2024 Year in review. Pt. 4

Welcome to the year end review of Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host Ralph Owens along with Terry Baylor. In this reboot episode, Terry and I start to understand the gravity of the show and responsibility that comes along with it. We also talked about transparency and how it was making an impact on people's lives as a result of listening to the show. And then we also talked about the critical skill of determining which perspective we choose.

We hope you enjoy this reboot. Welcome, and thank you for tuning in to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host, Ralph Owens, along with Terry Baylor. In today's episode, we'll cover topics such as our initial thoughts of the show, being transparent, becoming bitter or better and choosing your perspective. Enjoy the show.

So Ralph, we're back in the saddle today. We've had a few opportunities to go back and as we discussed earlier, listen to some of the shows, got feedback and man, just, you know what, let me start here if it's okay.

Sure.

Just how it's impacted us, right? It's impacted me in a way that it really just causes me to be reflective even more so, having the responsibility that our listeners put in us or on us or that trust, man, I guess it's kind of similar to leading your team or leading your family in our churches, in our groups that we're a part of. And there's a high sense of responsibility serving in this role. How do you feel about that?

I feel the same way. Now that people have given their feedback and they are being blessed by the content, I feel a sense of responsibility to deliver even more and try to help as much as I possibly can. I was telling my wife right before we got started today that the great thing about this is it's not hard for Teri and I because it's it's simply as a conversation that we just speaking from the heart on. Whereas we don't have to make up a script for the for the show and come up with, you know, all these made up topics and things of that nature. We live this so it's very easy to talk about but as it pertains to the listener I want to give even more.

It's almost like it feels like people are pulling more out of us. Right? Right. Which we had already had it stored up and ready to go, but now there's a demand on it. Right?

And just like we kind of talk about with spiritual things, have to put a demand on your faith. We feel like there's a demand on the pool to produce more content to help people. And I'm really excited about that.

And so I'm glad you said that right. One of the things that I really try to as we're talking and discussing certain things is to really be just transparent, right? Because in our transparency, I believe the listener will see themselves. There's gonna be a scenario that speaks directly to what someone is going through. Maybe you haven't gone through it yet or you hear something or you experienced something and you may go back and say, you know what, I think that was two or three episodes ago, let me go back and listen to that.

But I think it's that transparency, again, our goal is to take lessons that we've learned. Sometimes it's lessons that we've seen others go through. I mean, that's a whole nother aspect of this.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, the reality that we live in today is based on the accumulation of all of our experiences. And you could take those experiences and learn from them and become better. You know, we used to talk about this all the time where you can take those experiences and become bitter and get stuck. Decided to become better.

You took me back now. You can either become bitter or better. That is So you know what, let's kind of dig into that. So do What is the first step in dealing with the, could be anxiety, the frustration, sometimes it could be internalized anger. What is the first step in really taking to avoid that bitter path

Yeah, in your I think that's a great question. Love digging into this stuff. Understand the first step, the very first step you have to do is understand that your perception is your choice. We had to go through so many things to understand that I choose my perspective. I don't let what happens to me determine how I see the situation.

I choose how I see the situation. So when you look at the situation, something bad happened to you, you can mirror the same behavior that you've seen other people mirror in that situation. Man, I ain't gonna let this, I ain't gonna let them do me like that. I ain't gonna let them talk to me like this. That kind of stuff.

You can do that. That's a choice. That's a choice. Another choice is to say, you know what, what can I learn from this moment? Let me get out of my emotions for a second and ask myself a couple of questions.

Number one, is there any truth to what they said? Right? Is there any truth behind it? Okay. No truth behind it.

Alright. You know, again, being spiritual people, we know that every situation is gonna work out for our good. So God help me understand the the good in this. Sometimes that understanding is delayed. Right?

So so I'm gonna dive into a quick story. Terry and I worked for a company and together, we sat in the same office and we had a superior who decided to do us wrong. Now we, anybody who works with us knows that we value integrity and we work very, very hard to, serve with excellence in all that we do. This person decided to discipline us for some things that we did not do in an effort to, give some, I don't know what would you call it, to give some, benefit to someone else. Yeah.

We just put it that way. And that was a very, very hard situation. I think we touched on it in a previous episode, how we were so stunned. We didn't we rode a bus together, right? Because in Houston it's so big, you have to park in and ride into the city.

We rode a whole bus ride for about thirty, forty five minutes where we didn't say anything to each other because we were so stunned. We couldn't believe that it was happening to us because we knew we were the strongest people on the team.

Yep. Right? So And not only that, right? The folks on that team constantly found themselves in our office

All the time.

Getting guidance. How do I deal with this?

All the time. All the time. All the time. And you know, we went through some things in that moment. You're right.

It was a very public thing. So they made it known that, you know, we were getting in trouble quote unquote. And it was very hard to deal with. So and I'll you you know, Terry, I'll leave it to you to speak for yourself. But for me, I never I was never able to have 100% peace with that situation while I was still at that job.

Matter of fact, I had to go find another job because I knew that person was after me and wanted to find a reason to fire me. Right. So I left and so our mutual acquaintance called and said, hey, I know about this job over here. It turned out a great opportunity. Wind up switching professions, not professions, but industries.

Right? So before I was in, we were in power generation and then decided to take this other opportunity as I'm getting away from this person to go into, financial services. Right? So get to financial services. Now me and that person that superior haven't had one word since.

Matter of fact, on my last day there, this person saw me and just walked right, looked me dead in my eyes and just walked right past me and never said a word. Right? So that's how we left the situation. But this that whole time God was dealing with me about how you're gonna deal with this. How are you gonna look at this situation?

Are you gonna look at it as a victim or you're gonna become better? Are you gonna pull the strengths out of it and become better?

Right.

Right? So go move to another industry, doing our thing there, you know, serving with excellence, go through another rough patch with another person, right? Another superior, that had their own issues, but continue to choose to have integrity, choose to serve with excellence. And it just speed the story up, the opportunity came for me to move into the position that I'm at now and an executive level. Okay.

I'm in an organization of other executives and then I run into the boss who did that wrong thing to me two jobs ago. Right. And when we greet each other, that person says to me, I'm sorry about the way things ended. And immediately the first things that came out of my mouth were if that had not happened I would have never moved to where I'm at and this opportunity would have never came for me. It was because of the it was because of the perspective that I chose to have in the situation.

Instead of looking at myself as a victim that I need to fight back, I chose to take that and make myself better. And now it just so happens that, you know, I'm, I guess in the industry appear with that individual. Whereas before I was, you know, someone that reported a level down. So, to answer your question, that's a long way of saying it.

No, it's great. I think people need to understand that man, people are going to be people no matter where you go. So that's the number one thing and we can dig into that a

little after you finish your story but no, go ahead. No, I mean, that's pretty much it. Asked what's the first thing when something bad happens, what's the first thing you need to do? The first thing you need to do is choose your perspective. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast.

We hope that you not only enjoy the content, but gained something to help you on your personal leadership journey. Feel free to reach out to us on x and Instagram under the handles Leadership Sovereignty. Until next time, stay safe, peace, and blessings.