150: How to be your best while becoming your best

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Summary:!

Leadership exists within an interesting tension. Great leaders are not only worthy of following today – we need to be able to trust that our leaders have a vision for the future. As leaders, we re all looking for ways and opportunities to lead people and create influence. We re called not only to be really good right now, but also to plan to be great in the future. In today s podcast, Shane and David are breaking down a talk Shane gave at this year s Chick-fil-A 2020 planning session in Atlanta. How can we be our best today while working at becoming our best tomorrow?

Welcome to episode 150 of the Executive Minds Podcast.

Links + Resources

Nancy Duarte Communication Workshops

Matthew McConaughey s 2014 Best Actor Speech

Phidippides Shoes

Three Takeaways:

Start With Your Why

During your leadership journey, there will be moments when you are not your best, and are not interested in working at becoming your best. During these lulls, you can come back to your personal mission statement to remind yourself of exactly what it is you re looking to build. David Farmer refers to these moments as friction – a force pushing in the opposite direction of where you want to go. Friction has to be overcome by a stronger force in order to keep us moving forward. Your purpose is the force to power you beyond friction.

Have Something to Look Forward To

We are all building towards something. When a construction crew begins work on a house, their objective is not to build for building s sake. Instead, they look forward to a completed structure that will give shelter to whoever dwells inside. Your mission statement is the house you re building. Those goals can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or family – but they are crucial to keeping us at our best and giving us a target at which to aim.

Chase Yourself

Who are you chasing? We all have role models who have informed our leadership journeys. It s helpful to have someone to help you build your leadership framework and point you in the right direction from the start. But who should we be chasing? The only way to keep ourselves focused on being good now and better later is to chase ourselves. Set your sights on the leader you want to be in ten years, and ten years from now you can set your sights on the leader you ll be in twenty-five.