July 11, 2025
Three Areas of Personal Growth that Will Have the Biggest Impact on Your Advocacy Success
Our personal growth as an advocate and as a leader is probably the single most important ingredient for our advocacy success. And yet, it’s one of the things we most often overlook. We don't give enough time and attention to it.
There's a lot of ‘doing’ in advocacy and that's quite naturally what we tend to focus on. But at the core of it all is your growth, your strength, your capacity as a leader and as an advocate.
But how do we grow as a leader, as an engager of decisionmakers and as a powerfully influential advocate? A lot of the growth happens in the doing. But the degree of growth, the levels we reach, are determined by how intentional we are about achieving that growth.
That's what I want to talk about with you today.
In this episode, we share:
- Two indicators that it’s time to take one or more of your advocacy skills to the next level
- How to create highly effective habits that will cause you to be more powerfully influential with decisionmakers
- How to increase your ability to operate from the identity of a powerfully influential leader
- One powerful question to ask yourself to take your growth to higher levels
- The simple action that will help you stay motivated while you do the work of growing
- How to get support for your personal growth work around advocacy
Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share the three areas of personal growth that will have the biggest impact on your advocacy success.
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So, stay tuned.
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If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I.
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I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I wanna check in with you about something that we don't spend enough time on.
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Our personal growth as an advocate and as a leader is the thing that we most often overlook.
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We don't give enough time and attention to it.
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And it's probably the single most important ingredient for our advocacy success.
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There's a lot of doing in advocacy and that's quite naturally what we tend to focus on.
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But at the core of it all is your growth, your strength, your capacity as a leader and as an advocate.
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So that's cool, but how do we grow as a leader, as an engager of decision makers and as a powerfully influential advocate?
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The growth happens in the doing.
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But the degree of growth, the levels we reach are determined by how intentional we are about achieving that growth.
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And that's what I want to talk about with you today.
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There are basically three areas of personal growth that are absolutely determinative of your ability to wield powerful influence with decision makers.
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Which in turn determines your advocacy success.
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Obviously, the one we're all constantly aware of is just the simple need for skills and knowledge.
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If we're gonna pay attention to personal growth, that's often where we go.
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It's like, well, how can I improve my skills in this area or that?
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How can I learn a little bit more about this technique?
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Those kinds of things.
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Which is excellent and we wanna be doing that all the time.
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But to add a bit of intentionality to that can make a world of difference.
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And so ask yourself, what skills and knowledge specifically do you wanna develop further that will help you become a more effective leader and advocate?
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Now, that might include public speaking skills.
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It might include active listening.
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Probably includes something to do with messaging because that's such a huge skill arena, and there's so much knowledge and skill that goes into being able to do that really effectively.
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There's all kinds of advocacy related skills that are critical.
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And the thing to remember is, there's a tendency to think that once you've got a skill that you're good to go.
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Okay, I know how to do x.
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I know how to do messaging.
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I know how to do lobbying visits with legislators.
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I know how to do this, that, and the other.
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And that's good.
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But here's the thing.
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There is always a next level.
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There is always a next level of skill, of mastery, of power.
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And there's nothing wrong at any point, of saying, you know what, I'm good.
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I have developed X skill as much as I want to.
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I'm good.
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I don't need anymore.
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If that's where you are in your advocacy and leadership journey, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
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All I ask is that you acknowledge that while having a basic toolkit is great and very helpful, it's not mastery.
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It is not anywhere close to the level of skill and effectiveness that you could have if you wanted to develop those skills further.
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So that's a personal choice, and I'm not telling you that you have to do anything.
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First of all, I can't.
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But also, this is individual.
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So if you're content with the skill level you have, awesome.
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The thing I'd like you to keep in your awareness for a time when you are ready to grow, is that there's always a next level.
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And with each increased level of skill comes exponentially more impactful results.
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So there is a reward attached to making that skill set be even more robust, and to increase your level of mastery in each of the skill areas.
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If you allow it to be, it is a lifelong journey.
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We are always learning more.
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This is where I always think about my martial arts background.
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When you're an early student, when you're at the beginning and intermediate levels, you feel like, oh wow, if I ever get to black belt, that will be amazing.
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Then I will have mastery.
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Then I will know all there is to know.
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I'll be golden.
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And then you get there and you go, oh, hmm.
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Interesting.
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Now that I'm here and I can see, it's like climbing a mountain.
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When you start at the bottom, the first little outcropping you see, you think is the top.
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And then you get there and you realize, oh no, there's more mountain.
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And that keeps happening.
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Each new little piece of a peak or an outcropping that you climb, when you stand on that new higher level and look up, you realize, oh, there's much more up than I realized.
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It happens when you get to black belt.
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You get there and all this time you told yourself that's the top of the mountain.
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And then you get there and you go, oh my goodness.
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Well it's great to be here.
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And now I'm looking up and I see that there is at least as much more mountain still to climb than what I've already climbed.
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The difference is that at that point you have mastery of technique.
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And now you begin to develop mastery of the art.
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What I've learned in having spent many years in that world and even many more years in the advocacy world is that there are a lot of parallels there.
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And so it's an analogy I use a lot because I see a lot of Nonprofit leaders and advocates feeling perhaps a bit more content and satisfied with their basic or intermediate toolkit and feeling like they're good now.
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They know everything they need to know.
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They'll be great on their advocacy.
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And at the same time they'll come to me and say, I'm really frustrated.
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We're not getting the advocacy results we want.
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So it shouldn't be a huge surprise that those two things are connected.
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So if your goal is greater effectiveness, I encourage you to always be looking to ask yourself, what is a skill I don't yet have that I wanna learn?
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And of the skills I already have, where's one where I'd like to take that to the next level?
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And you don't have to work on them all at once.
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That's probably not reasonable or practical.
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But you'll usually know.
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There'll be indicators of where you should focus.
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And it might be that you're finding you're particularly struggling with something.
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That's a great indicator.
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But it might also be that you feel really comfortable and like you're good at a thing, but it's not producing the results that you want.
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And that's a time to check and say, Hmm, maybe there's more to that skill than I realized.
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Maybe there are some extra components.
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Maybe there's something else.
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There's a piece of missing knowledge or a next level skill development that would really make a difference for me.
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And focus on that.
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As I said when I started, simply by going out and engaging in advocacy you will learn stuff, you will develop skills, you'll acquire knowledge.
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And if you're persistent about it, you'll achieve growth.
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Assuming you're observant and are noticing what works and what doesn't, and you're learning from each of those things and you're adjusting as you go, you will learn.
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And if you've gotten yourself a mentor or a coach, you will learn that much faster.
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Even if you're doing this all on your own, there will be growth.
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But it's the intentionality that starts to really shift results.
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So ask yourself those questions and pick something that you want to build on in a skill or a knowledge area.
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And make a plan to do that.
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Maybe it'll involve going out and finding a mentor or a coach, or maybe it'll just be, I'm gonna learn more about this however I can.
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I'm gonna talk to some people informally.
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A lot of the skills and knowledge that I acquired in my early advocacy years, I learned through what I always referred to as sort of informal apprenticeship.
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I looked around and I saw other advocates around me who were exceptionally effective at a particular thing in the context of advocacy.
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And I would go spend time with that person.
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I would observe them, but I would also pick their brain and say, okay, look, when you said this, they did that.
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That was amazing.
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What did you do there?
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What was that?
