1162: Overcome Adversity and Lead with Authenticity with Author and Sharp Executive Leadership CEO Carl H. Sharperson, Jr.

Robert Plank 0:04 Welcome back to the podcast. We're here with Mr. Carl H. Sharperson, Jr. , and he is the book of the the author of the book sharp leadership, overcome adversity to lead with authenticity. And Carl is a renowned leadership innovation strategist. He's a speaker and a coach, and he is celebrated for his ability to elevate leaders from mediocrity to their fullest potential in both professional and personal realms. So we are going to talk about some fun and amazing ideas about why he was inspired to write this books, some life accomplishments, some key strengths and gifts and so much more. So Mr. Carl, glad to be speaking with you.

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 0:43 Glad to be here, Robert, it's a pleasure. It's mine.

Robert Plank 0:46 All right, and it goes two ways, right, because it's you meet people from different walks of life, and they come from different backgrounds, and they've overcome all sorts of interesting struggles. And the good news is, you know, we're all on our own paths, but by reading someone else's book and finding it about their journey. We don't have to necessarily go through all the same pain that they did, right? We can learn from their wisdom without always having to figure it out the hard way. And so in your own words, what are you all about? What makes you unique and makes you stand out?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 1:15 Well, I think what makes me unique, Robert is the fact that I've got a lot of different, diverse experiences. For example, I was born in Washington, DC, moved to spot Sylvania, Virginia, integrated a school, played sports in high school, entered the Naval Academy, played football at the Naval Academy, graduated from the Naval Academy, went into the Marine Corps, became a pilot in the Marine Corps, worked for Procter, gamble, Frito, lay Colgate, Palmolive, for the vice president of manufacturing for a golf ball company in South Carolina, International Golf Ball company. I'm an elder at my church. I'm a father. I'm a stage four non Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor 12 years ago, overcame colon cancer about two years ago. So that's unique. And so all those different arenas, I've been able to learn some things, and that's why I wanted to put it in the book. And that's what the book's all about. It's kind of my life journey. Lessons learned so that others may learn and be all that they can be.

Robert Plank 2:18 very nice. And all of those accomplishments that you mentioned it, they all seem like they require a lot of hard work, focus, dedication, leadership, stick to itiveness. And so what do you think is your secret sauce? How are you able to accomplish all these amazing feats when maybe other people might have given up or talked themselves out of it?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 2:39 Well, I can remember I went out for football for the first time in the ninth grade. Never played tackle football before, and my coach gave a talk I'll never forget. He said, You got your pads today if you don't want to play, turn them in, no harm, no foul. But if you come back tomorrow, I need you to stay until the end of the season, because quitters never win, and winners never quit. He said, If you quit my football team, you might quit school, get married, you might quit your spouse, have kids, might quit your kids, because once you quit the first time, it's easy to quit the next time. So I developed a mindset at a very young age that I would never quit. Fast Forward, my senior year in high school, I'm the most valuable player of the football team that never would have happened if I had quit. So all of the things that I've accomplished and most proud of, most of them came through struggle. They didn't come easy.

