Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer, jb and today our guest is my good friend Dupree Wadi. The priest is the president and CEO of the Community foundation for Northeast Georgia, a leader with nearly 30 years of experience in both the corporate and nonprofit worlds. He's been named one of Atlanta's most powerful leaders, and today he's here to share the worst advice he ever got and the unexpected path that it sent him on.
[00:00:39] Speaker C: Let's get to it. Hey, buddy. I'm really glad you joined us today. Thanks so much, Depriest.
[00:00:43] Speaker D: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: So, Depriest, I've known you for a long time, so this makes me really curious. Tell me about the worst advice you ever got.
[00:00:53] Speaker D: We never veered into this territory in all the years we've known each other, but the worst advice I've ever gotten was to not leave college or not graduate from college without having a job.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Okay, okay. Let's dig a little into that. That's interesting because I have a college age son that's literally just started his first job this month. And I have a daughter that's graduating college in May who's on the job search right now.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Tell me more.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Just give me some context.
[00:01:20] Speaker D: Well, Sean, I grew up in the 60s, so a lot was going on in the world. And around the time when I graduated from college, we were coming out of the gas shortage. Inflation was through the roof. And so I graduated in 1983 from Alabama Roll Tide. So when I looked up in my mature junior year, I had enough hours that if I really put the grind to it, I could get out early. And my parents had me, you know, paralyzed because they were really big on health insurance. They were like, you got to get real job so you can get your own medical insurance. And I didn't have any medical issues or anything like that, but it was just that level of paranoia. That was a time when companies would come to campus and it was a lottery system. So you didn't just walk up to them. You can only interview for companies that had your lottery number. So there were companies that I really wanted to get in front of, but I wasn't lucky enough to be in that lottery quadrant. And being a mature junior, the seniors got the prime spots and the juniors kind of got the leftover. So so I ended up, you know, a couple of companies that I was interested in ended up getting a second interview where they were going to fly me up north with Duracell. It was a sales job because I was a marketing major. And then I got a job offer from Sears and Roebuck. And so that paranoia forced me to take a job that I really didn't want.
I had my initial interviews with Sears on campus. I still had this Duracell thing looming in the background. My parents and my family were saying, you know, take the job that's in the hand. You know, you may fly up there and you may lose an opportunity of a sure thing. So I had that in the back of my head. It was early spring and I had to drive from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Atlanta. And I had to be there at noon, at 10 o'clock on the rarest of occasions, my mom calls and she says, hey, you know, it's snowing up here in Birmingham. So then I looked out of my door window and it was torrentially snowing. I mean, it was coming down hard. I was like, I gotta get this job. So I got in my car at 10 o'clock that night and I drove straight through. There are like several inches of snow and you know how it is in the South. Nobody knows how to drive. At 11:45 I got to Atlanta. So I've driven all night long. I overshot my exit and I got to the assessment center at 12:15 and I was exhausted when I got out of car in that parking lot. I was, I was trembling and there were like 10 of us and they had five jobs. So they, we knew that they were going to eliminate 50% of us. So I had to be on my game to get that job. And I walked out there with a job.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: So you had so much pressure in your mind to get a job, any job, a job in hand is better than no job at all.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: Correct. Took. It was in 1983. So this is a weird thing.
I got the job, but I still hadn't graduated.
I still had to complete 20 hours in order to be able to get the job and move to Florida in August. So getting a job was one thing, but then it was a pivot. Now I had to concentrate on finishing those 21 hours to get out of school.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Because you're so worried about not graduating college without a job, you're like, okay.
[00:05:02] Speaker D: Graduating college early, right? Needing 21 hours to graduate and I've nailed this job.
[00:05:08] Speaker C: You got to go back and cram 21 hours in a non normalized period.
[00:05:13] Speaker D: That's exactly right.
[00:05:14] Speaker C: Wow. So now you're just adding to the stress levels. But thank the Lord you Got health insurance, Right.
