Eileen:
Hello, and welcome to Soul of A Leader Podcast, where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. In today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen sit with Chasity Melvin to discuss leading with the wisdom of an old soul.

Alicia:
Welcome to Soul of A Leader. In today’s episode, we have Chasity Melvin. She is one of the reigning pioneers in women’s sports history as a WNBA All-Star, ACC legend, and North Carolina State University Hall of Famer. Throughout her 14-year professional basketball career, Chasity has overcome highs and lows with style, grace, beauty, and faith. Not only is she known for her stellar basketball career, but her success also extends to endeavors outside of the sport. Chasity is a sports radio show host, MC, speaker, coach, philanthropist. Her athletic experience combined with her engaging personality with off-court activities makes her one of a kind and we are so pleased to have Chasity.

Eileen:
Welcome, Chasity.

Chasity:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Eileen:
Thank you for being on the show. Alicia did a great job, Dr. Alicia, introducing you. Is there anything that we missed or you’d like to highlight about your wonderful background, amazing background. So we can’t say enough, so please add if we missed anything.

Alicia:
And it really was the brief part, everyone. She’s very extensive. She makes me proud to be able to read her bio.

Chasity:
I’m just trying to do everything my grandmothers didn’t have an opportunity to do.

Eileen:
Well great.

Alicia:
Wow.

Eileen:
That takes me right to a question. Tell me a little bit about your grandmother and how she has influenced you in your leadership. It’s normal, we have such a guide if it’s faith or someone who so believes in us. So tell us, please share.

Chasity:
Well, I have both of my grandmother’s one, her name is Jebo. We called her Jebo and then there was Dixie and we called her Mother. So Mother was the matriarch of our family. That was my dad’s mom. And Jebo was my mom’s mom. Their leadership in the family was something that just really resonated with me. We worked on a farm with my grandmother. She woke us up at 5:30 in the morning to go work.

Alicia:
Wow.

Chasity:
I remember telling her very clearly. “Grandma, I’m not going to be doing this when I grow up. [inaudible 00:02:53].” But always giving me sound advice. I was always a little bit different. I was an old soul. I wanted to play basketball. My grandmothers were Southerners. So I didn’t like being in the kitchen and that was different for them, learning how to cook and just doing the typical stereotypical roles of being a female. But they always supported me and I always went to them with everything I wanted to do. As I got older, I learned their life story from an adult perspective. So for me now, I just continue to chase different opportunities and chase my dreams and goals because I felt like my grandmothers would have been great CEOs and just great women in whatever career they would have had the opportunity to be because they ran their families, okay? They were the queens. Without any education, with just a high school education, you know? But they had so much wisdom, so for me, that’s what I modeled my life after pretty much.

Alicia:
So listening to you, and I can hear the passion and the love that you have for your grandmother, mothers, but also I can see the sense of how to lead with your soul because your grandmothers did that. So give an example of how you have modeled what they have done and how you had transferred that to your actual careers. Because seriously, you have a very extensive background. I didn’t even touch it, enough of it, but explain how you had seen what your grandmothers have done. They were leading from their soul because as you said, southerners. And quite frankly, as you said, it’s a little different when you go into sports because in that era, you really don’t think about sports. So tell me a little bit about that.

Chasity:
Well, just working with my grandmother on the farm, my dad’s mom, I was raised by a village and then my mother’s mother just had a factory job, and then she did side jobs. She cleaned. Obviously she cleaned homes for some white families, took care of their kids. She also cleaned hotels at a retreat where it was only whites allowed. So I used to go clean the hotel rooms with her, but what I would take from them really, to be honest, is my grandmothers never gossiped, really. They were always, “I need to find out for myself,” with anyone. They didn’t judge people. They met people where they were and they were honest. My grandmothers were both were like, “What is wrong is wrong and what’s right is right.” And I’ve lived by that truth. My grandmothers always taught me to be slow to speak.

