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Growing Our Future
Growing Our Future
Chance Favors Those in Motion
In this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast, host Aaron Alejandro interviews Jackie Hoegger, owner of Hoegger Communications. They discuss the importance of storytelling and empathy in leadership, as well as the value of mentorship and continuous learning. Jackie shares her journey of starting her own company and emphasizes the power of telling personal stories. She also highlights the significance of living your brand and leaving a legacy.
Story Notes:
- Discovering the Power of Storytelling
- The Importance of Failure and Learning
- Living Your Brand and Leaving a Legacy
- The Value of Empathy in Leadership
- Tips for Telling Your Story and Leading Others
- Leadership Skills: Empathy, Leading by Doing, and Continuous Learning
- Fun Question: Best Concert Experience
- The Inspiration Behind the Slinky
Learn more at MyTexasFFA.org
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here's your host, Aaron Alejandro.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or whenever you may be tuning in to the Growing Our Future podcast, hey, listen, first thing, we want to say thank you for stopping by. You know, time's the only thing that we get to spend. We can't save it. So the fact that you're spending a little time with us, we want you to know that we appreciate it. We also appreciate a podcast where we get to bring on these incredible guests, people that are willing to share their insights, their experiences, their expertise. And, like we always say in the world of agriculture, the one thing we've learned is if you want to know what the future is, grow it. Well, how do you grow a future? You grow a future by planting the right seeds. You grow a future and a better life by planting the right information and then nurturing it and growing it. Today we have another special guest. She is no stranger to the FFA. She's been part of our journey and we're honored to have the owner of Hager Communications, jackie Hager. Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. It's an honor and a privilege to be here.
Speaker 2:We're excited about having you and we're going to pick your brain. We want to get some wisdom from you so that we can plant seeds of greatness in the minds of our students and our teachers and the stakeholders that'll be watching this podcast. Jackie, we like to start every podcast off. Every guest gets the same first question and I always like to start with the question what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3:Ah, today. Well, I'm grateful that I woke up on a farm and as I was making my coffee, I can see the sunrise. And when I get out to go to my vehicle, I can smell that farm life. I think you know where I'm going to and that is an incredible, sweet, amazing smell to me. So I'm grateful that I get to wake up on a farm before I drive into work every day, you know.
Speaker 2:Jackie, that is so good. I wished I could tell you that I get that experience of waking up on a farm, because there is something special about that. I can't tell you how many friends I've had that have had professional careers that have afforded them the opportunity to buy a small plot of land and they say there's nothing better than that fresh air in the morning and a cup of coffee and watching the world wake up, watching nature wake up.
Speaker 3:I can hear the cows. I can hear the cows. I can hear the milk stanchions going. I can hear all the farmers driving by feeding. That's the sound I want to wake up to every morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. I'm with you. The fact that we get to have another day to pour into other people, something to be grateful for Amen Amen.
Speaker 2:All right, jackie Hager. So let me give everybody a little background. So I was familiar with Jackie, I was familiar with her company and we we've been involved with an organization called Live Like Johnny, and Johnny Cowan was a Ford leadership scholar and he was tragically lost in an automobile accident. And as we began trying to tell Johnny's story, we came across and I was on the board of Live Like Johnny and we came across Hager Communications. I knew Jackie and we watched them tell Johnny's story and it really got our attention and we said there's something here.
Speaker 2:And so one of my board members and a couple of other people said Aaron, we really need to do a documentary about the Texas FFA Foundation. And I really had never thought of it and I, you know I struggled with it. I mean, I really wondered is that really the direction we should go? And yet there were so many signs that kept pointing to the positive of why we needed to do it, why we should go ahead and go down this path, and we did. And so if you go to the my Texas FFA website, as soon as you get there it says watch the film. All you do is click on the film and you will see our Emmy nominated documentary about the Texas FFA Foundation.
