It’s your job to lead in every aspect of your life. But, sometimes you forget.
Once in a while life teaches us lessons through unexpected experiences. Master Kim taught me some things about leadership just from being straight forward with me about how I was acting around my son. I took it to heart. I used it as an opportunity to remind myself that I needed to show up as a leader in every aspect of life. Just because I’ve left a full-time leadership job, doesn’t mean that I can’t show up as a leader somewhere else.
Episode 38 Show Notes
Episode 38 Transcript
This is Rebecca Clark, Episode 45, Showing Up as a Leader.
This podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work, but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk?
I’m realizing that I am fairly comfortable with experimenting, and this started long ago when I had a paper route and I had cash and my paper out had a fire station and a bank and a restaurant on it. And so while I was delivering papers Oh, those locations. It was very convenient for me to hop across the street and visit a grocery store or Hallmark cards or a drug store to get little treats or stickers or other little fun stuff. So I experimented with acne creams, makeups and was always open to trying a new product. And I am hopeful to provide this kind of skill or openness to my son. So I’m anxious to introduce into new experiences and to foods and books and the like. So I love martial arts. I don’t know martial arts, but I’ve always loved the beauty and the skill of it, especially in movies where it’s like the epitome with Jackie Chan or Chow Yung fat or some of those guys. And so I have driven by some of these taekwondo and karate places and thought, OK, we’ve got to try this out and it’s been on my mind. And so the other day during the day I saw one that was close to home figured, let’s go walk in and ask some questions and there was no one there except the Master Kim. And so we talked and we had one of those free private lessons and a chance to come back for a free class. It’s been a very interesting experience. My child does not like taekwondo. He hates it. So you’re supposed to buy a month long package and we’re halfway through and it is a struggle, and really, it’s helped. No one has not helped him and has not helped me because there’s lots of kicking and screaming and unwillingness to go, and it’s very difficult for me to see whether or not it’s because he actually hates the moves involved. Or if it’s the realization that he is far behind the other little Children in the class, there’s only like four of them, and he is the youngest. But he’s also the same height as the oldest boy, and they have like a year or two on him. It maybe not two years, but maybe a year, year and 1/2. And so they’ve made comments like, How come you can’t do a somersault? Oh, and what are you doing? You know just different questions from peers that he’s not used to at school. He is used to being very well behaved and not thought of as a disrupter. And yet, in this experience, he’s thought of being as the very disruptive little person that needs to go sit by his mama. That’s very embarrassing for him. Every single week that I have gone to this experience, Master Kim or a parent has said, Oh, is he an only child? He spoiled and Master Kim made the comment to me the first time in very broken English. Your child is leader, you are following him. It needs to be the other way around. You lead, he follows. And it really surprised me because I have always been very well aware of which parents are parenting and which parents are waiting for their child to tell them what they’re going to. D’oh and I grew up with parent parents, write their parents. Still, they can’t help themselves. That’s their life calling. That’s what they focus on. They always Aaron parent mode. And yet for some reason, when Master Kim said this to me and when other parents made little comments, I really took it to heart to take a look at myself and think, What is going on with me now? I’ve made some large changes in life the last few months. I am no longer in a leadership role. I am no longer managing anything. And in my mind I think I’ve been telling myself, Well, I’m giving up a title. I’m giving up these responsibilities I’m giving up and I’m realizing that that is an incorrect thought because giving up is kind of a surrender. Well, it’s not kind of it is a surrender and as I pay attention to some of the choices I’ve made in the last few months, I’m realizing that I have taken that giving up thought a little too far because even though I’m making drastic steps in some things in the back of my head. I am aware that I gave up certain things like title salary benefits, certain influences. But that is not a thought that serves me well going forward. What certainly better is realizing that I let go of that in that particular environment. But I’m still supposed to lead. I’m still supposed to influence. I’m still supposed to manage things in my life. I’ve just changed venues and as I’ve struggled with this taekwondo thing, like, how far do I go with it when the conversation in the car on the way to it, when my child is not in a rage is very clarifying? Because