Robert Plank 3:34 And, you know, it reminds me of, like, there's like, what's it called the broken window theory, where, if you're say, there's in your neighborhood, there's like a window broken, if you just leave that alone, it's easy to not mow the lawn, right? It's easy to put the car off on blocks, and next thing you know, it's like that one little like action of letting something go or saying, Oh, well, I don't have to give it my all this time. It has this domino effect. And it's almost seems like a superstition. It's definitely, I think we can all relate to this idea that it's so easy to quit, it's so easy to, like, cheat on this test, or to not do this. This one simple thing, and we need to have this thing called integrity, right? And like many times when, like, I have appointments on the calendar, even this a few years ago, say I saw like, five meetings I had to show up to. It was so tempting and so easy to say, you know, I'll just, I'll blow all them off. Like, what's the what's the harm that could happen? Well, nothing today, but then if it leads to that habit of it being so easy to flake out, then that has long term consequences. So maybe it's okay today, but then weeks, months later, then you have to pay the price on that. And so as far as you know, you've overcome all this, and you've met all kinds of amazing people along the way. Right? You met your coach. You met people in the military. Is there anyone in particular that like. Was a good role model, or who inspired you just from their own mentality?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 5:05 Yeah, I would say that. I say that the third most influential person in my life is my football and baseball coach in high school, my parents were the number two, one and two, and then coach sparks. So Coach Sparks is the one that actually sent the recruiter to my high school to recruit me to play football at the Naval Academy. And I didn't know what the Naval Academy was, and it was only 90 miles up the road, primarily because there weren't a whole lot of people that looked like me going to the Naval Academy, but that single act there transformed my life and put me on the path that I was on to go to the Naval Academy and do the other things so and then about probably three years ago, I was talking to him, and he was telling me about his his upbringing. He grew up in the hills of West Virginia, and he was abused as a child, and he had all kinds of things to overcome, and he said that his principal and his high school coach were the ones that really saved him and brought him along so he current. I can call him up today. He's 82 years old, and I can say, Coach, I have a an individual that's a good person, pretty decent athlete, that that is willing to go to school but needs some money and some scholarships. He says, if that person is willing to travel, which means if they're willing to go to Kansas, if they're willing to go to Utah or someplace like that, he can get them a scholarship, just based on my work, still does.

Robert Plank 6:34 That is cool. That is amazing. And it goes to show you how important it is to be kind, and how many of the positive actions that we take to help others, we might not even know the ripple effects, right? We might say those words of encouragement or help the person out. We might even not know where they end up, as far as their path and their career decades later. And it's always great to have these different perspectives, right, to hear about what you've gone through or what your friend has gone through just so that way it helps us along the journey. And many of these things that you mentioned, like going into the military, playing football, it sounds unbelievably stressful, and so what do you do about your stress management? Like, what do you do when the game is about to start, or when you know you have to wake up and get in your your your line with the drill sergeant, like, how do you just deal with the unbelievable stress?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 7:26 Well, one of the things that I learned over time to, quote, unquote, survive, thrive, or whatever, and I learned this primarily at the Naval Academy. At the Naval Academy, you're given so many things at once that you can't get it all done. So there's a lot of people that go there that have been successful and controlled everything in their life. When they get there, they can't control everything, right? So then what do you have to do? You have to say, Okay, I got this stuff going on. What can I control? What can I not control? Let's put together a plan. Keep my head down and keep moving, you know? So when I got diagnosed with cancer, okay, give me the information. What is it? What are the pros and the cons? What do I need to do to be successful? What kind of things do I need to do? Put together a plan to stick to the plan, right? So that's kind of what I have done over time, is to be able to assess the situation, develop strategies, put together plan, work the plan, and play for the best.

