Carl Sharperson Jr. With Sharperson’s Executive Leadership

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Carl Sampson Jr. and he is with sharpersons executive leadership. Welcome, Carl.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:00:44] Welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Lee, well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:00:52] Well, I’ll start off with I’m the grandson of a Virginia tobacco sharecropper, and what I do is I basically use leadership principles to change cultures. That’s what it’s all about. The culture of an organization, be it church, be it Fortune 500 company, be at the military starts at the top and I work with leaders to change the culture to get better results.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] Now you made a point to share that you know your legacy is from the past of a sharecropper to where you are today. Is there anything when you look back at that lineage that says our folks were destined to the greatness that you’ve achieved?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:01:36] Oh, I think it says that it doesn’t make any difference where you start, it’s where you end up. And if you have good people around you to surround you and you stay grounded in the truth that you can achieve whatever you want to achieve.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:54] So now in your journey, were there points where you were like forks in the road where you’re like, I can, you know, choose this path or that path? And then it seems like you’ve chosen the right path throughout, but maybe there were times where you went awry a little bit.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:02:14] Well, one of the things that I’ve always done throughout my life is things would happen to me and I’d say, OK, what did I learn from that situation and how can I make it better to continuously improve? So I remember when I went out for football for the first time and never played tackle football before, and my coach, who was the third most influential person in my life, Coach Spark, said, You got your pass today. You don’t want to play tournament, 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. Is that if you quit my football team, you might quit school, quit school, get married, might quit your spouse, have kids, quit your kids because once you quit the first time, it’s easier to quit the next time. So at that point in time, I developed a mindset to never quit, and that has served me well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] So now. So mindset is critically important and that that statement obviously left a mark. Was it because you knew people that quit and you were like, Well, the I have evidence that kind of backs that up? Or did you just kind of trusted this guy knew what he was talking about because he was a good coach?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:03:22] Yeah, I pretty much believe the coach took him at his word and said, I’m going to, you know, that’s what I want to do. I want to play and I’m not going to quit.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] And then so then that decision kind of puts you on a journey that was probably hard and difficult and challenging, but you were able to overcome that and be successful there, and that led you to the next kind of step in your career.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:03:44] Exactly. So I did not quit. At the time, I was five foot six hundred and three pounds ninth grade. I never played tackle football before. Fast forward, I stick out the season, my senior year. I’m the most valuable player of the team. My coach 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. If I had quit, that would have never happened.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:12] And then once you were in the Naval Academy, there was a lot of other leadership training happening there.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:04:18] I’m sure exactly a lot of training, a lot of a lot of good relationships with good people with the best of the best, and it just sharpened me and helped me to become the person that I am.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] So now, having gone through the Naval Academy and and I interviewed business leaders all the time and a lot of them have that kind of same journey, yours in terms. Not exactly, obviously, but in terms of going through the military and then taking those leadership skills from the military into the business world. Why do you think that the military does such a great job developing leaders and none of we don’t kind of transfer any of that knowledge into like the public school system, like it’s part of the government and we have all this knowledge and have all this track record of success. But none of it is kind of trickling down to the little kids and those same lessons, I would think, would be just as meaningful.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:05:19] Well, it sounds like you were in my conversation yesterday when I was meeting with some with a dean of a school that works with troubled middle schoolers and saying the same thing so the military gives. What does it give you? It gives you discipline. It lets you know exactly what you need to do to get rewarded. It’s physically challenging and it’s mentally challenging. Ok. Those same principles need to be applied in our school systems or any learning system, those exact same things. There are a multitude of young men in particular that went into the military and changed their life because of those elements and more than anything else, the structure and the discipline.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] Right. And in the military, they have kind of a machine to do this like that’s it’s kind of they’re not expecting like the highest achieving people to come into the military. This is built to help regular folks be successful.