Don't follow the leader... Become the leader!

I absolutely love penguins so I'm glad I could incorporate this picture into this weeks post!

Are you a LEADER or a FOLLOWER?

Can you remember back in elementary school playing on the playground? There was probably one kid who everybody wanted to be like, who set the fashion trends, who decided what toys were cool to play with, decided what movie to see on the weekends...
everybody wanted to be like them....they were the leader. Everybody else was the follower.

Most people become a follower by default.
Think about it.

Growing up you think everybody is looking at you, judging you, making fun of you. There are so many different influences to deal with, your parents telling you one thing, your friends wanting you to do something different, then you have the T.V the movies, the magazines and you want to be like them.. all this adds up to insecurities, lack of confidence and just confusion.

All you want to do is whatever it takes to be liked and just fit in. If you have to buy the new 200$ nike air shocks you'll beg your mom for them. if you need to get a Gucci purse you'll save up all your babysitting money and buy it, if shaving your head is the cool thing, sign me up. Most people would just do whatever it takes to be "cool" to be "liked" to be "accepted"

So this is how we grow up... This is how we are conditioned, if you aren't born with these natural leadership qualities and you don't know what is cool, or what is fun you will always look at the people who you think have it figured out and FOLLOW them.

I use to be the biggest follower EVER. If you knew me 5 years ago you would agree... I was small, insecure, un confident, unhealthy, whatever. I always turned to others to see what was cool. I didn't make my own decisions. I got into drinking and drugs because i thought it would make me cool. i'd do stupid stuff for attention if i thought people would like me for it... basically I had none of my own values so I just adopted other peoples.
ugh.

The point is whether they admit it or not this is the reality for most people at some point in their lives...
So how do most people deal with it?
How did YOU deal with it?
Did you hang out with a natural leader, somebody who has confidence and feed off that person's energy to boost your own state?
Did you turn to drinking or drugs to gain confidence,

get a boyfriend or girlfriend to fill the void of your insecurities, or sleep around to get validation that people liked you??

It doesn't have to be that way.

I'm sure by this stage of your life you have seen enough of the world and developed a strong enough identity and had some experiences with leadership to build on.
You realize that people aren't looking at you all day long like you thought they did back in Jr. High. they are too busy looking at themselves. Nobody really gives a shit what your haircut looks like or what clothes you are wearing. They are too busy worrying about themselves and their own 99million problems.

So what you can do is keep building on these experiences to strengthen your skills.

Developing leadership skills is in my opinion is one of the most important qualities to develop in life. Always being a leader will give you a greater sense of control in your life and who doesn't want control of their life??
You will no longer be Dependant on looking up to somebody else to make your decisions or follow.
You are the leader.
You make the decisions.
You are in control.
You are responsible.

I think perhaps the biggest way to make a difference in your ability to lead is just getting in the habit of always making quick CONFIDENT decisions. Do that and you will see a substantial difference. Make a decision which way to go..right or wrong and just roll with it. If somebody comes to you with a question have an answer or a plan.

Just look at any leader, they ALWAYS have to have an answer or a plan. That is why they are the leader. Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England patriots playing in the Super bowl this Sunday has exactly 40 seconds in between each play to make a decision of what play to run next. He doesn't have 5 minutes, he has 40 seconds max, the play is executed and then he must move on to the next decision. bang, bang, bang his team looks to him to make these decisions which is why he is the leader. If the quarterback, Tom Brady suddenly calls an unexpected time out and has a question of what to do Bill Belichick doesn't have time to think about it, he has to have an answer or a strategy/plan of how to deal with it RIGHT AWAY .

You can practice this in your own life to develop these traits. Next time you are in line at Subway instead of sitting there thinking about what to get for 5 minutes, pretend you are a coach just pick one and roll with it. Next time you are renting a movie at blockbuster pick one up and roll with it. If your girlfriend asks what the plan is for the weekend and you haven't really thought about it, consider it an unexpected time out and just come up with one.
Right or wrong,
LEAD, LEAD, LEAD
by making a decision and rolling with it.
simple stuff. try it.

Now when making decisions that are a little more important than what sub to eat or which movie to watch here's a secret I was taught

Have VALUES and GOALS.
Values that are so strong that you will not break them or compromise them for anything. And goals that are so important to you that you will achieve them no matter what.
Having these two thing in place and working together makes things very easy. Its like having your own personal compass. Its deluxe. Whenever you are faced with a decision just input it into your compass and whatever course of action will lead you towards your goals and what you value is the decision you make.
Easy right? cool.

have fun!!!

