Ever wondered about the exciting journey of a global business strategist who pivoted from being a high-profile attorney in Washington DC to embracing entrepreneurship? Meet our guest for this episode, the remarkable Kerry-Ann Powell, who shares her extraordinary transformation. Kerry-Ann discusses how her leadership skills were honed by observing her parents, stepping into leadership roles at a young age, and strategically evolving in her career.
Our conversation with Kerry-Ann covers her experiences leading the fundraising efforts for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and how she founded her own strategic business and consulting firm. Discover how she leveraged courage, consistency, and strategy to navigate the challenges of fundraising amidst an economic crisis and domestic terrorist scare. She also highlights the importance of enjoying the journey to the top and embracing the unconventional people who accompany us on our path.
As we continue, Kerry-Ann dispenses some insightful advice on building a successful business, drawing a beautiful analogy with nurturing a bamboo tree. She emphasizes the significance of teamwork, strategic thinking, and self-leadership. Drawing wisdom from her favorite books, 'The Big Leap' and 'BE 2.0' by Jim Collins, she encourages us to remain ahead of the times and use our values and beliefs as a compass in our journey.
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
- Free 30-Minute Discovery Call:
Ready to elevate your business? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Dr. William Attaway and start your journey to success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of
the Catalytic Leadership podcast.
Each week, we tackle a topicrelated to the field of
leadership.
My goal is to ensure that youhave actionable steps you can
take from each episode to growin your own leadership.
Growth doesn't just happen.
My goal is to help you becomeintentional about it.
(00:37):
Each week, we spotlight leadersfrom a variety of fields,
organizations and locations.
My goal is for you to see thatleaders can be catalytic, no
matter where they are or whatthey lead.
I draw inspiration from thestories and journeys of these
leaders and I hear from many ofyou that you do too.
(00:57):
Let's jump in to today'sinterview.
I'm so excited today to haveCarrie Ann Powell on the podcast
.
Carrie Ann is a global businessstrategist, a speaker and a
champion of small and mediumsized businesses.
Her varied experience of over20 years as a Washington DC
attorney, lobbyist andfundraiser positions her as an
(01:20):
authority on what it takes tostrategically succeed while
confronting difficult obstacles.
After raising $120 million tobuild the Martin Luther King Jr
Memorial site, launched herstrategic business and
consulting firm, trafalgarStrategies.
She and her team now advisebusiness owners from various
(01:42):
industries and countries oncreating the strategies, the
systems and the mindsets tothrive in business and in life.
Carrie Ann, I'm so glad you'rehere.
Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
My goodness, I'm so excited to be here, william,
this is so wonderful Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I would love to begin with you sharing a little bit
of your story with our listeners.
I shared some of the hot points, but I'd love to hear a little
more about your journey and yourdevelopment as a leader.
How did you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, well, I think leadership.
Oftentimes people feel thatleadership is one of those
things that you're born innatelywith or something.
What did you notice that she'sa born leader?
But I believe leadership istaught and learned and, almost
(02:36):
to be honest, you hear peopletalk about oh, I'm learning a
language, versus I'm acquiring alanguage.
Those of us who are nativeEnglish speakers acquired
English.
We didn't learn it right RightVersus I'm learning Spanish
right now and I'm gagging intoyou on acquiring it.
Time, that's right.
That's a great thing.
(02:59):
I think that for leadership, Iacquired it through watching my
parents.
My parents were strong leadersin their careers and in their
communities and in our family,so leadership was a thing that I
observed, and so then I sort ofstuck it in and also was taught
(03:22):
leadership.
I took advantage ofopportunities while growing up
and as a young adult to learnleadership by being in
leadership roles as a youngadult and saw that.
So I think my journey intoleadership and being able to be
(03:44):
particularly as a strategist wasalso acquired and learned, also
both at the same time.
So when I got out of university, my first real job out of
college was I worked for theUnited Way in our local
community and I was just like Iwas going to be a short stint.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the United Way back there.
(04:06):
Right, it was one of the mostsort of pillar entities in most
communities, where they you knowif you have international
listeners, although they are aninternational organization, but
for international listeners it'sbasically a nonprofit
organization that raises moneywithin the community from
employers and employees andcorporations and then they have
(04:29):
a board of directors that divvyup the funds and give them to
the local entities that need it.
So that was my first job.
I was sort of the speakers andtours person.
Oh wow, it was kind of fun.
It was like a six month gig andat that time I didn't realize at
(04:52):
that time that I always thoughtof charity as a sort of like
you know, people justvolunteering and being all you
know lovey-dovey and everythinglike that.
I didn't realize there's anactual leadership role in
business and role in around that.
And so when I first did thatfor six months I was like I kind
of got hooked at the idea ofall these professionals doing
(05:13):
this amazing work to like buildour communities in a different
entity.
It's because you always thinkof sort of governmental entities
and then we think of sort ofthat sort of the main place that
you kind of think of, and thenyou think of sort of corporate
entities, but there's that wholeentity of civic organizations,
civil entities that play asignificant role in how we
(05:35):
engage in life for the most part.
So I left when I was finishedwith that.
You know, in your early 20s youdon't really think you think
you're better than you're really.
I walked into the office of thevice president of development
and I said you know what?
You should hire me as adivision director because I
would do a great job.
(05:56):
I'll probably be the bestdivision director.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
And I love the fact that she just didn't poo poo me
or anything.
She just said thank you forsaying that.
I will keep that in mind.
Anyway, that's awesome.
And a couple of months latershe called me in for an
interview and said well, what doyou think I'm going to be in
the position?
For division director position,and it's not for the largest
(06:27):
numbers, not for the very bignumber companies, but for our
donors that are a little smallerbut would like to bring you in
because I do see you havepotential.
She brought me in and within ayear I moved up into larger,
larger, what do you call it?
You know, in sales it'll belike larger sales books, but you
(06:49):
know, in nonprofits sort oflike entities that gave more
money, yeah right.
And then I was training otherdivision directors and basically
, you know, it just became athing and I realized I was good
at it.
I was very good at asking forlarge sums of money.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
That's a gift.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I was also very good because of you know, obviously
this is a large organization,millions of dollars running
through.
I had a book value of twomillion myself.
So we were very strategic inthe way that things operated.
And so that's really where Istarted cutting my teach my
teeth on strategic planning.
And so I was.
I had acquired some leadershipskills, but I was learning also
(07:35):
right, how to ask for large sumsof money, because basically
what they do is they paired uswith.
You know, you had a volunteersort of a CEO of a company who
had some very respect in thecommunity in the city, and you
and he and he, or you and her atthat time was mainly in the
he's, but you know, you and heand you and her would go and
(07:55):
basically, you know, chat up theCEO of another company to get
them to agree to donate largesums of money to the United Bay
and also to agree to docampaigns for their employees to
give, and so I observed howthese individuals, how these two
sort of titans of industry,were interacting.
(08:17):
And I would just suck it inright and then sort of begin to
play that out, because there'sone thing, to be able to feel
comfortable asking for largesums of money.
It's another thing to know howthe game is played.
And so during that period oftime in my life, I was learning
a couple of things.
I was learning how to be a goodleader because I had a team.
I was learning how to ask forlarge sums of money in the way
(08:39):
that people would respond.
I was learning how to bestrategic and I was definitely
learning how, how everythingthat we as individuals do affect
other people, we're just.
We're also connected.
That it's just not.
We're not.
We're not on an island at all.
And so anything that I did if Ihad a meeting, that I did a
(09:00):
meeting very well, then that CEOwould decide to give more money
, which means that theiremployees would give more money,
which means that we had moremoney to give to an agency like
a domestic violence shelter,which was able to then be able
to have a school so that thekids in the domestic violence
shelter could have a largereducation, which means that we
have a more educated populace.
(09:21):
So we're all connected.
So that was the really thebeginning of you know.
I would say you know leadershipobviously from home, because I
learned that from my parents.
Like that was the first sort ofbig old step into, into
learning what it means to be aleader and what it means to make
big moves Like what does itmean to have a big project, a
(09:42):
big goal, big idea and be ableto make it happen strategically
and also through your leadership?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So absolutely fascinating, Carrie, to see that
journey and that progression.
And you didn't stop there, Imean, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I did it.
I did that for a few years andthen, once you know, it's
interesting again.
You know oftentimes people, youknow William and Noah.
You talk to people all day longright, Interviewing, and
obviously in the work that youdo, and we always think we have
a plan in our lives and we kindof we create this plan a bit
(10:20):
within an isolated chamber, notrecognizing that every path we
take then leads us to anotherpath.
Originally I wanted to be adoctor.
I went to school to be pre-med,but something happened.
And do so well in physics,organic chem wasn't my friend.
I was, like you know what I'msaying too, but nonetheless.
(10:42):
So while I was there doing allof this great stuff, I began to
learn more about some of thechallenges that we were facing
in our community and what washappening in the rest of the
country at the time, because youbegin to see, so, for instance,
we have the largest domesticviolence shelter in the
(11:03):
Northeast, I mean in theSoutheast area.
I was like everyone used tolike brag about it, like, oh,
we've got the school on site, wecan bring all of these women
who have been domesticallyabused, blah, blah, blah.
And my brain was like, but whydo we have domestic violence
again?
Like reminding Right, right,how good this happens.
(11:24):
And at the time I was neverexposed to it, so I didn't know.
And when I began to becomeexposed to it I really realized
that this is a really bigproblem, the same thing with so
many.
There was this greatorganization that did consumer
rights, sort of helped peopleget out of debt or understand
how to purchase thingsdifferently and how to manage,
(11:48):
get the best mortgage and thosekinds of things.
I'm like, well, why is it sodifficult?
That was the question.
Like, why is it so difficult?
Why can't just everyday peoplewho be able to figure out how to
do these things.
So I began to sort of look andsee oh, there's a whole other
layer to this.
There are policies that areinvolved with how we as human
(12:10):
beings in our everyday life,whether they're local policies
or whether they were federalpolicies or state policies.
So I decided to go to law schooland I became a Washington DC
attorney and lobbyist andstarted doing a great deal of
work along these issues, tryingto tackle big problems from a
(12:30):
federal level and see how wecould fix them.
And that's what I did for anumber of years and really
enjoyed that, until I found outthat they were building a
memorial to Martin Luther Kingin the National Mall and one of
my good friends sent me.
She was like she was actuallywas working with me and she's a
lobbyist as well.
And at the time I was headingup a program and because I was
(12:54):
heading up the program,obviously we had to also raise
money.
I had to have comments.
She was like you're like thebest person that raises money in
our, you know, all the otherdirectors are like you know, how
are you raising them?
I'm like well, I'll tell you alittle secret.
There's this thing called theUnited Way Like oh my God,
william, because it's like theyare the people who are the best
(13:15):
salespeople were the people whowere raised Jehovah's Witness?
I'm telling you they have noshop.
They grew up very comfortabletalking to people and they're
just the best salespeople.
Because they believe it,they're gonna go out and do it.
If you hire someone, you'resales team that grew up with
Jehovah's Witness.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I'm just saying it's gonna work Tips right here for
business owners everywhere it'sgonna work for you, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Anyways, I was like so then I started doing that.
So she knew that I had ahistory of fundraising and so
she's like Carrie Anne.
Did you know they were buildingmy moral tomorrow?
To Martin Luther King I said Ihad no idea, for real.
I mean, obviously every cityand state has a moral.
Tomorrow.
I came up with this on thenational mall in Washington DC
where we honor our presidentsand our veterans of war.
(14:02):
I'm like what.
I didn't think this washappening.
