Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Where power is refined, impact sharpens, and leaders move from success that performs to powerful legacy.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Hello and welcome.
I'm your host, Olara Sage. Today I want to talk about, and perhaps talk to the noble leader. So I want to start this conversation off with a quote from Ernest Hemingway. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self. And this quote captures what I wanted to speak to today.
Because a noble leader has nothing to do with position of leadership. It has nothing to do with ranking. It doesn't even have anything to do with intelligence or skill. It has to do with how you show up. In Ernest Hemingway's quote, the reference is the ever evolving man, human person, leader, the one who seeks to be better than they were yesterday. These people are usually the natural born leaders because they inspire, not because they are trying to inspire or trying to get others to better themselves. Inspiration is oftentimes most powerful when it's never spoken, when it's not emphasized. Rather than the person who is
[00:01:52] Speaker C: up
[00:01:52] Speaker A: there speaking and projecting onto how everybody can be better, much like I'm doing in this moment. I can't deny that beautiful irony versus the person who's just living the experience, bettering themselves every single day. And those that are around that person witness that evolution. But I want to take this conversation quite a bit deeper because what is nobility in one definition, right? It is the caste system, it is hierarchy.
It has to do with your blood. But true nobility has nothing to do with any of that.
And so I came down to four characteristics of nobility. The first is of virtue. The intent to do good. The intent to serve humanity, to serve your community, to serve your clients, your business, to truly affect others in a positive way. The second one is wisdom, applying knowledge to life. But from my perspective, wisdom goes beyond knowledge. Wisdom is ancient. Wisdom is often things that we connect to perspectives, ideas, feel, theories that we have not quote, unquote learned, that arise from within, that live within us. This is an important distinction because people who are wise have not always lived every single thing that they understand deeply. But it is true that they understand life deeply and they can apply that quote, unquote knowledge of life to life. The third one is love. Now, love is a very complicated human emotion, mainly because it is something that we all deeply, deeply desire and seek. And so I want to be clear here. Love, of course in this context is not being in love with somebody. It's not infatuation, it's not lust. Love in this context is acceptance, the ability to accept People exactly like they are. The beauty of acceptance is it's the foundation of transformation. If you want to truly lead people, inspire them, help them to become better, evolve themselves, you actually first have to fully accept who they are. It's this paradox that lives in transformation. And acceptance doesn't mean that, that we don't inspire or invite or even command to some degree change, but it means that we are not attached to it. So as a leader, the ability to accept your employees, accept your fellow team members, the people in your life, because when you meet somebody where they are, especially when you meet somebody in a place that they aren't even meeting themselves, that fosters such an incredible connection. It's that feeling of being seen by another. Perhaps you have felt that, perhaps you sat with somebody and you felt like they saw you. Maybe it was over a single conversation. It usually happens very quickly. For those who are skilled in the matter of meeting another human, in the energy of acceptance, it fosters authenticity, honesty and devotion. Because when we feel met by another human, we feel connected to them, we want to work with them. And the fourth characteristic is courage. The ability to face fear, face adversity, to persevere, and just somewhere within yourself, A be willing to fail and B, hold faith in your ability to succeed, the willingness to fail with the faith of success. So just take a moment here to contemplate these four characteristics.
Perhaps against yourself or a leader that you were led by. Either a leader that you adored or a leader that you despised.
Did that leader, or do you as a leader hold these characteristics? Virtue, wisdom, love and courage. When a leader is noble, there is an ability to connect with those that they are leading.
And the truth is that the true noble leader oftentimes isn't even necessarily placing themself in leadership. It's often occurring naturally.
Because this type of nobility that I'm speaking to here, people love it, people feel it. It's not in what you say, it's definitely in what you do, but it's more about your, your resonance. They can feel that you hold these virtues, that you hold these characteristics, and
[00:07:14] Speaker C: they want to be a part of it.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: So it is that natural born leader.
But even those who are in leadership position can increase our capacity of leadership through these characteristics. And most importantly for any leader, just as Ernest Hemingway said, it is the willingness to be honest with yourself. Which of those characteristics is not your strong point, which is your weakest, and how do you improve upon that weakness because that is being superior over your previous self. So the noble leader has the ability to connect and communicate, to see the people that he, she, they is leading,
[00:08:06] Speaker C: to meet them where they are.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: And this fosters community.
It fosters a desire to serve. So you can even consider making a strong statement here that to truly lead people, not control them.
And those are two very different paths. And actually, before I go into what I was going to say, let's pause here for just a moment. Leading and controlling. How many leaders have you known or have you seen perhaps in more agencies or structures of humanity that are controlling and often use a form of fear to dictate that control? I think we can all agree that it has been in humanity quite rampant. And control does not foster loyalty because if possible, those who fear you will escape you. They are only doing what you say because they have to. That doesn't invoke genius quality work from anybody.
It invokes just enough. They'll show up just enough that they don't get in trouble, but nothing more than that. Again, I think we could all agree that that is rampant in humanity. Rampant. A leader, on the other hand, leads through a place of service.
Not surrendering in, not giving into.
It's not weakness.
It's actually the most powerful form of will that exists. Just not control. And there's a beautiful dance that can
[00:09:48] Speaker C: be had in the conversation between control.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: And you could say surrender, not submission, although that is another very powerful word if you truly understand it.
