Relationships are powerful...and sneaky at the same time. The people you spend time with influence you in big ways. You pick up on their beliefs, priorities and values and they soon can transform your own mindset.

In this episode, I share a little of my experience (what NOT to do), as well as some tips for how to identify and foster encouraging, positive, and lasting relationships. I've personally found the times I am most successful are when I am surrounded by people who push me to do better.

Make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who build you up and push you to max out your potential!

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Andrew Glover

Everyday, we are bombarded with opinions and beliefs. Everywhere we look and listen, people are trying to tell us what to believe and how to live. And if we aren’t careful, we can end up believing them without truly understanding what they are saying. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to live my life based on what someone else wants me to believe.

Want to be someone who thinks for themselves and knows how to form their own beliefs? Check out this episode where I talk about how I navigate this world of opinions and come up with my own solid beliefs that help me live my own life with confidence.

Support the podcast - tell a friend!

Andrew

I imagine you have a strong work ethic. You know how to sacrifice and dedicate yourself to accomplishing something. You have put in the sweat and the hours to accomplish your mission. Hard work is the foundation for any big thing.  But…

...that’s not all there is to being successful. Being a hard worker does not mean you are moving closer to doing big things. In fact, it often can lead to us plateauing and not reaching our maximum potential.  In this episode, I share something you should incorporate into your everyday life to continue moving forward on your Big Thing! It's a lesson I've learned and am currently working to incorporate into my every day routine.

It’s inevitable that you are going to be required to sacrifice and do things that are not enjoyable if you want to do something big - if not, it’s just something average. Recently, I found myself repeating a phrase to myself to keep me motivated to study for my Dental Board Exam - “trust the process”. In this episode, I explain what that phase means, how you can learn to trust your process, and why it’s the only thing that is going to help you accomplish your big thing.

 

Music by Hooksounds

Are you respected? If you want to do something big with your life, you definitely need to be respected by people around you. I like to call it the “hidden currency” of a person who can do something that is meaningful.  Whether you are asking someone for money (sales or donations), advice, volunteer time, or a favor, a person has to respect you in order for them to want to work with you. If you aren’t respected, you won’t be able to bring people on board to support your mission and help you create meaning and value in our world.

This episode talks about the 2 ways you can get respect. Each one is good in itself but ultimately depends on what you are trying to go do.

At the end of a year, we naturally think about the future. We dream about the new and improved things we want to go do. We envision a better life, a new accomplishment, something we can be proud of.  And while I am 100% in favor of thinking big thoughts and accomplishing amazing things, I think we can easily get lost in pursuing the future without addressing areas in our lives that can enable us to actually accomplish our goals.  The best foundation for your future begins with knowing yourself intimately - your strengths and weaknesses - and letting that knowledge guide your future path.

In this episode, I guide you through how to conduct your own Internal Review and why it matters. This is a must if you want to be someone who does something exceptional with your life, and not just talk about it.

You can download a PDF of the questions we talk about in the episode on my website - bigthingsdonepodcast.com (https://bigthingsdonepodcast.com/podcast-2/)

This episode is my review of the leadership book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. This is probably one of the most influential leadership and personal development books written in our modern time.  If you want to become a dominant leader who has excellent personal habits, this is a must-read!

I cover the technical components of the book and also discuss many of the themes the authors outline to make you and I better leaders and people. We’ve talked about many of these concepts in previous podcast episodes, so it’s a great book that compliments what we believe and challenges us to grow so we can dominate, lead, and win.

You can purchase the book through this link

What: We all know the importance of doing things that will set us up for personal success. Eating healthy, good sleep, fostering positive relationships, taking risks - all these are examples of actions we can take to make us better personally. In episode 19, we took that same idea and applied it to leadership, specifically looking at actions and mentalities that leaders should take to set their team up for success.  In this episode, we continue that theme, but focus on personal actions and habits that will make you a successful leader. These actions focus on traits that will allow you to lead more effectively, and keep your mentality strong through the ups and downs of a leadership journey.

Why: Leadership is hard, demanding, and confusing. It is not something that just naturally happens, it’s not magic, but rather groomed and perfected over time. If you want to become a more effective leader, there are certain habits and actions you need to incorporate into your daily life to grow and develop. It’s no different than an athlete who must eat healthy, train, and sleep to be successful.

The Breakdown:

Always be learning. The current Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, is renowned for his dedication to learning, even at one point having a personal library of over 7,000 books! His dedication to learning has made him the leading expert in the art of warfare, and his model of constant learning is shared among many of the top CEOs and leaders in our world today. Learning need not be limited reading; podcasts, online courses, YouTube videos, conferences, and many other sources exist today to grow your understanding, provide alternative perspectives, and help you learn from the mistakes of others.

