Fearless Authenticity: Walk in Your Power as A Leader

Our greatest successes in life come when we know and share the value of who we truly are. That's our Fearless Authenticity, the unique combination of the knowledge, perspectives, and experiences that only we can bring to our work and everyone we encounter.   

Veteran communicator Jeanne Sparrow will share her insider secrets, skills, and strategies for activating our own Fearless Authenticity in a way that empowers us and inspires others to action. You'll learn how to quickly find common ground, build chemistry for enduring connections, and deliver collective value to reach greater success with more ease.


Transcription:

Patricia L. Harmon (00:07):
Morning everyone. It is such a privilege to be here. Welcome to the 17th Annual Women and Insurance Leadership Conference case. You haven't met me. My name is Patty Harmon. I am the Editor in Chief of Digital Insurance and I'm looking forward to meeting all of you today. Just to share a little bit of background with you, I've covered various aspects of the insurance industry for well over 25 years, and as the editor in chief of several different insurance outlets, I've always focused on ensuring that women in insurance and related industries had a voice and an opportunity to share their insights. Our goal today is to help you sharpen the skills you've already developed and encourage you to be the leaders and shapers of the future of the insurance industry. This is your opportunity to network with other leaders in the industry. Many of us share the same challenges, managing a team while handling our personal lives of children, spouses, significant others, aging parents, and more demands on our time and intention than we could ever imagine.

(01:17):
And while technology makes some of this easier, it also makes it much harder. I don't know about any of you, but there are days when I just want to put my head in my hands and say, make it stop. Between Slack and emails and text messages and chat messages, LinkedIn messages and messenger and phone calls, the ability to disconnect, take a breath, and just have a moment's peace to complete a thought has become much more challenging. So while you're here today, I encourage you to be in this moment. Listen, learn, network, share your stories, and encourage each other and find ways to thrive in the chaos of a constantly changing world where you are frequently in the eye of the storm. I'm incredibly excited about today's program. It was crafted with each one of you in mind to equip you for the next level in your career, to expand your leadership abilities and to enable you to meet other women who are here today.

(02:27):
Your challenge should you choose to accept it, is to meet three women that you don't know and learn something about what makes them amazing. Are they good cooks? Do they like to play pickleball? Do they love to spend time encouraging women to follow their technical bent through STEM or some other programs? Each of us has a story, so spend some time today networking and learning something important because as you share these stories, I'm sorry. So spend some time networking because while what you learn today is incredibly important career wise, what you're going to remember are the stories and the women that you met. So if you haven't done it already, please download our LAP app from the Google Store, wherever you purchase your apps, it'll help you navigate the day and network just a little bit easier. Just look for digital Insurance, women in Insurance leadership 2024.

(03:27):
Now for lunch today, we're providing an opportunity for you to meet some of this year's honorees and to hear their stories on a more intimate level. But since seating is limited, well some of you I think have already made that selection. We still have a few seats open, so if you want to meet a certain honoree, please go. I guess there are two different lunch rooms, so there's one for the nominees, and then there's a broader networking lunch if you want to spend time sharing stories with other people here at the conference. Also, if you need a new headshot, we have a photographer out in the lobby taking headshots, so make sure to visit him either during the breaks, during lunch, whenever you have time today. I already had mine done. He's amazing. Now it is my honor to introduce our opening keynote. Jeanne Sparrow is a seven time Emmy-winning television host, a radio personality and host of her podcast, fearless Authenticity with Jeanne Sparrow. Gene serves as a graduate faculty instructor in communications at Northwestern University and is an award-winning speaker and consultant who helps people and organizations find more success by delivering their unique, authentic value through visionary leadership and inspiring speaking. Look for her forthcoming book, fearless Authenticity, lead Better, sell More, and Speak Sensationally from Diversion books In January, 2025. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jeanne Sparrow.

