Mentorship, Sponsorship and Leadership Pt. 1

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty, the podcast. I'm your host Ralph Owens along with Terry Beller. In today's episode, we're excited to introduce you to mister Akpara Young. We talk a little bit about his journey of growth, the power of creativity, and we touch on the importance of mentoring. Let's go.

And we are live. Hello, world. Welcome to another exciting episode of Leadership Sovereignty. We have a special guest lined up for you. I think you're really gonna enjoy this.

Terry, Terry, what are your thoughts?

Man, I am like I was an hour early this morning. That's how excited I was. I'm like, Are we recording today? So I'm excited, man, this is So we do a pre show, and I really thought long and hard just about some of the things that we discussed, and I think it's really gonna help people understand that you can grow where you are, I really love that aspect of it, and yeah, it's gonna be fun, so I don't wanna get ahead of myself.

All

right. Let's get to it. All

right. Well, further ado, we would like to introduce and bring to the podcast, Mr. Akpara Young. The stage is yours, sir. You wanna give us a little introduction about yourself?

Hi. How's it going, everyone? So my name is Akpara Young. I basically am a guy just trying to make it through life. Currently, I am working with the Houston Rockets.

I've been with them about twenty twenty two years, I think, at this point. It's been a fun ride, been a fun experience, and hopefully it'll continue to grow. I'm from Houston originally, Well, more so grew up in Houston. So I went to high school here. I went to college, Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and then turned around and came back to Houston.

So this is pretty much where I I plant my flag and where I'm basically a house from. So I've got a currently have a have a wife and three kids, three three high schoolers, so they're keeping me on my toes as much as well. But that's That pretty much is the culmination of my life outside of the other little things I do on the side, like podcasts. And I'm kind of on this kick right now where I'm working through challenging myself on three d printing and CAD design, little little things that I was always interested in growing up and wasn't really my main area of or industry that I was interested in, but it was very much adjacent to what I'd like to do, that's just create and to try to find ways to improve upon designs and whatnot. Nice.

Here's what

we have. Awesome.

I love that. I love that creator aspect. That snuck past us. I wanna dig into, I think there's a value in a richness in being able to look back at something and see it from inception, right, because all creativity, this is what, and I don't man, see Akpura, you've opened up a can of worms, right, so And I'm just gonna say this and then we can get into it, but we tend to dig into some spiritual things on the show. And so I was in a place where I was really seeking direction, so you kind of isolate yourself a little bit and you kind of get into your spiritual lane, I'll say.

And it just hit me that God gave us the very best part of himself. And it just dawned on me, it's creativity. And when we are creating, we are closest to God. I just believe that, when we are creating, because it all started, we can go down to seven days, some of us doing too much resting and not enough creativity. But anyway, that just really struck a chord with me and I really appreciate you sharing that and so as we get down into it, definitely man, peel the onion a little bit on that creativity aspect because that seems to be a theme, right?

We had our first guest and he talked about that creativity what that does, so definitely wanna make sure we spend time there. So anyway, go ahead Ralph, you can lead

us, No, that's good. No, that's good stuff. That is good stuff. I love it, I love it. So let's jump into the first topic, which is the value and the importance of mentoring as it pertains to your career and your journey.

How has that played a role for you?

It is a topic that comes up quite often in just self reflection for myself more than anything. There's a phenomenon where you start looking at your own career, your own pathways, you start thinking the what ifs. You know, what if I turned right instead of left? Know? You know, I'm sorry.

I had a Bugs Bunny Albuquerque reference in there, but I realized I'm stating myself as well. So the the the point the point being just that I think mentorship in general was just one of those things that I wonder if I had you know, if I had more of a formalized mentor. If I had a mentor, would I do, you know, x over y? And I intentionally phrased it that way because I wanted to point out that part of what I'm starting to realize as I've started getting older is that I may not have had what I would consider a traditional mentor. There wasn't really a big ceremony or, Hey, I'm going to be your mentor and you will be my mentee.

I've never had that engagement. But looking at the people that have kind of helped guide me through my career, I do realize that actually I did have mentors. I may not have formally recognized them as such, but looking on some of the twists and turns, I've made a lot of mistakes and I learned from those mistakes, but I also realized I had others that have actually helped me veer away from more catastrophic mistakes that I could have made. And so, there is definitely value there. I think for everyone, there are always people that are going to be in your life that are going to help guide you in the right direction.

Value those individuals. Know that there are some individuals that are always out there looking for you, even if you may not have a formalized or established protocol or engagement. Just know that those individuals exist, and they are rather important. There's no point in reinventing the wheel if someone else has already kind of gone down this path, and they can kind of help see things or help you see things that maybe at that stage in your life, you're just not able to understand.

Yeah, I love that. One thing that comes to mind for me with that is you, you know, I know coming into this industry, nobody told me that I needed a mentor, right? It's kind of something you kind of figure out on your own. And then there's this whole idea around how do you get one. Right?

You know? Is there somebody that's gonna come to me? Do I go ask somebody? You know you know, things of that nature. If you're blessed enough, like you said, for it to just happen organically, that's that's that's a great thing.

That's a great thing. But hear one of the things I hear in what you said was one of the values of a mentor is it saves you time. Right? Yes. I think that can't be overexplained, right?

So this is what I tell my kids who have grown now. I say, You know the value of wisdom? It's time and money. It's gonna save you time, and it's probably gonna save you money if you just listen to what, you know, I'm trying to I'm trying to tell you to do. But, you know, we all wanna go our own way, and, you know, they gotta learn the hard way sometimes.

But I think that mentor kinda gives the same in that you could spend five years trying to figure something out, or you can have a conversation with a mentor who can explain it to you in five minutes, right? And save you all of that time, right? But I don't know, I mean, what do you guys think about that?

Yeah, I've heard it said that Was it a book? I think it No, Ralph, it was one of the executive coaching sessions that I've been attending. And basically the person was like, Look, Terry, I can cut five years off your life. I'm like, How do we do that? She was like, Listen, take these instructions.

Now you can get this information, you can get this today and it takes five years off your life, or you can continue down the path that you are going, you'll get there, but it'll be in five years. And I can attest to the fact that it's true, man, I met this person actually around this time last year. And if I look at my life now versus what it looked like this time last year, bro, there's so many doors, there's so many opportunities, there's so many more relationships I have now as a result of taking the advice of this young lady. I'm a give a shout out, Jenny Brown, she's amazing. Yes, she's changed my life and I appreciate her Here's the one thing she's done though, And guys, when you get a mentor, be ready because a good mentor is going You're gonna be uncomfortable in your skin, let me just say that.

That's right. That's right.

And recently I've come up, I haven't come up with this, but recently in a conversation with someone and we summed it up or I summed it up as this, look, you can be uncomfortable and unhappy, meaning that you don't like where you are, but you're not gonna change anything about it. So you uncomfortable and unhappy. I prefer to be happy and uncomfortable, meaning that, okay, I know where I am, but I'm about to change some things about what I'm doing. So I'm happy and uncomfortable, right? So that means because I'm participating in that process.

So it's your choice. You can be unhappy and uncomfortable or you can be happy and uncomfortable.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. We hope that you not only enjoy the content but gain gain something to help you on your leadership journey. Feel free to reach out to us on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn under the handles Leadership Sovereignty. And until next time, stay safe, peace, and blessings.