[Music]
Welcome to the Executive Connect.
Today, we're joined with Gay Gattis, an entrepreneur, a best-selling offer, a leadership coach,
and a celebrated artist. Gay's journey from founding the largest women-owned independent
digital ad agency in the United States to empowering the next generation of leaders
is truly inspired. Welcome, Gay. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you today.
I always like to start off to talk about your journey into your field. So what inspired you
to start T3 and how did you grow it to be the largest women-owned independent agency in the United
States? Well, it took step by step. It didn't happen overnight. I started as an art major
at the University of Texas and I went into the advertising business because in those days,
we had to draw everything and I could draw. And so I was an art director. I was in the public
relations, advertising, and even management consulting business before I started my own agency.
So I had, you know, some years behind me before I launched off and took off to do my own thing.
But I started my own company in 1989 and Austin was a very sleepy little town
when I started the agency. There wasn't a lot going on here. And so it was kind of a risky,
very risky thing to do, but the university and everyone was kind of behind me and I just kind of
launched off and did this. It took many, many years so to perfect what we wanted to do. But we always
had this mantra from the very beginning. And it was kick ass work for clients who want to kick ass.
And that defined what we wanted to do. So we were experimenting with new things. When you said
digital agency, of course, when I started the agency, we weren't digital because that wasn't even
part of our language. We were traditional advertising agency. But early on started shifting into any
new mediums that we could think of or get our hands on. So when the internet became a viable option
for marketing, we jumped into it with all fours and literally made that kind of our special area,
which allowed us then later, as we grew along the way, to get into a lot of Fortune 100 companies.
Because they were just beginning to figure out that they needed to maybe do some email marketing
or so online advertising or how are they going to create a website. So we were very early in all that.
And then one thing led to another. We ended up being at the top of almost 265 people. So it was a
pretty big agency with offices around the country. And like I said, great fortune 100 clients.
That's fantastic. Leading an agency for 30 years is no small fee. What were some of the key
leadership principles that guided you through your journey and building T3? Yeah, leadership is the
key of everything to me. And now in my life is what I focus on most. But you learned so much. And I believe
that a lot of leaders were leaders as children. And we talk about superpowers. And what were you good at
as a child? I took on leadership roles from the time I was a little girl, really. And then all the way
through school and high school and college. And I was always kind of the one who would stand up and say,
okay, I'll take that on or I will lead that charge or I will do it. So you learn a lot of hard lessons
along the way. And I learned in high school, actually, that I didn't learn how to bring people
along sometimes. I would just say, this is the way we're going to do it. And that was a tough lesson
for me to learn at that age because people did it, but they were begrudged and they didn't like it
and then they hated me. So it's like I kind of realized that it's all about building a strong team.
And the team has to shore up your weaknesses. So I knew at one point what my real strengths were.
And I focused on those and then I built people around me. They were so good that could
shore up my weaknesses. But the thing that was most important, I think, is just to show up every day,
being present, really giving people hope and energy, a vision, where are we going? And even if we
didn't know where we were going, giving them an open opportunity to help create that,
being genuine and authentic, and other words are ever used. But this is true. Very transparent.
Most all the time, there were certain things you couldn't tell everybody in the agency. But a lot of
things that we just needed to make sure people understood where we were going and what we were doing
and why certain things happened. And so very, very open with the staff. I had walked the halls
every day. I was, and I loved having people around me. I don't know how everyone works today in this
hybrid model because for me, this spontaneity of being in an agency where everyone was, you know,
throwing ideas off each other and meeting each other in the hall with a cup of coffee and saying,
hey, do you think about this? And, you know, it's just those things you can't create any other way
than just being there. And I worked hard. You know, I felt like my example of
rolling at my slaves and working as hard as anybody else or harder was important. And so I tried to
lay by example. I love that. That's, so there's so many good nuggets of wisdom in that. And one of
the things is building a culture that people want to show up to work. They want to feel safe to share
their ideas. They want to, you know, be comfortable, you know, not agreeing and working together in
collaborative. I think you're spot on when people understand what they need to come up to do. They do
it, right? They're all in when they're clear and they understand. And the other thing I love that you
mentioned was you found people that weren't exactly like you that were other that other skill sets.
