What Got You Here - Won’t Get You There!

When Retail Stops Growing You, What’s Next?

No one tells you what happens when you outgrow your company.

You hit every metric, you do everything right, and yet the growth stops. Your company still expects results, but they’re not developing you. They’re not stretching you. And if you’re being honest, you’re starting to feel it.

The hard truth? Most senior leaders won’t admit when they’ve hit this wall. They keep showing up, running the same play, hoping something shifts. But real leadership isn’t just about surviving in a system that stopped investing in you, it’s about taking control of your next move.

In this episode, I break down:

•  The moment you realize your company isn’t developing you anymore
• Why top leaders don’t wait for permission to grow
• How to build your own “third place” for real strategic development

This one’s for the leaders who know they need something different—but aren’t waiting around for someone else to create it.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:50

So I'm gonna start this episode off with a very declarative statement. And that statement is I know you. Yeah, yeah, I I I I do. I know you. I know your hopes. I know your your fears, I know your thoughts. I know what you're thinking about day to day. I know what you're thinking about when you think about your career. I know what you think about when you think about your team. What does my team think about me? What are the thoughts that are racing through their head? Where do they want to go? What about my boss? What about the relationship with my boss? What does that look like? How about the market? Right? During this crazy time, the markets are what the markets are, and they will be what they will be. But you, as a leader, I know you. I know that you are looking for more. I know that you want more. I know that you desire more. I know what you're probably currently getting from a leadership development training standpoint. I know it's not what you need. I know it will fulfill a need, but guess what? Your dynamic as a leader, you change, your needs change, your ideas change, your perspectives will change, and you need something, just as I did, that will actually grow with you. You need something that you can actually hold on to that's going to help you move along this leadership journey that won't leave you by your side. You need relevance. You need a third place. You need a place that's not home, it's not work. You need a place that's strategic, a place that's going to give you what you need. You know, one of the reasons I created this podcast, Retail Leadership was Seaworthy, was because I saw something out there, I saw a need. There was a ton of podcasts out there, but there wasn't one for me that specifically addressed the unspoken challenges that retail leaders and teams face. So guess what? I created it. So just like when I saw and had a need for that third place, guess what? I had to create it. Something that I know that you need as a leader. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking about the campus, talking about the origin story, talking about a little bit what it means to be a member of the campus. But more importantly, more importantly, what does the campus leader look like? What behaviors and what thoughts, what drives them? So get ready. We're going to talk about that right now.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Welcome to Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy, where we go well beyond the corporate playbook to unpack major opportunities, hidden challenges, and critical issues that senior retail leaders face every day. If you're ready to get the insights you need to elevate the impact you have on your team, increase the profitability of your stores, and level up your retail career, then keep listening, my friend, because I see a lot more success in your future. So let's get started right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

So I'm gonna preface this episode. I am very bullish on executive coaching. I am. And here's why. Because as a leader growing up, I always had the opportunity to be around people and leaders who believed in imparting value into others. Very selfless leaders who understood that just because I'm in a certain position doesn't mean I can't add value to the next person. I always had an affinity for learning, always had an affinity for understanding certain things and new things. And so for me, this is gonna may sound self-promoting when it comes to the campus and what we do, but I just wanted to let you know this right now. I have a passion, a passion for executive coaching and training and development, leaders. Like I spoke earlier, while there are tons of podcasts that are out there about the retail industry, once again, I'm bullish on leadership. My focus is on leaders and how do we help leaders become better? So I created a space for that. So we're gonna talk about that place right now. So we're gonna talk about the canvas. I, you know, the name, a lot of people have been asking me, like, where did the name come from? It literally goes back to one, my love for academia. I am, you know, I am, I thrive in the academic environment. When it comes to, you know, classroom settings, I was always that person within any organization. When corporate was putting on some type of training and development or something like that, I was the first one to raise my hand asking, can