Leading By Example

Welcome back to the LIFT by Body Talk newsletter, where you can learn how to achieve your goals by LIFTing others.?

Here you will gain insights and top tips from another new project: the LIFT podcast ! Leadership is not about power or status, but about serving and transforming how people feel or perform. My guests will help show you how to achieve this as easily as possible.??

This week, we’re covering my podcast guest, Christian Fuentes , who is the leader of one of the top-producing REMAX teams out there. Last year, they made over a billion dollars in sales.

“Success is contagious.”

?- Christian Fuentes

From the beginning of his career, Christian benefited from being lifted by others. He speaks of the importance of aligning yourself with successful people who are doing well, thinking big, leveling up, and doing big things. And while he has learned from others, he also makes a point of paying it forward. Not all of his employees were doing well when he hired them, but by believing in them, surrounding them with successful people, and lifting them up, they became some of his most successful agents.?

How do you make sure you lead by example?

Christian has a routine of “non-negotiables” that he does every single morning because he wants to start every single day with a win.

1. He gets up at 4:38 every morning.
2. He says a prayer
3. He exercises.
4. He reviews his goals.
5. He goes over things that he’s thankful for.
6. He spends a minimum of 30 minutes doing self or business development.
7. He goes on a run, when he listens to a podcast.
8. He reviews his to-do list for his day, week, and month.

Of course, the same level of discipline doesn’t work for everyone. He said he wakes up at 4:38 because he likes that number and it works for him. But moving with intention in the morning is one simple way to set yourself up for success and, therefore, leading by example.?

“Whatever you believe becomes your reality.”

So every single day it’s important to remind yourself what you believe, what you dream for yourself, and what your goals are. You want goals that you can be excited about so when you wake up and look at them in the morning, they will motivate you to get up and start your day.

Christian emphasizes the importance of setting goals and reviewing them every day. He sets goals with all kinds of timelines—for the week, the month, the year, five years. When it comes to the more long term goals, Christian laughed and told me, “My goals are usually 2 years behind, but I always get there.” It’s important to balance your discipline with a sense of humour. As long as you’re still moving forward and doing what you need to do daily, you will get there. It’s okay if it takes a little longer than expected.

I like to write on yellow notepads, and every time I open a new one, I write down my dream vision of where my future is going to be. Writing down your goals also gives you the opportunity to go back and look at your notebooks, which I did recently. I laughed and thought, “Is this the biggest dream that I had when I was in my 20s?” It doesn’t hurt to set big goals for yourself! It’s lovely to be able to see what you can achieve and what you can give to others. There’s power in writing it down and staying focused on it.

Christian has incredible discipline. I’m tired just thinking of waking up at 4:38. So I asked:

How do you keep going on days when you don’t have as much energy?

Christian said, “I don’t have those days.” He does not allow himself to have bad days. He acknowledges that sometimes he will have a bad few minutes or a bad hour, but he tries to limit it to that. He said most people allow a bad day to turn into bad days to bad weeks to bad months, even a bad year. Not all of us can eliminate bad days completely, but we can certainly do our best to limit them. Alina Jenkins speaks on the importance of maintaining a positive attitude in her article for Body Talk: You Can’t Control Results. You Can Control How You Feel About Results .

For Christian, leading by example comes down to discipline, positivity, ambition, and lifting others.

Christian highlights the importance of knowing your own skills while also knowing the limits of your expertise. Delegating is the key to success for so many leaders.

I like the example of a man who doesn’t like gardening. He was doing it himself until he thought—If I can pay someone 15 or 20 pounds an hour while I manage to make 21 doing something else, then I’m making a profit. It’s about finding good people that do like gardening.

The key to living by example is to always surround yourself with people who are doing bigger things than you while continuing to work on yourself and mentoring others.?

Take a moment to write down your goals today. See what happens! See how you feel when you come back to them in a month, a year, five years. Are you lifting others as you go?

Thank you for taking part in my LIFT by Body Talk newsletter. Want to learn more? You can connect with my team at [email protected] or check out my linktree .

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