The Empower U Podcast Interview with Cicone Prince

Hello and welcome to the Empower You Podcast Authorship Series, brought to you by Live of Life. In each episode, we interview self-published authors to talk about their journey to becoming an author and to reveal tips to help future authors release their story to the world. I'm your host, Kenston Henderson, founder and CEO of Live of Life, where I help groups and organizations get unstuck and equip them to achieve, achieve their professional development goals through keynote speaking and corporate professional and youth development training services. In today's episode, we have as our featured author Sekoni Prince.

Woo!

Sekoni Prince is our highly sought-after international motivational speaker, award-winning author, and personal development strategist that helps people take an objective look at themselves. He is the CEO of sekoniprince.com, where their slogan is making motivational personal By introducing you to yourself. With an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree in electronic engineering, Mr. Prince has used his love of learning to continue educating himself. He then passes it on, those lessons, via engaging stories and illustration during his motivational speeches. He is also the host of the annual Next Level Leadership Summit and the chief editor of Next Generation Speakers Magazine. Mr. Prince is married to Yolanda Prince, and they have amazing 5 children: Marcellus, Kristen, Jessica, Taylor, and Jonathan. Welcome, Sekoni Prince.

Well, man, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you allowing me to be on your show.

Listen, I'm excited to have you on it. You know, it seems like a long time ago that we met, but, but not that long ago in Chicago, uh, at, at that speakers event. And so I was, you know, very pleased. I had the pleasure of meeting you, amazing man. And again, I'm just glad to have you. So you have a book that's called Leadership That Lasts: Passing on 10 Solid Principles to Ensure an Enduring Legacy. Tell us about that book, man.

Well, Leadership That Lasts is really, it's a culmination of everything that I've learned up until this point in my career. I started off doing 3D animation. I know you mentioned that I had an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree in electronics, and that kind of led me to, you know, to being in the tech field and tech industry. And I started doing 3D animation. Well, I was in the process of trying to build that company when I realized that I was supposed to be doing motivational speaking. And actually, that came— I was at a conference in Dallas, Texas back in 2012 called the Power Networking Conference. Dr. George Frazier. And while I was there, I got a call to be a part of a Quick Pitch Business Olympics. So I had a chance to pitch my business before a select panel of judges and, and the listening audience. And while I was doing that, while I was on stage, I had an epiphany. And that epiphany was that my words could be used for more than selling the product or service, but they could be used to uplift and change people's lives. And I didn't find out late— well, When I wrote my book later, I really recounted that whole story because my book was entitled— my first book was entitled Are You Climbing the Wrong Mountain? And in that book, I talked about there are 3 things you can learn about being on the wrong mountain. The first thing you can learn is this is not it. This is not where I'm supposed to be. I can scratch this off my list. This is not my mountain. But even being on the wrong one, you can see the right one. And that's what happened to me in 2012 in Dallas, Texas. I realized I was supposed to be motivating people. I saw the right mountain while I was climbing the wrong one. But the third thing you can learn is that it's not going to take you that long to get up the new mountain because you have mountain climbing skills. I mean, the stuff I learned even climbing the wrong mountain that I take with me over to the new mountain, which is motivational speaking. Now, getting back to the questions is how the book came about. After doing personal development, you know, which is something near and dear to my heart Yeah, to me, personal development is about leading yourself. It's about learning to be the best possible version of who you are and taking and having the courage in order to be that person. Well, once you've actually learned how to lead yourself, the next logical step is for you to lead others. And that's where leadership comes in. That's where leadership development comes in. That's where equipping the next generation to lead comes in. And so for me, Leadership That Lasts, it really helps to, to summarize what a true leader should be doing. Not just all about themselves, not just beating on their own chest and climbing, you know, climbing Scotch crippers and squatting airplanes. Yeah, but they need to be setting somebody else up, setting somebody else up to be able to do the same. And so Leadership That Lasts really dives into some principles that helps individuals understand Yes, you may be leading now, but there's somebody coming behind you. Are you preparing them? Even if you didn't get it, are you preparing them to surpass you? And I mean, I kid you not, and I'm not just saying this because I wrote it, but this book is a game changer. I mean, I know for a fact that the information in this book, if, if absorbed and if taken to heart, it will make better leaders today and better leaders tomorrow.

That's good, that's good. I mean, you, you— leadership is one of those, those, those big things that, you know, there's a lot of books, there's a lot of, uh, resources on leadership, you know. What is it that, you know, what is it about your book that, that stands a little bit different than the all the other leadership books?

Well, what about my book that stands out a little different is the fact that I focus on not only getting it for now, yeah, or preparing it for later. And what I mean by that is this: a lot of people will go through the process of learning a recipe. They will kind of figure out, okay, when I added too much salt last time, let me add less. Okay, I didn't, you know, let it bake long enough. And so they would go through that process. Well, okay, after you've come up with your recipe of leadership Why not pass that on to someone else? Why allow them to go through the same mistakes, fall in the same bitches, hit the same pitfalls that you did? Why not prepare the next generation? And see, this really speaks to a lot of people's ego, because a lot of people say, well, no one gave it to me. What? Don't let— don't you— don't be the link in that chain. Yeah, break that cycle, break that link, and prepare the next generation. That's good. Even in the book, I talk about this. I said that our, our dreams don't have an expiration date. Yeah, but we do. Yeah, our dreams don't have an expiration date, but we do. So that means that there's going to come a time when we're no longer in a position of leadership. Yeah, and it's a sad day if you have not prepared those coming behind you. Yeah, and these are even lessons that parents can pass on to their kids, preparing them to lead when they're no longer around, preparing them to live when they're no longer around. So that's what leadership is.

