Speaker 1: Welcome to the Becoming You Show, where limits get torched
Speaker 1: and possibility takes the mic. I'm lea rowing human in
Speaker 1: permanent beta, neurostrategist, mom to three amazing humans, married to
Speaker 1: one legendary soul, and your no Fluff permission slate to
Speaker 1: stop waiting. Every week, we rewire brain patterns, smash hand
Speaker 1: me down mindsets, and dive into the daring, identity shifting
Speaker 1: conversations most people gosh ready to turn potential into proof.
Speaker 1: Grab your pen. Your next chapter starts now. Hello, my
Speaker 1: beautiful friend, Welcome to the Becoming You Show. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Leah Rolling, And this is the space where
Speaker 1: we do the real work of becoming, the inner work,
Speaker 1: the identity work, the self leadership work that quietly changes
Speaker 1: everything everything downstream from it. So, if you're here, there's
Speaker 1: some part of you that is reaching for more because
Speaker 1: you know deep down that you're deserving of more. You
Speaker 1: know deep down that there's a capacity of becoming more.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're joining in
Speaker 1: on this conversation. If you're new, welcome, if you've been
Speaker 1: here for a really long time, I love that you're here,
Speaker 1: and I love hearing from you. So just know that
Speaker 1: I'm here with just my producer in my office, and
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that I'm speaking directly to you
Speaker 1: right now folding your clothes or walking on a trail
Speaker 1: or and so that's not lost on me. I want
Speaker 1: to get into it. Ear replaceable. That is the conversation today,
Speaker 1: and most people want to be irreplaceable. Right. We want
Speaker 1: to be the ones that can be replaced. We want
Speaker 1: to be the ones that they maybe significant others, spouses, organizations, groups, missions.
Speaker 1: We want to be the ones that they cannot do
Speaker 1: this whatever this is without right, the one where our
Speaker 1: absence would actually be felt. Right. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most human longings there is to matter, to matter that much,
Speaker 1: to be that significant, to know that your presence is
Speaker 1: not interchangeable with anyone else. But and here's the thing
Speaker 1: that almost nobody says out loud. Wanting it is common, right,
Speaker 1: almost everybody wants it. I say that with coaching all
Speaker 1: the time. Every time I ask people if they think
Speaker 1: there's a benefit to being coached right, to become better,
Speaker 1: to become more of who you can be, everybody raises
Speaker 1: their hand. But yet when I ask who has one Armstrop. Okay,
Speaker 1: so everybody, most people want to be irreplaceable. Becoming is
Speaker 1: the work, and not a lot of people are signing
Speaker 1: up for that. Not a lot of people are willing
Speaker 1: to do that. I know you are because you're here
Speaker 1: on this podcast. You're here listening to this conversation. So
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about the actual work. What
Speaker 1: truly makes a person irreplaceable. It has nothing, nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing to do with luck or talent or being born special, right,
Speaker 1: and it has everything to do with how you build
Speaker 1: it on purpose. So I'm going to start by tearing
Speaker 1: down what most people think it is, because the common
Speaker 1: version is not just wrong, it quietly makes you smaller.
Speaker 1: So when most people try to make themselves irreplaceable, they
Speaker 1: reach for one of a few things, and almost every
Speaker 1: single one of them is built on fear, right, built
Speaker 1: on ego. An ego will always be your ceiling. It
Speaker 1: will always be your ceiling. And so what does it
Speaker 1: look like. It looks like trying to be the smartest
Speaker 1: one in the room, right, the one with all the answers,
Speaker 1: the one that knows the most, the one that has
Speaker 1: the sharpest, most sophisticated take on everything, and being smart
Speaker 1: is wonderful, but using it to stay irreplaceable is a
Speaker 1: trap because the second someone smarter walks in, your whole
Speaker 1: identity is on the line. Your whole identity is reconsidered.
Speaker 1: So you start competing with this person instead of contributing. Okay,
Speaker 1: and in that competition you hoard. You hoard what you know,
Speaker 1: You hold your knowledge close, you keep the keys to yourself. Right.
