Ep 5: Don't Follow the Leader: Part 1

EPISODE 5:

Don’t Follow the Leader: part 1

 
 
 

I'm taking you back to 3rd grade and the snarky trick Ms. Crowder played on our class and the life lesson that took me many years to learn from it. Find out how following the leader can get you further away from achieving your goal, and keep you stuck from accessing your own expertise and voice.

Episodes Highlights: 

  • The shift in learning from the "experts:" I'm giving you MY answers, but I don't know THE answers. 

  • Experts are sharing everything they think you need in books and training, but you need to follow you! No one has the all answers. 

  • How assimilation can, particularly for women, can keep you from speaking up, doing the hard thing, and stepping into your own thought leadership and authority. 

  • How to go against the grain, be vocal, and why it's the key to letting your mission shine

Following the leader results in homogeneous, boring marketing. The same redundant calls-to-action and boring social campaigns. Your audience wants to hear YOUR unique point of view.

When it comes to endless "suggestions" and feedback, take what you need, and leave what you don't! 

Plus, hear about why I chose to have a waterbirth with my son, and how I dealt with vast, unhelpful opinions from friends and family, and "experts." When you create your own strategy, unique point of view, or decision, you must trust and believe in yourself first in order to create the support to handle the naysayers. 

Thoughts to think, on purpose: 

  • The magic is in forging my own path.

  • I get to decide what's best for me in my business.

  • There is not one right next step, only the one I decide is right.

Other resources: 

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Resources mentioned:

 

Episode Transcript

 Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives, and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing here. Ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready? Let's go. So in today's episode, we're gonna talk about my third grade teacher, Ms.

Crowder. Everyone has. A mis crowder experience, or at least they should in some way. I was reading one of Dr. Wendy Mogul's books a few years back, and she is, A psychiatrist and does amazing work with parents and kids, and she's just amazing. Highly recommend her books. But what she was talking about is how everyone should basically have at least one bed teacher because of the lessons that are packed in it.

So instead of racing, To get our child. So as long as it's a safe environment, but you get my point. Instead of racing to get our child out of, out of, out of the grumpy teacher's class and into the perfect teacher's class that everyone should have, like one bad teacher experience. Okay, so stay with me. So I was in third grade, I was pretty shy and one day I walked into class.

Everything was normal and. The only thing that was a little bit different is there was instructions all over the chalkboard. So Ms. Crowder had written all over the chalkboard and it had covered the chalkboard. Like the entire wall of the front of the room was numbered instructions. I mean, the list probably was 20, at least 20 deep.

Okay. And she didn't say a word to us, so she was. different, right? She didn't say a word to us. She had us sit down and then she said, follow the directions. So she handed us maybe a worksheet or something like, maybe a paper and pencil. But basically she was hands off, she was silent. She didn't ask any questions, and she said, follow the instructions on the chalkboard.

And it was like pin drop silence. Everybody was, everybody was super engaged and following and listening and, you know, started at step one. And no one did anything. No one raised their hand, no one asked any questions. No one just didn't do the exercise. Everyone just did. It was very much like a study in like assimilation too.

Like no one wanted to rock that boat. Okay. And I remember glancing. the numbers and being like , first of all, being annoyed and also being like, what? What is happening? Like what is this? And most people just jotted down and started right on one and they didn't go to the end. Like for example, they didn't read through one through 25.

They just went step one. Step two, step three. And I remember kind of glancing over it and being like, something is off with this. Like my Intuit, my intuition at however old a third grader is, was just like, this is not right. But told you I was shy. I didn't really do anything. I just decided what's everyone doing?

They're following the instructions and so I should too. And so that's what I did. I just kind of got to work. . I read like it was like number 26 or something, and at the end of the thing it said, you don't have to do this exercise. And I was like, wait, what? And I looked around and everyone was doing the exercise.

So again, I just decided to do it because I was like, maybe that's not what she means. Maybe they're a misreading. Like I had all of these, these. Reasons why what I was reading wasn't true and I found it very confusing. And I went through the exercise and it was mono. It was like monotonous and annoying and clunky, and it was not fun work.

And I did it. And it was such a lesson in what I call, don't follow the leader. Do not follow the leader. Now I'm gonna give you a side note before I continue the rest of that story, which is, I looked it up back in 2016. . Tony Robbins had this like documentary on Netflix, and I know of Tony Robbins. I don't know his work in depth, but you know, he's a pretty widely known figure and I'm not one to like consume his work, especially not in 2016.

But the title of this documentary had me hooked in and then I was like, I have to know. I have to know everything. I'm. and I remember watching it and just being fascinated and telling everyone that they needed to watch it because the title is, I Am Not Your Guru. And I love that title because it knocks himself off his own pedestal that so many people are putting him on.

