Bonus Episode 12 | Leading with Positivity and Strategic Insight with Lisa Borders - Mick Unplugged

Episode Transcription

• Bonus Episode 12 Transcription

  Intro: Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mick Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary.

  Intro: So let's unleash your potential. Now here's Mick.

  Mick Hunt: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nick Unplugged where we delve deep into the journey of remarkable leaders who inspire change and drive impact. Today, we're truly honored to have a distinguished guest who has left an incredible mark on sports, politics, and corporate leadership. She's the former president of the WNBA, vice president of global community affairs at The Cola Cola Company, president of the Grady Health Foundation. And most importantly, she's a champion for women's rights and a dynamic leader in the business world. Please welcome me in joining my shero, the trailblazing Lisa Borders.

  Mick Hunt: Lisa, welcome to MC Unplugged.

  Lisa Borders: Oh, Mick, thank you so much for that gracious introduction. It's such a privilege to be with you.

  Mick Hunt: You know what would have made it better?

  Lisa Borders: What's that?

  Mick Hunt: If I could have said graduate from the University of North Carolina.

  Lisa Borders: No, dude. You could never say that. Dookie here. Blue and blue. Deep blue.

  Lisa Borders: Not the Carolina blue, although that's a nice blue.

  Mick Hunt: You know I

  Lisa Borders: give you some love, but also tell you we got the best blue over there in North Carolina in Durham, 8 miles away from you guys.

  Mick Hunt: We have a trademark. Just throwing that out there. Yeah. So you're you're making my my brother and sister proud. They're both very weirdly passionate about Duke, but I'll I'll leave it there.

  Lisa Borders: They're both great schools. They've put out some great people, and we're proud, particularly in the African American community. When people go to college, We are so excited regardless of where they go.

  Mick Hunt: That's right.

  Lisa Borders: Go and learn and be able to share. Knowledge is an incredible privilege. So all jokes aside, kudos to everybody out there going to college and to all the recent graduates. Congratulations.

  Mick Hunt: That's right. Graduation weekend is upon us. So, Lisa, I'll make a plug. We talk about, you know, being fueled by more than your why and and really being in tune with your because. Right?

  Mick Hunt: I feel like your because is the reason that makes you do what you do, and you can have multiple because in different stages of your life. And one of the things that I love tremendously about Lisa Borders is her purpose, and and it's like you always have your eye on the purpose and the purpose of now. Today, Lisa, what's your because? What's driving you today?

  Lisa Borders: Yeah. Great question, Mick. And I would tell you, my personal mantra is always to leave places and spaces better than I found them. Having come from a spiritual background, my grandfather was William Holmes Border senior pastor at Wheat Street Baptist Church in my hometown here in Atlanta for more than 50 years. And I learned a lot of bible verses when I was very young, and the book of Luke is the one that resonated with me the most.

  Lisa Borders: You might recall he was a physician, and one of the passages that is deeply imprinted on my heart and on my mind is to whom much is given, much is required. And so I start there. That's my grounding, right, from the family and that religious and spiritual background. And I've had such an incredible opportunity to spend time in so many roles, places, and spaces where others have yet to go. And so to be able to leave those places and spaces better than I found them by virtue of my work, my engagement, my passion, my energy, and enthusiasm, number 1.

  Lisa Borders: But number 2, to also be able to open the door for others who come along behind me, which means whatever I've done will be elevated, celebrated, extended, and sustained by those who come after us and take the next baton and add their indelible fingerprints to the mix.

  Mick Hunt: Amazing. And I'm gonna take it a step further with you because to whom much is given, much is required. And you've done an amazing job, and it's you can see it. Every place that you've been, you've left it much better, not just better, but much better than where it was when you started there. I'm gonna say one of the amazing things about Lisa Borders is her ability to make an impact because I will say you can't leave something better if you didn't make an impact.

  Mick Hunt: What are some of the most impactful initiatives that you've had in your tenure at various places?