Chasity:
But when you do speak, say what you mean and mean what you say. For me, that’s carried me throughout my life as far as being successful. And just their work ethic. They get up early, they went to work, whatever job they did, they did it well. People knew if they wanted to get something done, they could call Jebo or Mother to get it done. They lived a very long time so a lot of their friends passed away. Took care of their friends before they passed away. So for me, I learned just so much. My grandma’s always told me, don’t ever try to get people back. Everything comes back to you, good or bad. She said the bad sometimes, if you’re lucky, if you just don’t use revenge, God will live to let you see it. She’s like, “You don’t really want to see it.” I said, “You’re right.” There are so many different pieces of advice and that old school wisdom that I learned from them that carries me throughout my career and my failures and success.

Eileen:
When we talk about leading with one’s soul, we talk about the energy of the soul, right? It sounds like that your grandmothers have this deep energy of leading with their soul and they’ve instilled it in you. As Alicia and I have done the podcast and meet people all around the globe and everywhere, we believe that the soul is energy. Right? And there’s a connection there. When you’re out there in your passion and doing your work and your vision and taking on challenges, how do you know when you’re connecting with somebody whose integrity, full of integrity, who is on the same wavelength as you and doesn’t gossip or who knows how to forgive and is deep in faith? How do you perceive that or how do you figure it out that they’re connected with you?

Chasity:
Well, it’s a gut feeling. It’s my discernment. It’s my strong faith in my relationship with God. My grandmothers always taught me that your relationship is your relationship and I’ll always ask him, always ask him for guidance. Before I come on this podcast, I’m always saying, “God, help me. Lead me to what I should say.” In my encounters I ask God, help me to say something that would inspire this person where they are. So I am very in tune with my relationship with God in most areas. And obviously that’s an ongoing development in a relationship, with your personal relationship with God. But my grandmothers, they prayed. My grandmothers say, “Pray when you’re coming in and you’re going out.”

Eileen:
Yes.

Chasity:
And that’s what I got from them. So I do it. It’s funny, my friends make so much fun of me. They’re like, “Oh, Chasity, you going to pray?” I’m like, “Yeah, I pray in everything.” Everything on and off the court.

Alicia:
Absolutely.

Chasity:
Everybody is good, the bad, the ugly. I’m at the club. I’m at the club with my friends, fight to break out. I’m already in the car. They come to get in the car. They’re like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “I was in here praying.” Yeah. But as Christians, there are so many stereotypes and they’re like, “Well, you shouldn’t have been at the club.” And I’m like, “No.” God is everywhere.

Alicia:
Absolutely.

Chasity:
God is everywhere. We don’t just leave him. You aren’t ever perfect in your relationship with God. You aren’t ever going to be … The great thing about having a relationship with God is just the transformation, ongoing transformation and you grow. I’m not the same person I was in my relationship that I was 15 years ago. And just seeing my grandmothers and watching them be consistent and have that strong foundation, it seemed like my grandmothers always did the impossible. So for me, I know it came from their faith, you know? They didn’t have degrees, they didn’t have wealth. So they had that spiritual energy. They had that discernment and they used it. I use all three. I have my education.

Alicia:
Absolutely.

Chasity:
But then I have that black girl magic, I call it. That’s just the God in me. I can’t take credit for that. Some things you can’t take credit for. You got to say, “That was God. I had nothing to do with that.”

Eileen:
Well, and yeah. And he’s working through you and what I loved what you just said is that God is everywhere. Especially today when we’re dealing with some safety measures, when we can’t get to church, we can’t practice in our own way. It’s so important what you just said.

Alicia:
One of the things, listening to you and I’m smiling because Dr. Eileen and I, we’re Christians and we’re businesswomen and we have lives and it is a transformation. It’s a relationship. It’s a personal relationship that no one can measure. No one can measure your relationship with God, so you are correct with that. And God is everywhere. I also liked the part about, is the commitment that you have to want to have that relationship, that spiritual connection because it allows you to remain calm in the situation, know when to leave the club, and go in the car to pray because you were taught that from your grandmothers. But the other question I want to add is, as part of our consulting we do with clients, we talk about spiritual leadership and authentic leadership.

Alicia:
And so how do you use business in your roles that you do with that spiritual connection? So when you do in business, how do you connect that, your spiritual leadership format to deal in business with people?

Chasity:
Well, first just being fair. I think I believe, I’ve got to stop saying I think. I believe the Bible is the blueprint for life in general, for life, for business, for family, for a foundation. And the principles you learn in the Bible, that’s how I mix my spiritual leadership with business. There are great principles as far as with greed. Just watching how Jesus led his disciples. If you’re a supervisor or you’re a CEO, you have those 12 different personalities or more.

