Pearls of Power: How to Use Authenticity, Boldness, and Intentionality with Carla Harris

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Description

For Carla Harris, fear has no place in the equation for success.

Carla Harris grew up with the expectation of delivering excellence, and she has built a career that exemplifies just that. Carla is an award-winning author, internationally renowned speaker, celebrated gospel singer, and one of the most influential Black executives in the country as Morgan Stanley’s Senior Client Advisor. In her book Lead to Win, she shares decades of insights to help professionals navigate today’s challenges and become powerful, impactful, and influential leaders in their fields.

In this episode of Branding Room Only, Carla shares her signature Pearls of wisdom on authenticity, boldness, and intentional leadership. She provides strategies, hard truths, and the inspiration you need to elevate your brand and career to the next level. She is a powerhouse in every sense and trust me, this will be an episode that you will continue to return to when you need motivation.

Chapters

1:46 – Why Carla rarely uses the word ‘brand,’ how she describes herself in three words, the quotes she turns to for different situations, and the hype song she created
4:31 – Two key ways Carla’s childhood shaped who she is today
7:17 – The importance of truly understanding who you are and how that helps you maintain authenticity in new roles and environments
11:24 – Why Carla doesn’t believe imposter syndrome should exist
14:17 – Self-reflective questions and strategies to help you get unstuck at work
20:57 – How to balance boldness with the need to influence others effectively in your work environment
22:37 – How to recognize when it’s time to evolve and do something new
25:03 – The aspect of Carla’s authenticity she wants to stand out the most and how to maximize feedback—even from those you don’t like or trust
26:57 – How Carla ensures continuous growth and improvement, plus her advice to inspire and propel you forward

Connect With Carla Harris

Carla Harris is a renowned international public speaker and a Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley. She was most recently the Vice Chairman responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across the firm. In her 30+ year career as an investment banker, she has had extensive industry experiences in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. 

Carla engages audiences around the world with her popular “Carla’s Pearls” where she shares with both leaders and emerging leaders how to maximize their career success across all industries using the “hard earned and hard learned” lessons that she acquired during her Wall Street career.  In her book Lead to Win, she shares her pearls of Intentional Leadership to help professionals become powerful, impactful, influential leaders in today’s challenging professional context.

Named one of Fortune’s 50 most powerful Black executives in corporate America, Carla’s also a celebrated gospel singer. She has released four albums and sold out concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theatre. She’s highly regarded as a motivator, executor, and leader and who inspires audiences worldwide as a trailblazer and change agent.

Carla Harris | YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Mentioned In Pearls of Power: How to Use Authenticity, Boldness, and Intentionality with Carla Harris

Lead to Win and Expect to Win by Carla Harris

“Born to Win” by Carla Harris | Turn It Up Version (Spotify)

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Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.

PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.

