We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zeb Talley, III a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Zeb, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
I received my start in helping people design and redesign their lives by accident. I was leaving a position in corporate America as a Human Resources professional at the age of 22 and really not certain about the next steps in my career. What I believed to would be a few months of searching for my next career opportunity would turn into nearly two years of completing applications to return to a field (Human Resources) that I enjoyed but wasn’t completely my passion. A friend and co-worker who served with me in Human Resources suggested that I consider higher education as a career choice. She thought that my skills advising others, strong communication skills, and passion for helping others would be an asset to young adults, and she requested that I consider her Alma mater, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, as a place to seek my new start. I accepted her advice and applied for three opportunities at North Carolina A&T: Human Resource Manager, Admissions Representative, and Career Counselor.
I was selected to interview for all three positions, ultimately received three offers, and was left to make a decision regarding the next role. The Career Counselor opportunity was the position I wanted, as the position uniquely seemed to combine all of my experiences as a recent college graduate up to this point in my career. The executive Director, who would later turn out to be a great friend and mentor, told me after the grueling 4 1/2 hour interview with a panel of six other people from the office and students from campus that I did an exceptional job and that she really wanted me to be a part of her team. The position was housed in the Office of Career Services, and would allow me to utilize my skills in human resources to prepare students for the workforce, while also helping them to develop a blueprint for their lives as students, interns, and future employees or entrepreneurs. When she informed me that I was their candidate of choice, she indicated that she would proceed with my paperwork through human resources to prepare and finalize my offer. While going through the process of completing this task, she was informed by human resources that they could not hire me as the qualifications of the position required a masters degree. According to the job description, a masters degree was preferred, but not required, and because this is a state position, the nuances of hiring people in roles with the counselor title but without certain credentials made the hiring process very complicated. At that time I did not have a masters or a terminal degree, only my undergraduate double major, about 2 1/2 years of experience, and a wealth of natural talent and ability related to empowering the lives of others. The other applicants all had master’s degrees but I would later learn that they did not effectively showcase their ability to empower students in this role. The executive Director and my future boss was furious about this decision from Human Resources and made this known to both Human Resources resources as well as myself, indicating to me that she would do whatever it took for me to be a part of her team. When I asked her what I should do next, she indicated that I should accept one of the other roles just to get into the university system while she worked behind the scenes to have me hired for her department. I was so honored by her belief in me, my skills, and my abilities, and really accepted her word regarding her interest in having me join her team.
I accepted the Human Resources Manager position and ended up working in that position for approximately six weeks. I remembered getting a call from the Vice President of Human Resources asking me to visit her office for a quick conversation. When I arrived in her office, the Vice President shut the door, sat down and said to me “so, do you want to leave us and go to Career Services?” I was very excited things worked out for me and really had to minimize my excitement as the Human Resources Team was clear that my exit from the department would be a loss for them. I accepted the role in Career Services and received my start in a role that would lead to me empowering the lives of hundreds of thousands of students and professionals through a variety of positions over a decorated 19 year career. To this day, I continue to credit my executive Director, who is the person who gave me a chance when my credentials on paper did not align with the credentials of a state funded position. She said to me from the very beginning that I would have an amazing career and would impact the lives of many, and that I should seriously consider advanced degrees to continue to further myself wherever I chose to go and with whatever I chose to do. After one year of service, the Executive Director and my immediate supervisor pulled me into the office during the summer and said to me “Zeb, you will not stay in high education for all of your career, there are bigger and larger places you will go.” She demanded that I go back to school to get advanced agrees, and she also demanded that I consider starting a private practice that would allow me to expand my skills, abilities, and experiences. My executive Director was without a doubt one of the most influential people in my life and directly responsible for planting seeds in me that would lead to redesigning the lives of people around the world!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started my business as an entrepreneur by what I call “accidentally on purpose.” While working in higher education and leading a university career center during the winter of 2023, I sat in my car and gathered my notes from a client call that I had the evening prior to this day. At this time, I had about 14 clients as a part-time entrepreneur, with 3 of those clients being corporations or other business entities. The call that I had the evening prior to this day was so powerful and revelatory, that I asked my client’s permission to do something that I had not seen on social media prior to my request. With her permission, I asked if I could provide a summary of our conversation and utilize that summary to highlight a principle on mental and emotional wellness to my followers online. She happily obliged, and I used her story – combined with an analogy – as an opportunity to explain a concept to my followers in a practical way. The method of using analogies or short stories that provide meaning connected to larger principles is something that I’ve always been gifted to do, and represents an approach I’ve taken since the earlier years of my counseling and coaching career.
