Alicia:

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 Mary Green to discuss life deposits.

 

Eileen:

Welcome to the Soul of a Leader Podcast. In today’s episode, we have an executive who is known in the financial industry and other industries like travel, Mary Green. We are super excited to have you on the Soul of a Leader Podcast with Dr. Eileen and Dr. Alicia. And we’ve got to have some good conversations tonight.

 

Alicia:

Welcome, Mary Greene. Did you want to add anything else to our intro about you? We would love our listeners to learn more about you.

 

Mary:

Well, I think that’s my business side, but realistically, my personal side is that I’m a wife, I’m a mother, I’m a sister, I’m a daughter, I’m a grandmother. And that’s really what gets me excited about life, is the relationships that we have and the people that we are connected to. And I think that that’s where our leadership really starts there. It starts at home and then it takes us out into other places and spaces into the world. And that’s what’s so exciting about being alive today and watching the changes and watching people grow in their personal spaces as well as their professional spaces.

 

Alicia:

So can you share with us a little bit about that foundational leadership, as you say, it’s aligned to your home and how it impacted you in your leadership skills?

 

Mary:

Well, I was raised in a family of six. I am the oldest of six kids and five of us are girls. And I come from a very Southern, traditional raised family and my mother at a very young age, she just taught us that whatever we wanted to do, we could do it no matter what. We were unstoppable. And the second thing of it too is that whatever we had to do, we always had to do it to the best of our ability. It didn’t matter whether it was doing chores at home, to schoolwork, to just being out and among adults. So we were always expected to just be our best. And then we were expected to do our best and that has carried over with me into my adult life. And as I look at the people and the places I’ve been and what I’ve been exposed to, I’ve always tried to do my best and to be my best as I move throughout this place we called our world.

 

Eileen:

So one of the things I like about something you said earlier, you’re a mother, you’re a sister, you’re a wife. We often miss that part of being a leader that you may be a leader in different roles. So talk a little bit about when you’re in that motherly leadership role, how that is? And then you’re a leader in your business and then you’re an entrepreneur. Talk a little bit how individuals, specifically probably women who are running their own business who wear many titles?

 

Mary:

Well, one of the things I would share with everybody is that we do wear many titles and we have people sometimes that depend upon us and sometimes they overly do, and sometimes they don’t do it. So my mother raised us to be like very strong, independent girls. And that’s kind of what I did with my girls. I have two girls and I have a stepdaughter. And so I’ve always raised my girls to be very strong, very independent. My oldest daughter has a master’s degree. My youngest daughter went into the military. And so they’ve always been taught that, one, they need to be able to do it for themselves first before they can ask anybody to do it for them. Secondly, whatever they are doing, they have to be the best at it. They cannot slack off or they’re not allowed to just do something halfway.

 

Mary:

And the third thing of it is just that they have to put their heart into it and to trust God that he was going to take them to wherever they were trying to get to. And so when I think about the leadership roles and the different hats and how we have to transition from one role to the next role, sometimes it can be difficult and sometimes it can be a little overbearing, but if we can do it with the grace and we can do it with dignity because we have been empowered to be able to do that. So I think about the roles right now. I’m kind of what they call that sandwich generation because I have my parents on one side of me and I have grandchildren on the other side of me. And so I’m like, they’re a little me.

 

Mary:

So think of the McDonald’s hamburger. And I’m the little patty in between because everybody wants a piece of me. So I have to multitask sometimes and then I’m the oldest of six kids. And so my family laughs at me because I got a hat that says boss on it. I got a t-shirt that says boss on it. So that’s what they call me and my family, boss because if there’s family decisions that have to be made sometimes, I will help everybody come to an agreement on it. And so they call me the boss. And my mother says that she’s the boss and everybody knows it.

 

Mary:

So they don’t do it in a negative term, but they do it because I have the strength and the confidence to make those decisions. And then even at Prudential, when I was managing a team here, the gentleman on my team used to affectionately call me boss. “Hey boss, what’s happening”, they used to say. They come into their office, “Hey boss, I got a question for you.” So they used to always do that and it wasn’t because I was bossy, but they just did it as a term of endearment because of the leadership skills that I used to carry here in the office. So sometimes the weight gets a little bit heavy sometimes, but God never gives us any more than we can handle when I think about all that I’ve been through over the years and even now.

