Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sheared Podcast, Home of People, politics and popular culture. I'm your host, Austin Creed, and I want to welcome you on. The morning show. Ladies and gentlemen, it's the first day of November. So start of a new month. You know in the morning show we talk about motivating, inspiring, hoping to get you off on the right foot. Of your day. Your week. Hopefully leading to the best life that you could have. However, there's one thing that I really want to focus on today. I've discussed this before. So if you listen to the show before, I don't know, some people probably haven't, but that's OK. Well, let me explain something. For those of you who are unaware. If you've never had a quote real job as and if you've never had a job outside of, maybe pizza delivery and stuff like that, you know, being a barrister or what, even a barista job. Arguably there's this idea of employers wanting you to be a leader. You ever heard that? And you're applying for a job. They want you to be a leader. You gotta be able to lead people. You gotta be able to be someone who's above the rest. Lead the charge. People want you to bleed, but. Let's be honest, how many times have you actually been taught how to lead something? Most people have never been in charge of a soup kitchen they've never been in charge of really anything in their lives. They they can't even get their room clean, and they want to talk about leadership. Well, let me explain something to you. The first rule of leadership is this. Is your fault. No. Why would I say a thing like that? Well, when it comes down to leadership, have you ever been a lead, even at a coffee shop at, like, a Chick-fil-A or whatever? You know that as soon as you are in charge? Whether it's one of your employees who messes up an accident, whatever, whoever is at the top of the food chain has to take the fall or they will be automatically get blamed by the people below them and by the people consuming or servicing their products or services. And so when it comes down to leadership, you need to be able to accept the what I just told you, and that is the first rule of leadership is that everything is your fault and the 1st way you can add this to your life. Maybe something you hadn't thought of? It's easy to think of, conceptualize it, kind of based on how I just described it right. You think? Ohh when I get promoted at work or if I ever have a job like that, then that will be applicable then. Well, no, because it starts with you. If you can't lead yourself if you can't direct yourself. You won't be. Horrible at leading other people. Now, what does self leadership look like? Well, let's go back to the saying I just said, I'll say it for a third time. The first rule of leadership. Is everything is your fault. Now let's apply that to your personal life. You could make a mistake. Someone else could make a mistake that involves you. It comes down to accountability. Accountability is something that no one likes to take. But like good medicine. It tastes lousy, but it will help you in your life. And if you are someone who likes to blame other people, skip past accountability, not take any kind of blame for anything, always throw someone else under the bus type garbage. You're robbing yourself of growth and you're alienating yourself from people and you're burning. All what? Of bridges. Well, I'll tell you that right now. But it all comes down to if you can't admit when you've made a mistake, or even when you could have done something better. Why in the world should anybody follow you or listen to you? And how in the world are you gonna be able to protect someone else if you can't even protect yourself? From your own mistakes. If you make a mistake more than one time, that's your fault because you should have learned the first time, but you didn't. No, I'm not saying that everything that happens to you is 100% in your fault. What I'm saying is you have control over your reaction to everything that you do and whether it's 10% or 100%. You have accountability to take in every situation you find yourself. And it's up to you to determine whether you want to play the blame game, or whether you want to be a leader. And accept the first rule of leadership. And play by it and. That everything is your fault. It seems like it would be really counterintuitive, doesn't it? It seems like the more you would take accountability for something and admit, even if it technically was in your fault, based on how you currently see it. If you would say, how could that be beneficial? If anything, that be detrimental to my self-esteem, my self-confidence, my self identity? The the opposite is true actually. In fact, when you take accountability for something, you. It's like placing a crown above your head. There's weight to that crown and it weighs you down. However, you now have power. You now give bestowed yourself with power when you take accountability and say that something was your fault. You give yourself power to fix it. You give yourself up with authority to deal with whatever it was instead of just dodge it. It's like catching a fast baseball instead of just stepping out of the way. Now you have a chance to throw the ball back. You have a chance to do something with that. Whether it will help you or hurt you. Remains to be seen. But nonetheless it will. Something has to be done. But when you simply sidestep accountability and you leave it for someone else. That's like skipping that last set in the gym. You're leaving gains on the table. You are leaving the ability to grow as a person faster. You know, there's a very niche in concept for those of you who don't know who Frederick Nietzsche was, he was a German philosopher. Some would say he was a a nihilist. I don't believe he was. But nonetheless, when we get down to it. Frederick Nietzsche had a saying that says that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And that's we've seen that saying, both in popular culture, media, songs, movies, everything. But people tend to make light of it. They. Don't realize that. That's the whole thing. Excuse me. The whole thing about life is about becoming stronger. And not giving up. Hold on a second. Pardon me. Bad allergies. Now when it comes down to it. Personal growth is something that will separate you from someone else. It will separate you. From weakness or strength. And it's it's said that when people start receiving attention and they start receiving credit and at the admiration of others, they. Whole, they're psychological growth. I don't know if you've heard of this concept before. I find it very interesting. I gotta tell you the truth. People like to make a big deal out of it when it comes down to, you know, men versus women and all that. I find the whole, you know, whether it's gender war, whether it's religious war, stuff like that, the whole thing is just