Speaker 2:So that's how I got to have this professional relationship and working with Jackie and her company. But, jackie, I want to dive a little bit deeper than that and I'd like to go back a little bit in time, if you will. Something tells me you know, I see all of these awards behind you. Something tells me you did not just fall into that chair. Something tells me that there is a story, there is a journey, there is a pathway that led you into that role, into this company that you now own and operate Agri Communications. Jackie, take us through that journey. What did it look like to take over and create this dream of yours?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I'm a dairy farmer's daughter and a dairy farmer's wife and my oldest son runs a beef cattle operation of about 6,000 up to 20,000 cattle, depending on the year, and my youngest son and my husband run the current dairy farm. So that's where it all begins, honestly, erin, because we were born and raised to get up and work on the farm and I really think our work ethic for all five of us kids came from that. I have a very disciplined father and a very aggressive, goal-oriented father and he really brought that down to us. And then we went to a small school that was very big and FFA and 4-H. I grew up more in the 4-H world, but I had friends and I watched them grow up in the FFA world and I think it goes back to failure is not an option. In fact, my dad would always lean on that sentence You'll fail your way to success. Failure is not a bad thing. It makes you smarter, it makes you bolder, it makes you bigger, and so every time we would fail at something he was so good at sitting us down, going all right. What is the teachable moment of this? And there's a reason that this happened to you, and how can we keep that?
Speaker 3:And I take that very same thing today to this agency because I graduated here in Wichita Falls at MSU and then I owned a dress boutique for 26 years and marketing that dress boutique was my sweet spot. So when I got the opportunity to sell it, I had no idea what God had planned for me and my phone blew up. After that sale. All of my customers said come market my business like you marketed that store. So that started with me, with one person, and today there are 25 Team Hager employees. We have clients in 23 states and while we do everything from marketing website, social, I think one of our favorite things is storytelling. That's our favorite thing, and so we spend a lot of time in the video world storytelling. So that's the quick 101 of how I got to this chair, and I wouldn't change it for anything. Not one thing would I change.
Speaker 2:So I can only imagine, Jackie. I know how much I enjoy doing podcasts because it gives me this chance to get to know so many special people. I met so many incredible people and so I can only imagine what it's like to be in your seat and have the chance to really dive into somebody's story and share that story on such a dynamic platform and share that story on such a dynamic platform.
Speaker 3:No kidding, we were just talking about this weekend. We're going to go pick up some more hardware on some documentaries. In fact, we're going to pick up some hardware on our first international documentary. We shot it in Geneva, switzerland, in June, and we're going to bring something home for that.
Speaker 3:Everybody's got a story. First of that. Everybody's got a story. First of all, everybody's got a story and some people struggle with.
Speaker 3:I don't know how to tell my own story. Well, I always say sometimes we're inside our own tornado and we can't really see the clarity. And sometimes I think that's the gift we bring to the story teller. You know we're on the outside, looking in, taking a deep breath and just listening, and then we navigate them to get to the sweet spot. So many times they think I don't know what this end result is going to look like.
Speaker 3:But when we show them the final product, once we've all done our due diligent hard work of telling your story and listen, the thing about storytelling is some of the smallest, simplest stories are the most powerful stories. So I'm always on the lookout for a story. Sometimes people don't know they have a story until I feel it, sense it, and then I give them a call and go, let's go to coffee. And I sit down with them and go. You have no idea of the powerful story that you own. That needs to be told. So many of our documentaries come out of that format. So we have 25 amazing talented people but it takes all of us to get to the final product. Does that make sense? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, too, the genius of that that you just shared. And as we do these podcasts, jackie, one of the things that I'm always looking for are elements along somebody's journey that, if you'll listen, there's something that's scalable there and something that you just shared with us. I think is one of those moments that I hope people heard. Jackie sits down with people and they talk about this incredible story, but then what does Jackie do? She brings other team members in, and what's interesting is they start seeing that story from maybe a little bit different perspective, and by bringing all of those perspectives together, the scope of that story and the brilliance of that story becomes ever clearer, and so it's the old adage that none of us is as strong as all of us.
Speaker 3:Oh, like that, just gave me goosebumps.
Speaker 2:And so that's what's really interesting. When you shared that, Jackie is not only are you proud and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way, I always tell people when you're proud of something, you want to share it. We talk about our favorite restaurants, we talk about movies we like, we talk about books, so what's wrong with that? So when Jackie talks about, she's proud of the hardware and the success of her company, that's a good thing, especially when you listen to the background there. It's the story behind the storytelling, if you will. It's the fact that she brings these great team members together to help articulate that story. That is no different than anybody that's listening to this podcast. You know, Jackie, one of the things that we tell the kids all the time. Or I like to talk to the FFA kids and I tell them. I said, tell me about your business. And they always tell me. They said, Mr Alejandro, I don't havea business. I said, yeah, you do, You're it.
