Sonya Ware on Wisdom At Work

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional.

John: Where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

Tony: To change your experience of life and work with every episode. So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go. Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. Today we have a special guest with us who’s very special to Tony and I, a mentor and someone that we look up to here in Houston in business and in the coaching space. She owns a consulting firm, Sonya Ware Executive Consulting. She partners with her clients really to achieve success across many fronts. She’s a recognized leadership and executive coach and passionate about sharing tools and wisdom that help support her clients’ intentional actions. And her experiences as an executive leader and bias toward action throughout her career really help her clients win across all fronts. And she’s a proud mother of two. We welcome coach, strategist, and conversationalist, Sonia Ware. Sonia, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Sonya: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Tony: So good to have you, Sonia.

Sonya: Thanks, Sonia.

Tony: Of course, of course. Now, Wisdom at Work is such an interesting category, and I love the title of this episode that you brought to us. To kick that off for our listeners, what does Wisdom at Work mean to you, Sonya, personally?

Sonya: making the best decision. And that decision is beyond work, but it involves work. So how do I make the best choices in the work I choose and how I work? How am I smarter about how I work?

Tony: And really the ability to make those decisions. And I think that there’s been a minor thread through some of our episodes about like that space, that difference between like reaction and choice, like even being in that space to make the decision itself.

Sonya: Right. No, I love that choice and response versus reaction. Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. How about you, Tony? What’s wisdom? What does wisdom mean to you?

John: Wow, I think wisdom first starts internally. I think you, especially when you’re bringing it to work, you have to do some wisdom work outside of work to bring it into work, you know. And so I was thinking about this topic and I was going to actually pitch it back to Sonya and ask you for our listeners and professionals out there who are wanting to bring their wisdom to work. What are some of the, I guess, tools that they can use to prepare to bring that wisdom to work? And how do you fact check that you’re being wise when you bring your lens? Because everybody has their own definition of what wisdom is, right?

Sonya: No, I think that’s fair. And Tony, I love the way you said there’s work you do outside of work, because it’s bigger than work. It’s your whole life, right? How am I wiser? I remember hearing this way early in my life. It said that age is a high price to pay for maturity. He’s got a high price to pay for maturity, right? And so if I take it to work, you know, some people will say, there’s wisdom all around you from the janitor to the CEO, right? To the guy that’s been there 25 years that doesn’t move up. So everybody’s like, oh, he never moved up. He knows some things, right? Even in not moving up, he knows some things. And then from a personal perspective, so like using those mentors, having that personal board of advisors, having someone help you read the tea leaves. Everybody’s not good at that. I wasn’t good at it. I had a friend at work who was really good. He knew what every email meant, the underlying message. But I knew the relationship side. I could tell you what people were feeling. So we traded off in that way. I don’t want to be wise in my approach to work, recognizing that this is a secondary expression of really what I’m supposed to be doing in life. It’s not my primary place, right? It’s just a channel for me to express. And so I want to be wise with my energy management and my time, how I show up, my decisions, all of it. Like putting work in its proper place, if that makes sense. Not to your personal detriment.

Tony: Awesome. And there’s one thing that, uh, was brought up in a prior episode that I think was, is really pertinent right now with what you said, but there’s wisdom everywhere. And another one of our guests mentioned that the wisdom lies in, in knowing and understanding how much that you don’t know. It’s like understanding the true breadth of our ignorance is wisdom itself. And I think that applies really well to the fact that there’s wisdom everywhere and being open to all that and not siloing yourself. And I love what you mentioned about the board of directors as well. How did you set up your personal board of directors?

Sonya: I started doing work around helping people set up that personal board. The first thing they will ask is, I don’t want to tell someone at work all my private things. That’s why you have a board. There are mentors professionally. You may have a mentor for your life. What I thought was so creative, one person had a mentor. that was always 10 years older than her, so she would know how to best spend the 10 years. So she’s in her 30s. Her mentor was in the 40s, right? What do I need to be thinking about in my 30s? Because the 40-year-old knows, right? And then you set up someone who really can help you in your work. You set up someone who really knows you well, and they can listen to your heart. They know what’s important to you all around the board. You set up someone who aspires to where you want to go. But it’s this collective that really helps my whole life and my work And I have those spaces where I can release the concerns in those respective areas and also take in the wisdom from those people.