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:06:19] Yeah, it’s designed to help anybody that comes in no matter what your intellectual level is, what your physical thing is, just some common elements that you go through that will allow you to maximize your potential, whatever that is.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] Now is the thing that makes the military an effective leadership teaching machine or training machine. The fact that people have to raise their hand and say, I have to sign a paper and say, I want to do this, whereas school, they’re just kind of put in it and then they’re just, you know, they don’t feel like maybe they chose this.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:06:56] Well, I don’t think that that’s necessarily the differentiator because I’m a firm believer that everybody wants the same thing, no matter what your economic level is, no matter what your background is, no matter what your culture is, everybody wants the same thing. They want to be loved, they want to be respected and they want to be successful. So in any environment, I don’t care. You know, if you can identify those things in an individual, they will perform. If you do those things

Lee Kantor: [00:07:27] Right and then you just have to convince them that they really want that and that to to persuade them maybe to change some behaviors to help them get what they really want, not what they think they want.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:07:40] Yeah, identify what they want, what they’re what they want, what their purpose is, and then allow them. You give them the tools to achieve that and they’re off to the races.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:52] Well, sorry for this kind of aside about this, because this to me is fascinating and it’s important to me. And it’s a it’s a hard problem that I think that we should all spend some energy trying to solve is to, you know, instill some of these leadership qualities in as many young people as possible, because I think without that, we’re going to have problems down the line. I agree. Now let’s talk about your executive leadership, how did you transition from the Naval Academy into business and then from business into, you know, kind of coaching other business leaders?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:08:28] I think one of the things that I had in my body, soul or whatever was kind of a coach mentality. So when you think about what does a coach do, an athletic coach or business coach or military leader, you really you’re developing people, you’re developing leaders. So that was something that was always in me. I think military gave me some skills. I entered corporate America working for Procter and Gamble, which had one of the best organizational development team building, strategic planning, high performing work systems systems. I learn that system in Albany, Georgia, which transformed the community in a multicultural way and got the best results in the company’s history. So I got that learning. I went to Frito-Lay, which was an upper out organization, to learn how to deal in that organization and work for Colgate-Palmolive, a union facility. And then I decided to do my own thing. So I took the learnings from athletics, the military, Procter & Gamble Frito-Lay Union facility in Colgate-Palmolive. It said, OK, what works, what elements of this stuff works, so I just kind of parlayed that and started doing that. I went to some training at the Center for Creative Leadership to get quote unquote fixed. And I went through the training, which is one of the top leadership institutes that’s nonacademic, went through a program called the Looking Glass Experience. Twenty one executives come in on assimilation for a day and then you debrief how you impact the organization and how the organization impacts you.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:10:06] At the end of that, they say, and that was the first time I really got accurate, timely and specific feedback. And I have an opportunity to work with a lot of individuals because I did that on an ongoing basis. So I’m working with high powered executives and all different disciplines, and one of the things I learned was everybody wants the same thing again. They want to be loved, respected and successful, and everybody has issues. I don’t care how much money you have, how much power you have. The question that I asked the executives when they got done was, what’s the one thing that you need to do to become a better leader? They would say this thing. I need to work on my work balance. They say I’m on my third wife and she just filed for divorce. I’m 60 pounds overweight, just had my third stent put in. I’ve got two kids, one doesn’t know me and the other one is on drugs. Ok, those were the things that high powered executives were saying, right? So I knew that I could coach executives and really anybody and everybody has the same thing. Everybody’s got issues just like I have. So that propelled me to go into coaching and consulting.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:15] And then was it a difficult transition having always been involved in kind of a a team enterprise like you’ve had been, whether it’s the military or in these large enterprise level organizations to now being OK, now it’s my show. You know, your team is you. When you started, I’m sure maybe you had a couple of other people around you, but it was basically kind of you and you didn’t have that kind of whole support of an organization around you. Was that a difficult transition?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:11:46] It wasn’t one of the things that I did. Subconsciously, as I think about my career, is as I was picking up these skills, I was always trying to pick up some more know, not knowing what I was going to do with them. And then by the time I got ready to move geographically to be closer to family, I said, I don’t want to do my own thing and I’ve got the skills. I’ve got the ability and then I can look in the mirror every day and see whose fault it is if it’s not working.