Start from the Bottom Up

A strong start comes from a strong foundation.

Hey there my fellow Leaders in the Making! Thanks for staying with me through the hiatus in July! I’m back with a new post that I’ve been sitting on for a while that’s sure to bring some value to your week.

I love it when seemingly unrelated concepts suddenly connect.

You know the phrase “bottoms up”? Normally it's used in a drinking context as a substitute for “empty your glass",

Today, I attended a meeting where the members invited an acting coach to share techniques for bringing more body language into one's public speaking. Among the great tips he shared was one insight that blew my mind: In China, acting training stresses foot movement first. Before learning what to do with the upper body, those who want to act must know how to match the movement of their feet with the characters that they are portraying. A similar principle is applied when learning boxing. Before you learn how to throw your hands, you need to know how to move your feet.

What a mind-blowing point to make. I was instantly reminded of Drake’s Started from the Bottom the myriad of sayings about building a strong foundation, focusing on the roots, starting from the ground up, etc. Even though it was being applied to acting, the idea of starting from the bottom, making sure that our base is strong and can be applied in any situation is universal. When preparing a speech or presentation, it’s essential to start at the “bottom”, with our takeaway. If you don’t know what you want the audience to get from your speeches, it doesn’t matter how you introduce your topic or what you talk about, because they won’t know why you’re speaking in the first place.

Even in daily communication, starting from “the bottom” with the most essential information can be crucial for communicating your point clearly. In most cases, this means starting with the why. Why are you telling this information to or eliciting this information from this person?

Even in boxing, more essential than knowing how to hit is knowing how not to get hit. If you can do that, you know that when you finally do throw a punch, you can get out of the way and reset well enough to throw another.

So the next time you find yourself at a loss for how to start a conversation, how to communicate an idea, or simply how to move, remember to start from the bottom up!

See you next time, Leaders!