Hey, what's up, champions? This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to another dynamite podcast today. Today we're going to be talking about change, but specifically when you desire to see change in others. I will tell you that when you desire to see change, whether if it's in another person, if it's in an office environment, whatever it is, change, unfortunately, always must start with you first. As a leader. Someone is always watching you. And when you learn to embrace the concept that change must first start with you, you'll begin to understand how powerful and significant this leadership principle can be. And the change that you desire to see in others will almost become automatic as they watch the change in you. Man, I am fired up for today, and I pray you are also. Get ready.

This is your captain speaking. We want to let you know we have been cleared for takeoff. We have clear skies today with no winds, so we are expecting a smooth and highly enjoyable flight. However, should you experience some personal turbulence, don't worry as you have chosen the right airline. As we are trained in navigating unexpected bumps, our destination today is high performance and success. Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do. As we too are pumped for today's flight, we understand you have options when you fly, and we are grateful that you have chosen to fly with us today. We recognize by choosing to fly, Neal Reyes, you are committed to growing personal development and reaching higher than you ever have before. Enjoy today's flight, be blessed, and remember, the best is yet to come.

What's up, champion?

This is your host, Neal Reyes, and.

I want to welcome you to the Executive Perspective. For years, I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living?

Why?

Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing. I'm an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership and technology. I'm also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO. CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm. My number one passion is people, and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential. If you're a high performance individual like me, or you're simply ready to take your business leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because I'm locked in and all in. This is the Executive Perspective.