 

Alicia:

Part of Soul of a Leader is bringing that spiritual aspect into leading. We call it SAS. It’s just servant, spiritual and authentic leadership. Can you share how God has been instrumental in supporting you in your leadership?

 

Mary:

God is always at the center of probably whatever I do. And one of the things I will tell everyone is that you never have to say you’re a Christian because all you gotta do is demonstrate it. And people will see that you are a woman of faith throughout your career. I can remember being an executive with Avon and I’ve never hid my faith from anybody. It doesn’t matter where I was in terms of corporate America. And I’ve worked in corporate America. I’ve worked for AT&T, I’ve worked for Avon, I’ve worked for Prudential. So I’ve always worked for Fortune 500 companies, but I’ve never put my faith on a shelf or hidden it in a closet. I always wanted it to be a part of who I am because I always know whose I was from that standpoint.

 

Mary:

And so my ladies at Avon, I traveled quite a bit, but they would always ask me to pray for them if they had something going on with their kids or if they were having an issue. They would say, “Hey Mary, could you pray because we know you are a woman of faith.” And I said, “Sure.” And then sometimes I’ll be traveling throughout the week and so Wednesday nights it’s always midweek service night, but I would actually be on the road. And one of my managers would always ask me, “Hey, you’re not doing anything tonight are you.” I usually said no. “Well, you want to come to church with me?” And I would go to church with them on a Wednesday night and I might be the only African-American person in the church. But they would want me to go to church because they wanted their church family to meet me because they wanted them to know that they worked for a woman of faith.

 

Mary:

So I would be sometimes the only African-American person standing up in that church and I’ll be like, I know these people have not seen nobody like me come inside their church doors, and work with them, and worship with them because I would be at some little out of the way place here, either Michigan or Illinois, in Indiana, someplace. But they were so proud to let me know that they were of faith too, and they shared the same values and things that we shared as well. So it would be funny sometimes though.

 

Eileen:

And I love that story and that analogy of how, when you’re a woman of faith in business you don’t put it on the shelf and you don’t have to make a big announcement or wear anything, but you ended about values. And we have a value deck card, so we use it with our clients when we’re consulting with them and just coaching them through things. What are some of your top, I would say top four values that really help you when you’re driving a team forward or when you’re making these goals or when you have a team or maybe someone who’s just not even on the same page, but you need to get something done? So what are some of those values you use?

 

Mary:

Well, my number one value, I tell you is integrity because if you don’t have integrity, you just don’t have anything. And so you have to operate from the spirit of integrity that you’re going to tell the truth and you should expect the truth from the team members that are around you. The next thing is trust. Your people got to be able to trust that you have their best interests at heart. And that you’re going to defend them in places and spaces and rooms that they may not be able to get into. So the trust factor is huge in terms of them being able to hit the goals and do the things that you would want to do. Consistency for me is another one. I like people who are consistent in what they say and they’re consistent in what they do because I know that if they’re consistent, you can count on them to get done what the team needs to get done. And the last thing of it is, is I like a team player. So I like someone who knows how to play in the sandbox very well with others. And they’re not going to be able to be the lone ranger because they will destroy the trust of the team if they operate in their own systems.

 

Alicia:

That is wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. The one that is the foundation to many things, the five dysfunctional teams, just in family, in volunteer work, in anything, is trust. It’s trust. I mean, integrity is there too, but how do you build trust, receive trust from others? How do you assess that? How do you view that?

 

Mary:

Well, I view trust in what you say and what you do. And so there’s a little phrase that says, “Actions speak louder than words.” So for me, sometimes it’s not what you say because you and I, we could sit here and conversate all day, but then do you get up and then do you do what you say that you’re going to do from that standpoint? And so here’s the thing, if I can trust you then I know that we’re going to do some great things together. It’s kind of like dating. When you and your husband were dating each other, it took a little bit of time for that trust to build. But think about it. You didn’t give 100% of the trust all at one time, but you watched what he did.

