Cadre Today and Bold Followership

Oh, hey, good morning, Cadre. I thought the light above my head looked like the sun today, so. Oh, it's kind of a sad song, but for some reason it sounded happy in my head. But hey, whether you're singing sad songs today, whether you're singing happy songs today, whether you're jewels or speak, wonder whether you're here nor there, whether you're feeling high nor low, no matter what's going on, it's nice to see you. It really is nice to see you. Yes. Three coffees and a sunshine. That sounds like the right mix there.

Speak, wonder. You're doing great. I hope you're doing great. But if you're not doing great, that is a okay, too. Mondays hold a specific weight. I think every day holds a specific weight. And one of the keys to moving through life efficiently effectively, all of those things is kind of going, where am I? What's going on? What do I do with that? C. this is Cadre. Today you can see me every single morning, all year long. Not necessarily every morning, but every day. Right here at Cadre, in the space where we're bringing together professionals and peers to talk about all the things to show you that there isn't an A or a B or a right or a wrong or a go this way or that way, that there's many ways to acknowledging your state and improving your state.

Like we say, there's many ways to be. Well, Mondays, like I say, that has a specific weight. And often that weight is, okay, it's time to get back to work. So on Mondays, we talk a lot about professional development. We talk about how we do the things that we do, rather than on Saturdays, personal development. When we talk about who we are, personal development, who we are, professional development, what we do. And as you can see in the title of this live stream, it says, bold followership. What is that?

Well, I'm sure you've all heard of leadership, right? The practice or the study of how we lead one another. Well, followership is the practice or the study of how we follow, how we follow ideas, how we follow leaders, people, how we follow movements, how we observe and understand social norm, and then perhaps provide feedback so those social norms can change and be, you know, put into a better place. So you may go, huh, Followership sounds less cool than leadership. And I go, no, actually, followership is the space where we spend most of our time.

When you're driving in your car, guess what you're following? You're following the speed limit, you're following other drivers. You're following the weather, you're following the pathways that departments of transportation have laid out by where the roads go and where they say you can't go this way, but you need to go that way. You follow whenever you turn on the radio and all of a sudden they say, we're going to play that sad song from high school. And all of a sudden you go, okay, so what do I do with this?

And you may feel, you may remember, you may think, you may reminisce, or maybe they play that new banger that really gets you jived up. And all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh, that song is going to give me the energy to do the thing that I'm going to do right when I get out of my car. We are always in a state of following. I think the big shift that we need to make is seeing following as a passive thing to, as the title says today, followership, following as a bold, committed, on purpose, world changing act.

I spend all of my days following other people. Now, again, you need to think of it differently. I spend the majority of my life standing in front of rooms of people teaching and facilitating and coaching and observing and all of those wonderful things. C. you're in the front of the room, therefore you're leading. Here are a couple things that I say. Let's say I'm working with an organization. I always say I'm the person in the room who cares least about your business. But because of that, I'm going to be able to follow this conversation in a different way.

Because I'm not on the inside of it, I'm on the outside of it. So I say a lot of things like, you know, it seems to me, or I may not understand this, but. And you notice if you follow me on Saturdays with the enoughness conversation, I'm lowering my enoughness in my language by saying things like, hey, I may be the only one. I'm not trying to lower the value of my words. I'm speaking truthfully. I don't know what's going on in these businesses, in these worlds, in these communities, these groups of people.

So by me going, hey, remember, I don't know you like you know you. And I'm simply following where you're leading me in this conversation of understanding. And all of a sudden they go, oh my gosh, this perspective from the outside in, or this perspective from the back of the line versus the one leading the line teaches us a lot because obviously leaders want to lead to a direction. And if the followers aren't getting there, there's an opportunity to grow. So as speak, Wonder says, right? What happens if you picked up your paper map?

Your paper map that provides you direction? What if you follow it? All you have to do then is figure out, what are those paper maps in your world right now? Is it the boss? Is it the co worker? Is it the voice on the news? Is it your neighbor asking, hey, I'd really love it if you can come over and have a cup of coffee, because I've been feeling lonely and all of a sudden you may be like, ah, I'm leading the way and making their lives better. Or you're following where they want to bring you to to learn something that, yeah, will benefit them.

The last thing to talk about today as you think about how you follow with intention boldly, is you never know what you're going to find in the seed of following. I learn more, I grow more, and I get more every single time I follow. So when can you follow today and where will it take you in the meantime? I'm going to keep following the sun, because that's what I think my big light on the ceiling of my office looks like. So we'll sing the chorus one more time, y'all. Someday you'll find. Yep, I'll follow the sun.

Luke's coming up in 20 minutes. Y'all have a good one.