[00:05:20] Speaker D: Thank the Lord. I got health insurance.
I had a job making. I think it was $17,500, which was, you know, decent money back in the day. I didn't even think about the fact that I didn't want to do the job.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it wasn't even registered.
[00:05:37] Speaker D: It didn't even register till I got there.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: How was it? How was the job?
[00:05:41] Speaker D: The job was a grind. I just didn't like retail. I mean, as you can imagine, if anybody's had a retail job, I don't even. I don't know anybody who would love retail. Having customers talk to you any kind of way because they want their way. And Sears was really big on customer service, and his customer was always right. Even if they brought you a piece of equipment back that was 20 years old, you're supposed to take it back.
[00:06:04] Speaker C: So that you're grinding through this job. I'm assuming job satisfaction is not very high.
[00:06:08] Speaker D: Not very high, yeah.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: So how does this affect you personally? Like, does it start to grind on you? Talk about the job as a grind, but what about emotionally and personally? Are you. Are you feeling stuck?
[00:06:18] Speaker D: You know. You know, Sean, at my core, I'm a baby boomer, and we didn't even have the luxury of even thinking like that. Yeah, I mean, we really. We really just didn't. Yeah, we didn't. We. We just knew we had to work. We knew we had to get through it. But I didn't inherit that mentality of you're supposed to love what you do and like what you do.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: The mindset was, this is a transaction to allow you to do whatever, to have whatever.
[00:06:43] Speaker D: That's correct.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: It. Was quitting an option?
[00:06:46] Speaker D: Quitting was only. Quitting was only an option if you had something better to go to.
And I did the cardinal thing. So I finished my. My training at Sears.
I was located. I was relocated to Brunswick, Georgia. Lovely town, but it just wasn't for me. And I was managing half the store at 21 years old.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: I'd like to. To dig back into the fact that you took this advice and why it's the worst advice you ever got. But did you feel like taking the first available job just to have that security prevented you from taking the right job or set you down a path of taking other bad jobs?
[00:07:33] Speaker D: The thing that was my biggest fear ended up being my biggest asset over time. I just wasn't mature enough to see it at that time. You know, the Duracell job, I would have gone, but I did have this, you know, this Perspective from those folks that I talked to.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Don't graduate college without a job.
[00:07:52] Speaker E: I have a job.
[00:07:53] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Don't rock the boat.
[00:07:54] Speaker D: Don't rock the boat.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Right. So how'd your, so you eventually quit Sears?
[00:07:58] Speaker D: I did, I did.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: How'd your family react to that?
[00:08:01] Speaker D: Well, they didn't like it because Sears did a couple of things that were beneficial to me and the class that I graduated from, my, my Sears trainee class, because we all, a lot of us didn't like those jobs. And so, so they offered a corporate wide downsizing and they gave every, all the managers from our level up an opportunity to, to leave with a severance. So I was like, I'm out of here.
That's when the pressure started. You know, why did you, why did you leave your good job? You know, why did you move here just to have to find a job? Why didn't you have a job when you left that job?
[00:08:47] Speaker C: So the same spirit of hurry up and get a job, you need a job, you need a job. Impacted your search once you took the severance package from Sears to ultimately take the job of Anthem.
[00:09:01] Speaker D: Correct.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Did you find some of the same experiences with Anthem that you were trying to make it work for you versus looking for a job that already fit who you are because that kind of felt like what you were doing at Sears?
[00:09:13] Speaker D: Well, Anthem was better. I will say it was better. It was a town that I grew up in, so some familiarity there. I had some friends in town that I got to know and made some new friends and whatnot. It was big and bureaucratic. I moved around a lot. I liked that there was a lot of diversity of work, but it was still, you know, pretty rudimentary stuff. Wasn't particularly creative for me. And, and I, and I knew that at some point I wanted to move out of Birmingham. I knew that I wanted to be in a big city. So I knew I wanted to get to Atlanta at some point and that's what I aimed to do.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: But, but interesting though, doing it right.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I still think there's a conflict going on in your mind in that you want that, but you've been reared, you've been taught that that's all sort of well and good, but the job matters most. The job matters most. So what was sort of the impetus for you to finally break away from, you know, being somewhat trapped by the advice?