So they were looking forsomeone to do corporate
fundraising.
I said, well, I happen to knowa little thing about that.
So I put my hat in the ring,they hired me and then, a year
later, they asked me to be thefull chief fundraiser of the
(14:23):
program.
At that time we had about, Ithink when I came on we were
probably at 28 million 30million, depending upon the time
that I count and me and my team, we ended up raising 120 plus
million, because it was 120 tobuild it.
Plus we'd raised another 8million for all the celebratory
stuff afterwards, because you'vegot heads of state and all that
kind of stuff coming in.
(14:44):
So, yeah, so that was reallythe journey, and so and I know I
told myself, oh yeah, I'm justgonna do this for like two,
three years and then I'm gonnago back to the law Probably
years later, probably yearslater.
You know, here I am and Istarted my business after we
(15:06):
built it and you know, I waslike wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, living in the DMV area, I've had the
opportunity to visit that side anumber of times and whenever
people come into town family orfriends come into town we take
them downtown and show them thesites, and that's always one
that we stop at because it's soincredibly moving.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It's moving.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And incredibly, incredibly, and I grew up in
Alabama and Birmingham actually,and so growing up in a place
like there there's a great dealof history, and to be in a place
like right there on the titlebasin and you're in that
environment and reading thosequotes, it's just, it's a very
(15:50):
powerful place.
So, you know, for thoselisteners who haven't had that
opportunity to visit DC, whenyou do, do not do not miss this
particular memorial, because itmakes a difference.
And when I read in your biothat you were you were like in
charge of raising money for thisI was like there's no way.
That's so amazing.
(16:12):
And so, just on a personallevel, I really wanted to talk
to you and to hear so many waysthat your leadership has changed
and grown and your impact haschanged and grown over the years
.
That is so inspiring to me and,I know, to every leader who's
listening There's-.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I'm getting a little teary-eyed, William.
I stop, it's, it's it's got alittle mascara on.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's awesome.
I think it's so important forpeople to understand that impact
is really one of the highestcallings of leadership and as
you grow in your leadership, youwill grow in your impact, and
that's what I hear when I listento your journey.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, I, I you know, and I, I well, just to before I
come on, that I you know, afterbuilding the memorial and I
guess I should share thisbecause people, I think,
sometimes don't recognize thatthis is a normal, I think a
normal part of building a bigthing or pushing a big thing up
(17:21):
the mountain I was a little lostafter we built it.
Now they asked me to stay onboard to help to build an
education foundation, which isnow still there and it's great.
So I, I felt good about it.
So I spent about a year and ahalf, two years helping to build
an education foundation aroundthe memorial.
But during that time, you know,I was like what next?
(17:45):
Right, what is the next thingfor me?
Because I just I couldn't goback to the law.
I had done this big thing and Iknow, although I love the law,
I knew that wasn't my next step.
I wasn't gonna go back, yeah,but yeah, I wasn't really sure
what's the next step and I wouldoften go to the memorial,
(18:07):
particularly at the night time.
I'm sure have you been downthere.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Oh yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I would go down there at night just to sort of.
It was really a spiritualexperience for me being there at
nighttime just to sort of bestill and hear what it is.
That was that my next step was,and it wasn't like it was like
some voice from heaven tellingme.
(18:33):
But I used that period of timeof feeling like I was just
really still a bit in the valleya bit to begin to take first
steps as to what it could looklike.
So I knew that I wanted to makebigger impact, but I also knew
(18:56):
that I wasn't really sure Iwanted to do fundraising per se.
That was the next step, right.
So everyone was like, oh, comeand help to do this.
I have a whole bunch ofheadhunters coming to me like
come and do this, or a lot offolks who knew me.
And, to be honest with you,this business that I have is
actually a second iteration ofthe business.
I originally did go into doingconsulting for NGOs and their
(19:19):
boards and actually did somefundraising as well from a
consultant perspective.
And I remember I was on a.
I sort of had an office inManhattan, an office in DC, and
I was on a train from DC goingto Manhattan for, like one of my
favorite clients he was acelebrity who had an art
(19:39):
foundation and you know it'sjust exciting to work with
people who are doing reallyamazing things and I was gonna
be doing a board strategy dayand helping with fundraising
strategy and so forth and as Iwas on the train going up, I
remember, you know, I don't knowwhen you had the quiet car and
(20:01):
the Ocelot, I don't know if yousaid it word yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was, like you know,listening to some music and I
was sort of writing some notesand as I was beginning to build
the business and I saw in thefuture, I'm like if I build the
business as it is, cause I hadeverything, I brought on a
couple of team members by thatand I was like I actually don't
(20:22):
want this to be it Like I justdon't want this iteration of
just working with, you know,large NGOs on fundraising
strategy to be the only thing Iwant to do, and but I wasn't
really sure exactly how totransition out.
I was still doing quite a bit ofspeaking and it just wasn't.
(20:43):
I wasn't really sure.
I actually took some time offand went to Spain and you know
spent.
I was like I'll just go therefor a year and kind of do a
thing and whatever.
But the point is, what evolvedfrom that was me just taking
smaller steps and maybe you cansort of say, okay, what do I?
What am I loving about thecurrent, my current business,
(21:05):
and what am I loving about notloving about my current business
?
And one of the things I knew Ididn't want to do was actual
fundraising anymore, even thoughyou know I don't know if you've
read that book- the Big.
Leap by Gay Hendricks and, it'sexcuse me, gay Hendricks is a
(21:28):
psychologist out of he works at,he's out of I think it's UCLA
or Berkeley, one of theCalifornia schools that has a
strong reputation, and he alsodoes work with Titans of
Business, large Fortune 500companies and their CEOs, and
basically the theory behind theBig Leap is we have and I'm
(21:49):
gonna butcher some of the zoneshere, but there's a couple of
zones that he considers peoplework within.
So the zone of competence youcan do the thing right.
There's the zone of excellence,which you do the thing real well
and you get rewarded for thething.
And then there's the zone ofgenius, where it's the place
(22:12):
that most people don't move into, but it's the place that all of
us have.
But the thing is we get stuckoftentimes in the zone of
excellence or in the zone ofcompetence, because those are
the two areas that we are oftenrewarded for.
So if you are, you know.
So, for instance, mefundraising, that would have
(22:35):
been my zone of excellence.
Right, like, stay there, you'regood at what you do, just do it
.
And that's what I wasoriginally.
That's what originally I did.
I sort of got sucked into thatspace where I know how to
fundraise.
People want me to come and helpthem with their fundraising and
(22:57):
I could do it as a consultant.
So I'm not on staff.
So you know, you can charge abit more and you can have a team
and you can have all this greatopportunities to sort of work
with all these interestingorganizations, which is what I
really love.
I love that, but to see wherepeople are doing interesting
things.
But it was as I began to seethat in the future I'm like this
(23:20):
is actually not what's sparkingme, and I don't think it's
necessarily my excellence, myzone of excellence and or my
zone of genius.
And so from there I had toreally start walking to what it
was that I thought, and what wasit that I think when I even
(23:41):
when I'm not even doing it?
What was it that people wereasking me for?
or responding to me about, orand again I do think to zones of
genius change as we change.
You know you're talking aboutimpact, right?
This idea of if we arebeginning to grow, if age is
(24:06):
just a way of expansion, then,and therefore our zone of genius
, I think, expands as well.
Nonetheless, at the time Irealized I really was able, I
felt my genius was helpingleaders, regardless of what they
were doing, to really bestrategic about some of the
(24:29):
things when they wanna have bigthings they wanna bring to life.
And what does it mean tostrategically do that?
And also what does it mean toexcellently and exceptionally
execute it?
Because the thing William and Ihave found and you know people
used to think, oh, you guysbuilt this memorial you must
have had, like, this massiveteam.
(24:50):
We had a very small team, butwhat we were and we always used
to say this little joke, youknow, we're not an Okie Doke
operation here, you know.
You know, you know, but we hada small team and but we and you
know we had dysfunction in allof its ways, you know.
(25:12):
So there's a lot of things thatI often look at.
I'm like, oh Lord, let me youknow when I work with businesses
and I'm like so this is whatyou're not gonna do right here.
You're having periods, that andthat's the worst.
But then there are some thingsthat we did well.
One of it was execution.
You know, once we came up witha strategy, we were gonna
(25:33):
execute it to the hundredthpercent.
Yeah, and I and because moststrategies I'm telling you fancy
strategies, good strategies,money back strategies 67% of
them fail because of poorexecution.
So I like to think of it aswhat does it mean to create a
(25:54):
good strategy and a excellentexecution plan so that you can
really get the big thing done?
And I think oftentimes,particularly when you start
thinking about, like small andmedium-sized companies, they
have an idea of what you know,they have ideas of what they
(26:16):
wanna do, but we always shrinkit, and we do it in life as well
.
We shrink the ideas based onwhat we think we can do.
The reality is that we can do awhole lot of things big.
We have the capacity as humansto do crazy things right.
(26:37):
We can go through the moon.
We can do a lot of things.
We've been able to solve manyof the diseases that are on this
planet.
We've been able to do a lot ofthings.
There's now technology that canclean our air.
Did you know that?
Yeah, there's now technologyout there that can clean the air
(27:00):
that we messed up.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Mark you Okay let's say Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yes, crazy.
So my thing is there are thingswe can do and also people like
well, you know, that's reallyfor the, you know, I don't know.
It's always someone else outthere that thinks that you know
that you can, that can do itbetter, or whatever the thing is
.
But one thing I have come torealize is that the big things
that have happened in lifeusually happen with just a few
(27:27):
people, but few committed people.
You know some crazy personthat's willing to say, yeah,
let's go ahead and do this thing, and then a couple other crazy
people that we call followers,but they're actually leaders in
their own right.
Okay, yes.
And so we, some crazy peoplethat say, okay, we'll go with it
(27:49):
.
If you think about all of themajor say political movements in
the, you think of the civilrights movement, it started with
a couple of people around it.
The Memorial Foundation wasthree men sitting around a cough
at breakfast table in theirhomes in Bethesda.
Okay, wow, we start thinkingabout just any big thing that
has really ever happened.
(28:10):
It's really just because of afew people.
I mean Christianity, right.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Couple of long crazy man called Jesus and then a
whole bunch of 12 crazy guys,right yeah, Like it really is
only small numbers of peoplethat do big things.
So we often think, oh well, youknow, I'm a small business, I'm
a medium sized business, I gotthe big dogs over there, they
can do their thing.
But nothing in life has everreally happened without just the
(28:38):
small people.
And I saw this one quote that,goodness gracious, my brain is
too early in the morning.
Hello Cuba, the guy who youbook any.
No, the island of Cuba, thecountry.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Oh Castro.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Castro, thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
There, you go.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Castro he's a quote that Castro said that he was
just sort of talking about themovement and he said that he had
X number of people that hadcome on board, but he would have
done it with only just a fewmen.
Because the reality is thatthat's really all it takes If
you passionately believe in yourthing and you are leading in a
(29:22):
way that's not focused on youbut focused on the thing.
People come because they wantto do things bigger than
themselves, and so they do itright and they want to be
attached to that if they seethat it can work.
And so I really often thinkabout what, when you think about
(29:45):
, ok, zones of excellence orzones of genius, it's really
comfortable to stay in the zoneof excellence, definitely
comfortable to stay in the zoneof competence, because you live
a big, big fish, little pond,right that's right.
But when you start branching outinto the genius zone it's scary
(30:06):
.
People are going to look at youa little crazy.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
People are going to say well, why are you leaving
this good safe job over hereBack in DC they talk about the
good safe job government job.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Why would you say the good safejob government?