Alicia:
Absolutely.

Chasity:
Do you know? So I think the Bible is a gem, whether you’re spiritual, an atheist, non-Christian, Muslim. It’s a great book and it’s a great blueprint for life to learn different lessons. So I like to intertwine those principles and I just make them politically correct on the business playing field. I don’t have to say you got it from the Bible. I don’t have to use that story.

Alicia:
That’s right.

Chasity:
Yeah. I’d take all those principles that I learned. If you’re listening to the minister on Sunday, which I grew up, my dad was a minister, so you can get a lot that will help you in business and in life.

Eileen:
Okay. So you’re a PK kid, as they say.

Chasity:
[inaudible 00:00:00] hate to, but I’m like, yes, it’s a gift and a curse. No, seriously. It’s so funny. You see everything on social media now. I’m 44, so now my friends and people I graduated with are having this spiritual awakening that God is good and [inaudible 00:13:19] the Scriptures. And I love it, but they gave me hell when I was 15 and 16 and 17. You’re a Christian and you have faith into whom much is given. You know the words. My grandmother’s wise, and not that I tried to be perfect, but when you know that you can’t run from it. So they were so hard on me. So now they’re just saying all this stuff that I’ve been saying or all the things that I did know.

Chasity:
Not that I was saying it, but to carry that burden, so I just laugh at myself. But then I say, I do know that God, it just shows me even more how real God is. So at the end of the day, it makes me very happy. I’m genuinely happy and at peace just because to see that, to see their transformation. But to also know, yeah, that I knew that at 18. I knew this girl was dating that guy. I knew this is not what God wants for me. The heart wants what it wants. So, yeah. So for me, that’s just been the foundation of my life.

Alicia:
Yeah, and I think that’s a huge misconception about having a relationship with God or being a Christian that you have to be perfect. There’s no Scripture in the Bible that tells you to be perfect. He says to trust me, to lean on me, and to let me be in your life as your leader, but nothing in there tells us to be perfect, because he knows what we have to deal with in life. So yeah, we don’t have to be perfect.

Chasity:
No, we don’t. That’s why I wrote my book At The End of The Day. It’s entitled At The End of The Day, and I wanted to show people that my faith was something that helped me. God is like my personal life coach but gives me that this sermon is that small still voice that someone I can go to, someone that’s consistently … It’s the spirit. It’s not someone, it’s the spirit that’s consistently there guiding me and encouraging me and holding me when I can’t get up out of bed in the morning. I don’t think people understand that. I think they think, oh, Chasity try to be perfect. Or they look at things that you don’t do and say, “Oh, well, you don’t drink. You don’t smoke. You don’t curse a lot. So I can’t be a Christian because I do all those things a lot.”

Chasity:
That’s not what it’s about. Once you have that relationship, it’s all about transformation. It’s all about going through those. And in God, because God has put a purpose in each and every one of us and he wants to get that purpose. That purpose is going to be fulfilled. So no matter what we do, we’re always a child of God. He created us in his unique fashion. So we got to remember that.

Eileen:
Now, I have a question regarding your book titled End of The Day. What was the inspiration or the creativity that ignited that idea to create this book? If you could share that.

Chasity:
It just ignited me. I think the church needs a transformation. Once I retired, when I played, I wasn’t really able to be involved with the church as much because I was traveling overseas everywhere and just to be consistently going to church is just something I couldn’t do. So it really made me develop my relationship with God even stronger because it was on me. It was my own. It’s like not okay, Sunday, Wednesday, I’m going to go and I have the fellowship of believers encouraging me. This is something hey, you got to stick to it. I’m in Russia. They don’t even believe in God. There aren’t any Bibles.

Eileen:
Wow.

Chasity:
Yeah, I was in a lot of countries, Korea, places where they don’t believe in God. So I had to be very firm in my belief and how I wanted to develop my relationship. So once I retired, post-retirement, a lot of athletes go through that transformation of life without basketball. Who am I? So I had to really get back. I struggled with my relationship with God and got mad at him. Why am I going through this? Why aren’t you … Dah, dah, dah, dah. So I wrote the book because God showed me my career was my 40 days and 40 nights as symbolic to the Bible. So I went back and started appreciating everything I went through during my career on and off the court and how God was with me every step of the way. So that encouraged me to write the book.

