I've never had a failure that I didn't completely learn from.

If you can treat things that way and you can let other people know that you are welcome to new opportunities and doing things that are different, that opens the door.

That was a pivotal moment for me.

I'm here to learn this business and you're the best people to teach me.

And so we're going to take what I know well, leading people in teams and what you know well, serving our customers, and we're going to be a great team together.

And I had to follow that though with actually learning what they did.

Sometimes people say I'm a hands off leader.

Hands off doesn't mean not present.

And it really helped me be a much more effective leader for them because I understand the challenges that they faced every day.

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Here's Ben.

Hey there everybody.

Welcome back to League the team today I have for you Bentina Terry, who is CEO and president over at Southern Link and Southern Telecom, part of Southern Company.

Yes, that Southern company which is on a mission to deliver clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to their 9 million customers.

She described herself as a recovering lawyer and her best job though is being an auntie.

And she lives by the question, what would you do if you weren't afraid?

Bentina, welcome.

Hello.

Hello.

So, so glad to have you.

So you live by the the saying, what would you do if you weren't afraid?

When's the time that was helpful to you?

Oh my gosh.

So I've been given so many different opportunities to do things that were frightening, right where I'd never done that type of work before or I'd never spoke in front of that larger crowd before or anything like that.

And when I find myself really struggling with that, I Say, okay, Bentina, what would you do if you weren't afraid?

And that removes the fear from what I'm experiencing and ask myself, okay, yeah, well, if you weren't afraid, you'd do it, right?

So go do it.

And most of the time now, sometimes, like, I was asked to jump off the roof of a building, attached.

It was repelling.

And I said, what would you do if you weren't afraid?

You jump off.

That's okay.

I'm still afraid not jumping off.

So sometimes you still conclude that you're too afraid to do it.

And what do you normally find as the benefit on the other side of that when you fish?

Yeah, it's about not limiting yourself.

Right.

And fear is a tremendous limiter for us now.

Fear is completely normal and natural.

There's a reason why we have fear.

It.

It makes us stop and assess the situation and figure out what's really going on.

So you should never just ignore fear, because even if you don't know why you're fearing something, sometimes that's your subconscious or things that you're able to interpret kind of from a sensory perspective that are giving you a reason to stop and think.

And so if you can ask yourself, what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

You allow yourself to kind of work through that fear and figure out, is this.

Is this a really gonna.

Might potentially kill me fear?

Because those.

You should never.

I wouldn't ever just say, well, I'm gonna go ahead.

Or is it just.

I'm dealing with some emotion around this fear, and if that's what it is, let me work my way through that and see if I can get to the other side.

So it just allows you to really stop and analyze the reason why you're afraid.

So thinking back in your career and your personal life, other than jumping off the building attached with a rope, thank goodness.

What.

Like, when's another time you had to face down your fear with that question, tackle it?

And.

Yeah, so it's.

It's interesting because it's one of my kind of, to me, a pivotal moment in my career.

So I got the opportunity to go out.

We call it going out into the field, but leading a team of folks who were engineers, customer service reps, sales professionals, and linemen.

And I'd never done that.

Like I said, I'm a lawyer with an English degree.

Right.

And so I was petrified about taking that opportunity, and I had to really stop and think about it.

And when I thought about it, it's the fear of the unknown.

It was the fear of failing that was causing me to be so, oh, my gosh, should I really do this?

And I.

I told myself, yes, you can do it.

So now let's figure out how you do it.

So move through it.

So, yeah, just to point out, and I understand, like, your first gig was an intern with the Supreme Court and.

Yes, with the North Carolina Supreme Court.

With the justice there.

Yeah.

So English, you go there and then all of a sudden you find yourself in the field with linemen who are, I guess, handling power cables that are quite dangerous.

Yes.

And as I were, as I.

Dusting off my thought, my remembrance about my Honeywell days where we produced gloves that protected them.

And y'all, if there's even a pin prick right in that glove, it can be deadly.

Safety equipment's gotta be top priority.

Did you have to handle those wires?

Did you have to handle those lines?

No, no, no, no.

The good thing is that they didn't want me to handle the wires, and I didn't want to.

Right, but you're right, you know, electricity, it can be right if not handled properly.

Very dangerous.

