Connect S01E06_Rerun_Mastering Self-Leadership Today

What if the gap between who you are and who you could become is not talent, time or a title—but the way you lead yourself? We dive into the craft of self-leadership with a practical, faith-rooted framework that helps you move from reaction to response, from noise to clarity and from waiting to working.

We start by challenging the experience myth: you don’t need a position to practise leadership. Through everyday examples—like a graduate lawyer helping family with a long-running case—we show how small, consistent acts create real credibility. Then we get specific about clarity. We frame vision as a short, spoken mandate that guides choices and protects you from detours, drawing on Jesus’ early ministry statement as a model for focus under pressure.

From there, we turn to empowerment as a daily habit: read to spend time with great minds, build a simple learning cadence, and document insights to boost confidence and sharpen communication. We make a case for listening—outward to people and context, inward through quiet and journaling—so discernment can rise above the digital noise. Emotional intelligence takes centre stage next, with simple ways to scan a room, name feelings and choose the right moment to influence, turning volatility into presence that others trust.

We close with a liberating approach to mistakes: review, repent, adjust and move. No shame loops, just lessons that make you wiser. By the end, you’ll have four pillars you can apply today—clarify your vision, empower yourself for success, develop stronger emotional intelligence and learn fast from your errors—so your thoughts, emotions and actions align with the life you are called to lead. If this helped you get clear and take action, subscribe, share with a friend and leave a review to tell us your next step.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to Connect, where we go beyond Sunday. This is your weekly talk show where we interact the Word of God with real life issues. We also answer your questions and we thank you for the interaction so far. We have received a number of questions that we will be responding to in the course of the program. And we want to continue interacting with you through the email address provided below and also making use of the comment section. Remember to share this content with your friends, with others who can benefit from this very informative and very important subjects that we are handling. Winnie, last week we were talking about self-leadership, and today we want to pick it up further. But before we do so, today we are going to be taking it to the next level, really looking at mastering the art of self-leadership.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

But before we go there, one of the questions that has come up, especially from our young uh audience, is the question of experience. You remember in our last episode, we talked about uh David, this young man who shows up at a national platform. And the only CV he he has is his faithfulness in taking care of his father's ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

And he gives this long CV why he should be the guy to engage Goliath. And so you you said something about experience that we don't have to have a position for us to garner experience. If you may make some comments around that before we go.

Shaping Thoughts, Emotions, Actions

SPEAKER_02 2:09

I know that is a funny issue, especially for many young graduates. They'll only say the employers are discriminating against us. They ask us for experience, and we've just come out of school. And I think the example of David really tells us that you don't need a position to practice what you have. And we say leadership is about you. So you can practice leadership where you are. So it is about sharing the skill, the knowledge, the traits that you have to the circumstance that you are in. And I think I like using the example of a graduate uh a graduate lawyer. Okay, you've gone to school, you have a law degree, and you don't have a firm yet to practice. Why can't you even help your auntie check her court case that has been going on for a while? I'm sure when you go to an employer and say, I've been helping my auntie with her land issue that has been in court for 20 years, I followed up with her lawyer, and have you been able to conclude? I think that's enough. CV. So wherever you are, the opportunities to practice the skills you have. Don't wait for the big platform. Start where you are.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

And I think, David, that's what we see in David that um in his closet, we talked about a closet. He was able to develop his skills. He was able to, you know, develop leadership skills that all his life, when you look at the psalms, for example, David a number of times is talking about shepherding.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I'm singing also. I think he used to sing out the yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And uh the famous psalm, uh, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, is a very powerful psalm learned in his context. He's not just writing a poem. He's actually reciting his personal experience in his context, his his own experiences where he was. And so I think that's a very important point for especially our young listeners to know that wherever you are, you can actually garner experience. You just need to show up, you need to look at those opportunities, big and small, and deploy yourself. Yes, and then they will be part of what will build your experience by the time you get to that.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