Speaker 3:You're it right, here Everybody is.
Speaker 2:Do you get up on time? What time do you open? What kind of customer service do you deliver? Do you know your material? I mean, think about it. We are our own business and so, to your point, jackie, we all have an obligation to make sure that the story that we tell about our business is one that's genuine, that it's authentic, that it's grounded in good core values, and I think that all of those things are elements of your success.
Speaker 3:Well, I teach at the local university. I'm in my 14th year of teaching the final marketing class, and we always start on day one and I tell these there may be 30 students sitting in there and I go. If you could crawl into the mind of the student next to you, can you imagine the story that you could tell? Because you're a brand starting junior high high school. If you're a student listening to this, you're a brand starting junior high high school. If you're a student listening to this, you're a brand.
Speaker 3:If you're a teacher listening to this, you're a brand and everybody's got a story. And so when I teach these college students that your brand begins the day you go out in public and you start engaging with the world, that's grand and it's ever changing and it's ever exciting and you're. The best thing you can do for yourself is not only tell your story, but try to tell the story of the guy or the girl sitting next to you, because they have just as powerful of a story and together it's even better. And that's what we do at Hager every day.
Speaker 2:All day, we tell stories you know, one of the great motivators who's one of my mentors, by the way was a guy named Zig Ziglar, and Zig's son, Tom Ziglar, actually is on our foundation board of directors, and so Tom and I talk a lot about these topics. But you know one of the famous Ziglar quotes. As he said, if you help enough other people, get what they want, you'll get what you want. Yep, and you know, testimonies are powerful. I've always been taught that there's two things in the world you can't argue with, and that's somebody's testimony in the Bible, Because you can never look at somebody, and I can never look at Jackie and say, Jackie, that didn't happen to you. That would be ridiculous for me to tell Jackie that that story that she just told didn't happen to her. And so to your point, Jackie, when we can harvest and harness the power of a testimony, yes, that is so true.
Speaker 3:You know, we just finished two documentaries, two totally different documentaries, both powerful. Let me give you the subject lines of both of these. Documentary A about glass, glass. Is there anything fun, crazy or over the top about glass? Now I'm talking about the glass in high-rise buildings glass. But oh my, it's not about the glass. It's about the people that manufacture the glass and the family that they bond inside the factory and how they do it and how then they drive down and they see their glass.
Speaker 3:That's the story we just finished. It, too, is going to bring some hardware and it went all the way to the top to vitro and the CEO of vitro goes. Now that's how we tell what we do. That's documentary A. Documentary B we just released A young girl, an addict, alcoholic, on drugs, living on the streets in New York City, in Manhattan, had a dream, but couldn't get out of her own world, of trying to beat her addiction. Took four times. She beats her addiction one, baby step at a time, through a lot of tough love. Today she just opened her third bakery in Manhattan and she's thriving, and I got to tell her story.
Speaker 3:We at Hager got to tell her story. It will give you goosebumps. We're going to release it to the public here in a week and I can't wait for you and every student and teacher to see it, because going from addiction, drug addiction, to glass on a building, both helpful, both gut-wrenching, both amazing stories, because it wasn't about the glass, it was about the person making the glass.
Speaker 3:It wasn't about the addiction. It was the heart of this young girl that a bakery believed in her to begin. Just let me clean your bakery at night, when your bakery is closed, to prep you for the next day. Wow, that's the story.
Speaker 2:That's how she started.
Speaker 3:That's how she started. It's amazing, wow, so exciting.
Speaker 2:You reminded me of a man downtown that we've lost him, but Ben Valadez. He used to run Green's Furniture.
Speaker 2:He used to own Green's Furniture there you talk about a story, and his story started by sweeping the floors free of charge for Mr Green. So when you said that, it's just like, wow, yeah, jackie, you know. I'd like to dive into this a little bit deeper here, because you've said something that and you're actually going where I hoped you would go, and that is this. We've got an incredible brand.
