Crystal Davis is a certified Leadership Development Coach, consultant, and speaker whose business personality and work practices are the foundation of her success.
I’m incredibly excited to introduce you to Crystal because I personally love her “voice” and the way she comes across as a voice of wisdom.
In this episode, you’ll hear how Crystal works with companies to improve their business processes to become more efficient and profitable, the organization she started to help women thrive in difficult industries, the events that led her to commute to Mexico for work every day for four years, the difference between management and leadership, the importance of not trying to emulate how others handle difficult situations, how being comfortable with who you truly are will help you find your voice, why she has her clients write a love letter to themselves, and so much more!
Take a listen to the episode below!
Mentioned in this episode:
- Book: Faith Through Fiery Trials
- Crystal Davis’ Website
- Crystal Davis on Twitter
- Crystal Davis on Facebook
- John Maxwell’s Website
Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Transcript
Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!
Today, I have with me Crystal Davis, speaker, coach, and consultant whose business personality and work practices are the foundation of her success as a speaker, coach, and consultant.
I’m really excited to introduce to you to Crystal because I have gotten to know her personally. And I love her voice, the way that she comes across as a voice of wisdom and she shares her personal story whenever she needs to but she has incredible expertise.
So, Crystal, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!
Crystal Davis: Thank you so much for having me and thank you for the wonderful and personal introduction. I really do appreciate that.
Andrea: Sure, yeah, absolutely! So, Crystal, you got a couple of facets to what you do as a voice of influence. You have something that you do more with corporate and then something that you do more with individuals. Could you share with us a little bit about both of those?
Crystal Davis: Absolutely! About four years ago, I took the leap of faith and left my corporate job where I’ve been working for over 20 years. I started a company called The Lean Coach, Inc. works with organizations and Fortune 500 companies and other medium and small companies to help them improve their business processes so that they can be more efficient, more productive, and more profitable.
Also, I am a certified leadership development coach, so I also help raise the level of confidence, courage, and resiliency within the leaders of the organizations that I work. So that’s one facet. The second facet is that I majored in industrial engineering and I spent my first 17 years out of college working in the automotive industry, which was very very good industry before the decline in 2006. But it was very, very tough environment to work in.
Andrea: Why is that?
Crystal Davis: Well, I’m going to tell you about it.
Andrea: Awesome!
Crystal Davis: That’s part of my story, part of the Faith For Fiery Trials.
Andrea: Go for it!
Crystal Davis: I started actually, here recently, maybe within the last two years a women’s leadership development pillar. I took just another niche out of leadership development and focused in originally on women working in STEM and women working in male-dominated industries. However, since I started disrupt-HER, so it’s like a play onwards. So instead of disruptor, it’s disrupt-HER, and just really helping women to, be able to, not only survive very challenging work environment but to, actually thrive in them and be able to change those work environments. I’ll explain what the whole concept behind this disrupt-HER as well as doing our talk.
Andrea: Awesome! I know that you worked for really big companies doing amazing things and so can you give us context or do you mind sharing a little context what that was?
Crystal Davis: Absolutely! So I started my career as I mentioned before, in automotive and I worked for two really small tier 3 or tier 4 suppliers and what that means is that they were that far removed, so three or four tiers removed from the OEM.
Andrea: The what?
Crystal Davis: From the original equipment manufacturer.
Andrea: There you go.
Crystal Davis: Sorry about that.
Andrea: You talk to me like a lay person.
Crystal Davis: Then I spent majority of my career for General Motors and then at some point early in my career in General Motors span of parts division, and that company was then named Delphi. So I worked for General Motors Delphi. I worked for Coca-Cola refreshment and also Thermo Fisher Scientific before going on my own.
Andrea: And in working in those places, you were helping them become more efficient and that sort of thing? Is that part of what you’re doing?
Crystal Davis: Yes, but later to Coca-Cola and Thermo Fisher that was my primary role. My role in automotive span various departments, so I started out, as I mentioned before, in the engineering department. And then I did some work in quality department, procurement, or purchasing department as well as working directly in manufacturing as a supervisor.