John: Yeah, you know, I find it so helpful to have mentors in your life. I’ve been fortunate to have several mentors at different stages of my life that have really helped me align and helped me see truths, too. Because sometimes you’ll have these preconceived notions of, oh, this is what success looks like from your peers. And then you meet a mentor, or you meet someone who’s 10, 20 years older than you, and they have a totally different perspective and lens. that really helps you say, no, let me keep walking down the path I’m walking down, because I’m doing something right, even if it’s in a gray area, it seems like. But yeah, I love that so much, Sanyu. What’s some of the things about, I see we talked, we have a few topics that we’ve kind of prepared, and I see embrace your moat is one of the topics. And I wanted to jump into that, because we talked a little bit before we started recording, And I want you to define that for our audience and then kind of go into some of the details because I love the idea, but let’s break it down for the listeners.

Sonya: Yeah, I love that. And I guess that moat, the moat is the odd man out. But so how do you embrace a moat? First, what is a moat, right? So I coined that, or Warren Buffett coined the term, and I love it because he puts a moat around his financial investments. And to ensure that he has competitive advantage, he’ll get the return on investment he expects. It actually sets him apart when he makes his investments. And I think we can listen to him. A moat will work. especially in that respect. But interestingly enough, there was an interview some years ago with rapper Jay-Z, and rapper sounds so small for who Jay-Z is now, but Jay-Z and Warren Buffett. And the person interviewing them was C. Forbes. So, I mean, this is a really nice collective. And they started applying this mode terminology to your life, right? So what is it in your life that has set you up for success? It is your passion. It aligns with your purpose. It’s the thing you bring to every space. And the examples they gave, Jay-Z said music actually changed the trajectory of his life. And not only that, it saved his life. So he had a friend that he with all the time, I was about to say in the streets, that he ran with all the time. But on this particular day, he followed music and not his friends. That was my passion. So he was in the studio doing his thing and his friend actually ended up getting into some trouble and then sent away for 17 years incarcerated. And he says, at that moment, I knew that music saved my life and it would change my life. That’s a part of his moat. Nobody can take that away. He’s a master in that space. Warren Buffett, likewise, Anglo-Saxon white guy. He was the boy in his family, which means he was the one who was going to be primed to go to college and get the education, unlike his sisters. Your life sometimes sets you up. for a particular position. They said I’ve always loved numbers. If I weren’t a billionaire, I’d be a really happy CPA because I love numbers. I’m working with clients and they’re like, I want this other job. I’m like, what’s your moat? We have this whole conversation. There’s a whole process we work through. But it is your competitive advantage. It is what keeps the enemy out. It is your game changer. And embracing it because it’s not a one and done. I’m going to do this cute little exercise and now I know. It’s a process as you learn, evolve, and understand who you are and what you bring and some of those key pieces. And when you really do the work on it, you can narrow it down to what has exactly been placed in your hand that is the gift for you. right? And I can tell you, for me, it’s words. I do anything with words, right? And so understanding that, it really helps. And Tony, you mentioned the supportive thing. It’s your competitive advantage. And once you understand that, and you work in that space, and that’s the contribution you bring, it just snowballs. It just snowballs because it opens up all of these other opportunities. Yeah, it just snowballs. I’ll leave it there.

Tony: And the metaphor, right, of kind of the the moat going around the castle, the drawbridge that you can pull up, but it’s essentially like what we’re saying is that essential self is the castle, right? And on the other side of the moat is kind of all the things that can distract you that we can do, that we can But it’s playing out in the battlefield. It’s playing out in the battlefield outside of our central core strength. And what the moat is, is that core strength that’s kind of around ourselves.

