Mentorship, Sponsorship, and Leadership Pt. 8

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty the podcast with Terry Baylor and Ralph Owens. In this final episode Akhpara Young devs into the complexities of human nature, the impact of generational differences, and the importance of authenticity and commanding respect in the workspace and finally the necessity of creativity. And if we're in a situation now, and this, again, where it comes into the craft of, you know, that craft of understanding who the individual is. Really, I don't wanna make light of it because there are some brilliant As human beings, we're just brilliant. And so there hasn't been a generation that hasn't been brilliant because that's how God created us.

We just have to understand what those drivers are and understand, just think, man, I mean, we weren't raised like I go to my mom's house and my mom still has a rotary phone, man. In the basement. Yeah, we still got a rotary phone down there. And the kids are like, what is this? I'm like, that's rotary phone.

How does it work? Put your finger in there and just

Turn it.

And just think about it, right? Raised Instagram, TikTok, all these digital platforms, that kind of development, I don't really understand it. We really don't understand how that's impacted the thinking.

Sure, absolutely.

Absolutely. Again, nature hasn't changed. So if we can tie an eager want, right? What is that outcome you want? Well, let's partner.

And we just use different words now

about That's right. And

so if we just keep those things in mind and so how to reinforce and influence people, I'll throw another book reference out there. We can talk about it. Great book, man. And because human nature hasn't

changed.

Doesn't change. Yeah. Doesn't change. I love the way you put that in. I wanna be respectful to Akpara and Terry and anybody that's listening to the podcast.

Right? This is so easy for me to say because my kids are grown now and they go. Right? You know, I'm not trying to say that this is an easy thing. You know, I went through it, you know, with my own kids.

But to Terry's point, what, what Dale Carnegie wrote in that book was 100% spot on in that eager one, right. An eager one in this generation is more powerful than people doing what they just have to do. Right. So now that's good. That's good.

That's good. We only have one other topic, which you could just touch on really quick. And it's about command and respect, right. You know, in the workplace, you know, Akbar, what have you done to deal with that particular topic. And feel free to dive

in And as much as you Ralph, can we frame it a little bit? Because I think that kind of spun off of the aggressive versus weak. And so there's this, again, there's this pendulum that kind of exists that we're kind of on. And so that pendulum is okay, either the guy's too aggressive, or the guy doesn't command enough. And so, I'll just give this analogy, right?

So we got a cat in the house and so I did not know that cats will follow red dots until you turn it off. And so if you get the laser and you're moving that cat, he will never catch the red dot. And I see that exercise is in kind of what we're gonna talk about here, right? We're trying to land perfectly on, okay, how much, umph should I really be exhibiting here? So anyway, just kind of set it up like that, if that makes sense.

No, no, that's actually a perfect intro there. I would say, you know, just based on the definition of it, really have no true control over the respect you get. It's going to come from others. And quite frankly, I found that for me, I would I'd like to emulate what it is that I respect out of other people. So meaning, it's me being me in the sense that this is who I am.

So you're either going to accept me for me or you're not. What I don't want to do is adjust my personality, my behavior to in essence win, and I throw that in quotes, win your respect. When in all actuality all I'm doing is being, I'm not being genuine to myself. So at the end of the day, at some point, that facade is going to fail and all of a sudden, if my respect or your respect of me is contingent on that, all of sudden that's just a lost cause. So, rather than spend my energy trying to be this personality for individuals, for every circumstance and every environment, the bottom line is really just be you and accept the outcome from what that's going to be.

If people respect you, they respect you. Usually it comes down to consistency and reliability and just things that people find that they trust. You're always going to have those individuals that you can probably name off the top of your head right now that there's just something about them you don't like, there's not much that's going to change that mindset in your head. You have that for people that you already know. There are others that have that for you as well.

And so, at the end of the day, we're back to it just really depends on what interest is. If you're there to make friends, to be social, maybe that game, that practice of putting on multiple masks just so you can be this individual to have that adulation is important to you. But if you're not necessarily interested in carrying, again, that trunk of costumes and faces and things that you want

to change everywhere you go. That's

So a lot of ultimately it comes down to really look, just taking the road that's the easiest travel, right? It's one of those, I don't want to have to continually not be someone I am. I'd rather just And be who I if 98% of the people don't like me, that's fine. But at least I am who I am. It's not me actually doing anything extra.

And it comes down to your own mental well-being, you know? The respect thing is going to be something that is really, it just comes down to if it's important for you. If being respected is more important than actually being effective, then maybe that is where you want to wear the mask. But if you're just interested in actually doing what you need to do, then focus on the respect. And, you know, if the respect is there, if people are genuine, if they appreciate that, they will respect you one way or the other.

That's good. Great answer. Great answer.

So I hear authenticity.

Same thing I wrote down.

Be authentic. People will appreciate that. People will appreciate that. And also, I think that in being authentic, I believe the desire to collaborate will be seen. Because again, the goal is collaboration.

The goal is not acquiesce, that's not the goal. How can we collaborate? How

can we

find some common ground where we all win? And Raphael, this goes back to a statement that we always make on here on the show is exchange of value, If we can find those kind of places where whether it's a partner, a vendor, a business unit, if we can find those places where we can establish exchange of value, everyone's winning there.

Yeah, absolutely. That was great. This is great. Well, this has been a fantastic show, Akpara. Thank you so much for coming to share your gifts, you know, with the world.

If anyone wants to follow you or or stay in contact with you, how can they how can they what what social media platforms do you do you use, or how how would you prefer that?