So everybody has the opportunity to do, to get garner the experience because there's a place to practice even in your little home.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

So uh coming to our topic today and and having defined self-leadership in the last episode as the practice of intentionally influencing uh your thinking, your feeling, and your actions towards your objectives or objectives given to us by Andrew. You you said is Andrew Bryant? Bryce. Okay. And then you also gave us an acronym. You gave us an acronym in the last episode.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yes, there's love land to influence your it. Your it. Yes, your it, your emotions, your actions, and your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

And I think it is very important uh to say influence because this especially thoughts can run, you know, thoughts can run random. And thoughts just come in and go. Sometimes you feel like you are not in control of your thoughts. Yes, you can.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yes. Okay, okay. Yeah, I think if I remember well, there was a saying that you cannot stop birds from flying over your head. Yes, but you can stop them from building a nest on top of your head. Talking about thoughts. Sometimes you cannot stop thoughts from running through your mind.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah.

Default Mode Versus Deliberate Living

SPEAKER_00 5:53

But you can actually decide which thoughts you want to keep, which ones you want to engage in, and which ones you actually want to throw away. And I think that is part of what we will be talking about today. Yes. Um, four areas that can help us then shape our our it, our emotions, our actions, and our thoughts. And our thoughts. And that is what we are talking about when we say today we want to share with our viewers how they can master the art of self-leading leadership. Sure.

Clarify A Personal Vision

SPEAKER_02 6:28

And I think I think also just going back a little bit, we say if you don't get deliberate about leading yourself, you'll find yourself one in default mode or two reaction mode. And many of us live in reaction mode. And uh, if you want to know, you live in a reaction mode. Look at how what happens to you on the road. What are the some of the thoughts that keep on running in your mind when you're just even in a normal matatu, you're looking at people and saying, what did that one do? Why did that wear a red dress? Why did she wear her pink shoes on top? I mean, you are just looking at circumstances and reacting. And reacting. Then you realize you live your life on default. At that's why sometimes you're not able to move forward. We know all of us want to grow, all of us want to do better, as you said, influence the world, even change the world. All of us actually want to change the world. But we say it from the old man's story. If you want to change the world, the old man realized start by changing yourself. Because if you don't become deliberate, you will either stay in a status quo or you just become reaction. And that is why people fight. Why do people fight? They hurt me. Why they hurt my feelings? Because somebody said something that felt bad. But but being a self-leader, then you're able to contain yourself. Being as a cool cool, calm, and collected. Yeah, I think that is the ultimate aim of self-leader. So that you're not reacting to things, you're responding. And that is the what the art of responsibility is the ability to respond. And I think that is what us finally a self-led person will be. So, what are some of these things that then that you need to master? The first one, clarify your vision. What do you want for yourself? And I think we've talked about this a lot in our previous episodes about having goals, having a vision, because we see it in this world where there are too many things, it's like opportunities just open. It is a spring of opportunity. There are too many nice things, too many things to do, too many opportunities, too many ideas. But how then do you figure out what is what do I need to do? You get you're going to have your own vision.

Jesus As A Model Of Clarity

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And you have to clarify it. And I think um self-leadership then helps us to anticipate the future, and that's where you're moving to avoiding being reactionary. You you have some sense of anticipation that this is the direction that we are going, and this is what I'm seeing. And I see Jesus immediately, he uh begins his ministry. I see him the first thing being to clarify, you know, like he sets the expectations in Luke chapter 4, verse 18. He comes and he reads this portion of scripture from Isaiah, and he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news. He's very clear. His anointing is for proclaiming good news, his anointing is for proclaiming freedom for prisoners, the anointing he has is for proclaiming recovery of sight for the blind. And then he says he also has the anointing to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Right from the beginning, his vision is very clear, and we can almost say it. One, one, proclaim good news, two, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, three, proclaim recovery of sight for the blind, set the oppressed free, then proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