So I had varied experience, and supply chain also. How can I forget that and that was probably the toughest assignment? So anyway, I worked in supply chain. The reason I said it was a very tough environment, first and foremost, it’s a very high-paced, very stressful environment and when mistakes are made, they are extremely costly.
So I’ll just give you an example what I mean by that. So I was working for a tier1, Delphi was a tier 1 supplier to a General Motors, meaning there may be parts that went directly to the automobile. If we missed a delivery, and the delivery ended up causing a delay in their manufacturing process, and this was in the 90’s, it cost $18, 000 every minute that we interrupted their production.
Andrea: Wow! Yeah, gotcha. High stakes.
Crystal Davis: High stakes, very, very high-stress environment. Of course, you know with vehicles in consumer, just a lot of regulations, a lot of safety requirements, and a lot of quality pressures. So it’s just a very, very tough environment. While there were a lot of women working in the environment, it’s still operated and functioned in the manner that men like to function in the majority of leaders were men.
Andrea: OK, the manner in which they like to function, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that.
Crystal Davis: Yes, you know as women, we’re more collaborative. We like to have conversation, talk things through, or balance ideas around. Men are just very matter of fact straight to it, don’t mince words, especially under a lot of pressure _____. So you end up taking on a lot of that or becoming intimidated by a lot of that or afraid in some instances.
I can remember a very stressful meeting where people were yelling and screaming and cursing. And if you’re not there for that, it can really, really either change who you are to adapt to the situation or you try to become the person that mediate to situation so that you can find the different way.
So I found myself as a young engineer evolving through trying to find that safe and happy place that fit who I was and not having to take going the same mannerisms and roles but also to not become a pushover because I didn’t. So at first, I took on that persona.
Andrea: Uh-hmmm put on the boxing gloves kind of thing?
Crystal Davis: Put on a boxing gloves and it’s just not…
Andrea: And it didn’t fit right.
Crystal Davis: Right you know. But somehow you know that does fit right until you stay within the dysfunction that you know, “You know, this is crazy.”
Andrea: Right. Oh man, I hear yah.
Crystal Davis: Yeah, and so the opportunity working in automotive was one that was really, really great as much as I talk about what I learned of how tough the environment was, it was really great. For me, I had so much more responsibility even though I didn’t the privilege to travel the world and to work in other countries. So it was a good overall life experience for me as well as professional in terms of developing me and expanding my breadth of knowledge way beyond just you know the engineering space that I started out in.
Andrea: I know that you have contributed chapter two of really important book, Faith For Fiery Trials and this sounds like something that would have qualified as fiery trial?
Crystal Davis: It was. Absolutely it was!
Andrea: How does the story relates to or other stories perhaps subsequently happened relates to this idea of having faith in the midst of all?
Crystal Davis: Great question. In the chapter of the book that I contributed to, I talked about in my stories, I always look for “What am I to learn from this experience and how is that what I’ve learned changed how I might approach situations in the future, or how I might shift my behavior to either avoid a repeat of the situation?” I shared this a lot of my stories from my early career in this book, Faith For Fiery Trials because it was the time and period in my life where it was my first real faith walk in life.
So I was 25 years old, I was working in Gadsden, Alabama for this automotive parts manufacturer. It was Greenfield site, we’re building a completely new plant and this particular plant was going to be nonunion. So it meant that we were trying to model after another successful nonunion plant collaboration that had been going on for years.
Well, long story short, the people there try to unionize the facility and the company decided to move that business to Mexico. I remember that the vice president came down from our headquarters and talked to all the engineers and the essence of this conversation was the union is trying to disrupt this facility. We need to stay on schedule with the launch of this new product line removing the business to Mexico.
