leader?

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