We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Erin Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Erin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
My 20-year high school class reunion is this year. Recently, while I have been chairing the reunion planning committee, I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on that time in my life. I have reflected on how much I have grown and accomplished, like completing my doctorate and starting my own business. But I have also reflected on a moment in time that was one of my first triumphs when I think of success.
The 9th grade year was tough. I had spent all my years of school before this at a small private school where I knew everyone and even went to church with most of my teachers. This year, my parents decided to send me to a high school where not only did I not know one soul but most of the other students had gone to school together from middle school, some all the way since elementary school. So, needless to say. cliques had already been formed.
I can remember early on that year eating alone most days, trying my best to make friends. I was walking down the hall one day and I saw it. It was a flyer that announced school elections. I went home excited, explaining to my parents that I wanted to throw my hat in the ring.
Fast forward to the day of our election speeches. It is important to know that I have been plus size all my life. When you do not align with the beauty standards defined by societal perceptions and images, you can feel not seen, dismissed or like an outcast. As I nervously stepped to the podium in front of my entire class, I decided to fully embrace who I was. I declared to my class that I wanted them to “Think Big”. I rattled off my campaign promises asking them to think big. In my final closing statement, I stepped from behind the podium, hit my best imitation of a model walk and twirl finally ending with asking them once more to think big. My class erupted in applause. This was one of many instances where I realized the foundation to my success is to be authentically me. All of me! However, to know who that was and to harness it for success, I would have to go deeper than the surface.
This occasion and a couple other pivotal instances of self-discovery in graduate school soon led me to desire a deeper sense of self-awareness. The desire for a deeper self-awareness led me to the discovery of an assessment, Total SDI 2.0 from Core Strengths, that changed my life. I use it now with many of my clients because it provides a foundation for conversations around how they are motivated, how they experience conflict and helps them explore what strengths they use to get things done. Knowing these things provide a pathway to self-awareness which ultimately leads to success.
When you understand who you are, your strengths, motivations, and emotions, you gain clarity on your aspirations and most importantly your value. Self-awareness serves as the cornerstone of personal growth and achievement, laying the foundation for success. Self-awareness fosters effective communication and relationship intelligence that helps you adjust your approach to make interactions more effective so you get the results you want. Highly self-aware individuals experience success because self-awareness provides you with the ability to navigate challenges with resilience, learn from setbacks and adapt strategies accordingly. Ultimately, self-awareness empowers individuals to cultivate authenticity, maximize their potential, and achieve their aspirations with confidence and purpose which I truly believe is a recipe for true success.
Dr. Erin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am deeply passionate about educating people on how to use Relationship Intelligence to build indestructible teams and help individuals harness their strengths to design their ideal. My consulting firm, Design Ideal Consulting, specializes in custom staff retreat training and facilitations designed to promote team collaboration and strengthen interpersonal relationships to increase team synergy. I have many years of experience in leadership, learning & development and community engagement and use it to develop and facilitate energetic and engaging training and executive coaching. My areas of expertise are relationship intelligence, navigating conflict and strength leadership development. I am certified in Core Strengths, Everything DiSC and The Five Behaviors and have done numerous team-building and development, coaching, training and facilitation sessions for teams from corporations, nonprofits, government and universities all over the country. I am a proud graduate of Abilene Christian University, where I received my doctorate in Organizational Leadership with a Higher Education concentration, Murray State University where my master’s in human development and leadership is from and finally, University of Tennessee Martin where I received a degree in political science. In my spare time, I love to travel with my husband, play tug of war with my precious pitty, Harley Quinn, sharpen my graphic design skills, and learn about meerkats.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of clients for me is participants from trainings I have facilitated. I work to create workshops and retreat trainings that are so engaging that participants want to share what they experienced. I can usually guarantee that at least one or two people will connect with me to refer to another group, team or client. So much of my business comes from word-of-mouth recommendations so I work tirelessly to ensure that I treat every facilitation and training as a commercial for my next booking.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
As a business owner, battling pride is one of the hardest challenges I have had to learn to manage. When you give something your all, like I do with my trainings, it feels amazing and exhilarating when clients actively pursue your business to book you that you can start to forget just how hard it is to wait to hear back from a client whose business you really want to land or even more difficult, getting a no.
Earlier this year, I had what I thought was a slam dunk consultation call with a client that had the potential to be one of my largest bookings to date. I left the call confident that the client would book immediately. Two weeks later and 2 follow up emails later, nothing. I was devastated. I just could not figure out what could have possibly gone wrong. I thought to myself and started to ponder if I should send another follow up email but then pride reared its ugly head. My next thought was that I did not want to feel like I had to beg anyone to choose me.
Suddenly, I remembered that while confidence is important, being humble and brave are necessities in business ownership. I decided to send one last email. This email outlined why I believed choosing me to facilitate the training would benefit their team and ended saying that I really wanted to win their business. It was hard to hit send but choosing bravery over pride, I did it. The next day, I was rewarded for this bravery and resilience with a response from the client saying they were ready to book.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.designidealconsulting.com
Image Credits
Green dress/vest: Samuel Husted Aqua Jacket: Stephanie Rose Podium: Unknown Group of people & Blue jacket/chairs: Erin Wilson