  Lisa Borders: Yeah. Thank you for that beautiful reflection. It was so generous. Let's do it like a Quentin Tarantino movie and do it in reverse order. Right?

  Lisa Borders: So the most recent place that people most remember my engagement was at the WNBA, and it is enjoying incredible enthusiasm from all walks of life, men, women, girls, boys, short, tall, old, young, Jew, Gentile, you name it. And when I went to the w in 2016, the league was circling the drain, just to be completely candid. And I'm not talking out of school. This was in the public domain.

  Mick Hunt: Absolutely.

  Lisa Borders: Attendance was down. There was no TV deal dedicated to the w. Folks didn't know who the players were, didn't know when the games were. So when I left there 3 seasons later in 2018, we had done a lot. But the thing I am most proud of, Mick, is that we moved a team from San Antonio to Las Vegas.

  Mick Hunt: Mhmm.

  Lisa Borders: We identified the market. We found an owner. It was a public company. MGM bought the team. They named it the ACES.

  Mick Hunt: ACES.

  Lisa Borders: Yeah. Fast forward 5 years, the aces were champions. And then the next year, they were repeat champions, and now they're going for a 3rd time. They got the number one draft pick, my sore roar, and the face of the league today, Asia Wilson. So I am most proud of the fact that not only did we never lose a franchise on my watch, we actually created enthusiasm and laid down a marker with a public company buying a franchise in a new market, establishing footprints, fingerprints, heart share, mind share in a destination city.

  Lisa Borders: Getting folks to pay attention to the w and acknowledge that these professional athletes were extraordinary and are extraordinary women, of course, was very, very deliberate on my part and on the league's part, but I had to set the vision out there and say people are gonna pay attention. I'm gonna stand on the street corner with a bullhorn and talk about the w whether people wanna hear it or not. 5 years after I've left, and we have a generational player in Caitlin Clark, who is also helping to elevate and celebrate the w. And I give her mad love and respect because that girl can shoot from the parking lot, not the 3 point marker, not half court. She can shoot from the parking lot.

  Lisa Borders: Or one of the kids just said to me recently, she can shoot from another ZIP code and still count it. Right?

  Mick Hunt: That's right.

  Lisa Borders: But there were so many players, generational players before her who laid down the marker. You can start with Lisa Leslie in 1996. Or you can look at Amaya Moore in 2017, or you can look at Diana Taurasi for the last 20 years or Sue Bird that just retired.

  Mick Hunt: Mhmm.

  Lisa Borders: There's so many young players that you can look at. Renee Howard here on the Atlanta Dream, just tons of players. And so for all of the excitement and enthusiasm and energy that's being poured into the league and into those players today, I'm thrilled. So that's the w. At Grady Health Foundation, we actually had that is a level 1 trauma center in Atlanta.

  Lisa Borders: We only had 1 at the time. And to give you some context for that, I think New York has, like, 9 of them or something. In the absence of a level one trauma center, you can't have big concerts in your town. You can't have conventions in your town. The president will never come visit because you have to have a level 1 trauma center.

  Lisa Borders: So what people don't understand is it's really an economic engine. It drives business and tourism into the town because you have the health care infrastructure to support that. But Grady was about to close when I took the job in 2,008. We started a capital campaign. They'd never had one before.

  Lisa Borders: Only level 1 trauma center. It was on its last legs and about to close. So this would have been an economic damage done to the city. It would have been also a really precarious position for all of the folks who were being served health care through the Grady Health System. All the mental health services for the entire state of Georgia come out of that health system.

  Lisa Borders: We started a capital campaign, and we put a marker out there, Mick, and said, we're gonna raise $325,000,000 because that's what we think we need to support this health system and all of the folks that it serves Mhmm. Seen and unseen. That was a 5 year campaign when we started. We raised that money, every penny of it, out of Atlanta in 4 years.

  Mick Hunt: Wow.