Job over here and then branchout into this madness where we
don't even see how it's going toeven work.
Right, but that to me, is whatgoing into your genius looks
(30:33):
like, and it's scary and itfeels crazy, but it's where all
the good stuff happens.
If you can be consistent in thatspace, you can be courageous to
step there.
Then be consistent, becauseit's not going to just come
overnight.
So if you can be consistent inthat space, be strategic and
(30:54):
then make sure you have a coupleof crazy people who are just as
crazy as you to come along onit.
And you execute well.
Just execute well and I alwaysthink you can come up with any
identity you can come up withright.
Every company, every business,has sort of identity around its
space.
We were like we're not anOkie-dokie operation OK, we're
(31:16):
not Okie-dokie, even though wewere like what are we doing?
Why are we doing these things?
Like on the mountain, whateveryou know.
They were like what are wedoing?
Because the other thing that'sthe other really, really amazing
thing about building a bigthing is you have to.
Everyone wants to get to thetop of the mountain, right?
(31:37):
Everyone wants to get to thepeak, but I have found that the
fun happens on the way up there,and I know that sounds cliche
and all that stuff, but I'mtelling you that is where the
joy of life happens.
All we could do is focus ongetting to the top.
We just want to raise the darnthing, build the darn memorial.
Particularly when we wentthrough all kinds of that major
(32:00):
economic crisis.
We had Katrina, which wastaking all the money from.
Obviously, it was important,right, but all that money was
going towards building up NewOrleans back again.
So there was no money.
It was one year, a couple ofyears, you know, in my heyday I
was bringing in 20 million ayear.
One year I must have I remember.
Looking at the numbers, it was100,000.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
That was that crisis year.
Ain't nobody giving money atthat time?
Remember when things went downin 2007, 2008?
Yeah, yeah, not a good time formany of us, but definitely not
good for raising money for amemorial.
I mean, it's just not on thetop of everyone's list of
priorities.
So then we had a pause becausethere was a domestic terrorist
(32:43):
scare.
So we had to figure out a way todevelop domestic terrorist
measures and that took a year ofworking through all of the
agencies and such, and I mean itwas just.
I mean there was a pause there.
I'm sorry, but in anythingsales, fundraising if you are
having conversations with peopleto give you, to part with their
(33:05):
money, to give you money, andthey don't see any progress, you
can't really sell a thing.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Because they don't have vision.
They know.
Ok, yeah, I could see it.
It was the crazy ones.
We love the crazy ones, but forthe most part, most people are
not going to buy your product ifthey don't think that it's
moving anywhere.
Ok, so there was a time ofperiod where that was.
So there are going to be timeswhen you are going to be like
why am I here?
Why did we do this?
(33:33):
This is a hot mess, this is notmoving along.
So you have to come up with anidentity within yourselves,
around who you are, what youbelieve to be true, and really
just kind of build a team aroundit.
And no one left during thattime.
No one said I give up, no oneslacked off on the work they did
(33:53):
on a daily basis and whenthings are turning around, it
started turning around.
And we knew it and all the workwe did when we didn't see
anything growing no money wascoming in began to sprout up.
I think I don't know if you area friend of Les Brown.
Are you a friend of Les Brown?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Oh, I love Les Brown Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Oh my god, love, love , love him.
I mean like he must protect himat all costs.
So he gives us one of hisclassic stories, because, you
know, a lot of his stories areclassic.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Good, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
He's the one with the fast buddy, right.
I don't listen to him, but hehas one of his classic stories
that I listen to all the timeand it's called the Chinese
bamboo tree.
Have you heard that story?
No, I don't think so, only inLes Brown voice.
So I can't do it.
That's right.
But he talks about how there'sa bamboo tree, a Chinese bamboo
(34:45):
tree that once you plant it ittakes nine years I think it's
nine years for it to sprout.
But you have to still cultivateit, you have to still water it,
you have to feed it.
You got to do the thing.
But once that time happens,within a couple of weeks it just
(35:08):
shoots up several feet, like,it's just like.
And you could have said can youimagine being that one who has
a Chinese bamboo tree and yourneighbors are coming by looking
at you watering the ground, alllike you know?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Nothing there, right Nothing happening.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Like what's happening , and that is what I'm saying.
The strategy, right, thestrategy on the end is to build
this strong bamboo tree.
The tactic is you're going towater it.
Another tactic is you're goingto feed it.
And then, what's exceptionalexecution?
You're going to water and feedit every day.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
OK.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So that's the execution.
Now you don't want to skip aday Now, some days you might
water it and maybe some of thewater splatters over here you're
not doing it well, that's.
You need to optimize that.
You know.
Go ahead and make sure that thebucket you're using has a good
sprout that can get to the plant, that kind of thing.
But exceptional execution isdoing it, doing it all the time,
doing it every day when youdecide to do it, and so you want
(36:02):
to make sure that you got thestrategy to build this bamboo
tree.
For whatever the reason is, youknow, your reason for building
your bamboo tree is differentthan mine, but we're going to
build it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
How do we?
You know what are the tacticsthat need to happen?
Well, first we've got to plantit, then we've got to water it,
then we've got to feed it.
And then how do we execute thattactic?
We do it every single day, evenfor nine years, even when we
don't see the thing right.
And then nine years, bam, youknow, you're looking up and
you're like, oh, this is a hugebamboo tree.
(36:37):
I didn't realize.
So people always often say youknow, hey, it's overnight
success, yeah, it was anovernight success for nine years
.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
For nine years.
You know that's so helpful andI think that's so true.
Anybody who has started abusiness would resonate with
that, because there are so manydays, so many nights when you
are watering the ground and youand you, you have to keep that
belief, yes, that this is goingto sprout in due season.
(37:06):
This is going to sprout in duetime.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I love that, gary, and that is so fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Let me ask you, and don't do it alone, Do it, you
know, build a team.
I always say build a team fast,you know, if you have some
folks who you know most of thefolks that work with me, you
know, are people who have havebuilt a business and have a few
members on their team andthey're sort of in the process
of scaling but even if you areearly days in the business,
build a team fast, becausethere's an African proverb I
(37:36):
always like to say if you wantto go fast, go alone.
Yeah, you want to go far, gotogether.
That's it.
Build a team fast.
I know people who I don't haveany money coming in.
Build a team.
I'm going to die on that hill.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yes, so good.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Build a team fast.
So it's not just you watering,it's you watering, it's your
team watering, and that looksdifferent, right?
So maybe you're up on the hilllooking down and saying, hey
guys, water over there.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Water over there.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You know we need to.
You know, oh, switch over here.
We need to bring a tarp towhatever we need to do right,
and then you seem to do thething, because you can't just be
in the business, watering,watering, all day, all day, when
you're not being strategic.
You have to be deciding, oh,what is the strategic direction
that we are moving the team in?
(38:29):
And if you're in it watering,watering, watering, then you're
not above it looking down andseeing OK, yeah, that's where.
That's why I, you knowgeneral's, back in the day, when
you know war fear was a thingyou know, I always think of,
like you know old, like you knowyou have the battles of, like
the Revolutionary War, forinstance.
You know I'm a big fan ofOutlander.
(38:49):
I know all women love that show, so it's because of history
notes, because of Janie, butanyway, no, I love the
historical elements of it.
Anyway the show right now is theearly days of the War of
Independence.
Ok, and you know, you see these, these generals and everything,
and you're like, how did theybattle on the field?
(39:12):
You know, because you think ofwarfare now, today, and it's so
different than warfare back inthat day.
And you know, I heard someonesay generals and stuff were
always on the hill, on thehigher part of the hill, always
looking to see what's going sothey can send the messenger down
to the troops to tell them.
You know, tell the captains andthe tenants.
I know I don't know all thenames of the different ranks,
(39:35):
but the people who are leadingdown on the down on the ground
to do a thing shift west, shiftnorth, retreat, do the thing.
If you're the owner of yourbusiness, you're the leader of
your business and you're sittingthere watering, watering,
watering that thing which isreally important, mind you, must
happen all the time, it musthappen every day in order for
this to work.
(39:56):
But that means that you're noton the hill looking down to the
side.
Ok, what patches are dry?
What areas do we need to kindof do a thing, to do a switch?
You might realize that the waythe tactic is executing is not
that great.
Maybe we should, you know,pivot a bit.
Whatever the thing is, you'rethe one who needs to be looking
at that, and if you're onlyworking in the business doing
(40:16):
the thing, then you don't havethe capacity to be strategic and
to be a strategic leader, andyou can't tell who's exhausted
because you know you're workingalong with them and you're just
kind of watering, watering,watering.
Then you don't know whatstrengths people have and what's
going on.
But if you're above, you cankind of look and see oh my
goodness, that person over hereis real good at that.
(40:36):
That person's exhausted.
Let's shift them out.
It allows for you the capacityto be able to move the
organization and conduct it in away that makes it more
effective.
So when the, when, the, whenthe bamboo plant does spread up,
it spurts up and all of the,all of the bamboo ones are
looking the same and you knowall the little stalks.
(40:58):
You know it looks good.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
How do you stay on top of your game, like, how do
you continue to level up withnew leadership skills?
Your journey is varied and wideand so many different
experiences and inputs, but thecarry on you're going to need to
be a year or two, five yearsfrom now needs to have grown.
Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's so interesting you should say that, because one
of the things that I've beencontemplating this past week is
what?
What does it look like, notjust for me, but also for the
business?
Right, and I'm always thinkingabout that.
I think it's some.
(41:41):
What's his name?
Abraham, I forgot his name, buthe's one of those business gurus
always says you know, you sortof look at your business a bit
like it's this.
You know, I always say it's anentity outside of yourself.
He always has sort of look,think of it like a hedge fund.
(42:03):
It's like.
You know, the purpose ofbusiness is to produce value.
You put some things in and thenit generates value.
It generates value to the owner.
It generates value to theemployees, to the customers, to
the state, to the investors.
(42:24):
Basically, it's a valuegenerating entity outside of
oneself, to all of thestakeholders and folks that are
connected to it.
Now, so you're always having totend it.
You have to be the person whoyou are today to tend.
It isn't the same person thatneeds to continue to bring it
forward.
(42:45):
Now there are some theoriesaround, like leadership in
business.
Some people feel that youshould, as a if you're the
entrepreneur that began thebusiness at some point, you need
to bring someone on who is moreof an executor, and then at
some stage you bring someone onwho is a sustainer, and there's
(43:08):
really four roles, but I'mforgetting one of them.
But this is concept of, youknow, the lifespan of the
personality within the business.
It sort of goes like this whensomeone else comes in and goes
like that, and then there's thisand that's how you can sustain
a business.
I also there's another theoryaround it.
So that's the idea here is theentrepreneur kind of begins to
(43:31):
walk away a bit once he's kindof done the thing.
And I am truly an entrepreneur,but I do believe in terms of
personality type.
I mean all of those, but interms of my style of personality
but, nonetheless, there's alsoa different school of thought
that if you are, you knowthere's sort of three roles of
(43:51):
an entrepreneur, a businessowner.
You have the entrepreneur,which is person, like, say, the
risk and like the big things.
There's the kind of talent onthe person who's really the face
of things, does the thing, youknow whatever the thing, does a
dance, whatever.
And then there's kind of themanager slash, you know, sustain
(44:13):
a person, okay, and the idea isinstead of it feeling like you
have to sort of do this, walkaway, and then you know whatever
.
It's kind of like you need allthree people, you need someone
to be all, you need someone torepresent each three entities,
each three entities of thatworking.
