From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

Terry Crews on success through service

From the course: Career Advice from Some of the Biggest Names in Business

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Terry Crews on success through service

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- What kind of advice do you give to people who are, either have someone who comes from, let's say, a similar background to yours, or is trying to just help nurture someone? What would you say to them to tell them how to get someone to start thinking like you think, or to be on the same kind of path that you've been on? - I just read Simon Sinek's book, and I just love it, and it's called Leaders Eat Last. To literally, to be a leader, and to be this kind of person, you have to discover what your service is. Serving is the number one thing. First of all, I don't have my power, my strength, everything that I have is like not to dominate. It's not to control. The power that I have is to support, and it's to protect. Anytime you see someone using it the other way, it's an abuse of power. And one thing that I discovered, and this is where the thing about collaboration comes into play, is that when we collaborate with each other, it's about serving each other. And I always, it's like a great salesman. A great salesman will tell you, even if you come up to a great salesman, and you say you want to buy something, he'll look at your life and tell you if you need it or not. Even if it's a great sale, even if this guy could make a million bucks off you, he could tell you, wait a minute, this is the wrong thing for you. And he would be willing to turn down that sale in order to serve you, and all of a sudden, that's a guy that you trust. That's a guy that all of a sudden you realize wait a minute, he put me first above his own game, but everyone goes to that guy when they want to buy something. That's the key, because they know he's not going to sell you something you don't need. And my thing, in regards to being a leader, is being perfectly, beautifully honest, and when I say constructive criticism, not breaking people down, but be honest with them. You know what I mean? It's one of those things where you are like, this is where you could improve here, and you don't need this, even if you could benefit off of somebody hustling on this treadmill, you have to tell 'em, hey, wait a minute. You know what? Take a day off, relax. In fact, I want to make sure that you are in the right place. So that you could help everybody later on, and people will respect you. People will watch, and people do not listen to what you say, they watch what you do. And I realized that, I noticed the difference in my family. There was a time in my family when I wanted to control everybody, and I was that taskmaster. I was a part of this thing where it was my way or the highway. And you know what? I faced resistance at every step. Once I changed, and I mean, it took years, but I got my thing together and I decided, wait a minute. My job, as a leader in this house is to serve, to really be like, to make sure my wife gets to the goals she wants to get to, to make sure my kids reach the goals they want to get to, not the goals I want. What's the goal you want? And I think that if employers or managers come up to every employee or customer, every person that comes there, and finds out what it is they want, and then let's help us, can we get there? I can help you get there. And look, if it's not the right place, if we find out we don't, we're not in the right, we don't want the same thing, then maybe it might be better if you go somewhere else. But if we are in simpatico, and if we are looking for the same thing, then let's get there together. And let me tell you, to me, right now in my family, we changed. We've changed for the better, and it's a beautiful experience. And that's the best advice I can give, just with my family as an example. - Sounds so easy. We know it's not, it is a work in progress. - No, no, it's not. Like I said, it takes time. It takes a lot of time and patience.

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