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:15] Now, when you when it is your own show, how do you kind of handle kind of the sales and marketing? Because not only is it you, the implementer and the leader, but you’re also kind of the marketer and the salesperson and the, you know, you’re all you’re wearing multiple hats here, Rick.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:12:39] And I think that in all those environments that I’ve been in, one of the most important things to remember that I’ve learned is it’s all about relationships. Nobody gets to where they are without having good relationships in the military. People get promoted and get opportunities because of relationships that they have created. If you ask anybody that’s been in the job market for any length of time, say, how did you get this opportunity that you have with this job, that you’re 80 percent of the time? They’ll say somebody, I know a relationship that I had, you know, so that so I’m basically a relationship guy when I talk to people say these are skills, this is what I can offer, build relationships, and that’s kind of how I’ve got my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] And then as part of this show’s mission, we’re trying to help other coaches learn from each other, obviously by telling their story and then kind of sharing some of the lessons learned. Can you share maybe how you got your last client? Like, how did the last client come to you? So others can learn from your experience and maybe either replicate, replicated or, you know, might kind of spark something?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:13:50] Yeah, the last client I got started out just with a reach out on LinkedIn. One of the things that I do is I’ll periodically look at LinkedIn and look at people that I think or have a commonality with me. And not only do I look at what they do. I look at what they do when they’re not getting paid. In other words, are they working for Boys and Girls Club? Are they working with United Way or are they on this board? You know, what do they do? What do they do outside of making work? You know, because I’m a firm believer that the whole person, the people that I want to spend time with, not only, you know, are successful at work, they’re also successful at home. They’re leaders in the community. So that’s kind of one of the that’s how I got my most recent client is conversation and relationship building. And how can I help you and how can you help me

Lee Kantor: [00:14:47] Now in your journey, you decided to write a book sharp leadership. Can you talk about what was kind of the catalyst for the idea and why was it important for you to kind of document your philosophy and your kind of life principles in a book form?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:15:03] I went to some coaching myself about four years ago, and one of the things that the instructors said was that it helps if you have a book to give slash that talks about what you do. So I had an idea that I wanted to do it, but to me, it was intimidating to get the grammar right. That would flow have something people want to read. So my daughter, who’s 30 years old now, called me one day and said, Dad, are you serious about writing your book? I said, yes, she says. Are you committed to write in your book? I said yes, she says. If you’re committed to write in your book, she says, I found a book coach and I’ll pay for the services up through the manuscript. So that took away all the. Different excuses that I had. She connected me with a young book coach that was, at the time, thirty two years old. Ok, so if a 32 year old can understand what I’m saying, then that’s a pretty good check. And what I did was I wrote down some things I wanted to talk about in my life.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:16:08] Send it to her, she says. What about this? What about this? I have a question about this and after about four months. It was ready, and I got a lawyer friend to write the acknowledgment or the forward. And a couple of people that I know do a book review in it. My daughter did the the back and I did a why I wrote it and the book popped out and I call it a manual for overcoming adversity in any environment, in any stage of life. I’ve had a 10 year old reading ninety nine year old great great grandmother, C.E.O.s, military leaders, community leaders, family ended up talking about my trials and tribulations, one of which 11 years ago I was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Right? I went to a prep school because I wasn’t academically prepared to go to the Naval Academy. I played football at the Naval Academy. You know, work for three Fortune 500 companies. So those journeys, I document that and what I learned from it. So it’s an easy read with a lot of nuggets in it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] And then is it kind of theoretical or is there a kind of practical insights that a reader can take with them and implement in their business?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:17:25] It’s all my experiences. It’s all my. It’s no theory. It’s all. It’s all examples of, you know, for example, one would be when I was looking for when I was in East Corp, one of the things I learned from, I guess, probably Tony Robbins of 20 30 years ago, Tony Robbins said, learn from the best of the best. You know, if you got something you want to do, learn from the best. So I applied that when I was in corporate America, when I was working for Procter and Gamble and I went to corporate headquarters. Michael Rowland goal was to meet with the best of the best, so I called up the president of the company. I called up several VP’s and I said, I want to meet with you. Ok, we get in the meeting. And I said I told him a little bit about myself. I said, I like for you to do the same. And then I want to find out from you what will be your advice for me to get to this certain level and they all talk to me. Nobody. I was never denied. Learn from the best of the best.