Sonya: Does that describe it clearly? It describes it, but it also, a lot of times people will have this thing about work is who they think they need to be to move up. And so I’m doing what I think I should do. I’m putting on the monkey suit I see everybody else put on, and everything you need, you already have. You just need to understand what that is, because it is your competitive advantage, right? Now, is it perfecto? Absolutely not, because it’s a two-sided coin. One is that moat, that strength, that all the goodness. The other side is the stretch. So we want some stretch and challenge. That’s the stuff that makes your heartbeat a little faster. But if I got one foot firmly planted in my moat, I can handle the stretch. Because when I’m done with that assignment, it just adds on to my moat. And then I look for the next stretch opportunity. But if I look outside of myself for that next opportunity, I may or may not line it up with the thing that gives me the footing, the competitive advantage, the grounding, my moat.

Tony: That balance from stepping out into a little bit of constructive tension and still being firmly connected to your core strengths, values, the authentic piece that you really bring to your work and what you contribute.

Sonya: And John, you make me think, if I said it a different way, because everybody might not relate to the moat, it’s the person who knows who they are, the good, the bad. I know who I am. I can be vulnerable. I can laugh at myself. I can stand in my strength. I know I don’t know everything, but I’m good. I know who I am.

John: You know, when you talk about knowing who you are, it makes me think of the Clifton strengths, right? The 34 themes that kind of give you those details of who you are. And for those listeners, I mean, I know we’re talking about put some information in the show notes, but Gallup has done a great job of kind of organizing These different talent themes that will kind of speak to who you are. When you talk about the moat and John brought up the castle and you know that whole metaphor, I think about those strengths because when you kind of have aligned who you are, you can use those as almost characteristics or attributes or even, I don’t want these words, weapons, but but in a battlefield it would be a weapon to utilize for your competitive advantage. So you can really take advantage and really expand your kingdom or your castle or whatever you want to call that. But I just wanted to bring that up because I thought that it’s so important to know who you are and use tools and assessments to even align that even further. Because you know, it’s taboo sometimes to take those IQ tests or EQ tests or any of those kind of strength assessments. I personally love them. They’ve helped me so much with just shrinking my focus and knowing exactly who I am even more.

Sonya: Yeah, no, I love that. I love that talk for tools. There is a link on my website that walks you through some of the basics, the values, the strengths. It’s based on Gallup, the passion and interest, the learned skills and abilities and the purpose. And it helps you start that thinking. And also, John, I’ll send you a link for Capfinity. There’s a complimentary strengths, right? So you start to understand, like, who am I? What’s my interest? What am I drawn to? And put those pieces together. So Tony, I agree, tools are powerful in helping figure that out.

Tony: Capfinity. Interesting. And when we’re talking about strengths, I want to come back to coaching a little bit. I find that throughout a coaching engagement, it’s the same thing. We can choose what we want to focus on, right? And it’s, do we want to focus on things that are, you know, not going as well, like things that maybe that we’re, you know, we’re a little bit deficient in, in some ways, or do we want to focus on building, building a life around our clients strengths? And like, that’s one thing that, you know, I find myself speaking to a lot is like something that, Oh, that sounds like a strength of yours, right? Where, where else, you know, where else have you, where else have you employed that in your life or where else could you, employ that in your life and kind of like building on that to expand. So I think it goes really well with what you said, Tony, about like utilizing those strengths in your toolkit. I mean, your, your armory to expand your empire, but it’s really, but it’s really in your, your awareness, your growth and the things that, you know, the things that you’re starting to explore, but it’s how do you leverage those strengths and still understand, be aware of where we’re deficient, right? But how else have you seen that come up in coaching for you, Sonia?