I go? Because I wanted to learn. I was hungry for information. I was hungry for knowledge. And so for me, it was just important that I actually have something that represented me, but more importantly, I think represents the type of individual leaders and teams, and we'll talk more about that here in a second, that are actually going to be inside of the campus. So, where did the campus sort of come from? The idea. Years ago, I was like an old school, like, you know, years ago. So, but years ago, when I was in college, I had a professor. Some of you who know me have already heard this story, but you know, bear with me. I had a college, I had a professor who was a GE alum, and GE had this campus, this place, it's called Crotonville. It's Crotonville, New York. It's about an hour and a half, you know, north of New York City. And what they would do was that they would bring in their top business unit experts, and then they would bring in authors, futurists, technologists, people who were thought leaders within their industry. And they would teach, coach, and train these individuals on this, on these new ideas. And they these ideas would broaden the leader's perspective and introduce them to things that they wouldn't um normally be able to see or think about, you know, maybe not now, but maybe five, seven years, maybe even 10 years down the road. And what that did was that that created a completely different perspective of who they were and what they can actually be. Then they would take this information and they would take it back into the marketplace. They would take it back to their teams. But before they did that, they would they would internalize what they've learned. Because what we'll be talking about later, and what you will hear from everything that we discussed in the campus is that you have to be a little selfish sometimes as a leader when it comes to your development. I don't know if Greg Pear is going to hear this, but Greg Pearr, I mean, he was our training person at Target when I first came on board, day two of my training. And he said, Steve, own your development, own your training. And those words have stuck with me throughout the rest of my leadership journey. And I firmly believe this. And this is where the impetus for the campus came from is that you have to own your training. You have to own your development. Nobody's gonna give it to you. Nobody's gonna give it to you. Even I'm gonna talk about companies here in a second. So I'm gonna I'm I'm not gonna, you know, you know, jump the gun a little bit. I'm gonna wait here. But this is where the idea of the campus where it came from. But more importantly, one of the areas and reasons why, and here, let me let me talk to you a little bit about some statistics. So, from a training and development standpoint, a lot of companies believe that training and development are important. That's 83% actually believe that based on based on the Forbes uh magazine article and statistics. But only 5% are actually doing something about it. 5% are actually doing something about it. And here's the thing, you're gonna hear this theme throughout everything that I talk about. We are focusing in on that 5%. We are solving for that 5%. And you're and you're probably like, Steve, why aren't you why aren't you solving for the 83%? The other people that don't don't that don't really, you know, aren't really doing anything. And here's why. Years ago, I have I stopped as a uh as a company, I stopped trying to convince people that they need coaching and that they need development. I have. I know that sounds wrong. I know that sounds bad. But here's the thing. If you have to convince someone that they need something, I don't know if there's going to be a lot of ownership there. And so we focus in, and you'll hear more about this here shortly, too. We focus in on companies, on individuals who are already doing the work. They have tried coaching and development, they have tried some training, they've tried the podcast, they've tried the conferences, they've tried all of that stuff. Even some of the, even some of the teams that we work with that are inside the campus, they've tried other companies from a training and development standpoint. But something didn't click, something didn't work. So there are a number of you out there who are already doing work. But you need something different. You need something just a little bit more. And that's what we're here to give you. That's what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the idea of around the campus being a strategic third place. Right. Any of us who have been a retail, we know that Starbucks made that phrase the third place famous. It's not home, it's not work, but it's the it's the third place. I need, I think you need a third place. See, once again, I I'll go back to the fact that I was very privileged that I had a third place, meaning that I had a I've had a coach, gosh, probably 25 of my 30 some odd years in leadership. I've had a coach. And that coach is my third place. My inner circle is my is my third place. I've tried different communities. I've tried them, I've tried them, I've tried a whole bunch of them, and a lot of them just didn't work for me. A lot of them were talking about their day, and they were talking about, you know, either talking about their boss or something like that. I I that wasn't a place where for me, I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to be a I wanted to