Nautrie Jones

I attribute my success to obedience. At different stages in my career, as I name those pivots, there's been a series of moments where I said, I want to train teachers, or I want to coach teachers, or I want to lead professional development - there's been a very clear moment where I've named the transition I was about to take or make. I've done it after a series of signs, very clear messages, and actual people saying 'you should do this,' but not in a way that they're putting something on me. It's really like, 'have you ever thought about this? Let me tell you why it makes sense for you' - that felt like confirmation at the right moments where I could hear it and not brush it off. I've had several of those moments, all the way up to 'I want to work in talent strategy, I want to focus on people.' From the time I said I want to train teachers, it was 2 years before I actually started training teachers, but I was moving in that direction. So I'd say obedience - when I felt the instinct, or heard the messages, or received the feedback that sort of nurtured me toward my next thing, and then once I said it and got my heart, mind, and body in alignment, it's kind of like the green light go. I really think that's the word that comes up for me - for me, it's obedience, doing the thing that I feel called to do in that season.

I'd say don't count yourself out. I run into people so often, women in particular, highly successful women who are just doing a damn thing, and they are counting themselves out, they're doubting themselves, without considering themselves as a core part or a necessary entity. Whether it's a job, before we get to the place of 'this organization would be lucky to have me, let me tell you all the reasons why,' we're already saying 'oh, I don't meet all 7 of these bullet points, I only meet 3.' But those 3 are the most important. There are companies, there are organizations, there are businesses that are waiting to be built and go to their next level because you enter them. They need you, they're waiting for you, and you're sitting over here talking about all of the reasons why you can't, or shouldn't, or don't, or won't. What if you considered what's possible before you considered, before you believe the lie that it's not possible? Don't count yourself out before you imagine a vision for what it could look like for you to be in.

I think it's connection, I think it's joy, and I think it's family. For me, family is my people in my network, it's friends, people I used to work with, it is certainly my nuclear family, but there are people that I genuinely have known since I moved to Georgia 20 years ago, and people that I met 6 months ago who are actively rooting for me, actively encouraging me, and text me just to say 'hey, how are you doing? I see what you're doing, you're amazing.' That's family to me. I'd say it's probably those three things.