Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential. Resources:Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of Right About Now, host Ryan Alford sits down with Jeanne Sparrow—acclaimed author, professional speaker, and media personality—for an inspiring conversation centered on her new book, Fearless Authenticity. Jeanne delves into the transformative power of staying true to oneself while serving others, sharing her remarkable journey from local radio to becoming a seven-time regional Emmy Award winner in Chicago.She challenges conventional measures of success, emphasizing that performance, not grades, defines achievement. Jeanne also explores the art of storytelling as a cornerstone of effective communication, empowering listeners to embrace their unique narratives and share them with confidence. This episode brims with valuable insights on authenticity, personal growth, and the profound impact of meaningful storytelling.TAKEAWAYS Importance of authenticity in personal and professional life Discussion of Jeanne Sparrow's new book, "Fearless Authenticity" Jeanne's journey in the media industry and her early career experiences The significance of storytelling in communication and branding The impact of academic performance versus real-world results Insights on navigating career transitions and finding one's voice The role of effective communication skills in achieving success The natural aspect of selling in everyday life and reframing its perception Encouragement to foster genuine connections and community Reflection on personal growth and the lessons learned from past experiences If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding. Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is Fearless Authenticity?
This is what goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the past. That was something you did. It is not what you are doing.
This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts Right About Now.
What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always giving you what is here, what is now. And hey, we know they're right. We brought them on the show. We know they're right. So we want them to be right to you. I'm Ryan Offord, your host. Thank you for making us number one. It's never lost on us that we are number one on Apple marketing. We got the fastest growing YouTube channel.
We know what's happening because we are bringing people like author and professional award-winning speaker, Gene Sparrow. What's up, Gene?
Hey, Ryan, thanks for having me on.
My pleasure. You know, I like to think of myself as fearless.
You seem like it to me. You seem like it just from the conversations we've had and what I've seen online of you and what you have done. Yes, sir. I would say fearless would be a very good adjective for you. And authentic, too. You seem really real to me. I mean, if it's not, you're doing a damn good job of acting.
I'm not a good enough actor. Just me, baby. Fearless Authenticity is her latest book. Lead better, sell more, and speak sensationally. We'll get to that in a minute. But, Jean, what's happening today? What's new?
Oh, man. The book is, well, I just celebrated my 55th birthday. The book came out two days before my birthday, and it is a surreal moment, Ryan. I never thought I'd write a book. But my work led me to this point where a book was the best way for me to kind of explain how I think about things. And when you commit to a book and you actually have it physically in your hand, it's a whole thing.
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Chapter 2: How did Jeanne Sparrow's journey in media begin?
I don't know if you're old enough to remember when AM radio stations used to go off at night, but I had a whole FCC license and I turned that bad boy off.
That is crazy. I've forgotten about that. That's jogging the memory brains. But I grew up with a dad and family that all listen to talk radio, you know, on AM and everything else. Maybe that's where my passion came from.
Maybe, maybe. So I remember that. The seeds are always sown and you don't see them until you like hit middle age and you start to realize that you have become your parents. Um, and that you do things that they do for better or worse, you know, but that's where it all started for me. And I didn't even think it was a career to be honest. Cause it felt like a hobby.
It was, I was like, I was, I can't make money doing this. It's too much fun. And from there, when I went away to college, that's how I got up to Chicago, went to Northwestern and I was working on the radio station for fun for free and got an internship. And next thing you know, I have a whole career.
Hmm. Seven time Emmy winner at that, right?
Yeah. Regional Emmys here in Chicago, because I moved from radio to TV. It was kind of an opportunity that came up. And then, you know, you just do work, you submit it and people like it. And you're like, what? I got Emmys. Mine are packed away. I usually boast about them, but I just moved. So I haven't put my shelves up and things like that to have my brag wall up.
But the thing about awards is that they're for what you used to do, what you have already done. For me, it's always, what are you going to do next?
I like that. I might take that. I'll put a little JS on the end. There you go. I'll give you attribution. I'm not going to steal anybody, but I love that because I do see a lot of people that live in the past. Look, I always like to reflect on the past, but I also say the only thing you get from looking back is a sore neck. Yeah. That's 100 percent true.
Or you end up looking in the rearview mirror and you end up was running into when running into what's in front of you. And that doesn't do anybody good. Listen, we have to know and look at the past to learn from it so that we don't make the same mistakes going forward. But don't be that person that peaked in high school. There's better that, you know, you have ahead of you and you.
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Chapter 3: What does it mean to be authentically yourself?
Like they need to get their story together inside before they're able to do it outside. And we focus so much on what we put out into the world that we forget about what's happening on a smaller level. So for me, Fearlessly Authentic is not a pass for you to be a jerk. It is...
a responsibility for you to be your best self, to be the highest version of yourself that is in service to other people, because that's the only way we move together as a world. Because the world is getting smaller and expanding at the same time. The way that technology has brought us together has also separated us.
And I think that the more we lean into the human connection, and I know that this is resonant with your work, The more we lean into those relationships and things like that, the better off we're going to be. But the only way those things are really real is if we are real about it ourselves.
Yeah, there it is. I love that breakdown. I did not think I could stump Gene Sparrow by any means, but I do struggle with that sometimes. I see some people that think they're acting authentically, and I think they are, but I'm like, damn. We can't polarize. polarize everybody.
No, it's not about that. Because I think the more in touch I get with where I am, the more confident I am with where I am and the better I am to let other people, like I get to stay in my lane and I get to own my lane. And then I'm more happy to let other people do what they have to do around me. It's made me a better leader. It's made me a better collaborator. It's made me better for my clients.