And so to send someone like me out there with those people working for me, you know, that meant that I was responsible for their lives and the impact that it could have on their families if they were injured.

Yeah.

So listeners are probably like, what?

NC State?

You're.

You're in English.

It could be journalism, Whatever.

You go and you go the law route and.

Well, what happened to get you to where you are today from that small town in North Carolina?

Yeah.

So I've always tried to not limit myself.

Right.

And that goes kind of hand in hand with the what would you do if you weren't afraid?

Type of thing.

And what I find is that we are oftentimes our own biggest obstacle.

We will convince ourselves that we can't do things, or we will run some script where somebody else told us we couldn't do something.

And I've found that failure, it's not death.

Right.

And so just because you fail doesn't mean that everything is over.

And in fact, I've never had a failure that I didn't completely learn from.

And so if you can treat things that way and you can let other people know that you are welcome to new opportunities and doing things that are different, that opens a door.

And then what I'd say on the other side of that door, though, is that you've got to be prepared to do what it takes to be successful.

And you've got to make sure that in other Things you have done, you've got the tools that you need to be there.

So I say, going out into the field like that was a pivotal moment for me.

And I remember my very first day, I show up at the operating headquarters in the auditorium, and the employees are seated in front of me.

Typically, the customer service reps sit in the front.

They are mostly all female, lots of times African American female, but lots of females.

And then the engineers are in the middle, and then the linemen, they're at the back, right?

And they sit at the back of the room, and a couple of them even stand at the back of the room kind of arms crossed.

And I show up and, you know, I realize I walk in the skin that I walk in.

You know, I'm an African American female, which carries its own set of assumptions about how I end up in spaces sometimes.

And so I stand there in front of them and they're like, now who is she?

You know, and how did she get here?

And I remember thinking to myself, you can't fake it, right?

You can't stand in front of these folks and tell them that you know how to do what they do, and so don't act like you do.

And I was very kind of humble and very, hey, guys, there are reasons why I'm here.

I'm here to learn this business, and you're the best people to teach me this business where the company meets the customer, right?

You are the people that do this every single day and serve our customers.

And so I have a lot to learn from you.

I'm not coming out here to tell you how to do your job, but I'm a leader.

I'm a really good leader.

And they sent me out here because I know how to lead people in teams.

And so we're going to take what I know well, leading people in teams and what you know well, serving our customers, and we're going to be a great team together.

And it was, for some people, it allowed them to relax because they thought, yeah, she's not going to act like she knows how to do what I do.

And I had to follow that, though, with actually learning what they did, right?

So you can't go out there and say, hey, you know, I don't know how to do what you do.

You go off and do it.

You know, sometimes people say, I'm a hands off leader.

Hands off doesn't mean not present, right?

And so I sat at a counter and took cash with the customer service reps.

I went out with the line crews, and I Tell them when I get out there, hey, don't let me kill myself or you.

So if I am somewhere I'm not supposed to be, doing something I'm not supposed to do, wearing something I'm not supposed to wear, just say, hey, Benteen, I need you to step over here.

And they would do it.

Hey, you're in the work zone.

Need you to back up.

Hey, I need you to pay attention.

Safety briefing everything.

And engineers, same thing.

Sit down with a set of drawings, talk me through it.

Go out and see a customer who they're getting ready to work for.

And it really helped me do what I said I came out there to do, which was learn our business and learn where the company meets the customer and be a much more effective leader for them because I understand the challenges that they faced every day.

Wow.

I gotta chill hearing that.

Because the humility it takes to do that and to go into the field and not just put the bravado on, arms crossed, watching them do their work and like, oh, yeah, okay, I.

Okay, I see what you do.

And then go right back, you know, to the office, like, oh, yeah, I know what they do.

But you're actually getting in there with them, doing the work, getting close to the work, although in a safe way, of course, and be willing to do that.

And y'all a CEO.

There's probably a few emails coming in while you're in the field, like, yeah, okay, okay.

Now I gotta go do my other job, which is CEO.

Yeah.

So that takes you to where I am now.

Lawyer with an English degree at this point.

I've been in the industry, energy industry, for 23 years, but I have not been our telecom company ever before.

Not been in that sector, not worked in that sector.

I've used the radio and I use my cell phone, but that's all I really know about telecommunications.

