Audacity2Lead: The Courage and Necessary Insights You Need to Step Out and Lead with More Influence | Dayo Samuel, Nigeria Po Dayo Samuel

What stories are you telling yourself?  What kind of story are you hearing? What script of a story are you living?



Welcome to another session of The Audacity2Lead podcast.







Last episode, we discussed how the words we hear on our inside, the pictures we conceive within, and the impressions on our hearts all contribute to the identification of our calling and life task.



On this episode, we take that conversation further by looking at how these three things plus many others help you live a meaningful story.







This is the 5th in the series, ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task.’

 SPECIFICALLY ON THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:

What stories are, their meanings and how they develop.



Function of stories.



I shared the story of my early introduction to television, and how being drawn into the story in a movie brought tears to my eyes.



You either have a story to tell, imagine a story, or live a story.



In living, you have to be clear, so I shared 2 tips on how to live a meaningful story:



* Put your calling and life task in the context of a narrative. If your calling is to write or tell stories, it means you share stories that transform thoughts, encourages, and unite people in love. If it is to equip, train or mentor leaders, you could make it into a narrative by saying, you help young leaders make the leap from potential to productive performance.

* Share your story with the world. Jordan Stroman says, “Everyone’s story is completely unique, and needs to be shared with others. When suffering finds a meaningful context, it ceases to be suffering.” Discover and dig into what God is calling you to do, and find how best you could the share it with the world as a story.



We round off this section with 2 categories of stories:



* Internal stories – the stories you tell yourself

* External stories – stories people tell you about others, or the stories people tell others about you.



 TIP OF THE WEEK:

For me to constantly engage in telling myself positive stories, I use reminders on my phone to keep words of affirmation around me. I share more about that on the podcast.

 THANK YOU OF THE WEEK

My thank you goes to Ikenna Ikpah @amIkenna who was my guest on the #Audacity2Lead on Sunday 17th September, 2014.

 RECOMMENDED READING

Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire

 QUESTION OF THE WEEK

What stories are you telling yourself and your calling? Leave a comment for me below and let’s see how we can work things out.

There are 2 assets you have. The one you invest in determines the result you get with your life.



Investing in yourself is a critical way to prepare yourself for something big.



Life is seed before harvest with time in-between. Whatever products or results you find in people’s lives are outcomes of certain investments, which you can call seeds.



This episode shares with you 3 of those investments necessary for maximizing your potential.



We look into how to invest  in yourself so you could get to that productive performance level you desire.







This is the 6th in the series, ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task.’

 SPECIFICALLY ON THIS EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:



* Why whatever you pay for is different from what you get. You either pay for what is real or a value perceived.

* How do you identify perceived value? Check these three things:



* Pricing

* Packaging

* Promotions







Beyond these, there is the real value, and that is often immeasurable.



* Mental Investment

* Physical Investment

* Spiritual Investment



 

WHY SHOULD YOU MAKE INVESTMENTS NOW THAT YOU’RE YOUNG?

If youth-hood is a blunder, adulthood becomes a regret. If youth-hood is a lot of investment, manhood would be a lot of enjoyment.



If you invest in yourself while growing up, you get your ROI in old age.



 

TARA ASKED:

What would you advice a young lady who is so full of ideas, but all she does is lie on her bed saying, “I’m thinking about money,” resulting in laziness, moodiness?



Money is a license to freedom. It frees you to do the work that matters. You don’t get paid for the potentials you have, you are paid for your performance.



 

TIPS SHARED:



* Do an evaluation for yourself, talents, gifts, abilities, passion and your calling.

* Engage the help of a coach

* Find resources, books, tapes, podcasts, etc. to learn from.

* Find a way of having personal retreats, possibly once in a quarter.



 

MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST:



* The episode I talked about my personal life evaluation as part of my quarterly review.

* Davidson Amedu (Dr. Talle)



 

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

What investments are you going to make in yourself that will change your outcome in the next 5 to 10 years? Leave a comment for me below and let’s see how we can work things out.

74% of employees are said to be experiencing a personal energy crisis.



That’s a huge number considering the fact that most people are on a job they don’t really love.



Productivity has to do with creating value. It is the balance of input and output. Personal productivity will then mean what you do to create or receive value.



On this episode of the Audacity2Lead podcast, we discuss how to increase your personal productivity as part of the series ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task.’





SPECIFICALLY, WE DISCUSS:



*

THE POWER OF THE LIST:

2 kinds of list: to-do list; and the to-be list. We almost always have a lot of things we want to do. Keeping those things in your head won't help your personal productivity productivity. The best way I've handled this is to write things down. Notes on your mobile device should be enough for this. Blackberry, Android, iPhone etc.

*

TIME BALANCE:

Time has various levels of quality. First, you have to make the best of each kind of time. And second, you have to try to make your time higher quality. I use a printed Calendar block to schedule my time.

*

HANDLING INTERRUPTIONS:

As unavoidable as interruptions may be, you can control them. Set clear boundaries and communicate it clearly to your colleagues, friends and associates. If your email is a load on your neck, turn off internet connection when you have to. Doing things like this doesn't mean you're avoiding interruptions, it does mean you're controlling them and not allow them control you.

*

THE PRODUCTIVE SLEEP:

The effectiveness of a 10 minutes nap. The thing is that postponed rest never comes until you're forced to by, maybe, a break down.

