Live Event - How To Be A More Courageous & Calm Leader

Leadership comes in so many hats.

We sometimes think leaders are,

Like I said before,

The people that are in the corporate roles or suits or typical leadership.

But leading ourselves and then leading by example that's one of the most powerful things.

Once someone said to me actually she said to me,

Well,

Raj how's things going?

And I said,

Yeah,

Like I'm sometimes afraid that if I'm sharing some of these things like what if no one really resonates?

And she said,

Your job is not to you don't have to convince people.

You're not a convincer.

You just put yourself out there by example and being the example is going to help them lead towards their own change.

You're just expressing what's going on for you.

If you're trying to support them in getting their changes happening by being the example,

Leading by example that empowers others.

So,

To me being a powerful leader is just owning our stuff,

You know,

Owning it.

And you know why I love speaking about this,

Especially to you guys,

Is because I'm noticing all of these things that you've said is you're working on yourselves.

You're working.

You've found things that,

Yeah,

Maybe you want to change perhaps or improve and you're just owning that.

Just owning it.

Leading yourself instead of waiting for someone to come and save you.

And I say this because I've been there.

Waiting for this magical day when everything turns out great.

Waiting,

Waiting.

Not even believing really,

Just in this zone of fear.

This zone of fear,

I can't do this.

Stuck in the story of it.

The story of,

Oh,

This is things are not great,

I'm here,

I'm here,

I'm here and I'm stuck.

I'm going to tell everyone how stuck I am.

And then maybe they will feel stuck as well and then we'll become both stuck.

And that might sound blunt perhaps,

But I'm saying it because I've been there.

One thing is recognizing that there's a challenge.

But if you stay there,

You stay stuck.

If you stay reporting on your life,

I like to call it reporting on your life.

You know like the weather,

The weather is like,

Oh,

Okay,

It's going to be showers and rain and you know,

Oh,

It's going to be sunshine,

Okay,

It's reporting.

There's sunshine,

There's rain,

That's the report.

But then the other side of that is when we own it and we create something different.

We lead ourself into change.

And it's not easy,

I'm not saying any of this is like,

Oh,

Magical,

You wake up and everything,

All of your problems go away.

But all I'm saying is,

I'm kind of just going off what you guys have said so far,

Is that you're leading yourselves towards something better.

So that's the first level of leadership I like to say,

It starts with us.

Being the owner of our lives,

Instead of a victim to circumstance and things just happening.

Yeah,

There's things that are out of our control,

Sure.

But then what about the box of things that are in our control?

Sometimes we underplay that,

You know.

And we think,

Oh,

Everything is out of our control.

Oh,

No,

No,

I can't do anything about this.

No,

No,

No,

No,

Not me.

I can just talk about it.

Talk about the problem.

But we underplay our ability to lead ourselves towards whatever we want,

Really.

And I think one of the keys to get into this state where we can see better and we can actually notice this ability to own and lead our lives is to calm down.

Right?

When we're in a state and someone put in the chat,

Ego mind keeps us spinning.

Yeah,

When we're in that,

When we're stuck and possessed by that almost,

It's very hard to see otherwise.

So I get you.

I'm not just like here saying that everyone's born with this magical ability to grow constantly.

We are,

Yes.

But our minds sometimes tell us not.

So the first step is calming down,

Slowing down,

Slowing,

Slowing,

Slowing.

It's almost as if I had a,

Imagine I had like a photo in front of me printed out,

You know,

Different from mobile phones.

You know,

Those printed out photos.

Had it and I started moving it really fast.

I wouldn't be able to see anything that's on there.

It would just be like a blur.

I don't see anything.

But when we,

If I slowed down that movement of it like this much,

I'll slowly be able to see what's in the photo.

And then if I eventually stop and go into stillness,

Wow,

I can see so much detail that I couldn't see before.

Wow,

This photo is beautiful.

This thing I see is beautiful.

That's what we can see when we slow down.

Everything we see becomes beautiful.

When we slow down and get still.

From that place,

That state of mind,

And I'm not complicating this guys.

I'm not saying we have to become Buddha level.

I'm not saying we have to become a person who is a monk.

I'm just saying slow down.

Everyone has the ability to slow down.

If you say you can't you're lying.

Because what about the moments where you see a bunch of children playing and you're like,

Smiling and you're happy seeing that.

You've slowed down enough to connect to that.

About when you're walking.