the last conversation I had was Mommy, You really want taekwondo? I don’t want taekwondo. You really want taekwondo? Why am I going to taekwondo? I don’t like it. It’s too loud. We don’t run enough. I’m so far behind. I can’t get ahead and to hear a small person that has very few experiences in life compared to what I’ve had state, these kinds of words makes me realize that, yes, I want him to learn how to deal with difficult situations. Yes, I want him to learn how to follow authority because he’s not saying yes, sir, all the time. He’s like, No, I’m getting out of here. I want to get out of this crazy place right in front of everyone, which is complete disrespect to the principles they’re learning. But it shows that perhaps this is a step too far at this point in time and that I really wanted to try it out for myself, that this was more about something I’m going through and not about him. So as I had this Ah ha this week that I have taken that giving up thought a little too far, and I really need to realize No, I haven’t given up. I am just changing venues. It’s helped me change some of my behaviors quickly to you. Oh, wait, I am in charge here. I am leading. I want this little person to follow. But in the process, I have got to make sure that I learned from these experiences quickly and move on to other experiences for him and that I’m in charge of leading that. I don’t have to keep going to get my money’s worth. It’s not helping him, really, and it’s not helping me yet As I say this, I’m willing to go one more time because there was some headway this week when I left the room and hid for a while. But is this something I want to pay to work through right now, or is this something where we say, OK, we’ve tried that and we move on as the parent, as the leader, I need to weigh that out in my mind and make a decision and then go with it. At this point, part of me thinks I had to go through this experience with Master Kim for him to blatantly say to me, You’re the leader, you’re not acting like it. Hey, he said it in his own way, which already said, But that’s essentially what he was saying. Now he doesn’t know that I’ve been sick for a couple of months, but maybe he needed to say this to me just right at this time so that I step back into the role that I’m supposed to step into. And what’s amazing about this process is the minute I had this realization and realized I needed to take charge again. It also helped me with some other decision making I’m trying to make right now on what actual products and service is I want to offer, and it helped me realize Wait a second. I add value in certain ways. I need to go for it and not piddle around with the wrong things, waiting to be led by others opinions waiting to get feedback on a pilot waiting to figure it out. No, I’m going to take charge of my life and what I have to offer and lead it, step into it and lead it knowing that I’ve already lead. I can continue to do so, and it doesn’t matter what venue that happens from. It’s just not happening from official places right now where I get a special little plastic plaque that says my name and my title. It has to come from within, and it will help me and all those around me if I step into that role and show up in the ways I need to, because on further reflection, I can see that I have not shown up fully for anything in the last few months. Compared to what I know I can be and do an offer. Are you showing up? Are you leading? Are you experimenting and letting go of some things that aren’t working for you but continuing to experiment and embrace those things that are because if you’re not, people will give you hints? Hopefully and sometimes it’s the smallest people from an age perspective that give us those hints if we pay attention to it. But what’s so cool is when we recognize we’re having thoughts about giving up or not being enough, or that something is not possible that we can change it. And in an instant, when we start changing our thoughts, more possibilities can come to us, and it’s our job to act on those. And as we act on those morgue, open up and then we start showing up more inauthentic ways and in ways that help us grow and therefore help everyone in our human orbit benefit. I feel like I am sharing lots of thoughts in the past few episodes about leadership and being a boss and being bossy. But it is on my mind, and any one of us is a leader or a boss in some capacity in our lives, and we have the ability to act and not be acted upon and to choose at every moment how we’re going to act or react and who we will become. And some mistakes, like taekwondo won’t actually be mistakes they serve is wonderful learning experiences that wake us up out of our stupor or zombie mode in a particular area of our life and let us know. Oh, I have to make some changes in this area. And if you’re like me, it opens up a whole Pandora’s box of changes that need to be made and improved upon, and it’s important to just pick one focus on it. And then, as you get some traction in that move to the next thing in Pandora’s box and keep pressing, have a great day. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at. Move your desk dot com. See you next Monday
