STORYTIME. I want to bring a slightly different element to the blog. By now you should know how much I believe that YOUR STORY IS YOUR BRAND. My story is jam packed with Family, Fear, Success disguised as Failure, Mentors, Corporate America Experiences, and Entrepreneur Experiences, and Music. I’ll use #storytime as a chance to share some of my life experiences. Theses memories are usually sparked by music, so I’ll share the songs that I was listening to as well. Hopefully it’ll let you get know a little more about me in the process. If not, you’ll get a good story out of it:
Personally, I’m a people person. I have this desire to bring everyone with me to experience the things I’ve experienced. The truth is everyone can’t go where you are going, because everyone hasn’t experience what you’ve experienced.
It took me a long time to understand this. I’m naturally a connector of people, a helper, and a team player. But, there’s no cheating the process in the journey of entrepreneurship.
I remember working in Corporate America as a Manager of a multi-location branch. My branch manager was hospitalized 1 week of me taking on my managerial position and I immediately assumed all responsibility of both branches. This included the sales team, that weren’t all that good at sales, but they showed up to work…lol. After a while of corralling the team and getting everyone on board with the shift in management, I started to see my team digress from all the training and work put in with them. They totally deviated from the plan. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t care about their positions like I did when I was them. Their work ethic was different, they didn’t pay attention to details, it was almost like they didn’t take their job seriously.
One day, my frustration must’ve showed on my face, and one of my employees asked to take a walk with me. He was a retired vet and community manager who worked part time just to get out of the house for a few. I told him how I felt and how frustrated I was because they didn’t approach their career the way I did. He said
“You can’t expect people to be you. You’re unique and that’s why you are in the position you’re in. They’ll never be you! They haven’t been through the things you have to make you who you are today. All you can do is guide them…if they want to be guided.”
In that walk I realized that I had created a expectation of what I thought they should’ve been instead of meeting them where they were. His words put my frustration to ease, and I’ve approached every leadership opportunity with that discussion in mind.
In your walk you’ll realize this too. In order to become what you want to be you have to go through everything it takes to become that person. The proverbial good, bad, and the ugly. There will be people that take the journey with you and those that you thought would be on board that fall off. That’s ok. Be honest, be fair, put your best foot forward and believe in yourself.
“The journey to your vision is for yours, and yours alone.”
William Featherstone III
