Bold Followership

Well, it is Monday right here in the Cadre sphere. How are you doing, everybody? I hope it's a happy one. And if it's not, and if it's been a while since you've been happy, that's okay, too. I know happy is something that not everybody gets to feel. Been there, done that. Here in the Cadre sphere, it is professional growth and development day. And, wow, I was scrolling through the live stream schedule yesterday, and my colleague Cleen Lindstrom, who you get to see later on this week, who kind of manages and manifests all that schedule.

Wow, we got a lot of really beautiful people who contribute to the positive static right here in the lives. And even when you pick up the lives after they're not live anymore, they do not go stale, they do not overripen. They stay lovely, don't they? Well, my name is JC. Good afternoon, Jules. Hi, Marisa. I saw you sneak in as well. Whatever is going on, I am grateful to spend some time with you right here and now. My name is JC Lippold. If we've never shared time and space together before, thank you for the opportunity to share some time and space with you right now.

Virginia, Penny, nice to see you two. Wow. My memory isn't all that super great. So, Virginia and Penny, if we have shared time and space together before, I'm glad to do it again, but I don't know if we have. So if we haven't, nice to meet you. Whenever I bop in on Mondays, we talk about followership. So often the professional space is about not following, but about leading. And I love following. It is my favorite thing to do in the Cadre sphere. I kind of feel like my job is to. Is to follow. My job is to point at really awesome people and say to everybody else, hey them.

Look at them, listen to them, learn something from them, hey, you have a question? I think they may have an answer, or you have a question. Well, I actually think you have an answer for somebody else, so. Well, you actually say what you just said to somebody else, and all of a sudden we get to that place where we go, huh? We think we are deficient, and it's in our deficiency. We find that we are incredibly efficient for someone else. So what is followership? Followership is an action, it's not a passivity.

Where often we go, oh, well, when we're not leading, we must be following. No, I think that's the problem. And actually do think it really is a problem. The problem of the world, if you ask me. It's. We go. Well, if I'm not the one who's leading, I must be a pawn or a lemming or powerless. When in reality, followers have the power, because there's one leader and there's eight and a half billion followers. So followers out there listening, followers out there act, followers out there empower. So I am going to talk about a couple of my.

I would call them friends. I would call them people who I did not know yet until all of a sudden, I knew them. There are three people who were livestreaming this morning. So, first of all, Mister Matt Tappy. Matt Tappy sent me a LinkedIn message, I don't know, sometime in the last eight months, and said, hey, I'd love to learn more about this Cadre thing. Matt was up in Duluth, college student, and said, I want to learn more. So I got my car, drove up to Duluth. We had a cup of coffee. I'm like, your perspective as a student, your perspective as a person going, how do I look at this world that I'm walking into and influence?

I go, by golly, every single person sitting in the world of leaders, the world of business, the world of power, needs to have your perspective. I got out of the way and said, your voice that the world needs to listen to. Imtiaz. Imtiaz, who went live for the first time two weeks ago. I met Imtiaz about a year ago. Imtiaz lives in New Jersey, but I believe is originally from Australia or New Zealand. Mtiaz is one of the most emotionally intelligent and also technologically intelligent humans I've ever met.

Just this wonderfully forward thinking, but also one of the most present human beings I've ever met. And also, from a communication standpoint, just this word, weaver. I was leading some continuing education leadership development curriculum, and Mt. Oz was in attendance. And I was like, wow, I need to know you. So, like a fly to sugar water, I'm like, I'm gonna know you. I'm gonna know you. And one day, I was like, mtiaz, can I talk to you about this Cadre thing? And Mtiaz is like, yeah, sure, sure.

And we ended up spending some more time together at another learning opportunity. And then I was like, okay, we need to talk about this Cadre thing. And voila. And then Steven, who went live today for the first time, we met about 13 years ago when I was never going to leave Minnesota. I'm a Minnesota guy, and my coo at the time said, hey, you need to move to Boston and do this stuff for the work that we're doing. I was like, okay. It feels right. So I moved to Boston, and one of the first people I met out there as a person who didn't have any friends out there was Steven and his partner, Frank.

And 13 years later, I was like, gosh, Stephen, I think you need to do this Cadre thing. And Steven was like, okay, let's do this Cadre thing. Then I got out of the way, and here we go. It's what I like to call decentering. I'm a white guy who very often, actually, my whole life. Here's a little unknown truth or unknown fact about me. I've never applied for a job in my entire life. I'm 42. I've never applied for a job. Everything I've ever done has been presented to me. Hey, JC, would you ever be interested in.

Yeah. Think about how many times you've had to apply or had to go out and reach for something. Everything that I've ever done has been, gosh, JC, I wonder if you would be now. Again, there's been times where I've had to kind of look and wait and wander and ask, and, you know, I don't have a savings account. I don't have retirement. I'm a wanderer. I do things that feel right. I'm an old millennial, if you couldn't tell by what I just said. But, right. That kind of fits who I am and who I represent and who I look like in this world.

But I decenter myself all of the time. Meaning I get opportunities that are presented to me, and I look at who the world would benefit from hearing from, and I walk in with the opportunities that are presented, and then I go, nope, I'm going to put this person here. And then I walk away. It's a really good example of following, right? I go, huh? I point at other people and I say, I'm going to follow this person. I'm going to follow this person. I'm going to listen to this person. I'm going to listen to that person.

I lead by following. Think about the things that interest and excite you. Think about the people that you're learning from and listening to. Think about the spaces where you are stumbling and lead others to the stumbles and go, hey, I have stumbled here. Those are the opportunities that others can follow in your leading or lead in your following. And it was such a wonderful moment for my heart to go, huh. My opportunity in this Cadre sphere is your opportunity in this Cadre sphere. What have you learned from someone?

And maybe it's someone who's not speaking like me. Maybe it's someone who's sent a message. Maybe it's someone like Jules. I see Jules in here all the time. Maybe it's someone like speak wonder. Maybe it's someone like Marisa. Maybe it's someone like Penny. And all of a sudden, you go, you know what? This person who I may not even know, I like to call them people I do not know yet. The world calls them strangers. I like calling people I do not know yet. That's how we follow boldly. That's how we follow actively.

That's how we change the world. That's how we grow professionally, y'all. You got a lot more opportunities today and all throughout the week and all throughout your life to continue to grow right here in this Cadre sphere. And I cannot wait to do it right alongside you and to follow your lead. All right, we'll see you guys later.