Chasity:
I didn’t know how I could get it across. Once I retired in 2015, I just saw a lot of people weren’t going to church. A lot of people were really talking about the church and ministers and really just shedding a negative light. Then young people were feeling bad because obviously our younger generation, they want to ask questions. When we were growing up it was just God is the way and I’d say, “Okay, Grandma.” You don’t question God. I’m still trying to think of a strategy with the book along with that to start just a brand or mission or something to just say, “Hey, God’s child forever. It’s not about wrong or right.” And that’s what I tried to share in my book. I did this stuff I’ve been there, but God is with me every step of the way and he loved me regardless of my choices and my decisions.

Chasity:
So I want to help debunk that notion that the church is so negative and just because ministers and deacons and people in the church abuse their powers, that shouldn’t coincide with how powerful God is and what he created the church for. So I wanted to debunk those terms and hopefully, my book sheds some light on the younger generation that, hey, slowly but surely they can get something inspired like, well, at least I’m going to talk to God. Because I tell them in the book, prayer is just having conversations with God. There’s not a right or wrong way or more eloquent way or I got to have a Ph.D. to pray to God. It’s just daily conversations with him. That’s what really ignited me to share the book. So I wrote it in a devotional platform because I love devotionals and they were easy to pack going overseas and travel with. So I wrote it a devotional so it’s something people can pick up and they can quickly read something and maybe get inspired by it or give them encouragement throughout their day.

Alicia:
So I have a question and I’m going to go a little bit back. So when you were overseas and you said in Korea, in Russia and some of those places, they didn’t believe in God, what tools or what helped you with your faith? What did you use? Because I think for some of the listeners when they go into places and they don’t have a Bible or they don’t have the tools and they’re in an area that they don’t even believe in it, help us. Paint that picture of what you did to kind of … Because the ownness is on you at that point, you know? So what did you do to create what you need?

Chasity:
I prayed.

Alicia:
Good. Okay.

Chasity:
I prayed. I did take my Bible, but if you don’t have a Bible, obviously now so much better cause you have the internet, so you can find devotions and you can find blogs and you can ask questions. Wish we would’ve had Google back in the day. You didn’t ask Grandma. We could Google. But I will say this, the ministers always used to say, “God is everywhere.” And some of the best ministers and pastors and women of faith and speakers in the church always said that God is bigger than us. And sometimes the great ministers get it and the great people of faith get it like you don’t have to preach people to death. You don’t have to defend your faith. And that’s what I learned so much overseas. I remember in Korea, I didn’t speak the language.

Chasity:
I had a translator that traveled, went everywhere with me. And when I ended up, I was about to leave Korea and they had a little party, a little dinner for me. The gift they gave me was a small gold necklace with a cross on it. I had never spoken to them about God, my faith and my translator did see me. I know she knew I had a Bible and she would probably see me read it, but I could be in the States with all my friends and talk to them about God every day, they wouldn’t give me a cross. They’d be like, “Oh, are you Christian?” Probably after three or four months, they’d be like, “So are you a Christian?” So for me, that really resonated with me, like, wow. God’s light, if you have a relationship with him, it’s going to shine. And he’s bigger than anything we can say.

Chasity:
Sometimes I think as Christian, and we’re not perfect as Christians or believers and any faith, you’re, aren’t perfect, but you feel like you got to defend your faith and you got to put it on people. No, this is the way. So for me, that’s what I learned overseas with my teammates and living in different cultures, that I just have to be me and God is going to use me as his vessel and his light is going to shine.

Eileen:
What a great story. What I resonated with is that if you’re a Christian, it’s the preaching and saying, doing this, you’re doing this, doing this. So with that, I do have one question that I’d like to ask you about. And that is, we’ve heard wonderful stories about your life and what your core foundation is. We have value decks that we use in our coaching. If you could share with us what you believe your core values are that you live with every day. I know we have the End of The Day, the great book that you wrote, but I would say your beacons, we know there’s God. What are the core values that you live with every day?