Balance. “Work-life balance” is a hot buzzword these days, and for good reason. Unfortunately, the term is often misunderstood and therefore misapplied. Our lives will never have a perfect split of work and personal time. A leader must know how to prepare for and execute in times where the mission objectives take priority, but then also be able to quickly adapt and not maintain an imbalanced mindset. The same is true in the opposite direction as well. A leader who knows how to balance their personal life and work well is much more suited to creating a winning culture with their team.

Physical Fitness. Multitudes of scientific studies confirm the many benefits of routine physical activity in a person’s life. Lowering stress, maintaining healthy weight, controlling hormones, and the list goes on. Leaders must make decisions and think clearly in all seasons of life, but that can only be done when you are physically rested and performing well. Routine physical fitness (not necessarily running a marathon or being a bodybuilder) will help you stay steady in stressful situations, increase your self esteem, and allow you to better process your thoughts.

Under-reacting. The movies often portray leaders as people who overreact, throw things, yell and scream when something bad happens. But ask yourself - how does that reaction help you solve a problem? Here’s the answer - it doesn’t, and in fact, causes much more harm because you lose sight of what your objective is (“tunnel vision”) and also don’t promote an environment where your team can come to you with issues (which also means they will not want to take risks and attempt things they might fail at). Instead, leaders should “under-react” to a situation, focusing instead on being almost too calm, not saying anything, and doing much more listening than talking/acting.

What: We hear all the time about the importance of setting ourselves up for success.  Things like reading, eating healthy, exercising, networking - all great things we should be doing if we want to accomplish something. But what about from a leadership perspective? In this episode, we will talk about 3 habits that leaders must incorporate into their leadership style to make their team successful.

The Breakdown:

Know and Communicate Why. Leaders must be able to know why they do what they do and why it matters. If they don’t, there is very little solid ground to stand on when time get tough, and no direction in a world full of distraction.

Invest in the Advancement of Your Teammates. Your teammates will be motivated to work for you, and do a better job, if they are able to improve and advance in their careers and personal goals. Be a leader who wants to make the individuals they work with better than when they first came and worked for you.

Empower Your Teammates. Leaders often times turn into task masters who just tell employees what to do. The problem with that is now your organization is limited to your ability to hand out tasks and manage everything. Why do that? Why not instead let the people who work for you do their jobs (what they are skilled at), giving you the opportunity to ensure you are moving in the right direction?

Application:

 

Why do you come to work every day? How does the work you do make an impact on someone or something? Be able to answer these deeper questions that appeal to the main reason we exist - to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

What are the areas that your teammates can improve in?  Is it getting a Master’s degree? Certifications? Training? Conferences? How can you give your teammates the opportunities to grow their skills and become more valuable?

Whenever a team member presents a question or problem, simply ask them “what would you do?”. This puts the responsibility on them to solve problems, implement a solution, and ultimately take ownership of the issue.

What: Every leader is required to make decisions that move their team from where they are now to a future point. This episode shows you how to approach making any decision.

Why: As a leader who’s had to make many decisions, there often is a conflict between making a decision quickly and making a decision that has the best possible outcome. Put differently, you often need to decide if you want to be first, or do you want to be the best?  This applies to decisions made in business, relationships, school, and even in your personal life. 80% of the time, you will not be able to make a decision that is both fast AND the best (which would be the ideal scenario, and every leader should be actively growing to improve this area). As a leader, you need to make a decision that will provide the most benefit to moving your team forward, and leaders must learn to distinguish and prioritize their decision as needing to be first, or needing to be the best.

Breakdown: What does it mean to focus on being “first” or being the “best”

First - There are many decisions where the primary benefit is just to get something moving. Your solution or course of action does not have to be perfect, in fact, it will likely be altered as you go along. Your primary focus in making a “first” decision is to get an action plan out quickly and get the ball rolling. In these types of situations, there usually is an opportunity that will only be available for a short period of time, or a project that just needs to get started to meet the deadline. Leaders who are decisive thrive here because they don’t need a perfect solution, they just need action.

Best - There are situations where your plan must be the best, and so your priority and focus must be primarily on developing the best possible solution.  In these types of situations, you typically only have 1 chance to get it right, so it needs to be perfect, otherwise you will fail. As a leader, your focus is on gathering information and resources to draw up the best plan, no matter how long it might take. Leaders who have to be perfect thrive in this area because they need a perfect plan more than they need fast action.

Tie Up: As a decision maker, the ideal scenario is for a leader to develop the best solution in as short amount of time as possible. Often times, however, that is not realistic, especially as we are growing as a leader. Learning to categorize each decision as needing to be “first” or the “best” will help you place the right priority and effort to achieve the best outcome.

Application: To become a better decision maker, use what we’ve talked about previously as a lens to view every decision.  Here are some specific questions you can ask:

 

What is my deadline? Every decision process should start by setting a time in which you must commit to a course of action.

How easily can I adjust my future course of action? This question speaks to the degree of quality you need in your decision. Do you only get one chance at this and need to have the best plan? Or can you adjust on the way?

What happens if I do nothing? This is a really great question to ask because often times leaders feel like the have to make a decision right now,