And I have done the same thing here.

When I stood in front of the team the first time, I told them, I don't know everything about this business.

I'm not going to act like I do.

And I go spend time with the folks in the field.

It is harder in this role because I do have 18 million emails that come in when I'm out with them.

Yeah.

But to go out, we have people who called RAND Tech.

So for those of you not in the telecommunications sector, they're the people that actually go out and work on the radio network in the field.

So I've spent time with them, I've gone out in the field, I've watched them do what they do.

I've asked them to explain it to me and because I really feel like, first of all, that's the basics, it's the foundations of this business.

But secondly, these are employees I need to get to know and I need to know what their work is like, like.

And so I do, I try to get out there, I try to touch it.

And I have other people say to me, I don't understand how you have the time.

And I always say you make the time right?

And so you have to make it a priority and not let other people change that.

So, yeah, I'm thinking how this lesson translates so well.

Obviously other leaders that are leading people that have responsibilities that aren't in their office specifically, but also for leaders who can go to other parts of their organization.

So if you're leaving finance, well, do you really know what the marketing people are doing, the sales people or customer service and being willing to go learn?

There's no doubt in my mind that that's going to make you a more powerful leader.

It is, it is.

Knowing the business.

I hear a lot of people say I'm not strategic or they'll say someone else is not strategic.

And what I'll find is you can't be strategic if you don't understand the business because you don't know where the business is going and how to shape that direction.

If you don't know what happens every day and you don't know the challenges your business faces every day.

It's that whole SWOT analysis you do before you do strategy.

We have to feed that SWOT analysis with actual knowledge and all of it's not going to come from hands on.

That's impossible.

But you cannot be strategic if you don't understand your business.

And that's just not, you're right, what you do, but what your peers and your partners do as well.

I love that expression there.

So rewinding the clock just a little bit.

I'm so curious.

So you just seem like you're on the trajectory to be a great attorney and you get on the commercial side.

So you're not like classically trained MBA business school.

You know, you, you come out of this, this other world, what was the moment they were like, hey, I can go.

I'm not going to, as you say, not limit yourself and jump on this other side and accelerate there.

I don't know that I ever actually made that decision.

Right.

In fact.

Well, I mean, I'll say it this way.

I was always open to opportunity and I always said that I Love the business.

And I was also fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who would talk to me about good things to do.

Right.

So, Ventina, you're really good at this.

Do you want to try this or.

Ventina, this looks like something that you can learn from.

Let's figure out how to get you engaged with it.

Right.

And so I've always had lots of mentors and mentors at all different levels in all different ways.

Because it always bothers me, quite honestly, when someone comes to my office and says, I want your job.

And I'm like, you don't even really know what I do.

You haven't even had a conversation with me about what I do.

But you've already.

You're saying, I want your job title.

Yeah.

Right.

Because you don't know what the job is.

Yeah.

And so it's only through really talking to other people that you truly understand the business and the other jobs and what they do and what they face every day.

And so.

And I will tell you, the people inside would tell you, our general counsel would tell you every once in a while.

I'd go, I'd love to be general counsel.

And he was like, you are doing what you are made to do.

Right.

He has to remind me you are doing.

And he's like, why would you ever want to go back to being a lawyer?

And I'm like, well, because every lawyer thinks one day there'll be general counsel.

Right.

And he's like, no, you know, he's, he's just, he's been very honest with me.

That, that's, that is not that you have gifts and you were a great lawyer, but your gift is on the business side and you bring that legal knowledge with you every day when you operate.

And so it's been.

But, and I do love the business side.

I didn't, didn't like living my life in six minutes increments.

That's why I left the law firm.

But I do love the business side.

So it seems like someone saw the possibility in you first to be on this executive business track.

Because one thing, if you, if you started and you went right into working for an organization as counsel and kind of worked your way up and you moved to the business side, but you were working a law firm, as you say.

Yeah, And I ping ponged in the beginning of my career.

I actually, I went from the law firm to inside of a company as a lawyer, to a kind of quasi legal role running an ethics program.

But that's closer to the business side to back to Being a lawyer, I was general counsel for our nuclear company and then I went back over to the business side.

So I actually early in my career went back and forth.

And then what was the thing is it was there you said you necessarily make the decision, you just sort of got into that.

