Be Your Best Self

Hello everybody. Dennis Engelbrecht, with an encore presentation of Digging Deeper. Thanks for tuning in today.

If there's one thing all of us share, it's that we can be our best selves, right? And as leaders, if you want to be an effective
leader, it may not mean that you need any new skills or new information. Sometimes we just have to be our best selves.
And everybody, every leader out there, has the ability to do that. So that's my encouragement today, is to be your best
self.

So why? Why be your best self? Well, you only go through life once. So, I'm going to say, why not? Why not be your best
self? It's within your capabilities to be your best self. And not just at work, but as parents, to be your best self; in your
intimate relationships, to be your best self; in your business relationships, to be your best self. You can be your best self
in all of these things.

So how do you become your best self? Well, step one is probably to realize that your best coaches are those closest to
you. Your spouse, partner, friends, coworkers. Ask them, all right. First of all, if you want to be your best self, you should
be curious enough to want to know what you could do better, how you could be better. So, it takes some curiosity to go
outward and say, well, what can I do better? How can I help you better? How can I be a better leader for you? Of course,
you have to be humble enough to ask. If you think you've hung the moon, well maybe you're not humble enough to ask.
But if you see some flaws in either yourself or how people react off of yourself, if your team's not getting the job done
that you think they could be doing well, maybe you need to be looking inward. So, you have to be humble enough to be
able to look inward.

And then finally, I think you just have to be willing to listen. And if you want to be your best self, get curious, be humble,
be willing to listen. Now all the information is there with which to become your best self.

Next thing, can you commit to act and follow through? And change is sometimes difficult. So, in a couple of these podcasts
recently, I've talked about setting goals and making change and those sort of things, but it's only with a commitment to
change will that change actually happen for you. So, if you want to be your best self, first of all, find out what you need to
improve, and then you got to commit to it. Commit to being your best self.

And then there are a couple of things that you probably don't have to ask anybody, because your best self will always be
these things. Your best self will always be authentic. Authentic, basically meaning being true to yourself. If you try to be
something you're not it's likely not going to work out. But to be authentic, you got to live to your values. You've got to be
working toward your personal goals, your personal mission, your vision for the future. So, your best self will always be
authentic in working toward those areas. Wait, make sure by the way you've identified those values and mission and vision
for the future, because that's what gives you the target line to be your best self and be authentic.

To be your best self, you always have to be responsible and accountable. Yes, leaders have to be accountable; to
themselves, to their teams, to the vision that you have for the future. You've got to be accountable at that vision. So, your
best self will always need to be responsible and accountable. And if you don't find yourself being responsible and
accountable, again, that should be on the list of goals of things to achieve. And perhaps you need some coaching or
something like that to help you get there.

I think you also have to be persistent in persevering. There will be obstacles to being your best self. There will be obstacles
to making any change you want to change. And oftentimes when it's not going so well, it's easy to quit. It's easy to quit
and turn back. Now making any change is difficult, and it takes persistence and persevering on your part to get there.

And then I think attitude. Your best self will always need to have a good attitude that's always aiming to do better or be
better. And again, there is no easier way to leadership success than just being your best self. You may be your best self,
let's just say an hour a day, versus all day as well. And we only have a certain amount of energy and all of those things. So,
to be your best self 100% of the time is a terrific goal. We're probably not going to be there a hundred percent of the time,
but if you're your best self 20% of the time, maybe we can move that to 40% or 60% or 75% of the time, you truly are your
best self.

But there is no more room for improvement; exterior, anything you can learn than just being your best self. So, make that
your goal today and good luck with it.

Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.