So maybe some of your weaknesses you found employees that could show up like you said, those weaknesses.
So I love it. I'm a really big fan of your book, Cal Girl Power, how to kick ass and business in
life. I read it twice. I think it's great. Can you share maybe some of your top lessons and
leadership from that book that you can share with our listeners? Yeah, one of the things I like to say
is that a lot of us are planners, you know, all of us want to kind of set goals, you know, you know,
plan it's kind of part of our culture to, you know, really say, all right, this is what I want to
accomplish at this point. And so I'm going to do here. So that's great. And we have to. We have to
set financial goals. We have to all those things are very, very important and I'm off for it. But I have a
saying that the path to success is not a straight line. And I've found that to be so true in my life.
What happens is we're marching along and we think we're hitting all the the goals and all the steps
and then something hits you in the side of the head. I call it a pinball machine and knocks you
around. I call it, you know, this life thing happens, you know, and we're, we can't predict it. I
mean, the pandemic, a death in the family, a change in where you have to do your business. I mean,
so many things family changes. It just happens to us and you can't predict it and you can't affect
it and you can't control it. And that's the other thing that's so hard for people and leadership
roles. I think the toughest thing for a later is realizing sometimes you cannot control something.
I mean, as much as you can fix everything you can, you can take all the steps, you can try to
mitigate an issue or problems. Stay ahead of it. But there are times when it's just not in your
control and you have to be strong enough to realize that and say, okay, how are we going to keep moving?
So when I say the path to success is not a straight line, there are things out of your control.
There are things are going to happen to you. But every time I've gotten knocked off the path,
and I have many times in my career in life, when I finally step back on the path, I find that the path
is a little different and maybe better than the one that I had envisioned. And so it's interesting how
the toughest things that can happen to us and sometimes they're good things, but they still
knock you off the path. But you get back and you have a new perspective or a new way of doing things.
And so I don't love the path knocked off, but when you get there, you go back and you continue on
and things can become a lot more interesting or new knowledge that you never had, that you wouldn't
have had. Had you not been thrown off that success path that you thought you were just hitting it all
and doing great? That's fantastic. I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you're such a strong
advocate for women in business and you've started the Women Who Means Business Program at the University
of Austin, Texas. I want to talk a little bit about what motivated you to start that program and
really pay it forward to women in the Austin and really across the United States.
I started off, you know, making public speeches sometimes to women's groups, you know, many years ago.
And then one day I was invited to do the keynote for a huge event in Tampa and it was a chamber event
and there were like a thousand people there and it was targeted to women, but there were men and
women there. And when I got off the stage, immediately everyone was coming up and okay, we left
your story, all that. Do you have a book? And I said, well, no, I don't have a book. And they said,
you need to write one. Your story needs to be told because there's not that many women who started
a business from the ground up. I mean, and I looked at the statistics. I mean, what I was able to do
is very rare. And I know that now, you know, at the time, you're just in it just with them, you know,
putting on the harness every day and just going for it and growing and, you know, and doing the right
thing and trying to, you know, grow business and that's what I did and help our clients. But I finally
realized this is a, this is a story that needs to be told. So I decided that I would write the book.