Was there a question that helped guide you along this or making these decisions?

I mean, it could be what would you do if you weren't afraid?

I don't know.

That's some of it.

And then where you got your.

Where I got my passion from.

Right.

So if you.

In my career, I've.

I've been in the people business.

Right.

Is what I'd say.

Even as a lawyer.

I was an employment lawyer initially.

I mean, I became a corporate lawyer, but I started off as an employment lawyer because I like people, right.

And I like working with people and I like solving people problems.

And so when I first moved into non legal jobs, I was doing external work.

So I was working with regulators and elected officials.

But that's that external affairs role I had.

So I was really, really engaged with the public and really engaged with stakeholders in our business.

And I had a mentor say to me, I think you could do sales because it's very closely aligned with the external piece of the business.

Same kind of skillsets, not one on one.

Not quite the same, but very similar.

And then I got my first sales role, really truly running a sales organization and I loved it.

And so the passion around again, solving people's problems, right?

So you should never look at sales as profits.

I realize that we have to make money, but I always look at sales as solving people's problems.

Right.

How can I give you what you need to solve your problem?

That's what my goal is.

Let me figure out what your problem is too.

Not what you think you want, but let me figure out what your problem is and then let me find a solution to your problem.

And it may be something that I'm selling to you, it may be something that I'm recommending that someone else sells to you, but let me figure out what your problem is and let me solve it.

And to me, that's what sales really is about.

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So realizing you have a knack for like a.

Like a natural talent that you might not have known until you got exposed to it, it sounds like the sales piece.

I mean, you don't go to law school.

That's what they think.

I'm going to be in sales.

No, no.

And I would say early in my career, my God, I never want a sales job.

My dad was a salesman, and so I used to watch him.

He was an entrepreneur, and I thought, mm, mm, not me.

And he built his business.

I want to turn it over to my kids.

And all four of us were like, we good?

No, dad.

And none of us went into his business.

He was a car salesman.

Used car salesman, used car lot.

He actually had some other businesses too, but that was his.

His passion.

And I.

And my dad could sell ice desk modes, I mean, but with compassion.

And just.

He's just a tremendous man.

And so I was always like, I want to do that.

And then I got into sales.

I was like, this is awesome.

This is great.

I love it.

Yeah, this one goes out to you, dad.

Thank you for giving us the sales gene.

Do you think you picked up some of your sales skills from watching him throughout the years, or what did you pick up?

Like you said, compassion.

Was that one of the main things that you.

Yeah, yeah.

So my dad passed.

He passed in 2020.

And.

But my dad, he's.

He's so, like I said, he sold used cars, right?

And so people think, oh, used car salesman.

But I spent a lot of time up at the car lot with my dad, and he was selling people solutions to a problem that they had, right?

They.

The people that came up to his lot, they had bad credit, they had struggled a lot with life and what was going on.

And he was like, Ventina.

Transportation is so critically important to economic mobility, especially in a place like Fayetteville that didn't have a big transit system, right?

You were going to need.

You really need a car.

And I mean, it had buses, but.

And he really saw himself as someone who was really trying to help people out.

And he would go above and beyond.

People would bring cars back, and he would work on it and fix it.

He didn't have to do that, Right.

He'd get the mechanic to work on it, but he was like, no, they bought this car for me, and it needs to get them where they need to go.

And so he never looked at them as just people he was selling a car to, right?

He really looked at them as people that he was trying to help.

And so I think I learned from that, that that part of sales that is really about people, not about objects or things.

And about promise.

Right.

About solutions and opportunities.

What you really sell people is something that they need to do, something that is important to them.

Well, it's.

It's sort of.

You can start to see the line that.

Through line to work in the utility world.

Yes.

You know, helping people and how you think about that, serving, you know, millions of people.

Yeah, it's vital.

Yeah.

When I was young, a young, young employee at Southern Company, I remember I was with a gruffal lineman, you know, as one guy, I think it was the guy that said to me one time, I said, how long have you been the company?

He said, about as old as you are.

And so.

But he was talking to me and he said, ventina, there's nothing better than preaching the gospel, tilling the soil and working for the power company.

And I believe, as a friend of mine, like, girl, you'd be drinking the Kool Aid.

Yes.