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] Iron sharpens iron.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:18:22] He does. That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:24] And and that’s a great lesson for young people to not be afraid to make that call. I have found that the same thing true in my life as well, that leaders are open to talking, especially to young people. And you don’t have to have this kind of really super creative, clever way to get in front of that. They want to give back and they want to share what they know. A lot of the times they’ll make time for a young person. Questions and passion.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:18:54] You’re exactly right, and that’s that’s young people, that’s old people, because it’s a natural phenomenon or natural want and need for for people to help others. So what I tell people all the time, if young people know people, if you want to, if you if you’re doing something productive, there’s a ton of people that will help you. But you got to ask them for help.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:16] Right. I think a lot of folks just wait for that phone to ring and they just keep waiting and they can’t understand why other people’s phones are ringing. And it’s because the phone works two ways.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:19:29] You’re exactly right.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:31] So now the types of companies you work with, are they those enterprise level companies that from your past or are you working with entrepreneurs who is your ideal client for coaching?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:19:42] All of the above. I work with young entrepreneurs, old entrepreneurs, I work with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, school systems. One of the things that I have learned over time, Lee, is and I’ll ask this question, I’ll say, what does a general in the Marine Corps, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a very successful entrepreneur, a superintendent of a school system? What is the one thing that they all have income? The one thing they all have in common is they don’t have anybody they can talk to.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:19] And and that’s where why they hire you, because you become that sounding board.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:20:23] That’s one of the major reasons. Ok. Everybody’s got blind spots. So no matter how smart you are and what you do, there’s some things you can’t see that you miss it. Ok, so what I found is that those that really understand that then they hire, they hire people or put people around them to cover their blind spots. And for an entrepreneur, there’s a ton of blind spots.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] Yeah. Now is there industries you work with? Is there a certain kind of symptom that your clients are having? Is it the the Work-Life Balance? Is that the kind of area where they’re struggling, where you’re your team is a good fit or is there, you know, does this work better in manufacturing over like creative services or professional services like? I would imagine it’s industry agnostic, but maybe the point of entry is something around work life balance? Or could it be something else?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:21:19] Yeah, the point of entry normally is I find out what’s keeping them up at night. And so I focus on the organization. I focus on the leadership. So with that, it crosses all different types of industries, you know, so so that’s that’s what I have found. But the work life balance, what I do when I coach, I do a holistic approach and I look just at the business. I look at family. I have to look at family, family, career finances, social, intellectual and the whole holistic way of looking at act. Because when you when you’re talking to somebody or give an example, let’s say somebody calls me and they want me to help them get through something, OK? And then I found out, I found out after talking to them that, yeah, they have some business business things that need to be worked on. But the most important thing that they need to work on is this this child that they got at home is causing havoc. You know, so you know, so if that gets fixed, then the work becomes a whole lot easier.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:24] Right? Yeah. I mean, that’s really important to go layers deep and not they might come to you with, Hey, this is my problem, and then you have a conversation for a few minutes. You’re like, That’s that’s definitely a problem, but I don’t know if that’s the big problem. Let’s go. When you go a little deeper, that’s where you kind of uncover some stuff.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:22:45] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:46] Well, Karl, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to get a hold of the book or get a hold of you. What is the website?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:22:54] It’s w w w got my first name. Last name J.R.. Carl Sharp Person, J.R. dot com. And if you just Google, my name stuff will pop up podcasts, website speeches, so I’m easy to get a hold up.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:12] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:23:18] Thank you, sir, I appreciate that and my book Sharp Leadership Overcome Adversity to lead with authenticity. Amazon, Barnes Noble and on my website.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:27] Good stuff. Thank you again.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:23:29] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:31] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.