  Lisa Borders: 4 years. So we infused it with capital. The clinical expertise was already there. The community engagement was there. The civic pride was there, but it was weak.

  Lisa Borders: And so that money helped strengthen every dimension of Grady. So I didn't do that alone. I was the tip of the spear, but had the help of so many top to bottom, left to right, grass roots and grass tops. Right? So at the end of the day, Grady is better off and standing strong and stronger even today since we raised that money and got the hospital back up on its feet.

  Lisa Borders: So getting the league back up on its feet, getting Grady back up on its feet. And lastly, I'll say when I was at the city of Atlanta as vice mayor, and I think about taking that role in 2,004, and I was there till 2010 as president of city council and vice mayor of the city. The city was in a good place in the sense that we were running every day, but I served alongside the first female mayor, Shirley Franklin. And she calls herself, as do we all, the sewer mayor because she led the charge to fix the sewers, an unglamorous job, but it's infrastructure that helps with economic development in the city. You can't do anything without water.

  Lisa Borders: So the sewers and redoing them, all of the infrastructure across the entire city, Shirley was like, it's broken. Like, we gotta fix it. We needed to raise a bunch of money. We didn't have the bond rating to do it. She had to collaborate with the state legislators and help us.

  Lisa Borders: We were helped by levering their bond ratings. So the bottom line is she and I worked together. She set the vision as the chief executive of the city. I was head of the legislative branch of government. Those two things or two offices must work together to get the money and the votes to get any project done, and this was one of the most massive projects ever done in the history of the city.

  Lisa Borders: So when I think about fixing the sewers, it sounds unglamorous, and, yes, on my very first day, Mick, we went in a Fred Flintstone type bucket, and we got in and went down into the sewers so she could show me firsthand what was broken as we were boring through with this big Japanese machine with this point on the end of it that was grinding through the rock that was in the ground to correct the sewers, to rebuild the sewers. It was crazy. That experience was something like I had never seen before. Didn't expect it, but it has left an indelible mark on the city. You don't see the sewers.

  Lisa Borders: You just assume that they work. You just assume that there are pipes and infrastructure under the streets to bring you water whenever you need it, whether it's in your household or in your business or in your faith based organization or institution. That's something we literally take for granted that she and I and the folks working with us at the city were able to tackle. So in every sense of the word, that too got the city back up on her feet so that she could be strong and move forward. So everywhere I've ever been, I've had the privilege and the passion to make things better and leave them better than I found them.

  Mick Hunt: Truly amazing. You know, at at the w, at Grady, and at the city, you know, hearing this, I know that there were challenges. Nothing's easy. Right? Like, Lisa can't be Lisa if everything were easy.

  Mick Hunt: Right? What's one of the most significant challenges that you face in your career, and how did you navigate that?

  Lisa Borders: Yeah. That's a fantastic question, so thank you for asking. I would say in every one of those situations, it was building consensus amongst all the different constituent groups. So anytime you're trying to raise money, whether it was at the city or whether it was at the w, what you're trying to do is convince people that the direction that you're leading them is the right direction. And so you're inviting them on the journey, but you're also encouraging and soliciting them to put in not their just their energy, but their capital, literally, their money.

  Lisa Borders: Right? If the city you're trying to get your colleagues on council to vote for a piece of legislation, then you go get the bonds and you go get the money from New York or wherever, the underwriters. At Grady, you are literally in the city trying to build consensus around the fact that, okay. We need water. Right?

  Lisa Borders: Do you know that's gonna cost money? Do you know we're gonna have to dig up every street in the city? And it's gonna be inconvenient, and it's gonna be costly for a little bit, but it's gonna be worth it in the final analysis. The same is true of the w, building consensus around women's sports, that that's a viable entity and a viable institution in which to pour your resources, your money, your thoughts, your actions. So what I found is it was always easier to speak 1 on 1 with people initially.