To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show. Hey, y'all, welcome to Branding Room Only, where we equip you with the tools, tips, and insights to build your personal brand with power and with purpose. Today's guest is nothing short of iconic, Carla Harris. Known for her authenticity, boldness, and strategic wisdom, Carla is a powerhouse who inspires excellence in everything she does. Get ready for a conversation packed with actionable insights, bold truths, and the inspiration you need to elevate your brand to the next level. Hi, everybody. It's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only. I can't even tell you how excited I am for today's conversation with Carla Harris. Let me tell you about Carla. Carla Harris is a renowned international speaker and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley. With over 30 years on Wall Street, she has excelled across industries such as technology, media, and healthcare, earning a reputation as a dynamic motivator, executor, and leader. An award-winning author of three books, including her latest book, Lead to Win, all of which incorporate her signature Carla's Pearls, and offer actionable insights on leadership and career success. Named one of Fortune's 50 most powerful Black executives in corporate America, she is also a celebrated gospel singer who's performed at Carnegie Hall. Carla is a trailblazer and a change agent, and she continues to inspire audiences worldwide. Carla, welcome to The Branding Room. Carla Harris: Well, thank you very much, Paula, for having me. Paula Edgar: So excited. All right, let me jump in. We have had this conversation when we had a chance to meet the person before, but I want to know for you, what do you think personal brand means and how do you define it? Carla Harris: Yes, and I'll tell you, Paula, as I mentioned in our conversation, I generally will never use the word brand. You will rarely, if ever, hear me talk about branding and who you are in the same sentence because I believe that branding means you create a thing, like Tide has a brand and Oreos have a brand and Chick-fil-A has a brand and it's created. But I think your leverage in any environment is your authentic self, who you are. Now people can say that that creates a brand, you are this, that, or the other, but that's them using the word as opposed to you. I do believe strongly that your authenticity is your distinct competitive advantage. It is your edge. Paula Edgar: Yes. Speaking of which, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases? Carla Harris: Yes, I would say spiritual, focused, intentional. Other people have said intense. Paula Edgar: Intentional? Carla Harris: That's right. Paula Edgar: I love that. Carla Harris: It's really intense, yeah. Paula Edgar: Do you have a favorite quote or a motto? Carla Harris: Sure, most of mine are in the Bible, and I have a few that I use for different situations. One is Romans 8:28, “All things work together for the good of those who love him who are called to his purpose.” That's probably the one I go to the most, because especially in times like we're in now, it's December as we're having this conversation, and lots of things that happen, lots of people are expiring, you're feeling the need to do this, to do that, it means take a moment and know that it's all going to work out because all things work together for the good of those who love him. The other one that I go to a lot is Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Those are the spiritual wells that I use as my personal motors. Of course, there are others as well, but those are the main two. Then when I'm speaking in a professional sense, I always try to work into my conversations in my speeches. Fear has no place in your success equation. The second one is your authenticity is your distinct competitive advantage. Paula Edgar: I love that. All of those resonate. You were probably the first person I'm going to ask this question who actually has a song or has many songs, but I'm going to ask you this. What is your hype song? When they're going to get full Carla Harris, what is that song? Carla Harris: Yes, my newest release which came out in August called Born to Win. I just released about a month ago the Turn It Up Version and I love it. Paula Edgar: Oh, it's definitely going to be in the mixtape and in the show notes so there's that. I'm going to ask you a question I ask everyone and I actually don't know the answer about this for you so I can't wait to hear what you're saying. Where did you grow up and how did that shape you? Carla Harris: Sure. I grew up primarily in Jacksonville, Florida, although I was born in Port Arthur, Texas. My family moved to Jacksonville, Florida when I was going into the fourth grade. It shaped me in a couple of ways, Paula. Number one, my parents, the household I had was a no-excuses household. My parents never let me use any kind of excuse for not doing well. They always made me feel that I was supposed to do well. My paternal grandmother, who was the first entrepreneur that I knew, and she was extremely successful, she always said, "Baby, whatever you be, be good at it." So again, there was this underscoring of delivering excellence, no matter what you do. That shapes me even today, 37 years into my career on Wall Street. I'd say the other thing that I realize now, Paula, is that I went to an all-Black Catholic Church and all-Black elementary school all the way up until 8th grade, and I didn't go into an integrated academic environment until I was in 9th grade. I think that was one of the things is I look back, because people have asked me this question a lot, especially this year, I think that that was one of the things that gave me a lot of self-confidence, because even going into a new environment where there were not a lot of people who looked like me, I did not have any identity issues because, after all of that time for 14 years, my surroundings were Black, Black, and Black. So when I went into a non-Black environment, I didn't feel some kind of weight because I was very confident and assured with respect to who I was. Paula Edgar: I love that. It