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July 18, 2023 16 mins
Rhonda is recognized by both leadership development traditionalists and disruptors as an icon of a new era in evolved leadership and executive prowess. Her empathy, uniquely authentic voice, and optimistic yet pragmatic transformational media are potent, genuinely effective, and easily accessed through a spectrum of in-person, streaming, and digital media.



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Episode Transcript

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(00:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theLadies Note. But it's not the Ladies
Tell podcast. You see, thisis what happens when you have four podcasts.
And by the way, announcement here, we are starting a new show.
I don't feel like that's a realannouncement because we always start a new
show. I mean, when youhave four shows and then you start other
people's shows and there's your turn,I feel like you're just gonna, you
know what you're gonna do, starta new show. But this show's different

(00:26):
though, y'all. It's a realitypodcast. I'm kind of excited. I'm
very excited. I shouldn't even evenbe talking about it because I haven't really
finished these establishing everything and putting everythingin order. So whatever, Oh,
I will walk on. I rememberto introduce myself. High back to me.
But I am fucking it today.I'm in semi professional. I mean,

(00:48):
you can even see us like yousee three stripes. This is pretty
darn good. And my hair isdone. I feel like I'm doing a
great job right now. Anyway,did you know, let me see it.
He'll be like, I want tolook at this chick's hair and her
three striped dress. This is notwhat you came for the show four.
But I am Before I start withwhat you came to the show for,
I'm gonna go ahead and tell youabout what I want to tell you about

(01:10):
because I am a narcissist therefo.I'm going to tell you about me because
it's important, all right. Oh, I wrote books. I actually I
wrote them with the help of aJ that's normally here either on my right
or my left side. But she'snot here, so no sides today for
the J. She's here in spirit. I'm sure she is, but anyway
they are. And I thought theforce was bad, and I thought being
grown up was easy, And ifonly I were me at memoir in verse

(01:34):
four, Coffee, Widows Web,and Widows Deck. That is six six
books. And everyone knows we haveseventeen books. And you know what time
it is. You know what timeit is. It is signed language time.
So we have six audio books.Which was stupid of me to start
with sign linguage time and then dolistening. But you can get with those

(01:56):
six audiobooks wherever audiobooks are sold.And we since I have seventeen books,
I mean there are six books,and then you add eleven more books,
and that gives you the grand totalof seveneen books, y'all. And you
can see those books at www dotAnd I thought, ladies dot com.
Do you recognize that sign language?Stop, because it would have to be
www dot and then I have tospell it out. No, no one's

(02:16):
doing all that finger spelling. ButI'm gonna say it again. So you
go to the website like a carsalesman. So it's www dot n I
thought lady dot com. Yeah,you want to buy a book or a
superru or a car of some sortright now, because I did it like

(02:37):
a car salesman. But you're nothere to hear about me. You're here
to hear about I. Wonderful guest. Wonderful guests. Would you'd like to
introduce yourselves? Awesome? Thank youso much. I'm so thrilled to be
here and really excited to My nameis Ronda, wife Williams. I am
the CEO and Chief Vision Officer upabove the Grand Leadership where we do all
things leadership, executive coaching, workshops, speaking every thing leadership, and I

(03:00):
am based just outside of Dallas,Texas. I have three sons, three
wonderful adult full grown sons. Thebest time of life ever. And I'm
also an author and many many otherthings. So that's just a little bit
about me. Oh kill me aCEO of above the ground grind. Above

(03:23):
the ground that means otherwise you'd beworking with it undead. That's a whole
newsprison. I would have so manyquestions if you worked with the undead above
the grind. Oh, I forgotthe rest. Now I made a joke
and myself, how do you getout of the grind? You know what

(03:45):
you get out of the grind bygetting into your mind? Okay, I
feel like that was definitely practiced,but I have to ask how that happens.
So what are we getting into ourminds for? Because if I get
into my mind and I go wayback, I get into the dark place
and then I just don't want tocome out anyway, scared myself in there.
So I'm assuming that is not howwe get above the grind. It

(04:06):
is not how we get above thegrind. So the reason I say get
into your mind is because my foundationis emotional intelligence, which starts with the
foundation of self awareness. And howdo you learn about yourself? You really
take time to become introspective, tobe reflective, to get into you.
What's powering you? What are yourthoughts, what are your beliefs? You

(04:28):
know, how do you react,your respond your emotions. So when I
say get into your mind, thatis what I mean. And just to
let you know, I've never inmy life used that phrase before. It
just came off the top. Oh, come on, you are a pr
dream that's just great. Okay.If I say no, I'm joking.

