Day 74: Brad Meyers
“In helping somebody else with a particular problem or incident, it can round out our own understanding of different environments. Almost trying to take a walk in somebody else’s shoes and thereby doing that helping ourselves, but absolutely helping that other person with that problem.”
.
.
Right click here to download…
.
Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Brad, for agreeing to do the project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Brad Meyers: Hi, my name is Brad. I am 37 years old and live in the UK. I’m a senior Project Manager for a large global outsourcing company. I have been with them for about 5 years, and that’s a little about me.
Toni: When you think about the word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how do you do that?
Brad: That’s interesting. Who do I think I inspire? I have responsibilities within my work environment to motivate, inspire, and lead a team. Also at home, I’ve got a little boy, my first boy. I help inspire him to learn about his world and his environment.
Toni: How do you go about … well, I would imagine, of course, that there are two different approaches you might take to family and your son, but how do you go about motivating your team?
Brad: My team at work, that really just comes down to the individual. I try to understand the person first before I try to create any kind of plan or approach to help them to make the best of what they are or what they can do. As a project manager, typically my projects last between 9 and 18 months, so almost every year it’s like starting a new company because I’ll be working with new clients and new customer contacts and potentially with a new team internally also.
My first primary role as I see it is to just get to know the people, get to know what they’re about. Obviously not to be too detailed or to pry towards their personal life, but just to understand them. What do they like to do in their own time? What are their priorities in life? What responsibilities do they have other than work? Those are the things that just come out through chats at the water cooler or when they go out to have some lunch or something, and to just get close to the person.
Toni: How does that translate into helping those people that you work with, how does getting to know them as the individual help to inspire them and explore their potential?
Brad: Well, I guess again the individual approach. Once I get to know a little bit more about the person, I then try to understand them as their boss and a member of their employee team, I have a responsibility for them to perform well within the role that they’re being paid for, which I also always try and do through a variety of measures.
There are obviously benefit packages which can be often amended to suit the individual or there can be various training programs that can be offered to people to help them improve on skills that they don’t have or need to have to perform a particular role or maybe even to obtain some sort of official accreditation, recognized qualification in what they already do, which can make them feel good, can make people feel valued, as well as improve their overall prospect in their own careers.
Toni: When you are approaching inspiration from your family’s perspective, how do you think you might inspire them?
Brad: That’s developing. My little boy is 10 months old. I have a stepdaughter who is 18 who I’ve already known for a number of years, so the little boy is my first baby. But again, obviously they are both two individuals that are on different ends of the scale, really.
My stepdaughter, I try to help encourage her by not watching her get knocked back by the no’s and try to remain positive whether she’s applying for jobs or going through her college system. My little lad, it’s really to help and encourage him, and not to come down too heavy on him if he is doing something that’s going to damage something of importance in the home unless he’s put himself in a dangerous situation, so just trying to be positive and interested in him, understanding what he’s trying to do.
Toni: That’s fantastic. When you look for inspiration for yourself, Brad, what do you need? What do you need to be inspired?
Brad: I need to find something interesting as a subject matter, I guess, really. I can be quite analytical and if I’m not careful can suffer from analysis paralysis. I need to try and keep a check on myself that I’m not looking too deep into things, but when looking for inspiration I try to find the whats in those sorts of things in that way or something or someone that has a new aspect on a particular topic.
Recently in the last few years I’ve read the standard sort of books that a lot of people I’m sure have read like Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie and these sorts of events and seminars I use to improve my own positivity and outlook. After a while, you can still see there’s a common theme, so I tend to get a little bit more selective in trying to look for something particular, of a particular interest to myself.
Toni: You do a lot of reading and trying to find something interesting when you need inspiration. Are there other things that you do when you need to kind of fill yourself up?
Brad: Looking at my son has been very interesting these last few months, seeing him develop. He’s currently just trying to walk. He’s mastered crawling and standing. He will stand quite happily and then try and take his first step and sure enough fall down but he will pick himself right back up and keep going. He doesn’t stop and this can be a tiny bit enjoyable and rewarding.