And that was that was his guiding principle. So I don't know for our viewers, do you have vision that you can clearly say? One, my vision is one, yes, two, three, four, and maybe five, not too many. Imagine this is Jesus himself. The mission was clear and he knew it. He was anointed. So I think because now, if you look at the story, I think of Jesus all through, it was so clear what the people he used to they say hang around with. Yeah, they in fact, I think the Pharisees accused him of uh of being a friend of this kind of people, yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

The poor, the poor, he spent his time with the poor, he spent his time with the prisoners, you know, uh, people who are blind, he spent time with the oppressed. He was very clear where his vision was, and he anticipated. And I think this even prepared him to also adequately deal with the opposition that came along the way. Oh, yes, and even the distract, the detractions. There are people who wanted him to do this or do that. Yeah, yeah. At some point, they wanted to make him king. But he was like, no, yeah, that's his vision was clear. That's not what I am here for. And that's where we get uh for uh you know the famous passage that says he walked in their midst and they didn't they didn't see him, of course. Yeah, so clarity of vision is part of mastering the art of self-leadership. You will not take people somewhere when you do not know where you are going. Yeah, that's very important, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

So the other one is uh empower yourself for success. And I think, Pastor, here the great question are leaders born on it.

Empower Yourself For Success

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, that's that's a good, uh, good question, but uh I'm just thinking going by our definition of self-leadership, or rather, the definition we had earlier uh by John Maxwell that leadership is influence. Uh I think we can all become leaders. Yes. And I will say they are both born and also made. They are those who have very natural abilities towards influence, but we can't escape the fact that we influence, whether intentionally or without knowing, you know, without knowing. And so again, we we are in a place where we can become leaders from scratch, self-made leaders. Yeah, if only then we can master this art that we are talking about, yeah, uh of self-leadership.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And I think John Markson gives a joke about the same thing. He says, of course, all leaders were born.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Okay, okay. I I get that one. So are leaders born, yes, of course. They were definitely born. Yes, yes, that's an interesting one.

Learning Culture And Confidence

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, so definitely we said leaders, they were born, but you have to deliberately empower yourself for success. It doesn't come easy. And I think uh, as we said last time, the the the problem with our society, the way we've been socialized, and I think this one we picked it, we picked it up earlier when we were in school, and the ranking. I'm at I'm I'm a teacher, the background of a teacher, and I know ranking actually is just a way of even enabling just to gauge how far are we. But the problem is that many people pick rankings and put it so deeply, it's so ingrained in us that sometimes we just say they are it's like a divide. They are the smart ones and they are non-smart ones. If the test says I failed, then it seems I'm a I'm a failure. And there are some people who've just resigned to fabs because over test, maybe they were in class two and they were not able to, maybe they failed at test, maybe they they did not understand, or many other circumstances. So people have defined there are those people who are smart enough to be leaders, but me, I'm not a leader. But I think we are here to say you can empower yourself to succeed, and that is why you need to self-lead yourself. What do you want to do? You can improve yourself, and there's this even around many people around here always say, I think that the joke around here, many people like saying, if I had gone to school, Ninganda surely I will be. If you tell me that excuse, if you come to me, I'll tell you now the beauty is the school is open.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

You can actually go.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yeah, we had the Marugea, we went to school. The late Marugea, I think at eight, I don't know, it was eight or one or something.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

It was about eighty.