  Lisa Borders: Your, for lack of a better term, and you may have heard this before, your bell cow. Is there one person or one organization that will signal to all of the people and all of the institutions or many of them to say, okay. This person's in the boat. I should get in the boat because Mick has, in effect, endorsed this. So he's on board.

  Lisa Borders: I believe in his judgment. So I'm gonna get in the boat too even if I didn't have a 1 on 1 conversation. Setting the vision isn't hard in my view. Building consensus around the vision is hard, and getting people not only to be aware, but to accept the vision and act on the vision, which means that they have to be engaged in some way. Does that make sense?

  Mick Hunt: Totally makes sense. I know you're a mentor to many. What's some advice from Lisa Borders to be the best version of themselves, but more importantly, to be the best leader that they can be?

  Lisa Borders: Thank you for that question. I get it a lot. And here are the three things that I tell people. The attributes of leadership, great leadership in my view, are competence, confidence, and compassion. Competence means bringing not only your book sense to a problem, but bringing your full self, your full experience, your true gifts to the table.

  Lisa Borders: That, in my view, is full competence. It's not just reading an accounting book or reading a marketing book. Yes. That's important. But I think you have to bring some context to it, and that comes from life experience.

  Lisa Borders: Young or old, you've got some to share. So that's competence. Confidence, in my view, is built over time incrementally by doing something as a routine. We think about this when we ride a bicycle or play a piano or throw a ball or cook an egg. Whatever you're doing, the more you do it, the better you get at it.

  Mick Hunt: That's right.

  Lisa Borders: And then compassion, of course, is all about empathy and walking in someone else's shoes and understanding where they are in their ability to communicate with you, collaborate with you, or understand what you're talking about, that means, as my grandfather, the preacher, would say, you gotta use 2 ears and one mouth that god gave you for a reason and listen twice as much as you talk. What I would say is not only create, but cultivate and curate those three attributes, competence, confidence, and compassion. There are many other skills, but if you use those as the fundamentals we talk about this in sports. Get your footwork right before you try to do a a hook shot. Right?

  Mick Hunt: Or if

  Lisa Borders: I try to do it before you try to do a jump shot or before you try to drive the lane, get your footwork right. That's fundamentals being strong. So the same thing is true in my view for those three attributes as fundamentals of what I term enlightened leadership. It's not top down. It's no longer sage on the stage.

  Lisa Borders: It's guide on the side with those attributes. I'm dropping dimes here, Mick.

  Mick Hunt: Lisa, I have so many notes right now. I have 2 pages of notes from just this short conversation. And and some of these, I know you're not doing it purposely, but I think you are. Some of these, I feel like I needed this too freaking funny.

  Lisa Borders: The universe being attuned to us, my friend. This is It is. Both ways. So It is.

  Mick Hunt: It is. So we've talked a little bit about some past. We've talked to some some great insights in the core things people can implement today. What's new for Lisa? What's some projects Lisa's working on now?

  Lisa Borders: Thank you for that. I'm working on a lot of creative projects, Mick. So the way I think about this now, I'll soon be 67 years old. And I'm oh, yeah. And I'm loving listen.

  Lisa Borders: I'm on the top side of the earth. No day is promised, so I'm enjoying every single day. And people often ask me at this age, are you retired? And I say, oh, no. When people retire, like, they die.

  Lisa Borders: Like, you gotta have something to do. Right. So in my view, I am repositioning, and I have a portfolio of activities that I do now. And they're in 3 buckets as you might well imagine. I've got corporate boards, I've got consulting, and then I've got creative projects.

  Lisa Borders: The creative projects is where I spend the lion's share of my time. And so I am writing a book, and I am putting together some digital courses that I'll be launching probably in late summer, early fall because I realized there's a lot in my head make folks say to me all the time, oh, I can Google you and find out everything about you. Well, not exactly. That. You can find out a lot.