And then that opened up the whole concept really for me. And I'd always kind of worked on women's
issues. I mean, I'm a woman. I've been a woman in business, you know, many years. So I wrote the book
and then I started targeting women's groups because it was targeted to women, capital power,
and so women's book. But man like it too. But it's still very much about empowering women and
helping them to understand that the real key is that you've got the power inside already. You know,
it's there. You just have to understand it, tap it, understand your strengths and then move forward
with that. So I started touching so many women's groups in my book tours and in speeches. And I realized
it. There was so much to be done. And then the pandemic came along. COVID hit and I started reading the
news about how women were dropping out, you know, and we were losing some of these key women in
leadership roles because it just got to be too much because let's be honest. I mean, a lot of times
women have responsibility of their children, sometimes their parents have a lot of things in the
household or a lot of things in life. Along with their work, with their business. And so women were
saying, I don't need, if you didn't need to do it, you dropped out and said, I'm not going to handle
this anymore. So I said, we got to stop this. We got to stop the bleeding. And so I proposed this
program to the University of Texas at President of the University and we put it over at McCombs Business
School in executive ed and we're starting our fifth cohort this fall. And let's say you will kind
of maybe know this and she were there, but we've had tremendous success from the program. We are
saying women do exactly what we want to do. And it's not for the undergrads and grad students or
even the ones out a few years. It's for women 10, 15, 20 years into their careers, already in leadership
roles. But how do you catapult them to be absolutely at the top of their game? And we're saying it over
and over that women are getting there. I mean, they're taking those tough roles, taking on P&L
responsibilities. I'd never taken on. We had women wrote to us and said, I'm maybe into Korea with my
family. I'm taking over all operations for my company in Korea. She wouldn't have done that. She
said she wouldn't have. It would have been too big of a risk. So we're trying to teach confidence
in how to take risks and being a later means risk-taking. And some people don't have an appetite
for that. But you've got to do that if you're ever going to get ahead. So I'm very excited about
what we're doing there. When it continues to spread as much as I can, maybe do another book someday.
But it's really all about, you know, how do we empower people to go out and do the best they can be
and be leaders and not just there, but really taking on the tough roles? Yeah, absolutely. And I think
you hit on it. One of the things that I love to do about the program is it gives women the opportunity
to connect with women as well. A lot of times in leadership roles and tech and civil engineering,
there's a lot of engineering women I know that went through the program. Their peers were really men.
And we, like you mentioned, have different, you know, nature, nurture responsibilities with children
and a family and making decisions. So I think it's really giving women their practical steps to
develop themselves, have confidence in themselves to do it and then to actually do it because someone's
holding them accountable because now we're all watching, right? And so I want to talk a little bit
about those practical steps that women can take to really develop their super power, their personal
power, whatever those steps may be so they can actually advance their career. Any, like nuggets,
a wisdom from that? Yeah, you have to be able to dream. That's one of the big things that gets
robbed from us sometimes as we get older and, you know, I reread a book called, you know, The Last
Lecture that came out in 2008 by Carnegie Mellon professor who was dying at cancer and he had to
do his last lecture and he decided to do it about what happened with his childhood dreams and how
so many of them had come to pass. And it's a really beautiful book about harnessing your dreams and
really making this come true. So I have this exercise in the book called the the dreams and reality
exercise and that's where I really invite people to step back and really dream again because if we
don't dream and we can't envision you won't take the steps to get there and it's a really wonderful
thing. It's hard to do sometimes. We're so, you know, encumbered by the reality side that you say,
oh, I don't know if I can't do that. It's too hard or I don't want to tackle that. It costs too much
money. I'll never raise that. I'll never be able to get a team around that. And so I'm in the middle
of reimagining some dreams right now for myself and it's a scary thing, you know, I know, I know,
but I'm excited about it because it's things that I really want to accomplish and then I can talk
about time lining your life where you put all these things out of what we're, we're going to be
here, here, and here. And some of the things we kind of can expect, you know, maybe a child goes
off to college that year or, you know, maybe that's when I'm going to, you know, we've decided we're
going to have a vacation home at this point. And you know, there's just things you can put on a big
sticky board timeline and start to piece it together on where your life's going. And you put those
dreams in there and it changes things where you say, okay, what do I have to do right now or within
the next year or that dream's not going to ever be a reality. And so I'm just really kind of back in
my dreams and reality mode again. And I think it's something I'd bite everyone to do because you
have to take a little time and sometimes I say, and I do this, I live on a ranch part of the time in
Texas. And I like to take a big quilt and throw it on the ground and look up in the sky and watch
the clouds go by and just kind of think about, well, what else do I want to do? You know, what's next?
What would really thrill me and what would help other people if I did it or what would delight other
people or what would make someone else's life enrich and at the same time enrich my mind because I
don't think you, I don't truly believe that you get all the blessings back when you give away.
I mean, I'm a real believer in that and I think it's true. So I think about what can I do there?
What's going to make a difference? So I'm kind of back in the dreams and reality mode again and it's
fun and I'd bite everyone to really just say, okay, I'm going to take time to do that. Write it down.