Robert Plank 8:28 Very nice and that it's simple, but it's helpful, right? And it seems like the natural tendency is to let the chaos thrive and say, oh my gosh, there's all these things happening, right? Cancer diagnosis, let all the thoughts run free. And you're saying, All right, well, step one is to do that serenity prayer and say, here's the bucket of what I can't control. And you know that's there. It exists, but it's not worth as much of my time and my focus as what I can control. And and this applies in so many areas. Right in business you can't control necessarily, number of clients you land, the traffic, the customers, that money that comes in, but you can control the activity, the what you do, front load in order to make that happen. So there's what I can control, and then there's what I can control, and then what are the pros and cons, and what's the strategy? What's the plan? What are we going into to moving forward? What's the optimism that we can apply, and what are we looking forward to? And I have discussions like this with my wife all the time. When there's some, there's, there's always a crisis, right? Just a matter of what degree. And I say to Katie, well, what can we control about this? Or what are we going to do about this, instead of stressing out about the uncontrollables, because there usually is no solution, right? If I can't change it, what else is my mind going to do, but just to continuously refocus on all of that? And so you mentioned about all this like adversity that you've overcome, right with the sports and the military and the career and the cancer, and what do you think deserves? Has the most attention today, and in today's crazy world, people have all kinds of problems, and they might be looking to you for help, like, what it what topic is not spoken about enough?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 10:12 Wow. Um, probably I think that we as a society are getting away from basic communication. When you think about technology, you think about the phone, you think about social media. So 60% of communication is body language, so emails and text, don't you don't get to use body language. Okay, so I believe that the people that are going to run the world in the future, of those that understand that, and who are the best communicators, basic listening, you know, reading, body language, being able to communicate, I think that's that's the critical thing that they were losing at all different levels in schools with adults. It's just, it's a sad case. I'll give you a quick example. So several months ago, there was a there was a young man that was designated as a hero. He was a hero because he was on a bus. Bus was full, and the bus driver had an episode heart attack, right? This kid sees the bus driver slump over the wheel. He runs up, pulls the bus over to the side, and stops the bus, right? So they're interviewing this kid, the hero. And he says, why they asked the questions. What did you do and what did you see? He says, Well, I saw the person slumped over, so I knew I needed to do something. Okay, everybody else on the bus was on their phone. He was the only one that didn't have a phone. And he didn't have a phone because his parents told him, we're old school. You're not going to get a phone if he had if he was like everybody else and had a phone, they probably crashed the bus. But that's a simple example of just social awareness. We're just not aware of what's what's around us.

Robert Plank 12:13 I agree with you completely this. We need, we need to be in the present moment and the the phone, it's a useful tool, but I can definitely relate to those first few maybe even, like, five to seven years after smartphones existed and had Internet access, I definitely had some attention problems, and I had to deliberately set the boundaries and say, Well, you know, the the phone's good for productivity and for getting to something quickly, but It's definitely an addictive substance, and you can definitely get to that point where you say, Man, I can't even let last three minutes without looking at my phone. And then I'm looking at the phone for the the dopamine hit, for the enjoyment, not even for any particular purpose. And so that's a great story, because it saves lives. I heard something a few years ago about like, what what percentage are vehicular deaths? And they were saying that 25% is drinking and driving and 25% is texting and driving. And it's like, is that text message really that important, the sending or the receiving, for you to kill someone, or are you to be killed? I mean, it's just, it's definitely a good life lesson and and something that we need to be thinking about is get off the phone and focus on what's important. And what you said there about the body language being a huge part of it, and the written text being such a small part of it. I used to not believe that, until I noticed, especially in this day and age, how much sometimes people don't listen, and and how important it is to, just like, get the feedback, get the two way communication with the body language and do the pausing and the repetition and the storytelling and the entertaining. I it's, it seems counterintuitive, but I think you're completely right that the the written aspect, it pales in comparison as far as the feedback, body language and everything else and so as far as what you know and what you've done in leadership and communication and connecting with people, what insights do you have there? Because many times with leadership, it's kind of the same old platitudes, and I always find it interesting when someone has a unique take. So what about your leadership skills stands out in your opinion.

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 14:23 I think that one of my gifts is the ability to develop rapport and relationships very quickly. In order to really do anything with people, you gotta gain their trust. So the sooner you gain their trust and gain credibility, the sooner you can really get some things done. Because if you don't have the credibility, then you'll be searching for the truth. They'll be telling you lies, and you just gonna be going down rabbit hole. So one of my gifts is the ability to quickly gain rapport with individuals. Okay. And then once I gain the rapport and get the truth, then based on all the different environments and the leanness that I've been in, again, I can ask some good questions to find out exactly what the issues are, gain clarity what's going on. Help them develop strategies, which are two or three things that they can do that'll give them the maximum output. And then put together a roadmap or a game plan that they can utilize to get to where they want to be.