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And then they would deconstruct it for me and tell me what they'd been up to and what the strategy was and how they were thinking about it.
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And so I just was relentless.
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I looked around and saw people who were good at this and I went to school on that and then asked them a lot of questions.
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And I was fortunate that in a lot of cases, because I was asking smart questions and then taking that information and doing something with it, they felt like, oh, that was worth my time.
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And so several of them took me under their wing and really taught me a lot.
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That's an excellent way to learn a lot of skills and knowledge in advocacy.
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So if you've got those people in your orbit, absolutely take advantage of them.
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There's also more formal coaching and training arrangements.
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A lot of the programs that I run focus on both.
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I always combine coaching with training because nobody is so great that you just have to tell'em once and give them the training and they're like, okay, good.
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I have it.
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I'll be perfect at that now.
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It's a process of practice and learning and adjusting, and coaching is really helpful in that process.
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So that's another way to do that.
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But first you have to decide that you're gonna do that.
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And then you can pick your thing and your method.
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No one is better than another.
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It's really about what you feel will work best for you.
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But it's the intentionality that's really gonna cause you to actually take action to go develop that skill or acquire that knowledge.
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In addition to skills and knowledge, which are foundational.
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There's also kind of the next layer of personal growth, which is actions and behaviors and habits.
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We all have existing actions, behaviors, and habits in the context of our advocacy and leadership work.
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We may or may not be super aware of those.
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So that's a good place to start is to just pay attention a little bit more to understand, what am I doing now?
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And then ask yourself, what new or different actions, behaviors, or habits could you adopt that will have a positive impact on your effectiveness as an advocate and as a leader.
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And these might be really small, tiny changes, little shifts in behavior.
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Or they might be something really big, I find that habits are the best place to start with this because basically, habits happen simply through repetition.
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We do something a certain way, often enough, and then that becomes our habitual way of doing the thing.
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And more often than not, we habituate some things that aren't as effective as they could be.
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I'll give you an example in the messaging world.
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Most of us developed the habit, perhaps long before we ever even got involved in advocacy, because we were trained to do this in school and everywhere else.
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Developed the habit of, when we're engaging a decision maker, we present this logically ordered set of information as if it were a white paper or as if it were an essay.
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And we organize our PowerPoints the same way.
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Here's the introduction, here's the problem, here is the...
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We structure them like you'd structure a grant proposal.
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And it's probably the least effective way of all to actually engage another human being.
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If you think about how you talk with regular people, you would never speak to them that way.
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If you had a friend that you wanted to get on board with the idea of going to a concert with you, but the concert is a performer that they've never heard of.
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Or maybe they've heard of them, but they're not that into it.
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It's like, well, that's country.
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I don't know.
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I'm not really about that.
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I, that doesn't sound very interesting to me.
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What you would do to engage that friend and get them excited about coming to the concert with you is you would talk to them about how awesome the experience is.
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And you would infuse all of your emotion, and you would paint a picture of how cool it was.
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Maybe you'd tell about the performer's backstory that's really interesting.
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Or what happened the last time you went to one of those concerts and this really cool thing happened where the audience got all involved or whatever.
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But you would engage them in the full experience of the thing that you want them to buy into.
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And you would bring all of your emotion and passion and energy into that conversation.
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What you would not do is give them a set of facts that you believe should be persuasive.
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I.
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Well, country music actually is a legitimate genre and here is the history of country music.
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Here is this performer's role in the context of country music.
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And here are the 10 reasons why they are a top contender for a country music award this year.
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You wouldn't expect that to be persuasive.
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They already said they're not that into it.
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We know instinctively what to do to engage another human being.
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But very often our habit when engaging decision makers is to go into term paper mode, into slide deck mode, and it's deadly.
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It doesn't work.
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It almost universally fails to engage.
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And sometimes it even pushes people away, which is definitely not what we want.
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So that's an example of a habit that a lot of Nonprofit leaders and advocates have, that they don't realize is absolutely not serving them.
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And here's the thing.
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In order to change that, it requires three things.
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It requires awareness that you're doing the thing, that you have the habit.
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It requires an intent to change it to something that's more effective.
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And then it requires, very probably learning a new way, which might involve a couple of new skills.
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But it definitely involves learning a new way and practicing it until it becomes the new habit.
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Take an action, repeat it enough times, and you've got yourself a habit.
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So if we want to develop more effective habits that are going to cause us to be more powerfully influential with our decision makers, we've gotta look for the things that we're doing without thinking about them.
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And do a check and say, is that really working for me?
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Is it working as well as it could?
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Am I getting the knock it outta the park results that I want when I'm doing things this way?
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And if you identify something you're doing that is maybe not serving you as well, to have the intentionality to say, well, what would be a different action that I could take?
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And again, this is where your coaches and mentors are super helpful because they can give you feedback and be a sounding board.
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And say, well, I did what I thought would be effective.
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I, and they might say, well, what'd you do?
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And you tell'em, well, here's, what I did, and da da.
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And they go, ah, I see.
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I can tell you what the problem is.
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This is what you did.
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This is what you should have done.
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And if you had just done it for the first time and never done that before, and they say, do it this other way, that might be a pretty easy switch.
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But if it's what you've been doing for a long time, it's a habit.
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And you don't just say, oh, okay, great.
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I've gotten new information now.
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I just won't do that habit anymore.
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I'll go do the new thing.
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It does not work that way.
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Our brains aren't wired that way.
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We have to train our brains into a new habit.
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So the awareness first.
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The new action identified is second.
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And then the intentionality to actually repeat that action until it becomes habit is how you get that done.
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But again, unlikely to happen without real intentionality.
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Then the last thing is around ways of being and the identity you're operating from.
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Honestly, this probably has more to do with advocacy success than anything else.
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Our aim with advocacy is to one way or another, to wield powerful influence with the money and policy decision makers in our world.
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Powerful influence.
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In that setting, in that context, the identity that you're operating from, the sense of personal power matters immensely.
00:18:05.046 --> 00:18:11.444
And unfortunately, this is also the area of personal growth that is the most neglected.
00:18:11.913 --> 00:18:13.443
There's a couple reasons for that.
00:18:13.983 --> 00:18:21.695
One is it is probably the area where your comfort zone is gonna be the most challenged and it can feel the most scary.
00:18:21.695 --> 00:18:28.739
I Now, we all have certain settings in which we feel a hundred percent in our personal power.
00:18:29.368 --> 00:18:30.628
We're like, we're solid.
00:18:30.769 --> 00:18:31.759
We own the place.
00:18:31.808 --> 00:18:33.009
This is our domain.
00:18:33.009 --> 00:18:34.959
We are large and in charge.
00:18:35.138 --> 00:18:41.503
We are completely comfortable, and we can command the room with no difficulty whatsoever.
00:18:42.003 --> 00:18:45.663
And then we all have settings where we don't have that.
00:18:46.713 --> 00:18:48.993
The good news is you know what each of those feels like.
00:18:49.493 --> 00:18:53.923
So be honest with yourself and take the time to assess.
00:18:54.205 --> 00:19:01.675
Where are some areas, where are some settings where I don't feel that, I don't feel that large and in charge, I'm in command of the room.
00:19:02.218 --> 00:19:08.968
And is that a place where I would like to become stronger in that identity of a powerfully influential leader?
00:19:09.627 --> 00:19:11.758
Would I like it if I had command to that room?