Sonya: I think you’re right. When you were talking about, you guys were talking about your armor. I have a client now, she’s former military, very structured, detail-oriented, and every other word is, oh, I don’t come without ammunition. Like she always says that. I’m like, yeah, but we’re going to get you some new ammunition. We’re going to add to your, because she’s really working on those emotional intelligence and working with other skills, right? So we’re giving them some new ammunition. But yeah, I do see that come up. And even though I referenced the tools and Tony, I referenced the tools, they’re a puzzle piece because you’re right. Other people can see strengths in you, like your coach can identify those and figure out how to leverage those, right? Again, everything we need we already have, but we need to bring it to the surface and understand. And you’ll, is it John Cabot? He wrote one of his early books. I just love the title. He says, wherever you go, there you are. So what we learn doesn’t just help us at work. It helps us in all of our life. And as coaches, we look for where is this strength or confidence? That’s a big thing you hear, imposter syndrome confidence. I just don’t have confidence right now. So where in your life are you seeing confidence? Oh, well, you know what? I’m coaching my son’s team. And then we’ve explored, then why is it subdued in this other area? It’s not that it doesn’t exist, but something has subdued it, and we just explore it, because again, they run through our lives.

Tony: Mm-hmm, wow. I think a lot of what we’re coming to here is on our focused attention, right? It’s do we want to focus on our strengths? How do we bring these things to the surface? And I think that transitions really nicely into our next topic around thinking and striving for excellence. And like, where do we want to put our focus, right? When it comes to what we’re striving for in the workplace and in our lives.

Sonya: Yeah, and where we put our focus, there’s some context to that, John. You know, one of the big lessons that leaders learn early on is that I don’t have to have all the answers. If you look at our school system, it says when you know all the answers, you get the best grades, right? So it’s like, it’s contrast counterintuitive. So you do your performance review at work, and what do they focus on? Your weaknesses. Right? But nobody looks at strengths. I mean, that’s just not the talent play generally in corporate. I know there’s some that might. So then you’ve got to recognize that I may be in a battlefield that is going to be looking for my weakness, but I’m going to stay with my strength. Because by playing my strength, I’m going to always win. Like, it’s the easiest path. I can’t ignore my weaknesses. I think that’s, like you say, I can put my attention to the strengths. But if what I want to do with weakness, I’m not trying to make it a strength, I just want to be good enough at it that it doesn’t render me ineffective. Now, if it’s rendered me ineffective, talk about it in my performance reviews, I need to know it. Otherwise, when we think about, we bring about, I want to focus on my strengths. Like, here’s the value I can add. And then we can cater the rest. Pardon me.

Tony: I just want to re-presence one thing that you just said there that I thought was really profound, but really quick, was we think about, we bring about. Can you go a little bit deeper into that?

Sonya: I like the way Mahatma Gandhi says it, a man is but a product of his thoughts. When people talk about, we actually create the world we live in, and it’s an outcome of how we think about things. write our thoughts about things. And usually we’ll go one route, either we’ve been conditioned to see the worst in things or conditioned in other ways. True example, I have a colleague who used to work with me at Shell, and he said, since I was knee high to a canary, whenever we complained about something, his mom would say, okay, so what’s good about it? And they’d have to sit there and think what’s good about it. I got a flat tire. Okay, I have three that aren’t on flat. Right? That’s what you feel about the flat time. He said, but what it did, it trained my mind and I’m always looking for what’s good about a person, what’s good about the situation, what’s right about it. And that’s a whole different way to think about it. So when we talk about that self-awareness and knowing what’s in your mode, you need to know how you’re shaped. So I was shaped with a lot of play it safe, see what’s wrong with it. And what I’ve noticed is this, I go straight to the negative. And I’ve actually been retraining myself to say, I really hated that girl’s shirt, but let me start with what I loved about it, right? So we have to understand we can be our own worst enemy with our thinking and whether we believe we can create a reality or not, we already created one. with how we think about things, what we focus on. Yeah, so I don’t know if that gave you the expounding you wanted or what comes up. What you think about, you bring about.

John: You are what you attract. You know, that’s so important for high performers because high performers are some of the people who are usually sometimes isolated in their decision-making sometimes. They have to make very tough decisions and that’s why it’s so good for high performers to partner with coaches so that you can even have a mirror to talk about those thoughts, to talk about those things that are that you’re attracted in your life or that you want to attract. So I love how you brought Mahatma Gandhi and the byproduct of your thoughts or who you become. And it’s just so perfect and spot on for this topic. And I think that when we talked about it earlier, when it comes to wisdom and how you use other things to bring wisdom to work, your thoughts are really the starting place. Because your thoughts actually impact your workplace too. If you bring negative thoughts to work, then it’s going to become a ripple effect to your colleagues and ultimately to the product and output that you’re looking to do as work as well.