Jeanne Sparrow (05:04):
How you doing? Good morning. Good morning, good morning, good morning. I'm so glad to see your beautiful faces. Hey, to you and to you and to you. And yes, you back there. Hello to each and every one of you. It is beautiful to see your faces. It is beautiful to be here, and I'm not just talking to you who's sitting here right now looking so professional and lovely and summer like I'm talking to you, the little you who dreamed big, who believed in magic, who believed that anything was possible. I'm talking to the little girl or a little boy in you who thought you were royalty and that you were meant to rule the world. I am also talking to the people who were like me and thought you were a unicorn, the most special unicorn in the world. I'm talking to the little you who believed your mother when she said on the first day of school, just be yourself and you will find your people, you will make friends and you will do well.

(06:30):
That's the you I'm talking to because you were ready to make your mark on the world before the world got its hands on you and told you what was expected of you, or you started to believe the things that you should be doing instead of the things that you were actually uniquely put here to do. Today, we are going to remember these special little people who still live inside of us and reclaim them so that we can walk into our fearless authenticity and walk in our own power as a leader. So here's the paradox of leadership. How many of you all feel like you follow the rules to get where you are? Yep, we did. Most of us did early in our careers. We absolutely have to do that, right? And we also have to take on roles, whether that is as a parent, a spouse, or professionally as the fix it person, the resource, the one who knows the one who can do it and can keep all the balls in the air with very few of them falling down and then sometimes kick 'em up a little bit and still look good, talk good, feel good for everybody.

(07:59):
That's how we get to where we are. But the reality is, and this is what fearless authenticity is about, who we are, who we truly are inside, those little girls, those little boys who we were when we were young and still dreaming, that is the seed of the gifts that we are meant to bring to the world. It is also where we find our biggest successes. How many times have we felt like we've compromised only to fall short of what our goals were? Right? I see some nodding heads. I felt that as well, where you're like, you know what? I did all of that for what? And for what because when we lean into the things that we are best at, the things that we are meant to do, that is when we exceed what our expectations are for ourselves, that's when we really start to fly.

(08:56):
Now, it does take courage. It is empowering, but it can be scary. So we need to be brave. There is some unlearning of rules, and I don't know about that beast imposter syndrome, but usually every room I'm in, somebody at some point in time has felt like they didn't belong or were not up to the task. We need to forget all of those things because they're lies. Also, not to mention the faulty beliefs that we've somehow assumed about ourselves. Anybody ever told you something you do well and you're like, that's not that special? Yeah, it is. If somebody noticed it absolutely is. We need to undo those things and be free to be able to walk in our power. And then finally, we commit to ourselves and do all of the things and commit to our gifts to be you. Because as leaders, it all flows from us how we embody our own personal missions for others to follow.

(09:59):
Absolutely comes from those gifts inside of us. I had a boss when I first started in radio who told me, I don't pay you to play the hits. I do that. I pick the hits. I'm the one who knows. What I pay you to do is for what you say in between the hits because that's how people connect to you. He was like, they want to know you Gene. They want to know who you are and what you say. How many of you guys still watch morning television in here? Morning television news. Okay, I got a smattering of that. You have your favorite station, am I right? Right. You have your favorite program that you watch as you're getting your coffee, your kids together, whatever it is you're doing. All of the stations are talking about the same news. The reason why you have a favorite is because you like the way that person tells you the news in some way.

(10:49):
All of us have that same thing. Every single one of us has that same thing where we work. It's our brand, it's our reputation, it's how we connect with each other. And here's the trick that I love about that. The more we lean into ourselves and our particular gifts, the more it gives other people permission to do the same. Have y'all ever been on a team that really clicks and is moving and doing it? Why? Because everybody's staying in their lane. Now, a lot of times we look at staying in our lanes as limiting, but it is actually freeing when you can own your lane that gives space for somebody else to come up and do what they do. Well, I don't know about y'all, but I'm looking for solutions every day. A lot of things I hate to do, even if I do them well, as my mother used to say, just because they make it in your size does not mean you have to put it on, right?