I believe that what we do is extraordinarily important to our.

To people's lives, to their economies, and that the fact that it's affordable is important.

So we have to always work on that, that it's clean, that's reliable, all that stuff.

Because if you've ever been to somewhere that did not have a stable electric grid, you know what it's like to not have that.

You understand how important it is.

And so Southern Company, we say, we're a citizen wherever we serve.

It's important for us.

These are our communities.

We live here too, and this is important to us.

And so, yeah, I do, I do think it's a mission and enjoy it.

Yeah, I hear the passion and I hear the mission, and I love that expression.

And it's a very good point.

I mean, what you all provide, we take it for granted each and every day.

But like, if you've been to a different country that doesn't have a great grid, or you've been impacted by hurricane, and all of a sudden you're like, I can't communicate.

The powers going in and out.

Then you realize you're like, man, there's.

This is like.

This is like, things do not work for people.

People's lives don't work unless they have this dependable resource.

Now, thinking about you and your career, I love the story about being out in the field and the emails piling up and you prioritizing or making this happen to be in the field, but also you're known for thinking about boundaries, personal boundaries.

So CEO of a 24 hour utility that people depend on.

And so how do you think about your own personal boundaries, playing the long game and your work responsibility.

So, and what I do now it it running our telecommunications arm, you know that it's so incredibly important.

So the devices that are on our lines run on our system.

So the things that we use to operate the smart grid, they run on the network that I'm responsible for managing as well as the telecommunications that the crews use.

And so it has got to be up and running 24 7.

And also, in other words, in Southern company needs your service to be operational, otherwise they're calling you.

That's right.

It's a private LTE network and it is extremely important to the operations of our business.

But with that said, and I think I learned this really during the pandemic.

Both of my in laws have Alzheimer's.

They came to live with us during the pandemic.

And my father has ALS and he died at the very beginning of the pandemic.

And my brother, I had a brother who I was really close to who died a couple of years before my dad.

So a couple of years before the pandemic and I really took a step back and I was like, life is way too precious and way too short and you've got to learn to set the boundaries that you need.

And during the pandemic it was really easy to just work, right?

To just sit at your computer and work the entire time and monitor up.

Just check every couple minutes.

Other than responding, why not?

There was always something to do on it.

And with my in laws being here, I couldn't.

And my father in law needed to get out of the house.

In particular, when you have Alzheimer's, one of the things that's really helpful is exercise.

And he loved to walk.

And my father in law is 6 4, I am 5 4.

So he's got really, really long legs and he can walk miles.

And so I started walking with my father in law and then my husband started walking with him some days.

And I would walk by myself and I'd do walking meetings, I'd take phone calls, I'd, you know, just chat with folks that I needed to chat with.

And that got to be extremely important to me.

And so when we started back going to work, at first I was overwhelmed a little bit.

And then I said, no, you're gonna keep some of the boundaries that you've established here.

I have dinner at home with my husband twice a week.

Right.

So when I look at the calendar, it's non negotiable.

Right.

I mean, you know, sometimes you gotta travel for work.

I mean, I realize that, but it is scheduled on my calendar.

I don't leave it up to chance.

And my secretary knows that I want to have dinner at home twice a week.

And so she'll look at a week and she'll go, somebody wants to do something this day.

But that takes the night from Antonio.

And so when I say twice a week, I mean Monday through Thursday, because Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I try to actually.

Assuming you're going to make that work on the weekends.

Yeah, Sunday is his day.

I don't schedule.

I work a little bit on Sundays, kind of in the morning, just because I like to prepare for the week ahead.

But I try not to schedule anything on Sundays.

Like girlfriends, none of that type of stuff.

And people will they adapt to that.

They say, oh, it's on Sunday.

Then Tina can't make it because that's Tony's day.

Yeah, that's Tony's day.

Right.

And sometimes it doesn't even really end up being Tony's day because there's something else we need to do or something like that.

But I have to start off there or else it'll never happen.

And I try.

There are other times I've said I have office time on my cal.

I mean, I just try to do so much to say that I go home once a month to see my mom.

Those things are important to me.

And you can't recapture those times.

You never say to yourself, I spent too much time with my family.

Right.

You.

That's just.

No one said that ever.

Right.

And so.