[00:10:16] Speaker D: So moved to Atlanta. Right. You know, worked for AT&T. Bell south for six years.
It was a really good career. I will say it was really good company. Checked a Lot of boxes. I moved around a lot, made a lot of connections and whatnot. But the pivot, as you would call it, happened four years into my career there. I got to work directly with the CEO on a United Way campaign.
And that was the pivot for me, because that was when, you know, United campaigns and the CEOs chairing them, that was bigger than life. When it afforded me the opportunity to pivot into a nonprofit executive career, that's when I knew that I was home. And I credit that experience with that United Way loan, executive experience and really getting me aligned with what I felt my purpose was.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: But you know what I just heard you say? The security blanket part of having a job before you graduate college or having that just taking whatever job before you leave Sears or what have you. That security blanket was replaced by the program that IBM was offering that you have a security blanket. Your job's here three years later, right? So you're selling, you're safe to go try this.
[00:11:44] Speaker D: Yeah, I was safe to go try this. You know, when young people get out in that first job and it doesn't work out, they think the world is ending because they think they're being judged. And I was one of those. I mean, and my parents did the best they could, but they didn't graduate from college. You know, they were working class folks. They provided for the family, and they superimposed their ideologies and their lens of their life on me. And, you know, I saw that hard stop and back against the wall when I hit different challenges.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: That's one of the things we talk about on the podcast is the harmful effects of listening to bad advice for a long time. So when it comes to this, what opportunities do you think that you missed by having this constant pressure to find a job and keep that job no matter what?
[00:12:32] Speaker D: That's a good question.
One thing that I.
It's interesting. I really wanted to be a college professor and I wanted to teach English literature, of all things. That was something that I was really interested in. I wanted to do English because I was really good. I like to write things like that. And so I was like, well, I can't do that because I'm not going to make a lot of money.
Since I graduated in three years anyway, I thought about just continuing on and getting my MBA. Then I didn't get my MBA until 10 years later. So I really could have taken that time to just, you know, go get my mba and then I wouldn't have had to go back. Or I could have gotten a terminal degree instead of, you know, getting an MBA 10 years later. So, yeah, there were some. There were some lessons learned and some foregone opportunities, but, you know, I. I think I. I think I pivoted and ended up handling my demons well.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Oh, sure, you're on the podcast, so everything's fine. That's.
[00:13:32] Speaker D: That's right. I'm in front of my good friend Sean and my new friend jb, Right.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Did the. Did the pain of the experiences make you somehow better today?
[00:13:43] Speaker D: Well, you know, let me. Let me kind of share with you, conversely, what happened when our daughter graduated from college? So, you know, she's. She was a great student, you know, had the opportunity to go to college early. She said, no, Dad, I don't want to be like you. I'm going to enjoy my college experience. Then she could have graduated from college early. No, dad, I want to be like you. I'm going to take four years. And then when she got out of college, she was looking for that first real job, and she had not worked in high school, which we had encouraged her to do. But she called me up and she said, dad, I think I want to be a flight attendant. Okay? I was like. I said, you get to travel all over the world. You're young. I said, do it.
So she went to the training, did extremely well, and when it was time for her to take her first flight with passengers on the plane, she quit.
And she said. She said, dad, I can't handle that type of responsibility. She said, when I had to pull that big door down and realize that I was responsible for everybody, you know, behind the door, she was like, I knew that that just wasn't for me.
And I applauded her for it. I said, you know, thank God. I said. Because I would have had to have closed that door and gutted your way.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Through it for a year.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: You gotta done that for five years.