(11:44):
Listen the truth of our elders, but that is how we make things happen as leaders. See, we're all like puzzle pieces, right? Anybody in here like to do puzzles? I love to do puzzles. Okay? Oh, yay. Okay. I found some of my people already. The satisfaction you get when you take that puzzle piece and it snaps right into place, you've been trying to find the right place for it, and it snaps right in. That is what happens when we stay true to ourselves. We fit everywhere we are supposed to just like that. But have y'all ever been drinking when you did a puzzle, I mean sparkling water perhaps and spilled some of that on one of the pieces that swells up and then it doesn't fit anywhere. That is what happens when we start to chip away at the edges of who we truly are for other people.

(12:37):
We end up not fitting in anywhere the way we are supposed to be. And I have a sense that that is some of where our imposter syndrome can come from. We do the things that we think we're supposed to do and then we don't fit in, and then we wonder why we don't fit in and why we feel that way. Well, we've got a whole different way of thinking about it with fearless authenticity. It's finding our right lane and fitting in the places that we're supposed to do. And this is also true for your teams, the people that you lead, the more that you lean into that, the more you can help them discover, do and get the best out of their talent as well, becoming a catalyst for advancement for them as well. So how do we get there? Well, I got a little process for you and I have a little secret that I've learned from what I do in television and radio.

(13:32):
What you believe about yourself enters the room before you do ever been in a room where the temperature's just off. That means something is off with the people that started in that room. Before anybody even says anything, you can sense the fear. We as human beings, it is easy to take for granted with the computers that we walk around in our hands every day, but we haven't been that far removed from the days when we only communicated through grunts and emotions. And there is a part of our brain that still processes how we do things. I'll get into that a little bit more later. But I want to talk about discovering or maybe rediscovering your authenticity because sometimes we take for granted as we move through life that we are staying the same, that we're still the same person. Yes, you are kind of a static expression of yourself, but how it comes out is different as you add more experiences to that.

(14:38):
So I want to get intentional about defining what your value is so that when you walk into the room, everybody knows what you're about before you even open your mouth. So the first question is, what is unique about how you do your work? I want you to think about, I'm sure there are a lot of people who operate in the same functions in here. Each of you do it in a different way, and I bet at the places where you work, there are people in other departments who do what you do that you call because you're like, listen, I know this is how you do it and this is what I need. And you get it. They get it, and things get done that way. We all get known for how we do our work. I had to fire a CPA one time because how he did his work did not work for me.

(15:30):
He was excellent at his job, and if I ever get audited, I'm calling him. But to talk to him every tax season, it wrecked my nerves because he was a tax attorney. So he always had me scared and I was like, sir, I cannot live in fear all of the time about this. I've been audited once. You don't have to tell me anymore about that. Right? And I could not get him to stop talking about audits. I was like, sir, this is not serving you or me. I'm going to move on. I'll call you when I need you. Pray. I never do. So next is how does your approach benefit others? Now, this is really important when you're thinking about transitions in life especially, but it works regardless. This is how the impact of your personality, your impact of your habits, your attributes, your talents, your skills, your personal experiences, even your identities.

(16:25):
One of the shows I worked on one time was a morning television show and most of our viewers were women. And this was at the time when autism awareness was just starting. I know it's autism acceptance month now, but at that time it was still awareness month. People really still didn't know a lot about it. The diagnoses were hard, so we wanted to help our viewers. During that month, we were planning this whole series. We're sitting there talking about it. We thought we were on and cracking. We had ideas and everything. And then one of our producers said, listen, we're on the wrong track. And literally everybody at the table was like, what's wrong with what we've done? And then she disclosed to us that her children had just been diagnosed. At that time it was called Asperger's, and we had no idea. She and her family had been dealing with this for the last year and she hadn't really shared it with any of us on the team, but because we were talking about something that she had been through, she decided to share with us something very personal that actually helped us to be able to serve our listeners and viewers in a way that we wouldn't have been able to, and we actually might've fallen flat on our faces and made fools of ourselves by giving the wrong information out and possibly even offending somebody had she not said something.

