Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven ninety. Today we're talking about something that
Speaker 2: gets far too much credit in leadership, and that's motivation.
Speaker 2: People are constantly chasing it. They wait to feel inspired
Speaker 2: before they take action. They scroll social media looking for
Speaker 2: the next quote that gives them enough energy to attack
Speaker 2: the day. They buy books, watch videos, listen to podcasts,
Speaker 2: and hope motivation magically shows up every morning. Here's the problem.
Speaker 2: Motivation is a terrible business partner. It doesn't show up
Speaker 2: on your schedule. It doesn't care about your deadlines. It
Speaker 2: doesn't care that your team needs direction. It certainly doesn't
Speaker 2: care that customers are waiting. Motivation is emotional, discipline is dependable.
Speaker 2: Real leaders don't build their careers around how they feel.
Speaker 2: They build their careers around what they do. Think about
Speaker 2: the people you admire the most elite athletes, military leaders, pilots,
Speaker 2: emergency responders, successful entrepreneurs. Do you really believe they wake
Speaker 2: up every single morning, excited to do the hard work.
Speaker 2: Of course not, They've learned something most people never do.
Speaker 2: Discipline carries you through the days when motivation takes the
Speaker 2: day off. As a paramedic, I've worked plenty of shifts
Speaker 2: where I was exhausted before they even started. Twelve hours
Speaker 2: into a busy day, Motivation had packed its bags and
Speaker 2: gone home. Patients were still calling, Equipment still needs to
Speaker 2: be checked, reports still needed completed, crew members still expected. Leadership.
Speaker 2: Nobody gets to say I'm not motivated today. The work
Speaker 2: still has to be done, and leadership is exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Some mornings you'll feel unstoppable, other mornings you'll question everything.
Speaker 2: Neither feeling changes your responsibility. This is why I often
Speaker 2: say leadership is less about emotions and more about habits.
Speaker 2: Habits create consistency. Consistency builds trust, and trust creates credibility,
Speaker 2: and credibility is what people actually follow. And here's something
Speaker 2: that I I've noticed over the years. Many struggling leaders
Speaker 2: don't have a motivation problem. They have a systems problem.
Speaker 2: They rely on emotion instead of routine. They wait until
Speaker 2: they feel like having the difficult conversation. They wait until
Speaker 2: they feel like coaching the employee. They wait until they
Speaker 2: feel like updating policies, They wait until they feel like exercising,
Speaker 2: and they wait until they feel like reading another leadership book.
Speaker 2: And then days become weeks, and weeks become months, and
Speaker 2: eventually they wonder why nothing has changed, because waiting became
Speaker 2: the habit. Discipline would have changed everything. And one of
Speaker 2: the best examples comes from aviation. Pilots don't complete a
Speaker 2: checklist because they feel inspired. They complete it because that's
Speaker 2: what professionals do, even after thousands of flights, even when
Speaker 2: they flown the same airplane hundreds of times, even when
Speaker 2: they know every switch by memory, they still pull out
Speaker 2: the checklist. Why. Because discipline protects people from confidence. Discipline
Speaker 2: protects people from complacency. Leadership has checklists, two return phone calls,
Speaker 2: walk through your workplace, recognize the good work, correct poor performance, quickly,
Speaker 2: follow through on promises, and listen before speaking. These aren't
Speaker 2: exciting activities. They're repetitive. They're ordinary, they're disciplined, and ironically,
Speaker 2: those ordinary actions often separate average leaders from extraordinary ones.
Speaker 2: People frequently ask me how to become a better leader.
Speaker 2: They're hoping I'll reveal some hidden leadership secret, and there
Speaker 2: isn't one show up, keep your word, learn, continuously, prepare
Speaker 2: before you need to, and repeat and then repeat again.
Speaker 2: Leadership isn't glamorous nearly as often as social media makes
Speaker 2: it appear. It's quiet, it's repetitive, it's steady. The leader
Speaker 2: who consistently does the little things eventually becomes the leader
Speaker 2: everyone trusts during the big things. And there's another reason
Speaker 2: discipline matters. Your team is watching far more than they're listening.
Speaker 2: They notice whether you arrive prepared. They notice whether you
Speaker 2: finish what you start. They notice whether your standards change
Speaker 2: depending on your mood. When your discipline disappears, your credibility
Speaker 2: starts disappearing with it. And one of my favorite leadership
Speaker 2: observations is this, you never rise to the level of
Speaker 2: your motivation. You fall to the level of your sin systems.
Speaker 2: That's true in business, it's true in fitness, it's true
Speaker 2: in relationships, and it's absolutely true in leadership. The leaders
Speaker 2: who seem unstoppable usually aren't superhuman. They've simply built routines
Speaker 2: that don't require constant motivation. They've made excellence automatic. Imagine
Speaker 2: if every leader listening today committed to one disciplined action
Speaker 2: every single day, not ten, just one. Spend seven intentional
Speaker 2: minutes improving your leadership. Read one chapter, coach one employee,
Speaker 2: write one handwritten thank you note, walk one extra lap
Speaker 2: through your workplace, and ask one meaningful question. And over
Speaker 2: the course of a year, that's hundreds of intentional leadership moments.
Speaker 2: That's how great leadership is built, not through giant breakthroughs,
Speaker 2: through disciplined repetition. And i'll leave you with this. Motivation
Speaker 2: may get you started, discipline is what gets you across
Speaker 2: the finish line. When you don't feel like leading, lead anyway,
Speaker 2: when you don't feel like improving, improve anyway, when you
Speaker 2: don't feel like showing up, show up anyway. Because your
Speaker 2: future team isn't waiting for the motivated version of you.
Speaker 2: They're counting on the discipline version of you. That's the
Speaker 2: leader they'll remember, that's the leader they'll trust, and that's
Speaker 2: the leader worth becoming. So thank you for spending these
Speaker 2: few minutes with me today. If this episode challenged the
Speaker 2: way you think about motivation, share it with another leader
Speaker 2: who needs the reminder that consistency always beats inspiration. Leadership
Speaker 2: isn't built on your best day it's built on the
Speaker 2: day's nobody is watching, and you choose discipline anyway. So
Speaker 2: until next time, keep leading with purpose, keep raising your standards,
Speaker 2: and remember that every day is another opportunity to become
Speaker 2: the leader that your team deserves. This has been the
Speaker 2: seven minute Leadership Podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.