be in a place where I can get relevant information that is going to move me further along in my journey. I wanted to be a part of a place where I can get information that I can't Google. Does that make sense? We have these masterclasses coming up, and you know, all of my instructors are gonna laugh. They already know what I'm about to say. But they are all teaching these amazing, amazing masterclasses that are birthed out of their thought leadership and who they are. And one of the things that I always talk to them about is that if you can Google it, I don't want it inside of the campus. Our thoughts and our perspective is that we go narrow and deep, not wide and shallow on things. Does that make sense? Narrow and deep, not wide and shallow. Listen to me. If you can Google it, that's great, right? And that maybe you'll get your answer. But you're not gonna get the implementation. You're not gonna get the real life ideas and perspectives that you need, and and also some of the evaluated experiences of other leaders who have been through it, and they can add some value to you in your life. But more importantly, you can think they they can stretch your mind and your ideas beyond where you are. That's one of the issues that I see with with that convincing of leaders. Can we go back to that for a second? When you have to convince somebody that's the the the mind isn't as elastic at that point around their true need for change. You have to you have to understand that you need to change beforehand. And some of you may feel, well, what well well why are you leaving those people out? Here's I'm not leaving those people out. You know why I'm not leaving them out? It's because I create enough resources out there in the marketplace. This podcast, my my Substack, my posting on on LinkedIn, YouTube, IG, right? There, there's enough of my website, there's enough information or content that I produce that should actually stir something in you that says, okay, I may need to do something different, right? So I'm not leaving anybody out. It's just the fact of like when from a marketing and per and client standpoint, those individuals who have already doing the work, those are the individuals that we want to go after. Those are the individuals that we want in the campus. If you're not ready for it, then continue to listen to this podcast, continue to listen to the content, get the newsletter, all of that. But make sure that you're ready because, you know, one of the things that we talk about is that action beats intention all day long. And we want we want people to be focused in on making sure that they're gonna be action-oriented within the campus. They're gonna learn a lot of things that they never learned before. So the idea around coaching, it unlocks a person's potential to maximize your growth. It just does. I'm gonna use this, I'm gonna move to this next phrase. And I I want you to to to listen to this or read it if you're watching this on YouTube very carefully. So let me move to this one. A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see. So you can be who you've always known you could be. Okay, I'm just can I marinate for a second? I'm gonna read it one more time. A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be. Boy, oh boy. If you don't have anybody like that in your life, you need somebody like that in your life to help you move past yourself. Coaching helps you move past yourself. True training and development helps you move past yourself. It helps you uncover those air aspects of your life and who you are, your personality, that you have created these veneers, these personas. Don't look at me that way. You know what I'm talking about. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You have created a persona. A lot of you have. And I understand that. And here's why: because I did it myself. There were certain leadership personas that I put on, depending on possibly who was in the room. Right? And then, but the older I got, the more seasoned I got, the more coaches that I had, the more knowledge that I knew about my true self and who I was and my ability to stand in that truth, those personas went away. And it was nothing left but who I was and who I am. And that's why I said earlier, I know you. I understand those things. I understand what you may be struggling with, I understand the fear, I understand the isolation, the loneliness. When the next level of leadership you go to, right, you're starting over, you have a brand new team. Even if you, even if you're leading the team that you previously were a part of, you're still brand new. And there's still things that now you're privy to that you weren't to previously. And so a coach can help you work through that. A coach has been there. A coach can help you understand those ideas. The campus is full of that. The resources that we have in there help you stretch your mind, help you identify some of those gaps and issues that you have been struggling with, or the ones that you the ones that you do not admit that you're struggling with. The true essence of the word was a vehicle for transportate transporting one person from here to there. And that's exactly what a coach does. That's exactly what a strategic third place does. It's a transportation vehicle. It helps you take whatever's in your mind mentally. Sometimes you have to suspend some of those thoughts and ideas before you can actually move forward. I got this perspective that I'm