Speaker 2:The Texas FFA has been around for 96 years. We have a proven track record that our kids statistically outperform their peers, their competitors. They've got access to scholarships, they go to college at a higher rate, they graduated a higher rate. They have fewer incident reports in school. We've got all this incredible data but at the end of the day, that's the data at 30,000 foot view. The reality is that data is actually contained in those 170,000 plus FFA members at the local level, all of which, as you said, have a story. So let's unpack this a little bit. If you could give some tips to kids on how to tell your story, do these three things to tell your story. Do these three things for your chapter to tell your local chapter FFA story. What would those be?
Speaker 3:Oh, what a great question. I would start by saying take a brand new, fresh notebook and a fresh pen or pencil and sit in silence and start by answering the first question who are you when you are going to describe yourself? How would you describe yourself? That's question number one. And really take some time to dive into that Number two. Who impacted you as a person as of today? It could be a teacher, it could be a parent, neighbor, cousin, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, could be more than one person. And then talk about that person. What value did that person give you in your life? What value? Because what you're going to narrow down to are what are your personal core values, what is important to you? And then the third thing I would say is talk about the company. You keep the friends. You keep the church friends. You keep the students. Talk about the company that you keep, because we all know we are who we run with. And talk about those people. What value do they bring to you every day, those people? What value do they bring to you every day? And then I would encourage you to go into a fourth question and say where do I want to be in just three years? I'm not asking about 20 years, just three years from now, where do you want to be and what does life look like for you and what do you think you have to do? And then, where does your faith take you? Because, end of the day, something moves you inside. Is it a book? Is it your faith? Is it your grandpa?
Speaker 3:You know, for me it was my dad. You know, my dad used to come in there going on Saturday mornings with all my friends who didn't live on dairies, could sleep in and relax over the weekend. My dad was like by 7 am, get up. I've already put in a half a day's work. Get your you know what out of that bed. And, oh my gosh, I had no idea the training. All I could sense was frustration. Can you just let me sleep late?
Speaker 3:I'm a teenager and every Sunday afternoon when friends were having pizza parties at two o'clock, we were pinning the cows to milk the cows and feed the baby calves. No one wants to do that on a Sunday afternoon when you could go hang out with your friends when you're 15, 16, and 17 years old. But I knew today man was prepping me for the future, because chance favors those in motion. I want to say that one more time Chance favors those in motion, and my father believed in speed, innovation and speed. Get up and go and it all boils down to. You can answer those four or five things. You've already started the journey of telling your story.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is powerful. There we go. There's those seeds of greatness I was talking about. They're right there. I love it, by the way, and you've been around some of our programs, jackie. You've seen our ambassador room and you've seen some of the leadership training that we do, and that's one of the things that we like to instill in the kid. We all the kids. We always say that when your values are clear, your choices are easy amen so, to your point, we've got to really find what is that value structure?
Speaker 2:What is it that we really believe? Because that's what becomes our authentic self to the public. So you've really got to find that value system internally, because it will manifest itself in everything else that you do, and so you talked about that, which was absolutely great. I love what you talked about, the company that you keep. I can't tell you how many guests we've had that have said similar things all the way down to show me your friends and I'll show you your future.
Speaker 3:Amen, that is so true, Just that simple.
Speaker 2:And the thing that I another one that I really liked here, Jackie, that you said and I hope that the kids heard this.
Speaker 2:Another one that I really liked here, Jackie, that you said and I hope that the kids heard this In it too. You know we're not going to dive into it, but I'm going to tell you it's biblical, but you said it, and that is this the Bible says where there is no vision, the people will perish. You have to have a vision, and it reminds me of the movie Alice in Wonderland, when she came to the fork in the road, if you recall the scene in the movie, and there was the Cheshire Cat yes, there's the fork. And she said, well, which way do I go? And the cat said, well, where do you want to go? And she said, well, I'm not really sure. And he said, well then, any road will take you there, and so we can either be in charge of our destiny or we can just react to somebody else's destiny. So I loved your comment about look at where do you want to be in three years.
Speaker 3:Where do you want to be?
Speaker 2:Which road are you going to take? Because you know that's the road you need to take to get to where you want to be.
Speaker 3:Amen. And there's nothing wrong with having short-term goals, because you know things could change in your life in three years. And there's nothing wrong with pivoting and adjusting. I mean, isn't every day don't we pivot our day? What we think we're going to do that day doesn't always work out that way. You have to learn to pivot. And here's another thing when you sit down, just like today, sometimes it's a gift.