But let's use surrender, control and surrender. The line where those two meet is really where a leader holds will, holds their own will, and applies that will through virtue, wisdom, love and courage.
And also applies the will of the whole. Applies the will of the employees, the clients, the community, the business. Because that is the responsibility of a leader.
And how can you actually do that if you're creating fear? You can't, because there's no honesty there. There's no authenticity there. Nobody's going to open up to you. Nobody's going to tell you what they really feel or need.
They're going to hide it all away from you. And now you're a leader, quote unquote, with no information. If you want to invoke genius energy from mere employees, you have to listen to them and not the words that they speak. You have to listen to them again, meet them in perhaps places that they haven't met themselves. It's not about words.
It's about connection and emotional intimacy.
Understanding where someone is really coming from, understanding what they really need to succeed as them, not as you or not as the next guy or the next woman. Or the next person as them. We're all sovereign, unique individuals and the leader has the ability
[00:11:53] Speaker C: to feel that,
[00:11:55] Speaker A: the wisdom beneath the words. From my perspective, that's what true leadership is. The other one is just simply control.
It's not leadership. So in the act of noble leadership, the ability to hear what is needed of the individuals, of the group of a department, to be so deeply connected to all of it that you understand again, how many leaders do you know that don't really show up to connect, to converse, to ask questions? They will always only get so much. They will get just enough and perhaps even slightly below that.
So a great inquiry to ask yourself is if you have a department that is underperforming, an employee that is underperforming, a business that is underperforming, where are you not listening from? A state of love, open heartedness, acceptance. Another way to think of this is we can absolutely have different perspective, different opinions than others. Does that mean that we can't hear what they have to say? Well, a lot of people would say yes, absolutely, that they will not hear it. I had a person completely shut down the conversation the other day that hadn't even started because she was unable to even begin to have a conversation about a topic that she was so bent against. That's not open heart.
That is most definitely not noble. If you cannot listen to another person's perspective that differs from your own, you are not a leader, you are a controller. You allow fear to dictate both yourself and others. The ability to listen to another person doesn't mean that you have to agree with them.
Open heartedness is acceptance.
Accepting that they have their opinion, accepting they have their perspective, accepting that.
And here's a big one from their body, from their literal point of perspective in the universe, their perspective, their perception is right. If only we could place our perspective into a pair of glasses and share those glasses with others, we would be absolutely blown away. We would see very clearly why the person believes what they believe. It doesn't matter why they believe what they believe. If you can simply open your heart to it, and the only reason you can't is because you fear it. If you can't hear, if you can't listen to the conversation that is happening, the verbal conversation, the opinions, the perspectives, and the conversation that is going on beneath the words, how can you actually lead anybody not successfully. So again, the beautiful inquiry becomes your ability as a leader to face perhaps a very harsh trait truth right now. Perhaps not.
Perhaps this is very validating to your experience.
You are the only one that truly knows that where virtue comes in, the integrity to do good, to be honest with oneself, then you can hear.
[00:15:30] Speaker C: Then you can hear what's really going on.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Then you can hear what is needed.
Then you can hear with the resolution to the conflict, to the issues, the problems really are. You foster honesty. You foster authenticity. You foster genius. You foster people that want to do everything that they possibly can because they believe in what you are creating. That is power. But it's not the power that we often define as power. We often define power as force. But force is not actually power.
Force is control.
Force is fear.
Power is nobility, valor, honor, love, wisdom, courage, virtue. I want to end the conversation with a poem. And just like with anything, it's just about letting yourself hear, perhaps hear beneath the words, perhaps feel the poem breathe into your body. Let yourself experience the poem beyond your mind. This is a poem called nobility.
It's an 1849 poem by Alice Carey. Nobility, true worth, is in being, not seeming, in doing each day that goes
[00:16:59] Speaker C: by some little good, not in dreaming of great things to do by and by.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: For whatever men say in their blindness
[00:17:14] Speaker C: and spite of the fancies of there's nothing so kingly as kindness and nothing so royal as truth. We get back our meat as we measure.
We cannot do wrong and feel right, Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure.
For justice avenges each sleight.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: The air for the wing of the
[00:17:45] Speaker C: sparrow, the bush for the robin and the wren but always the path that is narrow and straight for the children of men.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Tis not in the pages of story
[00:18:00] Speaker C: the heart of its ills to Baghdal Though he who makes courtship to glory Gives all that he hath for her smile.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: For when from her heights he has
[00:18:15] Speaker C: won her, alas, it is only to prove that nothing's so sacred as honor and nothing's so loyal as love. We cannot make bargains for blisses, nor catch them like fishes in nets.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: And sometimes the thing our life misses
[00:18:39] Speaker C: helps more than the thing which it gets from. For good, Leith, not in pursuing nor gaining, of great, nor of small, but just in the doing and doing as we would be done by is all through envy, through malice, through hating against the world early and late no jot of our courage abating. Our part is to work and to wait and slight is the sting of his trouble, Whose winnings are less than his worth.
For he who is honest is noble, whatever his fortunes or birth. Thank you so much for joining me today.
As always, much love.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the power of Edge podcast with host Alora Sage.
Connect with us on Instagram at the Power Edge or on YouTube @aloRage.