And if it's not for right now and then maybe bring in some other people, they're important in your
life that, could they help you? Is that something they see as a reality or something that they see
could literally happen? And you know, when I started my company was like that. I had to convince a small,
little handful of people to come join me in this very risky venture and leave their jobs. You know,
they had other jobs when they hired them and she's just a handful of people, but you know, I had to
sell them my dream. I had to say, this is where I see this going and they did. And so that's how
the little things happen. Happened small sometimes and then it turns into bigger and bigger and bigger.
And so again, now we're in cohort five of the women who need business program and that means it
every time. We only take 40 first class, but that's 40 people. So now we're in 200, you know, people
that will somehow be affected and I can just see them like lights out there, you know, affecting other
people, bringing other people along or really making an impact and a difference. So it's all kind of
as a way of twinkling all around you. Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said. What I heard is
a couple of key things that you mentioned. One was, you know, not letting life pass you by. Like your
friend that, you know, mentioned that he had to give a speech or people that let life pass. So I
wish I would have done that. I wish I could have done that. But like you were saying, you know,
laying that blanket out outside and having a moment just to dream, like, what would my life look like
if I did this thing or I did that thing or I achieved this goal or, you know, what do I want my
life to look like in 10 years? So I think that's a key, key, you know, piece of wisdom there is a lot
of times we're so reactionary in our world today that we're, you know, getting the kids up, getting
them to school, getting to work, doing our job, coming home, cooking, whatever your life looks like
we're all reacting to the day without a real plan. Like you mentioned, so laying down five, 10, 20 years,
what does my life look like? You know, you don't know, right? Until you get 20 years later and you think,
oh, man, I wish I would have taken that trip or I wish I wouldn't have tried to do these things.
Yeah, I mean, we don't know, the life is so tenuous in many ways and, you know, you kind of get to a point,
me where I'm saying, well, how many years do I really have? If I'm lucky, who knows? Or if I'm blessed,
who knows if they're good years, but you have no time to waste is how I feel about it, you know? And I
know we have to deal with the dirty socks and the laundry and all that stuff like you said. I mean,
that's just life and, you know, my husband used to say, there's peanut butter smeared all over the
back seat of the car who's going to clean that up. I mean, you know, just things like that, just life
stopped, you know, we have to deal with that, but you can't take your eye off the big things because
that's where you really, that's where you achieve and that's where again, you can get back so much,
you know, one of the reasons that I, I mean, I wanted to make money, of course, but you know, you can
make money at certain segments of a, a, a cycle of a business and you can make a lot of money with
50 people. I mean, seriously, I need had to do it, but then we get bigger and bigger and one of the
reasons that I kept growing the company was we wanted to do more for our clients. We knew we could help
them and the other thing was I was employing more people and that was risky. I mean, of course, I had a
big payroll, but it made me feel really good when I go home at night to think, you know what, 260 people
got a paycheck today is because I continue to make this work and I'm pushing hard. I'm growing
the business and I make it work. So that was a very gratifying thing to me to know that, gosh, you know,
you created jobs and that was, and again, and where people enjoyed practicing their craft and
it could trust each other and had a really good environment and culture where they wanted to be.
And so it was just, it was very gratifying. I mean, it's just one of the best things I've ever done.
Yeah, that's fantastic. All the life's you've changed, right? Yeah, I think you've changed so many
lives and like you said, paid it forward and those people pay it forward and it just becomes this big
bright shiny light like you mentioned. One thing I admire about you is your creative side, right? You're
not only, you know, a business woman, but you're a very creative woman and so I want to talk a little
bit about creativity and how creativity can really help you develop yourself as a leader and
really your journey in this world. Well, fortunately, my mother, my father died when I was young. So my
mother didn't oppose that I was going to be an art major at the University of Texas and I probably,
you know, you think back, you say, well, I certainly could have majored in something else where I could
have gotten out right away and had a business career made money. But I love the art side of my life. I
was always very creative from the time I was a little girl and from drawing, painting, you know, all the
things I did, but just creative thinking, you know, I learned to think of new things and come up with ideas
and lead people into things and we would have like in high school, we had these things called hall
competition. So all the four grades in my high school would decorate their hall, everyone had a
hall, the senior hall, freshmen, we'd decorate our hall and we'd compete and we'd got the prize.