00:19:11.907 --> 00:19:17.762
Would I like it if when I walked into a room full of decision makers, they turned their attention to me.
00:19:17.762 --> 00:19:24.317
They focused on me with respect and appreciation, and they're like, oh, well she's here now.
00:19:24.586 --> 00:19:25.217
Excellent.
00:19:25.307 --> 00:19:27.346
This is a good addition to the room.
00:19:27.584 --> 00:19:29.294
Now we can really have the conversation.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:38.323
Or when you're in a one-on-one conversation with a decision maker, where they actually ask questions like, well, I wanna know what you think.
00:19:38.742 --> 00:19:40.873
I really value your opinion on this.
00:19:41.262 --> 00:19:43.363
You have a perspective that I don't.
00:19:43.573 --> 00:19:44.893
Help me get this.
00:19:45.393 --> 00:19:57.109
If there are settings where you want that and don't have it, getting to that is a lot about making some shifts in your ways of being and the identity you're operating from in those settings.
00:19:57.970 --> 00:20:04.316
Once you've identified where you'd like to feel like you had stronger, more powerful influence in a particular setting.
00:20:04.816 --> 00:20:13.635
First of all, be honest with yourself about how you're currently showing up in those encounters with decision makers or with those particular decision makers.
00:20:13.786 --> 00:20:17.806
For a lot of us, it's one set of decision makers we're like, completely cool, no problem.
00:20:17.895 --> 00:20:20.566
And then there's another set where we're like, oh that's really hard.
00:20:21.125 --> 00:20:21.846
That's scary.
00:20:21.846 --> 00:20:23.135
That's uncomfortable.
00:20:23.185 --> 00:20:25.135
I don't feel respected in this room.
00:20:25.185 --> 00:20:26.746
I don't feel seen, whatever.
00:20:26.796 --> 00:20:32.395
So there's how you feel in reaction to their reaction to you.
00:20:32.895 --> 00:20:36.316
But then, I hope I can say this in a way that really is clear.
00:20:36.816 --> 00:20:39.635
There's a vicious circle that happens there.
00:20:40.055 --> 00:20:50.260
If you walk into a room and you get ignored, that starts to affect how you show up in the next few minutes or the next hour in that space.
00:20:50.760 --> 00:20:59.336
Maybe you walked in feeling pretty confident, but as you get the cold shoulder and get ignored, and people are pretending like you're not there.
00:20:59.836 --> 00:21:02.415
Holding that confidence can be really challenging.
00:21:02.915 --> 00:21:04.236
Cause we start to question ourselves.
00:21:04.236 --> 00:21:05.526
We start to say, well, what's going on?
00:21:05.576 --> 00:21:07.885
I thought I belonged here, but now they're acting like I don't.
00:21:07.945 --> 00:21:08.635
What does that mean?
00:21:08.635 --> 00:21:09.297
And duh da da.
00:21:09.806 --> 00:21:11.395
We get into our heads about stuff.
00:21:12.028 --> 00:21:14.948
So don't attach any judgment to it.
00:21:15.218 --> 00:21:19.778
Just be honest with yourself about how you're showing up in these different settings.
00:21:20.390 --> 00:21:29.119
And if there's ones where you feel like you want to be operating from a much more powerful place than you are currently, really take a look at how you're showing up now.
00:21:29.736 --> 00:21:30.996
And what's going on with that?
00:21:31.046 --> 00:21:33.026
What are you feeling in those spaces?
00:21:33.026 --> 00:21:38.455
What is causing you to show up in that way, especially if it's not how you show up everywhere.
00:21:38.955 --> 00:21:49.631
And then ask yourself, what identity would I need to be operating from to command the full respect and attention that I want from these decision makers?
00:21:50.076 --> 00:21:51.936
What would that identity be about?
00:21:52.487 --> 00:21:54.797
And how would I need to be operating?
00:21:55.297 --> 00:21:56.616
What would I need to be doing?
00:21:56.616 --> 00:21:57.906
What would I need to be saying?
00:21:57.957 --> 00:21:59.727
How would I need to carry myself?
00:21:59.787 --> 00:22:04.102
How would I need to be in that room, that would align with that identity?
00:22:04.842 --> 00:22:07.923
And hold the expectation firmly in your mind.
00:22:08.243 --> 00:22:17.631
That when you're operating from this new identity in this new way, hold in your mind how you see decision makers responding to you differently.
00:22:18.105 --> 00:22:21.901
Now when you step into a room with them, they see a peer walking through the door.
00:22:22.401 --> 00:22:32.587
Whatever the shifts you've been wanting, envision them and then feel into what would the identity need to be that you would be inhabiting that would align with that.
00:22:33.087 --> 00:22:37.738
And once again, because there's always doing involved in all these things.
00:22:38.238 --> 00:22:44.417
What's one thing that you can do to move closer to operating from that identity?
00:22:44.917 --> 00:22:49.921
And this might be just a tiny shift, or it might be something pretty big and kind of scary.
00:22:50.421 --> 00:22:53.576
But identify it and then start taking it for a spin.
00:22:54.566 --> 00:23:00.249
Kind of a useful question that I always like to ask is, what scares me the most?
00:23:00.749 --> 00:23:08.461
What are the things that feel a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable that take me maybe way outside my comfort zone?
00:23:08.961 --> 00:23:14.781
And what's one action that I can take that will take me into that scary zone even a little bit?
00:23:15.281 --> 00:23:20.412
Because the truth is, it's when we step into those challenges, those scary places, and we do it anyway.
00:23:20.912 --> 00:23:24.332
In spite of the fact that it scares the daylights out of us.
00:23:25.142 --> 00:23:27.541
That's when we grow by leaps and bounds.
00:23:28.041 --> 00:23:29.872
That's when we get the breakthrough growth.
00:23:30.724 --> 00:23:34.684
It helps a lot if you've got people supporting you while you do this.
00:23:35.075 --> 00:23:37.954
This is really tough to do completely on your own.
00:23:38.325 --> 00:23:48.414
Surround yourself with a peer group, form an informal or formal group with other Nonprofit leaders where you're challenging each other to level up in these ways.
00:23:48.714 --> 00:23:50.575
That is extremely beneficial.
00:23:50.994 --> 00:23:56.194
You can have a formal or informal accountability group, or a mastermind or whatever you wanna put together.
00:23:56.750 --> 00:24:00.135
Your formal or your informal coaches and mentors, all of them.
00:24:00.431 --> 00:24:02.597
But build that support for yourself.
00:24:02.958 --> 00:24:06.105
Because some of this growth stuff is really kind of scary.
00:24:06.605 --> 00:24:11.044
And when we have a support system around us, it feels a lot less scary.
00:24:11.044 --> 00:24:15.727
It feels like we got a net that somebody's gonna catch us and help us when we stumble.
00:24:15.757 --> 00:24:16.446
'Cause we will.
00:24:16.946 --> 00:24:18.116
Progress isn't linear.
00:24:19.044 --> 00:24:26.183
One more thing that I'd encourage you to do while you're on this journey of personal growth in these three areas, and you may just choose one.
00:24:26.574 --> 00:24:28.104
You don't have to do all three at once.
00:24:28.104 --> 00:24:29.124
That's kind of a lot.
00:24:29.574 --> 00:24:40.079
Although, as I pointed out, if you're looking for action and behavior change, or identity and ways of being change, there may very well be some skill components to that.
00:24:40.579 --> 00:24:43.369
So stay open to that and be willing to incorporate those.