Speaker 3:I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I don't, because my team members sometimes it's my intern in a meeting that will blurb out something and we all spin our heads and go there's our answer. There's our answer because everybody brings value to the table. So I love not being the smartest person in the room. I worry about who's going to take my place and am I prepping for who's going to take my place? Because I don't know where God's going to send me in the next five or 10 years. So if I'm not constantly replacing me, then I'm not setting this company up for success either. So so many.
Speaker 3:And let me tell you something. Just because we have all this hardware, if you're a student and you see that hardware, let me tell you about the grit and the grind that took us to get there. If you think getting to the top is hard, let me just tell you, staying there is 10 times as hard, aaron, we make mistakes still every day in this office, every day, and we have to stop and look at that teachable moment and decide do we freeze? Oh my God, we made a major mistake. Do we freeze, do we flight? Do we just abandon the project or do we fight to fix it? So that's, you can freeze, you can flight, you can fight or you can fix it. And I'm telling you, if you think, a company that is 18 plus years with this much hardware has it easy. No, ma'am, no sir, no, ma'am, no sir. It listen, tears are shed every month in this office because something didn't go perfect.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that's good stuff right there. I mean, there's so much there, jackie. Number one success begets success. There's no question that if we can teach a kid to be a success, they can model that into other successes in their lives. So success begets success.
Speaker 2:And the other one that you shared there that I just thought was really good is that, for teachers that are listening, I can't tell you how many teachers I know that were really good at teaching, but where they might've dropped the ball a little bit was they never did succession planning. They never thought about who's going to take their role one day and keep that chapter at the top of their game and who's going to craft that. You know I want to be state FFA president, but my job is to make sure that the next state president's right behind me. It's that responsibility of stewardship and it's right behind me. It's that responsibility of stewardship. And it's that responsibility, as you said, succession planning. And you know thinking about who will fill their shoes. And you know, tom Ziegler and Ziegler, they talk about that and they say we're all going to leave a legacy. Everybody's going to leave a legacy. You're either going to leave it by design or by default, and so the key is to leave a legacy by design.
Speaker 2:By design yes, and what comes with that design, jackie? It's everything that you've just shared and that is building your fellow man up, building your colleague up, building your team up, because you know and again you've been in our room you've seen our quotes, and another one of our big quotes is the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shade you may never sit.
Speaker 3:Might be my favorite one. You say that and every time you say that it just stops me in my tracks. That is so true. I mean, if you're a senior or a junior and you're watching this, so true. I mean, if you're a senior or a junior and you're watching this I hope you're looking at the freshmen today going. Who's that leader in that freshman and sophomore class? I think you should go. I want to be a mentor to that freshman and I want to stay up with that freshman, because when you're a senior in college, that freshman is just going to begin college and what a gift you will leave your fellow students by helping those come up right behind you. That's some powerful stuff.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely right. By the way, I hope everybody heard exactly what.
Speaker 2:Jackie just said because that is exactly it, right there, and that is. You know, that's the beauty of life. By the way, people ask me all the time. They say, erin, why do you do what you do? And I said well, if you've ever met Hattie or you ever met Liam, my grandson or my granddaughter, you'll know why. Because the statistics. I've read these statistics, by the way. They're some of the most incredible statistics I've ever read. I don't know if you've ever read the statistics on dying, but they're very impressive.
Speaker 2:One out of every one of us are not going to make it out of here. So when we know that and it's not necessarily a pleasant topic, but the point is this If we know that who's going to take care of our families when we're gone, right, who's going to be our leaders when we're gone? Who's going to run our companies when we're gone, and with that becomes this responsibility of stewardship. And if we can learn that stewardship at a young age, to learn that none of us is as strong as all of us, to learn that if we'll just take on mentoring our fellow man, helping somebody up that needs a hand up maybe not a handout A word of encouragement that could change something. Another one that Tom Ziegler told me was he asked his dad one time, or his dad asked him. He said Tom, how do you know if someone needs encouraging? And Tom said well, I don't know. And Zig looked at him and said if they're breathing, they need encouragement.
