Leadership Lessons From My Dog Part 1
Feb. 7 2022
🐕What my Dog Taught Me About Trust.
When my puppy just came home, she had no idea what was going on, where she was at, who I was, or what my intentions were. I can only imagine how scared she must have been being in a totally new environment with a bunch of strangers staring at her. It took a while for her to get to know us but eventually she learned that we were the ones that would feed her, give her treats, play with her and take her for walks. Over time she eventually realized that we had her best interests at heart, and she learned to trust us. This allowed us to have a very loving and productive relationship. Trust happens relatively quickly with dogs. Building trust with people is a whole different story. One thing that this has taught me is that when it comes to developing trust, consistency is the key, no matter who it is that you are building trust with.
We all serve in different capacities where leadership is required. Whether it is as a parent, a spouse, a manager or supervisor at work, an employee, a content creator or a business owner; the importance of developing trust is essential. The only way this trust can be developed is by being consistent over time. Consistency takes on various forms, but is essence consistency is:
Doing what we say we are going to do
Doing it when we say we are going to do it
By doing what we say we are going to do, others can count on us to follow through on out promises. From something as simple as saying “I am going to call you back” to “I will make sure that project is completed”, delivering on our promises helps develop trust. This is the first part of the story. Doing WHAT we say we are going to do is not enough. We have to actually do it WHEN we say we are going to do it. If someone has to keep following up and checking in on our progress, it does nothing to help build trust. If we say we will get this done by a set date and time, we should honor our commitment.
I have been sharing my personal journey with you and I noticed that the additional demands on my time have been inconvenient at best, if not stressful at times, but it is all for a reason. I want to build trust with all of you who take time out of your day to keep up to date with my journey. I appreciate every one of you and have the best intentions to stay integral to my word. I have been putting some additional tools in place to keep me integral and although I plan to do my best, I know there is going to be a time when I fail to hold up my end of the bargain. I ask for your forgiveness in advance but ask that you hold me accountable for my part.
🎥The Latest on my YouTube Channel
I posted my complete review of the Think Media YouTube 1K Challenge this week.
One of the techniques we learned is to do is called “Influence Surfing” videos. My video this week puts my learning into practice. Chek out my complete review here:
Full Review of the Think Media YouTube 1K Challenge
🏆What I am learning
🎬My editing journey involved practicing with some jump cuts. You will notice my video has a bunch of scene and angle changes. It may be a little overkill in this video, but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to learn.
🔗I completed the Blockchain Developer Certification Course through Simplilearn. I will have a full review of the course available on my website this week.
If you are interested in learning along with me, sign up for an account using my affiliate link here https://simpli-web.app.link/e/hwcdjHJhlm. You will get FOUR FREE Courses and you can connect with me and share notes.
📖What I am reading
I completed the review of Uncover Your Difference by Meera Kothand. You can catch the full review on my website here: https://www.paulmilakeve.com/book-reviews.
I spent some time this week reading a bunch of articles rather than focusing on one book. I am still on the hunt for some new reading material and will probably take you all on a shopping trip with me for a book shopping haul on my YouTube channel. Stay Tuned for that. I gathered a list of some interesting material that I read on Blockchain and utilized Notion as my second brain to capture it all for future reference. Here are just a few:
An Overview of Web 1.0, 2.0 and Web 3.0
Google CEO Name-Dropped Blockchain
🛠️Project Updates
📒I have been building my Notion skills. I found the tool most helpful for the following tasks:
Keeping me accountable for daily habits
Taking notes during my learning.
Using my Video Project template to work through the video creation process.
Capturing all my reading highlights from Readwise and using those to create my notes for my book reviews. I used this method with my most recent book review of Uncover Your Difference
📲I am looking for new ways to use social media to build an audience. I am not a big fan of some of the standard methods like Facebook and Instagram, but I have stepped up my Twitter game. It would be nice to see you over there @paulmilakeve.
I am also considering Reddit. I looked around on the platform for a while. If you have any thoughts or experience using Reddit, please let me know!
👍What I am loving
📺Ozark. I don’t know what else I have to say on this. My wife and I started watching this series on Netflix and have been hooked on it this past week. As you can see, spending quality time with the wife is a big focus. We try to spend at least a couple of hours together at the end of the day binging out and resting our minds.
✍️I love using Notion to take my notes. I have built out my Notion dashboard with links to all of my projects and easy access to all of my note taking templates. I have one built out for Video Scripting, Book Notes and Course Notes. I will be sharing some of my templates on my YouTube channel in the future so make sure you subscribe My YouTube Channel or this newsletter so you can catch them when they are published.
📊Random Insights
I have noticed a difference in how I shop, and I found several benefits as a result. In the past, my wife and I would go to the store and stock up on groceries, fill the pantry, stuff the freezer and refrigerator and try to find room for all the access items that we purchased. We frequently found ourselves either cooking too much food, throwing out alot of expired food, or simply forgetting where we store things. This created a lot of waste and I hate wasting food. Well two things have changed that allowed us the opportunity to reconsider this strategy. First, we have been empty nesters now for over a year. We no longer have to concern ourselves with the ever-increasing appetites of our children. Second, we did a full home remodel before the holidays and want to keep the house in order and looking tidy. With these new revelations we began to cut down the number of things that we buy when we go shopping and there are some surprising benefits to this method.
It cuts down on waste.
It forces us to get out of the house more often which increases our exercise and the time we spend together.
It leaves room for us to try new things more often.
Our meats and produce are fresher.
Our house is cleaner and more organized.
It can be inconvenient at times to not have everything at all times, but the payoff is huge. I encourage us all to find reasons to get out of the house, spend time with your loved ones and stop wasting money.