Chasity:
My core values first are just honoring God and being grateful. First and foremost, just being grateful every day. My grandmothers taught me that, just be grateful, you know? In spite of, in the good and the bad, you got to be grateful. So that’s first and foremost. Secondly, what is my foundation and what does it entail? My family, my friends, are they positive? Are they supportive? Are they encouraging? Is there truth there? The people surrounding me, are they going to hold me accountable? As I say, I like to say as Christians, you don’t preach and then they’re like, “Well, you got to have an accountability partner.” Yes, you do. You do. Now I am still for, I still believe like my grandma says wrong is wrong and right is right. I am not judgemental, but people understand what my foundations are and they know my principles.

Chasity:
“Oh, well, Chas, you don’t really smoke weed? We’re not going to smoke weed around you.” It’s not because I’m judging them, but it’s just not something I do. I think in today’s society, people don’t know their foundation. So they feel like, oh, well, they’re doing this, they’re doing this, and even though I don’t agree with it, I still got to stay there. I don’t want them to think I’m too Christian because let me try it. No, you don’t. You have to be firm in who you are. So just to make that shorter yet, my foundation second, gratitude foundation, and third, really knowing what my truth is and understanding who I am and falling in love with that person. So just falling in love with my unique quirkiness, people will say aloofness, my creativity. I just got to accept it and love it.

Chasity:
Some people want to be something they’re not. And I get it because of societal pressures. It hasn’t been easy for me as a basketball player wanting to play. And that’s not the Southern way. My grandmother saying, “Lord, I hope you don’t become an old maid.” We get it from [inaudible 00:25:46] angles. Do you know? You really have to fall in love with who you are. I mean, I remember I wore a pants suit. When I came back from overseas one time. I went to church, I went to my grandmother’s church and she turned around. She says, she’s like, “Lord.” I look at her and said, “Grandma, what’s wrong?” She’s like, “I hope God doesn’t strike us down with lightning, you wore those pants. You wore pants.”

Chasity:
So you really have to know yourself and be confident with I know God loves me whether I wear … He’s glad I’m here. Do you know what I’m saying? But I didn’t dare say that to my grandma. But yeah. So you have to have your faith, have your relationship, but also the third thing I would say is just love who you are and who you are with God and apart from God, outside of God, within your friends and family and build your confidence where it doesn’t matter what they say and understands that what people say and their perceptions of you have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with you. That was how my grandmother was raised. So she would say that to me because that’s how she was raised, but it had nothing to do with me really wearing a pantsuit to church.

Eileen:
Right. Right.

Chasity:
The fourth thing is just love, just loving others, even when it’s hard and even when you have to do it from a distance. The hardest part for me is having to love someone from a distance that you really care about because you’re concerned about, well, they’re going to talk about your faith and you’re leaving them and you don’t have time for them. But God talks about it in the Bible. Jesus had to getaway. Jesus couldn’t carry. He couldn’t carry Peter during that time when it was so negative. I love you, but there has to be space. That’s very challenging for me because as you know, when you love someone, you love them and you want to be with them, but you can’t. As Christians sometimes we don’t realize only God can save them. My grandmother said, “The same God take care of you is the same God that will take care of them.”

Chasity:
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve really realized that. But I did sacrifice a lot of probably times and sacrificed a lot trying to help people so much because you love them so much, but you also are hurting yourself. So that was probably the most challenging thing. So I learned to love people that are close to me and I learned to love them, those that I really love from a distance if needed.

Alicia:
That was really great. I’m just lost for words. But I have something on my mind that I wrote in my notes and I know you’ll be the perfect person to bring this analogy. A lot of times that people are in sports, they don’t connect the behavior of the pattern of being in sports to business. There’s a lot of changes happening, as you may know with the NBA, WNBA. Can you give a brief synopsis of the connection of having those transferable skills or talent from sports to business? What does that look like? How can you leave some guidance on helping another athlete, whether it’s former, current, be able to transfer those skills over because there is going to be a change and sometimes people are not ready for that change, or sometimes they’re not often understanding how to make it.