Yeah,

Maybe your mind is racing,

But there's those tiny moments where you notice something.

There's a glimpse of something.

And you're like,

Wow,

Beautiful.

You've been present.

So all I'm saying is consciously creating that slow down state.

And to be a leader of someone else you have to be able to see them.

And a lot of people say to me,

They're like,

Raj you really see me.

And I didn't really know what they meant for a while.

If I was honest.

So I asked them,

I was like,

What do you mean?

What do you mean I see you?

And they said,

Well you're noticing the energy.

You're noticing things that I haven't even noticed yet in me.

When we speak.

You're just really listening and you're really there.

You're really there.

And think about it,

Like in your life there's probably only a handful of people or maybe even less who are really there.

Who are really there.

Who are really listening to you.

Who are giving you undivided attention.

And those people are the ones you value.

Because they're able to help you lead yourself wherever you want to go.

Right?

And imagine you can be that person for someone else.

You're really there.

You're really slowed down.

You can lead other people.

You can hear what their needs are.

You can support them.

That's leadership.

To me leadership is something bigger than you really.

Whenever I've been a leader and you know,

Again I'm opening up that term to meaning a lot of things.

For example,

People who are working in hospitals,

They're leading something right?

They're leading.

They're supporting people to live.

They have to take the lead.

There's no other choice.

But then in other types of roles,

You're a manager,

You have a team,

You have to be able to listen to the people.

You have to slow down enough.

And if you can slow down,

It comes back to what I said earlier,

Leading by example.

If you're able to get to a place you can help other people get to that place.

And that's like traditionally what mentoring,

Teaching,

Some kind of leadership roles they require for you to help people get to a place where you've got to.

So that's why calm and slowing down is so important for me in terms of being a leader.

And I'd love to hear what you guys think.

So that's a great question.

How do you know you have something to offer others?

Here's the thing,

Sometimes we put pressure on ourselves on this.

There's this term I like to use called the lamp post theory.

Sometimes is I'm not actually going to say sometimes,

I'm going to say speaking to a lamp post is better than speaking to ourselves inside our head.

Because we're getting it out,

We're verbalizing it,

We're expressing it.

The lamp post doesn't even need to say anything back.

We're getting it out.

So the first thing I want to say about when you ask that question,

How do you know if you have something to offer?

Firstly just being there for someone,

Connecting to someone is enough to offer at the beginning.

Because people want to share things.

And most people don't have someone to share things like that in their lives.

Or they do but they get judgement back.

They get like people throwing advice in their face or you should do this or people feel uncomfortable sometimes sharing it with people.

You know?

There's probably a select person,

One person or maybe a few more that you feel you can share things with.

But sometimes it's hard.

So to answer your question how do you know you have something to give someone?

Most of the time people will look at you as an example.

If you are expressing your story what have you learned in your life?

Right?

What have been your trials and tribulations through life?

Everyone has some.

I was speaking to someone the other day and she was saying to me she wants to start posting on social media,

She wants to be an inspiration to others,

To support other women,

She wants to be like a role model for women.

And that's awesome.

And then she said but I don't have anything to offer.

I don't know,

You know,

Why would they want anything from me?

And I said okay,

Tell me your story.

Why are you into this stuff?

Why do you care?

And she said well this time when I was younger I had a very challenging upbringing with family.

And I never thought we would make it,

We didn't have much money and then I took it upon myself to take to study,

To build myself up even though I knew I was going against all odds.

And then one day I walked into this like course this personal development course and it changed everything for me.

And from that day onwards I went travelling,

I did this,

I did that.

So I said hold on,

You have on your own created life.

Don't you think women would want to hear this stuff?

Don't you think this would inspire them?

What did it take you to go and do that?

She was still being a bit like shy about it.

She was like oh no,

Nothing you know,

Nothing really special,

I'm nothing special.

Then we went into it in depths.

And I told her what she said to me back to her.

I said what I'm seeing is a woman who has gone against all odds,

Who would have been stuck in a life,

In a cycle,

But she broke out of it.

She could have had the same cycle,

She could have been stuck,

She could have had nothing,

But look how far she's come because she did this,

This and that.

And now she wants to inspire other women who also believe that they can't.

Because she remembers how that feels.

She started crying in front of me.

She started crying,

She was like I never heard it that way before.

And I said well that's what it is.

She started putting this out there.

People were inspired.

