Your perspective your choice. Pt.4

Hello. I'm your host, Terry Baylor, along with Ralph Owens. On today's show, we'll discuss the fight, how to execute on your principles and maintain your brand and social capital. The value of mentorship, how to select a mentor and how at every level mentorship is key. And lastly, blind spots.

Enjoy the show.

Right. And so so so my pastor has this saying, you gotta stop fighting everything that you don't like.

Hey, I'm gonna tell you right now. Listen, listen, if anybody, I just told my wife this today. I said, you know what? I said out of all the things that I've grown in, I said, babe, you know the thing I'm most proud of? I don't have to fight everything anymore.

I'm so I realized all the energy simply because and I'll just share a little bit. I am a principle driven Look, if it's not right, no, it's not right. But I realized I can still have that, I guess that opinion on it or if it doesn't fall in line with the principle, how I execute on that though, as man, I'm telling you, life is so much more peaceful. I find places of agreement and how I could move a situation that may not be right, move it in the right direction. It's not that my desires change, it's just the execution is changed.

Yes. Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. And I'm a witness y'all. I I done seen I done seen the old Terry.

This this this Terry is is light years is light years from that. But it it is, you know, it it is the it is I think it's the grace of God that has allowed us to learn these lessons over time and to mature. Right? Because we know people who have been through similar things, they didn't handle it the right way. Right?

And you know, sometimes when you handle those situations like that wrong, you wind up having to start over again. Right? And when I say start over again, mean go back to the bottom because now you ruined your reputation. You gotta try to go somewhere else and try to rebuild or re, you know, convince somebody of your brand again, which takes time. It takes time to build your brand.

It takes time to build social capital, things of that nature. We were able to go to another job because of someone else who worked with us at the previous one, who liked us so much that asked us, hey, you wanna come over here? Right? That that was our brand. Right?

So we took that credibility along with us. We didn't have to start over directly from zero. If But you handle these situations badly, again you could erase all the good that you've done in that one moment and it's not worth it.

So here's the thing, right? So we still have friends at that other place and you know what, whenever we talk to them they are like, oh, I can't wait to tell everybody I spoke to you. Because again, we left with our brand intact. We compromise that brand. We didn't compromise all the stuff that we have been saying up until trouble came.

And so I think again, think that's the beauty in it is that when you maintain that brand or that standard, regardless of what the situation or those facts may look like in that moment, man, you are gonna win 10 times over. You're gonna win 10 times over.

Absolutely, you're gonna learn so much out of that situation. And I just kind of wanna touch on something that Terry talked about. So we were blessed enough to have each other. There may be some of you out there who don't have like a Terry or Ralph at work, but I encourage you to find a mentor. It's imperative to your growth.

Right? Terry talked about how he had a mentor that you talked to, to bounce the ideas off of. What does a mentor mean? A mentor means someone who's gone further than you, that you respect, you know, what they've accomplished and how they did it because the way they did it makes a difference and that can speak into your life. So if they have to tell you that you're wrong, you're willing to listen to them.

Right? You have to have somebody in your life that you can talk to, be transparent with. And you allow, you open up to allow to speak into your life. Now, I would suggest that you be selective over who the mentor is. You just don't go to anyone.

Right? You you have to have some type of criteria by which you decide who that mentor is. But you have to have somebody in your life trying to process this on your own is not recommended. Right? Because you'll succumb to your own emotions.

And then your actions will follow shortly after. Mean, but Terje you wanna talk a little bit about how much it's meant to you to have a mentor especially through these difficult times.

It's everything, right? Ralph, you said it already, right? When you were talking about reading a book and standing on the shoulders of giants, You don't have to read the book in this case, the book is gonna sit up here and tell you, hey, I've seen this before. Have Maybe they've read a book and because I'll tell you the majority, well, I'd say half because half of the books I didn't get probably from you Ralph, but the other half have come from mentors. Hey, why don't you read this book?

But it's invaluable, it's like a coach. Anyone who knows me knows that I love sports. Sports is my Well, if you let my kids tell it, practice is my love language. So I thoroughly enjoy sports and I say a mentor is like having a personal coach. My daughter plays softball, she has a personal hitting coach.

Terrence plays basketball, he has a personal basketball coach. Noah plays golf, he has a personal golf coach. Now here's the thing, I go to those practices so I can reinforce what the coach is teaching, right? Well, in this case, you become that reinforcer. So when you're with that mentor, man, take notes, ask questions, right?

Walk away with something tangible that you can repeat. Because that's the benefit of being with that mentor. I have mentors men who are at Here's the thing, this stuff happens at every level.

Yes.

I have a mentor who is at the top of the top, a C sweeter. Right? And the same as So I got my I'm not gonna cuss saints. But Therese had a basketball basketball coach and it's so funny in my mind I said the same bull jive.

Right, right.

I'm like, well you old school bull jive. The same bull jive that are at the manager level, that at the director level is the same stuff that's at the C suite level because goes back to what we said earlier, people are people first. And regardless of the level of education, regardless of the social economical status, there is a base to human behavior, man. And unless you are intentional about being a person of integrity, I just got off a call with someone that I'm working on an endeavor with and it's blowing him away because he's at a point now where he's having conversations at a very high level and from talking about investing and just all these things, right? That to get this endeavor moving in the direction in order to complete it.

And he's telling me, man, I'm meeting with lawyer type people, bankers, all this. He was like, I'm amazed at how these people act. So in our minds, we're thinking because you got a higher title, because you make this kind of money that it's gonna equate to the kind of person that you are. Well, we've all heard this before, right? The more power you get, the more money you get.

It just reveals who you really are.

So true, true, so true. It's yeah you got me thinking, I'm taking some notes here, I gotta shut this down. But so talking about a coach, right? Again, be selective. Be selective over the coach that you get.

Right? Why is that important? Sometimes when you are you're young in your career and you just have a lot of motivation and you just wanna get going, you know, the first person who appears to be like someone who can help you, you may wanna connect with them. Well, I would say take some time to be selective over the coaches that you have. Do they have the results that you want?

Or are they telling you in theory? Right? You wanna have coaches that have results. Do they move the way you wanna move? The way you wanna see your move in five yourself move in five to ten years, whatever the case may be.

So be selective over your coaches. The other the other thing the other point I wanted to make is, so we talk about having coaches along the way. Do you realize that LeBron James has a coach? Do you realize that Jordan had a coach? He had a shooting coach, he had a strength coach.

Tiger Woods.

Tiger Woods had a coach. Why is that? Because a coach can see your blind spots, the things that you can't see. And those who wanna win, they want someone to help them improve in the areas that they're deficient in. So that means they welcome the feedback.

They welcome the criticism to try to help them become better. But you have to do you think that Michael Jordan will go get a coach, as somebody who's playing, you know, you know, playing ball, you know, at at at the schoolyard? Now he's he wants somebody who has proven results that can help him get the results that he's looking for. Right? Not to say that a person playing the schoolyard couldn't, but I think you understand what I'm saying.

Right? So you you are worth you taking the time to make sure that you select the right mentors. Right? You can get opinions from other people. That's another thing.

Right? So if I'm looking for someone to help me with my presentation skills and if Terry's used them and they told me, yeah, man, this person's good. Okay. I can lean on Terry's credibility to know that this person I could trust without having to spend a year of my life just to find out that this joker don't even know what he talking about. Right?

You know, those kind of things. So be selective because even the best even the greatest of us have coaches.

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.