Your perspective your choice. Pt.5

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 mentorship versus sponsorship, a personal board of directors, what you do versus who you are, and reinventing yourself. Enjoy the show.

Another thing, you're gonna love this Terri, is remember when we learned the difference between a mentor and a sponsor?

Yes.

Right? So one of our good friends, her name is Teresa. I've already talked to her about the show and shout out to Teresa. I'll leave her last name out but hopefully she'll join us on the show.

I'd love She

introduced us to a concept that just really took us to a whole another level. It was two things. It was a personal board of directors and a sponsor. Right? So I remember asking her, well, what's the difference between a mentor and a sponsor?

She says, and I'll never forget this, she says, a mentor can help to groom you. A sponsor will have conversations in rooms that you can't get in. Right? So when they're looking for, you know, when management is looking for a new person to get into this role or into that role, they'll be the ones to mention your name. Right?

When you can't get in those rooms and mention that name for you. A sponsor is looking for opportunities to help you grow. Right? So understanding the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. You may have a mentor that's, you know, on the other side of the world in London somewhere, but your sponsor typically is gonna be somewhere where you work.

Right? So that they can help look out for you, you know, in situations that you can't be in. Right? So and then the personal board of directors. She has suggested that you have three to five individuals who are much further down the line than you wanna be.

Preferably, like closer towards the end of where you wanna be. So they have already gone through everything that you have to learn. And you want them to be on your personal board of directors just like a company has a board of directors. Right? And you wanna be able to spend time, individual time with each one of them.

Right? You can let them hear about what your situations are, where you're trying to go and they will be able to give you a perspective that you couldn't see yourself. And the beauty and the magic happens when let's say you have three people on your personal board of directors, you have this one particular situation that you're going through and you pitch it to all three of them. And all three of them say something that's exactly the same. That's how you know that's exactly the direction you're supposed to go in.

Such a powerful thing. And it's been such a powerful thing for me individually in my career because it was one of the people on my personal board of directors that recommended that I go for the position that I'm in today when I didn't think I had it in me. I didn't think I was good enough. And this person was telling me, no, you are good enough. You can do this.

I'm telling you, I'm in this role. I've done this before. I know you and I know you have the capability to do it. You just have to believe in yourself. And here I am one year later in this role saying, man, I can't even believe it really happened.

Tell me, you talk a little bit about that because I know we've talked about this at length.

It's a game changer. What comes to mind for me is this is back when I was in St. Louis and I worked with this guy and this was really before I even knew, to be honest with you, what I was doing. Just being totally candid with you. And I'd worked with a gentleman and he was an older guy.

I could tell though he's doing this job but I don't think this is really what he wants to do. And so we talk, we just talk, we talk life. And I liked the guy, older guy. And as I was moving from St. Louis to Houston, I asked him, I'm not gonna miss his name.

I'm like, hey, do you mind if I just give you a call every now and then to just talk things over with you? And so that went on for about another year or so. And then we just touch base every now and then. And then I was ready to reboot it. Because I'd kind of moved on to another opportunity and whatnot.

And so I reached back out to him and he was like, Terry, I'd love to. And so he's at the point of retiring and it was the things that he shared with me just as I'm in the, I don't know, I guess the second phase of my career, I guess you'd say. And some of the things that he shared with me, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I thought about that or looked at it in that way. And so it's allowed me to navigate some things differently. It's allowed me to make some different decisions.

It's allowed me to understand more importantly, again, because he's from a different generation, where it's allowed me to understand my value in the workplace. Quite honestly, my value is not in what I do for them, my value is in who I am.

Yes, Yes.

And so that was one of the biggest things that I learned from speaking with him because he was sharing some stories with me. And I would have in this phase of my career, I would have done this perhaps. Because here's the thing, man, what we all have to understand, life continues to churn. So there's new people coming in and there's old people going out. So you have to understand that revolving aspect of life.

Kinda goes back into our conversation about willing to reinvent yourself. And here's the benefit is I saw him do that. I got a chance to see him do that. But I get an opportunity to get that information in advance. To start to think about what does reinventing look like for me?

So yeah, it's invaluable. I'm a be honest with you, man, I miss those dinners that we go out on with Teresa and all of us. That energy was just so amazing. I felt like we were young and bright eyed is what I feel like. We walked out of them feeling like there isn't anything that we can accomplish.

And she had a whole list of things that she had accomplished and stories and especially inspiring us as young African American managers and directors, looking to get to that next level. So man, that was a very rich moment in life. So I really appreciated that. And here's the thing that all happened, that all happened like in the midst of the stuff that we were dealing with. Sure did.

So that was a You talking about a God's sin? I think you have probably made connection with her first because of your access in the operations area. I think that's how it happened. And it was an amazing time.

And you know what, it wasn't like, I don't believe we just bumped into each other. I think I was intentional about reaching out to her.

I do remember that.

Yeah, just saying, hey, you just wanna connect. If there's anything I can learn from you, she was, man, I was a manager. We were both managers and she was like VP,

which is

big in the company that we were in. And she was the only one that looked like her,

right?

Yes. As a female, which made it even more impressive, right? So I just wanted to glean anything I could from her. And from that came this beautiful relationship, right? She just poured into us like, man.

Just again, lessons that she blessed us with that we've been able to use in our own lives that we're now passing on to you all. Right? So that you can hopefully one day pass it on to someone else.

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.