(04:50):
It's like, let's do association.Let's get some slogans down today. Oh,
get above the grind, get intoy'alls. So y'all know what that
means. Now, I'm sorry,I'm just still in shock. I was
like I thought I was good.I concede and that's hard for a narcissist
to do. But you also haveyou have a podcast as well, right,

(05:12):
or a show I do I do. I'm the host of the Coffee
with Around this show. Ooh whattype of coffee? Oh that was not
the question I need just to ask, but I need to know the answer.
Still. Yeah, So I whenI travel around the world, I
pick up coffee. My latest destinationI visited was Columbia. So for a
while I was drinking Colombian coffee,but I picked up coffee from wherever,

(05:34):
dark strong coffee and the coffee withround. The show is that leadership show
where it's almost like you're a coffeetable. We all get around the table.
I have two co hosts, onespecial guest, and we get around
the table and we have a conversationabout whatever the topic of the day is.
So that's about the show. Wehave a lot of audience interaction and

(05:56):
engagement. It's fun, it's upbeat. It's an hour, but our gooes
by like this because it's a lotof fun. Wow, you have a
lot of audience interaction. I'm jealousy. I can't. I don't think I
could have audience interaction. People willbe on the side saying things and I'll
be like, mm no, Ihave to divert down this road. It's
kind of like, uh. Atthe beginning, we tell everyone, if

(06:18):
you talk about liquor or travel,we're probably gonna go right down that road.
We're heading straight down that road cocktailsand travel. We're gone. And
you said Columbia, and here Iam going down the rabbit hole road.
What did you talking about Columbia?What kind of food was there? What
was the weather like and what didyou wear? See? Oh my goodness,

(06:42):
rabbit hole, So Columbia was awesome. I love the weather in Colombia.
So I was in Bogata this lasttime, and the weather was just
lovely. It's sixties degrees. It'salways kind of cloudy a little bit,
but the weather is beautiful. It'sscored, just not cool at all.
And I stay in this location.I'm in bocatab where there's this awesome little

(07:06):
market that happens where it's a bunchof shopping, you know, handcrafted,
handmade, local artistry, really reallygreat. And then, um, what
I wore I think wasn't that specialbecause I was working so really mostly business
attire. But I did find thesereally really cool gold sneakers that I bought

(07:28):
back and they were so comfortable thatI went back and bought a second pair
before I left. So you haveworkshops as well, I went down the
rabbit hole, copped out and tooka quick you turn like that too,
professional, wom Sorry, you haveworkshops as well? I do about those?

(07:49):
Yeah, sure, So the workshopsthat I hold, as I mentioned
earlier, all things leadership, right, So leadership is critical because they are
the lifeblood of any organism. Sohow do you keep your leaders engaged productive,
making sure that they have what theyneed for their team, that they
continue to inspire and motivate. Youinvest in your leaders, You give them

(08:13):
new tools, new resources. Youstimulate their thinking, show them different ways
of problem solving and doing things.So I do leaderships. I do at
all day leaderships workshops. I doemotional intelligence workshops for leaders. I do
workshops when communication executive presence as well? Right, how do you show up

(08:35):
in that space so that you areconsidered the executive that you want to be
and that you expect to be.Oh, I love how you explained executive
presence. I'm also a little disappointedbecause that was going to be my next
question. What was executive presence?But then you define it? So never
mind? Oh okay, So Ihave to go to next question, part

(09:00):
be what is emotional intelligence? Yeah? So one of my very very favorite
topics because when I was growing upas a leader, I didn't know anything
about emotional intelligence. But now Iknow it's one of the most critical things
that any leader can pay attention to. So simply put, emotional intelligence is

(09:20):
the ability to recognize and understand youremotions. It's the ability to recognize and
understand emotions and others. And thenthere's a second part, and this is
critical, it's the ability to usethat information to get better results and have
better relationships, get better outcomes.So it's not just the recognizing, right,

(09:41):
that's one thing, but can youuse that information to your advantage in
almost any given situation. That isnice because you know, this is the
age of information. You know,how before they always say the golden rules,
whoever has the gold makes the rule. I feel like whoever has the
information gets the gold, then theyget to make the rule. It's that
process nowadays. Yes, yes,so yes, I can see how having

(10:05):
information, along with our emotional acuity, we make great decisions. Love this.
I feel like I should go toone of your workshops, but I've
got coming out, so if youwant to come, I'll be in Austin
doing a full day workshop coming uphere in August for a group of leaders
there. Now, what can peopleexpect to leave with this? I have

(10:30):
a whole nother question after this?So what can people expect to lead with?
Like when they go to your workshop, when they leave my workshops,
I want leaders to leave with informationand tools and resources they can use,
not just information. People say informationis power. Information is not power.
Information is potential power. It's notpower until you use it right. And

(10:54):
so I want I put information ina way that leaders can walk out and
say, great, So what doI do with this tomorrow when I have
an angry employee in front of meor something is really upsetting in the workplace?
What do I do that? Right? So leaders can expect to leave
with practical application and tools to dotheir jobs better. Okay, Now the