Speaker 3:Amen At any level. By the way, at any level.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. So, when you think about what you just shared, jackie, about this pouring into others, mentoring take Jackie about this pouring into others, mentoring You're really transitioning me into what I wanted to ask you next, but what you're doing is you're being intentional about the legacy that you're trying to live.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And anyway. So let's jump into that just for a minute here. Jackie, you gave us some great tips here already, but I'm going to challenge you to do one more. Okay, Talk about leadership, leadership skills. Give me some leadership skills. If you were, if you could talk to every high school kid in America right now about leadership, what would you tell them are three leadership skills that you've seen work?
Speaker 3:them are three leadership skills that you've seen work Well. First of all well, number one for me is empathy. You must have empathy for your fellow mankind. I mean, and notice, empathy doesn't have anything to do with skill level. I'm not asking you to be a rocket science in any department, I'm just asking you to have empathy for your fellow mankind. That's number one. Second leadership skill you have to lead by doing. In other words, you can't talk the talk and not act the act. You have to be someone that people see.
Speaker 3:My two of my favorite words grit and grind, because that's what my dad taught us. If you want people to respect you and if you want to be a leader, you got to do the action, and that is getting down deep and rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. And I don't care what it is. You got to roll up your sleeves and get to work and show that grit and grind your sleeves and get to work and show that grit and grind. And then the next one for leadership I think would be is you yourself should never, ever, ever stop learning, ever stop learning. You too have to aspire. Even at my age, I want to learn something every single day. I want to share one quick thing with you.
Speaker 3:Yesterday I was at with my mother at a heart surgeon appointment. No one gets to see the top dog heart surgeon and if you do, you're only going to see him for five minutes. Yesterday I had that five minutes with my mother from her heart surgery with this stellar, amazing, high reputation heart surgeon. With this stellar, amazing, high reputation heart surgeon. And my mother said could you tell me exactly what happened? He turns over that piece of paper. Students and teachers. He turns that piece of paper over. He spends 10 minutes drawing on the back of a piece of paper and walking my 82 year old mother on exactly what he did to her and what happened. Now I'm taking all of this in and he's got eye contact with her and he's down on her level right across and explaining it to her.
Speaker 3:Now, to make a long story short, where this goes to on this, I looked at him and I said the value, the value of empathy, the value of slowing down your world to care about this 82-year-old woman, to say I hear you, I hear you and I hear today you need to visit with me and I'm going to give you everything I got. So that five minutes turned into 20. When I shook that man, I said I can't thank you enough when we left that office, so I want you to turn that around. So when that freshman comes up to you, or that sophomore, or even that person that's having a bad day right next to you, stop, breathe, listen and give empathy. That alone is one of the highest leadership skills I think you could ever give to mankind, and that's what he did that is so, so inspiring, jackie, that's just powerful.
Speaker 3:Well, I thought about him all night driving home from the Metroplex and this morning going. I hope God blesses that heart surgeon today. I hope whoever taught him to have compassion and empathy for his patients, because that's not always the case. Did he save her life? Yes. Did he do his job? Yes. Did he even have to tell her all of that? No, but he did. He did so. Just be empathetic for your fellow mankind and know when you think people aren't looking at you, they're looking at you. They are. People aren't looking at you, they're looking at you.
Speaker 2:They are. I just all you're doing is reiterating for me. I just I'm sitting here listening to this and I always tell, I think about things that we share with the kids, jackie, and what, and adults too. What we don't realize about our testimonies, what we don't realize about our testimonies, what we don't realize about our stories, is that our stories may not be being created for a stage, they may not be created for an audience. The stories that we have and the testimonies that we have, god may have given us for that one person that may cross our paths one day, and at that moment we share that story and we share that testimony for that one person. And maybe that one person was the one that's going to take the stage.
Speaker 2:Maybe that one person's the one that's going to have an audience or a constituency, but we've been given something for a reason and when we are willing to share that with this, like you said, the spirit of core values and empathy what an incredible seed of greatness that is when we talk about planting seeds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and just when you think you admire people and you think their lives have to be just so perfect, everything in their life is perfect, well, a, that's not correct. And B, everyone, everyone has trials to get over and mountains to climb and stories to tell about how they made it over those mountains. So just know, ask, be bold. Be bold to ask for the story of the people you admire. Be bold, because you deserve to hear those stories.