Toni: Absolutely. There is a resiliency that’s going on there, isn’t there?
Brad: Yes, absolutely. He doesn’t understand the boundaries which adults do. We may have learned we can’t do that, or we shouldn’t do that, or such and such is going to happen if we do. Sometimes our experiences can prevent us from reaching our true potential, so I guess because he hasn’t learned that, he just keeps going at whatever he wants to play with, or crying, or chew.
Toni: Or to chew. It’s just a wonderful thing to watch, isn’t it?
Brad: Yes. I guess my world’s been turned on its head through these last few months and it was a complete surprise to me and my wife, so yes, it’s very interesting time that we’re all going through at the moment.
Toni: When you watch your son and you read these books and you’re trying to learn something different, what does that do for you as far as what you need to explore your own potential?
Brad: There are times when it makes your head go sideways, when you have a complete paradigm shift. I think “Hmm, I’ve never thought of it that way” and let that roll around in my head if it’s a new thought or concept or approach to handle the situation and try to meditate on that. Let it roll around for a little while and then explore that with my friends, colleagues, and peers and things.
Toni: That allows you to take that step forward, or to go in a different path? What does it do for you?
Brad: Well, sometimes it might be the impact of what I may have experienced and understood. I don’t feel it straight away. Someone may have given me a good piece of advice and I may not act on that, you know? Sometimes there’s a lot of exponential learning in all of us. I often just let it sit there and think that’s interesting, you know, and try to see where could I make use of that new development but often I’ll just hold onto it and just let it roll around and just be aware of things; I guess it just increases my understanding or visibility of things around us, particularly with my own thinking and own place and where I am. Sometimes it’s a question of just understanding myself better before I try and understand somebody else, you see.
Toni: When you’re doing this and you’re kind of experiencing this shift, if this is the way you choose to go and you are doing the things that you need to stay inspired and to be inspired, how does all of that that you need, whether it’s that inspiration or you’re exploring your own potential, how does that then translate into who you inspire and how you help others explore their potential? Do you think there’s a direct connection?
Brad: There is a connection. I don’t personally see it as a direct one. It’s often been a growing experience for me in terms of being inspired and inspiring others. I’m at a stage now where I understand that we can all learn from each other and not to keep our minds closed to any opportunity, and sometimes what is needed is to just reach out a little bit further to help somebody else.
In helping somebody else with a particular problem or incident, it can round out our own understanding of different environments. Almost trying to take a walk in somebody else’s shoes and thereby doing that helping ourselves, but absolutely helping that other person with that problem.
Toni: Those who listen regularly or read these interviews know that some words come to my head when I’m listening to someone during these interviews, and I just wrote down, when you were speaking that, I wrote down that it helps, what you do, is move away from selfishness; that the way you are inspired and how your explore your own potential and how that translates into a connection with others is that it moves away from selfishness into helping others. That’s what I heard.
Brad: Yes, that’s true actually, and that’s not to say I can’t be selfish and desire things for myself. And sometimes we all have off days, and sometimes we can get greedy at times, but I guess overall, generally I found that not only shifting the focus away from myself and looking to understand other people or understand different world events, different languages, and different cultures, it actually has this rebound effect where it helps round out you the individual to help other people dig deeper to solve a problem in a way they might not have done before.
Toni: Right. That’s what I’ve heard that you do, which is, I can imagine, such a gift of the people that you work with and even from your family, that it’s just kind of not focusing on you so much. You take it in, but you also give it back. I think that’s pretty amazing. That’s what I heard in this interview, and you’ve given some wonderful insights into the work mentality of inspiration and how to inspire others to reach their potential, but then also what you do and how that correlates with the two, and for that, I really appreciate that you’ve given up your time today to come to the Get Inspired! Project. We can’t thank you enough for what you’ve given us today.
Brad: You’re welcome. Thank you very much for having me and this time together.
Toni: Good luck to you, Brad, and hopefully we will connect soon.
___________________________________________________________
For more information about Brad Meyers: bmyers9@csc.com
.
Post Comment