  Lisa Borders: You can find out what jobs I had and what years I was there and what my title was. You really have no idea of the backstory of how the team got to Las Vegas. You know I moved one there, but you have no idea why or how or what we did, what we did right, what we didn't do right. So I often say to my mentees, listen. You can make your own mistakes.

  Lisa Borders: You do not need to make mine. I've already made them, and I have figured out what I did wrong in many instances and sometimes self corrected, sometimes not. But you need to know about that, and so you can learn from that. And instead of turning left, maybe you need to go straight because you already saw that I turned left and got my butt handed to me. Right?

  Lisa Borders: So at the end of the day, this notion of writing a book, and someone said, is it a memoir? Is it a mandate? Is a what is it? And I said, it's a little bit of a memoir because it's gonna have life stories in there that things I've experienced. But it's really about sharing insights about through those stories of what I did and how I did it and where it went well and where not so much.

  Lisa Borders: Right? So things like writing a book or I'm bringing back my enlightened podcast, which will be a precursor to the book. I had many, many conversations with guests on my podcast who taught me lessons. These were my friends that I called up and said, will you have a conversation with me about life and your life's journey and what you learned so far? And I'll be doggone if they, of course, did it, but I thought, oh my god.

  Lisa Borders: I am learning so much. Let me give you an example. Elena Dela Don is one of the players in the WPA. She talked about her journey around sports, of course, but she has Lyme disease. And she's been very public about how she's dealt with that and when it kept her down and what she had to do to advocate for herself.

  Lisa Borders: But during that conversation, she started talking with me about meditation. And I said we call her EDD. I was like, EDD? I just can't get into it. Like, I can't do it.

  Lisa Borders: And she said, it's like anything. You need to just keep practicing. Just keep trying, just keep at it. It doesn't work perhaps for everybody, but it works for me, and I commend it to you. I'm thinking, EdD knows a lot, but she doesn't know nothing about me in doing this.

  Lisa Borders: Needless to say, she was absolutely right, and I was absolutely wrong. And now I meditate every day, every day. It took some time. I use a platform called Open. I have my favorite teachers, and I love, love, love that time.

  Lisa Borders: It's me time first thing in the morning, and I often use it at night. Meditate before I go to sleep, and it puts me in a very restful, easeful place and helps my mind slow down so that I can rest. The creative lane or bucket, if you will, is where I spend the lion's share of my time. Yes. I go to board meetings.

  Lisa Borders: Yes. I do consulting. I pick my clients very carefully. I don't pick people that won't listen or don't think they have a problem because Yes. You beat your head against the wall.

  Lisa Borders: But the creative space is totally my space

  Mick Hunt: Mhmm.

  Lisa Borders: Where I can sit down. I can think. I can write. I can talk. I can sing.

  Lisa Borders: I can do whatever I wanna do for whatever amount of time I want to do it. So I am spending the lion's share of my time in that space.

  Mick Hunt: Love it. Well, I want to be the 1st subscriber when the platform is ready. When the podcast rereleases, I'm definitely gonna subscribe. I still listen to some of the older versions on Apple and Spotify anyway. So there's there's plenty of episodes and, you know, I'm a Tar Heel, but, you know, you and Grant get me sometimes.

  Mick Hunt: You and Grant get me sometimes. So I'll just throw that out there.

  Lisa Borders: Listen. Thank you for that. And what I'd like you to do, thank you so much for being willing to subscribe, is to come on the pod when I relaunch and talk about this journey that you've had in your life, but also on this pod because you too have had some extraordinary guests. And you've been doing this, as the kids say, for a minute. Right?

  Lisa Borders: So you will have some insights to share about pods in general, but your life is unique just like everyone's, and I'd love to hear more about that when we get ready to relaunch.

  Mick Hunt: Don't ask. You just tell me, and I'm there. I mean that from

  Lisa Borders: my soul. Love it. I mean

  Mick Hunt: that from my soul. So I wanna get you out of here on this. I always like leaving the listener, and you've given so much advice. What's 2 things that you want people to start doing today that can impact their life, their business, their career? What's 2 things of Lisa isms that you wanna drop us?