Speaker 1: They make sure that no one else can do what
Speaker 1: they do because if everyone could do it, then what
Speaker 1: would they need me for? It feels like security. It's
Speaker 1: actually a cage. You've made yourself valuable by making sure
Speaker 1: no one else can grow around you. And that is
Speaker 1: not strength. That is a bottleneck. Right, And when organizations
Speaker 1: look right to let people go, they let go of
Speaker 1: the bottleneck. Courses are created in business to talk about
Speaker 1: the bottleneck. Right. The bottleneck is the one that everything
Speaker 1: has to run through. Every decision, every approval, every question,
Speaker 1: all of it comes to them and they tell themselves
Speaker 1: that's what being important looks like, right. But being the
Speaker 1: bottleneck is not what important looks like. Right. The bottle
Speaker 1: neck makes everyone wait if the whole thing falls apart
Speaker 1: the moment that you step away. You did not build
Speaker 1: something irreplaceable. You built something very fragile, and you tied
Speaker 1: it to yourself. And I have watched what this costs
Speaker 1: a person, right, I've watched it. The bottleneck. They cannot
Speaker 1: take a real vacation because everything waits for them. They
Speaker 1: cannot get sick, they cannot fully rest. They are drowning
Speaker 1: and being needed and calling it being important. But their calendar, right,
Speaker 1: their calendar leaves you a hostage and your phone never
Speaker 1: stops ringing. You built a life where nothing moves without you.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the exhaustion and the resentment and the
Speaker 1: bitterness and the stress that they have created on the
Speaker 1: other side of it. That is not significance. That is
Speaker 1: a very slow burnout that you mistook for being a value.
Speaker 1: So the difference here is I really want you to consider,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between being needed and being irreplaceable. And
Speaker 1: they're not the same thing. Right, One of them empties
Speaker 1: you and the other one fills you up. So that
Speaker 1: is the heart of this entire reframe. Right, the version
Speaker 1: of irreplaceable, right, the smartest, the gatekeeper, the bottleneck. It's
Speaker 1: not power, it's not power, and fear can never make
Speaker 1: you irreplaceable. It just makes you more small and controlling.
Speaker 1: And so I want to spend the rest of this
Speaker 1: conversation right with you. What what what does it mean
Speaker 1: to be irreplaceable? And as most of my work, it
Speaker 1: involves us going inside right where where that level of success,
Speaker 1: external success, being smart, being the bottleneck, being needed is
Speaker 1: all is all outside of you. It all requires someone
Speaker 1: else to acknowledge that in you. This work of being
Speaker 1: irre irreplaceable is built from the inside out. It's not
Speaker 1: about your position. It's not about your knowledge. It's not
Speaker 1: about how tightly you can hold everything together. It's about
Speaker 1: you at its core. It's about your character. It's about
Speaker 1: the kind of person that you have built yourself into,
Speaker 1: quietly over time, through the choices that maybe maybe no
Speaker 1: one saw you make. And so here's the way that
Speaker 1: I think about it. Irreplaceable is personal power that refuses
Speaker 1: to stay private. It is everything you have built on
Speaker 1: the inside, your standards, your steadiness, your follow through your
Speaker 1: depth finally showing up on the outside, and how you
Speaker 1: carry yourself and how you treat people, and how you
Speaker 1: keep your word and how you hold up under pressure,
Speaker 1: how you regulate yourself, emotionally so that you can ground
Speaker 1: a room. Should the room be grounded so that you
Speaker 1: can bring enthusiasm to the room? Should enthusiasm be required? Right,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not a thing that you do to
Speaker 1: people so that they cannot replace you. It is who
Speaker 1: you are made visible that no one can copy because
Speaker 1: no one has lived in your experiences. Right. So I
Speaker 1: want you to think. I want you to think about
Speaker 1: the person who was truly irreplaceable to you, maybe a mentor,
Speaker 1: maybe a grandparent, maybe a boss, a friend, maybe your mom.
Speaker 1: I promise you you are not remembering their title, You're
Speaker 1: not remembering their resume. You're not you're not remembering their GPA.