00:24:43.907 --> 00:24:48.107
But you might decide to just stay focused at the skill level and not mess with those more scary things.
00:24:48.107 --> 00:24:48.827
That's fine too.
00:24:49.637 --> 00:24:52.367
This is a choose your own adventure personal growth journey.
00:24:52.867 --> 00:25:02.114
But what I will submit is that the ones that are the most scary are the ones that produce the greatest reward and the biggest impact on shifting your results.
00:25:02.614 --> 00:25:14.574
Because it's not until we operate consistently from the identity of a powerfully influential leader and advocate that we start getting massive results from the decision makers in our world.
00:25:14.814 --> 00:25:16.673
That's just how it works.
00:25:17.173 --> 00:25:22.063
But there's no rule about how much you have to grow or what you have to focus on.
00:25:22.573 --> 00:25:26.772
All I ask is that you pick something, and that you do it with intentionality.
00:25:27.272 --> 00:25:30.559
And one of the things that will help you in that is to keep track.
00:25:31.059 --> 00:25:38.170
Whether it's with a journal or any other device that you like to use to keep track of your personal progress and growth.
00:25:38.670 --> 00:25:52.279
Write down all the pieces that I just talked through, but specifically write down your intention, the result that you want, the thing that you're gonna shift, the actions you're gonna take in order to make that shift.
00:25:52.910 --> 00:26:01.359
And then as you implement those actions and those shifts, you're gonna take notes of what happens and what results you get and what you are learning in the process.
00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:06.167
Because a lot of times we can't see the progress we're making.
00:26:06.917 --> 00:26:15.438
We have our eyes on the big prize, like, well, one day I'm gonna walk in that room and all their heads are gonna whip around and it's gonna be like,-I'm dating myself here.
00:26:15.557 --> 00:26:20.768
Like the opening scene from Cheers and everybody yells,"Norm!" Everybody knows your name.
00:26:20.948 --> 00:26:21.847
You want that.
00:26:21.877 --> 00:26:32.627
You want decision makers to know who you are, respect you, respect your authority and opinion, and to be eager to work with you as a problem solving partner who gets things done.
00:26:33.324 --> 00:26:38.484
You can get there, but it's gonna take working through some of these more challenging pieces.
00:26:39.430 --> 00:26:43.119
The progress can feel slow sometimes, and that's why I like to have it written down.
00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:51.670
So that we can look back at the end of maybe six months or a year and those little increments of progress that we didn't really notice at the time.
00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:57.276
When you look back 12 months later, you're like, oh wow, that's a big shift.
00:26:57.874 --> 00:26:59.493
Cause we forget where we were.
00:27:00.124 --> 00:27:02.703
We very quickly assimilate into the new reality.
00:27:03.163 --> 00:27:11.946
So if there's an arena in which you are operating from very low personal power, and you begin to increase that level of personal power that you're operating from.
00:27:11.946 --> 00:27:15.676
And you're changing the identity you work from and the ways of being that go with that.
00:27:16.515 --> 00:27:20.442
Especially when it's working, you just kind of lean into it.
00:27:20.942 --> 00:27:23.643
And don't realize, oh hey, wait a second.
00:27:23.702 --> 00:27:25.323
I left that other thing behind.
00:27:25.863 --> 00:27:26.762
That wasn't working.
00:27:27.063 --> 00:27:28.682
Now I'm doing the thing that works.
00:27:28.712 --> 00:27:29.553
This is awesome.
00:27:30.053 --> 00:27:31.522
And we forget very quickly.
00:27:32.022 --> 00:27:36.883
So to be able to look back six months or a year later, or even longer, and say, wow.
00:27:37.383 --> 00:27:41.313
No wonder I was struggling with getting results operating that way.
00:27:41.792 --> 00:27:42.212
Yeah.
00:27:42.212 --> 00:27:46.113
Now that I'm operating from this way, I can't believe I was doing that before.
00:27:46.712 --> 00:27:48.272
And wow, look how far I've come.
00:27:48.522 --> 00:27:49.113
It's amazing.
00:27:50.022 --> 00:27:52.435
We can't do that if we don't take note of it somewhere.
00:27:53.348 --> 00:27:54.554
All of this is a journey.
00:27:54.913 --> 00:27:55.827
All of it's never ending.
00:27:56.327 --> 00:28:03.269
Whether it's skills or ways of being or operating from a powerful identity, it's all incremental.
00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:06.779
And there's always, always a next level.
00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:16.835
My hope for you is that you will identify a couple of next levels that you wanna bring into reality for yourself, around your advocacy and the results that you're getting.
00:28:17.335 --> 00:28:19.644
And that you can use this as a guide to help you get there.
00:28:20.424 --> 00:28:25.463
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:02.479
You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:00:02.810 --> 00:00:11.029
In today's episode, we share the three areas of personal growth that will have the biggest impact on your advocacy success.
00:00:11.269 --> 00:00:12.589
So, stay tuned.
00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:27.980
If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:28.010
I.
00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:41.390
I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
00:00:54.619 --> 00:00:57.409
Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
00:01:00.619 --> 00:01:03.619
Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
00:01:09.215 --> 00:01:09.995
Hey there folks.
00:01:09.995 --> 00:01:13.025
Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because I wanna check in with you about something that we don't spend enough time on.
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Our personal growth as an advocate and as a leader is the thing that we most often overlook.
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We don't give enough time and attention to it.
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And it's probably the single most important ingredient for our advocacy success.
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There's a lot of doing in advocacy and that's quite naturally what we tend to focus on.
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But at the core of it all is your growth, your strength, your capacity as a leader and as an advocate.
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So that's cool, but how do we grow as a leader, as an engager of decision makers and as a powerfully influential advocate?
00:02:02.733 --> 00:02:04.924
The growth happens in the doing.
00:02:05.424 --> 00:02:12.990
But the degree of growth, the levels we reach are determined by how intentional we are about achieving that growth.
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And that's what I want to talk about with you today.
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There are basically three areas of personal growth that are absolutely determinative of your ability to wield powerful influence with decision makers.
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Which in turn determines your advocacy success.
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Obviously, the one we're all constantly aware of is just the simple need for skills and knowledge.
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If we're gonna pay attention to personal growth, that's often where we go.
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It's like, well, how can I improve my skills in this area or that?
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How can I learn a little bit more about this technique?
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Those kinds of things.
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Which is excellent and we wanna be doing that all the time.
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But to add a bit of intentionality to that can make a world of difference.
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And so ask yourself, what skills and knowledge specifically do you wanna develop further that will help you become a more effective leader and advocate?
00:03:08.793 --> 00:03:11.582
Now, that might include public speaking skills.
00:03:11.582 --> 00:03:13.502
It might include active listening.
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Probably includes something to do with messaging because that's such a huge skill arena, and there's so much knowledge and skill that goes into being able to do that really effectively.
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There's all kinds of advocacy related skills that are critical.
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And the thing to remember is, there's a tendency to think that once you've got a skill that you're good to go.
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Okay, I know how to do x.
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I know how to do messaging.
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I know how to do lobbying visits with legislators.
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I know how to do this, that, and the other.
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And that's good.
00:03:45.868 --> 00:03:46.859
But here's the thing.
00:03:47.818 --> 00:03:50.278
There is always a next level.
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There is always a next level of skill, of mastery, of power.
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And there's nothing wrong at any point, of saying, you know what, I'm good.