But you have to set those boundaries.

Unless you're a teenager.

That's right.

But then when you get older, you realize, man, you wish you could spend more time with them.

If, you know, if you.

If you're fortunate enough to have a great home life.

Yeah.

It drops off so quickly.

Yeah.

As it.

Yeah.

As you get older, there's just not enough.

Yeah.

So.

So that's what I do.

I set boundaries, I articulate them.

I have no problems telling people, oh, well, hey, I have this.

I can't do this.

That date, let's look for another time.

And people are remarkably wonderful about that.

I mean, I think people are afraid that people are going to react to that.

And most of the time they react very positively to it.

Have you ever had anybody push back and say, you know, hey, Mateen, and I know you're working hard here, but you need to be available 24 hours a day because we work for this utility and I mean.

Or never face that.

No, because I'm not unavailable, Right.

Talk about I'm not unavailable.

I'm not unfindable, right?

Yep.

I'm not unfindable.

You can always get me on my phone.

You can always text me if you need me.

And everybody always knows that.

And make myself very accessible.

But my priority those days and during those times is not the business.

Now the business has to become a priority.

I work in a business.

We just went through major storms here.

And during those major storms, it was 24 7.

Didn't matter if it was Sunday, didn't matter if it was.

That's it hurricane season all fall, right?

I mean, it's.

Yeah, yeah.

So it starts in summer, but the heavy ones normally, unfortunately hit in the fall.

But, yeah, I have to.

That.

That work has to be done.

That's what I'm here.

That's what our business does.

Right.

But I went to Europe for two weeks about two weeks ago, and I went to Europe for two weeks.

I didn't.

I had a boss tell me one time, a CEO I worked for, he said, if you can't go on vacation, you're a poor leader because your team is completely.

They should be able to operate without you there.

All right?

And so I went on vacation for two weeks.

I told the team, you can always reach me if you need me.

I have my cell phone.

It works in Europe.

I check emails every once in a while because I don't like to come back to 800 emails.

But I didn't have any meetings.

I didn't have any calls.

Wow, I love that expression.

And so it's like, hey, I want to be able to set this team up in a way that I can go on vacation and they can be very successful.

And that requires you setting up the team entirely differently than if you come in and be like, hey, I'm the new boss here, and everybody needs to, needs to.

Needs to check in with me before they do anything important.

That's right.

You have to give them the autonomy to make decisions.

I mean, these people have gotten promoted to where they are.

They're in the positions where there are.

I mean, I have two vice presidents, three vice presidents, and two directors reporting to me.

And if I need to tell them how to make decisions, we failed.

I mean, they are highly compensated people, and so I need to trust them.

Do you.

So getting it, sort of checking below, like in the details on how this works.

So essentially because you have telecom responsibilities here, but you have a phone, you're in Europe, you go to dinner with your husband, you're out on a nice night, things could be happening in Georgia.

Right.

Essentially.

How are you managing checking your devices versus disconnecting or you're like, I can't disconnect at all because I'm running this thing.

So the team, which is really good, the team knows that if they need me, if you text me, I'm going to look at the text.

So it's quickly, how quickly do you feel like you should be or you know, how do you think?

Barely.

I also wear an Apple watch, right.

So I get a little indication I can just look down.

And that's also, you know, I have an 80 something year old mother, I have two in laws with Alzheimer's who are in a continuous care facility.

And so I have to be, like I said, I have to be reachable.

And so I just check and they know that I'll check and if they call then I know something's really wrong.

So they know how to get me if they need me, but they also know that they don't need to get me.

So we had a minor outage, I think it was a 40, no, 25 minute outage on our network while I was in Europe.

And the team sent me an email, said we're having a, we're having an outage.

And then they followed up with an email when it was over.

The outage is over.

If it had gone longer than that, they would have called me or texted me and said, the team, we're having an outage, this is what's going on.

But they know 25 minutes, not great.

We don't want any outages but we can fix this problem.

We're going to fix it.

We're going to let her know there was a problem and we're going to let her know that it was solved.

And so, but if they had needed me, they would have called me.

I think it's so important for leaders to think about what you just shared there as a, as like an operational plan.

Like when you, what's the.

They don't, no one wants to ruin your vacation, right?

So they're like, okay, what's the best way to interact and notify her?