Well, I was always when you came up with the concept of what it was going to be and so I always come up
with the concept and everybody in the class would come up and we would work and work and work on all
the details to pull it together and we won every year. I mean, it was just kind of a fun thing,
but I've always had creative thinking in my in my wheelhouse. It's what I do. So that made for
a good fit for me in the conceptual advertising marketing business because that's kind of what we
do. You know, it's coming up with things that are never thought of before or that you can really kind
of, how do you do something that's going to get the attention of the audience? And so I love that.
I mean, it was just how I was put together and fortunately, you know, I did have enough
experiences before I started my business and I did go back to business school at night. I have to
tell you after I graduated, I said, I had in him one business class and I felt like I didn't
understand the language of business. And so I never finished my MBA because I had a child and
it anyway, I couldn't do it, but I have so many business classes under my belt and that really
helped me when I started my business because, you know, and I'd also worked for a management consulting
for and those guys all had their MBAs from Harvard and they taught me a lot. So I fortunate things
along the way, but all of those required that I stepped down and did something that wasn't
necessarily what you would have thought, you know, and so I always say when everybody's
ziggs, sometimes you have to zag because, you know, just because everything's going this way,
why don't you try something else? And I always would try to do that. I still do. And you have to put
yourself in situations where things are going to happen, you know, if you're just kind of be
mounting that you haven't accomplished this or this isn't happening or you haven't accomplished
this for your family, get yourself, you know, put your, I always say put yourself out there.
That's part of my book and you got to, you know, force yourself sometimes even if you're an
introvert to get into situations and you mentioned something really important about the Women
Him in Business Program. The network that you develop is so incredibly important and we love it
that women could find and that's why we had women older, a little bit older, you know, not the younger
friends because we wanted women who had already experienced leadership roles already been out there
and could relate and be peers. And so I've been fortunate enough to have some women's organizations
like the Committee of 200, C200, Lynn Eder who teaches a Women Him in Business Program with me and I
met through that. And it gave me a strong sense of other successful women. And when I kept seeing it
and I could ask questions and we could, you know, hold each other's hands through the good and the bad and,
you know, it just really, really made a huge difference in my career. And I was fortunate enough to be
invited to be in that group many years ago and I'm still a member but it helped me
so much, you know, through the years to have that network and I cannot say how important that is.
And sometimes you start small. I mean, you know, when I first started networking and doing things
at my world was a lot smaller and then it kind of grew and grew and grew. But you've got to take those
first steps to get out and meet people and you never know which you're going to find out,
which you're going to learn or how you can help each other. Yeah, and I've always been told my your net worth,
or your net work is your net, what your net worth is. And it's not just, that doesn't just mean about
money. It's not just about money. It's, you know, maybe you, you are going through something challenging
in your life and it's the first time you've navigated it and you know somebody else who's been
through it and having, like you mentioned, relationships and people you can call that I've been
through some tough things in life. And having somebody that you can bounce ideas off really is worth
all the, all the money, all the T and China that they say, but it's really worth it in your spot on
having relationships and a network and somebody to call is, is really key, is really key. And I know
you mentioned a little bit about, you know, the leaders today having to navigate, you know, working
from home, right? That's something that we've not had an navigate, managers and leaders haven't had
to manage teams across the world behind a computer. So I want to talk a little bit about the current
trends in leadership and what is most crucial from your perspective for leaders today? Well, one of
the things that I learned from one of my C200 members during the pandemic and she said that they
learned a lot on how to deal with people in these environments, you know, in virtual environments.
But she said sometimes I would start the meeting instead of just jumping into the agenda with
letting everyone just kind of tell something that was going on in their life, you know, and maybe it
was during the pandemic. So it was a little, you know, different, but just kind of learning people as
human beings. And that's what was so valuable to me in running my business is I knew everybody in
the company. I knew a lot about them really. I asked and we had families bring their kids in and we had
all kinds of, you know, events and things where I got to know the people as who they were and what
things they were interested in outside of T3 and their work because I always said that's so important.