Robert Plank 15:26 Very nice. So there's the these prerequisites that come before delivering the information. Have that rapport, gain trust, understand the problem, get the clarity and then proceed forward. And I was amazed when I heard about, like, the the math that goes into, like, say, an airplane has like, a million different parts to it. And if you put the parts together like randomly, it would, you would like, run out of atoms in the universe where it's like, you know, billions, trillions, quadrillions of combination, just leaving it up to randomness. And so what that tells me, metaphor wise, is like you could have all this information, you could list all this stuff, but none of that might be what someone wants to hear or needs to hear in order to help them out. So you take that little bit of time to get the trust, the rapport and listen and then deliver just those few pieces of information that then help someone out and gets them to what they need and where they want to go. And so as far as your your story and your journey, and what you've grown into, what you transformed into, is there anything that has surprised you lately?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 16:34 I wouldn't say it surprised me, but what I've learned over time is, matter of fact, I did a talk today, and I got a question. The question was from a professor, and the question was, what do you tell young people that don't know exactly what to do, which job to take, or things like that? And I said, Well, my experience has been, you need to do something, you know, and when I tell young people that are in college, I said, you need to do a co op and or an internship, because it'll tell you one of two things. It'll tell you either what you like to do or it'll tell you what you don't like to do. Either way, that's good. But the journey that I'm on, I never would have guessed 40 years ago that I'd be doing this, but I was, I thought it was, I thought it was a good coach. That was my mindset in the military. Did that, and then I learned that, and then I got some other opportunities and did that, and just kind of morphed into things. But I think that the key thing is understanding what your gifts are and understanding what your purpose is, and your purpose shouldn't change. My purpose is to help others. I think I do a pretty good job of that, right? So I've been in a lot of different arenas, but ultimately, my purpose is to help others. So I do that at church. I do that with my kids. I do that with corporations. I do that with young people, with athletes. That's kind of what I do so that that keeps me grounded, and that's that's not going to change.

Robert Plank 18:03 Very nice. So you need to figure out your gifts and your purpose. And the only real way to figure those things out is to put yourself to the test right, to put yourself into all these different experiences. And when I was young, and when there were things like career day at school, and like, the different parents, some different jobs would come in, or there'd be, like, electives and classes I didn't like at the time, I used to think it was a waste. Yeah, it's just because some things were more difficult than others, or some things were not ideal for my gifts and skills. But there's what you think you might be, or what you think you might be skilled at, versus what reality is. And so I like, that's a great, a great lesson there is that you need to be trying these different things. And perhaps some of these young kids, they're, they're wondering what the default mode is, right? And the default mode, it's easy to think, Oh, well, default setting means I'm just sitting at home doing nothing, thinking, and you're saying, well, the default mode is you need to be doing something right, do the the Co Op, do the internship, and if you don't know, still perform these activities. So that way you can get to that point where, where you try things out, and you figure out where your attributes are the best fit and and I've never been in the military, but guys like you know that when you don't have a lot of opportunities, or you're in a not an ideal location in the country, or a bad neighborhood or economic background, whatever, you can join the military, and boy, will they put you to work, right? Will they try you out on some different activities? And it can lead to some amazing things. And so as we're getting to these final few minutes of our conversation, I want to make sure that we cover the bases that we talk about what interests you. So is there a missing, hidden question in our conversation that you wish I would ask you, but I don't know to ask you.