As the engineers laying up the operating processes, we don’t have the time to start new, so “You can go or you can go.” Meaning you can go to Mexico or you can find a job elsewhere. Then you could not apply for jobs anywhere else in the company because this is so critical for the business. I was just so young and not married. So I talked to my parents about it and decided to go to Mexico. So I moved to El Paso, Texas and I crossed the border every day to work in Juarez, Mexico for four and a half years.
Andrea: Wow that’s a long time in going across the border almost every day.
Crystal Davis: Yes, almost every day.
Andrea: Just every day, flat out, four and a half years.
Crystal Davis: Just every day, yes. And it’s so funny because when we went down there, we went for orientation, we sat in this room and they talked to us about basic stuffs like benefits and taxes and all of the different things that would apply because we were working outside of the US. But then they also _____ and said, “So here’s what happens if we have a bomb threat on the bridge and you can’t get home.” “What? What I did just sign up for?”
So it was very, very interesting experience that actually, again, turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. Because here I am, I’m from Mississippi, I’ve moved to El Paso, Texas to the desert where there’s only one season. The African-American percent in El Paso at the time was 2.5 and I’m working a lot of overtimes. I’m dealing with just a lot of life-changing experience all at one time. I don’t have family or support system there with me and I am having to cross the border where I do not speak Spanish. I took French in high school.
So it was just a very tough time and I found a small church there that really, really got me focused on studying the bible, applying things to my life, and I found that to be my refuge with all of the stressors that I was under. So I’m having to move, I’m moving far away from my family, I’m moving to a place that has one season, it’s brown. And I’m used to greenery and trees and hills and water and all of that in Mississippi and I’m working under immense pressure because we also had to move the factory and I’m having to work with people who don’t speak English to keep this project off the ground and still on time.
That is why for me these stories reflect so much in terms of how my faith grew during that time because at the end of the day, it was just me and God.
Andrea: So how did your faith impact the way that you responded in this situation do you think?
Crystal Davis: I think that, for me initially, my faith increased because there were lots of time that I wanted to give up. There were lots of times that I was homesick. There were lots of times that I felt extremely undervalued on my job. In addition to working in a male dominated space in automotive, now I’m actually working in a country where women were making stride.
Well, first of all, let me say this. I later learned that there’s just a hierarchy of respect in Mexico no matter your gender. So someone is considered jefe or boss, which is another level of respect that you give and how you behave _____ to say. So that was difficult for me along with the machism that’s still around in some instances.
I can definitely say that was not the case for every man in Mexico because I have a lot of really good friends till to this day in Mexico that are men. They’ve worked with me but that was just a very different environment. So one of my stories that I _____ with when I’m speaking to women about being a disruptor, I was sitting in a meeting, I was the only woman in the meeting at the time. One of my other American counterpart, he was also an engineer, was in the meeting. He had a particular product and I had one of the larger products.
So we were in this room, in this conference room with manufacturing managers. One of the manufacturing managers kept addressing my counterpart about my product. So my counterpart would then in turn asked me for the answer and then communicate to this guy. Finally, I started paying attention and I’m like “You know, why are you not talking to me, I’m sitting right here. What’s the problem?” I got so angry. I was so angry and I was a hot head back then.
Andrea: You sound totally not a hot head right now. So you were a hot head?
Crystal Davis: I was a hot headed because those were the mannerisms that I had picked up from the couple of years that I worked in automotive. You got to be tough. You got to stand your ground.
Andrea: Yeah, and then you turned into a totally new environment where you’re trying to be this old persona. Well, keep going. Keep going!
Crystal Davis: Yes, exactly. So I was sitting there and I was literally like boiling over so much so to the point that I really just wanted to slide across the table and chalk him. In a matter of seconds, I’m having these emotions. I’m thinking these thoughts and I’m like “Wait a minute, I have what he needs. So I have the power. I just have to make sure I choose wisely how I use that power.” And I said, “You know what, I have the information and if you want it, you will speak to me, otherwise, you won’t get it.”