I want you out there doing things if you've got a volunteer thing you're working on and you need to
take off tomorrow afternoon, go do it or, you know, you want to understand who people are. And then
they're not just another talking head on the screen or another BP of sales or whatever they become
a person to you. And then you kind of kind of understand how they're wired up and how what's going
to help motivate them and what can you do for them that's going to give them, you know, that extra,
you know, to keep going. And so it's very, very important, I think even in a virtual environment to take
the time to get to know your staff and hopefully do some things with them in person now, you know,
go out for a picnic, you know, do something, get out brainstorm, go sit somewhere, you know,
just having that time together where you're not specifically dealing with one task, you know,
or that task of the day, just opening up to the what ifs and how are you doing. And that's goes a
long way. Yeah, I would agree. I think that's a great piece of advice is know who you're working with.
Don't just be so mission focused on a task that you lose sight of people in the process. And I
think the real great leaders I've had in my life, they they knew a little bit more about me than
what my title or my role was. And so I was willing to work harder for them, right? When they saw me,
they understood me, they valued me, and they they made time to just talk to me. And so I would
absolutely agree with you. You talked a little bit about it at the beginning of our going back to
school, to get some business education to learn more. And so first of all, I think that's a really
great point. Know your skills, know what you're you're good at like you were saying and know what
you need to work on and then do the work. I think one of my favorite words is resiliency. It's been
a lifelong favorite word and adaptability. I think the world's changing so so much so quick that we
really have to be resilient and adapt to what's coming at us every day. So I want to talk
a little bit about cultivating resiliency and adaptability in today's world and just get your
perspective and on how to cultivate these skillsets to be a better leader.
I'd go back to my childhood again. You know, I had parents and people around me. I grew up in a small
town. It was very like a fish ball. You know what everybody was doing and it was very open. And so
I watched people with tremendous struggles, you know, and I knew what was going on. And I would always
say, well, if they can get through that, surely I can get through what I'm doing today. And it was
just very I just would watch people. I just I just and then see how they reacted and how they
came through that and the words of wisdom they had. And so that was kind of my basis really of,
you know, trying to keep going, you know, and I just have this can-do attitude my whole life
that was instilled in me and my parents. I mean, you know, it's like you can do it. You can do it.
And I know so many people grow up and have very discouraging households and they are not
empowered. They're not, you know, encouraged. They're not thought they were wonderful. And so that's
already a tough load you carry, you know, to begin with. But being able to just say, how can I,
again, I'm going to go back to this. If I'm strong enough to get through this and I can do this,
and if I can just push one more inch farther, who will I help? What kind of difference
am I going to make? And it really does keep you going, you know, when you think you've done something
that helps somebody or really made a difference someplace. It's very exciting when it happens. So,
you know, it keeps me going. I also, you know, grew up, I've been a rancher for my whole life too,
and, you know, still do that. And there's a lot of reality in the country, I call it. And,
so three realities this week. I mean, we had a scunt spray my dog, which is not fun. And then we had a
coral snake that was crawling around the swimming pool and they're highly poisonous. And then
there was a baby rabbit that was caught by one of my dogs and I was, I hope it, I don't know what
happened anyway, but that's just reality. I mean, that's just what happens out there. And, you know,
we had a fire not too far from us, not on my property, but not too far. And that was a very scary thing.
And so, well, I've just kind of, and the country is you never know what's going to happen. I mean,
you can't predict when the snake is going to come by. You know, it's just, you know, it's just,
it's just different than living in the city and you just have to roll with it in some ways and
know that, okay, whatever the problem is today, we're going to try to deal with it the best we can't.
And I think that's given me a lot of resilience, you know, I've just grown up in that environment.
But if you haven't, you know, it's just everybody has their own issues and whatever environment they have
or whatever company they're in or whatever. And it's just saying there's got to be a way around this.
I can do it. If I can't, I'll figure it out or I have to move on. And when I said you can't control
everything, you can't. But you can, you can control how you feel about it. And that's a very important
lesson. You don't have to play the negative videos over and over and you're hit, turn them off, you know,
the ones that I can't do it or someone criticize me or, you know, this have turned off those videos
because they don't help you or anybody else to keep playing them in your head. They only push you back.
So I really, I think we have to be strong mentally too. It's not just the, you know, strength that
oof, but it's a mental strength and perseverance that really gets you through.