So if you are sort of a full onentrepreneur, meaning you love
(44:33):
risk, you love, you knowbuilding teams, whatever then
you want to definitelyimmediately, as soon as you can,
bring someone on who loves the.
you know who's going to be theface that the actor you know,
yeah, yeah, the talent and the,and then you need to bring
someone on who's going to be themanager.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
And so that's the other theories, that you stay in
it but you just bring, you,build your team around it.
So there's that and thenthere's this.
I think you can do a hot pod ofit right, but in the end I
really think that whatever it isthat we do, we need to sort of
think about how you can evolvewith it, because what isn't the
(45:12):
whole point of anything?
You grow when you evolve andyou strengthen, I believe,
leaning into your strengths butI also think a part of life is
broke.
So the answer your question Iwould I often do is I often I
put myself in environments wherethey are kind of people that
(45:32):
are way more further along thanI am.
Yeah, put myself there and Ikind of feel like I'm my, you
know, like I'm 12 years oldagain, wearing my mother's shoes
.
Both my parents were clotheshorses.
Okay, my dad is passing, my momstill is and she is, so so I
(45:53):
just, you know, I think I waswearing heels at age six, little
cute, little, you know, littleshoes that they give a six year
old, and I just, I love me someheels right now.
I did a little ankle spring acouple years back and I can't
wear them as much, but I stilldo love stilettos.
So my point is them.
You know I always just wearthem.
Shoes around my mom's high heelshoes, you know, and you don't.
You know you feel, you knowyou're not you haven't grown
(46:15):
into it yet, but you know, youkind of.
You know you're kind of.
They're like look at me, I'm socool and I'm like I'm going to
go right on the like.
The things are hanging down tomy knees and whatever.
The point is them.
I try to put myself inenvironments where people who
are way further along, so that Ican.
It's almost like being on top ofthe mountain and seeing over
the hill a bit, and and and thatgoes back to being the general
(46:41):
right, you can see a bit overthe hill.
Okay, that's what I need to bethinking about being.
That's when I'm trying to leadthis.
And then it stretches me a bitand I feel insecure in those
spaces because I'm like, oh,look at these people who are
doing all those big things andyou know, but that's the only
way that.
That's the one I've always donein my life is always been in
(47:02):
spaces where people are alwaysbigger than me or older than me
or more advanced than I was in,whatever the thing was, and then
I sort of observed and I'm likeI could do that, I could do
that.
So that's one thing.
The other thing is I always I,you know, I've done some work,
(47:22):
so I know my, I know the areasof my life that have particular
woundings and and hurts andtraumas, and I'm very aware when
they are being sort ofirritated, right.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
And so I always know, I know what my body feels like
when I am making a decision orI'm feeling a bit of a way, but
it's not coming from anything ofwisdom, it's coming from my
younger spaces or coming fromthe places of myself that have
been who I have.
Yet, you know I have healed butit's still tender.
(48:00):
You know you still have theselittle wounds and they have.
You know, the scabs there.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
This car yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
But if you do a thing to it, you kind of still feel
it Sure.
Yeah.
So I think to you know, justbeing able to, to, to know when,
know when you are being, you'remaking decisions or you're
reacting to something that ishitting some tender spaces that
(48:26):
haven't completely healed, soI'm not reacting but I'm just
like, oh wait, oh wait, why didthat?
So I usually I've, I'vepracticed, I learned this
practice a number of years ago,where if I'm sitting in a
meeting, particularly becauseyou know when you're interacting
with people, that's when thingshappen and they're like, well,
I'm going to go and be, you know, like go to Bali and just kind
of like you know be, that'sgreat and everything and that's
(48:51):
very important, but reality isit's like it's only when you're
interacting with humans.
So you know, I, what I would dowas, if I'm sitting in the
meeting and and I find myselflike reacting and we all know
the triggers that we know whenour heart jumps or stomach flips
(49:12):
, whatever the thing is, and Ialways sort of like you know
you're in a like a high stakesmeeting you have, you don't have
time, you cannot be, pause andsay, oh, in herself it's wrong
with you, exactly.
So I would always wait, but Iwould make a note, check that
out and when I would go home andI would be able to have my in
(49:34):
my internal time, I'd alwayssort of asks this questions
what's going on?
What was it?
Why did that get?
Why did I triggered?
What's happening?
And then that's when I realizedwhat you know and I and I and I
do all kinds of techniques tomake sure that I'm being able to
put the truth right becauseagain, our subconscious mind
will give you all kinds of like.
Oh yeah, madness.
Oh, because they said those arethe, but what's the truth?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah, and then?
Speaker 3 (49:59):
eventually the soul, like you know, if oftentimes
it's hitting my younger self, soI'll allow my younger self to
have a voice and that usuallysays, well, they just hurt my
feelings because, you know, whenshe said that, like, wow, okay,
so now you know that what'shappening, it's, you know, and
I'm, and I love my youngest.
If I love my youngest, I lovethem to just go play and have a
good time, but you are notdriving this bus, yeah, yeah,
(50:21):
you're not dropping the bus, soI'm going to.
It also gives me opportunity toheal and to stretch, because
the more I heal, the more Iexpand.
So, and then the third thing isthat I do is for me.
I oftentimes, you know, I'malways reading to see, sort of
like, what are different ways tolead and to make impact, and
(50:42):
because I realized, like mybrain, I, you know, I grew up at
a certain time and space andideas and thoughts were of that
time and space.
Well, our collectiveconsciousness has evolved since
that time and space, but we, we,we, we like, we like certainty,
so we want to know that that,well, that's what it was at that
(51:04):
time and space and so that'show it is today, but it's not
right, yeah, yeah.
So what I try to do is is kindof figure out.
You know, I think it's ThomasJefferson that says, in matters
of style, go with the trend.
(51:26):
In matters of substance, standlike a rock.
So I often say, okay, you know,and I have younger folks on my
team and they're fantastic andthey have all these fantastic
ideas and I think it's fantastic, it's great, I love it.
So they help me in matters ofstyle.
They're like, yeah, carianne,nobody's doing it that way, and
(51:53):
I've got five nieces.
They help me in fashion.
They're like Auntie Carianne,no one hearing that anymore.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
No, I try to stay.
I try to say okay.
In matters of style, I'm gonnago with the trend.
However, in matters ofsubstance, I will stand like a
rock.
So I'm gonna like this idea ofoh, you know we couldn't get
so-and-so, you know we couldn'tget this confirmation.
(52:24):
Well, did you pick up the phoneand just call?
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Call right.
It's wondering because Novelidea right.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
You know, because what we are gonna do is respect
the fact that other people arebusy.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
And they're not here.
Certainly our lives are not thecenter of their lives.
So, if you're sending, well, Isent a bunch of emails and I
sent them messages on LinkedIn,or yeah, but did you call?
Because in the end, we'retrying to get the thing done,
done, right, bingo.
So I also think what are thethings of substance that I know
(53:03):
to be true and I'm gonna hang onto those things.
So that and those are, you know, what are my values, what do I
believe, how we operate withpeople, how do we respect people
, how do we interact with people, and so I go with style, I
(53:24):
stand with substance, and thatallows me to expand a bit in how
I lead.
So you know, and they're likeyou know, carrie Ann, that's
gonna take you so much time Ifyou just do it this way, I'm
like, oh, I'm gonna do it thatway.
You guys know better than me,right?
I try to stay abreast of what'shappening in the world.
(53:44):
Like when AI happened, Iinterviewed a guy on AI stuff
and then I said, okay, I'm gonnaspend six weeks with you and
you are going to teach meeverything you know about AI so
we can put into the business.
So you know.
So I wasn't like scared aboutthe whole thing or whatever.
You know, that kind of thing wedon't have time for that.
We're trying to build it as a,so I think that is all something
(54:04):
Trying to assess where you needto like.
I know we wanna have search andsee all the time and we wanna
this is what I know to be trueover here.
It was, but the world haschanged.
The collective consciousnesshas moved on.
There are other ways ofthinking and doing and being.
How do you do that, as well asnot throwing the baby out with
(54:28):
the bathwater?
That's a journey of leadership,but I think it's an important
one.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
So good.
Is there a book that has made abig difference in your journey
that you would recommend thatlisteners put on there to read
list?
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah, so I actually really do think the big leap is
a good one.
The big leap is good for people, even if you're not in business
, but it's really about how youare operating in your zone of
genius within the world.
Yeah, and the first thing Ioften do when I speak with
(55:04):
business owners is okay, what'syour life plan, what's your
thing?
Because you're building abusiness.
But if there's no alignmentbetween the business vision and
the life vision, I always sayyou gotta tweet the business
vision 100%.
I mean, your life vision is allwhat it is.
It comes from your innards, itcomes from your, from your, you
(55:25):
know, Yasso or whatever.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
So if your business vision doesn't align with your
life vision at this stage ofyour life, then you wanna
realign that, but I think it'sreally important that you are
operating in your zone of genius.
I want everyone in the entireworld.
That is truly my value.
My mission is to get peopleliving up to their fullest
purpose on this planet.
I think we have dumbed downthat because and I think that's
(55:53):
one of the reasons we see all ofthis hurt and pain happening is
people aren't living up,they're living down, and I feel
like they're continually livingdown.
So live up to what you arereally truly called to do.
That's one of the reasons why Ireally like that book, the Big
Leap, and, in terms of business,I'm going to really recommend
(56:14):
BE 2.0, jim Collins.
I'm a humongous fan of JimCollins.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah, okay, right, love him and so obviously all of
his books are fantastic.
But BE 2.0 is sort of a lovestory to entrepreneurs and to
small and medium sizedbusinesses, and I think I guess
one of the reasons why I love itis because the idea here is you
know, one of his big booksthat's very much more popular is
built to last, right, sure sure.
(56:43):
And people always think well,you know, he talks a big, his
sort of thing is about bigbusiness, but they've
misunderstood him.
He came from his whole thingwhen he was, I think that UCLA,
at Berkeley I always can be justI don't know which one he came
from, but oh, it's Stanford.
Who's at Stanford?
And he taught entrepreneurship.
He's all about entrepreneurshipand small.
(57:04):
The reason why the whole builtto last sort of you know several
different books coming out ofthat was about because he was
trying to scientifically studywhat were the components of
businesses that lasted, whatwere the components that were
that they had in common, as away to be able to almost mimic
(57:27):
or export those thoughts, movethem into small business so that
they can build, because everybig business was once a small
business.
Yeah, that's right.
Exactly so.
A lot of people misunderstandhis posture, but the built, the
BE 2.0, is almost a love story.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
Those of you who love it to entrepreneurs, to small
and medium sized companies,because it just distills down
some of the core issues, thecore things.
And, to be honest, a lot of mymethodology in my business is
very informed by him, by hiswork, because I just I think it
works.
I've seen it work in mybusiness and my clients'
businesses but I've seen it workin my own, so I'm a big fan of
(58:09):
that.
But that would be one book thatI would recommend people read.
So Big League Gay Handlers andBE 2.0, jim Collins.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Love it.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
No, you asked for one , but I gave you two.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Give me two.
It's a bonus.
I love it.
Yeah, kari, and this has beensuch a fantastic conversation.
Thank you for being so open, sotransparent and so informative.
You've shared so manyincredible insights today.
Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Kari, thank you for having me on your show.
It's such an honor and I lovesometimes talking with people to
sort of riff about sort of lifeand business, because in the
end it's all together, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
That's it exactly.
I know folks are gonna wannastay connected with you.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Well, you know, I kinda hang out on LinkedIn a bit
.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
So find me there, connect.