Okay. And I loved it because, and what he goes on to say in the documentary, or what I gleaned from it was Basical. , I'm giving you my answers. I don't know the answers. Right? And this concept of don't follow the leader is something that can really, really help you in building your organization, in growing your business.

Because as much as you consume with the webinars and the podcasts and the books and the audio books and all the things that I, too, I love, ultimately I. A thousand percent that I can give you tools, I can give you coaching, I can give you everything I think you need, and you. Need to follow your own intuition because that is where the magic is.

Like that is where the magic is like I am. No one is the guru. Even the big players in the marketing world, even the big players in the entrepreneurship or coaching world, right? Like they're not the gurus. Like we don't need to build them up. They've got some amazing work. And I like to say, what can I take from that?

What can I learn from that? What can I apply to my. And also what is my own twist on it? Like it's not interesting to just copy what everybody's doing. Right. It wouldn't be interesting if I was here spouting off what Tony Robbins was spouting off or some other, some other entrepreneurship book. Right. And so that's why I love that, that that documentary so much is like, take what you like, leave the rest, and also what.

What lights you up? What's interesting to you? What can you add to this, right? How do you, how do you add your own flavor to this so that it's unique and different? Okay, so we're gonna go back to Ms. Crowder's class. So with Don't follow the leader being at the top of my thought here, and also as I look back on.

what did I do? Number one is I followed the leader because she was my teacher and I was, you know, socialized that you've definitely respect and follow elders, right? But I didn't follow my own intuition. I didn't follow that gut. I was like, what the, what is this? This is not, this is not normal. And what happened was after like an hour, I think the first person finished the project and it wasn't me, it was whoever they turned it in and she like laughed.

She like busted out laughing or something like that. And she was like, haha. Gotcha. And the entire thing was a trick. The entire thing was, you guys never even had to do this. I was just, I was just tricking you. Right. Is if you had seen the last, um, number on the direction. You don't have to do this exercise.

And remember I had read it. I just was like, well, maybe no, I was, I was, I was not. I was number one making excuses as to why that might not be true. Number two. I was assimilating, right. Of just like, what's everybody else doing? I guess this is right. Number three, I didn't wanna rock the boat. Right. I wanted to follow the leader.

Right. And it was such an interesting lesson because I was so pissed off by it at, hang on, I'm gonna do the math. So I was nine, right? A nine year old. Christina was pissed off about it and still remembers it all this many years later. And really the thing that I was pissed off about it the most isn't. A little joke that she played on us, right?

It was that I didn't speak up and I didn't say, I don't have to do this. It's right here. Number 26 says, I don't have to do this. Right? And so as you are growing, as you are deepening your work as you are, I think especially stepping into your own thought leadership and your own authority. . This is something we work a lot on in my programs, right, is honing in your unique voice so you're not watered down.

So you sound like you and not everyone else, and not like every other organization in your sector, every other founder in your sector, right? It's really important that you take what you're learning and you take what you want and you take what you like and you apply that and you also. Use your own magic.

You also leave what you don't need because there is no one out there that is the absolute number one knows everything, all knowing guru, right, or all knowing leader. There's just not, this is something that I've said to, said to you before, and maybe you've heard me on one of my workshops, say this. If that was true when you went into the bookstore, there would be one book on marketing, one book on entrepreneurship, one book on parenting, one book on pregnancy.

Like they would just be like, here's the one answer. Right? But there's not, there's a thousand different ways you could do something. And what's what's interesting to me is to learn about the different ways you can do something and then take action and then decide what feels. And use your own gut instinct, like use that because that is how you get away from that.

Follow the leader mentality from that, you know what I need, I need to run this by another person. Right? Or I really need my, the CEO to look at this, or, I really need my board to look at this. Right? Because you're just looking for approval outside of you. Right. What's much more interesting and what's much more compelling for your audience to see whether it's.

An email, a social post, a direct mail piece, a coffee date, a pitch meeting, right, is for you to decide what you should say and go into it 150% owning it. So what I learned that day in third grade was partly about speaking up, which ended up taking me quite a long time to. , but it was also partly about forging my own path, right?

And being willing for that path to be maybe not the path that everyone's gonna take. Okay. It's maybe not the path that 99% of people would go, yeah, that's the safe choice. Yep, yep, yep, yep. That's the one you should do. Right? And that's where the magic is. Like that is where the magic is when. when I was pregnant with my son, my first child, one of the things that I knew for sure, like I knew for sure, was that I wanted to have a natural birth and I wanted to have water birth in particular, and I just decided that that's what I was gonna do.

I didn't like have friends that had done it. None of my friends really had had children by then. I, I didn't really have. Somebody around me who was like, this is what you should do. And because of that, it was almost, it was so hard to get buy-in from people around me. My family was like, what are you doing?