(17:50):
And this is what I mean about how you approach your work, whether it's personal disclosure, I mean, we all have a range and of appropriateness for ourselves and comfort for ourselves. I leave that to you about how you want to be authentic in your workplace, but I use that as an example to say something that you think doesn't impact your work. Absolutely does. The way that you think about things is unique, the things that you have been through can help the people who you are with. So I want you to think about that and think also about what is important to you about providing those benefits. You got to get something out of this, right? What is important to you about the way that you impact others? This is also where we find our boundaries. This is when we know we have compromised a bit too far and we're straying into territory that does not serve us.

(18:44):
On that same show that I hosted, we had a reporter who was stellar. He was a gossip guy at a time when gossip wasn't the biggest thing, but he was the best guy. Do y'all have friends who were good gossips and you know what to expect from them? He did it like nobody else. He also had a whole advice column that he used to do that we brought on the air. We had a producer, well, I'm not going to tell you all the bad part of the story, he just wrecked our whole show. But he wanted this guy. He didn't want that anymore. He was like, we shouldn't be giving advice in the morning. I was like, sir, do you know women? I don't understand why you want to take that off, but everything he asked this gentleman to do, he did, but it was far outside of his expertise.

(19:33):
He had him doing food reviews and music reviews. He was like, I'm not into this. I want to talk about the celebrities. I want to talk about what Renee is doing with her husband, Joe, and why that's all wrong. And I was like, I know Art. I'm so sorry. He ended up getting fired because he kept trying to make this man happy, our producer who never wanted him to succeed in the first place. He went outside of his comfort level, but now he's doing so much better because he started doing all of that on his own online and he built up his thing. And here's the ironic part. When that producer got fired, the next producer was like, whatever happened to that guy who used to gossip and bring on the things? And at that point he was like, yeah, you can't get me back on that show.

(20:21):
And I was like, I don't blame you, sir. So this is what I mean about how you walk in your power. When you can answer these questions for yourself, you are able to kind of get into your head every time you walk into a room. Hello, my name is Tracy and this is what I do. Or Hello, my name is Sam and this is what I do. Before you even say a word, people know you know something and then they want to know and be a part of it. So how do we activate that though, right? Knowing is one thing. Doing is something else. So I have a few foundations for success. Things that you need to do to activate that authenticity, that authentic story beyond just telling it, right? Being intentional about the way you connect through your authenticity. The first one is called live it.

(21:13):
And this is really easy. It's going to be real easy to remember, even have to take a screenshot live. It is about you. It's about the way you show up. It's about the way that you affect other people. Tell it is about the stories you tell. And yes, stories are so important even in a business context. And then finally sell it. It's about the people that you are leading, connecting with, interacting with on a regular basis. And for those of you, how many people in here have sold something in their lives professionally? Yes. So y'all already know I don't have to tell you a lot of other people and audiences I speak to, I have to convince them that they're selling things because we're always selling something, even if it's just what we're going to have for dinner tonight and negotiating amongst all the different appetites and tastes that are in the room.

(22:03):
But when we are thinking about everything as selling it, it changes the power behind it. But y'all already know that. Oops, I skipped past an important thing. Alright, so let's start with live it. Now, the rest of this is about other people and other things, but this is about you in this moment. This is about how you show up. This is how we build partnerships that are enduring from the consistency of our strengths from the gifts that we are meant to give. This is how you also develop rising leaders that you see in you checking out their situation. And this is also where our cultures in our offices come from. Now, yes, there usually is a larger company culture, but this is how you create the culture that you live in. Now, I want you to think about this in two forms and I put us in the middle of it.

