FULL TRANSCRIPT

00:00 – Show Opening

Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for daily tips from the coach with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. You’re listening to The Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Shepherd.

00:27 – Start Here – Podcast content starts here!

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast. My name is Gordon Shepherd. I just want to say, honestly, thanks for being here. Thanks for taking time out of your valuable day to come pick up another tip, another strategy to learn how to become a better leader and to learn how to run outstanding meetings. 

00:44 – How to inspire others in meetings

Now, today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite topics and that’s this: how to inspire others as a leader in meetings. Because here’s what I think about meetings these days, especially in the workplace. 

00:56 – We can’t rely on pay to make meetings better

It’s not our pay that is making them better. So many meetings are so bad, and if it was the pay that was getting it done, then there’d be no more bad meetings. But we know that that is not the case, so we can’t rely on pay, so what other place can we reach to to help you find a way to make your meetings more productive and profitable?

01:16 – The inspirational story of Terry Fox

To help you learn how to do this, I want to set the stage with two inspirational stories of my own. The first one is this. Now, put your hand way up in the air. If you’ve ever heard of a Canadian named Terry Fox. Terry Fox. In 1980 this young man, he lost a leg to cancer, and you know what he did about it? He set out to run a marathon a day until he ran all the way across Canada. Second largest country in the world and this guy was going to set up to do that. He wanted to raise awareness and money for cancer research, and what he achieved is simply remarkable. He ran 143 marathons.That got him about halfway across the country, and, unfortunately, cancer then took his life around that point. There is a Memorial on the North shore of Lake Superior in Canada for Terry Fox, and if you ever get a chance in terms of bucket list items in your life, go spend some time. Imagine what he did. Remember back. See those new stories to 1980 when he was going across raising money, raising crowds for an issue that at that time did not have anywhere near the profile that it does today. The legacy of what he did in 1980, he was able to start a movement that since then has raised more than $700 million around the world for cancer research. Terry Fox is a larger than life inspiration for me.

02:42 – The inspirational story of my former co-worker

The second story that I like to tell about inspiration? Well, it comes from a quiet, wonderful woman that I knew in a workplace I was at many, many years ago. Now, she was in many of the meetings that I was in, but she was quiet, so I didn’t really know much about her. Thankfully at a Christmas party one year, I had a chance to speak with her, and I learned that on an administrator salary, she was able to send probably more than half of her money back to another country. She built a home for her parents and she sent many of her relatives through post secondary education. I have to honestly say that she’s an inspiration to me to this day. Think about it. She was in those corporate meetings that I was in, and I want you now in your next meeting to go there and look around the room.

03:24 – Get the people in the room to talk about what inspires them

When you are fatigued by somebody who was late, somebody didn’t prepare the agenda, somebody’s talking too much, those types of things, and take a moment to imagine that they might have a story that inspires you, and they also have stories that inspire them. I can tell you that I always end every training that I do with this very idea. I get the people in the room to talk about what inspires them. So if you’re having meetings that are unproductive and you know that it’s your pay, that’s not sort of going to get it to be better, take a moment and go around the room and say, “What inspires you? Why are you here?” And let people say out loud, what inspires them? Is it their kids? Is it the environment? Are they inspired by their grandparents? Whatever that is, whatever it is, let them say it out loud and start to make each other more human and find that way to connect in your meetings, and then hopefully that will allow you to make them better.

04:24 – Meeting Leadership Academy –https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy

I also want to let you know that this episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast, well, it’s brought to you by the Meeting leadership Academy. Now, if you are a leader who wants to get inspired and grow your skills at the same time, you want great live training or online training options, then visit meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn more. 

04:45 – Be the change you want to see in your meetings

And before I let you go, let’s take a moment to think about a quote from Gandhi. He said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world,” and if we can adapt that just for our own sort of micro purposes, then be the change that you want to see in your meetings. With that wonderful thought in mind, thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you tomorrow on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

05:09 – Podcast Outro

Thanks for listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader, and don’t forget to rate dead review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.