Hey, what's up, champions? This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you to the Executive Perspective. Today I'm going to be talking with you about a topic around change, but more specifically, that Change always starts with you first. I'm going to say that again. Change always starts with you first. Real leadership doesn't begin with commanding change or requiring change in others. It begins by you becoming the change that others are willing to follow. I'm going to say that again because it's significant. Real leadership doesn't begin with you commanding or requiring change in others. It begins by you becoming the change that others are willing to follow. What I will tell you is that even in personal experience when you operate from this concept, that change always starts with you first. In most cases, you don't even need to talk to others about change because as they watch your examples, as they watch the way you live your life out loud through your actions, they'll naturally follow in line with that. Especially if you have some form of influence or responsibility over them or authority. If you have some type of authority or responsibility or influence over them. As people watch you change, they'll almost always fall in suit and you'll begin to see change in them as well. It's just a leadership principle that's tried and true. Leadership always begins with self awareness. I'm going to say that again. Leadership always begins with self awareness. In other words, a good leader always starts with the self awareness of what they're doing or how what they're doing may impact others. Before you can correct, coach or confront anyone else, always check in with yourself first. This is so important because so many times people want to start with others and go right to the problem. But the best leaders in life always ask himself the question, is there something I could have done in this situation to help this person better? I will tell you that me personally, for years now, many years, actually I could say decades, I've learned to follow the concept of believing to set people up for success rather than setting them up for failure. When you have a motto or guiding light or principle, so to speak, where you believe in setting people up for success and not failure, you learn to naturally gravitate towards checking in with yourself first. It's not a way of second guessing yourself. That's not self doubt. That's not even close to what it is. But what it is is it's the mature leader will always look at a situation and ask themselves what role did I have to play in that? Did my actions or did my words help set them up for success or did it help them set them up for failure? When I gave them this assignment, was I crystal clear on what I needed them to do? Was I crystal clear on why it was important. And was I crystal clear on what the desired outcome should be? Because if I wasn't crystal clear in one of those areas, then I may not have set them up for success. I may have set them up for failure. Now, sometimes, depending how bad you do your job, it can mean they do theirs really bad, which means big failure. Or it could just be a little bad, but it still might lead to little failure. But true change always starts with you first. Learn to ask yourself this question. Am I modeling the change I desire to see, or am I modeling the change I want or need to see? You know, even if I spin this back to marriage for a bit, if you and your spouse are constantly arguing, or if you've entered a period where it seems like you're bickering and just being short with each other all the time lately, then you need to ask yourself, am I modeling the change that I want to see? In other words, if you tend to overreact to things, then guess what? They're probably going to tend to overreact to things as well. Or if you overreact and you stay mad longer than you should, then there's a chance they're going to do that. Now, sometimes those things are based around specific personalities, and it's rare you're married to someone who has the same personality as you. Because opposites do attract. There's reasons for that. But at the same time, one of the things you have to recognize is that while you may be different people and there may be some opposites in there, the longer you're together, the more you blend and begin to rub off on each other. But as you rub off on each other, it's extremely important to set the example of am I modeling the change I desire to see in them? And if the change is, and whether this is in your marriage or it's at the office or it's at work, if you desire to see softer responses from people when they retort back to you, then maybe you need to sow some softer responses. If you want to see change where people show more understanding toward you, then maybe you need to sow some seed where you're more understanding towards them. If you want people to be more forgiving towards you, then maybe you need to be more forgiving towards them. Anytime you want to see change in others, it's always going to start with you first. This brings us to our first leadership Truth Bomb of the day. If you're not living it, you can't lead it. I want to say that again. If you're not living it, then you can't lead it. In other words, you have to be more than just talk. You have to be a doer. You have to do the things you say you're going to do, not just be a talker. Only people follow what they see, not what you say. Oh, must say that again, because that's a big one. People follow what they see, not what you say. Now, yes, there are times where if you're telling people to do things, they're going to do it, but people are always going to follow your example. I'll give you a great example. If you're the kind of person, especially in business where you tend to give an assignment to someone, but you don't give them a due date and you never follow up on it, sometimes what your staff will innately do is they will turn around and say, I didn't get a due date. And this person tends to forget about what they asked me. So unless this is important to me, I'm just going to push it off to the side and wait for them to bring it back up later. But yet I know inside they're most likely not going to ask about it again. And so I'm just going to forget about it because they're going to forget about it too. In other words, they're telling me this is important, but when I watch their actions, they don't ever follow up on it. So it can't be that important. So why go invest my time in this if they're not going to ask about it anyways? I'm going to focus on the things I know they are going to ask about. I'm going to tell you that is not a good employee. But this happens and I see it over or let me rephrase this. I've seen this happen over and over again in leadership environments. That's why I always espouse or tell my employees, my leaders, you have to, when you give an assignment, you have to be super clear about what the assignment is. You have to be super clear about why it matters. And you have to be super clear about what the desired outcome is. You want to see from that. But you also have to be super clear about giving them a due date on when you need it to be done. And understand that when you give them a due date, it's kind of Parkinson's