Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Terrance Lee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Terrance , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The Introvert Leader was an idea that came out of my journey as a new leader. Truthfully, I had always avoided taking on leadership roles in my life. At the age of 13, an experience occurred which caused me to doubt my ability to speak in front of people, and it really caused me to shy away from the spotlight. This worked until I eventually had to learn leadership skills by necessity at my first engineering job out of college.
When I had been working in that first role for a short time, my mentor put in his two-week notice. I then found out that I had to take his place presenting to a group of experienced engineers and pilots for a highly technical review. Despite feeling extremely nervous, the meeting that I led went well; which gave me a giant confidence boost.
Since then, I’ve taken on many leadership and management roles as an introvert at several Fortune 500 companies in the aerospace & defense industry, with proven results. I utilize my platform to empower introverts to tap into their own inner leadership potential, and I’m never shy about sharing the tips that I’ve learned throughout my journey.
Terrance , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
With The Introvert Leader, I help introverted professionals who believe their personality is holding them back to discover their unique strengths by maximizing their confidence and making them feel comfortable to be themselves. I do this through my book ‘Quiet Voice Fearless Leader – 10 Principles For Introverts To Awaken The Leader Inside’, which has sold over 11,000 copies and been a bestseller in 4 different categories. In addition, my podcast ‘Quiet Voice Fearless Mind’ has weekly episodes that are focused on empowering the introvert community.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I create lot of social media content for The Introvert Leader, as well as content for my podcast. A few months ago right after my podcast launched, I had just finished editing several episodes of the show. The next day I tried to login to my computer and was not able to. I ended up taking the computer to get fixed and found out that they would have to wipe my hard drive…..which means I would lose all of my saved content. It was rough! I honestly was very frustrated and literally had a podcast episode that needed to come out in a few days. Despite that, I found another way to record while waiting on my computer to be fixed, stayed up late nights, edited the episode and put it out. That experience let me know how serious I was about The Introvert Leader mission.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to unlearn that being a leader meant you had to be loud and had to be an extrovert. For most of my life that is just what I assumed, and as a result of that I didn’t see myself as someone that could lead. When I unlearned this and began leaning into my superpowers as an introvert it changed everything for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.quietvoicefearlessleader.com
- Instagram: @TheIntrovertLeader
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrancelee/
- Twitter: @TheIntrovertLead
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJhvEVZ7t3xGDGNGKaSUeNQ