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I have developed X skill as much as I want to.
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I'm good.
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I don't need anymore.
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If that's where you are in your advocacy and leadership journey, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
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All I ask is that you acknowledge that while having a basic toolkit is great and very helpful, it's not mastery.
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It is not anywhere close to the level of skill and effectiveness that you could have if you wanted to develop those skills further.
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So that's a personal choice, and I'm not telling you that you have to do anything.
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First of all, I can't.
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But also, this is individual.
00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:44.721
So if you're content with the skill level you have, awesome.
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The thing I'd like you to keep in your awareness for a time when you are ready to grow, is that there's always a next level.
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And with each increased level of skill comes exponentially more impactful results.
00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:10.641
So there is a reward attached to making that skill set be even more robust, and to increase your level of mastery in each of the skill areas.
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If you allow it to be, it is a lifelong journey.
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We are always learning more.
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This is where I always think about my martial arts background.
00:05:20.901 --> 00:05:28.161
When you're an early student, when you're at the beginning and intermediate levels, you feel like, oh wow, if I ever get to black belt, that will be amazing.
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Then I will have mastery.
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Then I will know all there is to know.
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I'll be golden.
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And then you get there and you go, oh, hmm.
00:05:39.130 --> 00:05:39.911
Interesting.
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Now that I'm here and I can see, it's like climbing a mountain.
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When you start at the bottom, the first little outcropping you see, you think is the top.
00:05:51.666 --> 00:05:54.877
And then you get there and you realize, oh no, there's more mountain.
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And that keeps happening.
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Each new little piece of a peak or an outcropping that you climb, when you stand on that new higher level and look up, you realize, oh, there's much more up than I realized.
00:06:07.476 --> 00:06:09.336
It happens when you get to black belt.
00:06:09.607 --> 00:06:13.177
You get there and all this time you told yourself that's the top of the mountain.
00:06:13.177 --> 00:06:15.096
And then you get there and you go, oh my goodness.
00:06:15.524 --> 00:06:17.095
Well it's great to be here.
00:06:17.459 --> 00:06:25.439
And now I'm looking up and I see that there is at least as much more mountain still to climb than what I've already climbed.
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The difference is that at that point you have mastery of technique.
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And now you begin to develop mastery of the art.
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What I've learned in having spent many years in that world and even many more years in the advocacy world is that there are a lot of parallels there.
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And so it's an analogy I use a lot because I see a lot of Nonprofit leaders and advocates feeling perhaps a bit more content and satisfied with their basic or intermediate toolkit and feeling like they're good now.
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They know everything they need to know.
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They'll be great on their advocacy.
00:07:05.413 --> 00:07:09.747
And at the same time they'll come to me and say, I'm really frustrated.
00:07:09.747 --> 00:07:12.057
We're not getting the advocacy results we want.
00:07:12.557 --> 00:07:17.644
So it shouldn't be a huge surprise that those two things are connected.
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So if your goal is greater effectiveness, I encourage you to always be looking to ask yourself, what is a skill I don't yet have that I wanna learn?
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And of the skills I already have, where's one where I'd like to take that to the next level?
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And you don't have to work on them all at once.
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That's probably not reasonable or practical.
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But you'll usually know.
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There'll be indicators of where you should focus.
00:07:45.694 --> 00:07:49.305
And it might be that you're finding you're particularly struggling with something.
00:07:49.589 --> 00:07:50.759
That's a great indicator.
00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:58.910
But it might also be that you feel really comfortable and like you're good at a thing, but it's not producing the results that you want.
00:07:59.410 --> 00:08:05.266
And that's a time to check and say, Hmm, maybe there's more to that skill than I realized.
00:08:05.951 --> 00:08:08.232
Maybe there are some extra components.
00:08:08.262 --> 00:08:09.461
Maybe there's something else.
00:08:09.461 --> 00:08:15.041
There's a piece of missing knowledge or a next level skill development that would really make a difference for me.
00:08:15.541 --> 00:08:16.442
And focus on that.
00:08:16.942 --> 00:08:25.482
As I said when I started, simply by going out and engaging in advocacy you will learn stuff, you will develop skills, you'll acquire knowledge.
00:08:25.961 --> 00:08:28.596
And if you're persistent about it, you'll achieve growth.
00:08:28.990 --> 00:08:37.779
Assuming you're observant and are noticing what works and what doesn't, and you're learning from each of those things and you're adjusting as you go, you will learn.
00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:43.248
And if you've gotten yourself a mentor or a coach, you will learn that much faster.
00:08:43.852 --> 00:08:46.552
Even if you're doing this all on your own, there will be growth.
00:08:47.052 --> 00:08:51.230
But it's the intentionality that starts to really shift results.
00:08:51.730 --> 00:08:58.831
So ask yourself those questions and pick something that you want to build on in a skill or a knowledge area.
00:08:59.511 --> 00:09:00.922
And make a plan to do that.
00:09:01.504 --> 00:09:08.083
Maybe it'll involve going out and finding a mentor or a coach, or maybe it'll just be, I'm gonna learn more about this however I can.
00:09:08.096 --> 00:09:09.986
I'm gonna talk to some people informally.
00:09:10.548 --> 00:09:19.750
A lot of the skills and knowledge that I acquired in my early advocacy years, I learned through what I always referred to as sort of informal apprenticeship.
00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:30.514
I looked around and I saw other advocates around me who were exceptionally effective at a particular thing in the context of advocacy.
00:09:30.965 --> 00:09:33.215
And I would go spend time with that person.
00:09:33.544 --> 00:09:38.884
I would observe them, but I would also pick their brain and say, okay, look, when you said this, they did that.
00:09:38.884 --> 00:09:39.815
That was amazing.
00:09:39.815 --> 00:09:40.924
What did you do there?
00:09:40.955 --> 00:09:41.914
What was that?
00:09:42.365 --> 00:09:47.914
And then they would deconstruct it for me and tell me what they'd been up to and what the strategy was and how they were thinking about it.
00:09:48.544 --> 00:09:50.977
And so I just was relentless.
00:09:51.028 --> 00:09:57.388
I looked around and saw people who were good at this and I went to school on that and then asked them a lot of questions.
00:09:57.748 --> 00:10:08.388
And I was fortunate that in a lot of cases, because I was asking smart questions and then taking that information and doing something with it, they felt like, oh, that was worth my time.
00:10:08.687 --> 00:10:12.947
And so several of them took me under their wing and really taught me a lot.
00:10:13.477 --> 00:10:19.839
That's an excellent way to learn a lot of skills and knowledge in advocacy.
00:10:20.198 --> 00:10:23.708
So if you've got those people in your orbit, absolutely take advantage of them.
00:10:24.099 --> 00:10:26.958
There's also more formal coaching and training arrangements.
00:10:27.379 --> 00:10:29.599
A lot of the programs that I run focus on both.
00:10:29.958 --> 00:10:38.788
I always combine coaching with training because nobody is so great that you just have to tell'em once and give them the training and they're like, okay, good.
00:10:38.788 --> 00:10:39.208
I have it.
00:10:39.208 --> 00:10:40.589
I'll be perfect at that now.
00:10:40.979 --> 00:10:46.808
It's a process of practice and learning and adjusting, and coaching is really helpful in that process.
00:10:46.869 --> 00:10:48.339
So that's another way to do that.
00:10:48.839 --> 00:10:52.318
But first you have to decide that you're gonna do that.