resonates a lot because I know that you've been on the board of a Better Chance. I went to boarding school from being in Brooklyn where essentially my network was Black and Puerto Rican and that was it. Then I went to boarding school in Massachusetts. I always say I walk into places because I deserve to be there, and not if but because and that helped me be shorn up with my community and with my ability at the same time so I hear that 100%. I love that. Carla Harris: I'm a big fan of kids today being in as diverse an environment as they can be because I think that's the world that we live in and I intentionally try to have my kids in diverse communities and have diverse play dates. However, the point that I'm trying to make, it doesn't put you at a disadvantage if you are not. So I don't want people who are listening to this who might have kids in a singular kind of environment to feel that that's putting their kids at a disadvantage because it takes necessarily so. Paula Edgar: Agreed, with a daughter at Spelman College, agreed 100%, and I feel as safe as she could be without me because she's in a place where she's going to be taken care of by her sister. I love that. Okay. My next question. I talked about the fact that Carla’s Pearls are a part that runs through your books and it's something that you talk about all the time and you're wearing your pearls right now, if you could add a new Carla’s Pearl specifically for personal branding/authenticity, let's just couple them because we're talking about what we call it, but what would it be, how is it aligned with your philosophy and leadership? Carla Harris: Yeah. People take the time to invest in knowing who you are because we are getting a lot of messages in the world that we're living in today from all kinds of directions. It's really easy for you to take on and embrace what people are telling you about yourself without having some type of view with respect to who you really are. Here's the deal, Paula. If you have been on a track, let's say your parents are very thoughtful and intentional about what they exposed you to and there was a certain grade school you were going to go to, a certain high school you were going to go to, therefore a certain college graduate school and here are the five jobs that you ought to be thinking about or careers that you ought to be thinking about, it's very easy to have gone up until almost year 30 without really saying, "Who am I? What excites me? Am I really a morning person or am I a night out? Am I the kind of person that other people could trust? Do I conduct myself in that way? Do I conduct myself and show up that I'm confident and comfortable with who I am? Well, if not, who am I?" So, if there was one other pearl that I could add, I'd say take the time to really understand who you are today and be intentional about reassessing that over time because as you have other experiences and you meet new people, you might find that that definition changes and shifts in a good way. Paula Edgar: I love that. I love that. You talked about authenticity and I knew that you were going to say authenticity versus personal brand. I was ready for it. But the question I have is, how do you maintain that authenticity when you're going into new roles and environments? Carla Harris: That's why I gave the advice to say who you really are because your authenticity doesn't mean that you can't grow and that you can't evolve, which is also why I made the point of reassessing every year, every other year. Because when you go into a new environment to know who you really are, it gives you the ability to stand with confidence and take it all in. You can walk in and say, “Okay, let me see how people speak to each other. Let me see what the culture really is or what the politics are.” I mean, remember, politics is not a dirty word. It's just a word that defines how relationships interact. Full stop. Because as I said, there are politics in your household. You made the decision to go to your mom to ask for this and go to your dad to ask for that. Or if you grew up in a single-parent household, you might ask your one parent this, but you'd ask the grandparent that. But that's a political decision. How do relationships interact? That's all it is. If you have confidence in who you are, you can take all of that in, and then it gives you the ability to evaluate, “Okay, I absolutely can get with that, no problem. But that's not really me. So let me figure out a way that I can bring me into that situation successfully without taking on the ick because I don't want whatever that is to stick to me.” But if you don't know who you are, it's very easy to absorb all of that and then it's easy five years from now in that environment you look in the mirror and you don't know who you are. That's how you maintain it, go in knowing who you are being flexible and agile saying that “I might grow. There may be some things I don't know that I add to my tool chest, that I add to who I am. I do want to be like that. I like that. I'd like to emulate that in a way that works for me. I don't want to be Paula, but I like the way public Paula walks in confident and bubbly and ready to play. I'd like to be able to do that. Okay. How do I take that tool that she has and make it work for me?” Again, not being Paula, but being Carla with this new tool now. That's how you ought to think about bringing who you are authentically and then being ready to grow and evolve. Paula Edgar: We had a chance to speak in June and there's something you said then that resonated. It's really been sitting with me ever since. You said you don't believe in imposter syndrome. I want you to talk about why you don't believe and what you do believe when it comes to maybe not having confidence of fitting in in a space. Carla Harris: Yeah, and let me say this clearly. I understand why people feel that way because, in a lot of environments, especially environments that you're not used to being in, there are people who will see that you are unsure and they come for you. They come for you to make you feel even more uncomfortable. But here's why I don't believe that it should exist. If