The mid-year check in. Pt. 7

Welcome to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. I'm your host Terry Baylor along with Ralph Owens. Today, we'll discuss the challenge of how many books have you read? How continuing to progress is continuing to learn? How using your available time for growth versus entertainment and revisiting the empowerment dynamic.

Enjoy the show.

The, the next bullet we have is how many books have you read? Now I'm not a fast reader. I'm a slow reader. I like to take my time and kind of dig through a book. I have a daughter who's a fast reader.

She can read through a fast and you can ask her, well, what did it say on this? And she'll be able to recite it back to you. That's not my that's not my call. Right? I like to read my stuff slow.

But, this year, and I'm still going through it right now, Atomic Habits. Powerful, powerful, powerful book. Have not finished it yet. Also, Man of God. This would be my third time going through this book.

Going through this with my sons. Reading Atomic Habits with my daughter. Right? This is the beauty of having children who are young adults is now you can read a book with them and instead of reading to them, you sharing insight with them and they're sharing insight with you that you didn't catch. Right?

So they they blessing you just as much as you blessing them. Let me think. Is there anything else? Those are the main two that, I've been focusing on. Oh, and, oh, no.

Let me let me not forget. Let me let me get it in front of me. I don't wanna misquote the, the name because I I go back to it, every now and then. Where is it? Leading to Win by Carla

Harris. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, I haven't started on that one yet.

I need

to get that one. I need to get that one.

It's a good one. It's a good one. And then, of course, the one that I'm I'm digging into now is about boundaries. So then that's that's really been a blessing to me. So, yeah, what books are you reading or what books have you read?

Anything come to mind for you, Terry?

Well, I'm finishing up that next level. Man, I'm about in the last chapter of that, but inspire your buyers. That was probably it is a short one that probably just from a purely motivational. I see using that, I'm gonna be honest, As soon as I finished that, went in an office and started using my eternal customer. So it was just so inspiring.

What I love about that book is typically in our world, well, I guess anybody who has a product, they make themselves the hero. What I loved about that book is it was make your customer the hero in the story. You chose this.

Yes. Oh, I

was like, that is brilliant. That was brilliant. Of course, boundaries, I've been timing on that one. Matter of fact, last week I just bought a book I planned on starting it this weekend, but man, United had me The layover was so long. I didn't get a chance to start over, but I bought a Speak the Blessing.

So I'm excited about that. With my sons, we've started the thirty day I declare from Joel. So that's been exciting for me to see them kind of go through that.

Yeah, I love that. That's powerful too, man.

Yeah, so it's been exciting. I need to get something with Shamika. And then actually Terrence has started this first this book and I said, you know what? I want to try to read this. It's called The First Rule of Mastery.

Now, I'll be honest, I'm not reading, I'm listening. Now with Next Level, I did read and listen at the same time with that because I really want to take notes. But what I've been toying around with here lately is taking the notes in Audible. So I'm trying to see how that's going to work out and go back and find my sections. But it's important, man.

It's important for inspiration, for growth, just pure knowledge. Right. We don't want to stay where we are. What you have today, it's good. And we don't wanna discount it, but let's just keep growing.

Let's just keep growing.

The only way for you to continue to progress is to continue to learn. Learning is not something you stop doing after college. Learning is not something you stop doing once you reach a certain salary or you reach a certain position. Right? Learning is a developmental exercise that we do for the rest of our lives.

And there are so many different areas of our lives that we can learn to become better in. So, you know, why are we saying read? Because it's the only way you're gonna develop yourself and learn. To Terry's point, in 2024, we have so many different ways of doing that. It could be an audiobook.

It could be a digital book. It could be a physical book. I have some books where I have the digital copy along with the Audible copy. So when I'm in Kindle, I'm actually reading it as it's narrating to me.

Yes.

Right? Which actually is pretty brilliant because you could speed it up and it speeds up how fast you read. Yeah. Right? You know, all of these different technologies that come along with the the discipline of learning.

But however way you wanna do it, get plugged in. If you're someone who has a long commute, that means you have a mobile university right there in your car. Right? You can step stop listening to the music as much and, you know, start listening to some of these audiobooks. Now, you know, us being people who are Terry and I, who are musicians in our own right and have a genuine love for music.

Over the years, I've had to cut down how much I'm listening to music and put in more of this developmental stuff. Now does that mean I don't still listen to music? Oh, absolutely not. But you know what it does mean? I listen more intently now because I don't get as much time.

Right. You know, those things. But, yeah, yeah, no, you have to read, have to consume new information in order to develop yourself and become better. If you become stagnant, then you're being left behind. Right.

And you're not moving forward.

I think you just branded our product, man. What's that? Mobile University. I love that.

Mobile University. Yeah, I can't take that. So I heard that from someone else, but Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's great.

There's the whole thought of anytime you have a long drive, that's an opportunity for you to get some development in instead of entertaining yourself.

And definitely here in Houston, got more than enough opportunity. Yes. That's one of the main reasons I started doing it because when I get home, I have to be engaged. I got two teenagers and one young adult, then I got a wife.

That's right.

And now we got a cat because the cat be requiring time. We want to play. And so I gotta use as the available time.

That's right. That's right. Right. So let's jump into the next point, which is which role have you found yourself taking? The victim persecutor or rescuer or the creator, challenger and coach?

Terry, you wanna touch on this?

To your point, Ralph, there isn't a time where I'm not in a room where I'm like, okay, who's doing what today?

You can't unsee And

where am I needed?

That's right.

And to be totally transparent, right? There are days where I have to tell myself because someone's done something, you know what, I'm not gonna be the victim.

Yes. To your point there, just to interject that, there have been times this year where it wasn't until I heard the words coming out of my mouth that I said to myself, you are being a victim. Okay, I got to change that.

Because we're human man. No, you're perfect. Listen, listen guys, we are human and I was just sharing this with my wife last week. I'm like, you know what? There is a phenomenon that happens when we record this show versus when we go back and listen to the show.

So true, so true.

Because I changed to a listener and I'm digesting the information and I'm like, wow. Because when you're saying it in the moment,

can

you speak and receive at the same time? I don't know. But I know there's something different that happens when I'm sitting and listening to these episodes, man.

Yes. And we're not talking about listening from the perspective of, okay, now I'm listening to what Terry said and I didn't catch that. Sometimes it's, I'm listening to what I said and I didn't catch that. Right? It's one of those things where, it's a completely different experience, but you have to be able to develop yourself.

And you develop yourself through listening and reading. And sometimes as crazy as it sounds sometimes is listening to yourself.

Ralph, you're exactly right, man. I mean, there are times where I'm challenging me and I'm like, wow, I just It is really a It's a different experience. That's really all

I can And

we are growing right along with you guys. I just want to be very clear with that. One of the things that Ralph and I talked about in doing this service is not to, we didn't want to come off preachy to be honest. We wanted to come off as, hey, we're just being transparent. We want to help the community.

We started off honestly with a focus, hey man, let's help our brothers. Man. And now we quite honestly, we're probably gonna have to change the opening. It's bigger than that to be honest with you. It's bigger than that and I think God has called us not to just a particular thing.

It's to all people. And so Greta still not losing that intent to really mentor and, feed our brothers. But what we've realized is that, there are more people eating from this table than we expected.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Thank you for being with us today on Leadership Sovereignty. Stay connected with us on X formerly known as Twitter and on Instagram by searching for Leadership Sovereignty. And just like this podcast, let's all collectively grow as we go. God bless.