 

Mary:

You watched what he said. And gradually over time you became comfortable with each other and the trust just kind of grew. And it kept growing from that particular standpoint. And so I’m a big believer that if I can trust you, we’re going to get along great. And we’re going to be able to do some awesome things together. But if I can’t trust you, that means that I’m going to keep looking over my shoulder and wondering, are you going to be consistent? Do you have a high level of integrity? And will you be an integral part of our team? So sometimes you do have to earn trust, but I’m the opposite. I’ll give trust up front and then I’ll see how you behave and if I should start withdrawing some of the trust that I have given you. The other thing is too, in order to build trust you have to make deposits into people.

 

Mary:

So what do I mean? Making a deposit into someone allows you at some particular point in time you can go to them and you can make withdrawals. It’s like a bank account. If I put money into that bank account, in other words if I do some great things with Dr. Alicia, I’m going to build trust with her. But I also know too that there may come a day where I may have to take some of those deposits out of that trust that we have built. And she’s going to be willing to do some of the things that I need her to do in order to go the extra mile and get done what we need to get done. Why? Because I’ve made deposits into her. It could be emotional. It could be financial. It could be whatever it is we determine that’s going to build up that bank account of trust that will enable me in the future to make the withdrawals that I need from that. So that’s another piece that you can take a look at in terms of building trust. Make the deposits into individuals and then later on down the road, you can ask for a withdrawal and guess what, they’re willing to do it. They will go the extra mile for you.

 

Eileen:

I love that.

 

Alicia:

Thank you.

 

Eileen:

I know, right? I’m thinking and you’re so dead on that because a lot of times people want to do a withdrawal and they never made a deposit.

 

Mary:

Never made a deposit.

 

Alicia:

And in debt.

 

Eileen:

Right? It’s like this process you’re talking about, it’s not complicated. It’s an aha moment. You want to make a withdrawal, something that you never made a deposit on. So how do you expect me to trust you if you haven’t deposited anything in me to know to trust you. And that brings me to my next point because I’m still like she’s so right. So how do you challenge people to be their best when they are around you? Because integrity is up there with me and trust, and loyalty is one of mine. So when people are around you what do you do to challenge them to be their best?

 

Mary:

Well, I think what you have to do is you’ve got to help them set goals for themselves and the personal goals that will help them get to where they’re trying to get to. One of the things that I think I’m good at and what I’ve been told is that I’m a really good coach. I actually can see the potential into people long before they see the potential in themselves. And I can actually get them to do more than what they’re capable of. Why? Because it comes with assessing what are their strengths versus what are their weaknesses, and then helping to see that they’re stronger with their strengths than they are weaker with their weaknesses, and helping them to leverage their strengths over their weaknesses to get to their goals. So you’re going to help them establish those goals. You’re going to help them assess who am I? What am I good at? What am I strong at? And then using those strengths to overcome those weaknesses, to get to their goal.

 

Mary:

And so that’s what I’m really good at. I am a really good coach, whether I’m coaching somebody financially to hit their goals. It’s funny because I recently told somebody that they could actually retire as a millionaire. And I think when I said that word, it never dawned on them that they could actually do this. But I said, hey, if we do this and if we do that, this is what’s going to happen. And I remember I had another time where I told someone they could actually pay off their car by December and no one had ever said this to this person that they could literally pay their car off. It never dawned on her that she could literally be driving her car around debt-free. So it’s the little things that we can see and that we can share with individuals and paint the vision of what is versus what they think is, and then get them to believe in themselves enough that they’re able to accomplish those things. So it starts with belief and trust is at the core. Again, that’s one of those foundations that are at the core of getting people to really believe that they can actually do and be better than what their mind is telling them that they are.

 

Alicia:

So Mary, when you’re talking about coaching, I’m going through the ICF certificate of coaching right now. And what I’m finding out and I’d love to ask you this is, when you coach somebody, the answer is always within, but they need someone to guide them. Do you feel that way when you’re coaching the people?

 

Mary:

Well, yeah, because here’s the deal. Depending upon what someone has been through, a lot of times people have been told all of the negative things versus being shared with all of the positive. So now all of a sudden their belief system is centered more on the negative than it is on the positive. And so what we have to do is we have to turn it around and say listen, if you say it long enough and then if you start to believe it long enough, you’ll be able to do it long enough from that standpoint. The average person doesn’t believe that they are capable of going far beyond what their skills will say. And then people will sometimes tell them this is all. But one thing I will always say about my mother, she always told us there isn’t anything that we can’t do, not anything.

