America’s Leadership Expert : Stay Focused
Speaker 1: … cast number 46, sowing the seeds for personal growth. We’ve been on a path the last few podcasts, talking about how do we grow as leaders? Again, what I have found as Clay shares with Tulsa business leadership, talking with leaders and entrepreneurs and business owners and managers across the country is that their businesses, their teams, their service, is limited not by other people but by themselves, their own capacities, their own ability to process complexity. So what we want to do at America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs at Tulsa business leadership is help these leaders expand, to grow in their capacities, to allow them to make quicker decisions and better decisions as they move forward. What we started out talking about was how to prepare for growth. Then the next step was now how are we going to prepare the soil? We talked about the importance of breaking up the ground and taking out the stones and clearing out the weeds, add the fertilizer and how to put up boundaries. In this podcast with Clay Stairs at Tulsa business leadership, we’re going to be talking about how to sow the seeds for personal growth.
Step number one here is going to be to make sure that you select the seeds wisely. At America’s Leadership Expert, Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, this is something that we try to be very deliberate with with the leaders that we coach and that we mentor across the country. Seeds are new way of thinking. They’re new ideas, new thoughts, new perspectives, new visions. It’s best to have an idea of where you want to go before you take off and start planting. We have to have an idea of, “What types of seeds do we want to plant?” Because personal growth, you could get to something where you just want growth and you can get some wild growth going on. You get this sense of growth, but it’s really not this specific growth that you need in your life.
So the question you want to begin with is what type of fruit do you want to grow? Again, if we’re not careful, we’ll just think growth in general. But we have to make a deliberate decision. What type of fruit do we want to grow? Because if we’re not careful, we’ll just start planting things. We’ll just start reading books on personal development. And it makes sense, it’s good, but it’s not focused. So we need to stop to consider what we need to grow in. What I’ve found is America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership over and over again is a … and this is painful, but I’ve discovered the need to unlearn is as important as the need to learn. We just might need to stop and consider what we need to unlearn first.
So here’s some other reasons, here’s why some people will get distracted on this and not get focused on their growth. Because personal growth, it’s a novelty. It’s cool, it’s trendy. “You know, I was talking with my life coach this morning and they said …” We just like to say those types of things and I found that with Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership. Another thing is that it’s the something new to distract you from all of the old. “Oh, this is a fun little thing. I’ll try it for a little bit.” Next of all, you could be in a season of pain and hurt and you’re going, “Oh, I can’t be here anymore. I’ve got to grow.” And so we are pushed. “I want it to stop now.” Then number four, another way that if we’re not intentional, we feel forced into a situation and we just want to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Again, real personal growth is not something to just jump into without any foresight. We want to make sure that we are focused and deliberate about what we want to grow. Step number one is collecting the seeds. At America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, we talk about this metaphor, wanting to make sure we’re very clear that the seeds are new ideas that I need to adopt so I can navigate through my situation better. The seeds that I need to discover or the source. We need to be careful to chose the right source from where these seeds come. My supplier is my mentor, or the mentoring resources that I’m choosing to tap and to help me translate these new ideas into actions. You know what we’ve got here, is the idea of Luke Skywalker had Yoda and Neyo had Morpheus. Alejandro had Zorro. The Karate Kid, remember Mr. Miyagi? Even the Kung Fu Panda had that little white fuzzy animal. But the real question is, who do you have?
One again, I’ve found at Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, if I’m not careful, I will choose the wrong seed so it’s important for me to make sure that I have a mentor in my life with a perspective that is able to see into my life and say, “These are the things that you need to add.” Very important quote here is, “You can’t change yourself by yourself.” So step number one here as we talk about how to sow the seeds is we have to select the seeds wisely. Step number two is we need to collect the seeds intentionally. So once again having that mentor in our life to make sure that we are collecting the appropriate seeds. Step number three is inspecting the seeds carefully. At America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership we have found that this step isn’t difficult, between it is very necessary. Simply inspecting the new ideas. Make sure that these ideas are going to help you move forward along your journey. They may be good ideas but are they helpful for you? Many people have been distracted from their life course by new ideas that were, I don’t know, they were neat to think about but ineffective in moving them forward. Your mentor will need to help you to maintain a proper perspective on these new thoughts as they come in.
The fourth step as we are sowing seeds for personal growth is once we have selected the seeds, once we have collected the seeds, and once we inspect the seeds, now it’s time to plant the seeds. At Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, we help leaders plant the seeds deliberately. It’s finally time to plant. So let’s start placing these seeds in the ground. Well, what does that look like? Practically, planting new ways of thinking can be done with your mentor, your coach, or counselor. Either privately or with a group of people. But what we’re going to do and what this is going to look like, and this is very, very, important — it has to be deliberately. So this means that it’s not just when I have questions, it’s not just every now and then, it’s not sporadically, but it’s deliberately.
Here are five steps that I want you to follow to help you plant seeds deliberately. At America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, we help leaders and managers and entrepreneurs across the country walk through these five steps. Number one, schedule several meetings at a time and get them on your calendar. Don’t just do one meeting and then we’ll get together again. Schedule several all at one time. Step number two, meet for at least 60 minutes. It takes this much time to get to the heart of the matter. Step number three, stay focused on the new thinking that you’re trying to adopt and apply because it’s easy when you get together with a mentor to talk about other things, the ball game or just whatever. Something that’s bothering you right now. But you want to make sure that you stay on path, stay focused on the new thinking. Step number four, identify how the new way of thinking conflicts with your old reality. And then finally, step number five, always include some action steps to take in regards to new ways of thinking.
As America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs Tulsa business leadership, I get to move people into this fifth step, which is so important here, this fifth step of sowing seeds. Leave the seeds alone. That can be one that is so difficult for so many people is that we want to go out there and pull up the plant and see if any growth is going on. Or we go to work, and we’ve been working on something for two or three days or a week or two, and then when it doesn’t show the fruit immediately in our daily life we get frustrated and we dive in and we pull it up and we try to plant something new. But once you have planted the seeds, you want to leave it alone and allow it to grow. This, once again, is a wonderful reason why you need to have a mentor in your life.
So the five steps of sowing the seeds for personal growth, step number one, select the seeds wisely. Number two, collect the seeds intentionally. Number three, inspect the seeds carefully. Number four, plant the seeds deliberately. And number five, leave the seeds alone. This is podcast number 46 with America’s Leadership Expert Clay Stairs at Tulsa business leadership, sow the seeds for personal growth.