I'm also on Instagram as well.
I really do love Instagram too,so if you wanna connect with me
, connect with me on LinkedIn orInstagram, send me a message,
say hi, okay, tell me you're inWilliams Crew.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (59:29):
And I'd love to connect.
I really think that havingthose connections, human
connections, is really, in theend, the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(59:59):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticaleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
(01:00:21):
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
(01:00:43):
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticaleadershipnet to book
a call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
["catalytic?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Leadership"].
Thanks for listening toCatalytic Leadership with Dr
William Attaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticaleadershipnet.
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of
the Catalytic Leadership podcast.
Each week, we tackle a topicrelated to the field of
leadership.
My goal is to ensure that youhave actionable steps you can
take from each episode to growin your own leadership.
Growth doesn't just happen.
My goal is to help you becomeintentional about it.
(00:37):
Each week, we spotlight leadersfrom a variety of fields,
organizations and locations.
My goal is for you to see thatleaders can be catalytic, no
matter where they are or whatthey lead.
I draw inspiration from thestories and journeys of these
leaders and I hear from many ofyou that you do too.
(00:57):
Let's jump in to today'sinterview.
I'm so excited today to haveCarrie Ann Powell on the podcast
.
Carrie Ann is a global businessstrategist, a speaker and a
champion of small and mediumsized businesses.
Her varied experience of over20 years as a Washington DC
attorney, lobbyist andfundraiser positions her as an
(01:20):
authority on what it takes tostrategically succeed while
confronting difficult obstacles.
After raising $120 million tobuild the Martin Luther King Jr
Memorial site, launched herstrategic business and
consulting firm, trafalgarStrategies.
She and her team now advisebusiness owners from various
(01:42):
industries and countries oncreating the strategies, the
systems and the mindsets tothrive in business and in life.
Carrie Ann, I'm so glad you'rehere.
Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
My goodness, I'm so excited to be here, william,
this is so wonderful Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I would love to begin with you sharing a little bit
of your story with our listeners.
I shared some of the hot points, but I'd love to hear a little
more about your journey and yourdevelopment as a leader.
How did you get started?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, well, I think leadership.
Oftentimes people feel thatleadership is one of those
things that you're born innatelywith or something.
What did you notice that she'sa born leader?
But I believe leadership istaught and learned and, almost
(02:36):
to be honest, you hear peopletalk about oh, I'm learning a
language, versus I'm acquiring alanguage.
Those of us who are nativeEnglish speakers acquired
English.
We didn't learn it right RightVersus I'm learning Spanish
right now and I'm gagging intoyou on acquiring it.
Time, that's right.
That's a great thing.
(02:59):
I think that for leadership, Iacquired it through watching my
parents.
My parents were strong leadersin their careers and in their
communities and in our family,so leadership was a thing that I
observed, and so then I sort ofstuck it in and also was taught
(03:22):
leadership.
I took advantage ofopportunities while growing up
and as a young adult to learnleadership by being in
leadership roles as a youngadult and saw that.
So I think my journey intoleadership and being able to be
(03:44):
particularly as a strategist wasalso acquired and learned, also
both at the same time.
So when I got out of university, my first real job out of
college was I worked for theUnited Way in our local
community and I was just like Iwas going to be a short stint.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the United Way back there.
(04:06):
Right, it was one of the mostsort of pillar entities in most
communities, where they you knowif you have international
listeners, although they are aninternational organization, but
for international listeners it'sbasically a nonprofit
organization that raises moneywithin the community from
employers and employees andcorporations and then they have
(04:29):
a board of directors that divvyup the funds and give them to
the local entities that need it.
So that was my first job.
I was sort of the speakers andtours person.
Oh wow, it was kind of fun.
It was like a six month gig andat that time I didn't realize at
(04:52):
that time that I always thoughtof charity as a sort of like
you know, people justvolunteering and being all you
know lovey-dovey and everythinglike that.
I didn't realize there's anactual leadership role in
business and role in around that.
And so when I first did thatfor six months I was like I kind
of got hooked at the idea ofall these professionals doing
(05:13):
this amazing work to like buildour communities in a different
entity.
It's because you always thinkof sort of governmental entities
and then we think of sort ofthat sort of the main place that
you kind of think of, and thenyou think of sort of corporate
entities, but there's that wholeentity of civic organizations,
civil entities that play asignificant role in how we
(05:35):
engage in life for the most part.
So I left when I was finishedwith that.
You know, in your early 20s youdon't really think you think
you're better than you're really.
I walked into the office of thevice president of development
and I said you know what?
You should hire me as adivision director because I
would do a great job.
(05:56):
I'll probably be the bestdivision director.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
And I love the fact that she just didn't poo poo me
or anything.
She just said thank you forsaying that.
I will keep that in mind.
Anyway, that's awesome.
And a couple of months latershe called me in for an
interview and said well, what doyou think I'm going to be in
the position?
For division director position,and it's not for the largest
(06:27):
numbers, not for the very bignumber companies, but for our
donors that are a little smallerbut would like to bring you in
because I do see you havepotential.
She brought me in and within ayear I moved up into larger,
larger, what do you call it?
You know, in sales it'll belike larger sales books, but you
(06:49):
know, in nonprofits sort oflike entities that gave more
money, yeah right.
And then I was training otherdivision directors and basically
, you know, it just became athing and I realized I was good
at it.
I was very good at asking forlarge sums of money.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
That's a gift.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I was also very good because of you know, obviously
this is a large organization,millions of dollars running
through.
I had a book value of twomillion myself.
So we were very strategic inthe way that things operated.
And so that's really where Istarted cutting my teach my
teeth on strategic planning.
And so I was.
I had acquired some leadershipskills, but I was learning also
(07:35):
right, how to ask for large sumsof money, because basically
what they do is they paired uswith.
You know, you had a volunteersort of a CEO of a company who
had some very respect in thecommunity in the city, and you
and he and he, or you and her atthat time was mainly in the
he's, but you know, you and heand you and her would go and
(07:55):
basically, you know, chat up theCEO of another company to get
them to agree to donate largesums of money to the United Bay
and also to agree to docampaigns for their employees to
give, and so I observed howthese individuals, how these two
sort of titans of industry,were interacting.
(08:17):
And I would just suck it inright and then sort of begin to
play that out, because there'sone thing, to be able to feel
comfortable asking for largesums of money.
It's another thing to know howthe game is played.
And so during that period oftime in my life, I was learning
a couple of things.
I was learning how to be a goodleader because I had a team.
I was learning how to ask forlarge sums of money in the way
(08:39):
that people would respond.
I was learning how to bestrategic and I was definitely
learning how, how everythingthat we as individuals do affect
other people, we're just.
We're also connected.
That it's just not.
We're not.
We're not on an island at all.
And so anything that I did if Ihad a meeting, that I did a
(09:00):
meeting very well, then that CEOwould decide to give more money
, which means that theiremployees would give more money,
which means that we had moremoney to give to an agency like
a domestic violence shelter,which was able to then be able
to have a school so that thekids in the domestic violence
shelter could have a largereducation, which means that we
have a more educated populace.
(09:21):
So we're all connected.
So that was the really thebeginning of you know.
I would say you know leadershipobviously from home, because I
learned that from my parents.
Like that was the first sort ofbig old step into, into
learning what it means to be aleader and what it means to make
big moves Like what does itmean to have a big project, a
(09:42):
big goal, big idea and be ableto make it happen strategically
and also through your leadership?
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So absolutely fascinating, Carrie, to see that
journey and that progression.
And you didn't stop there, Imean, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I did it.
I did that for a few years andthen, once you know, it's
interesting again.
You know oftentimes people, youknow William and Noah.
You talk to people all day longright, Interviewing, and
obviously in the work that youdo, and we always think we have
a plan in our lives and we kindof we create this plan a bit
(10:20):
within an isolated chamber, notrecognizing that every path we
take then leads us to anotherpath.
Originally I wanted to be adoctor.
I went to school to be pre-med,but something happened.
And do so well in physics,organic chem wasn't my friend.
I was, like you know what I'msaying too, but nonetheless.
(10:42):
So while I was there doing allof this great stuff, I began to
learn more about some of thechallenges that we were facing
in our community and what washappening in the rest of the
country at the time, because youbegin to see, so, for instance,
we have the largest domesticviolence shelter in the
(11:03):
Northeast, I mean in theSoutheast area.
I was like everyone used tolike brag about it, like, oh,
we've got the school on site, wecan bring all of these women
who have been domesticallyabused, blah, blah, blah.
And my brain was like, but whydo we have domestic violence
again?
Like reminding Right, right,how good this happens.
(11:24):
And at the time I was neverexposed to it, so I didn't know.
And when I began to becomeexposed to it I really realized
that this is a really bigproblem, the same thing with so
many.
There was this greatorganization that did consumer
rights, sort of helped peopleget out of debt or understand
how to purchase thingsdifferently and how to manage,
(11:48):
get the best mortgage and thosekinds of things.
I'm like, well, why is it sodifficult?
That was the question.
Like, why is it so difficult?
Why can't just everyday peoplewho be able to figure out how to
do these things.
So I began to sort of look andsee oh, there's a whole other
layer to this.
There are policies that areinvolved with how we as human
(12:10):
beings in our everyday life,whether they're local policies
or whether they were federalpolicies or state policies.
So I decided to go to law schooland I became a Washington DC
attorney and lobbyist andstarted doing a great deal of
work along these issues, tryingto tackle big problems from a
(12:30):
federal level and see how wecould fix them.
And that's what I did for anumber of years and really
enjoyed that, until I found outthat they were building a
memorial to Martin Luther Kingin the National Mall and one of
my good friends sent me.
She was like she was actuallywas working with me and she's a
lobbyist as well.
And at the time I was headingup a program and because I was
(12:54):
heading up the program,obviously we had to also raise
money.
I had to have comments.
She was like you're like thebest person that raises money in
our, you know, all the otherdirectors are like you know, how
are you raising them?
I'm like well, I'll tell you alittle secret.
There's this thing called theUnited Way Like oh my God,
william, because it's like theyare the people who are the best
(13:15):
salespeople were the people whowere raised Jehovah's Witness?
I'm telling you they have noshop.
They grew up very comfortabletalking to people and they're
just the best salespeople.
Because they believe it,they're gonna go out and do it.
If you hire someone, you'resales team that grew up with
Jehovah's Witness.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I'm just saying it's gonna work Tips right here for
business owners everywhere it'sgonna work for you, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Anyways, I was like so then I started doing that.
So she knew that I had ahistory of fundraising and so
she's like Carrie Anne.
Did you know they were buildingmy moral tomorrow?
To Martin Luther King I said Ihad no idea, for real.
I mean, obviously every cityand state has a moral.
Tomorrow.
I came up with this on thenational mall in Washington DC
where we honor our presidentsand our veterans of war.
(14:02):
I'm like what.
I didn't think this washappening.
So they were looking forsomeone to do corporate
fundraising.
I said, well, I happen to knowa little thing about that.
So I put my hat in the ring,they hired me and then, a year
later, they asked me to be thefull chief fundraiser of the
(14:23):
program.
At that time we had about, Ithink when I came on we were
probably at 28 million 30million, depending upon the time
that I count and me and my team, we ended up raising 120 plus
million, because it was 120 tobuild it.
Plus we'd raised another 8million for all the celebratory
stuff afterwards, because you'vegot heads of state and all that
kind of stuff coming in.
(14:44):
So, yeah, so that was reallythe journey, and so and I know I
told myself, oh yeah, I'm justgonna do this for like two,
three years and then I'm gonnago back to the law Probably
years later, probably yearslater.