(22:56):
One of it is intention. What we intend to communicate, what we want to say, what we want people to understand. Well, we all know if we've ever been in an argument that what you intend to communicate is not always what is perceived. Am I right? I mean if for those of you who've never been in an argument, God bless, we cannot control how people perceive us. We know that if we've gotten far enough in our development in life that we cannot control how people perceive us, but we can control ourselves. And when it comes to communication, when we think about how we communicate, we often forget that it's a two-way street. That's where the arguments come from. And we often forget that we can control everything up to and until somebody hears something. Our nonverbal communication is so underrated when it comes to how we connect with each other through our authenticity or otherwise.

(24:04):
As much as I love words and when I tell you I love words, my mother told me, I started speaking at nine months and I haven't really stopped since. I love words. I love writing them down. I love a well-crafted story. But here's the thing, those words do not matter a bit if we don't say them right? If the way we show up is not matching those words, there are studies that are widely varied, but the academic scholarship on this says that nonverbal communication is about 60 to 85% of our communication and connection with each other. And the importance of that, I mean even if it's on the low end, that means that your words only matter about a third of the time. It's really about you, what you think, what you feel, how you connect with somebody, how you look at somebody, how you stand. Even think about just how our posture affects how we think about somebody. If I was standing up here like this, maybe hiding back here, you wouldn't believe a word I was saying. I can't even do that. That hurts my back nowadays.

(25:25):
But it's so important for us to get that right, and that's the reason why I believe we need to ask ourselves those questions when we talk about authenticity, when it adjusts how we stack ourselves and walk into a space. And it also affects how we relate to each other because what we believe about ourselves also gets in the way of how we connect with other people. That's the reason why our lovely yoga lady is in between those two words because usually the thing standing between us and understanding is us. And that's kind of the awareness I want to bring to this and our authenticity. How do we impact other people? How can we shift that? I have had difficult relationships with people at work. Y'all ever met somebody who y'all hate on site? Like really? Right? But think about the people you didn't like initially that you meet again later and you're like, I misjudged them. Something was off that first time and it could have been you.

(26:35):
One of my friend's fathers told me one time when I was young and single and dating and things and I was complaining about my life and stuff like that. He listened to me. He's smoking a cigarette. His name is O'Neill, smoking a cigarette, going and he had an ash about this long by the time I finished with the story, and he looks at me, he takes the cigarette out his mouth, he pops it on. He had an empty beer, can he put in it? He said, Jean, you ever stuff to think maybe it's you? And I was like, you know what, O'Neill? I hadn't, but I'm going to do it now. And that's the thing. We have to think about how we are representing our own words. It's not so much about how it's perceived, but how we understand ourselves. Now, I am going to give you, I'm not going to turn this into my trainings that I usually do for my clients, but I am going to give you a little insider secret that I have that my mama taught me.

(27:30):
My mother was a vocal coach, and this is something that is essential to understanding how you impact other people. Most of us have self-awareness, but not to the level that we need to the minute we see ourselves. Have you all ever seen a picture of yourselves or video from a wedding, from an angle that you've never looked at before and go, that's me. That's what I did. This is what this is about. Record, review, refine. Anytime you have something important high stakes to say, I want you to take out that little computer you have in your pocket that we call a phone and record yourself doing it in the manner that you will be doing it. And see if the words you say and the way you say them match what your intention is. And that is the more you get an idea of how you impact people, the more you can walk in your authenticity and your power as a leader because you know that what you say is what you meant to say.

(28:28):
You stand on that as the kids say, stand on business is what the children say these days. I think they're so cute with their stuff. I learned so many things teaching in college. Alright, so record, review, refine. When you record, you look back at it, yes, it's going to be difficult. This is the most difficult thing for all of my clients to do. But then you go back and you do it again and see how close you can get to at least perceiving yourself the way you intend to be. And I promise you, things will improve. Now, stories are important. I don't think I have to tell you this. Oral history is the way we are built to remember things. There is a part of our brain that still operates this way. I bet you, okay, I'm only making $10. I'll bet you $10 that you can remember a story that you heard when you were a kid about your family more than you can remember the list of things on your grocery list or unless you're just exceptional.