This is a weird idea. And ultimately I didn't need buy-in from them. Like I actually didn't need buy-in from, from people around me. Right. The only buy-in I needed was for myself and thankfully the support of my partner. Right. Is that, He, he was on board too. But ultimately, if I had said, well, there's only one way to do it, then that's this way and everybody needs to agree, and I have to follow the people who have led before me and how they did it right then, I wouldn't have had and followed my own intuition, my own nudge, my own desire to do it differently.

And I will say in doing, that piece differently. That meant that a lot of it was unknown. Like of course I could read about waterbirth and books and I could take classes and things like that, but ultimately no one I knew, zero people I knew had had a waterbirth, I don't think. Yeah. And zero people I knew had delivered at the hospital that I found that could, that was, that was, um, performing water births.

No one. And so it was, it was just something that I had to trust myself and. You know, support myself on versus saying Who, who, who else is gonna tell me? This is a great idea? Right? And the same thing is true in marketing. A lot of times I will get great ideas, just like you will get great ideas in your business or in marketing, or in any aspect.

And if you go and try and sell it to a lot of other friends, colleagues, stakeholders, they're gonna have a lot of different opinions on it, right? And I don't want you to follow the leader, I want you to follow you. You are the leader. What do you think you should do? I like to run it through a filter. Like, is it a good idea?

You know, , does it make sense for you? So for example, we're gonna go to the childbirth example. If I was like, listen, my great idea is. You know, have my child in the woods, which I think, I think is actually a thing. My filter would be like, here's no, that doesn't actually align with me and my values. And like, you know, I'd like a doctor present.

So like, run it through a filter. Make sure that it, it makes sense for what it is you're trying to achieve in this case that did Right. And, and really go about your decision making that way. Right. And when you have those moments, like I did, With my third grade class where you go in and you sort of see everybody just following the leader and your, your internal whatever is like, what the heck is this?

Listen to it. Listen to it. It's that same nudge that I know so many women get, right? When we are leaving a parking lot and we're, we're checking over our shoulder, or we don't feel safe in a certain situation like that, intuition, listen. Okay. It's there. It's trying to tell you something. And in this case, in third grade, it was trying to tell me, Christina, this assignment is a waste of time.

You actually don't have to do this. Ms. Crowder is tricking you. She thinks she's funny, and maybe it was funny. I don't know. I'm still a little mad about it. So let's recap what we've got. What we've got is read the books. Take the classes, ask for help. I want you to do all of those things and. , we're gonna have a different podcast about, well, the first podcast, episode one was all about taking action, right?

So how do you get out of planning mode? Because what happens and what can happen when you're in consumption of learning mode is you stay in consumption of learning mode. I just need to learn one more thing, right? So you wanna make sure you don't get stuck in that mode, okay? So as long as you're not stuck in that mode, you're good.

I want you. To take the continuing ahead, hire a coach, get the help you need, right, so that you can bolster your capacity in a certain area. I want you to do that, and I also want you to know that they are not the almighty all-knowing leader, right? You get to decide what's best for you and your business.

You get to decide what's, what's the next best thing you should take, and these are tools. to guide you, right? And there is no exact right next step, right? Just the one that you want to do. That's the night, right? Next step, right? That was a lot of rights, . So if this resonated with you, here's what I'd love.

I would love to hear if you had a teacher like Ms. Crowder, tell me all about it. I wanna hear all of , all of the things about your bad teacher that played a trick on you or just was grumpy or anything in between. Come find me, tell me all about it on Instagram at Splendid Consulting, and take a moment today to think about something that you've been.

working on, interested in delving into and think about what is it that I really like about it and wanna apply to my business, and what is it that I think doesn't quite fit in my business and I don't need to apply to my business and I'm gonna do it this way, I'm gonna do it my way. Like what is the 70% that's super helpful and the 30% that I'm actually gonna go off script and do it my.

because that's interesting. That's new, and that's really where innovation happens. So if you think about like a cell phone, same thing with a cell phone, right? Like before the iPhone we had cell phones, right? We had ways to call the text people. It was clunky. It was antiquated, but we had it. Right before that.

So it's like, what is the 70% that's useful and I wanna, I want to use and I wanna build off of, and what is the 30% that's, that's off script that is not following the leader that I want to do. That is, that is different. That is compelling. Right. And go do that. That's a lot more. I'll see you next time, like what you're hearing and wanna take this to the next level.

I wanna invite you to go to Purpose and profit.club to watch my free class in there. I will tell you the number one thing that's keeping your nonprofit or social impact business stock and what to do instead. Go to purpose and profit.club.

 
 

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PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, founder, social impactComment