you haven't been invited into that environment, you already are ready for that environment. I don't care what you call it, the universe, God, the person that invited you in, they see your power. They see that you deserve to be in that room. They see that you are ready. Remember, they see you before you see yourself because they see you coming at them. You're not looking at yourself in the same way. We all tend to have a much tougher report card when it comes to evaluating ourselves than the rest of the world has. So if you are not yet confident or you're feeling fearful about that, remember fear has no place in your success equation, but if you are feeling a little bit concerned, now hold on to their confidence in you until yours catches up and spend some time, 10 minutes saying, “Why am I feeling this way about myself? Why am I thinking I can't do this? How many things have I done for the first time and done them successfully? How many things have I done where it took me five times to get it but I got it?” All of that is evidence that you will be able to and that's what you focus on. That is the truth, the distraction is the concern or the fear. Paula Edgar: It sat with me because people ask this question all the time like, “How can I be self-promote?” or, “How can I think about how I show up if I'm not confident?” It's the first thing that really resonated with me. I was like, “Because it's not the case.” Particularly when you're thinking about many of the intersections or diversity characteristics that a lot of the folks I hang out with and you hang out with have, it's like, your track record is stellar so how can it be that you feel not confident? But I get that. That's why I like to ask about the hype song because we need tools in our kit to be able to say, "All right, I'm feeling a little low today. How can I get myself up?” and remember the track record that I have. So I love that. All of you, listen to that. Listen to that. Carla Harris: Let me give you this. The chorus to Born to Win, “You are born to win, you must fight to win, turn it up to win. Always believe you were born to win. It's your right to win. Claim it, frame it, because you were born to win.” That is the chorus of the song. Paula Edgar: I was listening to it this morning, okay. You have a lot of wins. You're talking about expecting to win, strategizing to win, and leading to win. What about people who are stuck? What are your thoughts about people who feel like they are stuck? Is there a certain pearl or a pearl that you would recommend for them to think about if they are feeling stuck? Carla Harris: Yes, once again, this takes a little bit of self-reflection, Paula, because if you're feeling stuck, now you ask yourself the following questions: Why am I feeling this way? Is it because I didn't get that last promotion? Is it because I'm not getting new and exciting and different assignments? Is it because I'm not getting invited to certain meetings? Why am I feeling this way? Take 10 minutes and ask yourself what's causing you to feel this way. A lot of times it's a person that's making you feel this way. That's when you remind yourself that there's not a person born that you cannot get around. If you're ever feeling stuck underneath one person, that means that's your bell that should be ringing to say, “Uh-oh, I'm not investing in my network.” Because you should be investing vertically and you should be investing horizontally because that's how you get around that person. If that one person is the person in your organization that's saying lots of negative things about you, then you want to make sure that the next person that you work with has a super stellar experience with you. The next person you work with has a super stellar experience with you because you ultimately want to make that negative Nelly the outlier. If everybody else is saying Paula is great and this one person is, “Oh, she's not this, she's not that,” they will quickly become the outlier and they will quickly stop spreading the negative noise about you because there's all this positive noise that you have intentionally put in the marketplace by your performance. Now, the other thing you need to ask yourself is “Did I fail to ask for the promotion? Am I waiting for somebody to come and tap me on the shoulder?” Most people don't understand, Paula, that in your first zero to four years being in any kind of environment, people may bring assignments and opportunities to you. But as you get into that five, seven, eight years, they're expecting you to raise your hand and say you want this, you're interested in that. Most people don't know that and they're still sitting there waiting for somebody to tap them on the shoulder. It doesn't happen that way. Now you need to ask yourself, “Have I been complicit? Am I being stuck by not articulating my voice and asking for more pay, asking for a better opportunity, asking to be promoted?” Those are the things you need to do if you're feeling stuck. Then lastly, figure out what you'd like to do next because here's the other issue. Let's say you do exercise your voice and you go into your boss and you say, “Paula, I want a new challenge. It's time for me to do something else. I can do what I'm doing with my eyes closed.” Paula's going to say, "And what would you like to do, Carla?" You better be ready. Before you go see Paula, think about what you like about what you're doing or why you think you've mastered it and how you can now use this into the next thing. Then you say to Paula, "You don't have to pick a specific job." You say, “Paula, I'm not sure what role we have within the organization that looks like this, but I want the content of what I'm doing to be A, B, C, and D.” I always tell people, “Don't point to a job to find the content, because there might be three jobs that have that content, but you're going for that one, and they're like, ‘No, no, no, you can't have that one.’” Now you've bossed yourself out, but there could be other jobs that have that same content that you'd be really happy doing. Paula Edgar: I love thinking about that because when I talk to people about branding, I talk