Andrea: OK, so you lead a very clear boundary about him and you said, if you respect and have this conversation with me then you’ll get what you want. I think that boundary line is incredibly huge. Those few seconds kind of came to you?
Crystal Davis: Those few seconds, because I also realized that the room is watching. I’m the only African-American in the room. There’s a stigma about the angry black woman and I was angry. I had a right to be angry. This guy was not treating me like I was a human. But that’s not the story that’s always told. I just thank God that I was able to quickly regroup and be able to say that because had I made a choice to physically attack him or yell and scream then it really would have, I believe, change the path of my career.
Andrea: So instead of demanding it in that manner where you would have, you know, essentially chalking or yelling, you pulled back into something where you were making it clear what the path was. It was an invitation to speak with you and that this is the path. So instead of demanding it, it was an invitation.
Crystal Davis: I would say, at the end of the day, where you just said is correct, I honestly don’t know that I stated it as calmly as you just said. So I don’t really know honestly if I gave him a choice, but I basically just let him know that I am the keeper of the information and if you don’t have enough respect for me to talk with me then you just won’t get it.
Andrea: That’s so powerful.
Crystal Davis: But at the end of the day, we said the same thing. It was just an extremely emotional time for me, one where I did not feel supported. So I went to my boss and I shared what happened that because of this whole respect for bosses and this hierarchy, my boss would not to go to back for me and he was also of Mexican descent. And so it was just a very, very, very tough time and I found refuge in church through prayer and learning more deeply what the scriptures meant and how they applied for me and I could interpret from the scriptures. It was just a very, very difficult time. But it led to some of the most amazing time that I’ve had in my career.
Andrea: And that was because…what are those amazing times?
Crystal Davis: Well, you know, I talked about a few things in the book and I talked about the one thing that I can say about every promotion and elevation and new thing that I’ve taken on in life is that God never left me. He always provided me with what I need or who I needed in my life. At the same time that that was a tough environment, I experienced some of the best leaders in my life so that leader didn’t go to back for me.
There was some additional American that came to work in that region and I remember vividly the director of engineering. These are guys who grew up in Ohio area, American-Italian descent. The guy was a genius. When he came in and he really started to go to back for the engineering department and he also appreciated talent and he also does not want a leader who’s going to tell you what to do. He was going to challenge you to define what you needed and what obstacles you needed him to engage. He would challenge you to go above and beyond.
Crystal Davis: So I say that that was some of the best experiences I had because that was my first time ever when he came down there, to experience real leadership, not management, but leadership. He opened doors for me. He invited me to work on projects that were outside of the scope of my job title, if you will. He is the one who invited me to be on a team of only seven engineers that were sent to Europe to work for a year to help them make them make some improvements in the operations, which was a bigger _____ of the headquarters, not just of Mexico.
So I got a chance to go work in Europe for a little over a year. He’s a really, really great guy, because most people when they find your best people, they don’t want to lose them to anyone else but he was willing to say, “No, go, help, explore. You’ve done well here.” He was really just amazing because that just opened my eyes to so much more of the world.
Yeah, just tremendous and he gave me experiences where I could improve my skill set and learn more about diversity and inclusion and not what we talked about. But I actually doing it because here I am in Spain, in Portugal and I am the minority there having to learn diversity and was so appreciative to people who were patient with me and who helped me during that time to just be able to live comfortably.
Andrea: You know, Crystal, I think of that guy, that leader that came that really…it seems like he saw you. He could see you for who you were and what you were contributing and he called that out of you and even more, really.
Crystal Davis: Right, he did.
Andrea: And kind of invited your voice out. He wanted to hear your voice. I think that’s one of the most difficult things for people when we feel like our voice doesn’t matter, when we feel like we don’t have a voice in a situation. As women, I think a lot of times, and it might be men too, but I’ve heard it more often with women is that not feeling seen.