And ever since that day she's been an inspiring woman like she wanted to do.

It takes that little push to realize we all have something to share in this world.

I don't have competition.

I don't see anyone as competition.

I'm a coach.

There's a hundred coaches out there.

I don't see anyone as competition to me.

Because I know I have my own unique story.

I know I've had things that have come together for me.

So to answer back your question,

You have something for sure to share with this world.

Everyone does.

You just got to flesh it out.

You've got to get that down on paper somehow.

You've got to say what have I learnt?

What are a few things I've learnt through life?

I underplayed this for myself a lot actually.

I thought I had nothing.

Then I went back to the things that had happened.

Things I had,

Opportunities I had and wow I've got this unique story of how I became to be.

So that's what a great leader has to show.

Their story into leadership.

Their kinghood and queenhood.

We are all queens and kings.

We just don't realize it sometimes.

That's my long passionate answer to your question Laura.

Let me know what comes up.

I'd love to hear your feedback if you have any other questions about that or any resistance to what I've said.

Maybe there is and that's okay.

I'd love to hear.

Justin says I'm no grump.

I'm just loving my transformation and I am for once so excited.

That's awesome.

If you're excited the transformation is just going to get deeper and deeper and more fun and more fun.

And fun is important.

I always tell people that I'm working with like even if they're having the biggest challenges with their minds and their feelings like it's going wrong,

I'll bring fun into the equation.

Again like every great leader knows how to cut.

Notice how to cut that seriousness out of things.

That mind seriousness and be a bit playful with things.

I always introduce play and games and invitations to whoever I'm working with.

Challenges,

Little fun ones because to be a leader you have to give you have to play in the world of creation.

You think of like children when they just get pieces of paper they just go nuts because they're playing an imagination world.

It's all getting created in their mind already.

And to be in that place we have to again slow down and we have to just allow ourselves to go into like creative mode,

Play mode,

Friendliness mode,

Taking the edge off mode.

The other thing that comes to mind is looking at the bigger picture of things.

What is,

How important are these things to our life,

To the people that we're leading's life?

What are the three things that are really important?

Identify those.

What are the like three things that if you focused on these for the next month,

Forget everything else,

You focus on these three things,

You're going to lead yourself,

You're going to lead your team,

You're going to lead everyone to amazingness.

Figure those out.

Figure those three big things out.

Forget all of the nonsense that you are keeping in your list.

Yeah,

Do those but lower the priority.

Yeah,

Nice one Jen.

I'm glad that is resonating.

Imposter syndrome.

I say it,

Imposter syndrome is a big thing for leaders.

It was for me being a coach.

Like at first I was like oh,

Who am I to even dare to say I can help people with their lives?

Dare to say I can help people get out of their heads?

No,

I can't do that.

But then when you get out of the mind mode and you go into courage mode,

Which is also what I wanted to talk about today,

Courage mode is is doing scary stuff,

Quite frankly.

It's getting out of the analytical predicting world and it's just doing scary stuff against your analytical mode,

Proving it wrong.

It's funny,

Someone said to me the other day,

They're like yeah,

I'm so stuck in this thing but you know there's one part of me which wants to prove it wrong.

I want to just show it.

And that's where we come down to the typical topic of head versus heart.

Head versus heart.

This heart is much,

Much more intelligent than our heads.

Always.

Always.

And Jen says you'd love to be a coach,

You're really a teacher and meditation facilitator.

Yeah,

Who am I to try and be a coach to help people with their lives?

That question came up a lot for me.

How dare I?

But then I realized it's not really about me.

I'm the person who's facilitating their change,

I'm helping them,

I'm leading them to change,

I'm still the leader,

Yeah,

But they are also a leader in this.

We're both co-creating this.

I'm supporting them,

Yes.

I have been through my own experiences so that is why I can do this.

I know what it feels like.

I can communicate well.

You see,

I already know why I can do this now.

Because I know it's true.

So if you want to know this Jen,

You've got to just know,

Like what are my strengths?

How can I help?

If you're saying who am I to try to do that,

Yeah,

Who are you?

Ask yourself who are you?

What's amazing about you?

And if you think,

Oh,

I don't know what's amazing about me.

What's amazing about the change that you can help someone create?

Because then you take yourself really out of the equation.

What is the change versus you?

Change is the thing that we work on versus me taking it personally.

But let's drop me a message Jen,

I'd love to talk to you about this.