about strategy and that's really that, it's thinking about what your goal is and how do you get there. One of my favorite things about you is that you just seem to have strategies waiting. I know you have a book on it but y'all, I sat and watched Carla do a Q&A live and I was like, “Oh, how does this even happen?” What I loved about it is that you have for each thing, the people who ask you these questions, bullet points of “Here's what you should do.” I know it comes from a lot of experience in doing this. Is there one question or a couple of questions that you get asked often that you want the audience to hear? Like, “Here's the answer to this question,” because it's probably something that you're being impacted by. Carla Harris: Well, I gotta tell you, it's the one you just asked. So many people talk about being stuck and not knowing how to get out. Even when they say, “Well, I did that. I talked to my boss,” I say, "Okay. What did you say?" “Well, I told them I was interested in something else.” “But did you go prepared to tell them what something else looked like? Did you go prepared to tell them why you think you tapped out? And did you go in there prepared to tell them why it would be to the organization's benefit to let you do this other thing? Because here's how you're going to contribute and here's how they're going to win by letting you do what you'd like to do.” All that needs to be baked in when you go in to have that conversation unless you just have a great relationship with your boss and you guys can shoot the breeze and ideate together. But not many people have that kind of relationship where they can ideate with their boss on the next thing that they'd like to do. You’re right, Paula, a lot of my strategies and the reason why I'm so quick at the ready is because I have seen a lot over 37 years and that particular pearl right there, I lived it. Like I said, all my pearls have been acquired from lived experiences. I went up to someone who had risen to the top of the house at my firm. The person that had the power to pick up the phone and make it happen for me. I went in, I'm watching his office, and I said, “You know, it's time for me to move. It's time for me to move. It's time for me to go out of this. I've done this, it's time for a new challenge.” He said, "Okay, what would you like to do?" And I said, "Ahh." And I knew at that moment, Paula, that I had blown it. That I had blown it. It is not his job to help me figure out what I want to do. It is his job to make it happen for me and I hadn't figured that part out yet. Now, I did recover. I did go back up because I got another shot. We did have a great relationship and I said, “I thought about it. I'd like to do A, B, C, and D.” It wasn't long after that that I had an opportunity to move. But that was a situation where I could recover with that person. Sometimes you get one shot so don't blow it. I'm giving you the strategy. Be ready. Paula Edgar: It's like closed mouths don't get fed, but you better be ready for what the menu is. That was you being bold. That was you saying, “I'm going to make an ask and decide what I want.” Authenticity, you have said, requires boldness. How do you balance boldness with the need to influence others effectively, especially in complex environments which many of us work in? Carla Harris: Yeah, well, I have to tell you, if you're being authentic and you understand that there's one person that has responsibility for your career and that's you, then you don't necessarily think of it as being bold. You say to yourself, “If I don't do this, I'm not going to move. If I don't do this, I won't have a shot to get the top pay. If I don't do this, I may not get promoted.” Do I feel comfortable saying that it didn't happen because I didn't ask for the order? And I will tell you that that was the trick, that was the conversation with myself that got me off the dime. Because again, none of us grew up in these environments where we’re used to having these conversations. We know exactly what right words to use and how to temper the conversation. I tell people all the time, “As silly as it may sound, practice in the mirror.” Practice in the mirror, say it out loud. The first time you say it, you're going to be like, “Whoa, I can't say that.” But keep going until you find exactly the way to say it where you feel comfortable that you are demonstrating that you mean what you say and that you are delivering it in a way that feels good to you, where the volume on your voice is not too low, that you're standing appropriately, you're looking at the person in the eye. If you can't look at yourself in the mirror, then how are you going to have the confidence to look at somebody else? So look at yourself. It may take several times, but you will get there. Paula Edgar: So true. You have had a long-standing and powerful authenticity/brand, comma, parenthesis, how do you decide when it's time to evolve? How do you decide when you need to do something new? What guides that for you? Carla Harris: Yeah, in chapter two of my first book Expect to Win, I say, “Be the architect of your own agenda.” The agenda has two things. It's the seat, the job that you want, and the house, where do you want to do it? The questions that go with the seat are what kinds of things do I want to learn? What kinds of experiences do I want to have? What kind of people do I want to meet? What network do I want to have? Here are my goals, and I'd like to do this because I want to do this. Then the house is where you're prosecuting the seat. Do I like this organization? Do I feel like there's an opportunity for me to get a sponsor there? Do I think I will have a respected voice? Do I like the career platform and the trajectory? Those are the questions you ask with respect to whether or not you want to go into the house. Now, once you start feeling like, “Okay, maybe this is a little too small for me,” you go back to the agenda and you say, “Have I fully prosecuted the seat?” If the answer is yes, now you know it's time for you to move the seat. It may not be time to change the house, but let's say that there are still things for you to