Sonya: It becomes sort of a mood, right? It’s kind of with you, like a backdrop.

Tony: I think it’s also really pertinent to your relationships too. It’s so easy to spot what someone’s doing wrong. What are all these little things that my partner does that are wrong? And then shifting that same thing to like, you know what, they do a lot of right things too. It’s like, where do you want to put your spotlight? What do you want to find in people?

Sonya: Yeah. And what’s going to bring me the most energy and joy? Because it’s heavy to even think of the negative thing. When you think of a positive, it just holds your whole body. It’s different than that. It’s different than that. Tony, you and John both talked about coaches and what I love about that we’re always learning. I think any leader, anybody who just even leading themselves, learning is leadership. We’re always learning and evolving. And last fall, I did this three brains coach training, right? Certification. It was really interesting because the brain is just not in your head, right? It’s like throughout the body. And I was working with a client who’s always in her head brain. You know, head brain was always answering all the questions. And we had this epiphany around your heart has some things to say, right? Sometimes it’s subdued so much it doesn’t get to speak. Long story short, she wanted this particular job. She goes in with the CEO and she’s ready to talk from her head about that job she wants. And then he asked her the question, like, well, what do you want? And she said, Sonya, my heart just started talking and I was having an out-of-body experience because her heart said, I want to be a CEO. She said, I don’t even know where that came from, but it was in my heart. But if we hadn’t tapped into understanding what’s in all those places, she wouldn’t have known. I mean, the great thing is, this is an African-American woman. Her CEO is a white guy. And he just latched on to that. And so he started, in her day job, he started training her on the things he does as a CEO. He’ll send her all the financials, look through those. Next time we meet, we’re going to talk to him. It’s like, she didn’t expect to say that. She didn’t expect his response to that. But that was true for her. And if she’d never known that she might have some other ways to look at the same thing, by knowing what’s in her heart, what’s in her gut, she doesn’t believe she would have

Tony: Wow. Wow. And when it comes to letting your heart speak, like tapping into that other mind, what are some things that our listeners could employ right away to start tapping into these other parts of themselves and maybe get out of their head a little bit?

Sonya: Yeah. And presuming they’re in their head, right? So first noticing where you spin. So you’ve got three, you know, I’m just gonna go head, heart, gut. And if you listen to a person’s language, because words describe our internal worldview, how we see things. You know, people say like, I need to think about that more, right? I already know where they are. They gotta think about it. If they say, I don’t know how I feel about that, all right, they’re living all in the heart, right? And there are others who are just straight shoes, not interested, right? That’s good, because I’m going to do what’s best for me, no matter what happens. But then it’s where am I the preponderance of the time? Am I balancing those or I’m always in my head? So if I know I’m always in my head, then how do I get in touch with my heart? And John, I’ll tell you the work you do around breathing and meditation and just taking a few moments to get really quiet. We can get clarity there. We can check in with our heart. How do you weigh into this space? What am I feeling in my gut? Because it’s there. taking a moment to really get in touch with that piece. And actually the gut informs the head, right? So sometimes you want to check in and make sure the gut isn’t being really selfish for you and driving the head somewhere it doesn’t need to go. And the heart’s like, wait a minute. I want to weigh in here, right? So, yeah. But I think breathing, getting quiet. I heard one time, if you’re not clear and something has you confused about what to do, you just need to get quiet. Even if it’s five minutes, get quiet. You don’t need outside counsel all the time. Get quiet.

John: Wow. I love that the gut, the heart and the head and how they work together. Wow. Do you find clients leaning more one way or the other? Just curious.

