High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 453: Leading Yourself First

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

Today on the podcast we discuss the importance of leading ourselves first before leading others. Growing our self-awareness is crucial to become a better leader, yet few people are self-aware. Dr. Cindra shares with as a “Finding Your Best Self” exercise to help you connect with your best and gain self-awareness to lead yourself each day.     Power Phrase this Week:” I choose to lead the hardest person first—myself. I choose to find my best self today.”  Quote of the Week: “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” Stephen Covey 

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Time to check in with Dr. Sindra Kampoff and we check in for a little positivity,

a little life lesson, if you will. Leading yourself first is the topic today. Sindra, you usually start us off with a quote. I love this quote by Stephen Covey and he said, I'm not a product of my circumstances. I'm a product of my decisions. So how do you want to start today? Well, I'm thinking this week, you know, where many of us are going back to school. Maybe our kids are going back to school or we've recently have gone, our kids have gone back to school. And so today we're talking about leading ourselves before we try to lead others. And in school, we might, you know, lead our classmates.

At home, we might lead our family. At home, we might lead our family. At work, we might lead our co-workers. And today we're talking about being aware of ourselves, which is really the first step in leading ourselves is to be aware. And research shows that when we see ourselves really clearly, we are actually more confident, more creative, we communicate more effectively, and we're better at building stronger relationships with each other. So why is this self-awareness so important for us to develop? Well, it's really crucial for us to become a better leader. It's been rated as one of the most important capabilities for leaders to develop. And research also shows that when we're aware of ourselves, like when we're aware of our emotions, and aware of our thoughts, that we can recognize the impact we have on other people and we're actually rated as a

more effective leader. So would you say that most people are self-aware or not? Well, I think most people believe they're self-aware, which is really interesting. But Lisa, there's a recent study that showed actually only 10 to 15% of people actually are self-aware so i think that's really interesting when you think about yeah as we're listening we're probably thinking oh yeah we're self-aware but i think we could all really improve on it and the the important part of improving on our awareness of ourselves is that it's at the heart of our own performance and so

you know i would say just being a high performer and trying to be our best that we can be really starts with our awareness of ourselves. So do you have maybe an exercise or something that we can use for ourselves to improve our own self-awareness? Yeah, so I'm writing my next book, which will be published at the beginning of next year. And in it, I talk about this exercise called finding your best self. And, you know, just being at our best is personally rewarding. And then we can continue to lead ourselves if we're being our best self. And so I want everyone who's listening just to think about, you know,

how would you describe your best day ever, either at school or at work? And, you know, and I want you to think about how are you feeling that day? You know, what actions do you think led to your best day? You know, what thoughts led to your best? And then take a step back and think about what are the specific actions that you can replicate to be at your best? And I think that's a great exercise to really help us improve on our own awareness of what our best looks like. And do you have a final point for us? Yeah, I think the power of is asking yourself these questions, you know, every day. What's, you know, one or two actions I can commit to implementing today that could help

me move the needle forward and help me, you know, be at my best today? And I think you'll find that question really a life-changing question. You know, what are two actions I can take to be my best today? And you could even do this with your team where you each talk about what your best looks like and then have them really describe what, you know, what are the actions they want to commit to to be at their best every day.

So you usually leave us then with a power phrase, something that can take us through the week, a mantra we can remember. I choose to lead the hardest person first, which is myself. And I choose to find my best today is our power phrase. I like it. If people want to get in touch with you, maybe keep up with you for when the next book comes out, what do we need to do? You can head over to Dr. Sindra, so drcindra.com. And you can join my email list there or find out more information about my coaching or speaking there.

Sindra Kampoff, thank you so much. Thank you, Lisa. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com.

See you next week.