going to be talking more about. And it's about how to create margin in your life, capacity in your life, because a lot of you are running on empty and you don't have any capacity in your life because you are constantly either trying to consume information in order to feel important, and you're not giving any of that away to create room for new information. So coaching helps you transport mentally some of those things that you have been struggling with out to other people or even just away from you. It's about intentional movement. How do you move yourself mentally from point A to point B while not losing the core of your values? But here's the thing: you have to make sure that you understand what your values are first before you can even move from point A to point B. You see what happens in retail, we get rewarded for solutions. We get rewarded for results. That's the reason why when a lot of leaders don't want to receive executive coaching or even come into a community like the campus, because we have been told that we're right all the time because of the results that we receive. I got a phrase that I'm going to talk about here in a second, so I'm trying not to spoil it. And it it has to be about discovery, executive coaching, discovery, transformation, and then the last thing is action. What do you do with what you've learned? I don't I can't tell you how many conferences throughout my career that I went to, and after the conference was over, that was it. Until I got had a conversation with my coach, and he gave me an exercise of something to do, you know, right after, you know, he said a phrase or a perspective. He said, immediately after you go to a conference, implement at least one or two of the ideas the very next day. Just try. Even if it's awkward, even if it doesn't really necessarily fit, just try to implement it. And because what that does is that that creates a bond with that information, with that skill, that behavior, or whatever it may be. You have to do that. And the action that you take is extremely important. The other part of the reason why we created the campus was because that after you go to a conference or after you go to one of our masterclasses, you need a place to digest the information. You need some time to talk to the instructor after after the masterclass. You may have a question that as you're driving in the car after the masterclass, that you're like, man, I don't have any typing, you know, traditional training, you don't have anybody to ask. But that's where the third place comes into play is that there is a place for you to ask questions, to get deeper and deeper information and insights. So here's the phrase that I was I was waiting on, and don't get me wrong. Because I'm not I'm I'm not that far removed from being a retail leader. And here's what I'm gonna say retail leaders and teens, you need a coach. And you know why? It's because we think we know everything because we have to know everything. Does that make sense? So you need a coach because we think we know everything because we have to know everything. You do. That's part that's that's part of your job. That's part of the retail leader experience. That's part of the ethos. So we have a couple of things coming up. Whenever you listen to this, to this podcast, uh it you you may be listening to this before, you may be listening to this to after the the the release of our Our 2025 campus retail leadership development study. And I've been trying my best not to look at some of the results. But part of some of the issue is that I'm seeing with some of the results. We've surveyed, you know, over 500 retail leaders all the way up the ladder from team leaders all the way to executives. And some of the things are I feel like I know a lot already. And you try your best when you're doing surveys like this, not to create any confirmation bias. And so I've stepped away from it. But but then when I talk to other leaders, you know, every day, I still hear some of the issues that they're dealing with and some of the, some of the pride that they have around, you know, I don't need that. I'm good. I'll figure it out. And I gotta tell you, I was there. I was that same person, even when I had a coach, right? My coach used to have to check me almost almost every other session because I would slide into this, I got it mode, and I didn't have it. And some of you do have it. God bless you. That's great. That's great. But the reason you feel that you may not need assistance is because we as retail leaders have to know everything: people, strategy, um, supply chain, technology, interpersonal skills, personality traits, competitive analysis, business acumen, data, data, uh, data acumen, you name it. We need to know it all. We need to know it all, and we need to know it fast. We don't have time to sit, sit in an office in a cubicle and study this stuff. We are learning it and we're dealing, it doesn't matter if you're a the store team, you're a district manager, you're a group vice president, regional SVP, you are moving and learning in real time. You don't have uh the time to sit down. So when you feel that you know a lot, sometimes you feel that you don't need help. You don't need help. So we're here to tell you, some of you do. I'm here to tell you, some of you do. Whether you want to admit it or not, I'm going I my name is Steve, and I'm your friend. Some of y'all need some help. All right. And here's the here's what I hear every