Legacy.

For me, it's so important just to do that, you know, to make sure that you set up the next generation to succeed.

That's good, that's good. There, there's so many, uh, nuggets in, in all of that that you just said, which, you know, I love everything leadership, so it makes, it makes great sense. And, and, you know, when I work with organizations in different departments and their leadership teams, and you find out there's been a culture, uh, a not-so-good culture set where Leaders feel like they can't pass anything down because if they pass it down, that means they're about to get replaced, right? And that's a toxic culture. And so we spend a lot of time breaking that thing down. And, you know, I'm to the point as a leader that, you know, somebody's going to take my place. Well, if I gave them the tools, I'm all right with that, right? Like I helped you, you know, lead the way. And so, it works out. Like, there's, there's no pride, there's no ego. It's like, keep empowering people, and you know, it's all good. I want people, uh, who gain from my leadership or glean from my leadership skills to, to excel, right?

Right.

But again, that's a different mentality that people ain't there— they're not there yet.

And so, which is why you have to start the personal development side, because if you haven't developed as a person It's going to be extremely hard for you to lead effectively. Yeah, you can lead ineffectively, and then we have a lot of that. But if you develop as a person, it is easier for you to lead more effective.

That's good, that's good. So who would you say, uh, is your audience, uh, that should pick up this book?

I would say somebody that's in middle management, and not even I would honestly say somebody that's maybe 5 to 10 years away from retirement, and it will be somebody that would be prepping again their predecessors, someone that's going to come behind them, getting them ready and sharing with them, mentoring them, grooming them. And even, even in the book, I talk about the importance of allowing them the room for them to make it their own. You give them the framework. Yeah, okay. It doesn't have to be exactly the way you did it because they're not— they're not you.

They're not you.

But if you give them the framework of doing it, if you model for them the example of this is what a leader is, this is how a leader acts, this is how a leader functions, then they can take that and they can make it their own. And so I even talk about that in the book. Because I know it's so important. A lot of people try to make carbon copies of themselves, and that's where people mess up. Yeah, because the approach, the tendencies, the strength, the weaknesses, all those are different. So you can't necessarily expect somebody to be exactly like you, but if you give them the framework, yeah, they can figure it out. They can actually do what they need to do. But God forbid if you don't give them a framework at all. Now then, they, they are literally— they have nothing to start with. I keep going back to the recipe. You get the base recipe, you get that down. Now if you want to change and add your own secret sauce, yeah, something else, okay, that's you. But get the recipe. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to help leaders understand. Pass the recipe on and then let them make it their own.

Well, y'all heard it, leaders, pass the recipe on. All right, now, um, so a part of this podcast purpose is to help people, tell their story. And so if you can share, you know, one nugget or something that will help the person out there who's listening to this podcast to, to say, you know what, I need to take action now to get this book released, this story that's within, within me, you know, what would that nugget be?

Well, I think it would actually kind of like a coin has two sides. One is this: there's somebody waiting on your story. There's somebody waiting to hear what you have. There's somebody who's waiting, and they are hungry for what you have. Don't let them starve. Yeah, that's the first thing. The other side of that coin is what I said earlier. Our dreams don't have an expiration date, but we do. Yeah, people keep saying, well, one day I'm gonna do this, one day I'm gonna do that. You can If you knew how easy it was to put your thoughts on paper, you would be cranking out books like crazy. I mean, with all the advances in technology we have now, there are so many things that can be done. You can talk your book, you can speak your book, you can record it and have it transcribed. So there's no excuse for you not being able to put that book out. But again, the most important thing is somebody's waiting on you. Yeah. Les Brown said that the richest place in the world is the graveyard. Yep. Because there's so many people that they wanted to wait. They took so much knowledge with them when they died because they didn't realize how short their life was. And so I don't want that to be me. I want to go— I want to die empty. And I mean, this is my fifth book, my fifth book, and I never would consider myself to be an author. I never would consider myself to be a writer. But I knew that I had something to say and something to share. And even after I'm dead and gone, people can still read my words and I can still have an impact. And that's what writing the book really does. It, it actually allows you to become, for lack of a better term, immortal. Because even after you're dead and gone, people can still hear your voice. That's good.

That's so good. That's so good, man. Where can people find and purchase your book?

Where they can actually find it on Amazon. You can just go to Amazon and search for Sekoni Prince, and you'll see not only the latest one, which is Leadership That Lasts, you'll see all of the books that I've actually either wrote myself or been a part of. And I'm telling you, you want to invest in you. This is an investment in yourself. And I don't understand why people don't see it like that. Why would you have a job put more money into you than you do? If they send you to training, why not invest in yourself? Somebody asked me if I had any advice to give to my younger self. It would have been to start sooner. I would have invested soon. I would have, I would have invested in me sooner instead of waiting as long as I did. So they can go to Amazon, they can actually purchase that book there. They can check it out. I'm telling you, it is going to be a game changer for those who really want to lead That's good, that's good.

Well, thank you, Sekhony Prince, for spending this time with us. And, you know, I wish you the best in all of your future endeavors. I know you're going to continue to make a global impact, and I, I just see it blowing up. So, uh, folks, be on the lookout for Sekhony Prince, uh, in the future. But definitely, uh, please support him and, uh, go from there, man. So appreciate you for your time.

Thank you for having me, and I appreciate you.

Thank you.