Hey everyone,
I have had a very sudden burst of motivation to make a video to update you guys. I have had a few pretty huge revelations in my life recently and this is me talking about leadership and being a leader in general.
I feel like the word leader has been tossed around to me randomly by people in the community and I have never really thought of myself as a leader. I realized I have never really thought of what it means to be a leader. Obviously it is somebody who leads, right.
So today I want to talk to you about my early thoughts, my shower thoughts, of what I think it means to be a leader. Most notably my own definition, at least for now, of who is a leader. Who is meant to be a leader.
The Moment I Realized I Was A Leader
I got myself asking what is the definition or the trait that somebody has that makes them a leader. And I asked myself when was the moment in my life that I knew I was a leader, but back then I did not know I was a leader. When I look back on it, it is the moment that I knew.
It is a trivial story, but it is one of those moments I think back to many times.
I worked at Chipotle. I worked there for two years during college and that was the only time I have had a job with a boss and a manager. Ever since then I have not had one and I told myself I was not going to have one.
So, the way Chipotle works is you are getting your burrito assembled. I was the burrito guy behind the glass, asking white or brown rice, black or pinto beans, what kind of meat, what kind of salsa.
In the first section you have the rice, the beans, the meat, and fajita veggies. Everything that is not the meat is supposed to be free. I was responsible for getting people served as quickly as possible through this first section.
I was instructed not to offer people veggies because they are free and they cost money, but if people ask for them, I give them. I was specifically instructed to do this.
My Chipotle was in a college town and it was super busy. Line out the door every single day, for like 75 percent of my shift.
I was told the idea was to save money by not offering fajitas. But I noticed people would get past my section, think about fajitas, get to the end of the line, and then ask for vegetables. The bowl would have to get handed back through the line to me. It held up the line.
At some point I thought this is stupid. It is supposed to save money and it is holding up the line. So I started offering fajitas.
My manager chewed me out and said, “You are not supposed to be offering fajitas.” I said, “They get to the end of the line and ask for fajitas and it delays the process.” His response was, “That is the rule. Follow the rules.”
That was the moment I knew I was a leader.
My Definition Of A Leader
There are two types of people. People that see the rules and choose to abide by them or not, but they do not think about the rules themselves. They think, these are the rules. This is how it is.
Then there are people who see rules, understand that rules are made for a reason, and question what that purpose is. Once we see a rule and we do not like it, we can follow it, or ask somebody who made it what the purpose is, or speak up.
A leader is someone who sees a system, questions the rules, and will create their own system if they do not like the system that exists.
If I do not like the way the Dota community is culturally normalized, I realize I am a leader because I am trying to create a new community with a new set of norms that I like better and that I think serve all of us better.
Values And Why They Matter
I am reading a book called Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. It has been a revolutionizing book for me. She talks about how you cannot be a leader if you do not know your own values. The worst leaders talk about values and do not live them. Everyone senses hypocrisy.
There is an entire page of values. I had never asked myself what my values are. She tells you to pick two.
There were clusters. A cluster of learning and growth and self improvement. Accountability. Competence. And the one I came to that covers all the others was curiosity. Curiosity is my number one value.
The second cluster was sportsmanship, cooperation, collaboration, teamwork. And I landed on teamwork. Ever since I was a little kid, all I wanted was to be a good teammate, a group project partner you wanted to work with. That mattered to me.
So my two values are curiosity and teamwork.
Why I Am Not Streaming Pubs Right Now
I decided not to stream pubs. All of my streaming content, at least for now, is going to be coaching related or intentional content, not just loading up Dota pubs.
What Brene Brown talks about has been eye opening to me. Shame and perfectionism pull you away from your values. When I look at my Dota career, I realize how much shame has played a role. All the times I was a bad teammate. For how core teamwork is to me, I was not living according to it for most of my career.
Streaming pubs pulls me back into that version of myself. Coaching content brings out curiosity and teamwork. That is why I am not streaming pubs for now.
Leadership Inside The Dojo
I feel like in the last month I have gathered awareness on my values, on what it means to be a leader, and on why there are times on my stream where I am not who I want to be.
A bad leader is somebody who has a rule and when someone does not follow it, they tell them to shut up and follow the rules. That is a bad leader.
A good leader explains why the rule is there and reaches a mutual understanding. I want rules people understand and respect. I encourage you to challenge my rules in a respectful way.
Any rule I make was the best guideline I could make at the time. Context changes. I want to change and grow. That is curiosity and teamwork.
How I Have Judged Others Without Realizing It
Before I consciously thought about my values, I was subconsciously judging other people based on how they measured up to how I approach my values. How good or bad of a teammate they are. How good or bad their sportsmanship is. How curious they are.
I assumed these mattered to them as much as they mattered to me. I assumed they just did not care. In reality, people have different values.
That has affected my relationships in pubs, in actual real life business partnerships, and relationships.
Closing
For anyone who resonates with this, I would love to talk more. There is going to be progress for me. It is not like I reached the end of the road. This has been so exciting for me.
Thank you so much for watching. This is the highest energy update I have had in a while. I cannot wait to see what happens in the near future.
See you in the next one.
BSJ
P.S. This was a AI formatted transcript from the Brian Canavan Youtube channel.