day. Here's what I hear a lot to you. You know, and this these are these are some of the attributes of some of the current leaders that I talk to every day. They're frustrated. They feel unseen, they feel underdeveloped. They're they're tired of some of the alternatives that are that are out there, right? They can't rely on their company to help train them and move them to where they need to be. They are pressed for time. They are pressed for time. Now, that could that should have been number one. That should have probably been the first thing out of my mouth. Everybody in retail in the retail space is pressed for time. And I don't say that flippantly. I say that as I understand it. And I, and they are. And the last thing that they're looking for is relevant information. I cannot begin to tell you how important it is for whatever it is that you're digesting, that it have some understanding of your current situation, but also where you're going at the same time. Does that make sense? And it's it's hard to do both, but it can be done. To create resources, to create conversations where it is satisfying your current relevant need, but it's also helping you aspirationally think about where you can and where you are going, right? It's important. It's so important. And that's a that's a that's an art form, you know, to to to be able to do that. But what happens is the training is sort of one-dimensional that we receive from a corporate um standpoint, you know, even from even from other conferences, it's very one-dimensional. Listen to me, there are so many buzzwords that happen from the stage. I mean, I I you know, if I I if I could take a shot, which I which I don't, at these conferences, for every buzzword I hear, it's like, oh my gosh. But what about the implementation? Right? What about the relevance to your to your current team, to your current, you know, company, to everybody that's there? Like, stop with all the talking points. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There, the conversations that need to take place are deeper and broader, right? In the context of what leaders need. I am not talking supply chain. I'm not talking AI. I am talking specifically about leaders and teams and what they need right now in this space and what they have been crying out for. So what what type of leaders do we serve? We get I get this question a lot. I get this this question a lot. So who's in who's in the who's in the campus? Are they, you know, are they are they, you know, store managers, you know, are they district managers? Are they SVPs? What what at what level are they? And I listen to me, I I get I get the merit of that question. I get the merit of that question. But the but uh there's also there's also a uh a bit of cynicism within that question. It's like I don't I can't be in there if if if the the people in there are a level below me. That's really what that question, a lot of times what that question means. I can't be in there if if the person is two, is, is, is two or three levels ahead of me. That's what we get to. We get that. And and and here's my here's my answer to this to this question. And it goes back to that 5% thing. We serve leaders and teams who are already doing the work. Already doing the work. They have already made up their mind that they need something different. They're looking for something different. They already understand the investment that they need to make financially, you know, from a time standpoint, resource-wise, they understand the investment necessary to get them to where it is they want to be, to their best next. So the other thing is that they're smarter, but they want to be, they want to be smarter. I mean, they're smart, but they want to be smarter. They're driven, but they need to learn how to channel, you know, that ability to drive results. You don't need to be in full drive mode all the time. They they're thought leaders, but some of their thoughts are sort of disorganized. So they need help in organizing some of their thought leadership. They're they're already on the road to figuring things out, but they just may need a little bit recalibration or some more direction or some or uh or a pit stop, just a pause, not going backwards, but just a pause to assess where they are and what it is that they're gonna need for the journey ahead. They want more, but they're not sure what that more is. These are the type of leaders, these are the type of teams that are inside of the campus. They're curious. They're curious about what's next. And they're and they're not just curious for curiosity's sake, they're curious so that they can learn this information and actually share it and give it away. And we'll talk more about this in a second, getting ahead of myself. So, our mission with the campus is to change the coaching and learning model for retail leaders and companies. And the vision, I spelled vision wrong on this one if you're looking at this. A global destination offering the most relevant and timely resources and strategies for the retail industry. It's a big vision. And there's other aspects of what we want to do, but I'm gonna leave that for a podcast down the road because we got a lot of things that we want to do. Part of what we the the idea of what we've transitioned the campus into was that we have taken every aspect of Worthy Retail Global, all of our operations, and we've placed it inside of the campus. So everything is housed under the campus, our