The Career Edge™

This week, Sarah Smith joins Leslie to talk about her journey from Air Force brat to becoming an Episcopal Priest at St Andrew’s On-the-Sound in Wilmington, North Carolina --- via an unconventional route. 

Sarah’s journey includes a personally described moral crisis, which called on her to evaluate her core values as a young 20-year old. From there, you’ll hear Sarah share a series of life experiences, twists and turns that climaxed in her coined “quarterly life crisis,” which led her to Christian Education and the Ministry.

I came away from our conversation with an even deeper respect for Sarah on many levels, especially her abundance of confidence and humility. She has an enviable balance of self-respect and respect for others.

Just some of the topics from our thought-provoking conversation include:

• No one is one dimensional, and our skill-set is not always our vocation
• Sarah’s personal values of accountability, responsibility, & gratitude
• Our weaknesses are our strengths misused
• How our values and behaviors are interrelated
• Embracing what is a perceived failure as a growth opportunity
• Strengthening leadership skills to include leading through change
• And much more

We close our conversation by discussing how this year has been a uniquely humanizing experience. Behind every topic we as a society classify as an issue are people, human beings with real wants and needs. Sarah and I are like-minded in that we both hope this is a reckoning we all can remember and carry forward as we get through the year that is 2020 together.

In the first Bright & Wize episode, our founder, Leslie Ferry, kicks things off by sharing the unique characteristics that she had discovered through her continuous self-awareness learning journey. 

Leslie strongly believes that it is even more important to deeply understand our weaknesses to succeed at work. In this episode, Leslie shares some of her shortcomings to demonstrate the power of being vulnerable. She decided to share this view because when we know our weaknesses, we know when we don't know how to do something, and we need help to achieve a goal.

The Emotional Intelligence skills and characteristic Leslie shares include:

Loyalty
Trust
Self-accountability

..our strong, trusting work relationship. Leslie shares an illustrative story to talk about the importance of investing in building relationships beyond work interactions with our colleagues. Hear why it matters and how it lowers stress & anxiety.

The emotional intelligence skills shared in this episode include:

Trust
Investing in Building Relationships
Confidence

In this episode of the Bright & Wize podcast, Leslie talks with one of her dearest friends, Victoria Parks. Victoria is a highly self-aware wife and mother of a 18-year old son. It is Victoria’s confidence that Leslie believes will appeal to you, given we all can be inflicted with imposter syndrome.

Leslie and Victoria discuss how, if someone entrusts you with a task or responsibility, they are expressing their confidence in you, so we need to embrace that belief and then go figure out how to get the job done. We need to embrace that confidence and then hold ourselves accountable to deliver on this belief by others.

Victoria shares how she has developed a strength of intuition, her belief that self-talk should be self-respect, and one of her weaknesses of having a bit of a temper.

The emotional intelligence (EQ) skills Leslie & Victoria discuss include:
Confidence
Intuition
Critical Thinking
& Optimism — although not explicitly stated, so listen closely

In this episode of Bright & Wize, we hear another personal experience from Leslie. She shares how a failed work experience turned into a significant learning opportunity to develop critical thinking. You will hear her story and how she has benefited from this momentary feeling of failure.

The emotional intelligence skill discussed in this episode --- Critical Thinking (to state the obvious.)