But I do think some people get lazy and say that they're being unfit. Well, this is just who I am. When you start talking like that, then it's in service to you. It's not in service to somebody else. And then you're frankly just being a dick. Like, no, don't do that.
Don't do that. You know, part of the reason I was pumped to have you on the show, Gene, is I feel like this book... applies to a lot of people and a lot of things. I think it's business leaders. I think it's, you know, hell, soccer moms. You know, like, I mean, I really mean this. Like, I do think it covers the gamut because there's a lot to learn here.
Talk to me, though, in your mind, who did you feel like you were speaking to?
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Chapter 4: Why is storytelling important in communication?
So there are a few different people I was talking to, most of all myself, like some of it was just about how I move through things. And, you know, when you go through the book, there's I tried to include a lot of different perspectives. Like I have a podcast as well that's on pause right now because the book has overtaken my life.
But the whole point of it was to find out how what I believe to be true applies in other places. So I've talked to people wide ranging from authors to business leaders, other marketers, authors. I think I said that already. Entertainers, comedians, actors, writers, all these different kinds of people. to see entrepreneurs, you know, to kind of see where this happened.
And I found it to be true everywhere in every phase of life. And when I first started doing this work, Ryan, there were people who told me, and it still happens in some of my trainings when I go in, they're like, I'm gonna try this out on my kids today because, you know, like there's a part of my process that that I call it live it, tell it, sell it. Live it is about you.
To me, it's the three elements of how we communicate. Live it is about you. You have to understand how you affect other people. Tell it is about the vehicle by which we do it, the stories that we tell each other, because those are the things that, that's the connective tissue.
And then sell it is about the people you're talking to because you're always selling something, but you got to know something about the people you're talking to and you have to talk to what they care about. If you don't talk to what they care about, then all you're doing is having a monologue and hoping somebody else listens. it is not a two-way street.
And unfortunately, we don't do that with our young people. And so when I first wrote the book, I was really writing it for my clients, like the different kinds of people that I encounter.
But what I've learned, because now I'm teaching at Northwestern in a grad communication program, and a lot of my students are fresh out of college, still kind of searching for themselves and trying to find their voice. And I have figured out that my work, I think, works best for people who are in transition.
somewhere, they're either trying to level up, maybe in the corporate gig they have, trying to get to the next level up, trying to break through to the executive level or break through to the C-suite, or maybe just get out of middle management or into middle management so they can start moving up the things.
For kids, young, I shouldn't say kids, but they kids to me, young people who are entering the workforce for the first time, the transition from college to real life is even harder than it's ever been, I think.
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Chapter 5: How does authenticity foster community?
And so when I say speaking sensationally, I think that many of us have become way too dependent on texting people, emailing people. And there is not a lot of nuance in the written word, the way we communicate through those messages. In books, absolutely, because we have a lot more characters that we can use.
But when we talk about social media, when we talk about texting and all those different things, we've become so reliant on that that it has damaged our relationships. And part of it, it has also damaged our way that we communicate with each other.
A lot of the young people that I'm starting to teach now are the ones who were in important developmental stages during the pandemic when they weren't interacting with people as much outside of the people that they were in their pods with. And you can tell because they're not communicating verbally as well.
And I'm sorry, I don't care how good of a tool AI is, and it is, I don't care how good of a tool email and text and whatever other technology is next is, nothing will replace our ability to understand when somebody is explaining something to us and nothing will replace the way we get motivated when we are inspired by hearing other people speak. And that's the way stuff gets done.
So if you can't speak sensationally, you're missing a part of what it is you want to do, whether that's selling your business or the products that your business or the services that your business provides, whether it's leading your team to get the results that you've been tasked with doing, whether it's taking something to the next level or actually speaking to audiences or being on podcasts, whatever that is.
If you can't do that, success is going to be hard.
The technology is great, but the biggest skill set I see missing is the ability to talk. And they would classify what I'm saying as selling. I'm not necessarily saying selling, but making what they're talking about and understanding how to talk about it in an exciting way. That's a missing skill set.
And you know what? I would argue there's nothing wrong with calling it selling. I think that we have an aversion to calling it selling. But listen, man, you got four boys.
Right.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of being fearlessly authentic?
She'll sell some copies, bring some people in and entertain you because she'll speak sensationally.
Thank you, my dear. You're so sweet. That's an endorsement. I can I can I can get behind. I appreciate it. It's been fun talking to you, Ryan.
It's been great. I really appreciate it. Let's stay in touch. If I don't get a signed copy sent to me, I'm going to be disappointed. You're getting it, sir.
You're getting it, sir. I'm putting together merch right now because I have like my dad. I've mentioned my dad a couple of times. He's got a lot of sayings and stuff. I call him Spro-isms. His nickname was Spro because people couldn't say Sparrow. But he's one of those old countrymen who had a lot of wisdom to share. And I put it a lot on my social media.
So I'm turning them all into t-shirts and things. So you're going to get a nice little package.
Hey, I love it. Hey, guys, we're going to have all the links to Gene's stuff on the website, on social media, et cetera. Go to RyanIsRight.com. You'll find links to the show, highlight clips, everything included. Gene, it's been great. Can't wait to stay following what you're doing, and let's stay in touch.
Same, same. Happy New Year to you, my friend.
Hey, guys, thank you for making us number one. It's because of Gene Sparrows of the world that we are. We're bringing you the best, the brightest, and, hey, the most authentic. That's what we do right here on Right About Now.
This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.
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