Because there's a lot of people asking me about the question about turning into a coach recently.

So drop me a message,

I'd love to have that conversation.

It'll be fun.

And there's probably something I can send you or support you with as well.

And anyone who's here,

Connect with me on Instagram,

Raj Garcia,

Just my name.

I'm posting there every day.

There's all sorts of stuff on there.

Check it out if you wish.

Or you can message me on Insight Timer if you want.

There's a bunch of resources I've got actually.

I've got one called Five Ways to Challenge Overthinking and there's a story about being chased by a bear in there.

So if you want to know more about being chased by a bear and what I mean by that then let me know and I'll drop you that document.

There's also a bunch of videos I've got on my YouTube channel where I address topics deeply in about 30 minutes.

And I've got also just loads of stuff let's just say.

So anything someone's challenged by I've usually got something about.

Unless it's something I've not experienced.

But yeah,

Drop me a message.

And I like to invite people to drop me a message because otherwise you know I know what it feels like.

When I was going through stuff I would want to reach out to people but I never really felt comfortable.

It was just awkwardness.

I was like no I can do everything.

It's good.

I'm okay.

Let me go and distract myself.

So yeah that's my invitation.

Um.

Yeah just the last thing I'm going to say.

People throw in some questions while I say this stuff.

Oh thanks for the donations by the way.

While I say this stuff throw me some questions.

Anything that comes to mind about leadership,

Courage,

Calming down,

Slowing down,

Whatever.

Drop me a message about that.

Brooke,

Five ways to challenge everything.

No it's a document so it's not an inside time I know.

So just send me a message and I'll just send you that basically.

Like courage is massive.

Because courage is really.

Yeah I'm going to do stuff.

Even though I'm scared.

There's a bunch of people who I know who have to do like speaking in front of people.

They hate it and I used to hate it as well.

It was one of my biggest fears ever.

Because imagine having social anxiety and then trying to speak in front of people.

Biggest nightmare.

Face red,

Sweat everywhere.

Could not do it.

And there's loads of stories about this which I can tell you.

Maybe I'll save that for another day but panic mode.

Like I was about to be shot.

So courage is really just owning this scary stuff and tapping into this heart really.

Because that's where the word courage comes from.

It comes from heart.

Courage is acknowledging the mind.

Acknowledging the doubts,

The fears.

But hey I'm going to do the opposite of what you say,

Mind.

Because something in me knows.

Something in me just knows.

And it has to be expressed.

Even though it That's what I mean by courage.

It's doing stuff that feels like it has to be expressed.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Exactly.

And it's helped me a lot to just zoom out.

What do I want with my life?

Seriously.

I ask people this question a lot.

I say to them Imagine that you knew you had three years to live from now.

What the hell would you do with your life?

Or imagine your life when you are having your last week on earth.

What would you want to say your life was about?

Sometimes I even ask people what is your number one regret up to now?

Everyone has one.

It's all I ask these questions to entice insight.

To bring to surface what's more important.

Bring it to the surface.

And then we say OK with this information,

With this insight you've just said What do you want to do about that?

And often there's these moments of insight and action that occur like Oh you know what?

I better do something about this because I've been holding this thing off forever.

I've been just dealing with living within fear and anxiety.

I've been dealing with this forever.

I'm tired and done with this now.

I don't want to say my life was about this.

I don't want to say I knew there was a bit more to life but I couldn't get over it.

I couldn't get over the mind.

That's where I came from.

I was like I'm fed up of this.

There are moments where I just look back and I'm like hmm wonder what could have been.

But I know now everything happens for a reason.

We can only do stuff in the now.

We have the now to decide OK I want to take the lead on my life.

I'm going to be the leader of myself.

I don't need everyone else to just be there to save me.

I'm going to lead myself.

Yeah have the right people to support me.

Great.

That's why people contact people like me right?

To have the right support.

But the first step has to come from ourselves and say you know what I want to do something.

I want to make a change.

I want to lead my life.

So that's it.

I want to leave it as that.

I want to leave it as that.

Courage is us really being leaders.

And slowing down,

Calming down that's one of the keys to it.

But also knowing what you want in your life.

Seriously what do you want?

Ask people sometimes if there was a genie that appeared on my shoulder and he said you get to ask me one question and I'm gone forever.

What do you ask him?

And then with that answer what do you do?

So I'm going to leave it as that guys.