coaching, our training, all of our resources. There, there are no more, you know, places that you can probably download off of the website, you know, other than maybe some some some different PDF files, but everything else is is inside of our campus. And would love to have you on there. There is a there's a free membership, but I got to tell you, the paid membership is where it's at. That's where that's where the unlock takes play takes place. So in the phase two is that we are rolling out masterclasses. We have masterminds that we're gonna be starting this fall, and then we're the big one of the big goals is to do a retail leader certification. And we have some plans in place, you know, you know, for that as well. So some very big lofty goals or some big ideas. Because what we have noticed out there, we've looked at the alternatives. A lot of you have looked at and know the alternatives that are out there. And a lot of them lack speed, they're too broad, the length of completion of different things are is too long. They lack customization and relevance. AI in in instructor, instructor power, instructor um powered. And so here's the thing with with here's the thing that we believe in with the campus. We we but we 100% believe in technology, 100% believe in technology, but our bent, our bent, while AI is going to continue to proliferate, you know, the talking points and all of that stuff, our bent is on human interaction. Human connection. Even through video, there's still some measure of human connection. So while we can teach you how to strategically deal with AI, you may down the line see some pieces of AI within our in the campus, but right now we're focusing on the human engagement, the human connection. And here's why. And here's why, and this is the most important part. If you don't get anything else from this podcast episode, and here's why. I call it the moment of revelation. How many of you have taught a class, you know, in-person class, or you've been a student and you're sitting in that class, and the instructor is having this really amazing conversation, something pretty dope. And you're like, wow, what is this thing? And they say something, and like a bell goes off in your head, and something that was confusing initially, gets you get you gain instant clarity on it. I call that the moment of revelation. When I was a professor and I was I was teaching micro and macroeconomics, accounting one and two, business math, communications, things like that. And when I was teaching, and I would see a student who was struggling to understand a concept, and and then if I was to explain it in a certain way, you would see the light bulb go on in their head. They're like, ah, Mr. Worthy, I got it now. I got it. Or if you're in a or if you're in a classroom setting and you may not, you you almost get it. You're 90% of the way. What do you do? In those situations, you will ask the instructor for more clarity. And guess what? You get the clarity. And then boom, there's a moment of revelation. When you have LMS models and training models that are just disseminating information to you, you don't really get the opportunity to go back and ask a question. You don't get the opportunity to go back and maybe ask something deeper. And if it does spit something out, it's all based off of human experience anyway. So I'd rather go right to the source. That's our perspective. So from a corporate training standpoint, they go, they go to the internal workshops, on-the-job training, mentor, mentorship programs. Once again, I just spoke about e-learning programs, leadership shadowing, all of those different things, all of those different things. And they have their place. But what we are really trying to do with the with the campus is that we want to redefine what leaders learn by transforming how they learn. That's our focus.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

You're listening to Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

So that is that is our focus, and that's what we that's how we what we want to do is to redefine what leaders learn by transforming how they learn. Why is that so important? Why is that so important? It's because we want whatever you learn and how you grow, we want there to be a measure of stickiness to it. We want it to be in your mind so that you have some moments of recall of that information that you've learned, and you can use it not for yourself, but for someone else. I can't, I can't begin to tell you how many times when I've been in a coaching session, and I would have a client that would say something to me, and they were like, hey, I was having this conversation with someone, and I remember this thing you said, and I used it, and he thought I was the smartest person in the world. I was like, no, my coach told me that. And for me, that's all that's I I didn't give him a free session. I should have. But those are those moments in time that you just really appreciate and love what you do. Because you have helped transform that person's perspective. You have created some stickiness in their development that now they have something that's going to be with them for the rest of their life. The rest of their life. And that's what we want to do. Because your leadership is dynamic. You are dynamic. You are not stuck in place. And so your training, your development, or the place that you go to get that shouldn't be stuck in the past. The best leaders have the ability to