00:10:53.038 --> 00:10:55.489
And then you can pick your thing and your method.
00:10:55.989 --> 00:10:57.519
No one is better than another.
00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:00.009
It's really about what you feel will work best for you.
00:11:00.609 --> 00:11:08.441
But it's the intentionality that's really gonna cause you to actually take action to go develop that skill or acquire that knowledge.
00:11:08.941 --> 00:11:11.701
In addition to skills and knowledge, which are foundational.
00:11:12.201 --> 00:11:19.835
There's also kind of the next layer of personal growth, which is actions and behaviors and habits.
00:11:20.719 --> 00:11:26.586
We all have existing actions, behaviors, and habits in the context of our advocacy and leadership work.
00:11:27.086 --> 00:11:30.236
We may or may not be super aware of those.
00:11:30.537 --> 00:11:37.187
So that's a good place to start is to just pay attention a little bit more to understand, what am I doing now?
00:11:37.687 --> 00:11:50.815
And then ask yourself, what new or different actions, behaviors, or habits could you adopt that will have a positive impact on your effectiveness as an advocate and as a leader.
00:11:51.315 --> 00:11:56.278
And these might be really small, tiny changes, little shifts in behavior.
00:11:56.649 --> 00:12:06.869
Or they might be something really big, I find that habits are the best place to start with this because basically, habits happen simply through repetition.
00:12:07.163 --> 00:12:12.413
We do something a certain way, often enough, and then that becomes our habitual way of doing the thing.
00:12:12.913 --> 00:12:19.900
And more often than not, we habituate some things that aren't as effective as they could be.
00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:22.740
I'll give you an example in the messaging world.
00:12:23.291 --> 00:12:33.081
Most of us developed the habit, perhaps long before we ever even got involved in advocacy, because we were trained to do this in school and everywhere else.
00:12:33.591 --> 00:12:46.750
Developed the habit of, when we're engaging a decision maker, we present this logically ordered set of information as if it were a white paper or as if it were an essay.
00:12:47.250 --> 00:12:49.529
And we organize our PowerPoints the same way.
00:12:50.052 --> 00:12:53.138
Here's the introduction, here's the problem, here is the...
00:12:53.158 --> 00:12:56.118
We structure them like you'd structure a grant proposal.
00:12:56.618 --> 00:13:03.567
And it's probably the least effective way of all to actually engage another human being.
00:13:04.067 --> 00:13:09.130
If you think about how you talk with regular people, you would never speak to them that way.
00:13:09.181 --> 00:13:19.270
If you had a friend that you wanted to get on board with the idea of going to a concert with you, but the concert is a performer that they've never heard of.
00:13:19.541 --> 00:13:22.630
Or maybe they've heard of them, but they're not that into it.
00:13:22.975 --> 00:13:24.926
It's like, well, that's country.
00:13:24.926 --> 00:13:25.495
I don't know.
00:13:25.495 --> 00:13:26.985
I'm not really about that.
00:13:26.985 --> 00:13:29.296
I, that doesn't sound very interesting to me.
00:13:30.022 --> 00:13:38.831
What you would do to engage that friend and get them excited about coming to the concert with you is you would talk to them about how awesome the experience is.
00:13:39.777 --> 00:13:45.657
And you would infuse all of your emotion, and you would paint a picture of how cool it was.
00:13:45.657 --> 00:13:49.437
Maybe you'd tell about the performer's backstory that's really interesting.
00:13:49.767 --> 00:13:57.547
Or what happened the last time you went to one of those concerts and this really cool thing happened where the audience got all involved or whatever.
00:13:57.606 --> 00:14:03.033
But you would engage them in the full experience of the thing that you want them to buy into.
00:14:03.533 --> 00:14:08.124
And you would bring all of your emotion and passion and energy into that conversation.
00:14:08.903 --> 00:14:15.634
What you would not do is give them a set of facts that you believe should be persuasive.
00:14:16.384 --> 00:14:16.413
I.
00:14:16.428 --> 00:14:21.777
Well, country music actually is a legitimate genre and here is the history of country music.
00:14:22.047 --> 00:14:25.106
Here is this performer's role in the context of country music.
00:14:25.407 --> 00:14:32.136
And here are the 10 reasons why they are a top contender for a country music award this year.
00:14:32.746 --> 00:14:34.996
You wouldn't expect that to be persuasive.
00:14:35.476 --> 00:14:37.496
They already said they're not that into it.
00:14:37.996 --> 00:14:44.017
We know instinctively what to do to engage another human being.
00:14:44.616 --> 00:14:54.441
But very often our habit when engaging decision makers is to go into term paper mode, into slide deck mode, and it's deadly.
00:14:55.027 --> 00:14:55.986
It doesn't work.
00:14:56.491 --> 00:14:59.091
It almost universally fails to engage.
00:14:59.091 --> 00:15:03.081
And sometimes it even pushes people away, which is definitely not what we want.
00:15:03.898 --> 00:15:14.485
So that's an example of a habit that a lot of Nonprofit leaders and advocates have, that they don't realize is absolutely not serving them.
00:15:15.190 --> 00:15:16.330
And here's the thing.
00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:20.070
In order to change that, it requires three things.
00:15:20.711 --> 00:15:24.100
It requires awareness that you're doing the thing, that you have the habit.
00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:29.221
It requires an intent to change it to something that's more effective.
00:15:29.875 --> 00:15:37.434
And then it requires, very probably learning a new way, which might involve a couple of new skills.
00:15:38.335 --> 00:15:44.086
But it definitely involves learning a new way and practicing it until it becomes the new habit.
00:15:44.812 --> 00:15:49.131
Take an action, repeat it enough times, and you've got yourself a habit.
00:15:49.631 --> 00:16:02.951
So if we want to develop more effective habits that are going to cause us to be more powerfully influential with our decision makers, we've gotta look for the things that we're doing without thinking about them.
00:16:03.683 --> 00:16:06.614
And do a check and say, is that really working for me?
00:16:06.943 --> 00:16:08.774
Is it working as well as it could?
00:16:08.953 --> 00:16:15.903
Am I getting the knock it outta the park results that I want when I'm doing things this way?
00:16:16.403 --> 00:16:26.639
And if you identify something you're doing that is maybe not serving you as well, to have the intentionality to say, well, what would be a different action that I could take?
00:16:27.210 --> 00:16:34.039
And again, this is where your coaches and mentors are super helpful because they can give you feedback and be a sounding board.
00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:36.139
And say, well, I did what I thought would be effective.
00:16:36.139 --> 00:16:37.940
I, and they might say, well, what'd you do?
00:16:37.940 --> 00:16:40.580
And you tell'em, well, here's, what I did, and da da.
00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:41.929
And they go, ah, I see.
00:16:42.200 --> 00:16:43.429
I can tell you what the problem is.
00:16:43.429 --> 00:16:44.389
This is what you did.
00:16:44.450 --> 00:16:45.529
This is what you should have done.
00:16:46.029 --> 00:16:54.090
And if you had just done it for the first time and never done that before, and they say, do it this other way, that might be a pretty easy switch.
00:16:54.590 --> 00:16:58.149
But if it's what you've been doing for a long time, it's a habit.
00:16:58.539 --> 00:17:01.000
And you don't just say, oh, okay, great.
00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:02.350
I've gotten new information now.
00:17:02.350 --> 00:17:04.059
I just won't do that habit anymore.