That situation of you in that office with this conversation taking place between these other two people and not including you, you were totally invisible in that situation. You stood your ground in terms of saying that, “No, this is me and here I am. If you want this information, you’re going to see me.” And then you did have somebody that came along and saw you. How did this change or maybe even impact the way that you approach working with individuals, with disrupt-HER? I would imagine that you are excellent at seeing people for who they are and what they can offer.
Crystal Davis: Absolutely, and it’s such a great question. You’re spot on you know, I’m sure men experienced that also but women are probably most impacted or at least communicate their impact more about feeling invisible. One way that I help all leaders but through the way that I help women is I meet them where they are. I encourage them to learn how to operate within the authentic nature of who they are.
And then thirdly, I equip them to be confident and have the courage to be comfortable in the skin that they’re in. So this weekend, I hosted a disrupt-HER retreat which was amazing. I didn’t have a lot of women there. It was a very small intimate space. One of the women there said exactly what you said and she is a high-level executive. She said, my entire life, I have felt invisible. But yet, she still has been able to achieve you know, being a very high level in a very well-known company.
Andrea: Hmm, isn’t that interesting?
Crystal Davis: It’s very interesting, right? And there’s one thing that people also need to recognize when you have mental health issues or depression or whether or not you just need an encouragement or some different ways to respond to situation in a workplace. Because you know, when you look at, God bless her family with Kate Spade, someone who hasn’t acquired her level of success or financial wealth, Oh my God, she’s so successful and amazing and beautifully designed _____ but something is broken.
There were some areas in her life that she was not happy or she has suffered from depression. You have to really separate coaching from where you need help around mental health issues. I just wanted to say that to people but in talking right to this executive who said she felt invisible, she said part of what I have, the way that I operate is, I have to take time to…when someone says something to me that gets me off-kilter, she needs a being kind of process and then have time to respond. But when she does _____ as she internalized and give power to what other people say.
So she said, “Crystal, sometimes I wish I could be a lot more like you, you know. You’re very quick to respond.” And I said, “Well, let’s be clear, you are who you are and there’s nothing wrong with how you’re made. But what we might need to do is develop at least a scenario that you’d experience in the past. I could tell you how I will respond but that’s not authentic to who you are. But what need to do, we need to be able to _____ a protection, a wall that stops you from internalizing what they said so their words then don’t give power to over you.”
So that’s one way of how I help because she needs to be who she is. She doesn’t need to act like me. It wasn’t comfortable for me to try to take on the persona of how men were acting early in my career in automotive. And she said and felt pressure to act like me.
Andrea: That’s such an important point because I think so many people; they kind of look around and assumed that they should be like somebody else because they admire the ways that other person handles on thing. It can become so pressure filled and it’s draining to try to be somebody else. But to have somebody like you who could come alongside them and say, “But, no, this is you. So let’s look at this from your perspective and your voice.”
And that’s what I love about this voice of influence concepts in general is that you find your voice of influence by helping other people theirs. So for this gentlemen who helped you and kind of set you free to be you in your work environment. I mean, he was a huge influence on you by letting you be you and now that’s what you’re passing on to somebody else.
Crystal Davis: Absolutely! He really was and he also taught me how to use my voice. He was not a calm individual. He was very intense and very high paced.
Andrea: Because that’s his style.
Crystal Davis: That’s his style and, while he was an influencer, he definitely could intimidate a lot of people. But for me, what I learned from him and what I appreciated about him, he was very similar _____ said to me. I appreciated the fact that he was going to be heard, and despite his approach, he was going to be heard.
That really, really helped me as a young engineer from that point of my career. So this probably about 1998 before I left when I was like, “You know what, he says what’s on his mind. He doesn’t mince words and while I’m not at his level, in terms of position, I’m going to make sure that I say what’s on my mind that I don’t mince words and that if nothing else, people will always know where I stand.”
I can honestly say that over my career, over my entire career, there were times that they got me in trouble but I could sleep at night.
Andrea: Interesting. Is that how you would define your voice at this point, like that not mincing words and making sure people understand where I’m at? This is what I’m always going to bring.