 

Mary:

And if you fool around and you say it long enough and you believe it long enough, you can do it. I tell everybody, I say there’s places and spaces I would have never thought I would be in. I mean, I’ve worked in the financial markets and let me tell you, when I was in high school I hated math. I took one business course throughout my whole college. And I started working in the business world, went back, got my MBA degree. And I graduated at the top of my class. Actually, my first year in MBA school, I had straight A’s. I graduated with one B in my whole program. And if someone had told me I’d be working in the financial markets, talking about stocks, looking at balance sheets, talking about income statements and all that good stuff, I’d have looked at them years ago and just laughed at them.

 

Mary:

But see, God has a funny way of playing tricks on us because every person that I have worked for, they’ve told me the same thing, “You can do far more than what you’re capable of doing.” And that has always happened to me, that I believed it long enough to work my way from the bottom of employers, all the way to the top. So we can do whatever we put our mind to and the heart will tell us all the things that we can do. We just need to believe it and we have to put it in action. But years ago, I would have never thought of myself as working in the financial markets. I would have never thought of myself as being a female entrepreneur. And certainly I would have never thought of myself as being where I am at this place in life, from that particular perspective.

 

Eileen:

Yeah. And I like one point Dr. Eileen brought up some of the things that are internal when you coach and people, and then I liked how you talked about how you put the goals together. I’m a visual person so I have to write these goals out. I’ve learned now that even if I didn’t accomplish that goal… At first, I used to get so bent out of shape and like, I’m not doing another goal. And then of course, that didn’t last that long, but I learned just because it didn’t happen at that moment, it still can be a goal. I mean, that was revelation for me. I’m sorry people. It took me a moment. Something just clicked. You don’t have to beat yourself up because you didn’t accomplish it at the moment you set or at the time frame. So I like how when you’re coaching people, about how you need to reach those goals and how you first need to set them and then have some understanding about what you can do. It’s all in what you believe. It’s what we believe we can do. What’s really is the most valuable part of what you’re saying, it starts here in the mind.

 

Mary:

Yep. And it’s your belief system that I tell everybody. Whatever you believe is what you will become. The Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” And so whatever we believe in our heart we are to be is what we will be. Now, we have to create some actions, plans and some steps along the way to get there. But if I believe that I’m going to be a millionaire, that I am a millionaire, guess what I’ll start doing? I’ll create some plans. I’ll start acting like it long before I get there. I don’t know. I saw a quote some years ago and it was, “Act as if it was impossible to fail. Act as if it was impossible to fail.” And the other thing was too, I saw a book by Michael Jordan he had wrote, and this is a really good book.

 

Mary:

I read it. It was a short read, but he says, “I can accept failure, but I cannot accept not trying.” It’s a very small, quick little book, but he did. And you understand why he’s the greatest basketball player because he always tried and he always gave it his best. And he always believed in himself. And so I used to tell individuals that work for me, “If you’re ever going to bet on somebody, bet on the person that you see in the mirror every single day. Why? Because you know that person’s strengths and you know what that person’s weaknesses are.” And so I remember when I first started my career, my journey into entrepreneurship, I was like, well, if I’m going to bet on somebody, I’m going to bet on Mary. Why? Because, I know who Mary is. I know what her strengths are. I know what she can do. So you should always bet on yourself. It’s like rolling the dice, but hey, you expect a win. And so that’s what you have to do when you start thinking about you, your internal belief system and what you need to do in order to win each day.

 

Eileen:

That was lovely. Bettering yourself. I have to write that down because I’m not forgetting that.

 

Mary:

Right. Yeah. If you’re going to bet on anybody, why not bet on you?

 

Eileen:

Right. When I want, I want to put a bet on me. That’s probably why I don’t gamble. I would bet on myself because I know my strengths, I know what I’m going to do, I know if I’m setting out to do something, I’m going to get it done and I’m not going to let myself down. I love that.

 

Alicia:

Well, and that just supports what you said about belief. If you’re betting on yourself, you’re believing in what’s in your heart, but then you’re still on what God has given you.