Speaker 1: You're not thinking about how much they knew you were
Speaker 1: remembering what how they made you feel, how steady they were,
Speaker 1: how they showed up, how they made you feel like
Speaker 1: you're the most important person in the world. Who they
Speaker 1: were when it counted. That is what made them impossible
Speaker 1: to replace. And it is the exact same thing that
Speaker 1: will make you impossible to replace, not for what you know,
Speaker 1: but for who you are. Right, And so I want
Speaker 1: to talk about what these might be like, what are
Speaker 1: the what are the three things that you can build
Speaker 1: my choice by practice to actually become more irreplaceable in
Speaker 1: your own life with the people that you love, with
Speaker 1: the teams that you lead, with the missions and movements
Speaker 1: and promises that you steward. So first, first, you've got
Speaker 1: to take goals seriously. I know it sounds really simple.
Speaker 1: I heard this from one of my very favorite mentors,
Speaker 1: but he says that we don't take the goals of
Speaker 1: the people in our life seriously enough. Our own included,
Speaker 1: our own included. Right, it's the one that most people
Speaker 1: just skip right. Take your goals, your own goals seriously enough, seriously.
Speaker 1: Here's what I see constantly. Right, people are too loose,
Speaker 1: They're too casual about their goals. They treat the promises
Speaker 1: they make to themselves as the most negotiable thing in
Speaker 1: their life. Right, we say we're going to do this,
Speaker 1: but we don't. We say we're going to work out
Speaker 1: and we don't. We say we're going to eat on
Speaker 1: plant and we don't. We say we're going to make
Speaker 1: these calls, but we don't. We would never do that.
Speaker 1: We would never blow off these levels of commitments to
Speaker 1: our bosses, or to our clients, or to our kids,
Speaker 1: or to our you know, our spouses, But the commitment
Speaker 1: to ourselves, that's the one that we renegotiate. Right, I
Speaker 1: was going to get up early, but right I was
Speaker 1: going to start to think, but I said I would.
Speaker 1: But every time you do that, every time you do that,
Speaker 1: you are teaching yourself something. You are teaching yourself that
Speaker 1: your word does not mean anything, that you are are
Speaker 1: not someone who can be counted on by you, that
Speaker 1: you do not have your own back, and that choice
Speaker 1: repeatedly create the pattern, and that pattern creates a level
Speaker 1: of distrust in you. You cannot build an irreplaceable self
Speaker 1: on a foundation of broken promises to the most in person,
Speaker 1: the most important person in your life. You you irreplaceable.
Speaker 1: People treat their own goals like they are binding, like
Speaker 1: they matter, like the promise that they made to themselves
Speaker 1: carries the exact same weight as the promise to anyone else.
Speaker 1: Maybe should I dare say more? Because they understand that
Speaker 1: the relationship they have with their own word is the
Speaker 1: whole game, it's the whole play. When you can take
Speaker 1: your own goal seriously, you become someone that you can trust.
Speaker 1: And when you can become that person, you can take
Speaker 1: that trust into the world, and people will trust you back.
Speaker 1: Someone who can trust themselves carries themselves completely different in
Speaker 1: this world. People say that people see in you what
Speaker 1: you see in them, and you see in others what
Speaker 1: you see in yourself. So to the level, to the
Speaker 1: extent that you begin having your own back, taking your
Speaker 1: own goals seriously enough more seriously, you have a level
Speaker 1: of trust that is unshakable. Right, you become somebody that
Speaker 1: you will not replace, that you will not abandon. So
Speaker 1: let's just picture the simplest version of it. Okay, you
Speaker 1: set the alarm in the morning, right, you meant it
Speaker 1: when you said it, and then it goes off, and
Speaker 1: right there, right there, you hold the note in the negotiation.
Speaker 1: Does it really matter? Eh, one day won't hurt. I'll
Speaker 1: start tomorrow. Maybe I'll do it tonight. And whenever you decide,
Speaker 1: and whatever you decide, please hear me on this. Whatever
Speaker 1: you decide in that thirty seconds, just know that you're
Speaker 1: not just deciding about sleep. You're not. Actually, it has
Speaker 1: very little to do with sleep. You are casting a
Speaker 1: boat on who you are. You are, and you keep
Speaker 1: enough of those small promises to yourself, and you become
Speaker 1: someone who keeps their word, somebody that obeys themselves, break
Speaker 1: them and you quietly become someone who expects to let
Speaker 1: themselves down. Same person, to completely different lives. I've seen it.
Speaker 1: Thirty seconds, thirty seconds away from choice, from choosing right,
Speaker 1: the better nature, the pattern of trust, the consistency of
Speaker 1: commitment or sleep end quotes. You get that choice, that
Speaker 1: is your choice. So you want to become somebody that's irreplaceable.