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 19:58 I would say that. That one of the things that I have learned over time is, like I said before, some of my toughest lessons are or my best outcomes are in tough lessons, right? So I tell people all the time that I used to be a professional recruiter for 14 years, right? And one of the questions I would ask every candidate tell me the toughest thing you've ever been through in your life, right? And I'm looking for, have you been through anything? You know, if you've been through something, then that means, when challenges come, you'll be able to work through that adversity and things like that. I'm on the nominating quick committee for a congressman and a senator in South Carolina, and on this panel, we basically interview high school students that want to get into the service academies to be nominated by the Congressional person and or the senator, right? So we ask them questions. And one of the questions I always ask is, What's the toughest thing you've ever been through? And I'm looking for the same thing, you know, what the toughest thing you've ever been through to be at their service account, you know. But it really tells you a lot about people and what they've gone through. When you can hear some pretty phenomenal stories. But one of the questions that I asked this was, during the pandemic, I asked the question, What's the toughest thing you've ever been through? And I got three students to say the exact same thing. Guess what? It was toughest thing they said they've ever been now. Now, if you gotta, gotta remember that these young people are in the top 5% of their class, academically, athletically, socially and everything, right? They said, the divorce of my parents, the divorce of my parents. They said, I had to prepare. I had to manage relationships with different people in the family. I had to pack my stuff up and be at this house on this day, be on this house on this way, and manage a bunch of emotions. Okay, so I never thought about that, but they said that was the toughest thing that it had been through, is the divorce of their parents.

Robert Plank 22:00 Interesting, and so that's that's a nice insight, that that tough situations mean different things to different people, and it doesn't mean that you need to have saved a bus driver or carry someone out from a burning building. It couldn't just be dealing with with your own issues and having to navigate personalities and situations and come out of it with some better organization and some better skills. And that's a great insight and a great lesson that you've learned from from all your adventures and talking and learning from other people. And so your very excellent book here is called sharp leadership, overcome adversity, to lead with authenticity, where you talk about all these things that we've been mentioning so far today, right about the military and about football and about going to school and all those sorts of things, dealing with cancer and just we all have these battles that we're fighting. We all have these struggles. And if we go it alone, leave it to random chance. That doesn't seem like a very good recipe for success. Versus having some tools and having a plan and having some perspective from someone like yourself, seems to be what the doctor has ordered and what we need. And so as far as some next steps here, right? We mentioned the book is sharp leadership, and if someone wants to contact you, check out your website. Anything else, if they're inspired by what you have to say, what's the call to action? What's the next step?

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 23:28 The next step will be, reach out to me. You can reach out to me on my website, which is www Carl Sharperson Jr com. If you just Google my name, I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, reach out to me and we can have a conversation, see if I can help you. And one of the things I would like to say Robert is one of the key things that I learned out of all the experiences that I had is that everybody wants the exact same thing. They want to be loved, they want to be respected, and they want to be successful. I don't care what your nationality is, what your race is, what your gender is, what your background is, everybody wants the same thing. We have a lot more in common than we have in differences, and that's one of the things that I've seen hold true in every arena I've ever been in. Build relationships, get to know people help them, and everybody wants the same thing.

Robert Plank 24:24 Very nice. Love, respect success. And so as we're checking out those resources, the book sharp leadership and the website Carl sharperson jr.com that love respect success. Thing was very amazing, very life changing. But do you have one final sound bite for us, one final quote or lesson to really bring all this home and wrap up a conversation. Yeah,

Carl Sharperson, Jr. 24:46 I would say too. One is, as a young person, I developed a mindset. It's not what you call me, it's what I answer to. So I didn't let bullies and other people saying negative things. Get me off my path, right? And then the other saying, I would say, is, quitters never win, and winners never quit.

Robert Plank 25:07 And for me, both of those lessons tie back to the what you can control and what you can't control, right? You can't control what someone says to you, but you can control what you answer to and you can't always control the difficulties that come at you, but you sure as heck can control your response and your actions. So if you're engaged, enthused, inspired by this very amazing man, Carl H. Sharperson, Jr. , and check out his book sharp leadership. And also his website, if you're interested in his further training, his speaking engagements, etc. Carl sharperson Jr.com, very amazing and exciting, speaking with your friend.

Unknown Speaker 25:43 Thank you, pleasures. Man Robert

Robert Plank 25:49 dfypodcast.com? Forward, slash, free. Go there right now to see what you could be missing in your podcast. Maybe you aren't active enough on social media. Are you writing and broadcasting an email for every episode of your podcast? Do you follow up with your podcast guests? Do you do things to make your podcast interview and content creation easier? Go to dfypodcast.com/free, to claim your gift right now.