You know, here I am and Istarted my business after we
(15:06):
built it and you know, I waslike wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, living in the DMV area, I've had the
opportunity to visit that side anumber of times and whenever
people come into town family orfriends come into town we take
them downtown and show them thesites, and that's always one
that we stop at because it's soincredibly moving.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It's moving.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And incredibly, incredibly, and I grew up in
Alabama and Birmingham actually,and so growing up in a place
like there there's a great dealof history, and to be in a place
like right there on the titlebasin and you're in that
environment and reading thosequotes, it's just, it's a very
(15:50):
powerful place.
So, you know, for thoselisteners who haven't had that
opportunity to visit DC, whenyou do, do not do not miss this
particular memorial, because itmakes a difference.
And when I read in your biothat you were you were like in
charge of raising money for thisI was like there's no way.
That's so amazing.
(16:12):
And so, just on a personallevel, I really wanted to talk
to you and to hear so many waysthat your leadership has changed
and grown and your impact haschanged and grown over the years
.
That is so inspiring to me and,I know, to every leader who's
listening There's-.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I'm getting a little teary-eyed, William.
I stop, it's, it's it's got alittle mascara on.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's awesome.
I think it's so important forpeople to understand that impact
is really one of the highestcallings of leadership and as
you grow in your leadership, youwill grow in your impact, and
that's what I hear when I listento your journey.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Yeah, I, I you know, and I, I well, just to before I
come on, that I you know, afterbuilding the memorial and I
guess I should share thisbecause people, I think,
sometimes don't recognize thatthis is a normal, I think a
normal part of building a bigthing or pushing a big thing up
(17:21):
the mountain I was a little lostafter we built it.
Now they asked me to stay onboard to help to build an
education foundation, which isnow still there and it's great.
So I, I felt good about it.
So I spent about a year and ahalf, two years helping to build
an education foundation aroundthe memorial.
But during that time, you know,I was like what next?
(17:45):
Right, what is the next thingfor me?
Because I just I couldn't goback to the law.
I had done this big thing and Iknow, although I love the law,
I knew that wasn't my next step.
I wasn't gonna go back, yeah,but yeah, I wasn't really sure
what's the next step and I wouldoften go to the memorial,
(18:07):
particularly at the night time.
I'm sure have you been downthere.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Oh yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I would go down there at night just to sort of.
It was really a spiritualexperience for me being there at
nighttime just to sort of bestill and hear what it is.
That was that my next step was,and it wasn't like it was like
some voice from heaven tellingme.
(18:33):
But I used that period of timeof feeling like I was just
really still a bit in the valleya bit to begin to take first
steps as to what it could looklike.
So I knew that I wanted to makebigger impact, but I also knew
(18:56):
that I wasn't really sure Iwanted to do fundraising per se.
That was the next step, right.
So everyone was like, oh, comeand help to do this.
I have a whole bunch ofheadhunters coming to me like
come and do this, or a lot offolks who knew me.
And, to be honest with you,this business that I have is
actually a second iteration ofthe business.
I originally did go into doingconsulting for NGOs and their
(19:19):
boards and actually did somefundraising as well from a
consultant perspective.
And I remember I was on a.
I sort of had an office inManhattan, an office in DC, and
I was on a train from DC goingto Manhattan for, like one of my
favorite clients he was acelebrity who had an art
(19:39):
foundation and you know it'sjust exciting to work with
people who are doing reallyamazing things and I was gonna
be doing a board strategy dayand helping with fundraising
strategy and so forth and as Iwas on the train going up, I
remember, you know, I don't knowwhen you had the quiet car and
(20:01):
the Ocelot, I don't know if yousaid it word yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I was, like you know,listening to some music and I
was sort of writing some notesand as I was beginning to build
the business and I saw in thefuture, I'm like if I build the
business as it is, cause I hadeverything, I brought on a
couple of team members by thatand I was like I actually don't
(20:22):
want this to be it Like I justdon't want this iteration of
just working with, you know,large NGOs on fundraising
strategy to be the only thing Iwant to do, and but I wasn't
really sure exactly how totransition out.
I was still doing quite a bit ofspeaking and it just wasn't.
(20:43):
I wasn't really sure.
I actually took some time offand went to Spain and you know
spent.
I was like I'll just go therefor a year and kind of do a
thing and whatever.
But the point is, what evolvedfrom that was me just taking
smaller steps and maybe you cansort of say, okay, what do I?
What am I loving about thecurrent, my current business,
(21:05):
and what am I loving about notloving about my current business
?
And one of the things I knew Ididn't want to do was actual
fundraising anymore, even thoughyou know I don't know if you've
read that book- the Big.
Leap by Gay Hendricks and, it'sexcuse me, gay Hendricks is a
(21:28):
psychologist out of he works at,he's out of I think it's UCLA
or Berkeley, one of theCalifornia schools that has a
strong reputation, and he alsodoes work with Titans of
Business, large Fortune 500companies and their CEOs, and
basically the theory behind theBig Leap is we have and I'm
(21:49):
gonna butcher some of the zoneshere, but there's a couple of
zones that he considers peoplework within.
So the zone of competence youcan do the thing right.
There's the zone of excellence,which you do the thing real well
and you get rewarded for thething.
And then there's the zone ofgenius, where it's the place
(22:12):
that most people don't move into, but it's the place that all of
us have.
But the thing is we get stuckoftentimes in the zone of
excellence or in the zone ofcompetence, because those are
the two areas that we are oftenrewarded for.
So if you are, you know.
So, for instance, mefundraising, that would have
(22:35):
been my zone of excellence.
Right, like, stay there, you'regood at what you do, just do it
.
And that's what I wasoriginally.
That's what originally I did.
I sort of got sucked into thatspace where I know how to
fundraise.
People want me to come and helpthem with their fundraising and
(22:57):
I could do it as a consultant.
So I'm not on staff.
So you know, you can charge abit more and you can have a team
and you can have all this greatopportunities to sort of work
with all these interestingorganizations, which is what I
really love.
I love that, but to see wherepeople are doing interesting
things.
But it was as I began to seethat in the future I'm like this
(23:20):
is actually not what's sparkingme, and I don't think it's
necessarily my excellence, myzone of excellence and or my
zone of genius.
And so from there I had toreally start walking to what it
was that I thought, and what wasit that I think when I even
(23:41):
when I'm not even doing it?
What was it that people wereasking me for?
or responding to me about, orand again I do think to zones of
genius change as we change.
You know you're talking aboutimpact, right?
This idea of if we arebeginning to grow, if age is
(24:06):
just a way of expansion, then,and therefore our zone of genius
, I think, expands as well.
Nonetheless, at the time Irealized I really was able, I
felt my genius was helpingleaders, regardless of what they
were doing, to really bestrategic about some of the
(24:29):
things when they wanna have bigthings they wanna bring to life.
And what does it mean tostrategically do that?
And also what does it mean toexcellently and exceptionally
execute it?
Because the thing William and Ihave found and you know people
used to think, oh, you guysbuilt this memorial you must
have had, like, this massiveteam.
(24:50):
We had a very small team, butwhat we were and we always used
to say this little joke, youknow, we're not an Okie Doke
operation here, you know.
You know, you know, but we hada small team and but we and you
know we had dysfunction in allof its ways, you know.
(25:12):
So there's a lot of things thatI often look at.
I'm like, oh Lord, let me youknow when I work with businesses
and I'm like so this is whatyou're not gonna do right here.
You're having periods, that andthat's the worst.
But then there are some thingsthat we did well.
One of it was execution.
You know, once we came up witha strategy, we were gonna
(25:33):
execute it to the hundredthpercent.
Yeah, and I and because moststrategies I'm telling you fancy
strategies, good strategies,money back strategies 67% of
them fail because of poorexecution.
So I like to think of it aswhat does it mean to create a
(25:54):
good strategy and a excellentexecution plan so that you can
really get the big thing done?
And I think oftentimes,particularly when you start
thinking about, like small andmedium-sized companies, they
have an idea of what you know,they have ideas of what they
(26:16):
wanna do, but we always shrinkit, and we do it in life as well
.
We shrink the ideas based onwhat we think we can do.
The reality is that we can do awhole lot of things big.
We have the capacity as humansto do crazy things right.
(26:37):
We can go through the moon.
We can do a lot of things.
We've been able to solve manyof the diseases that are on this
planet.
We've been able to do a lot ofthings.
There's now technology that canclean our air.
Did you know that?
Yeah, there's now technologyout there that can clean the air
(27:00):
that we messed up.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Mark you Okay let's say Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yes, crazy.
So my thing is there are thingswe can do and also people like
well, you know, that's reallyfor the, you know, I don't know.
It's always someone else outthere that thinks that you know
that you can, that can do itbetter, or whatever the thing is
.
But one thing I have come torealize is that the big things
that have happened in lifeusually happen with just a few
(27:27):
people, but few committed people.
You know some crazy personthat's willing to say, yeah,
let's go ahead and do this thing, and then a couple other crazy
people that we call followers,but they're actually leaders in
their own right.
Okay, yes.
And so we, some crazy peoplethat say, okay, we'll go with it
(27:49):
.
If you think about all of themajor say political movements in
the, you think of the civilrights movement, it started with
a couple of people around it.
The Memorial Foundation wasthree men sitting around a cough
at breakfast table in theirhomes in Bethesda.
Okay, wow, we start thinkingabout just any big thing that
has really ever happened.
(28:10):
It's really just because of afew people.
I mean Christianity, right.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Couple of long crazy man called Jesus and then a
whole bunch of 12 crazy guys,right yeah, Like it really is
only small numbers of peoplethat do big things.
So we often think, oh well, youknow, I'm a small business, I'm
a medium sized business, I gotthe big dogs over there, they
can do their thing.
But nothing in life has everreally happened without just the
(28:38):
small people.
And I saw this one quote that,goodness gracious, my brain is
too early in the morning.
Hello Cuba, the guy who youbook any.
No, the island of Cuba, thecountry.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Oh Castro.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Castro, thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
There, you go.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Castro he's a quote that Castro said that he was
just sort of talking about themovement and he said that he had
X number of people that hadcome on board, but he would have
done it with only just a fewmen.
Because the reality is thatthat's really all it takes If
you passionately believe in yourthing and you are leading in a
(29:22):
way that's not focused on youbut focused on the thing.
People come because they wantto do things bigger than
themselves, and so they do itright and they want to be
attached to that if they seethat it can work.
And so I really often thinkabout what, when you think about
(29:45):
, ok, zones of excellence orzones of genius, it's really
comfortable to stay in the zoneof excellence, definitely
comfortable to stay in the zoneof competence, because you live
a big, big fish, little pond,right that's right.
But when you start branching outinto the genius zone it's scary
(30:06):
.
People are going to look at youa little crazy.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
People are going to say well, why are you leaving
this good safe job over hereBack in DC they talk about the
good safe job government job.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Why would you say the good safejob government?
Job over here and then branchout into this madness where we
don't even see how it's going toeven work.
Right, but that to me, is whatgoing into your genius looks
(30:33):
like, and it's scary and itfeels crazy, but it's where all
the good stuff happens.
If you can be consistent in thatspace, you can be courageous to
step there.
Then be consistent, becauseit's not going to just come
overnight.
So if you can be consistent inthat space, be strategic and
(30:54):
then make sure you have a coupleof crazy people who are just as
crazy as you to come along onit.
And you execute well.
Just execute well and I alwaysthink you can come up with any
identity you can come up withright.