 

Mary:

Yeah. Why not bet on yourself? If you had to put $500,000 down and say I’m going to bet on Mary because I know she’s going to come through, guess what? And I bet you, if you told your family members that you were going to put $500,000 on yourself to accomplish that task, you know what they would say? Count me in. Why? Because they know you could do it. They know it. They know. Your family members know who they’re going to bet on in the family. They know who they’re not going to bet on. They know they can bet on you and they can count on you to get it done. Absolutely.

 

Alicia:

Wow. That is wonderful. Well, Mary, our 30 minutes goes by so fast when we’re having these wonderful conversations and we always leave with our listeners receiving some words of wisdom from our guest. So could you leave us with some words of wisdom?

 

Mary:

Well, one of the things I would like to tell everyone that we all start from someplace. Nobody in their career, nobody in their life starts at the top. They always start at the beginning and it may not be the bottom. It may not be the middle, but they will start somewhere. And what they will do is they’ll keep going and keep going till they eventually will get to the top. And I think that one of the things we have to do is really never give up on ourselves, never stop believing in ourselves and always keep going in the face of adversity. And somewhere along the line, we’re going to find ourselves in places and spaces that we did not expect to be there. But guess what, God always has a place for us. He always puts us in places and when he puts us there, he expects us to flourish.

 

Mary:

He expects us to make changes and he expects us to have an impact upon the people and the lives that we touch every single day. So don’t ever count yourself out. Don’t ever not think or believe that you can’t because we can probably do more than what we can even think and even imagine what we are capable of doing. And our goal should be to add to the individual’s lives that we touch each day and make sure we’re not subtracting from it. And don’t go out there and divide people, but make sure we’re multiplying the people around us so that when we leave here we’ll know that we have left our mark on this earth. And we don’t have to be a celebrity or a superstar to leave a mark on somebody’s life or an imprint on their heart. We just have to be the best that we can be each day and the person that God has called us to be. And that’s what I would say to the individuals that are listening tonight.

 

Eileen:

Oh my gosh.

 

Alicia:

Very impactful.

 

Eileen:

So impactful.

 

Alicia:

Thank you for sharing that heartfelt.

 

Eileen:

Yeah. That was from the heart. Yes.

 

Alicia:

It’s a vision that we all need to live by.

 

Mary:

Oh yeah. And I think that what happened is today is that we’ve kind of gotten away from the things that make us all connected to each other. We’ve gotten away from those things and hopefully we’ll get back to them, but decency and kindness and civility and those things we’ve gotten away from them. But we need to get reconnected because there were times when we could disagree with each other and everybody would still be okay. We’d be like, okay girl, let’s go have that glass of wine now. Now everybody’s kind of wondering, and that’s because the trust has been eroded. And now everybody’s looking at each other in a different way, but I think that we can get back and we can reconnect ourselves and we can certainly come back and embrace each other as individuals here.

 

Mary:

So Dr. Alicia, I want to thank you for having me tonight. Dr. Eileen, it’s been great to meet with you and be on the show. So hope you guys will have me back at another time or something and we’ll be able to do some more of this girlfriend’s chat. That’s what I feel like I’ve been involved with tonight. So thanks so much.

 

Alicia:

Thank you so much. That’s exactly the vision we want and we cannot thank you enough and be grateful for your time, your effort and all your stories and insight. Thank you.

 

Eileen:

I feel so blessed to even know you. As long as I’ve known you and your sister, her sister. You think she’s sweet? I don’t know which one of them is sweeter. They’re so kind. Your mother, give her a big hug. She has done a wonderful job.

 

Mary:

I will.

 

Eileen:

I can feel your love all the way in my house. I’m up here melting. Thank you so much.

 

Alicia:

Thank you so much.

 

Eileen:

You guys are welcome. Thanks so much for having me and look forward and hey, listen, you guys have a great Thanksgiving. Go get you some turkey. We may not be able to gather, get on Zoom and hold up that turkey leg.

 

Eileen:

I know, right?

 

Alicia:

And send grateful thoughts out to this world.

 

Mary:

Yeah. We were blessed to be able to be here for this Thanksgiving because some people have some people missing around the tables this year, but thanks so much though.

 

Alicia:

Thank you for joining us on 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.