  Lisa Borders: Absolutely. Thank you for that. The first thing I would say is let's work on a mind shift, a positive shift in the mind because whatever your mind can envision, that's what will come through in your behaviors. So thinking more positive about yourself, about your life, about your house, whatever we're talking about. And this is hard.

  Lisa Borders: We don't realize how much negative self talk we do, because oftentimes, we don't say it out loud. It's just in our head. But that oftentimes inhibits our behavior. So I'm working on this just like everybody else, and it never gets done. You have to keep working on it.

  Lisa Borders: So that's the first thing is let's shift your mind. The second thing I would say is let's shift your body, and here's what I mean by that. In my view, health is our greatest wealth. In any community, but certainly in the African American community, if you're not healthy, I don't care what you wanna do, I don't care how much money you have. I don't care how much imagination you have, how much time.

  Lisa Borders: If you are not healthy, you can't execute on anything.

  Mick Hunt: Right.

  Lisa Borders: So you gotta have a positive mindset, and you gotta move this body on a regular basis. I too have affirmations that I'm saying every day. I believe in myself. I'm gonna bet on myself. Everybody thought Kobe was arrogant when he said, he's the best basketball player or Muhammad Ali said, I'm the greatest.

  Lisa Borders: But that was about positive mindset. And, yes, both of them happened to be athletes, and so they too were in it to win it every single day. So they engage their mind in a positive way, and they are engaging their body. Muhammad Ali was punching people in the mouth. Let's just be clear.

  Lisa Borders: Right. And Kobe was dropping 80 points on people, but each of their bodies were directly engaged. So when I look at the WNBA players, that's what they've all told me too. I would ask them questions, and they would say, it starts in the mind. The body is reacting to the mind.

  Lisa Borders: Yeah. Go with it. When you're shooting and your shot doesn't drop, what do you do? You keep shooting. Right?

  Lisa Borders: You just keep shooting. You never give up. But those two things, 1st and foremost, have to be engaged Mhmm. Or nothing works, Mick. That's right.

  Lisa Borders: Nothing works. So get your mind right and get your body right, and everything else will follow.

  Mick Hunt: I adore you. I'm being back.

  Lisa Borders: So kind.

  Mick Hunt: I adore you. Even though you were just telling me get in shape, I I still adore you.

  Lisa Borders: I still do.

  Mick Hunt: I still do.

  Lisa Borders: Listen. I'm trying to do it my darn self. I got up today. One of my goals for I just read a book called the 12 week year, and instead of thinking annually, you think in 12 week increments. And you set goals, and you have inputs, and you measure your outputs.

  Lisa Borders: So one of my goals was to lose £20. That was is, because I haven't done it yet. Mhmm. But I'm working on it. And one of my inputs is walking 20,000 steps during a week.

  Lisa Borders: Okay. So, initially, I was doing 2 days at 10,000 steps, which takes me about 2 hours if I'm walking outside. Now I've decided I'm going to do whatever I do, but I'm gonna do it every day. So instead of trying to do 10,002 days, it's like, okay. Maybe this day is 5, maybe this day is 12, maybe this day is 4.

  Lisa Borders: Right? Mhmm. So to that point of get your body right, losing weight will be the output. The input is the steps. The consistency, the routine of getting outside or riding my Peloton or whatever I'm doing, that is going to get me from point a to point b.

  Lisa Borders: So getting my mind right and getting my body right.

  Mick Hunt: I love it. Lisa, thank you so much for being with us today. I told you this when we talked before, but you made my day. You you really did.

  Lisa Borders: Thank you. Well, it's always such a privilege to be invited to any show, but to your show in particular, I'm here. Thank you, my friend.

  Mick Hunt: Look at that. And to all the listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

  Intro: Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution stay inspired, and stay unplugged.