create the future from their evaluated and shared experiences. I couldn't agree with this statement more. I couldn't agree with them more. The best leaders have the ability to create the future from their evaluated and shared experiences. Our philosophy, and I when we think about where we are, when we think about the current landscape of communities, and also from a retail standpoint, there are there are a lot of different avenues. There are a lot of different people who are talking about retail leadership. And God bless them, and thank God, because we need, we need, we need more people talking about this. My good friend Ron Thurston, Brian LeBrock, right? Amazing books, Kid Campoy, right, all out there crushing it, doing amazing things for the retail space and the retail industry. And we firmly believe is that if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together. And that is the impetus behind everything that we do in the campus, is that we want everybody to go. We want to go together. We want to go far. And that's where and that's what we're going to be doing. So, what's the North Star from all of this stuff? You've been listening to me talk for a while now. And, you know, I know you're like, okay, what, Steve, what what's the takeaway? If you've heard any of my podcasts, you know that I always have like a North Star. That means that these are some of the things that you you should expect if you do what I just spoke about. Today's North Star, this is what you should should expect if you or your teams come to the campus. Because I want to talk a little bit about, in closing, about the campus leader and who they are. The campus leader, they create the leadership conversations that matter. I firmly, firmly believe, I firmly believe, as a leader of any note, your job is to be the individual that creates the conversation. Now, there are going to be those times where you have the conversations thrusted upon you and you have to absorb it and you have to deal with it, right? Ununderstandably so. But at some point in time, you have to make this shift for yourself, for your team, for your company, for your career, for your life, where you are creating the conversation of your life. You are creating the conversation of your leadership. You create it. You don't allow it to happen to you. As a campus leader, our goal is to help you learn how to create and live in your own narrative. Not the narrative that someone at someone expects of you, but the one that you create. A campus leader is emotionally intelligent, and is an emotionally intelligent communicator who drives impact. I had a I had an ETL, executive team leader, when I was at Target. And when I first met this person and we had a conversation, one of the things that I told them, I said, Man, you are one of the most self-aware individuals I've met in a while. And throughout this person's career with me, and then when they were getting ready to go to the next level, and someone was asking me my perspective on that person, I said, I gotta tell you, that isn't one of the most self-aware individuals I know. They understand how to carry themselves in a situation. They understand what the situation calls for. They understand how to check their emotions and not just check their emotions, they have the ability to understand the emotional temperature of those around them. And how do you help throttle the emotional temperatures of other people? Whoa, come on now. Come on. That's come do you understand that? Do you understand that with that the ability that it takes for you to understand to control your own emotions, but understand and then and then conversationally and then verbally and nonverbally control the emotional level of other people around you in the room so that so that there's some cohesion and that people get together on one accord? Man, old man, give me that leader every single day of the year. Every single day of the year. That leader is going to do big things. And guess what? That leader did big things and is doing big things. A campus leader, I got I got six points. This is the third point. A campus leader, they're a catalyst for gross growth. Excuse me. They are a catalyst for growth, first within themselves, then in others. Here's the thing. The majority of us have been on the flight. What is the direction that the flight attendant will give us? Somebody raise your hand raise your hand. Tell me, tell me, tell me. What do they say? Put the mask on yourself before you put it on anybody else. I can't tell you how necessary it is for leaders to be a little selfish when it comes to their own personal development. You have to be selfish. Yes, you can tell your boss, you can tell the powers that be after listening to this. Steve said, I need to be selfish. Go ahead. I don't care. Because you do. When it comes time for your personal growth, your leader may not always be there. That company may not always be there. Huh? Can I say that again? That leader may not always be there. That company may not always be there. So you Have nobody to focus on with your development except for yourself. Now, once you get that information, it's an incumbent upon you, and it's your duty to make sure that you share that information. But you gotta receive it and get it first. You gotta internalize it first. Remember what we talked when we spoke about with the inspiration for the for the campus was Crotonville, where those leaders would uh consume and internalize the