Inspire. Influence. Grow.
Inspire. Influence. Grow.
Last week, I was invited to speak at the Greater Houston Partnership’s Women’s Business Alliance Roundtable. The Alliance offers a wide range of professional development programs and services for high-performing women to leverage career advancement opportunities and build their peer network to connect with determined and like-minded business women in the Houston area.
Almost a speed-networking event, the roundtable gave curious attendees a chance to ask questions, pick my brain and look to gain insight from my responses (though I gained just as much insight from them).
Inspire. Influence. Grow. These three words were the theme for the event—and each hold a particular significance to me. I hope my thoughts will additionally stir a thoughtful conversation with you.
Inspire
The main point? When you take the chance to talk about the things you care about, people listen. Inspiration is universal—telling the story behind your work and your impact may encourage others to share their own.
VISION is inspired by the Houston community, especially our business community and what we can accomplish—it drives us to stay motivated in the hustle and bustle. We seek out clients that are dedicated to the betterment of their communities and the world. Organizations that care. Organizations like the Greater Houston Partnership. It’s truly such an honor to be their production partner for more than a decade now. Through our work together, we get to inspire the perception of our community and help drive economic development to it. And through live events we work on—like Super Bowl 51 and RODEOHOUSTON—we can talk about what we love: our city. Houston is inspiring. The energy and optimism here is exciting. It’s wonderful to share our stories and talk about what we love in our work to inspire others as a result.
Influence
The main point? When we find success in our business, we have a responsibility to use our platforms to impact the world around us, and that impact is what you make it.
The world can be kind of a messy place these days, and people aren’t sure how to respond. I feel lucky that I can influence change through the work we do, like delivering the Pope’s message of hope and kindness to the world during the Super Bowl which captured the attention of millions. We have clients like the Circular Board and the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce who want to elevate women of all ages to be the best they can be, as well as corporations like NRG Energy who want to support and influence young students—future engineers—to develop the clean energy solutions of tomorrow. I am really fortunate the work that VISION has done to this point gives us the opportunity to be a part of such meaningful projects to influence change.
Grow
The main point? What’s on the horizon for you is unpredictable. We don’t grow in a linear fashion. We grow one way, then another—partially pulled to become one thing before finally landing on the next.
A big thing I’ve learned over the years is that sometimes when you want to become something more than you are you’ve got to do things that you never imagined doing. Learning to claw your way out of your comfort zone is often the catalyst to climbing to the next level. For example, just being at the Women’s Business Alliance Roundtable as a speaker was daunting for me personally. And that’s nothing compared to rebranding my company completely this past year. I’m much more comfortable focused on our clients and helping to achieve their visions than focusing on myself. And it’s never easy or even in a straight line. Taking risks and fighting to continually be better is a zigzag line. I’m constantly trying to stretch myself, and grow—it’s hard. One of my favorites quotes is “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” Easier said than done sometimes, but absolutely essential.
If you need a daily bit of reminder, please feel free to download the attached cards.
-VISION CEO, Tracey Shappro