I sat in my car, turned on my phone camera, and using 5 or 6 bullet points on a sticky note, I recorded a 10-minuted story, completely unedited, and uploaded it to my TikTok account. The video had a simple title that provided an overview of what the lesson was connected to, I added 4 or 5 hashtags, uploaded it and walked back to my office. I was pretty busy that day and placed my phone into my bag, not thinking about it for at least the next two hours. Now, I could have sworn my phone battery was at least at 40% power, and I was shocked that I did not hear it chime for those hours right after lunch and returning to the office. I happened to reach for my phone in my bad and first noticed it was on vibrate – and then, after tapping the screen, realized my phone was dead. Again, very odd, and even more so considering this day I did not have a phone charger with me and I was not scheduled to leave work for another 2.5 hours. When I arrived home and was able to plug my phone into a charger, after unlocking the phone it began to ding furiously! I thought something was wrong, only to discover that my video on TikTok, for the first time, went viral. People really enjoyed the approach I took in utilizing the experience of a client, and combining it with an analogy to make the counseling principle easy to understand. To say that the rest was history is an understatement – as I continued to adopt this very unique approach, my social media footprint expanded in a major way, quickly ballooning my demand for new clients and creating the opportunity to pursue the work that I truly love.
Today, my work has become the blueprint for authentic, relevant counseling and coaching, as the full-time entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of INSPiiiRE, LLC – an organization that specializes in the personal development of more than 986 individual and business clients across 33 countries. As a Life Design Strategist, I work to help people create solutions to complex life challenges through individual and group counseling and coaching sessions. The clients and people who benefit from my work are challenged to type CHURRRCH at the conclusion of every video lesson, confirming a message that is Real, Relevant, and Righteous with the goal of inspiring humanity to be better today than they were yesterday.
My clients and followers refer to me as the Analogy Prince and the Bishop of Health and Wellness, a testament to the gift of being able to make the complicated make sense, while empowering humanity to heal through the creation of the 5 areas of Healing: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially. He is a Certified Coach and Human Capital professional who began his career as a 20-year-old college graduate, possessing over 20 years of experience in the Counseling, Coaching, Mental Health, Education, Human Resources, Training & Development, and Corporate sectors, with a lifetime of experience serving and assisting non-profit, charitable, and religious organizations.
As a double major, I earned a bachelor’s degree in both Business Administration and Secondary Education from Radford University. I am the recipient of a PhD in Leadership Studies and a master’s degree in Adult Education, both from The North Carolina A&T State University. My professional research included a qualitative study on the influence of celebrity culture on Millennial leadership identity, examining the role generational gaps play in interpersonal, professional, leadership, developmental, and wellness dynamics. As a three-time author (book #4, The 5 Areas of Healing scheduled for Fall 2024), and the popular host of candid, empowering bi-weekly personal development therapy discussions with thousands of people across the world, I am most proud of being able to explain topics related to counseling and therapy in a manner that everyone can understand!
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
Life experience is one of the greatest tools in my field of work – helping people to design and redesign their lives as they heal from challenges in their lives. I’ve known and understood the concepts related to my field of work for many years, but I’ve discovered that my own personal life challenges would work to prepare me for this work just as much as my educational and work experiences. It is much easier to instruct others on what it takes to heal when you’ve been broken. It is much easier to teach others how to recover from failure when you’ve experienced failure. While the pandemic of 2000 was catastrophic for millions of people around the world, the personal losses that I experienced yielded an opportunity for me to pursue a personal journey to healing that would create a blueprint that I’d be able to teach hundreds of thousands of people around the world. From recovering from divorce, to learning to live, work, and lead as a proud single father, life experience made my knowledge real, and created a greater level of authenticity in my work.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The most effective strategy for growing clientele, without a doubt, is authenticity. Authenticity is what potential clients and observers of your work will be able to decipher through your approach to your craft, the manner in which you engage others, and through your focus on unique ways to engage others. One of the hallmarks of my content online is a beanie that I wear in the large majority of my content online. So many people ask “what’s up with the hat?” A lady at my former church asked me if she could contribute to our outreach efforts to feed and clothe the homeless. Our ministry was small, approximately 300 members, and I was able to lead efforts to reinforce and redefine what outreach means for a church – feeding and clothing more than 20,000 people in less than 6 years, with no loans, grants, or millionaire members. This sweet lady asked if she could hand-knit hats and gloves for us to distribute to the homeless, and proceeded to make several trash bags full of them. I asked her if I could have a few because they are so nice, and with my bald head, such a great compliment when it gets cold outside.
As my content began to really take off, I asked myself, “what can I do to remain true to my message and my unique approach toward healing the world?” This is when the thought of wearing some of my hats during my videos came to me, as the hats represented my purpose in feeding and clothing a world who needed help. Today, when I wear the hats, they represent me working in my authentic calling, using my gifts to help heal a world challenged with all types of pain, trauma, and challenges. The hat has not only become a symbol of my content, but an expectation from a social media audience of just under 1 million followers around the world!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zebthe3rd.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zebthe3rd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zebthe3rd/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@drzebtalleyiii
- Other: TikTok:
https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPd2CJLM1/