Law. Most people are going to wait till the end to knock it out or they'll fill up if it only takes. If that assignment should only take them two days of work, but you give them Five. They'll fill up all five days doing the assignment. It's just part of Parkinson's law. You got to help them understand. Hey, you don't want to slave drive them, right? You don't want to be running them on red. I call redlining. You don't want to be having them burn the candle at both ends or redlining them. But you do need to be adequate to give them proper due dates and time so they know how to do it at the same time. When you're doing that, you got to give the clear expectations. But if you don't follow up on those things, then they may not either. Now here's where your high achievers usually rise above. And this is almost in all environments, you almost always have a set of people who are within your environment that they don't ask for the follow up. They don't ask for you to circle back around. And the moment you assign them something, you don't even have to think about it because they take it and run with it and smash that thing and knock it out of the park. And those are usually the people that leaders find themselves saying, like, why can't such and such be more like them? Well, if you want such and such to be more like them, rather than trying to work on that employee, work on yourself first. Be the person who's super clear about what they're supposed to do, be super clear about why it matters, be super clear about what the desired outcome you want to see, and be super clear about when it's due. And then have a really effective system that you can follow back up with them to find out if it's done on the time frame you said you need it done. If you do that just a couple times, employees will catch on really quick and, and they'll start being more effective. And what you're innately doing is you're helping them to be more successful. And that's what, in other words, you're setting them up for success and not for failure. And as you help set employees up for success and not for failure, they're happier because their lives have more meaning, their job has more fulfillment, and in theory, their employee review should look a whole lot better. And, and if their employees reviews look better, man, that means they should be getting better raises as well. And sometimes it's not always about the pay. It's been proven that if employees are getting paid well, but that if they're being acknowledged and they're being praised and they're being encouraged and their work product is being Acknowledged in public. Those are the employees who stay the longest because they're the most fulfilled at what they do. People follow what they see, not necessarily what you say. Influence isn't rooted in titles or position. It's rooted in consistency and example. You may have a position of authority, and yes, authority can open doors and make a difference on how you lead or making leading easier, but it's your influence, and we have a podcast dedicated just to that alone. But it's your influence that makes the biggest impact, especially when your influence is rooted in consistency and example. In other words, they can see the example in you and that you're consistent. I thoroughly believe that consistency is the key to success in all business, but in life in general, consistency is the key to success. Your change becomes their permission slip, and that's a powerful one right there. That's kind of sticky. It catches. But your change becomes their permission slip. In other words, when they see the change in you, they now have been enabled or empowered because they fill a permission slip that they can go and do the same thing as well. That's why you want to make sure you're doing the right examples, not the wrong ones. Now, here's another leadership truth bomb for you today. The fastest way to lead change in others is to embody it first. I'm going to say that again. The fastest way to see change in others is to first embody it for yourself. The next thing I want to take you to is true leaders own the mirror before they point the. The finger. Whoo. That's solid right there. What do I mean by that? Well, when you look in a mirror, what do you see? You always see yourself. At least you should, or your mirror ain't working very well. When you look in the mirror, you always see yourself. And true leaders, they always own the mirror before they start to point fingers. Man, I don't even like pointing fingers at all. But I'm telling you that this matters right here. And the more time you spend looking at yourself and examining yourself, the less you'll be likely to point fingers at others. But at the same time, the less you'll have to, because the more you focus on you, the more others are watching you. Because as a leader, someone's always watching you. And as they're watching you, those changes are resonating with them, and they're now becoming permission slips for them to change in the same way and in similar areas. Man, I'm telling you, this is a highly effective leadership strategy, even when the problem seems like it's someone Else, or even when the problem seems like it's them and not you ask yourself these questions. Did I set the tone correctly, that I communicate clearly? And have I made it safe to change who? Last one's a big one. I'm going to go through them again. Did I set the tone or did I set the tone correctly? In other words, correctly. Another way of saying is, did I set the tone? In other words, what tone did I set? That's what I mean by did I set the tone correctly? What tone did I set? Did I set the tone? Did I communicate clearly? And this is a big one right here, because most organizations fail because of bad or poor communication. You know, it's so often times people think that they are clearly communicating, but they're not. And so when you communicate, this is how you become an effective communicator with others. When you communicate, your job is not to communicate in a way that you understand and that it's clear to you. Your job is to communicate in a way where it'll be clear to others and they can understand. And that's a big one right there. Because so many times people communicate in the way that makes sense to them. But you're not asking yourself to do that work or that assignment. You're asking someone else to do it. So you don't need to communicate them in the way that makes sense to you. You need to communicate in a way that resonates with them. That's why it's important to study your people. That's why it's important to learn your people. And I will also tell you that when you're supporting others, in other words, if you have someone that you report to, this is why it's so important as well. Because the leaders that you report to also have their ways that they like to communicate or be communicated to. And your job to be a good steward in those moments is to learn how to communicate with them the way they want to be communicated to, not the way you feel they need to be communicated to. This is a big one right here. And the other thing too is, and this was the last one I had mentioned on the questions to ask yourself. And there's other questions you can ask as well, but this one is, have I made it safe to