Is it lonely at the top? It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s a long-endured myth. 

No, leaders aren’t necessarily friends with their team members or line staff. They can be friendly without being friends. That doesn’t mean that they should isolate. Specifically, if you’re finding yourself lonely, alone, and frustrated, you’re doing it wrong.

Surrounding yourself with people who are also pushing to serve greatly acts to inspire and propel. When you seek coaching to get an outside perspective on your personal and professional processes (yes, both), you begin to excel past where you’ve been.

The language choices here are deliberate.

• Push.
• Serve Greatly.
• Excel.

The reason that leaders get burned out is that… they don’t actually lead.

That’s a surprising truth you may not have wanted to admit. You’re busy trying to run your organization, division, unit, section,...

Your Wednesdays With Wayne now regularly ties to the One Sharp Sword podcast! Click the link to get there and listen in!

Let’s focus on the true cost of serving everyone. I think, you know where we're headed with this. And so this is kind of fun because it's a chance just to lock in your thinking around it. 

What does it mean when you try to be everything to everybody? You know, there's so many businesses out there that fail, and there are so many individuals that fail because they're trying to be everything to everybody. The people that I work with have had experience like that, where they've tried to serve pretty much everyone. Luckily, most of the people that I work with get through it and recognize that living that way is a killer! It'll kill you individually and it'll kill you as a business. When you try to anticipate the needs of absolutely everyone, you end up losing yourself in the process.

The thinking drowns you: What if they don't like...

Some people like to listen in addition to reading! If you’d like to hear more about this subject and other topics, be sure to check my podcast, One Sharp Sword – Cutting Through To What Matters Most!

And now, this week’s Wednesdays With Wayne - 

You know those leadership development changes that you have been making over the past several months? Okay, some are larger than others, yet you have grown and evolved. You’ve done the “pivot” thing. Here’s how to lock them in, even during these odd times. 

You are  a leader at home where people are looking at you, in your workplace, where people are looking at you, or in the community where people are looking at you. You are a leader, no matter what role you're in. My hope is that you've been taking care of yourself and those around you, your family, your team, because you have a solid vision and your vision is based on your values. 

My hope is that you’ve discovered...

Celebrating Wednesdays With Wayne BLOG POST NUMBER 200. Every single week for 200 posts! Thank you for being with me on this journey!  Today we’re exploring how to boost your bottom line through High Performance (what I call DynamicLeader®) tactics and strategies.  

Boosting your bottom line through high performance strategies and tactics in whatever role you're playing means you’re becoming the DynamicLeader®.  Yep, my clients take on the world a little differently than most. The first thing they do is to identify, then align everything with their values.

People forget that we're not the same person we were. When you pause to think about it, you wouldn’t want to be the same person you were 20 years ago. In fact, you would probably cringe at thinking you could even be the same person now. Obviously, you're not. Your values have changed. The way you live your life has changed.

If your new values don't come through in the way you...

Let’s look at what true transformation looks like. I promise, I’ll only use the “butterfly” analogy once and it’ll be quick!  

Transformation… trans-formation. What does that even mean? More important, what does it mean to you? 

Transform has its roots in Latin and French and trans literally means across or beyond and form is the shape of something or the way it looks or appears. When you transform, you end up being different. 

What's interesting to me is that when I've worked with organizations, teams, individuals, there's almost an allergic reaction to the word change. They’ll say, “Oh, I know we need to change.” And then they hold their breath. They know that doing the same thing over and over, they're going to get the same results. They know that, you know, they need to do something different, “but does it have to be change?” And so it makes me laugh a little bit as a consultant, as a...

We have the opportunity to take on a powerful perspective about this year. This is mid-year. Treat it like New Year’s Day and take inventory of where you’ve been and how you’ve been. No, don’t just think about the struggle, but really reflect on how you’ve responded to that struggle!

And now, recognize that it's time for you to look ahead. 

You'd need to look back and you need to look ahead and what I want to focus here is with a wave of my wand (see it?) you have permission to transform!

2020 wasn’t out to get you.  We have this sense that it's persona. “Oh, just when I had such and such lined up and all of a sudden, you know, this pandemic happened.”  Guess what! You're not the only one. That's the definition of pan for pandemic. it's global. That means we're all affected by this elusive virus. So it wasn't done to you. 

And if you make it personal, then just know that kind of thinking sets you back. 

...

The first two quarters of the calendar year are now behind us and we need to be talking about three resources that you’re managing badly. My readers are leaders, so whether you’re running a business, keeping your family together, or stepping up as an employee, the potential that you are managing these three things badly is huge. 

THE NUMBER ONE RESOURCE that most people mismanage is what? 

It's time. 

Most people blow it managing their time. “Oh, I don't have time for this. Oh, if only I knew better time management….”   

Here's a secret about time management: there's no such thing. 

We are all given 24 hours in our day today, the sun comes up, the clock spins and we have 24 hours. It is up to us how we spend it, what we put into it. And so there's no such thing as time management. What we need to look at is project management.

I didn’t accidentally grow a business while holding a full-time job,...

Almost everyone I've spoken with in this past week is having some sort of crisis of purpose. This is a leadership issue. This is a personal, individual issue.

What am I doing? Why am I here? Does any of it really matter in the big scheme of things?

These are great questions. We know that there are things we're supposed to be doing. We are in a huge a cultural upheaval and we've felt the effects of what's called quarantine fatigue. All of this is important. All of this is necessary, and all of this leads us to a place of questioning what’s next and what the end result will be.

For some, the question is about why we can't just get on with it. That’s shorthand code for wanting this all to just be over. The good news is that, in my lifetime, I’ve seen starts and stops of cultural redefinition multiple times and this is the first time I’ve ever felt like we’re headed somewhere positive. It feels like work. Taking a personal stance on this, ask yourself...

It’s time to refocus.  Yes, ALL of the issues going on globally are exceptionally important to me.  And I’m certain they’ve affected you.  And you need to be at your best to tackle them while rebuilding.  So, today’s Wednesdays With Wayne focuses on leadership, powerful presence™, and profit.   

What does that mean to you? When you think about leadership, do you think Powerful Presence™?  When you think Powerful Presence™, do you link that to your profitability?

Quick inventory – rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 on these:

• I know how to lead
• I’m clear about the difference between leadership and management and when each is needed, whether I’m at work, at home, or in the community.  (Yes, this is a multi-part question, yet give yourself one ranking.)  
• I own my space wherever I go and feel great about my presence.  It is, in fact, a Powerful Presence™.

Today we talk about licking our wounds and looking ahead. The past couple of months they've been, well, I don't have to tell you what they've been. They've been amazing. Can you look at them that way? Think about it. We’ve come through some very trying times obviously, and this allowed us the redefinition of our roles, who we are in the world, who we are to each other, who we are at work, at home, and in the community, and it's given us the opportunity to decide what we actually appreciate. 

That is something special because had we continued as we were, we would have gone down the path that we were on.

Maybe, that would have been great. It was safe and predictable.  But you know what? 100% of my one-to-one high performers, my DynamicLeader® clients all report that they are really glad this happened. Isn’t this a great quote: “I am finding out that I want to be doing something different with my life.” 

The big pause that we all took caused...