Melahni Ake is a certified leadership speaker, coach and trainer. She helps assess, develop, design, and implement processes that drive impact and influence market potential. In this week’s episode of the Torch Talk Podcast, Melahni shared advice about becoming an Everyday Leader and showing up for yourself.
Have Awareness
One of the pieces of advice Melahni offered was to remember that no matter how afraid you are, you have control over your choices. Awareness is important. Understand how you’re going to show up and add value. That’s how Everyday Leaders show up, it’s not about what people are going to think of you, it’s about how you add value.
Have Intention
Stop and check in with yourself about your intentions. Are you showing up for an agenda, or are you showing up for others? Or yourself?
Everyone has the potential to design their lives the way they see it. Don’t let other people design your life for you. As an Everyday Leader you should own your choices, and let your goals and values drive your intentions and choices.
Be Kind
One of the stories Melahni shared was about a difficulty she experienced in her career, and how she used kindness as a tool. After a career in medical device sales for ten years, she left to join a new company, and was very scared to take that jump. She went all in, and was able to start learning international training and development. Some of the people she worked with did not have the same mindset, and some of them were bullies. She had to learn very quickly how to adjust and respond to them. She had to learn how to work with people who were only focused on agendas, and it was one of the biggest challenges of her life. In the end, she found that being kind was the best strategy.
If you’re finding yourself dealing with aggressive people in the workplace, sometimes kindness is the easiest way to buffer those situations.
Be Consistent
To be an Everyday leader, you have to make it a goal to show up everyday with consistency. If there are people who are bringing you down, or parts of your life that are holding you back, you have a choice to separate yourself from the people and things that are adding negativity to your life.
As one of Melahni’s mentors once told her, “when you start personal growth, and you do that 1% everyday, you won’t even know who you were a year ago.” If you are consistent about your goals, you really do start to grow and change.
Remember that You are Enough
When you tie your identity to your job, you can lose connection to your community and the things that are important to you. And then if you are laid off or leave to pursue a new opportunity, you may feel stuck.
Sometimes we show up for others instead of prioritizing our own strengths and goals and showing up for yourself. Take advantage of any career change that many happen for you to regain your personal focus and show up for yourself.
For more advice about being an Everyday Leader, listen to the podcast episode here.