Listening, Journaling, And Reflection

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Yes, that means the excuse of either going to school is no longer valid, is no longer valid. You can go to school at any time. So if you felt that going to school is affecting your success, then please go back to school. And there are even many ways of learning now, even school, you no longer need to go to school. School comes is already with you, it comes to you through the internet. And these smartphones, people use smartphones for many things, but you know now if you had an excuse of I didn't learn this or I didn't know this, now that excuse is no longer there in this century because school is right in your form.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So actually, a leader must be hungry for learning. Yes, they must, you know, desire so much to empower themselves. In fact, I want to challenge that anyone who is aspiring to be a leader or is already you're already leading, I want to give you a challenge. That you challenge yourself, you are going to learn something new every day.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Or you're going to learn something new every week. Yes. And you are able to note it down that this is something I learned this week. Yes. This is something I learned today. And if a leader can document their learning journey, you will realize that every day you are becoming better. And there are two things I see happening to this kind of a leader. Number one, this kind of a leader will boost their confidence. You see, when when you know, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yes, you know. There's nothing you that can do.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

When when you don't know, you don't know. You just simply don't know. And uh you cannot have confidence when you know very well you don't know. It it just eats, it sucks. Remember, we are talking about uh feelings, we are talking about thoughts. Yeah, and then there are those thoughts that are keep reminding you, you know, you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

You don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

But you can actually take care, you can manage those thoughts by learning. Yes, and so a leader must be hungry to learn. But also, when you empower yourself, there is another important aspect that I think this would boost in a leader, and that is better communication. Yes, because uh one ingredient of great leadership is being able to communicate. One ingredient of great influence is actually communication.

Reading As A Leadership Habit

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yes, and communication also is two ways, it is listening and uh speaking. Because I think sometimes we'll concentrate so much on uh talking in communication, but we miss the listening because it is in listening that you're able to understand, listening to people, even listening to yourself. Do you take time to listen to yourself? What are you what is the inside of you seeing? Because there's a noise going on around, but something inside you, the spirit is the heart is telling you something. Are you listening? Because there's guidance. God, the spirit is with us, is guiding us. But I think the challenge where we all most of us feel is we don't listen.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

That's a very important point to note because we are also living in a very noisy world. Yes, and uh when I say noise, I don't simply mean you know, loud. Even where there is no voice, there can be noise. The absence of a voice doesn't necessarily mean the absence of noise. Yeah, you can be in a very silent place where there is no voice, but there is a lot of noise, especially when we are talking about the internet now, uh, when we are talking about social media, and and everybody is screaming. A leader needs to set apart some time to listen to even listen to themselves. And I like what you're saying: taking time out to listen to yourself and and write down some of those things that you are hearing from within.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

And that is what you call journaling. And I don't know if our view as uh listeners, do you have a journal? Because I think that is where we need to agree. One of the take-homes from this self-leadership. Please get yourself a notebook, a journal. Write something. Even listen to yourself and write. What is what are you hearing? What what what is making you move? I think that is one of our take points, journal. And I think there's also that joke, it's not a very good joke. They say if you want to hide something from an African, put it in a book. I don't know if it is a good joke or a bad joke.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

No, we are we are coming out of that. We are we are coming out of that. Yeah, Africans are writing, uh, Africans are reading. Yes, yes, and Africans are making great contributions, yes, and our viewers, our listeners can be part of that journey.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yes, they're trying to empower mindset.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

When you empower yourself for success, and when you hunger, you know, and thirst for that aspect of growth in learning, I think they can make great contributions. And you're saying that reading is important in this aspect, yes, you because you have to learn.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

And you see, we have you have to take time to empower yourself. So reading is critical. And I think research everywhere, they say actually the world richest people are the world's greatest readers. They say when you are a reader, you become a leader.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

I know it can be uh a tongue twister. Yes. When you when you read, you become, and actually they say, like I think Warren Buffett, some of the world richest persons, he said it takes a lot of time in his day to to read. So I think reading, there's so much knowledge within him in books.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, and actually, one of the presidents of the US uh said that uh not all readers are leaders, but all leaders must be readers. And and I was reading another book the other day by one professor Hero, and he says, you know, you don't read to get everything from what you are reading. He said, you simply you can. Simply read to spend some time with great minds. Oh, yes. And I thought that was great because I was reading his book, and basically he was saying I was spending some time with him. It's true. And he's a great, great mind. And so what we are saying when we talk about mastering the art of self-leadership, we are saying a leader must be hungry, must be hungry to learn and to empower themselves for success.