Every company, every business,has sort of identity around its
space.
We were like we're not anOkie-dokie operation OK, we're
(31:16):
not Okie-dokie, even though wewere like what are we doing?
Why are we doing these things?
Like on the mountain, whateveryou know.
They were like what are wedoing?
Because the other thing that'sthe other really, really amazing
thing about building a bigthing is you have to.
Everyone wants to get to thetop of the mountain, right?
(31:37):
Everyone wants to get to thepeak, but I have found that the
fun happens on the way up there,and I know that sounds cliche
and all that stuff, but I'mtelling you that is where the
joy of life happens.
All we could do is focus ongetting to the top.
We just want to raise the darnthing, build the darn memorial.
Particularly when we wentthrough all kinds of that major
(32:00):
economic crisis.
We had Katrina, which wastaking all the money from.
Obviously, it was important,right, but all that money was
going towards building up NewOrleans back again.
So there was no money.
It was one year, a couple ofyears, you know, in my heyday I
was bringing in 20 million ayear.
One year I must have I remember.
Looking at the numbers, it was100,000.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
That was that crisis year.
Ain't nobody giving money atthat time?
Remember when things went downin 2007, 2008?
Yeah, yeah, not a good time formany of us, but definitely not
good for raising money for amemorial.
I mean, it's just not on thetop of everyone's list of
priorities.
So then we had a pause becausethere was a domestic terrorist
(32:43):
scare.
So we had to figure out a way todevelop domestic terrorist
measures and that took a year ofworking through all of the
agencies and such, and I mean itwas just.
I mean there was a pause there.
I'm sorry, but in anythingsales, fundraising if you are
having conversations with peopleto give you, to part with their
(33:05):
money, to give you money, andthey don't see any progress, you
can't really sell a thing.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's true, it's true.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Because they don't have vision.
They know.
Ok, yeah, I could see it.
It was the crazy ones.
We love the crazy ones, but forthe most part, most people are
not going to buy your product ifthey don't think that it's
moving anywhere.
Ok, so there was a time ofperiod where that was.
So there are going to be timeswhen you are going to be like
why am I here?
Why did we do this?
(33:33):
This is a hot mess, this is notmoving along.
So you have to come up with anidentity within yourselves,
around who you are, what youbelieve to be true, and really
just kind of build a team aroundit.
And no one left during thattime.
No one said I give up, no oneslacked off on the work they did
(33:53):
on a daily basis and whenthings are turning around, it
started turning around.
And we knew it and all the workwe did when we didn't see
anything growing no money wascoming in began to sprout up.
I think I don't know if you area friend of Les Brown.
Are you a friend of Les Brown?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Oh, I love Les Brown Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Oh my god, love, love , love him.
I mean like he must protect himat all costs.
So he gives us one of hisclassic stories, because, you
know, a lot of his stories areclassic.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Good, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
He's the one with the fast buddy, right.
I don't listen to him, but hehas one of his classic stories
that I listen to all the timeand it's called the Chinese
bamboo tree.
Have you heard that story?
No, I don't think so, only inLes Brown voice.
So I can't do it.
That's right.
But he talks about how there'sa bamboo tree, a Chinese bamboo
(34:45):
tree that once you plant it ittakes nine years I think it's
nine years for it to sprout.
But you have to still cultivateit, you have to still water it,
you have to feed it.
You got to do the thing.
But once that time happens,within a couple of weeks it just
(35:08):
shoots up several feet, like,it's just like.
And you could have said can youimagine being that one who has
a Chinese bamboo tree and yourneighbors are coming by looking
at you watering the ground, alllike you know?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Nothing there, right Nothing happening.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Like what's happening , and that is what I'm saying.
The strategy, right, thestrategy on the end is to build
this strong bamboo tree.
The tactic is you're going towater it.
Another tactic is you're goingto feed it.
And then, what's exceptionalexecution?
You're going to water and feedit every day.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
OK.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
So that's the execution.
Now you don't want to skip aday Now, some days you might
water it and maybe some of thewater splatters over here you're
not doing it well, that's.
You need to optimize that.
You know.
Go ahead and make sure that thebucket you're using has a good
sprout that can get to the plant, that kind of thing.
But exceptional execution isdoing it, doing it all the time,
doing it every day when youdecide to do it, and so you want
(36:02):
to make sure that you got thestrategy to build this bamboo
tree.
For whatever the reason is, youknow, your reason for building
your bamboo tree is differentthan mine, but we're going to
build it.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
How do we?
You know what are the tacticsthat need to happen?
Well, first we've got to plantit, then we've got to water it,
then we've got to feed it.
And then how do we execute thattactic?
We do it every single day, evenfor nine years, even when we
don't see the thing right.
And then nine years, bam, youknow, you're looking up and
you're like, oh, this is a hugebamboo tree.
(36:37):
I didn't realize.
So people always often say youknow, hey, it's overnight
success, yeah, it was anovernight success for nine years
.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
For nine years.
You know that's so helpful andI think that's so true.
Anybody who has started abusiness would resonate with
that, because there are so manydays, so many nights when you
are watering the ground and youand you, you have to keep that
belief, yes, that this is goingto sprout in due season.
(37:06):
This is going to sprout in duetime.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I love that, gary, and that is so fantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Let me ask you, and don't do it alone, Do it, you
know, build a team.
I always say build a team fast,you know, if you have some
folks who you know most of thefolks that work with me, you
know, are people who have havebuilt a business and have a few
members on their team andthey're sort of in the process
of scaling but even if you areearly days in the business,
build a team fast, becausethere's an African proverb I
(37:36):
always like to say if you wantto go fast, go alone.
Yeah, you want to go far, gotogether.
That's it.
Build a team fast.
I know people who I don't haveany money coming in.
Build a team.
I'm going to die on that hill.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yes, so good.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Build a team fast.
So it's not just you watering,it's you watering, it's your
team watering, and that looksdifferent, right?
So maybe you're up on the hilllooking down and saying, hey
guys, water over there.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Water over there.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You know we need to.
You know, oh, switch over here.
We need to bring a tarp towhatever we need to do right,
and then you seem to do thething, because you can't just be
in the business, watering,watering, all day, all day, when
you're not being strategic.
You have to be deciding, oh,what is the strategic direction
that we are moving the team in?
(38:29):
And if you're in it watering,watering, watering, then you're
not above it looking down andseeing OK, yeah, that's where.
That's why I, you knowgeneral's, back in the day, when
you know war fear was a thingyou know, I always think of,
like you know old, like you knowyou have the battles of, like
the Revolutionary War, forinstance.
You know I'm a big fan ofOutlander.
(38:49):
I know all women love that show, so it's because of history
notes, because of Janie, butanyway, no, I love the
historical elements of it.
Anyway the show right now is theearly days of the War of
Independence.
Ok, and you know, you see these, these generals and everything,
and you're like, how did theybattle on the field?
(39:12):
You know, because you think ofwarfare now, today, and it's so
different than warfare back inthat day.
And you know, I heard someonesay generals and stuff were
always on the hill, on thehigher part of the hill, always
looking to see what's going sothey can send the messenger down
to the troops to tell them.
You know, tell the captains andthe tenants.
I know I don't know all thenames of the different ranks,
(39:35):
but the people who are leadingdown on the down on the ground
to do a thing shift west, shiftnorth, retreat, do the thing.
If you're the owner of yourbusiness, you're the leader of
your business and you're sittingthere watering, watering,
watering that thing which isreally important, mind you, must
happen all the time, it musthappen every day in order for
this to work.
(39:56):
But that means that you're noton the hill looking down to the
side.
Ok, what patches are dry?
What areas do we need to kindof do a thing, to do a switch?
You might realize that the waythe tactic is executing is not
that great.
Maybe we should, you know,pivot a bit.
Whatever the thing is, you'rethe one who needs to be looking
at that, and if you're onlyworking in the business doing
(40:16):
the thing, then you don't havethe capacity to be strategic and
to be a strategic leader, andyou can't tell who's exhausted
because you know you're workingalong with them and you're just
kind of watering, watering,watering.
Then you don't know whatstrengths people have and what's
going on.
But if you're above, you cankind of look and see oh my
goodness, that person over hereis real good at that.
(40:36):
That person's exhausted.
Let's shift them out.
It allows for you the capacityto be able to move the
organization and conduct it in away that makes it more
effective.
So when the, when, the, whenthe bamboo plant does spread up,
it spurts up and all of the,all of the bamboo ones are
looking the same and you knowall the little stalks.
(40:58):
You know it looks good.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
How do you stay on top of your game, like, how do
you continue to level up withnew leadership skills?
Your journey is varied and wideand so many different
experiences and inputs, but thecarry on you're going to need to
be a year or two, five yearsfrom now needs to have grown.
Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's so interesting you should say that, because one
of the things that I've beencontemplating this past week is
what?
What does it look like, notjust for me, but also for the
business?
Right, and I'm always thinkingabout that.
I think it's some.
(41:41):
What's his name?
Abraham, I forgot his name, buthe's one of those business gurus
always says you know, you sortof look at your business a bit
like it's this.
You know, I always say it's anentity outside of yourself.
He always has sort of look,think of it like a hedge fund.
(42:03):
It's like.
You know, the purpose ofbusiness is to produce value.
You put some things in and thenit generates value.
It generates value to the owner.
It generates value to theemployees, to the customers, to
the state, to the investors.
(42:24):
Basically, it's a valuegenerating entity outside of
oneself, to all of thestakeholders and folks that are
connected to it.
Now, so you're always having totend it.
You have to be the person whoyou are today to tend.
It isn't the same person thatneeds to continue to bring it
forward.
(42:45):
Now there are some theoriesaround, like leadership in
business.
Some people feel that youshould, as a if you're the
entrepreneur that began thebusiness at some point, you need
to bring someone on who is moreof an executor, and then at
some stage you bring someone onwho is a sustainer, and there's
(43:08):
really four roles, but I'mforgetting one of them.
But this is concept of, youknow, the lifespan of the
personality within the business.
It sort of goes like this whensomeone else comes in and goes
like that, and then there's thisand that's how you can sustain
a business.
I also there's another theoryaround it.
So that's the idea here is theentrepreneur kind of begins to
(43:31):
walk away a bit once he's kindof done the thing.
And I am truly an entrepreneur,but I do believe in terms of
personality type.
I mean all of those, but interms of my style of personality
but, nonetheless, there's alsoa different school of thought
that if you are, you knowthere's sort of three roles of
(43:51):
an entrepreneur, a businessowner.
You have the entrepreneur,which is person, like, say, the
risk and like the big things.
There's the kind of talent onthe person who's really the face
of things, does the thing, youknow whatever the thing, does a
dance, whatever.
And then there's kind of themanager slash, you know, sustain
(44:13):
a person, okay, and the idea isinstead of it feeling like you
have to sort of do this, walkaway, and then you know whatever
.
It's kind of like you need allthree people, you need someone
to be all, you need someone torepresent each three entities,
each three entities of thatworking.
So if you are sort of a full onentrepreneur, meaning you love
(44:33):
risk, you love, you knowbuilding teams, whatever then
you want to definitelyimmediately, as soon as you can,
bring someone on who loves the.
you know who's going to be theface that the actor you know,
yeah, yeah, the talent and the,and then you need to bring
someone on who's going to be themanager.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
And so that's the other theories, that you stay in
it but you just bring, you,build your team around it.
So there's that and thenthere's this.
I think you can do a hot pod ofit right, but in the end I
really think that whatever it isthat we do, we need to sort of
think about how you can evolvewith it, because what isn't the
(45:12):
whole point of anything?