Chasity:
Yeah. No, definitely. From my experiences and what I learned from an athlete, the qualities I learned from athletes transfer very well over the business. First and foremost, wherever you start now, you’ve got to look at it as an athlete. Once you start the business, we all want to be good and great at our jobs right from the start. I’ve learned in post-retirement it’s going to take at least six to eight weeks a year to really get a job. No matter how great you think you are, you have a different boss, a different supervisor, people you’re working with. And that’s the same as sport. You have a coach, you have a GM, you have different teammates, different personalities that you have to learn and you have to work with. We weren’t always good. So you got to put in the practice.

Chasity:
You got to learn the skillset of that job, so I was always great. I had to stay outside and shoot 500 layups. I had to practice my skillsets. So once athletes start realizing how they started, as opposed to where they finished, because you finish. I’m great. I did it. And then you go to the next job like I’m the man, I’m the woman. And it’s like, no, you got to start again. You got to go back to shoot layups and shooting in the gym when no one’s watching them practicing and when no one’s watching and learning your field. That’s first and foremost. Secondly, you have a sort of death to what you were before. You have to let that die. My dad always told me, “Chas, basketball was a part of your story.

Chasity:
Now you’re developing the next chapter of your story.” And when you start looking at it like that and stop comparing yourself to all your missteps and your failures with the next career to dang, it was so great before. Once you start comparing yourself, you move along much smoother and much faster. So those are two things, but there’s so much. Business is fluid. As an athlete you got traded, you got cut, new management, new general managers, new owners come in. Same thing with business and corporations. You get a new CEO, they want to do things differently. So once you start looking at it that way you can become more successful.

Eileen:
Great. Well, thank you so much for those wonderful comments and vision for people going through a transition. So as we close our conversation, we always ask our guests if you could leave Dr. Alicia and me and our listeners with some words of wisdom.

Chasity:
You guys put me on the spot.

Alicia:
You can handle it though.

Eileen:
There was a lot of wisdom already shared, so giving only a couple of words is going to be hard. I know that.

Chasity:
Yeah. I’ll share some from my book. In the end I leave each devotional with a quote. So at the end of the day, it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. At the end of the day, if you put God first, you’ll avoid the worst. I think something that’s resonated with me this week to piggyback off the WNBA and MBA and athletes and all the racial injustice and COVID and everything happened during this pandemic, everyone’s noticing our indifferences. And this can go across the board to faith, to different types of faiths out there, cultures and beliefs. And it’s not our indifferences that set us so much apart as it is that everyone is so silent. If more people would just talk in their faith if you’re a Muslim, you’re a community and be open and acknowledge wrong is wrong and right is right and hold people accountable. Those that have, as they want to say, white privilege, I’ll just say people with power, if you want to stay up there and you want to be silent when you are witnessing people, misuse their power, that’s the problem.

Chasity:
If you’re in the black community right now with fathers and mothers who aren’t taking care of their kids or dads who don’t acknowledge their children, and you’re a man or a sister of those persons and you don’t acknowledge, you can do better. You stay silent when you see mistreatment, that’s why the world is in the shape it’s in. I don’t care what faith you are. Regardless of faith, everyone has a discernment. Those cops all standing there when Jacob Blake was shot in the back four times, we can’t hide behind our work. We can’t hide behind our titles like, well, the law or the rules say I can’t say anything. And I get it. It’s a challenge, but if I could leave any wisdom, I would encourage everyone to pray and everyone to find within themselves, even if it’s in your own family, even if it’s having a conversation with your youngest son or your youngest daughter, we don’t say that here. Okay, my family may not have a lot of white friends. My family may not have a lot of black friends.

Chasity:
My family may not have a lot of Hispanic friends, but while we’re sitting here in our own home, we’re not going to speak negative terms about them. That would change the culture. So it’s not our indifferences. We’ll be indifferent in so many areas where we’re a myriad of cultures, of beliefs, of colors. So we’re always going to be different. And no one’s going to understand each other’s plight, but everyone has a voice and everyone, regardless of your faith, there’s something in you when you see something and you know this doesn’t sit well with me and we’re all silent. We’re all guilty of it for whatever reason. So I would encourage people that even on the smallest level if you could just use your voice in a small area wherever you can, it’s going to help create a much better world for all of us.

Eileen:
Thank you for joining us on the Soul of a Leader podcast. We are igniting a new way of leading with your soul and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcasts, please visit our website at www.soulofaleader.com. Thank you for listening.