Speaker 1: You got to become irreplaceable in your own life. And
Speaker 1: then when you develop that trust, then and you take
Speaker 1: your goal seriously, you begin to matter. Then you begin
Speaker 1: to take the goals of other people more seriously. But
Speaker 1: it all starts with you. It all starts with you.
Speaker 1: And then once you do that, once you begin to
Speaker 1: take your goal seriously, then you begin to explore what
Speaker 1: are the goals of the three or four or five
Speaker 1: people that are the most important to you? Do you
Speaker 1: know what they are? How can you support their growth
Speaker 1: if you don't know what they are? But again, you
Speaker 1: are the foundation. How can you support their growth when
Speaker 1: you're not even supporting your own? So we start there
Speaker 1: and then watch what happens. Watch what happens? Two Number
Speaker 1: two How to become irreplaceable in your life. You follow through, right,
Speaker 1: you follow through. The distance between the person that you
Speaker 1: could be and the person that you are right now
Speaker 1: is follow through. It's followed through. I'm telling you that
Speaker 1: right now. It's not talent, it's not a shortage of information.
Speaker 1: It's not knowledge. Right, let's think about it. You probably
Speaker 1: already know what to do. You've known it for a while.
Speaker 1: The gap is in the doing of it again and again,
Speaker 1: especially on the days that you don't feel like it,
Speaker 1: and especially when no one would know that you skipped it.
Speaker 1: That is the part that builds you, not the doing
Speaker 1: it when you are inspired. Inn one can do it
Speaker 1: when they're inspired. The follow through that builds an irreplaceable
Speaker 1: self is the kind that happens in private on just
Speaker 1: an ordinary Wednesday, when the feeling is gone and the
Speaker 1: only thing left is you and your level of trust
Speaker 1: for the promise that you made to yourself. Do you
Speaker 1: do it? Do you do it? That's the whole question.
Speaker 1: Do you do it? Yes or no? Because every time
Speaker 1: you follow through when it's hard again, it goes back
Speaker 1: up to taking your goal seriously enough. The second part
Speaker 1: is to follow through on it. Every time you follow
Speaker 1: through when it's hard. Right, you are not just getting
Speaker 1: the task done check no, no, you are becoming a
Speaker 1: kind of person that is different, one who's commitment to
Speaker 1: themselves mean something. And there are very few things rarer
Speaker 1: or more valuable than a person who's yes means something.
Speaker 1: Right means something, not just right to the person that
Speaker 1: they are saying yes too, but most important to yourself.
Speaker 1: Saying yes to you, Yes to you, that can that
Speaker 1: can boundary themselves by saying no as a complete sentence,
Speaker 1: but saying yes to the commitments that you have made
Speaker 1: to yourself, Yes to the goals that you've declared for yourself.
Speaker 1: Knowing what it is that you want and going for it.
Speaker 1: That is how you become irreplaceable. Right, Knowing the goals
Speaker 1: of the people that employ you, what are their goals?
Speaker 1: Do you know what they are? Knowing the goals of
Speaker 1: the house, do you know what they are? Again? All
Speaker 1: of that is completely dependent on you being consistent and
Speaker 1: having your own back. I've seen this play out. I've
Speaker 1: seen it when you don't take your goal seriously, but
Speaker 1: you take your family's goals seriously. When you say no
Speaker 1: to you consistently and you say yes to them more frequently,
Speaker 1: you begin to feel resentful, you begin to be bitter.
Speaker 1: You deserve better. You deserve better. So we're going to
Speaker 1: take your goals seriously. We're going to follow through as
Speaker 1: a yes or no to these goals, to these commitments
Speaker 1: to self. And the last thing that I want to
Speaker 1: offer up on this irreplaceable conversation is this invitation to
Speaker 1: grow your capacity. Grow right, This is the one that
Speaker 1: keeps you from plateauing. Grow your capacity, keep it exc
Speaker 1: spanning what you are able to hold. Most people get
Speaker 1: to a certain level of comfort, and then they just stop.