(11:18):
question after that again is another hole. What challenges did you face getting this
together? And how did you start? Yeah? I started by trying to
figure out my own emotional intelligence whenI had this major catastrophe in my life.
I lost my job, I endedup getting divorced after being married twenty
five years. All of that sortof happened in a short period of time

(11:39):
and sort of flip my world upsidedown, and I had to pivot.
I had to reinvent myself. Ihad to figure out who I was and
how I was going to move forwardwithout being depressed or angry or frustrated.
How was I going to get pastthose hurdles? Still showing up as a

(12:00):
person that I could be proud of. And that's when I really began to
learn about emotional intelligence. Right,wow, Okay, I feel like this
is something to really I really wantto say. I'm trying to say it
nicely, but I'm not. Ican't. I can't say it diplomatically.
Y'all. This is the best becauseyou got divorce, learned emotional intelligence,

(12:22):
made a business out of it,and then you could turn to that person
and be like, your meanness mademe money. Ye see better when I
put absolutely no diplomatic spin on itwhatsoever. You know, when I started
this, I wrote my first book, and I didn't even know at the

(12:43):
time quite what I was doing.But I wrote my first book after my
divorce, and people were saying,how are you not angry? How are
you okay? Like I would bethis and that and and it dawned on
me that I'm doing something that peopledon't know how to do. So then
I had to figure out what Iwas doing. And I'm like, Okay,

(13:03):
what is this I'm doing because I'mnot quite sure what it is.
And that started me down this wholerabbit hole. Oh, a rabbit hole
that actually ended up well and intoprofessionalism, not a U turn back to
professional Yes, could you tell usa bit about the books that you have
written and where can we pick thoseup? Yeah? Absolutely. My books

(13:24):
are available on Amazon. Some ofthem aren't available or on our website that
you can visit at a as anApple teas in. Tom G is in
George Leadership dot com, so it'satg leadership dot com. But the books
are also available on Amazon. Myfirst book was after the divorce. So
my first book is called Are YouOut of Your Blank Mind? And it

(13:48):
is the woman's guy to successfully survivinginfidelity. Right. And that's when I
said, people were like, howare you not? And I was trying
to figure out, Oh, Igot to figure out what I'm doing so
I can help other people do ittoo. So my second book is The
Dream Life Roadmap, and it isten essential factors for creating your dream Life.

(14:09):
This is where I began to reallytry to help people apply information so
that it made a difference in theirlife. My third book is called The
uc our Advantage and it is asimple way to boost your emotional intelligence fast,

(14:30):
right. And then I also wrotea chapter and another book, another
co author book, and now Ihave a book coming out this summer that
will be called eighteen Habits of EmotionallyIntelligent Leaders. Okay, I'm looking forward
to the eighteen Habits of Emotionally IntelligentLeaders. You'll need to go check that

(14:52):
out. And where if someone iswatching this, tho, y'll you know
what I need to know? Ineed more Ronda Williams and above the grind
in my life. Where do theyfind that information on the internet? Yeah,
the easiest way is to go toour website. You can reach out,
you can contact me. I'm alsosuper active on LinkedIn and I'm coach
ronde Y Williams on LinkedIn. Butmy website again is atg Leadership dot com.

(15:15):
A it's an Apple teas in tomgs in George Leadership dot com and
you can find all sorts of goodieson the website, including and emotional intelligence
self paced. You can just payfor it, sign up and take it
all on your own and other informationtools and resources as well. Thank you
so much. I am looking forwardto going back to the website, not

(15:35):
just to contact you this time,but to basically look around. Because I
was looking around and looking around andI was like, no, I gotta
talk to this lady. It wascontacting hers. I'm gonna tell you the
conversation we had before this me andyou want to grow my own brand.
She did amazing. She makes youwant to get above that grimes past.
She makes you want to go Heavenwork with your brand. That's what she

(15:56):
makes you want to having word withthat brand. So I'm gonna go,
I've got this. I love thatand the branding in the background. Besides,
they above the get out the grindby by being in your mind.
We've got this. Yes, she'scome up with key slogans in this month
and the fine Okay, you canfind of everything that your ladies are doing

(16:18):
at www dot and I thought,ladies, when you go there, go
down to the middle of the pageand you can see the charities that we
probably accept, not accept it,we probably support. We're hoping that you
will support them too. That doesnot have to be money. You can
also give them time and sometimes theyneed a little bit of knowledge and you
know, a little bit of noinformation. We just talked about how information
is power and if you give itto them, they get you use it

(16:41):
and have a little bit more powerin this world. And let's admit it.
Nonprofits and charities need more power.Oh we thank you in advance for
that, and remember that wisdom isall around you if you're open to finding
it and accepting it. So peaceand love you guys from Wellinona and the
Missing Jay. Oh yeah, thanksfor listening.
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