change? In other words, are you making an environment that welcomes change? And when people begin to make the changes, you can celebrate them for doing so? In other words, if someone's at the start and they have a race that they're going to run, let's say it's a 40 yard dash and they're going to run 40 yards before they cross the finish line. They don't cross the finish line in their first step. There is a lot of steps in between. Are you making it safe to change? In other words, when they come out of the blocks and they start the race, are you already getting on them for not being at the finish line when they first started or are you welcoming the change? Are you making it safe for them to run the race? You have to make it a safe environment for people to change and then understand that as they are changing, you need to give them time to complete the change. Man, going back to marriage, if you're expecting change in your spouse and you have communicated them change that you need or want to see, are you being fair to giving them the time to complete the change? And with the changes they're making along the way, even if they just feel like little baby steps, are you celebrating those baby steps? Are you acknowledging those baby steps? Man, I'm telling you right now, if you want to see change in your spouse, then you need to celebrate the steps that they have made, not hold over their head all the things you're still wanting to see. Gosh, that's a big topic right there. That is a huge topic right there. Here's another leadership truth bomb for you. Accountability starts with the person in the mirror. Back to the mirror concept. But accountability always starts with you. It starts with the person in the mirror. Now the next thing I want to talk to you about is changing you has a way of creating momentum in others. I'm going to say that again. This is some positive stuff right here. Change in you has a way of creating momentum in others. When people see you improving, it naturally invites them to rise as well. Or it invites them to change, to rise up, to level up to the next thing you know, how many times have you seen someone maybe who maybe no one ever told them they needed to lose weight, but all of a sudden you see this person losing weight and usually you don't see it on day one. You may not even see it at the end of week one or week two or even the end of month one. But as they commit to that change and they do it over and over and over, one day they come into the office or you see and you're like, man, you have lost a lot of weight. You look fantastic. And what does that do? Oftentimes it spurs change in others. Others want to start talking about what they're doing or how they're eating or how they're working out. And then it motivates them to want to do change. It motivates them to want to go lose some weight or to look better or to feel better. Why? Because when you have change that's genuine in you, it'll create the momentum in others. This is just how change works. It's like a domino effect. It can impact others. But while you can have positive change, you can also have negative change and both can motivate others. If you don't want to see others having being motivated to do negative change, then you want to be the positive change. You don't want to be the person who's having water cooler conversations where you're talking bad about the boss or bad about leadership, or you're criticizing or critiquing every change or decision that's made at the top. Understand? You know, we have other podcasts. We have one that talks about the ladder of ascension. And sometimes where you're at on that ladder is not as high as where your leaders are. And your leaders can see a bigger and broader picture than you can, because by them being higher up the ladder, they have a broader view of what's going on on the horizon and what's coming down the pipe. And it's very unfair for you as an employee to critique them and their decisions constantly without knowing what always went behind them. And I'm telling you, change can either be positive or it can be negative. But if you're doing the negative thing and critiquing them, it won't take long for your employees to follow suit. And all of a sudden, that department that you're running or that team that you're leading or that store that you're in charge of, you might have a whole bunch of negative people in there, and it's no one's fault but your own. And changing a culture like that around can be difficult and take time, especially when you're the one who now has to change to change it in them. But they've already seen how you operate, and now they're having to see a new you. It takes time. Don't fall into that pit. And here's our final leadership truth bomb for today. Becoming better is the most magnetic leadership strategy you'll ever use. As you grow, others will begin to grow with you. Man, that's a fire statement. And as our closing thoughts are today, as we begin to wrap up this podcast, if you want to see change around you, then become it. I'm going to say that again. If you want to See change around you, then become it. In other words, you go first and watch how fast others will follow. Guys, as we wrap up today's podcast, I want you to hear this from me today, because most people don't hear this enough or hear it at all, but I want you to hear it from me. I believe in you, and I believe in your abilities. I believe that you have greatness that lives on the inside of you. You just need to continue to cultivate it, to grow it and bring it on the outside so that others can see it as well. I believe in you, Champion. You know, you listen to these podcasts, and as you listen to this podcast, through the whole thing, you didn't get to the end of this podcast by accident. You got to it because you're willing to work on yourself. You got to it because you're wanting to grow. You're wanting to grow. Your space and personal development matters to you. I want you to know from me to you that I believe in you, Champion, and I see greatness on the inside of you. I know greatness is on the inside of you. And as you continue to cultivate it and grow it and bring it on the outside, others are going to see it as well. Whatever that thing is that you're working on, whatever you're calling or your assignment is or whatever that thing that's a desire of your heart to do, I want to encourage you to go out and smash it. Go out and do your best on that thing. Absolutely smash it, and watch how it impacts others around you. Guys, before we let you go, I want to remind you to swing by our website@nealrayes.com where you can find all of our resources on there. In addition to that, I also want to encourage you that if you're liking this podcast, then to follow it and leave us a review, to subscribe to it, to share it with others. And podcast land, this podcast has taken off like wildfire. But one of the things that helps us grow on Podcast land is when people leave reviews or ratings on our show. And we're so grateful for you for doing that, guys. As always, I want to remind you that you have greatness in you and I believe in you. And I want to encourage you to go out and smash it on whatever it is you're working on today. Guys, until next time, thank you and have a blessed day.