Crystal Davis: Yes. Overtime, I’ve learned to adjust my tact. I’m able now to speak calmly to situations. I’m able to insert humor. I can remember people always ask me, “Why do you laugh so much?” And I’m like “I laugh sometimes _____ but I laugh because I’m a happy person. While I’m happy, I’m gonna stay happy despite what’s going on.” I remember I said, being comfortable with who you are and skin that you’re in.
Overtime, I’ve reached the point where, I am who I am. There are behaviors that I can unlearn and learn new behaviors but I am who I am. I have to be ultra comfortable in that and if I learn to operate in who I am and my strengths and the areas that I want to grow then I feel better and I have more to give to the world because I feel better about it.
Andrea: OK, so when you’re working with women in particular, how are you helping them find out who they are. You mentioned at the beginning that when you put on this persona of the male-dominated workforce around you that did it partly because you didn’t know what else you could be. And I can totally relate to that so do you have any particular recommendations or suggestions about a woman who’s feeling fairly invisible because she has accomplished a lot. She is good at what she does but people don’t seem to see her deep down. Yeah, talk to me about what you would say to her.
Crystal Davis: Right. Definitely, there are lots of assessments that are out in the marketplace that really teach people about their cognitive skills, strengths finder, what their strengths are. And so depending on the person and the situation that they want to resolve, I try to find an assessment that helps to give me more insight for how they behave. It’s the first thing I do, because I have them write a love letter to themselves.
I remind them of being a young girl when you might have been giddy about a boy or a partner or whatever and the feeling that you had and what you wanted to say that person and how you wanted to tell them what you love about them. You love their eyes or their smile or the way they make you laugh. So you write a letter saying things, so whether that means you have to go back to a time when you love yourself or when you were unaware of all of the pressures that the world places on you.
I hear lot of women saying, “You know, I feel like I’ve lost myself.” So I’m like “OK,” but when you were the person that you feel like you’ve lost, let’s describe her. Let’s find out where she is. What’s suppressing her?”
Andrea: Do you find that women have a hard time writing a love letter about themselves?
Crystal Davis: Most of them were very shocked when I asked them to do that, like “What?” They were very shocked when asked them to do that and for the retreat, I did the same thing. After I got them very comfortable with me and very comfortable with sharing amongst to other women and I told them, “You desire when you write it. You can write it before we leave; you can write it tonight, or the next day. But before we leave, I want you to write yourself a love letter.” And I collected them and mail them to them at some random point in year to remind them.
Actually one of the ladies who were there, she said that she had that same experience at another retreat or similar. It wasn’t a love letter but a similar experience. She said that it was so amazing that when she was going through something, her letter came in the mail.
Andrea: That’s fun. That’s awesome!
Crystal Davis: So that’s the second thing I do and then the third thing that I do is I try to find or develop with them a plan, a realistic plan where we can talk about equipping them in an area where they feel deficient, whether that’s increasing their own confidence, courage, resiliency whether that’s dealing with a difficult person at work or whether that’s applying for a new position or a new promotion, having a conversations with their boss about their career path or if it’s even about starting their own business.
I help them centered with self and then I help them to put together really effective plans to take a few steps that keep them pointed in the right direction and then we check in and of course we have coaching thereafter. So like with this lady who talked about, she felt invisible and she wished she could _____ back like me. You know, I told her that maybe one of the things we should work on is let’s talk to some different situations and I’ll create a lexicon and then you write a lexicon of what my responses would be and then you write how yours would be.
Again, it’s not about responding so that she respond negatively back to that person, but it’s about making sure that you go to that protection so that person’s words don’t have power over, you know making you feel bad or making you feel not valued or not worthy or anything that kind of stuff.
Andrea: Hmm, interesting. So one of my last questions here is if somebody is wanting to empower somebody else and to be that voice of influence for somebody else, not necessarily to be somebody else’s voice but to help them find theirs to release them to being more themselves, what would you leave them with? What would you want them to remember?