(29:25):
And you know what? This is a room of exceptional people. So I'm sure you could recite your grocery list for me. I know I cannot, but data and a lot of you, I'm sure in here deal with a lot of data. Data alone is not necessarily the best way to connect with other people. Here's the trick though. When we can put things into context for others, that's when we really become valuable because we remember things in stories five times more than we do with lists. Our neural activity actually increases 22 times, and you aren't going to remember any of this. Why? Because it's data. But I'm telling it to you anyway so that you remember why it's important because this is how we connect. Sensory engagement. Make somebody feel something. How many of you guys were told earlier in your careers that emotions don't belong at work?

(30:17):
That you need to leave that at home? Guess what? Wrong, incorrect, inappropriate emotions don't belong at work, but the people that we follow that we want to do things for are the ones who are the most passionate. They are the ones who actually care about their work. I bet the people on your team that you lead, that you go to the most are the ones that seem to care the most about their work, that have those moments that we all have about those emotions do belong in our work in an appropriate way and the way that we feel, see, hear, smell, taste, what somebody is talking about makes us connect to them. And don't you want to be somebody who is connected? Now listen, you do not have to go and tell all these chronological stories. We all have that uncle who takes up the entire time.

(31:11):
He's probably the story that y'all remember from Thanksgiving many, many years ago. Talks too long, talks too much, does way too much. But we can tell stories that have significance in the workplace, results and a process. Here's where we are. This is how we got here. Problem solving. This is what the problem is. Here is our path forward. Everybody, as I said before, is looking for a solution. Do you want to be a vitamin to prevent it or do you want to be a painkiller? That's your decision, but you can do that through stories. Have a hook. Be specific. I could tell you I went outside and sat under a tree and read a book. All of you are picturing a different tree, a different book. But if I said I sat out under one of the palm trees and I was reading War and peace, not only would you not believe me, but you would all be picturing the same big book and the same tree and always answer this one question, what's in it for me?

(32:11):
All of us are concerned about what's in it for us. All of us care about something. Answer that for somebody else. Focus on what you want people to remember and what you want them to do. They walk away with something from you that you are offering and then you are more guaranteed or more likely I should say, to get something back now to sell it. This is when we get into servant leadership, where it all comes together, how we deliver our authenticity to others and how it becomes a circle. It is what we are worth to each other, how we inspire others to action, how we build collective value by offering our own three questions. You should always ask yourself about other people. Who are they first and foremost, and not just demographics. What do they care about or what should they care about? Maybe something they don't know about.

(33:04):
All my salespeople in the room already know this part and how can you serve that need? Now, serving is not the same as pleasing, so let's not get that to twisted, but so serving a need is so valuable to people and creating chemistry, going back to that person that you hated. I had a coworker who I had to be on air with who we had some difficulties. We didn't hate each other, but we had some difficulties. This is how you build enduring connections. You get through problems and you bridge generation gaps. I don't know if any of y'all have dealt with that in your workplace. This works really well. You can create chemistry. How many of you believe that in love and first sight, those sparks and those things? Yes, I love that. I love it. Here's the thing, you can also build the same thing.

(33:53):
Find one thing about somebody challenging that you admire. Everybody has something they admire. What happens when you start to focus on those good things, those things you like, you will start to see more of them and people already know how you feel about 'em. That person that you can't stand probably can't stand you either. Why? Because you're coming at them with those bad vibes. Listen, I'm just telling y'all the truth. Y'all already know it in your heart. That's why you laughed. Listen generously to what is not being said. Sometimes misunderstandings happen because people aren't saying or recognizing the elephant in the room, and that's how you turn or tune into others and turn them to your side and win them over. This is how you do that thing. You know how people say read the room. It's usually because we're not tuning in and looking in at what's happening with people.