a symptom of an altogether greater issue. And then it comes down to people want to prove themselves to others. They want to prove something also to themselves. You know our own worst enemy is ourselves, but. Our own are also sorry, our most incompetent ally is also ourselves. Napoleon Bonaparte was the one who talked about one should not fear and a competent enemy, but instead an incompetent ally and too many people are their own incompetent ally because they can't lead themselves. They don't understand the first thing about leadership. They look at people and they think that being an ******* or being arrogant makes you a leader. No, it doesn't make you a leader. It just makes you a mean person. Leadership comes down to the ability to actually lead and will not lead. That's like using the definition to define leadership comes from demonstrating, showing, not telling. It's one thing to tell someone how to be the leader of a pack. It's another to just do it. Every day and in every way demonstrate. In literature, my book came out yesterday and when I was learning how to write. Both fiction and nonfiction alike cause I'm working on a fictional piece. There was this. There's this concept of showing, not telling you ever read or listen to to an audio book or read a book where the person goes, the author goes on like a 10 page spiel about how the ohh the the history of the world and the universe and this random Kingdom and the sewer system and whatever. And you feel like you're just being dumped on by all the information that's telling versus showing it, painting the picture of all look that the architecture of this is really cool. The sky is beautiful and this, that and the other. That is showing. There are people in this world who are teachers and teachers can be great and very impactful of people's lives. The problem is when it comes down to it, if you are unable to show. And all you can do is tell, then you have not mastered this. The reason I talk about leadership is not because I'm know everything. It's because every day I take accountability for the mistakes I make for the difficult situations I find myself in and I have no one to blame but me. When you blame someone else, whether rightfully or wrongly, for problems you rob yourself of the opportunity to improve, and that is why I firmly believe that the first rule of leadership is to accept accountability. It's to say everything is my fault. Whether it actually is or not, that's a different conversation. But my friends, I don't want you to fall into this victimhood narrative that being a victim is a virtue of some kind, that their superior virtues to people who are oppressed as if they're somehow nicer, people, greater people, more virtuous people. It's just not true. Weakness is not a virtue. If you're unable to harm someone. Then it's not a, it doesn't require virtue. To be peaceful. If you're incapable of war, peace is not a virtue. If you're capable of doing it, but you choose restraint, that is a virtue. That is a virtuous decision. My friends, I want you to become the best version of yourself that you can be, and I want you to win in every possible scenario, every place that you find yourself. Do not for one second think. That life is going to take it easy on you. That you're going to be able to just skid by. Everything's going to be easy. Life will be pleasant. Life will be good. If it is for you, you know, maybe you're a lucky person. But you're the exception and you're not the norm. And that is why I tell you you should never look to someone else to lead your life. Both men and women alike tend to look to someone else to to tell them what to do, to, to bestow good fortune upon them, as if they are powerless to plant the seeds and reap the rewards themselves. Especially if you're a man listening to the show. If you think that you're winning out here by getting free things from the ladies by getting free things from other dudes or, and you're kind of mooching off everybody that's not winning. That's called getting scraps. So many people focus upon the harvest. They don't focus on sowing the seeds. And that's where leadership comes in. You have to be able to discipline yourself. That takes leadership. You have to be willing to sacrifice. That takes leadership. You have to be willing to deny yourself and focus on. Fulfillment and not excitement that takes leadership. And you're not always gonna make the. The right choices. That's part of life. But that's where leadership comes in. Instead of saying, hey, well, I would have made done the right thing if not for someone else. I would have done the right thing if not for. This this thing that ruined it for me. It would have been, I would have done it, if not for filling the blank of any person, place thing. What governmental agency you want to blame? You're robbing yourself of the opportunity to say that you messed up and it's not going to happen again. And I'm gonna be better next time, but when you blame someone else, it gives you free reign psychologically to repeat the action you just did and think that it's not an issue. Think that. Oh, it's OK. It wasn't my fault. So I can do the same thing all over again. If that one per person, place or thing is not around, it won't happen. That's. Just not true. It's not true. Because all it does is it robs you. And that's why I firmly believe that the first rule of leadership is that everything is your fault. We live in a very sharky shark world out here. You know the so the so-called like circle of life. You know, the The Lion King thing. And if you want to play with the big boys, you want to be out. Here with the big sharks. Then you got to be able to take accountability and lead yourself so that then you can lead other people. My friends, please do not pass over what I'm saying. This is a lesson I learned the hard way as well, and I don't want you to repeat my mistakes. I don't want you to live in a place of self loathing either. I want you to empower yourself. And say I am in control of my life. I am in control of my reactions to what happens to me and and because I am, I'm going to make it the best I can and I'm not going to allow other people to treat me like I'm a victim and I'm not going to label myself as a victim. My friends, you must be able to lease yourself if you are to actualize your goals in your life. Otherwise people will exploit you, laugh at you, mock you, and frankly you won't be able to really say anything about it. Because they won't be wrong. My friends remember the first rule of leadership. I've mentioned it multiple times throughout this podcast, and I want you to not see yourself as a victim. And become a victor in your life and it's the leaders who went out here. God bless you. God bless your families. God Bless America. Let's get out here and let's win the day. Let's win the battle so we can get closer to winning the war. Peace.