[00:15:10] Speaker D: That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, you know, you did what was good for you. I said, you know, I said, I was like, God bless you.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Without that fear from you of saying, you know, don't quit a job unless you have another one lined up.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: Well, I didn't pass that to her generationally because I realized that, you know, that those were terrifying words to superimpose on a young person, you know. And so, you know, I think that generation got corrected because I saw her exercising more choices and being very introspective on what she wanted to do and what she was good at. And, you know, she's a great mom, she's a great wife. She's in a great career. She's got a terminal degree, and, you know, life is good.
So sometimes I think we have to see our mistakes and make sure that we don't make those same mistakes with our children.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah, I like your choice of word. The introspection.
You afforded her the time to do that. You, while you were not afforded the time to do that.
[00:16:22] Speaker D: Correct.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: And I think that's important. I think people sometimes feel rushed to do something so that they can either get things started because I got to get going, or so I can have the security blanket because things were so tough.
[00:16:35] Speaker D: Yeah, we're to bite the bullet generation, for sure. I mean, I know I'm on the tail end of that baby boomer generation, but, man, we have bitten some bullets.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: And just, you know, I remember that it's the story of, you know, the guy that retires from a company after working there for 45 years, and they're like, oh, how was it? And he says, I wish they'd given me a more comfortable chair. And you're just like that. It like, that's your whole career. Just you grind it out.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: And the fact you wouldn't even have the courage to ask for another chair.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Oh, no, I just do the job, you know, keep your head down. Keep your head down. Keep the job. And lucky to be here.
[00:17:12] Speaker C: You're describing one end of the pendulum, but there's another end of the pendulum, too, that we're not willing to gut out or fight through things. Everything has to be perfectly ideal, completely lined up. So how did your daughter or others that you've experienced or yourself not swing too far to the other end of the pendulum, saying, I'm almost frozen from making a move because I got to make sure everything lines up just right?
[00:17:41] Speaker D: Well, you know, how do I put this?
When your kids see their parents being successful and they see themselves living comfortably, they realize that their parents aren't going to let them fall. But so far, you know, fundamentally, I mean, I know a few exceptions to that, but even fundamentally, I don't know too many parents with however much or however little they have where they just totally cut their kids off.
I didn't have any of those kinds of options. I mean, I knew that, you know, fundamentally my parents were doing the best they could with what they had and that as independent as I could be, I needed to be out of the nest.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Well, they're doing it now without the fear.
[00:18:30] Speaker D: Right?
[00:18:31] Speaker A: You had the fear of like, oh, no, I don't have the time, I.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: Don'T have the safety net.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: And they. So with that safety net, you're afforded time.
[00:18:39] Speaker D: Correct. And I wanted to have a life that, I mean, my parents lived a solid, you know, middle class life, but I wanted more options than they had. You know, I wanted to have the ability to navigate, you know, a meaningful career, to be at a table where I'm helping to make decisions to better the world versus, you know, being delegated to. So, you know, aspirationally I had these ideations in my head, didn't necessarily know how to quite get there, but I sought out and admired people that were doing it and modeled myself after them, were what my parents taught me left off.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: So we're here talking about the worst advice you ever got, but you're kind of telling me that the parents, your parents are sort of doing that out of necessity. You know, they, like, you have to do this because we. There's a limit to how much we can help you. Why do you still think it was bad advice even though they never said.
[00:19:34] Speaker D: It in those words?
I just fundamentally knew.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:19:39] Speaker D: I just fundamentally knew. I mean, you know, like I said, your kids know, life's good over here. You know, I got a little bit of time to figure things out.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: What, what you're telling me about kids today reminds me of a saying about parents. And they're always in one of three places. They're either out in front of you, cheering you on, they're either behind you having your back, or they're right next to you. So you're not walking alone. They're side by side with you. But now let's take it to our role as leaders in our businesses. Right, because we should be in only one of three places with our employees. Has the maturation of the employee employer relationship come up to the same level that the maturation of the parent child relationship has come?