Yeah, I love that. I think that's great advice is, you know, being able to tackle things as they come
and not thinking things are happening at you, they're happening for you. Like you said at the beginning,
some of these challenging things you went through, some of some of the most beautiful things were
on the other side of that challenge. And so I think just like you said, getting the negative out of your
head and really going back to what you, you know, also said was getting a plan together. And,
you know, if it sets you back a year, you know, get back on the Elrwork Road and go after that five-year
plan because there are going to be setbacks. There's nothing, none of us get out of life without having
some setbacks and some struggles and some changes. So it's really having that attitude, like you were
saying, to be positive and to just say, hey, I need to, you know, handle the dog with the, you know,
with the skunk and clean them up and make sure you have a great recipe for what you wash a dog who's
been skunk. I've had dog skunked as we call it many times and so I found this was the humane
society actually came out with a special thing you mix up to rub on the dog. I mean, I want to
share that this moment, but yeah, I mean, you have to learn these things. So when you know things like
this can happen, you also have to have your toolkit ready to, okay, what do I do? And I have,
what do you do in this night's coming? What do you do in this happens? And you just kind of have,
you get prepared as much as you can, you can't be prepared for everything, but you know, you just kind
of say, all right, I know I've been through that and how am I going to handle it just like with anything.
Great. And then or know who to call, right? Right? Like he said, like if if my dog got hit with
a skunk, you know, being able to call you and say, hey, what do I do? I got to get to this,
you know, events. I'm going to leave the dog outside or I'm going to have somebody come over and
take care of them. And so I think it's just finding a plan on how to attack things and that's right.
So many good pieces of advice that you shared. One, another thing I admire about you is how you
straddle so many different, you know, passions, hobbies, you're an accomplished author, you have,
you know, taught some college classes, you've run businesses, you're into the art, you know,
art and painting and, you know, paying it forward and nonprofits, you straddle so many different,
you know, passions, hobbies, businesses. And I know branding is really important these days. And
typically we're either, you know, branded by our job or branded by our family. And so I want to talk a
little bit about how you've been able to take all of the things you love and are passionate about.
And really brand yourself in a way that, you know, you're giving to the world and you're giving
to gay and you're making the world a better place. So I know that was a lot in, you know, two sentences,
two long sentences, which is kind of your insights on straddling so many different things and so
many different passions and really keeping the mission focused if you could share some insights on that.
Yeah, I do straddle a lot of different things and partly it's because honestly I get bored very easily
and I'm just going to say that I like to have different things going on because to me,
being involved in one thing feeds the other. And so when I will learn by getting out of just my
little silo and jumping over here to do this and as you said, I'm a painter, I was trained as a painter
and artist in college but I didn't really get to passionately do that until a few years ago and I've
been successful with it. You know, I have a mom gallery. I've been shown in New York and Santa
Bay and Houston. I mean, I have a nice following, you know, and it's been great to paint. I love to
paint. I painted the ranch because see, that's all part of my brand because I feel like when I
told you I grew up on ranches and farms, I am in my heart, a country girl. And I, you know, I understand
nature in the country and say when I paint, I'm painting the skies that I see at our ranch
and sometimes some landscape but they're really abstract most of the time. But it's all kind of this
what I've taken every day. So being aware of who you are and being very consistent with them,
that is part of the brand. It's just like we would build a brand for a client. You would, you know,
Coca-Cola would not put red in their logo tomorrow. I mean, that would be terrible. I mean,
you know, here I've read on, I look out Coca-Cola red today. But, you know, it's just the simplicity
being very consistent with who you are, what you say, how you dress, where you show up, the actions
you take, all those things and being not necessarily predictable, but being, again, using this word
genuine, you know, it's just who is it that you are and you stick with it and you just do it over and
over and over because people can't remember too many things. It's really true. And so again, when we
would build brands for big companies or, you know, whatever, we had to make sure that the customer
experience was that they knew who you were and sometimes we would come up with a campaign or we
come up with an idea and we say, well, that's off brand, you know, that doesn't make sense.
