1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

I find it most challenging to turn down requests to meet with my team members even when I'm very busy and need to prioritize certain tasks. I try to make myself available for all but I can only be so many places at once so I've started to answer calls that come in and depending on the severity or level of importance I make time for them during my lunch or before they sign out for the day.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

If you ask my mother and father, I've been a leader since I was a child. Other children were always gravitating to me and following my lead. The moment I realized that I had leadership potential was when I was in high school and I invited a new student that was sitting alone to sit with my friends and after their obvious disapproval I got up and sat with him myself and after a few seconds they all got up and followed me over and the young man looked me in my eyes and said "Thank you for sitting me" Since that moment I was fascinated with leadership, presidents, chain reactions, inspiration, coaching, and more.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

On an average Gaggle Social filled work day, I will:

-Wake up at 5:30 AM & take a shower
-Read the news or performing mentally stimulating tasks while I eat breakfast and drink coffee
-Check my to do list and emails and then start work by 6:30 AM
-I start my work day with some deep work then I usually will have a meeting or two to hold
-Then I make my notes on that meeting and get back into chunking away at the tasks on my to do list
-After that I will usually transition into deep creative work to stimulate good ideas
-Then its lunch so I grab a bite and usually rest my mind
-Then I get back check my emails and do as many of the tasks that I can
-I usually will have another meeting and will work until around 6:00 PM
-After 6:00 PM I will work at a more relaxed pace until around 8:00 PM where I will make a day plan for the next day and begin decompressing for the evening and try to get to sleep around 10:30 PM but usually get to be around 11:00 PM instead.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

That leading with empathy can often be the most powerful thing you can do to build a relationship with your team members as well as excite, inspire, and motivate them.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

The Originals by Adam Grant. To preface, this isn't directly a book about being a leader per say. It's a book that details the difference between two different ways of life, the Conformists & The Orignals. Conformists play the role of walking the well-travelled path in life and fitting themselves in the societal standards of go to school to get a job, work 9-5, get promotions if you do well or get fired if you don't, eventually retire. A vital part of society and a role that keeps the economy going, putting food in your belly, and a roof over your head. On the flip side, you have The Originals who strive to challenge the status quo, who work toward self-sufficiency and take the untraversed paths aiming to be better than themselves not be better than others.

This impacted me because to me, it takes a leader to be an original, to convey your message clearly, incentivize adoption of whatever you're selling, inspire the people around you.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Nights in are better spent than nights out. Focus on your craft and use your time wisely preparing to morph into whatever leader you'd like to be.

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

A time that comes to mind that I feel would be impactful to share is the time that I worked with my team to put out rapid iterations of a marketing plan on a very short timeline.

We were behind the eight ball as our original plan's creative campaign concept was awaiting approval for a very long time despite constant requests for reviewal. Finally, after reviewal it was declined and in the same breath they wanted three new concepts that satisfy the metrics, with examples of activation, and they wanted a full plan completed a month from the date.