*

PROCRASTINATION:

"The real productivity problem people have is procrastination," someone says. What is procrastination? It simply is the counsel that plays in your head telling you 'it can always be done later.' Click here to read on how to beat the counsel of until.

*

TAKE THE ENERGY TEST:

74% of employees are said to be experiencing a personal energy crisis. Take this energy test to figure out where you need to focus your energy

*

THE MYTH OF PERFECTIONISM:

The myth of Perfectionism is the mother of frustration. It you need to do it all, get started first, make adjustments as you go on.



MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE

The Energy Test – Take it here for free



How to Invest in yourself



How to Beat the Counsel of ‘Until…’



 

THANK YOU OF THE WEEK

Coach Sam Obafemi of Barnabas House



Segun Akiode whose birthday was the day we recorded this episode



Adeh Jones



Sam Semako of CareerWise Consults



Emeka Nobis



Oludami of LucrativePen

You have been told to stop doing the work you hate and start doing what you love.



The question is: where and how do you get started on that route?



(c) JamesPhotography



Today, on this episode of the Audacity2Lead podcast, we decided not to shy away from this avoided topic of living a meaningful life while doing what you love. We're talking about how to get paid to be you. This is another shot of the series ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task.’





SPECIFICALLY, WE DISCUSS:



* Why it is important to embrace your uniqueness. Tara shared a simple formula for determining your uniqueness on a previous episode – YOU to mean YOUR OBVIOUS UNIQUENESS. Now we put it to practice as we bring it to where you get paid to embrace that obvious uniqueness by deliberately making it known.

* Branding Yourself to stand out. People won’t pay for a commoner. Aspirations either, won’t get you on a paying line. To do this, you clarify these three things: who you are, what you do, and how what you do solves problems for people.

* I share my story of how I made over N50,000 in less than 2 months without having a job using my phone.

*

5 TIPS TO SELLING ANYTHING ONLINE AND OFFLINE



* Identify people who have needs, a problem they have and are looking for solutions to.

* Provide that solution in a different way than they have seen.

* Create a way for people to find the solution you have

* Decide how you will get paid, that is how you will get your money.

* Find how you will keep communicating with them.







 

MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE

Embracing the Uniqueness of Being You



How Podcasters can change the world by Cliff Ravenscraft



Focus Your Life – a lesson I learnt from music



Mastery by Robert Greene



The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris



Lucrative Pen by Dami



Launch by Jeff Walker



 

LET’S HEAR FROM YOU

Got questions or you don’t understand anything well? Leave a comment for us in the comment below.



 



 



 

God gives every one of us a good start –especially the first time, but it is up to us to finish strong. What we often ascribe to God as his sovereign orchestration has very little in determining how we end up.

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This episode of the Audacity2Lead podcast lifts the mask off starting up with your life task for the first time.







Gradually the series ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task’ is coming to an end with this being the 9th. And we want to thank you for being here from the first in the series.



If you want to listen to the episodes before this one, click here.

ON THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:



* The answer I gave to a guy who said, “Find purpose, be a solution, meet a need, let passion for what you do drive you, money is an added bonus.” How that paradigm will make you end up poor if you’re starting for the first time.

* IDENTIFY. This means you should start with the end in mind. Getting started for the first time requires you have a picture of the end from the beginning so that the journey is easier to chart.

* CLARIFY. Here, you construct the path that will take you wherever you’re headed. Sit down, and determine the time frames necessary to fulfil some measurable parts of the calling.

* PROJECT. Bring the whole task you’re meant to accomplish out to the open. Gone are the days you hide dreams from dream-killers, if you come out clear on the dream, it will attract even better people than killers of the dream.

* PURSUE. A dream you don’t pursue now soon becomes a nightmare.



NOW, ADD TO THE DISCUSSION

Is there anything you don’t understand well? Or maybe ideas you have for someone starting for the first time, share with us by leaving a comment below.

If you’re thinking of giving up, remember why you started.



Giving up or abandoning a project is almost commonplace. This episode of the Audacity2Lead podcast gives you some encouragement why you should not give up on that calling, or life task.

This episode is dedicated to those who started with their life task, but left off having lost interest, discouraged, or whatever.

This is number 10 in the series ‘11 Essentials of a Great Life Task’. I wonder why the audio quality of this episode was faltering. Well, that’s what we learn from trying and sticking to what you are called to do.



SPECIFICALLY, YOU WILL LEARN:



* Evaluate, analyse and review what you did.

* How activating the law of commitment contributes to staying your course. It is all or nothing. If you are not going to be committed to your life task, you won’t be able to make anything out of starting over.

* Eliminate distractions. Take up that idea, make it your life. Think of it. Live on that idea, let every muscle, nerve you have feed on that idea.

* Be willing to pay the prize to fulfil what you are called to do.

* Be flexible enough to accept change in the planning stage of your re-start up.

* Run your life on principles instead of opinions. Other people would suggest what you did wrong and what to do right, but it is not every idea people share with you that will help you when starting over.

* Make every effort to improve on the dream you have. The first time your goal was 1000, when starting the second time, make that goal 2000 so that it enables you to activate all the energies you have to pursue it, with increase momentum.



You can stand up and stand out!

MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE

Where to find all other episodes in this series. Click here.

Resources to help you

NOW, ADD TO THE DISCUSSION

Is there anything you don’t understand well? Or maybe some ideas you have for someone starting over, share with us by leaving a comment below.