The customer is not going to recognize that that's pizza hut. The customer is not going to recognize
that that is that all state sending me that? That's not like all state. And so you want to
educate, entertain and surprise, but you don't want to be off brand. So think about yourself as this
brand that, you know, when I show up, it's always me. You know, I'm not trying to be anybody else. I'm
not trying to act in a different way. I don't try to change my accent. I have this East Texas accent
to help with it. It means how it sounds. And it's me. And so, you know, it's just kind of my colors that
I use in my logo and my website and typebaces and just everything that we do when we communicate
should be consistent. Now you can rebrand, you know, and kind of shift some, but basically it's
got to be something that is true to you. And finding that and who you are, you know, I'm kind of known
to be a bit of a fashionista and I have to live up to that. Yeah, I really do. It's like work for me,
sometimes I'm playing like my clothes and I'm going to be wearing for events and I'm, you know,
I'm creative with that. I don't just put by the out bed at the store where it was used. I put with it.
No, no, no, I've got, you know, I have this little piece from Target and this thing about it at
the thrift store and this thing that was Chanel, you know, it's just all these things I put together,
but it takes work. But to me, it's not putting together a creative puzzle, but when I show up some
flies, usually people say, Oh, I love that out bed or where did you get that purse or where it
was. And it's because I curate my clothes and that's just kind of who I am. Just part of my brand.
So all these things I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if you just wear a t-shirt and blue jeans
every day that's you. That's you. And you know what? Let's be consistent with that and let your look.
And I've, you know, known a lot of people who just wear a jacket, t-shirt and jeans and that's their
look and they look great. So, uh, stuch is close. It's everything. But it's more about how you treat people,
how you act and how you show up. And that's what where the brand really is. And, uh, and being
consistently you is the key. Yeah, I agree. I think that spot on gay. I want to, I'm going to call
them gay as Zoms. Any other kind of, as we close that we covered so much fantastic information,
anything that we miss that you want to share with our listeners before we close that?
Yeah, you know, I have this. I want you all to look up something.
There's a poem that was written by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It's called the puzzle.
And it, it really stemmed. I found this thing because I'm, listen to my dad a lot as a child and
it, even though he died when I was 13, he used to say meet people where they are. And he explained that
to me with that man. And so that's another part of this whole network thing. I meet people everywhere
ago. And that's another reason why I'm mixing it up and being in different venues and different
kinds of audiences is fine because I meet a lot of different people. I try to get to know them.
And that becomes a valuable part of your network. But there's a puzzle poem, like I said.
And basically what it says is that all of us are carrying around pieces to someone else's puzzle.
And we don't know.
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It's going to really change their life or help them or entertain them or say to them that they
didn't have it. It's like, I'll just send their success, this missing piece to them came together.
And because they met you, they're more whole. And I just think that's a really great
piece of advice and really invites us again to go out and really understand people. Talk to them.
Like I said earlier, is a leader? Who are they? And what can you do for them? So it's, and also,
there's one last thing. There's this concept of reciprocity that I think is a really important concept.
And that is that if I do something for you, then you'll maybe do something for me. And that's how it
works. It's this gift-tank thing. I don't expect it necessarily. You know, I'm not waiting for you to
come do something for me. But I bet down the road, if I have been helpful to you, someday I could call
on you or you might find something that you'd like to bring to me. And that's a beautiful exchange.
You know, when we can do that. And so a lot of times I go, "What in the world am I talking to all
these people or are taking time to do that?" And then low in the hole, it just turns around. And within,
you know, a year, two, three, sometimes five, sometimes that comes right back to me. And I call
those buckets of goodwill. You don't expect them, but they just come to you. So it's a really nice
thing to think about life that way that it's really full circle. Yeah, absolutely. Those were
fantastic. So read that poem and follow gay, connect with gay. She's got fabulous books, fabulous
program at UT. Oh, and I have a newsletter too that you can follow. Yeah. Got on my website gaygattas.com.
And I have a newsletter that's free. It comes out every other week. And I write Little Pearls of
Wisdom. They're short, sweet, and to the point. But they're just kind of little things that I think
are important lessons. And sometimes funny and entertaining, but yeah, you're invited to check that out.
Thank you so much for sharing today and sharing your time and your wisdom with our listeners.
That's the Executive Connect podcast.
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