You grow when you evolve andyou strengthen, I believe,
leaning into your strengths butI also think a part of life is
broke.
So the answer your question Iwould I often do is I often I
put myself in environments wherethey are kind of people that
(45:32):
are way more further along thanI am.
Yeah, put myself there and Ikind of feel like I'm my, you
know, like I'm 12 years oldagain, wearing my mother's shoes
.
Both my parents were clotheshorses.
Okay, my dad is passing, my momstill is and she is, so so I
(45:53):
just, you know, I think I waswearing heels at age six, little
cute, little, you know, littleshoes that they give a six year
old, and I just, I love me someheels right now.
I did a little ankle spring acouple years back and I can't
wear them as much, but I stilldo love stilettos.
So my point is them.
You know I always just wearthem.
Shoes around my mom's high heelshoes, you know, and you don't.
You know you feel, you knowyou're not you haven't grown
(46:15):
into it yet, but you know, youkind of.
You know you're kind of.
They're like look at me, I'm socool and I'm like I'm going to
go right on the like.
The things are hanging down tomy knees and whatever.
The point is them.
I try to put myself inenvironments where people who
are way further along, so that Ican.
It's almost like being on top ofthe mountain and seeing over
the hill a bit, and and and thatgoes back to being the general
(46:41):
right, you can see a bit overthe hill.
Okay, that's what I need to bethinking about being.
That's when I'm trying to leadthis.
And then it stretches me a bitand I feel insecure in those
spaces because I'm like, oh,look at these people who are
doing all those big things andyou know, but that's the only
way that.
That's the one I've always donein my life is always been in
(47:02):
spaces where people are alwaysbigger than me or older than me
or more advanced than I was in,whatever the thing was, and then
I sort of observed and I'm likeI could do that, I could do
that.
So that's one thing.
The other thing is I always I,you know, I've done some work,
(47:22):
so I know my, I know the areasof my life that have particular
woundings and and hurts andtraumas, and I'm very aware when
they are being sort ofirritated, right.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
And so I always know, I know what my body feels like
when I am making a decision orI'm feeling a bit of a way, but
it's not coming from anything ofwisdom, it's coming from my
younger spaces or coming fromthe places of myself that have
been who I have.
Yet, you know I have healed butit's still tender.
(48:00):
You know you still have theselittle wounds and they have.
You know, the scabs there.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
This car yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
But if you do a thing to it, you kind of still feel
it Sure.
Yeah.
So I think to you know, justbeing able to, to, to know when,
know when you are being, you'remaking decisions or you're
reacting to something that ishitting some tender spaces that
(48:26):
haven't completely healed, soI'm not reacting but I'm just
like, oh wait, oh wait, why didthat?
So I usually I've, I'vepracticed, I learned this
practice a number of years ago,where if I'm sitting in a
meeting, particularly becauseyou know when you're interacting
with people, that's when thingshappen and they're like, well,
I'm going to go and be, you know, like go to Bali and just kind
of like you know be, that'sgreat and everything and that's
(48:51):
very important, but reality isit's like it's only when you're
interacting with humans.
So you know, I, what I would dowas, if I'm sitting in the
meeting and and I find myselflike reacting and we all know
the triggers that we know whenour heart jumps or stomach flips
(49:12):
, whatever the thing is, and Ialways sort of like you know
you're in a like a high stakesmeeting you have, you don't have
time, you cannot be, pause andsay, oh, in herself it's wrong
with you, exactly.
So I would always wait, but Iwould make a note, check that
out and when I would go home andI would be able to have my in
(49:34):
my internal time, I'd alwayssort of asks this questions
what's going on?
What was it?
Why did that get?
Why did I triggered?
What's happening?
And then that's when I realizedwhat you know and I and I and I
do all kinds of techniques tomake sure that I'm being able to
put the truth right becauseagain, our subconscious mind
will give you all kinds of like.
Oh yeah, madness.
Oh, because they said those arethe, but what's the truth?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah, and then?
Speaker 3 (49:59):
eventually the soul, like you know, if oftentimes
it's hitting my younger self, soI'll allow my younger self to
have a voice and that usuallysays, well, they just hurt my
feelings because, you know, whenshe said that, like, wow, okay,
so now you know that what'shappening, it's, you know, and
I'm, and I love my youngest.
If I love my youngest, I lovethem to just go play and have a
good time, but you are notdriving this bus, yeah, yeah,
(50:21):
you're not dropping the bus, soI'm going to.
It also gives me opportunity toheal and to stretch, because
the more I heal, the more Iexpand.
So, and then the third thing isthat I do is for me.
I oftentimes, you know, I'malways reading to see, sort of
like, what are different ways tolead and to make impact, and
(50:42):
because I realized, like mybrain, I, you know, I grew up at
a certain time and space andideas and thoughts were of that
time and space.
Well, our collectiveconsciousness has evolved since
that time and space, but we, we,we, we like, we like certainty,
so we want to know that that,well, that's what it was at that
(51:04):
time and space and so that'show it is today, but it's not
right, yeah, yeah.
So what I try to do is is kindof figure out.
You know, I think it's ThomasJefferson that says, in matters
of style, go with the trend.
(51:26):
In matters of substance, standlike a rock.
So I often say, okay, you know,and I have younger folks on my
team and they're fantastic andthey have all these fantastic
ideas and I think it's fantastic, it's great, I love it.
So they help me in matters ofstyle.
They're like, yeah, carianne,nobody's doing it that way, and
(51:53):
I've got five nieces.
They help me in fashion.
They're like Auntie Carianne,no one hearing that anymore.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
No, I try to stay.
I try to say okay.
In matters of style, I'm gonnago with the trend.
However, in matters ofsubstance, I will stand like a
rock.
So I'm gonna like this idea ofoh, you know we couldn't get
so-and-so, you know we couldn'tget this confirmation.
(52:24):
Well, did you pick up the phoneand just call?
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Call right.
It's wondering because Novelidea right.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
You know, because what we are gonna do is respect
the fact that other people arebusy.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
And they're not here.
Certainly our lives are not thecenter of their lives.
So, if you're sending, well, Isent a bunch of emails and I
sent them messages on LinkedIn,or yeah, but did you call?
Because in the end, we'retrying to get the thing done,
done, right, bingo.
So I also think what are thethings of substance that I know
(53:03):
to be true and I'm gonna hang onto those things.
So that and those are, you know, what are my values, what do I
believe, how we operate withpeople, how do we respect people
, how do we interact with people, and so I go with style, I
(53:24):
stand with substance, and thatallows me to expand a bit in how
I lead.
So you know, and they're likeyou know, carrie Ann, that's
gonna take you so much time Ifyou just do it this way, I'm
like, oh, I'm gonna do it thatway.
You guys know better than me,right?
I try to stay abreast of what'shappening in the world.
(53:44):
Like when AI happened, Iinterviewed a guy on AI stuff
and then I said, okay, I'm gonnaspend six weeks with you and
you are going to teach meeverything you know about AI so
we can put into the business.
So you know.
So I wasn't like scared aboutthe whole thing or whatever.
You know, that kind of thing wedon't have time for that.
We're trying to build it as a,so I think that is all something
(54:04):
Trying to assess where you needto like.
I know we wanna have search andsee all the time and we wanna
this is what I know to be trueover here.
It was, but the world haschanged.
The collective consciousnesshas moved on.
There are other ways ofthinking and doing and being.
How do you do that, as well asnot throwing the baby out with
(54:28):
the bathwater?
That's a journey of leadership,but I think it's an important
one.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
So good.
Is there a book that has made abig difference in your journey
that you would recommend thatlisteners put on there to read
list?
Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah, so I actually really do think the big leap is
a good one.
The big leap is good for people, even if you're not in business
, but it's really about how youare operating in your zone of
genius within the world.
Yeah, and the first thing Ioften do when I speak with
(55:04):
business owners is okay, what'syour life plan, what's your
thing?
Because you're building abusiness.
But if there's no alignmentbetween the business vision and
the life vision, I always sayyou gotta tweet the business
vision 100%.
I mean, your life vision is allwhat it is.
It comes from your innards, itcomes from your, from your, you
(55:25):
know, Yasso or whatever.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
So if your business vision doesn't align with your
life vision at this stage ofyour life, then you wanna
realign that, but I think it'sreally important that you are
operating in your zone of genius.
I want everyone in the entireworld.
That is truly my value.
My mission is to get peopleliving up to their fullest
purpose on this planet.
I think we have dumbed downthat because and I think that's
(55:53):
one of the reasons we see all ofthis hurt and pain happening is
people aren't living up,they're living down, and I feel
like they're continually livingdown.
So live up to what you arereally truly called to do.
That's one of the reasons why Ireally like that book, the Big
Leap, and, in terms of business,I'm going to really recommend
(56:14):
BE 2.0, jim Collins.
I'm a humongous fan of JimCollins.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah, okay, right, love him and so obviously all of
his books are fantastic.
But BE 2.0 is sort of a lovestory to entrepreneurs and to
small and medium sizedbusinesses, and I think I guess
one of the reasons why I love itis because the idea here is you
know, one of his big booksthat's very much more popular is
built to last, right, sure sure.
(56:43):
And people always think well,you know, he talks a big, his
sort of thing is about bigbusiness, but they've
misunderstood him.
He came from his whole thingwhen he was, I think that UCLA,
at Berkeley I always can be justI don't know which one he came
from, but oh, it's Stanford.
Who's at Stanford?
And he taught entrepreneurship.
He's all about entrepreneurshipand small.
(57:04):
The reason why the whole builtto last sort of you know several
different books coming out ofthat was about because he was
trying to scientifically studywhat were the components of
businesses that lasted, whatwere the components that were
that they had in common, as away to be able to almost mimic
(57:27):
or export those thoughts, movethem into small business so that
they can build, because everybig business was once a small
business.
Yeah, that's right.
Exactly so.
A lot of people misunderstandhis posture, but the built, the
BE 2.0, is almost a love story.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
Those of you who love it to entrepreneurs, to small
and medium sized companies,because it just distills down
some of the core issues, thecore things.
And, to be honest, a lot of mymethodology in my business is
very informed by him, by hiswork, because I just I think it
works.
I've seen it work in mybusiness and my clients'
businesses but I've seen it workin my own, so I'm a big fan of
(58:09):
that.
But that would be one book thatI would recommend people read.
So Big League Gay Handlers andBE 2.0, jim Collins.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Love it.
Speaker 3 (58:24):
No, you asked for one , but I gave you two.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Give me two.
It's a bonus.
I love it.
Yeah, kari, and this has beensuch a fantastic conversation.
Thank you for being so open, sotransparent and so informative.
You've shared so manyincredible insights today.
Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Kari, thank you for having me on your show.
It's such an honor and I lovesometimes talking with people to
sort of riff about sort of lifeand business, because in the
end it's all together, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
That's it exactly.
I know folks are gonna wannastay connected with you.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Well, you know, I kinda hang out on LinkedIn a bit
.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (59:07):
So find me there, connect.
I'm also on Instagram as well.
I really do love Instagram too,so if you wanna connect with me
, connect with me on LinkedIn orInstagram, send me a message,
say hi, okay, tell me you're inWilliams Crew.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (59:29):
And I'd love to connect.
I really think that havingthose connections, human
connections, is really, in theend, the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(59:59):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticaleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
(01:00:21):
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
(01:00:43):
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticaleadershipnet to book
a call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
["catalytic?
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Leadership"].
Thanks for listening toCatalytic Leadership with Dr
William Attaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticaleadershipnet.
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