prosecute in the seat, then you know you've got to keep going. There's more opportunity for you to develop and evolve right in that seat now. But if you're uncomfortable, now you ask yourself, is the house still right? Are the values still aligned with yours? Do you still have a sponsor? If you're a sponsor left, can you still get a sponsor from the people that are there? Do you feel like you have a voice? Do you feel like you have real opportunity to prosecute the trajectory or the platform? If the answer is yes, then you know you're in the right house, just change the seat. If the answer is no, and you like the seat and there's more to learn, then now you know it's time to change the house. That way, it keeps you from making emotional decisions about your career. Because so often we say, "It's time for me to go," and it's because we are confounded by our situation or our lack of a relationship with that boss. But again, not a person born you can't get around. Paula Edgar: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm a big fan of saying, “Don't run from something strut to something else.” Carla Harris: Right. I see it very similarly. I say, “Don't run from, run to.” Paula Edgar: Yes, yes, yes, because then it's less emotional. Carla Harris: Yeah, because if you run from something, Paula, guess what? You got to take it with you into the next environment. You have to learn how to manage it. It's going to be the same thing. It's going to feel good for the first three to six months. But after that, mm-mm. Paula Edgar: That part. If someone were to summarize Carla, what aspect of authenticity do you hope will stand out the most and why? Carla Harris: That I give people the real deal. I give it to you straight, no chaser. I like to get it straight, no chaser. I'm not going to be political. I'm not going to pretty it up. I like to be able to give it to you straight. The other part of that, the corollary with that, is to know that I always have positive intent if I'm telling you something. I'm always trying to be helpful, never trying to hurt you, never trying to pull you down. That's just not my game at all. Paula Edgar: I think that that's a helpful additive to what you said because so often, especially now, there's this inherent, I think, lack of trust, and to your point about how fear gets into things, people perceive intentions in ways that are not intended if it doesn't align up with what they want to hear. But one thing that you often talk about is the importance of feedback and using that to propel yourself. How do you do that? And can you maximize feedback even if you don't love the intent of the person who's giving it? Carla Harris: Yeah, and you do have to consider the source. But I take all feedback and I sit with it and I say, “Okay, let me think about that. Is there some merit there? What do I know about this person and why might they put that there?” But I don't just dismiss the messenger. Because sometimes, there's some truth in what they're saying and they may not have said it in the right way and they may not even have the right intent. But if there's some real content in there that you need to pay attention to, you better sit down and try to think about it. I never dismiss it even if I don't like who and how they said it because there could be something there and I'm always on a mission to improve. If I can't improve my game in some way, then I better know that my game's going to get disintermediated quickly. Paula Edgar: Tell me this, what is your improvement strategy? How do you make sure that you continually stay improving in what you do? Carla Harris: Yeah. I'll tell you yesterday, someone asked me to speak on something that I had not spoken on as one of my topics but I had lots of content around it, I just had never spoken on that topic. As I was preparing for it, I said, “You know what, you could turn the screw one more time, you need to read a book on X. You need to read a book on Y. You need to do that.” It'll come to you. You know what it is you need to do. The question is whether or not you do it. Paula Edgar: That was like an exclamation point. Carla Harris: Yeah, that part. Paula Edgar: That is so true. We're going to be hearing that in our head for all of the time. Tell me something that you want to leave the audience with as we close our conversation that you think is a general thing that will inspire and hopefully catalyze folks as we close the conversation. Carla Harris: Yeah, I want you to think about the next year in a no-holds-barred fashion. Just consider that there are no limitations in your way and what would it take for you to swing as hard as you possibly could, and even think beyond the things that you can define because remember that most of us aspire to what we can see, not what can be. Paula Edgar: Carla Harris, I love you and I thought this was a wonderful conversation. Carla Harris: And I love you, Ms. Paula Edgar, and I am so appreciative that you have me on for this conversation because I do feel, I can feel it in my soul that it's going to hit somebody. If it hits somebody, we've done our job today. Paula Edgar: Absolutely. Everybody, we're going to put all of the information on how you can find out about Carla's work in the show notes, so go and look at those and also tell a friend because all of those friends—and maybe some of your enemies—need to hear what Carla had to say. Carla, it’s been wonderful having you and having this conversation. Everybody, stand by your brand and talk to you soon, authentically, bye y'all. Carla Harris: Bye. Paula Edgar: Wasn't that great? Thank you so much for joining us for this incredible conversation with Carla Harris. Her insights on authenticity, boldness, and intentionality have given me so much to think about and hopefully you as well, and for all of us to put into practice. I hope you're as inspired as I am to take your personal brand to the next level. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to Carla's work and share this episode with anyone who could use a dose of inspiration. Until then, stand by your brand and lead with purpose. As Carla would say, go get 'em. Bye, y'all.