Okay.

Like these are the situations where you need to call me, this is when you can just text me the email, email me the updates and I'll get to it when I can.

And it worked, it worked for you to do that.

And I think a lot of leaders kind of leave that up to chance.

Either they say, hey, I think in the rare cases, they say, I'm just disconnected.

You can't find me at all.

But oftentimes they kind of leave it open and they let their people kind of interpret, should I reach them or not?

And I think it's very stressful for a team not know when to escalate to their senior executive and when not to.

And it caused a lot of consternation.

So I think being specific like you are, I think really gives a lot of guidance and sets a good.

Sets a good role model well.

I think, too, it's.

Some of it's reinforcement and feedback, right?

So I give a lot of feedback.

And so I've had some people who work for me and they're like.

And then other people that are like, oh, my gosh, can I get more?

So when people do what I like, I say, that was great.

I like the speed at which you told me.

When they don't, I say, hey, it probably would have been better if you had done X.

Not in trouble.

Not writing it down anywhere, but giving them an indication of the types of behaviors that I'd like to see, because that's what we all need.

Right?

And I typically tell the teams early on when I start working with people, I'm going to tell you when I'm not happy with what you did.

And not because I'm trying to.

Not because you're in trouble, but because the only way you can learn and get better or know my idiosyncrasies.

Right.

It just may be me that was bothered by that, but you've had 10 bosses before me that were never bothered by that.

Right.

And so I need to tell you, hey, this works and this doesn't work, and I need to give you the grace.

And just like, you need to give me grace.

Right.

And so I think that it's just really important, too, that you communicate with your team and that you develop a relationship where you're able to freely let each other know what's going on, what's working, what's not working.

Because it's a relationship.

Right.

It's the same thing with my husband.

If he does something I don't like, I say, hey, you know, I really would love it if you would put the toilet seat down.

Right?

Or.

And he does it, and I go, hey, go, star.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You know, to that point in all of our relationships, if we're not telling people, like, what works for us.

Yeah.

In some way, we can't hold them to some expectation that we never told them about in the first place.

Yeah.

And it's so easy to hold them.

Like, oh, man, that's really irritating.

But we're not communicating it.

They should have known.

Yeah, they just should have known.

There's some things, you know, don't steal.

You should have known that.

But.

So I've got a lot more questions, and we do not have really any more time.

But I gotta ask, because I know we were talking, you had mentioned this adage of really choosing to be the antagonist or the main character of our own story.

And just one was hoping you could share an example of that, how that's been helpful to you in your career and how it's been helpful to your team.

Yeah, I think that we forget sometimes that in our lives we are the main character.

And whether or not that's letting other people drive our decisions in a way that we don't like, and not speaking up and voicing our own desires, or whether or not that is allowing for.

Since even with the boundaries, allowing my calendar to run my life, not me to run the calendar.

And so what it just really means is to take control and be intentional about the things in your life and in your career.

What it doesn't mean, which is really important, is it doesn't mean that you are the most kind of important person in every instance and part of your life.

Because the reality is to be a servant leader, you have to put other people before yourself sometimes.

Like, I love the phrase leaders eat last.

And I do that even when we have things in the office.

I'm the last person.

And, you know, for a woman in the south, boy, we get to argue.

And I'm like, no, no, go ahead.

No, you go, nuh, go ahead.

Someone says something.

Yeah, like, no, go ahead, go ahead.

And I'll say, hey, all leaders eat last, right?

So I'll get my food after y'all get your food.

I will get my food.

Don't worry about me.

But.

And when you're the main character, you make those type of decisions about how you intentionally want to be perceived, how you want to show up, how you want to lead others, how you want to be driven.

But if you are not, if you are letting other things drive that for you, then you're not the main character in your story.

You're not the protagonist.

And so that's what I want to be.

I always want to be the one.

Because I've only got one person to blame then, too, for what doesn't go right, and that's me.

So good.

A great note to wind up on because it's like, hey, it's such a proactive way to approach life.

Before you go to the meeting, before you interact with your team, how are you choosing to show up and taking control of that narrative?

A really empowering perspective.

Ventina, thank you for coming on.

Lead the team.

Thank you.

It was fun.

I appreciate it.

Nice meeting you, Ben.

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