Crystal Davis: The first thing that I would say to people, anyone who wants to find their voice is….
Andrea: Well, how about the people who want to help other people?
Crystal Davis: For people wanting to help other people find their voice is they should be transparent and be comfortable taking the risk of being super transparent. People nowadays are inundated with information and you and I both know that the one thing that stops people from taking action is because they’re not clear.
So what I’ve learned is that people have access to information at the tips of their fingertips. There are so many coaches out there. There are search engines, insight papers, white papers, research; so there’s a _____ of information available to people dealing with any situation or circumstance.
But what people most relate to, at least the people I have encountered, they relate to the fact that I’m transparent and I’m able to share things that I’ve been through. So they are looking at me as someone who has achieved the level of success and I have it altogether but I’m willing to share what I’ve been through and I’m willing to share what I’ve learned from it and I’m willing to share my success steps.
And that to me is what helps give power to the voice of influence, because you’re not coming from such a mechanical space of just knowing information and knowing approaches or tactics, you’re able to share with someone. Yes, I left a very, very well-paid job and I’ve a good position to take on the risk of starting my own business.
But here’s some of the challenges that I faced or here’s some of the things that I didn’t know I needed to think about and people kind of appreciate that level of transparency I think and welcome what you have to share because you have the story attached to it. You have the experience attached to it.
And so if they can relate to your experience they now view you as a person that can influence how they might do things differently. So I say to anyone, we all have stories, we all have life experiences. We may not all have made the right decisions, but our wrong decisions and sharing it that might help someone else not make the same decision.
Andrea: Absolutely! That’s great. Thank you so much for that advice, Crystal.
Crystal Davis: You’re welcome. I kind of just add one other thing, Andrea.
Andrea: Absolutely!
Crystal Davis: I studied leadership development coaching under John Maxwell organization and I love one thing that John Maxwell’s say, “Leadership is not about position, leadership is about influence.” And so when you think about that despite whatever position you hold in an organization, in your family, or in your job, you can be a leader and you can influence other people in a very positive way and of course they should be used in a positive way.
So I think everyone can be a leader to someone else if they sought to take on responsibility.
Andrea: I love it and do so through connecting it sounds like for being transparent and truly connecting with someone else with your story. I love it. Well, Crystal, tell us a little bit about the book because I want to know how people can find it.
Crystal Davis: So the book is Faith For Fiery Trial and I believe there are a total of 20 authors who share their stories. Some of the women have overcome illnesses, challenges on their job, or challenges in business, etcetera, etcetera. We were asked not to only share our stories but to share the lessons that we want to share. We want other people to learn from it. So I think it will not only be a book 2of great stories but also a book of great advice and steps that you can take.
So the book will be launched at the end of the month, June 30th and you can follow me on forms of social media at crystalydavis and I will be selling the book also through my website. Our hope is that the book will be picked up by major publishers and carriers. But at the moment, we are freelancing and they can share with getting the word out because a lot of people are struggling and they need to hear these stories and they need to know that they can overcome the challenges that many of us face in life.
Andrea: Absolutely! So if you’re struggling, if you found yourself in that situation where the trials just keep coming, you’re feeling kind of down about it or you know somebody who is feeling that way or you want to have some inspiration and be kind of buffer your own ability to handle those situations before they even occur, go out and get this book because I think that Faith For Fiery Trials will be a really powerful book for you to really inspire you and then to equip you to be able to handle them.
So thank you so much for being with us today, Crystal, and will be sure to link all of this in the show notes for this episode. This episode will be coming out right after your book launch so it will be a perfect timing and I hope that you’ll have a great success with it.
Crystal Davis: Thank you so much. And thank you so much the opportunity to share with your audience. Like I said before, I love your title, Voice of Influence and I just love that you’re exposing other people to different ways that they can become more influential. I love the work that you’re doing.
Andrea: Thanks Crystal! Alright, we’ll talk to you soon.
Crystal Davis: Great. Thank you!