(34:48):
So if you remember nothing else from today, understand and constantly check on your value so that your authenticity, your story is always first and foremost. Walk in the power of that in the way you communicate, in the way you connect, in the way you act. Live it, tell it, sell it. Be brave, be free, be you. Now, you will not go wrong in this. I'm going to tell you a quick story about how I know this is true because I saw it in action. I want to tell you, this is me and my daddy, as you can tell from the resolution of the picture. This picture came from the 19 hundreds. This was actually not far down the road from here. My first trip to Disney, this lovely man who, his name is Alan, his name was Alan. He is no longer with us, but I took care of him for the past for about four years at the end of his life when he had dementia.

(35:44):
Now my dad is where I get my gift of gab. My father never met a stranger. Everybody was a friend. He always told stories and the kind of dementia he had is the same kind that Bruce Willis has right now called FTD, frontal temporal Lobe dementia. And it takes away your ability to form stories and to use language. And this was really hard for me to see with my dad, and it got to the point where my dad had to go into a facility that was a little more contained for him. Now, I was really worried about him when he went in there because he's such a gregarious soul and he likes to roam around and be things. But y'all, when I tell you my dad adapted to that place so well, my cousin called me one day, maybe a week after I had dropped him off and she said, girl, I went to drop some things off to your daddy and the people.

(36:39):
There were people, all these old men in his room just talking, watching the news, talking and everything because the barbershop and the barbershop day, it was like the barbershop was a couple doors down from his room, and so they were just waiting for the barber to get there and do their thing. And she said, girl, I went in there. I felt like I was interrupting a party. She said, but when they announced that the barber came, she said there was a gentleman that was sitting in the room in his wheelchair. She said, your daddy got up there and popped up the sides of the thing and started walking down the hall pushing the man down. That man was fully capable of doing. She said, I've seen him before. She said, but your dad was in a parade. And everybody was like, and his nickname was Spro.

(37:23):
Hey, Sparrow, how you doing? You doing good today? Go get that haircut. He was doing the same thing in the nursing home that he did everywhere else. This is the last picture that he and I took together before he passed away. And one day, not long after this picture was taken, I called to talk to my dad and a lady answered the phone. When I asked for him, she said, I said, I speak to Alan Sparrow, please. She says, well, who's calling? And I was like, ma'am, this is his daughter. I was that daughter. She says, oh, okay. I just wanted to know who was talking to my boyfriend. The other thing y'all need to know about my daddy is he was a very big flirt his whole life. My mama's been gone for a while, so he wasn't doing anything out of pocket. But then she comes back to the phone after she sent somebody to go get my dad, and she says, you know, Ms.

(38:20):
Jean, I'm from Louisiana, miss Jean, I got to tell you, I met you when you first came to drop your daddy off. She said, but you know what? I didn't realize that he actually lived here for a few weeks. She said, because he would sit outside my office and he would greet people. I thought he was a volunteer, y'all. My dad had several jobs within a week at this place, and he was doing in that place with dementia, barely able to string together a sentence, something that he had always done. I thought my dad didn't have anything left to give at this point in his life, but he still did with people that did not know him. He was his fearless, authentic self. And I want you to remember that the gift best gift you ever have to give is you that love, no matter what you call it.

(39:19):
As James Baldwin said, is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. When we let our lights shine as leaders, it shines on other people encouraging them to let their light shine the way they were meant to. It gives them permission and inspiration to do so the same way my daddy did at the end of his life in a nursing home with dementia. It is never too late to take back that little girl or that little boy inside of you and share them with the world. I want to thank you so much for your time today. I hope that your day to day is absolutely amazing in the way that you walk in your power and meet other people who are powerful to do all of the things that you are all meant to do individually and together. Thank you so much for your time. I hope you'll stay connected.