Sonya: Most of the corporate folks are in their head. We’ve been taught to think, know the answers, get it right. If I take a moment, the heart is also about us. I take a moment to think about us. I got a good team. I got people I can invite in and brainstorm with. I don’t have to make all the decisions, right? And people actually support what they help to create. So I see a lot of head leaning. And the head leaning is, really challenging them, do you always have to be right? Do you lose the relationship because you have to be right? And so for the heart, do you have to love everybody? Is there a place you could set better boundaries? so that this love isn’t misused, right? So, Rene Brown says, I can be nice or I can be kind, but kind has boundaries and expectations. It has consideration for what I need. And the gut is just basically survival mode. I’m looking out for Tony. So, I’m going to keep you safe.

John: Wow. You just coached a lot of people right now. I just want you to know that.

Tony: Yeah.

Sonya: Okay. Yeah.

Tony: can be nice or I can be kind.

John: Right?

Tony: Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Sonya: Yeah, be kind.

John: I need to write that down.

Sonya: You need a kind bar right now. You need a kind bar. Don’t be nice.

John: Like that Snickers commercial? Yeah.

Sonya: Oh, I like that. That’s exactly right, Tony. You need a kind bar. You’re being too nice.

Tony: Wow. And a lot of the, you know, where we were going with getting quiet there and getting quiet to hear and listen to your heart, your gut, and I get some clarity between who’s doing the talking, who’s guiding me. And, you know, that really comes naturally flows into being present and, you know, being present when it comes to wisdom at work. It sounds like those are two sides of the same coin, but when that comes up, how do you want to tie those two together, Sonia?

Sonya: Well, I think that being aware of the thought, we talked about the excellence piece, and that comes up because the way we see things, the way the context sometimes, at least for excellence, like a clear head, a clear mind that trumps all of that. Come show up, do your work, be excellent. But to be able to do that, it’s not about doing everything excellent. It’s about being the best that you can be. And I love the be and being because we are always about doing. What boxes do I need to check? What do I need to do? Who am I being? How am I showing up? How do I get quiet enough so that I can be present to the moment? And, you know, I mentioned a hot topic of self-confidence. These are like the ones everybody’s like, imposter syndrome. The other one is, I just need more executive presence. I’m like, well, what is that even to you? Like, what is executive presence, right? And they’re like, I don’t know, but I know it when you have it. And you know what it is? It’s really the person who shows up And they’re not there just for their agenda items. They’re there to make the team move forward, right? But you’ve got to be present to do that. You can’t even be in your own thoughts about what you need. You think about the collective. What’s the goal and objective? And so you may even be more coach-like or facilitator-like in the questions you ask. Like, well, what is it we’re trying to achieve? Is this going to get us to that place? And how do you be present, no matter what level in the organization it is, in that way? to show up ready to support, ready to help. And most times folks will say, well, I just get really nervous and I can’t have presence at the top of the house. But you can ask the right questions. You can still be engaged in the process. But a lot of that means you’ve had the quiet time. You know who you are. You’re focused on really having an impact here in a good way. you’re being. I’m in this moment. If I think about my leadership, this one time, and there’s probably more than one, but this one time where I would call, I screwed up something really badly in terms of saying something that impacted another leader on my team. And when I look back, and I created a space where people could tell me, and one of my leaders came and told me right away, I don’t know what you were thinking. But when you said that, that was like wrong, because it made this person gonna know. And I did not see it. And when I reflected on how I could let that slip and not know the impact it was gonna have, because in that moment, I was thinking about myself. think about myself. How I feel. Who makes you feel great that you’re better off? Didn’t make them feel great. And I said, you know, when we’re having an outward focus, we’re most inclusive, but we can’t get there without a strong inward focus, which goes back to the being. Being okay.

Tony: Wow. I think that goes really nicely into, and something that comes up for me when we talk about getting quiet and showing up for others is getting into discovering your passion, like through following your curiosities and like, and discovering your purpose. And it’s like to see that, it takes a lot of looking at yourself. And one of the topics from Man’s Search for Meaning comes up for me here. And in that book, they talk about self-actualization versus self-transcendence. And that we’ve actually kind of got it all wrong when it comes to the hierarchy of needs. And we get to the top and it’s self-actualizing, like I’m finding what I need to do, my purpose, why I’m here, like those higher order type thinking questions. Really, when you get to the top there and you truly find your purpose and you move, it’s actually moving outside of yourself. So in that book, they mentioned that it’s not self-actualization, that you find your purpose and meaning when you transcend yourself and you start living, being for others, for some cause, for those around you. And like that kind of brings up that purpose there. So I think you, I think you naturally said that, right. And like you notice, like I was B, I was thinking about myself and I wasn’t being for my team. Right. And that trend, that transition is self transcendence.