Like most tech people, I probably don't spend a lot of time with social platforms. But I I usually spend most of my if if we're talking social wise, I probably spend most of my responsive space in like on the LinkedIn space, that's about it. I've kind of done away with the Facebooks and Twitters of the world just and that's not, that's just a personal change over about a decade ago. I just, you know, it's Gotcha. I get my my information from others that I engage with nowadays.

So LinkedIn is probably the way to reach out to me.

That's good. Perfect.

Alright. So so Akpar, I did wanna I did wanna circle back around. Jess, if you give me two minutes on the creative side of you. Kind of speak to that. I know you were saying you were doing some three d printing and just really wanna kind of a bigger picture around the creative aspect of who you are.

So that kind of still came out of the same interest that I had about troubleshooting and fixing things. Three d printing was always something that was interesting, but once I found a way to, you know, print little knickknacks that kind of help repair things around the house. You know, instead of, you know, running to the quick Amazon store, hey, let me buy this $5 thing here, this $10 thing here. I realize half of this stuff I can build on my own. I can design and build on my own, and I don't initially need to wait for it.

More importantly, it came to the point that not only can I design and build it, but I can actually customize it to exactly what I want? Because it's rare that I find what I'm looking for online. I find something close to it, but I realized, wait, I don't have to find something close to it. I can build exactly what I want for the one, you know, one use case option I have here. So so in that in that space, you know, I've liked to to doodle and draw.

I'd never really been good at it, but I've just enjoyed it. It was a good a good exercise. And so that, know, moving into kind of CAD drawing and all those things just made a natural pivot into three d printing, which honestly, like I said, I do mostly just for little repairs and knickknacks and things that I'd like to do around the house, not for any broad money making scheme. As a matter of fact, I've even kind of pivoted from three d printing now to doing a little bit of woodworking now. I've kind of said, hey, you know, can rebuild some of these cabinets in the kitchen.

Why not? It's, you know, a few steps. You can, you know, follow a few directions and you're good to go. And so it's I guess I'm excited about it because it's making me realize that I'm not as dependent on others for just day to day living. There are a lot of things that I can do on my own.

And most of the things that I'd like to do on my own, I just never tried. I never knew that they were an option or possibility. Just like the first time you realize, hey, I don't need to go out to eat. I can actually cook my own meal. All I literally need to do is follow these directions and what do you know?

I have a whole meal in front of me. That starts opening up your mindset to just possibilities that, you know, you may not have thought before. So, to to me, it is a it's weird. The first part where at the top of my head was it's a spiritual thing, but I I don't I wouldn't necessarily say that.

It is. It I'm telling you. Creativity is spiritual, bro. I'm telling you. No.

Go. Keep going down that. I love that. It is a spiritual thing. Awesome.

Yeah, but it's, it is a, there's a certain piece that comes with it, right? And I think there's some pride to it. I'm gonna throw this little anecdote out there because there was Mike Rowe, think it was a guy that used to dirty jobs or whatever the case He had mentioned something a while back, some conversation I heard him make about the difference between blue collar workers and white collar workers. And I'm going to paraphrase horribly, but I'm going paraphrase as much as I possibly can. It was more of the fact that those individuals that are doing blue collar jobs tend to have more satisfaction of the day because they can look at their work, they can see what they've done throughout the day.

A lot of the things that a lot of the white collar workers, and these are very broad generalizations, you know, but most of them are things that don't really have an immediate visual response to what you're working on. You may be working on a project for five or six months, but for those five or six months, you had really have nothing to show for it. Just a lot of planning, a lot of organizing. And every day, you know, you're looking what did I actually accomplish today? Now granted, you are probably making moves, but they're just not as visible as you being able to fix a broken toy or you know repair a hole in the wall or something where you can actually see the labor of your work and I think that that's kind of always set with me in the sense that maybe that is also why I like doing some of the home repairs and things because in my professional world, lot of what I do, there's a lot, a lot of planning.

With the image you see, iceberg where, you know, people only see the little tip of it, they'll look at the results.

Yeah. But all

the work you're putting into it, most people don't see, and they will never understand it. And not that you're doing that for them, but it's also one of the things you realize at the end of the day, there is a result that's coming out of the work that I've done, but you know, the amount of work I put into it is kind of hard to leverage versus me building something at home. I know the sweat I put into it, literal sweat that I put into it and I know what came out of it. I can actually look at it and marvel it and really just feel good about it. It's a good, you know, it's a good mental space.

That's good. Awesome, I know I love that. I love that and I think it goes to really being able to be at peace in it. And what I hear pour out of it is there's a sense of peace, serenity, enjoyment, accomplishment, right? And I think we all need those spaces where we get out of our work day to day and really kind of get inside who we are.

And that's it. I hear you finding you inside of that level of creativity.

That's great. And that is great. I can definitely identify with that. Something I don't talk about a lot was my time in the military. I did metal fabrication, right?

So I remember being 18 and learning how to weld and realizing that on a ship, when you're out to sea, there's no home Depot. We make everything. Right. And, you know, in my mind just like, wow, we really create everything. Whereas, you know, as a regular consumer, as a civilian, you used to go into somebody to go get something when you need something.

But when you get in that space where there is no limit to what you can do now, you know, once you understand the techniques and the tools and such, but no, I definitely, I definitely can understand that, but this has been great, you know, thank you for the time. We really appreciate it. So I guess we will sign off now until the next time. Thank you everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining Leadership Sovereignty, the podcast. We hope you obtain something of value as you walk out your journey. Connect and grow with the community of LS pioneers on X, Instagram and LinkedIn under the handle Leadership Sovereignty. Thank you and God bless.