00:17:04.150 --> 00:17:05.200
I'll go do the new thing.
00:17:06.049 --> 00:17:07.130
It does not work that way.
00:17:07.130 --> 00:17:08.480
Our brains aren't wired that way.
00:17:08.809 --> 00:17:11.539
We have to train our brains into a new habit.
00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:14.650
So the awareness first.
00:17:15.167 --> 00:17:17.990
The new action identified is second.
00:17:18.260 --> 00:17:24.790
And then the intentionality to actually repeat that action until it becomes habit is how you get that done.
00:17:25.290 --> 00:17:29.691
But again, unlikely to happen without real intentionality.
00:17:30.191 --> 00:17:35.891
Then the last thing is around ways of being and the identity you're operating from.
00:17:36.391 --> 00:17:42.480
Honestly, this probably has more to do with advocacy success than anything else.
00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:52.734
Our aim with advocacy is to one way or another, to wield powerful influence with the money and policy decision makers in our world.
00:17:53.234 --> 00:17:54.734
Powerful influence.
00:17:55.234 --> 00:18:04.546
In that setting, in that context, the identity that you're operating from, the sense of personal power matters immensely.
00:18:05.046 --> 00:18:11.444
And unfortunately, this is also the area of personal growth that is the most neglected.
00:18:11.913 --> 00:18:13.443
There's a couple reasons for that.
00:18:13.983 --> 00:18:21.695
One is it is probably the area where your comfort zone is gonna be the most challenged and it can feel the most scary.
00:18:21.695 --> 00:18:28.739
I Now, we all have certain settings in which we feel a hundred percent in our personal power.
00:18:29.368 --> 00:18:30.628
We're like, we're solid.
00:18:30.769 --> 00:18:31.759
We own the place.
00:18:31.808 --> 00:18:33.009
This is our domain.
00:18:33.009 --> 00:18:34.959
We are large and in charge.
00:18:35.138 --> 00:18:41.503
We are completely comfortable, and we can command the room with no difficulty whatsoever.
00:18:42.003 --> 00:18:45.663
And then we all have settings where we don't have that.
00:18:46.713 --> 00:18:48.993
The good news is you know what each of those feels like.
00:18:49.493 --> 00:18:53.923
So be honest with yourself and take the time to assess.
00:18:54.205 --> 00:19:01.675
Where are some areas, where are some settings where I don't feel that, I don't feel that large and in charge, I'm in command of the room.
00:19:02.218 --> 00:19:08.968
And is that a place where I would like to become stronger in that identity of a powerfully influential leader?
00:19:09.627 --> 00:19:11.758
Would I like it if I had command to that room?
00:19:11.907 --> 00:19:17.762
Would I like it if when I walked into a room full of decision makers, they turned their attention to me.
00:19:17.762 --> 00:19:24.317
They focused on me with respect and appreciation, and they're like, oh, well she's here now.
00:19:24.586 --> 00:19:25.217
Excellent.
00:19:25.307 --> 00:19:27.346
This is a good addition to the room.
00:19:27.584 --> 00:19:29.294
Now we can really have the conversation.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:38.323
Or when you're in a one-on-one conversation with a decision maker, where they actually ask questions like, well, I wanna know what you think.
00:19:38.742 --> 00:19:40.873
I really value your opinion on this.
00:19:41.262 --> 00:19:43.363
You have a perspective that I don't.
00:19:43.573 --> 00:19:44.893
Help me get this.
00:19:45.393 --> 00:19:57.109
If there are settings where you want that and don't have it, getting to that is a lot about making some shifts in your ways of being and the identity you're operating from in those settings.
00:19:57.970 --> 00:20:04.316
Once you've identified where you'd like to feel like you had stronger, more powerful influence in a particular setting.
00:20:04.816 --> 00:20:13.635
First of all, be honest with yourself about how you're currently showing up in those encounters with decision makers or with those particular decision makers.
00:20:13.786 --> 00:20:17.806
For a lot of us, it's one set of decision makers we're like, completely cool, no problem.
00:20:17.895 --> 00:20:20.566
And then there's another set where we're like, oh that's really hard.
00:20:21.125 --> 00:20:21.846
That's scary.
00:20:21.846 --> 00:20:23.135
That's uncomfortable.
00:20:23.185 --> 00:20:25.135
I don't feel respected in this room.
00:20:25.185 --> 00:20:26.746
I don't feel seen, whatever.
00:20:26.796 --> 00:20:32.395
So there's how you feel in reaction to their reaction to you.
00:20:32.895 --> 00:20:36.316
But then, I hope I can say this in a way that really is clear.
00:20:36.816 --> 00:20:39.635
There's a vicious circle that happens there.
00:20:40.055 --> 00:20:50.260
If you walk into a room and you get ignored, that starts to affect how you show up in the next few minutes or the next hour in that space.
00:20:50.760 --> 00:20:59.336
Maybe you walked in feeling pretty confident, but as you get the cold shoulder and get ignored, and people are pretending like you're not there.
00:20:59.836 --> 00:21:02.415
Holding that confidence can be really challenging.
00:21:02.915 --> 00:21:04.236
Cause we start to question ourselves.
00:21:04.236 --> 00:21:05.526
We start to say, well, what's going on?
00:21:05.576 --> 00:21:07.885
I thought I belonged here, but now they're acting like I don't.
00:21:07.945 --> 00:21:08.635
What does that mean?
00:21:08.635 --> 00:21:09.297
And duh da da.
00:21:09.806 --> 00:21:11.395
We get into our heads about stuff.
00:21:12.028 --> 00:21:14.948
So don't attach any judgment to it.
00:21:15.218 --> 00:21:19.778
Just be honest with yourself about how you're showing up in these different settings.
00:21:20.390 --> 00:21:29.119
And if there's ones where you feel like you want to be operating from a much more powerful place than you are currently, really take a look at how you're showing up now.
00:21:29.736 --> 00:21:30.996
And what's going on with that?
00:21:31.046 --> 00:21:33.026
What are you feeling in those spaces?
00:21:33.026 --> 00:21:38.455
What is causing you to show up in that way, especially if it's not how you show up everywhere.
00:21:38.955 --> 00:21:49.631
And then ask yourself, what identity would I need to be operating from to command the full respect and attention that I want from these decision makers?
00:21:50.076 --> 00:21:51.936
What would that identity be about?
00:21:52.487 --> 00:21:54.797
And how would I need to be operating?
00:21:55.297 --> 00:21:56.616
What would I need to be doing?
00:21:56.616 --> 00:21:57.906
What would I need to be saying?
00:21:57.957 --> 00:21:59.727
How would I need to carry myself?
00:21:59.787 --> 00:22:04.102
How would I need to be in that room, that would align with that identity?
00:22:04.842 --> 00:22:07.923
And hold the expectation firmly in your mind.
00:22:08.243 --> 00:22:17.631
That when you're operating from this new identity in this new way, hold in your mind how you see decision makers responding to you differently.
00:22:18.105 --> 00:22:21.901
Now when you step into a room with them, they see a peer walking through the door.
00:22:22.401 --> 00:22:32.587
Whatever the shifts you've been wanting, envision them and then feel into what would the identity need to be that you would be inhabiting that would align with that.
00:22:33.087 --> 00:22:37.738
And once again, because there's always doing involved in all these things.
00:22:38.238 --> 00:22:44.417
What's one thing that you can do to move closer to operating from that identity?