John: Hmm.

Tony: And I believe that’s where true leadership lies.

John: Yeah. Yeah. I always relate leadership and this life in general to sports all the time, especially on this podcast. And I think about the best athletes and the best champions and whomever you want to consider besides, of course, maybe boxing. That’s a team sport, too, actually, because you have a team that helps you train. But some of the best winners are folks that are high performers, but they’re also great teammates in a way as well. Even if it’s knowing the roles that people should have and the roles that people should play, and then utilizing those folks to uplift, you know, to help the team accomplish that goal that they want to accomplish. I heard a great quote from Jay Shetty and he said that everybody can’t be everything, but we can all be exactly who we are. And when it comes to being present and it comes to knowing yourself and striving for excellence, when you really know who you are and you max out who you are, then you are the perfect candidate for whatever life has ready for you. It may not be the C-suite. It may be a position that’s perfectly aligned to help the entire organization strive and survive. And so, I just wanted to say that for the listeners out there who are maybe trying to figure out where I fit or where I’m supposed to go. And I love what John said about the transcendent process because your role may be to help uplift someone else who may be designed to lead. And that’s okay. That is okay. Yeah.

Sonya: I heard something recently, you may know Tony better around sports, where how Magic Johnson got his name, right? Like that nickname. And he’s really good at what he does. And by the end of the night, you know, he’s getting all the props, right? Because he hit all the baskets. And what he recognizes, teammates weren’t as happy or celebratory. So he changed his focus to, not that he downed his game, but he started to notice what was special about his teammates. and help them work to their strengths. And it became magical, right? Because now I’ve got a whole team of people who can leave that night feeling like they’ve made a contribution. It wasn’t just all about Irving, right? It became Magic Johnson, right? Seeing the strengths in others and helping them as well.

John: Yeah. Somebody’s got to get the rebounds. Somebody’s got to play defense and that’s okay.

Sonya: Right, right.

John: And it’s the same in the workplace. And it’s the same in the workplace. And when we embrace our roles and we lean in to who we are and what makes us who we are and our competitive advantages, I mean, that makes us all winners, right?

Sonya: Yeah. And we’ll bet on excellence. I want you on my team if you’re striving for excellence all the time.

Tony: That’s wisdom.

Sonya: Wow.

Tony: And well, I want to thank you so much, Zonya, for, you know, for showing up here for this wonderful conversation. What else do you want to leave with our listeners and how can they reach you or work with you or interact with you?

Sonya: I’ll say that first. Sonyaware.com, and that’ll show you what our business offers. And then I use LinkedIn a lot. I’ve got to grow up and do some of the others, but LinkedIn, my website, and it’ll tell you how to contact me. But I would love to close with a sports analogy, since Sony said that. I heard this one time, I think it was Deion Sanders, and he said, life is like a sports game, the only difference is you don’t know how much time’s on the clock, right? So in a sports game, you know, we’re in third quarter, we’ve got so much more time with our plays going to be, but life doesn’t have that clock, you know, when it’s going to stop, when the game ends. So every day you’ve got to go out playing your best, being your best, right? And in my mind, that’s moving in excellence, playing to your strengths and being present to your life, being present in your work.

Tony: Wow, that’s a great way, a great way to close us out. Thank you again so much for being here. And listeners, thank you so much for being a part of this journey and tuning into The Present Professional. You can connect with us anywhere that you get your podcasts and reach out for more at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com. We’re looking forward to you continuing with us on this journey, bringing more topics to you around the intersection of personal and professional development. Again, thank you for listening. Take care, my friends.