[00:20:37] Speaker D: I have intentionally moved my whole leadership style from being fairly autocratic, you know, take no prisoners, get it done at whatever cost, to doing exactly what you described. You know, if. If I have an employee who is not feeling as if they're cheered on or being coached or mentored, and if work is not a safe place and a safe space to express themselves, then I've missed out on being a leader. I really have. I want my team to be able to push me versus me pulling them.
[00:21:21] Speaker C: Well, what would have been my biggest mistake is not having you be a guest on our podcast. So I'm glad that I was smart enough to reach out to my longtime friend Dupree Suade and invite him to be a guest on the podcast today.
Your worst advice you ever got has made for a great episode and learnings for our audience. So thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:21:43] Speaker D: Well, thank you for having me. It's been a lot of fun. It was great catching up. We can't seem to find a time for lunch, so this definitely makes up for a lot of lost time.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: Isn't that funny? We can't find time to eat together, but we can find time to podcast.
[00:21:56] Speaker D: That's right. And going to our deepest and darkest thoughts publicly.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: Well, thank you, buddy.
[00:22:03] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: All right, jb, I gotta say, Depriest story really brought out the long term impact of one piece of advice. It really shaped year and years of decisions for him.
[00:22:17] Speaker E: Yeah, it wasn't bad advice because it comes, you know, from bad people. Obviously it came from love. It's his. From his parents wanting for him to have health insurance. You know, that's not a bad goal. But the fear based mindset that pushed him into survival mode. You know, take any job, even if it's not the right one. That's where the problem lies.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: That's kind of the trap.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Right?
[00:22:35] Speaker B: You follow the advice without pausing and asking, does this align with who I am?
[00:22:39] Speaker E: Right. I think that's what a lot of people have with the bad advice. You're like, oh, okay, well, that sounds good because I think he even mentioned it in the podcast. You don't know it's bad advice until later. You know, no one thinks it's bad advice at the time. You know, that image of him driving through the snowstorm, trembling in the parking lot by the time he gets there just like put so much pressure on him to get that job. You know, it's. It's heroic and heartbreaking at the same time.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it really is. And, you know, years later, he finds himself in another job, feeling stuck again. He didn't break the pattern until, you know, he worked on that United Way campaign. And that's. I think he, I think he said something like, that's when I knew I was home. Right.
[00:23:16] Speaker E: Yeah. He said that was the pivot, you know, from doing what felt safe to what felt right. And, you know, that's the big moment for him. And I love that we tied it to his daughter and how he deals with their relationship now. You know, she had the freedom to walk away from a job that she didn't feel right, you know, being a flight attendant. And he was proud of her for doing that. And, you know, I think a little bit of himself for giving her the freedom to be able to make that choice.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Look, look, the bad advice doesn't have to be a legacy we pass on to our kids and to others, right? You can rewrite it for the next generation. You can take the learnings and make things better for the future.
[00:23:51] Speaker E: For sure. You know, I took away. Don't mistake urgency for clarity. Like, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. The old Jeff Goldblum quote, just because we can doesn't mean we should. And then you make dinosaurs, right?
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah, and then you make dinosaurs, right? And look, just because someone loves you doesn't mean their advice is exactly right for you. I've given my daughter plenty of advice, my son plenty of advice. I love them to death. And part of it, they don't need to listen to you.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: Right?
[00:24:17] Speaker E: For sure. I'm gonna write that into our next LinkedIn post.
[00:24:20] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: For sure.
Well, you mentioned our LinkedIn posts. There's also our Instagram posts and our reels. You know, connect with us on those two channels, if you haven't yet already. Because from there, we connect with a lot of our guests. We connect with a lot of additional pieces rather than just listening to the podcast. You can catch some video reels and you can maybe connect with some folks who comment on things. Maybe reach out to some of our folks who have been guests on this show because they connect with us there as well. And speaking of connecting, I hope to be able to connect with you on next week's episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