Emotional Intelligence In Practice

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Yeah. I think the other one, because we talked about emotions, is you have to learn to develop better emotional intelligence. I think this is a new topic for many of us about emotional intelligence. I don't know if you liked it in school. I didn't see it when I was in school. But it's new knowledge. It's because there's this aspect of emotions and feelings. And sometimes men think emotions are feelings are women's things. Men also have feelings and emotions. And actually, feelings influence your actions a lot. What you feel. And sometimes when feel when you feel so strongly, it's like it overruns their thoughts. You can do things from feeling to action. When you come and analyze your life, it's like you never thought about it. When the emotions became too hard. And I think even when you go back, I think average research says many people who are in jail, actually, it is because the emotions overrun them and they were able to do actions that they regret later on. Many of the things you do in anger, in what is emotions, overran your thoughts. And it ran towards action. So you were able to do things that really are not right. So emotional intelligence is something we need to be aware of. You need to know how to control your emotions, and that is where many mistakes actually happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Talking of emotional intelligence, you know, though we we may not have been taught in the past, really, because it's a new field, and there is a lot of research that is going into it, and really saying that it is very important for leadership. But I remember simply at home, emotional intelligence was very important. When interacting with our parents, you needed to know when I can ask Dad for this.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

And for that, when is it the right time?

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Oh, you can read the emotions.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

You know, you can read the emotions, you can tell if I asked for this today, bingo, I'll get it.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

But then there are times you could tell today, even if it's a life and death issue, I know I will not get it. It's really emotional intelligence. And um, a leader must be able to scan, must have a scanner to look at the right time, look at how you interpret the signs that come, you cannot be ignorant of the signs that present themselves through emotional. And with that, then you are able to tell how do you influence? Because we are saying leadership is about influence.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yes.

Timing, Influence, And Vision Casting

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Leadership is about influence. Even when it comes to vision, you need to know as a leader what is the right time to cast the vision. When is the right time to urge people to move to the next level? That becomes very important. But finally, I think we can't talk about mastering self-leadership without talking about mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Yes, because mistakes happen. Mistakes happen every time. The question is, many of us stay in mistakes. What happens when you make a mistake? Because many of us just live a life of repeating a mistake they did 10 years ago. You did something wrong and you've stayed there, never moved on. And you're stuck because of a mistake. So I think the best thing about mistakes is somebody said you can never, you can never fail. You can only learn or succeed. So I think it is important to know that self-leading yourself is learn how to deal with mistakes. I just, my mistakes are always take time to learn from them and not get stuck with mistakes on my mistakes.

Learning From Mistakes

Four Pillars And Closing

SPEAKER_00 26:18

So your mistakes actually are your teachers. Yes, yeah. Looking at them from a positive angle, you are able to say, actually, it's not a mistake, it's a lesson. Yes. It fell short of the expectations, but for me, I have picked it up as a lesson. And we talked about David when we talked about self-leadership. And really, if there is a man, we see him making quite a number of uh uh uh blunders, is David, you know, one blunder after another, but he doesn't stay there, yeah, he repents and picks himself, and repenting here really means turning, change your ways, changing his ways, amending his ways, and learning from that mistake, and he ends up becoming the greatest leader that we can talk about, and so mastering your mastering self-leadership is very important, and I hope our viewers today, our listeners, and by the way, this program also is live on PAKI Radio. So you can find us on this channel, but you can also find us uh on PACI Radio. Parky Radio. So we are saying clarify your vision, we are saying empower yourself for success, we are saying develop better emotional intelligence, and we are saying learn from your mistakes. This way you will master self-leadership. This has been Connect, where we go beyond Sunday. We invite you to share your comments through the email address provided. Make use of the comment section. Let us know what you are learning, uh you are take take away from this program. Let's know your questions, your feedback, and any other uh topic you may want us to discuss on this platform. God bless you.