Speaker 1: They stop reaching, they stop stretching, they stop putting themselves
Speaker 1: into rooms where they're not the most capable person. And
Speaker 1: I understand why comfort really feels safe, right, But comfort
Speaker 1: is a cage, right that comfort feels good, And that's
Speaker 1: why they say good is the enemy of great. Ordinary
Speaker 1: is the enemy of extraordinary. The exact place that feels
Speaker 1: safe to you is the place that you stop growing.
Speaker 1: And the place that you stop growing is the place
Speaker 1: that you will slowly start becoming replaceable, because the world
Speaker 1: keeps moving even when you decide to stand still. Irreplaceable
Speaker 1: people keep growing their capacity on purpose. They take on
Speaker 1: the thing that is slightly too big for them, They
Speaker 1: have the conversation that scares them. They stretch into to
Speaker 1: more responsibility, more honesty, more depth, more range, and they
Speaker 1: do that be before they feel ready, because they know
Speaker 1: that the readiness comes from the reaching, not before it.
Speaker 1: So every time you grow what you can hold, you
Speaker 1: become a little more rare. You become a little bit
Speaker 1: more irreplaceable because most people are not willing to leave
Speaker 1: the comfort to do it. Most people aren't willing to
Speaker 1: leave the comfort to do it. But you're here in
Speaker 1: this conversation. So none of these three look like much
Speaker 1: on any single day. One kept promise, one follow through,
Speaker 1: one slightly uncomfortable stretch on their own. They almost look
Speaker 1: too small to matter, but they do not stay small.
Speaker 1: They compound every promise you keep to yourself. Every single
Speaker 1: promise you keep to yourself makes the next one easier
Speaker 1: to keep. Every time you follow through, you trust yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit more, and that trust makes you reach
Speaker 1: a little firm. That trust builds that level of confidence
Speaker 1: in yourself to reach just a little further, and that
Speaker 1: reaching grows your capacity, which makes you which makes you
Speaker 1: able to take on more, which gives you more chances
Speaker 1: to follow through. It is a flywheel. It keeps building
Speaker 1: on itself. You will you will not see it day
Speaker 1: to day. You won't. And that's the hard part and
Speaker 1: the beautiful part. Right, So look at those three. Take
Speaker 1: your goals seriously, follow through, grow your capacity. Notice right,
Speaker 1: Notice again, what's not on the list. It's not about
Speaker 1: being the smartest, it's not about hoarding, it's not about controlling. Right.
Speaker 1: All three are completely available to you. Right. None of
Speaker 1: them require you to have been born special, or lucky
Speaker 1: or gifted. You do not need also permission for any
Speaker 1: of these three. Right. You just need to decide. You
Speaker 1: just need to decide. Wanting to be irreplaceable is common.
Speaker 1: A'll end where I started, But actually doing it is
Speaker 1: the work. It's the work in doing it, And so
Speaker 1: I will leave you always with an invitation, right, building
Speaker 1: this the goals that you take seriously, the follow through
Speaker 1: that nobody sees the capacity to keep growing. You can
Speaker 1: do it on your own. I just told you could.
Speaker 1: Doing it with people is so much more fun and
Speaker 1: it will expedite your progress. Right. We live in an
Speaker 1: Amazon world. We want results just like this. You get
Speaker 1: those exponentially when you join a community where we hold
Speaker 1: you accountable to the growth, to the follow through, to
Speaker 1: the capacity, to the goals that you have for your life. So,
Speaker 1: if you're not in our membership, if you're not in
Speaker 1: the Leadership Lab, if you're not with us, join join
Speaker 1: this month. Make this be the month that you stop
Speaker 1: just listening to me talk about the lab and participate.
Speaker 1: Get in there with us so that we can all
Speaker 1: help each other become irreplaceable in our lives. We all
Speaker 1: deserve that. If this bring true to you, share it,
Speaker 1: share it, comment like on it, let me know, let
Speaker 1: me know what landed for you, and I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week. Have a beautiful one, everybody, take care bybye.
Speaker 1: If this episode cracked something, open good, let it and
Speaker 1: then head to lea rollincoaching dot com and grab the
Speaker 1: tools to rewire the story and replay your future. It
Speaker 1: is yours. And then share this with someone who's still
Speaker 1: waiting to be chosen, still waiting for permission, and remind
Speaker 1: them they don't need a breakthrough, that they are the breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Until next time, my beautiful friends, invest in you and
Speaker 1: keep becoming