Speaker 2:I love it and I love what she just said. She said ask it's okay. Ask. You're going to find that most people, if you'll ask, they want to share.
Speaker 1:They just need somebody to ask them, because they don't always want to tell it.
Speaker 2:Wow, jackie, time flies when you're having fun. My goodness covered a lot of ground and you gave us some incredible, incredible gifts today Seeds of strategy, of telling stories, of leadership, of living your brand. You know, everybody that knows me on social media knows that's my handle live your brand. Live your brand, because living your brand is telling your story. And, jackie, you gave us some significant tools to do that even better. So, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for the invite. I loved the time.
Speaker 2:Well, you're not done yet, so every guest gets one fun question. So here we go. Your fun question, jackie Hager, tell us what's the best concert you've ever been to.
Speaker 3:Well, it would have to be. I'll go back and tell my age. It would have to be Ronnie Millsap. I go all the way back. That was my very first concert. Now, listen, I go from Ronnie Millsap to Rihanna and 2 Chainz, so you can see the wide variety. But I'm a country girl at heart and I think country music tells stories better than no other. And while I'm a George Strait fan and you know all of those guys, I will say Ronnie Millsap was my favorite because he was so relatable on that stage. He also walked the aisles at Memorial Auditorium, walked down the step, walked up the aisles, so I felt like I was the only person at that concert he was singing to. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:But, however, I will tell you, I was up dancing to Rihanna and 2 Chainz too tell you I was up dancing to Rihanna and 2 Chainz too.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm like you. By the way, I do love Ronnie Millsap and I think his story and his performances are incredible. The way that he'll walk to the edge of a stage and the crowd is just enthralled. He knows his awareness and yet his entertainer status is unquestionable.
Speaker 3:However, I will tell you, there's nothing like a stool and a guy and a guitar. Three things a stool, a guy and a guitar. And that was Eric Clapton. So I left that concert quite moved because he had a stool, a guitar and himself period, amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so all guests get the fun question, but Jackie, you've got something. That's just prompting me to ask one last question before we hang up. It may be absolutely nothing, but I'm going to ask what's up with the slinky?
Speaker 3:Oh well, how many of you played with this when you were a kid? So I challenged my I challenge, even my grandkids have this I challenged my staff to freshen up our brand about eight months ago and they hit a brick wall. They hit a brick wall and I was frustrated, erin. I was frustrated, we just couldn't get there. And so they trapped me in my room and they go how do you see this new Hager tweaking of a brand? I go it's got to have movement and it's got to have stretch.
Speaker 3:And then I remembered, two years ago, in the closet in my office, I bought, off of a whim, my very favorite childhood toy, which was an authentic slinky. So I ran to the office, grabbed that slinky, came back to the office and I go this is your inspiration, I want to stretch, I want us to be bendable. So now there is a slinky on every desk. It's also our business card. When you come visit us, you get a slinky. And so do you know how much I listen to this noise. That's my sound of everyone loving what they do every day creatively. And we all play with the slinky all day long. And that's this. It was my favorite childhood toy. So there you go.
Speaker 2:Love it, love it, yep, okay. So what we need to do here, jackie, we need to figure out a way so that slinky sales will have a royalty to the Texas FFA foundation, so we can anyway next time you have to go and you have to speak in front of a crowd, bring a slinky, because they will look at that and go.
Speaker 3:no, what does that really mean? What does this slinky mean to you? Did you know that the history of the slinky was by accident, how it was created? And did you know that in the slinky original uh verbiage and their mantra was the word wonderful, wonderful. So now the word wonderful is in our mantra. There you go.
Speaker 2:There you go, love it, love it, jackie. Thanks again To everybody that stopped by today to hear the podcast again, thank you. Thank you for sharing some of your time with us and you know we're just thankful for this incredible platform time with us. And you know we're just thankful for this incredible platform, this technology that allows us to bring incredible guests on, like Jackie, and just share, share words of encouragement, seeds of greatness that maybe, if planted, makes our homes, our communities, our state and country a better place to live and raise our families.
Speaker 2:So, thanks again for stopping by. Until we meet again, go out and do something nice for somebody else. You're going to feel good about it and guess what? We're going to grow a better future because of it. Thank you.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace.
Speaker 3:Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
