In this episode, we discuss how reading makes you a leader because you will be more prepared for unique situations where leadership is needed.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how readers are leaders. If you look at my Goodreads or Instagram, you know that I love to read books. The reason I love to read books because it helps me make better decisions with my life. When I read a book like The Pursuit of Happyness, it allows me to get in the mind of Chris Gardner, and see how he made decisions.
Now if you don’t know who Chris Gardner is, they made a movie about him called the Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith. I love this movie but the book is so much better. You get to hear about his back story and what he was feeling during his journey to becoming a successful financial advisor.
He grew up in Milwaukee and didn’t know his father because his mom went down to New Orleans to party and got pregnant. She moves back to Milwaukee and gets into a bad relationship, where the boyfriend would beat Chris, the mom, and his sisters. Then he was sexually assaulted in High School. Went into the Navy, though he wanted to become a doctor, then decided he wanted to become a financial advisor while making little money and trying to raise his son.
He wanted to protect his son at all costs because he didn’t want his son to grow up without his father and he fought for his son, while the mother was not around. Now I’m going through my own journey trying to make it as a financial advisor, and I’m glad I don’t have it as bad as Chris, but when things do go wrong, I can be reminded, that if Chris can make it, then I can too. We’re pretty much the same and in the book, he laid out his blueprint to becoming successful, which was to work really hard. He would keep notes on his clients and make 200 phone calls a day for two years.
Out of the 225 books, I’ve read so far, I have lots of lessons that I can draw on and is the fuel for making this podcast. I heard that readers are leaders, and I entirely agree with this quote. I know how to make better decisions with my life and I know how to better interact with people. If I was to learn all these lessons by myself, I would still be stuck in 2004, which is the year I graduated high school.
Education is not about knowing facts to win a trivia match or to show how smart you are, the point of an education is to learn how to make better decisions today and in the future. This is why I spend so much time reading and listening to podcasts so I can make better decisions for myself and my team. Then I can lead them in the right direction with fewer mistakes. And if I make a mistake, I know to overcome that mistake because I’ve read books to help me out in this area.
This a what a leader does, they lead their team to success, but if you don’t know how to do that, then you’re going to fail as a leader, and then you might not be a leader anymore. If you want to have more control over your life, then you have to be a leader instead of a follower. Now we don’t have to lead everyone, we just need to figure how much we want in our life. But you’re going to be a leader in one way or another, you can be a leader as a partner in a relationship, your family, at work, your community, or nation. You decide what’s enough, but if you want to make your situation a great one, spend some time reading so you know how to make better decisions as a leader.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, readers are leaders. So dedicate time every day to read or listen to an audiobook. Then I recommend that you take a lesson that source and put it in a journal. This way you write it down and it’s more likely to stick. Then if you need to make a decision and you feel stuck, then you can review your notes to see if you have something there. If you don’t, then go find a source to help you out in the situation. As a leader, you pretty much responsible for solving problems, and it’s much easier to do if you know what to do. If I was to ask my 18-year-old self to do what I am doing today at 34, he would fail miserably, but for the past 16 years, I’ve dedicated my life to learning and it’s much cheaper and I think more valuable than sitting in a class. So if you want to have more control over your situation and lead yourself to a better outcome, start reading.
So in your journal, ask yourself, am I reading enough? am I listening to enough podcasts? Are the stuff that I’m consuming giving me the ability to make better decisions, or is it just entertaining myself? What is the most valuable lesson that you learned in the past month? Are you able to make good decisions at work and in life? Just see where you and where you want to go in life and ask yourself if you have the knowledge to get where you want to go. If not, then start finding some materials to help you out.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my Audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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