May 8—Emphasizing the theme of being better together, participants from Leadership Odessa and Midland came together Thursday at the CEED Building for the Midland-Odessa Joint Leadership Networking Event.
The event was moderated by Shelby Landgraf.
Collin Sewell, proprietor of The Sewell Family of Companies, the keynote speaker, talked to the audience about transitioning from self-focused leadership to we-focused leadership. He shared his experience of growing up in Odessa, vowing never to return to coming back and realizing it wasn’t so much about Odessa, but that he had to change his attitude.
In December 1999, Sewell said one of his managers gave him a book called “Developing the Leader Within You,” by John Maxwell. He said he discovered he wasn’t a good leader, so he put himself on a crash course of major growth.
“For two years, I read a book a week on either personal growth, leadership, teamwork and people development, because what I could get excited about was … seeing other people thrive and other people have great success. That can really get me fired up and get me up early in the morning,” Sewell said.
He shared that with the audience because regardless of what you do it’s not as important as why you do it.
As Zig Ziglar said, you can have everything you want out of life if you help other people get what they want out of life, Sewell said.
He added that it was “really cool” to see people that are passionate about leadership and passionate about making Odessa and Midland a better place come together for this event.
Sewell said once you have your cup full, the goal is not to keep it full but pour out that wisdom, knowledge, time and talent to others.
“The goal is not to be a reservoir. The goal is to be a river of what you have,” he added.
He urged people to find their passion, serve their community and make the Permian Basin a better place. For employers, he said they should tell people about things to do in both towns instead of telling them how close the airport is.
Sewell said he has spent the last 10 years of his career trying to find ways to make the community better.
“Sometimes it’s with our businesses, sometimes it’s where I volunteer my time and my talents and my treasures, but the real challenge is, what do we do to make this place better? And when you and I do that, we become models for other people,” he added.
He recommends that people find their passion and find a place to serve.
“It may be that you need to go right back to work and find the two or three people that you really need to pour into,” he said.
His passion for the last decade or so has been education because he believes that Zip code should not determine the person’s future.
“I spent 20 plus years serving in education, the last decade really intensely, trying to make sure that students in our region have the best education possible. Because for many people, it is truly the fork in the family tree what their life will be like,” Sewell said.
One of the greatest ways people can get involved is in public education whether it’s in parent teacher organizations or just volunteering to make copies for teachers.
Sewell added that a large percentage of students in both communities have major hunger issues.
“We started a program called Food to Kids and invested through the Education Foundation a decade or so ago,” Sewell said. “We assume that they’re laborers in the oilfield making a bunch of money. They might but it doesn’t mean they’re taking care of their kids,” Sewell said.
He added that it never ceases to amaze him that people think if they don’t have kids in school they somehow aren’t affected by the quality of education. The State of Texas demographers use third grade reading level to forecast the number of prisons built.
If someone doesn’t read on grade level in third grade, “they have like a 90% dropout rate” and people wonder why they struggle to find people qualified to do the work, Sewell said.
University of Texas Permian Basin is a “huge win” for the entire region. Sewell is also involved in IDEA Public Schools and there are other charter schools doing a good job, such as Harmony and Third Future.
“I just think there’s an opportunity to really get involved in those areas. For me, the fact that we know we have the opportunity to do a better job in public education … that’s the first step toward making progress is to acknowledge we have a problem, and then once we know we have a problem, we can start talking about how to solve it,” Sewell said.
The morning also included a panel discussion with Kate Williamson, past Midland Chamber Chair and YWLA director of development; Craig Stoker, Odessa City Council Member At-Large/Mayor Pro-Tem; and Odessa Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Renee Earls.
They talked about what cooperative leadership is and how both towns are competitive with each other but at the end of the day, “we are all from the Permian Basin,” Earls said.
Stoker, who is also executive director of Meals on Wheels, said they have a singularly focused mission.
“However, our clients need more than a meal, and the way we’ve grown that is through partnerships,” Stoker said, helping clients to survive, thrive and live independently.
“To me, that’s the collaborative leadership. I couldn’t have learned everything that I know and need to succeed in my role without the network that I have. I always say that’s the most powerful thing that I have, is the network,” Stoker said.