I’ve always had the mindset to believe that this position that I represent, is my entity. So, I choose to make that personal connection, because finding that sense of pride that I mentioned before, is what drives me.

My best practices for success at supercharged? Most important, mindset. Own your role, and be aware that your value can boost your colleagues value.

I grew up in a small town of 800 people in North Dakota, we had a pretty tight, close knit community. My dad was an active member in the town council, he was the mayor at one point, a volunteer firefighter. My mom was the high school cheerleading coach and the substitute teacher and then all my other relatives were self employed farmers.

I say all this to highlight the beautiful concept of community.

Whatever part you want to play within your community, the opportunity is usually there. No matter what you choose, all positions are vital.

Whatever it is, you’re the one providing that experience and convenience for the whole town. Therefore, everyone knows who you are, and the work that you do, becomes part of your identity.

So, it’s super important for everyone to have a strong work ethic and take pride in what you’re doing, because it affects everyone.

I view team SUPERCHARGED as my adopted small community, and being project manager of the creative design department is my entity. So part of what I think defines my success, is to taking full ownership of my role. Which, sounds like a dumb statement, I guess what I’m trying to elaborate on, is simply the awareness that the value I add to my role can boost my colleagues value, which boosts my community’s value.

So once that mindset is put into place, I do my best to understand expectations, give it my all, even when I missed the mark.

It’s the attitude that’s most important, and owning up to failure but then, acknowledging the “whys” and the legit “why’s” not the excuses, and expressing solutions alongside a willingness to try again.

My mindset is to be not mama bear, but be the person that’s like: “are you taking care of? are you set up to do your job? are you doing okay? How are you feeling? Is there any pressure? Can I help unload something? Can I help delegate this?”

I’ve always kind of run on accepting challenges, because that’s also what makes a job more interesting. I need something to not keep things stagnant and get boring, so as long as new things are being presented to me, I kind of like that!

The journey to becoming successful at SUPERCHARGED ® actually started with my desire to be successful in life.For a very long time growing up, I was very insecure and shy. I was born with a condition called Ptosis, which is a droopy eyelid, I couldn’t look at people in the eye. You know what they say about not being able to look people in the eye… it’s like you’re dishonest. It took me a very long time to get over that. I didn’t like seeing myself that much, and I knew I had to develop myself. I had to focus on, not the things I couldn’t control, but more on areas and things I could be better at. Things I could do better, things I could learn, and that took a while.

For a very long time, I was interested in photography and fashion. Actually, I’ll say style, because that was something I had to rely on growing up. I picked up my clothes really well because I felt like I had to make people think less about who I am. It’s something I had to do. It wasn’t for others, it was more for me. Each time I did that, it felt good. Fashion, style, and photography were about, for me, helping people feel good- because I know what it feels like to not feel good.

Being able to help people, put looks together, and to do all these things… I must say, I did a lot of free work! The payment I was getting was the reaction from people. Which is one of the things I love about SUPERCHARGED ®. It’s all about self-development and helping people get better. For me, it’s something that I’ve lived all my life without even knowing. I mean, I didn’t call it self-development back then. When I look at people looking at me, they see something else from what I see or what I know about me. It was my job to be able to convey that. I don’t think anyone is going to be able to convey that message for me and how that really is going to make a difference and impact lives.

When we talk about, “It’s a mindset” that’s really truly, what helped me! At that point in my life, it was all about my mindset.

I either accepted it or fought against it, and that was going to determine how long I was going to be able to make it here.

When I first started here at SUPERCHARGED one of the first things I had to do was work on a web design. And to be quite honest, I actually was not accustomed to working in a very quick, fast and flexible way. I typically like to take time with planning, and I was still always very organized, but I wasn’t used to whipping it up, so to say.

I remember initially feeling like, “This is just not the way I work. And I’m not comfortable with this kind of rate, or this expectation.” But I also quickly decided, I was going to: change my frame of mind around it. I decided okay, this is a skill I want to build anyway. This is a challenge that, maybe I fight against it because it makes me a little scared, makes me feel like I’m not going to be able to provide what they’re asking of me because I don’t have adequate time.

That’s the story I told myself. “I need adequate time to give the best.” I really had to fight against perfectionism. Like, “I don’t want to do things unless it’s perfect.” So this company… It wasn’t the first approach in terms of my thought process. But I decided: I want to learn, I want to grow, I actually want to be a lot quicker in the way I approach my design concepts, and I want to be able to meet deadlines faster.

So, I really just took that on as a challenge and I owned it. I think that taking on that mindset helped me to change, and to really embrace that fast and flexible approach. I had to let go, like really let go back then. To be honest, I had a way in which I worked, at at that time, In my mind that was the best practice, and in my mind that was the way we’re supposed to do things.

But, I was able to let go! I was able to let go, and adapt, because I realized every company you work for is not exactly the same. There I best practices, and we should always bring those best practices into everything we do, but we also have to be mindful of the culture of the company you’re working with. It’s different with each company.

I don’t take failure as the end of me, failure is just the next step to the next thing I can learn and do better next time.

This is a growth opportunity, because at the end, it doesn’t change the deliverable. Deadlines still need to be met, and things still need to be created. I’m still accountable for making it happen. So whether that’s me doing it myself, or finding team members who can handle that better than I can, it’s one or the other, and I think that’s the art of delegation.

Bringing on team members that you know; for instance, Renato is better at designing certain things than I am. So then by all means I want to equip him to actually handle that. If Chelsey is better at project managing in certain aspects, then I want to empower her to do that because that helps me do what I need to do better! That’s how I approach my work here and thus far it has been quite successful. I’m really just happy for the opportunity that Kwanza’s given me to grow in that way.

Jody Jacobs:

If you’ve got a five minute story, that five minute story can impact lives.

When I was, I want to say maybe like nine years old, I wanted to be on the baseball team. Fast forward, and I made it to my first game. This was the very first time, that I get to go out. So I’m out in left field, they throw the ball, and the ball comes my way. I’m like, Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, God. Oh, it’s happening, It’s happening. It’s happening.

For me this was a real life movie moment. I literally closed my eyes, reached up in the sky with my glove, and was just like, Ohhh, I hope, I hope, I hope it, and guess what? The ball actually fell into my glove.

Now, the point of sharing that quick story is that for me, it was the first experience that I can remember, that I opened myself up to possibilities. I opened myself up to just, putting myself out there, and you know what, let’s just see, you know what, the ball might just fall into the glove.

There’s nothing but space and opportunity between you and your success. It’s really up to you to take advantage of that space and opportunity. Opportunities don’t create themselves, you have to go out there, like Kwanza says, you have to go out there and put the action behind that.

The three pillars that I had with that experience are faith, work ethic, and self assessment.

1. So, let’s talk about faith. Not just faith in a high power per se, but really you have to take ownership. If nobody’s going to do this, I have to be the person to do that. I have to believe in this more than anything.

2. Work ethic, like that goes without saying, if you don’t work towards something, it doesn’t mean that you have to do it all by yourself. But if you don’t put in the work, how can you rally others to want to work with you, or even work for you.

3. In terms of self image or self assessment, it goes back to either some of those soft skills, or it goes back to really just taking a look at how you act, how you interact. Some of those non verbals that you do, and taking an assessment of that whether you are just starting out in your career or whether you’re at the top of your career, it doesn’t matter.

But those particular things matter in terms of being not only a success in the world’s perspective, but being the success of you.

The other thing I think just overall for me, I always take on an experience of either… you win, or you learn. Like I’m not a loser, never have been, never will be. So you win or you learn.