00:22:44.917 --> 00:22:49.921
And this might be just a tiny shift, or it might be something pretty big and kind of scary.
00:22:50.421 --> 00:22:53.576
But identify it and then start taking it for a spin.
00:22:54.566 --> 00:23:00.249
Kind of a useful question that I always like to ask is, what scares me the most?
00:23:00.749 --> 00:23:08.461
What are the things that feel a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable that take me maybe way outside my comfort zone?
00:23:08.961 --> 00:23:14.781
And what's one action that I can take that will take me into that scary zone even a little bit?
00:23:15.281 --> 00:23:20.412
Because the truth is, it's when we step into those challenges, those scary places, and we do it anyway.
00:23:20.912 --> 00:23:24.332
In spite of the fact that it scares the daylights out of us.
00:23:25.142 --> 00:23:27.541
That's when we grow by leaps and bounds.
00:23:28.041 --> 00:23:29.872
That's when we get the breakthrough growth.
00:23:30.724 --> 00:23:34.684
It helps a lot if you've got people supporting you while you do this.
00:23:35.075 --> 00:23:37.954
This is really tough to do completely on your own.
00:23:38.325 --> 00:23:48.414
Surround yourself with a peer group, form an informal or formal group with other Nonprofit leaders where you're challenging each other to level up in these ways.
00:23:48.714 --> 00:23:50.575
That is extremely beneficial.
00:23:50.994 --> 00:23:56.194
You can have a formal or informal accountability group, or a mastermind or whatever you wanna put together.
00:23:56.750 --> 00:24:00.135
Your formal or your informal coaches and mentors, all of them.
00:24:00.431 --> 00:24:02.597
But build that support for yourself.
00:24:02.958 --> 00:24:06.105
Because some of this growth stuff is really kind of scary.
00:24:06.605 --> 00:24:11.044
And when we have a support system around us, it feels a lot less scary.
00:24:11.044 --> 00:24:15.727
It feels like we got a net that somebody's gonna catch us and help us when we stumble.
00:24:15.757 --> 00:24:16.446
'Cause we will.
00:24:16.946 --> 00:24:18.116
Progress isn't linear.
00:24:19.044 --> 00:24:26.183
One more thing that I'd encourage you to do while you're on this journey of personal growth in these three areas, and you may just choose one.
00:24:26.574 --> 00:24:28.104
You don't have to do all three at once.
00:24:28.104 --> 00:24:29.124
That's kind of a lot.
00:24:29.574 --> 00:24:40.079
Although, as I pointed out, if you're looking for action and behavior change, or identity and ways of being change, there may very well be some skill components to that.
00:24:40.579 --> 00:24:43.369
So stay open to that and be willing to incorporate those.
00:24:43.907 --> 00:24:48.107
But you might decide to just stay focused at the skill level and not mess with those more scary things.
00:24:48.107 --> 00:24:48.827
That's fine too.
00:24:49.637 --> 00:24:52.367
This is a choose your own adventure personal growth journey.
00:24:52.867 --> 00:25:02.114
But what I will submit is that the ones that are the most scary are the ones that produce the greatest reward and the biggest impact on shifting your results.
00:25:02.614 --> 00:25:14.574
Because it's not until we operate consistently from the identity of a powerfully influential leader and advocate that we start getting massive results from the decision makers in our world.
00:25:14.814 --> 00:25:16.673
That's just how it works.
00:25:17.173 --> 00:25:22.063
But there's no rule about how much you have to grow or what you have to focus on.
00:25:22.573 --> 00:25:26.772
All I ask is that you pick something, and that you do it with intentionality.
00:25:27.272 --> 00:25:30.559
And one of the things that will help you in that is to keep track.
00:25:31.059 --> 00:25:38.170
Whether it's with a journal or any other device that you like to use to keep track of your personal progress and growth.
00:25:38.670 --> 00:25:52.279
Write down all the pieces that I just talked through, but specifically write down your intention, the result that you want, the thing that you're gonna shift, the actions you're gonna take in order to make that shift.
00:25:52.910 --> 00:26:01.359
And then as you implement those actions and those shifts, you're gonna take notes of what happens and what results you get and what you are learning in the process.
00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:06.167
Because a lot of times we can't see the progress we're making.
00:26:06.917 --> 00:26:15.438
We have our eyes on the big prize, like, well, one day I'm gonna walk in that room and all their heads are gonna whip around and it's gonna be like,-I'm dating myself here.
00:26:15.557 --> 00:26:20.768
Like the opening scene from Cheers and everybody yells,"Norm!" Everybody knows your name.
00:26:20.948 --> 00:26:21.847
You want that.
00:26:21.877 --> 00:26:32.627
You want decision makers to know who you are, respect you, respect your authority and opinion, and to be eager to work with you as a problem solving partner who gets things done.
00:26:33.324 --> 00:26:38.484
You can get there, but it's gonna take working through some of these more challenging pieces.
00:26:39.430 --> 00:26:43.119
The progress can feel slow sometimes, and that's why I like to have it written down.
00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:51.670
So that we can look back at the end of maybe six months or a year and those little increments of progress that we didn't really notice at the time.
00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:57.276
When you look back 12 months later, you're like, oh wow, that's a big shift.
00:26:57.874 --> 00:26:59.493
Cause we forget where we were.
00:27:00.124 --> 00:27:02.703
We very quickly assimilate into the new reality.
00:27:03.163 --> 00:27:11.946
So if there's an arena in which you are operating from very low personal power, and you begin to increase that level of personal power that you're operating from.
00:27:11.946 --> 00:27:15.676
And you're changing the identity you work from and the ways of being that go with that.
00:27:16.515 --> 00:27:20.442
Especially when it's working, you just kind of lean into it.
00:27:20.942 --> 00:27:23.643
And don't realize, oh hey, wait a second.
00:27:23.702 --> 00:27:25.323
I left that other thing behind.
00:27:25.863 --> 00:27:26.762
That wasn't working.
00:27:27.063 --> 00:27:28.682
Now I'm doing the thing that works.
00:27:28.712 --> 00:27:29.553
This is awesome.
00:27:30.053 --> 00:27:31.522
And we forget very quickly.
00:27:32.022 --> 00:27:36.883
So to be able to look back six months or a year later, or even longer, and say, wow.
00:27:37.383 --> 00:27:41.313
No wonder I was struggling with getting results operating that way.
00:27:41.792 --> 00:27:42.212
Yeah.
00:27:42.212 --> 00:27:46.113
Now that I'm operating from this way, I can't believe I was doing that before.
00:27:46.712 --> 00:27:48.272
And wow, look how far I've come.
00:27:48.522 --> 00:27:49.113
It's amazing.
00:27:50.022 --> 00:27:52.435
We can't do that if we don't take note of it somewhere.
00:27:53.348 --> 00:27:54.554
All of this is a journey.
00:27:54.913 --> 00:27:55.827
All of it's never ending.
00:27:56.327 --> 00:28:03.269
Whether it's skills or ways of being or operating from a powerful identity, it's all incremental.
00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:06.779
And there's always, always a next level.
00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:16.835
My hope for you is that you will identify a couple of next levels that you wanna bring into reality for yourself, around your advocacy and the results that you're getting.
00:28:17.335 --> 00:28:19.644
And that you can use this as a guide to help you get there.
00:28:20.424 --> 00:28:25.463
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
