Your story, your brand. Pt. 6

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty, the podcast. I'm your host, Ralph Owens, along with Terry Baylor. In today's episode, we'll touch on topics such as the power of pivotal relationships and life experiences, how to integrate your smart goals into your narrative, and the power of your personal brand. Enjoy the show. So, and another piece in this is, are your pivotal relationships.

Right? So reflecting on a relationship that specifically shaped your identity and outlook on life. I know for me, going way, way back in in my life, my grandfather, my mother's father, he was a very quiet man. He was a deacon in a church, but he was a very powerful individual. He was the one that didn't have to say very many words, but his presence was felt in a room.

Well, growing up around him, helped to instill something in me, on being, reliable and being, there for my family because I saw him. Always there. Always there. Anytime about somebody got in trouble, he's always there. Right?

Very reliable and and can depend on him. So, those pivotal relationships, you know, that significantly shape your identity, those are very important too as well. Any any thoughts on that, Terry?

Yeah. Raph, man, look. I would not be where I am today without those pivotal relationships. I was on a call with an individual yesterday Raph as you know got some opportunities coming up and I'm talking with this individual about it and all of this is kind of rolling through him. And I'm like, dude, you could have moved anywhere in the city.

How did you end up my neighbor? You mind I mean, every single thing that I'm doing right now from trying to grow this opportunity is a direct relationship to information that he gave me because that key piece of information created a momentum that the tentacles have just been there's probably seven or eight significant developments out of that one relationship. And I mean, that's just one example. As you were talking about Wash U, I just want to give a shout out to Stephanie Rose. I think Stephanie Dick now, I think her last name has been changed, but see, Raph, we are not where we are today without Stephanie.

That's right.

There's there's there's and and and I'm just gonna tell this story. Right? You know, WashU, great place to work. I I love there. It it it allowed me to find who I was technically because I honestly I I I had planned to be out of this years ago.

I had another plan. But that role allowed me to not just do the work, but it allowed that was the first job I believe that allowed me to integrate my personal who I am into the job. Years before, I just did the job. I'm good at what I do, I did the job. But when I left that job, I didn't think about it.

When I start working over there in that new group, I think it was because she was Man, I just felt like she cared about us. I felt like that and it was a scenario where I had left one department to come over there and didn't really Honestly, didn't like, man, Stephanie broke me off bro. She broke me off. I was like, babe, it's it's like 50% more. That's how she broke me off.

Right.

And and the other administrator didn't really like that.

Mhmm.

And she was like, look, I'm not doing They bro, they were like, you can't pay him that. She was like, yes, I can.

Wow. Wow.

So that show that's the first time I'd ever had a leader just stand up like that. And from that moment on, looked at her as like coach, you know how with coaches, we're like, man, we're gonna run through a brick wall for the coach. And that's how we were with Stephanie. So that was a major, major relationship. I'll say coming down here to Houston, you know, and and working at Calpine.

You know, I'm a throw some names out there, you know, JP. Our Curie, major, major, major, major pivotal point I use, man, I'm using today. Today.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Every day.

Things that I learned from him. Matter of fact, I owe him a call. So but yeah, you can't undervalue those kind of relationships. And then of course, I'm blessed, I thank God for my brothers. We're all different, but those guys have shown me perseverance.

They came up through the Reaganomic days, bro. So I didn't they all had degrees. So that was a motivation for me and I see the things that I saw them go through. So I was able to maybe avoid some things and some of the stories that they share with me. But yeah, so man, can't undervalue those relationships and here's, I'm gonna flip it a little bit.

Sometimes you have to see some of the relationships that you have and courses and pathways that they've taken. Hey, learn from the positive experiences and the negative. Yeah.

Yeah. I gotta give a shout out to Stephanie. She and I hope she hears this. She was the first leader I had ever encountered who empowered me. Yes.

She may not have known how to do what we do, but she believed in us and said, you have what it takes to get it done. Yes. Go get it done. Yes. Right?

And to your point, we would have ran through a brick wall for her. You better not start talking about Stephanie in in front of us. No. You got some problems, Jack.

No. No. No. It wasn't happening.

No. It wasn't happening.

That was not happening.

And she'll forever be in that place, you know, for us. And then too, with JP, man, just the that was another another pivotal moment in my life serving underneath him and just everything he just poured into us, right, to to make us better leaders. So yeah. Now that's that's great stuff, man. That's great stuff.

Pivotal relationships. Alright. So let's move to the next segment, which is integrating those SMART goals into your narrative. So what are the what are some of the focus points we need to focus on in order to do that, Terry?

Yeah, mainly man, just just being, clear, right? Clarity and focus, a well designed narrative, it's going to provide, vision for your goals, it's going to make it easier to understand and pursue them, right? Because you can now, you know, again, I don't know, you you can, you know, so if you're passionate about people and you have a goal that deals with dealing with the business, then you can easily tie that. Because I wanna see the success of us all. Ralph, and I'm gonna share this, right?

So I went through a little exercise a couple of days ago, I'm like, I need to brand, right? You know what, I kind of skipped this. This is all about branding, man. You are branding who you are. So I'm sure we all have social media accounts.

All this is no different than what you put on Facebook, what you put on Instagram, what you put on Twitter. Right now, don't know. Some of y'all may be too old to be on TikTok. Don't know. No, but seriously, it is this is all branding.

So when you understand who you are, these core values, right? Writing your narrative, your passions, it's for you to now take these things and put them in a framework where you're branding who you are. You know, one of the things that I would tell, you know, coach people on is, look, I know you work for company a, b or c, you are a corporation unto yourself first first you know what I'm saying so I heard a leader say this the other day and I've kind of taken this on and he says hey pay yourself first Mhmm. You gotta pay yourself first. Build into your brand so that this is this is essentially what this is doing.

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast. We hope that you not only enjoyed 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.