MEL

ps. later this week I will be doing something I meant to do at the beginning of the month and posting my video goals for 2008 - the year of destiny.

Welcome to the most eastern point of North America....

Well its 4:30 am and I'm in the lobby of the Big 8 hotel, St. John's, Newfoundland with my friend killing time before we catch our plane back home tomorrow morning...
Instead of getting a hotel for an extra night we just decided to find a random warm place and stay up all night. Works well because we are both trying to be more conscious of the way we spend our money!

Anyway I just spent what turned out to be 5 deluxe days here on a Political Studies Conference. It was my first time in Newfoundland and I absolutely loved it. Everything about it, from the cod tounges to the grand narrows just a fabulous city all around.

All I knew about politics before I got here was that in general politicians were highly opinionated, liked to argue, have confrontations and have a tendency to make promises they cannot keep.... I don't know how true that actually is because I don't follow politics close enough...

However, being in this environment at a political conference got me thinking about some of these qualities and how they relate to my personality. I thought about how I handle confrontation and honesty in my own life.

In particular what happens when you have a situation involving somebody else that you are unhappy with or where you have to share with them news that you know will be disappointing to them or anything else they might not like or react negatively to?

How do you currently handle a situation like this in your life?
Are you one to confront the situation immediately and lay it all on the table?
Do avoid the situation and let it grow?
When you do confront somebody are you completely honest about the situation revealing all the necessary facts?
Do you only reveal a partial amount of the information ?

This is an area I have sometimes struggled with in my own life. I find everybody can share great news, its always easy to talk about the good things or communicate with somebody when the going is good. But things change when the going isn't so good... When you owe your landlord $250 and won't have it before the first of the month... or maybe you borrowed a video game from your friend and lost it.

Whatever the scenario What I have realized is that when you have a potentially confrontational situation you have it for a reason. Although sometimes we think that situations will magically resolve themselves and disappear with time the reality is they won't. Naturally then, the longer you avoid dealing with a confrontational situation the bigger the problem is going to get. Almost to the point where you create a monster.

Now, the bad news is that the longer you wait to confront the monster the bigger its going to get and the harder it is going to be to deal with.

We have all had these situations. Think back to the last one you had. Can you remember when it started? Could you almost feel it starting to grow inside you? What did you do about it?

The good news is that there is an effective way of dealing with these situations:
CONFRONT the issues head on as SOON as you see it starting to develop and use HONESTY.

Don't give the monster any time to grow and don't leave anything out.
What happens when you confront but are not completely honest is that you will give the monster a chance to return.

People everywhere appreciate honesty and knowing about situations ahead of time no matter how bad it may seem rather than dealing with a monster.

well its 5:00 in the morning and im completely exhausted talking about monsters I feel like I was just in a nightmare!!.
its really not that bad try this stuff out
Time to get to the airport.
'
MEL

It's all been done before...

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This blog (blŏg) Pronunciation Key
n. A weblog.

intr.v. blogged, blog·ging, blogs
To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.


Blogs are just GLORIOUS.
I realized now that I've finished university I won't have the opportunity to write much... sooooo to keep up my English skills in 2008 I'm going to start blogging once a week.

So here it is: Call it the season opener;
The GRAND start of my blog.
I don't know what I'm going to post from week to week so you'll have to read to find out... :)

I do know that this is goign to be an incredible year and so I want anybody reading my blog to learn a few things from the experiences I share and the ideas I post. To help you come up with some fresh new ideas for you're own life to make it better, bigger, more exciting and just more fun!
That's my goal,
So if you aren't into that stuff you probably won't get much value from my blog or find it very interesting....

If you are here is the first post

"It's all been done before"

I didn't just wake up one day and come up with this brilliant idea of starting a blog...
I actually currently read a few other blogs on the internet and love it... I look forward to reading them every week.
So I thought, hey that's a cool idea, I should start doing that.

So I went online, created an account, wrote a post, done.

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel as they say.... Look around you right now, look at the people you want to be like, look at what they have and the things that you want.

What are they doing to get it? how are they doing it? If they have great ideas or things you want in you're own life ask them about it. ask how they did it, what they would suggest and use that as a template for yourself !

Don't make things hard on yourself by trying to become a genius new inventor

Because:

YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

Its all been done before, look for people who have done it, and model them. Make it simple

That's it for now... more next week!

MEL

P.s If you have any comments POST them!