information first and then they would share it. Okay, number four, the campus leader and they eat, they elevate their presence to influence at the highest level. They elevate their presence to influence at the highest level. Have you ever been in a room and been in like a big hall or somewhere and you see that person that walks in and everybody looks at them? Or you see that person they walk in and everything changes a little bit? Does that make sense? How many of us have seen that? How many of us have been that person? How many of us have a presence that will change the people around them just by you walking in the room? Just by your level of approachability, just by you having this persona of comfort, of self self-reliance, of reassurance of who you are, knowing who you are, walking who you are, speaking who you are. It's completely different. It's completely different. Our goal, and one of our goals is to help you with that executive presence so that you can influence at the highest level. Number five, intentionally establishes the campus leader, intentionally establishes a leadership culture that drives impact. So intention, uh like I said earlier, actions beats intention without with, you know, beats intention all day long. But intentional, but you can't have any action without intentionality. Right? If you have to do anything, you have to have some measure of intentionality when you are establishing a culture of leaders around you. You have to. If you are not selective with your team, they will bring, they will put anybody on your team. So you have to be intentional about how you establish your culture. And the last thing, the campus leader. Our goal for you is to achieve self-mastery with the agility to recalibrate when necessary. So, good friend Paul Norford, he's doing a masterclass, and part of his masterclass is about how to help leaders recalibrate. What we see too often are leaders who don't have the ability to pause and recalibrate, assess where they are, and then move forward. What we tend to see is a lot of leaders regress. A lot of leaders will go back into old habits because they're comfortable. A lot of leaders will go back into old habits because they got a lot of praise. They got a lot of recognition for some of those behaviors and some of those attitudes. And so it's comfortable for them. And they haven't done the requisite information or haven't done haven't received the requisite information in order to help them move forward. They haven't received the feedback or they haven't been intentional about receiving the feedback that will help them move forward. And then if they do receive feedback, they haven't used the feedback to recalibrate in order for them to move forward. We see this a lot in teams. We see this a lot in a lot of teams that we train, train them on approachability. We train them on our concept around simplify the lead. And we see a lot of teams where one person is recalibrating and another person refuses to recalibrate. And then so you have a team that is disheveled. And the goal is to help everybody, you know, collectively understand that they need to recalibrate their thoughts and their aspirations and self-manage their expectations for whatever it is that is going on or whatever it is that they want to achieve as a team. So we see this a lot. So those are those are the six things. Those are the North Star things that you will receive and think about when you come part of the campus. It's the third place. It's the third place. It's strategic. It's not about social. It's you, you, you come there. It's an environment where you can learn, grow, and develop yourself. So excited that you are here today and that you have been part of this journey with me. We have so many, so many other things to talk about and so many other things to discuss when it comes to comes to the actual campus. We would love to have you there. We would love to have you there. You can go right to our website, worthyretel.com, and click the link for the campus, and you'll learn a lot more about it. But we want to see you there. We want to hear your voice. We want to help you grow. We want to help you learn. We want to help you develop. We want to help you get the relevant information that you that you can receive. Here's another cool piece that we have there, too. And I didn't even talk about this yet. We actually have, so we have this is my podcast, Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy. But we actually have our own podcast inside of the community. It's called The Campus Voice. And the cool part is that typically on the podcast, anything that I host, I'm the one that I'm asking the questions to the guest. And this podcast, The Campus Voice, you guys ask me questions about anything, about anything, what's going on in your life about leadership, all this stuff. And the cool part is that we share this with everybody in the campus. As everybody, as people who are dealing with certain things, people can listen in on that, on that episode. And oh my gosh, I'm dealing with the same thing. Or I'm about to, or man, I just came out of that. And it just provides another layer of cohesion with everything that we do. So thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time and learning about the campus. Um, we have a lot of things in stored for you. So hit the button in the description, and uh hopefully we will see you very, very soon on the campus. Have a great day and God bless.