Eileen:

Hello, and welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast, where we ignite soulful conversations with leaders. On today’s episode, Dr. Alicia and Dr. Eileen sit with the founder of Infinity Global Connections, Dr. Adrienne Johnson, to discuss global servant and spiritual leadership.

Alicia:

Welcome to Soul of a Leader podcast. On today’s episode, we have Adrienne Johnson. Adrienne is a long time friend of mine, through an organization, where I was the managing director of Athletes Against Drugs. She was on our advisory board. She was a long time sponsor through Coca Cola, where she spent 23 years at Coca Cola company. She was recognized for her progressive promotions among the executive ranks. Also, Adrienne launched the Wo Ye Bra program in Ghana. Let’s welcome, Adrienne Johnson.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is a blessing to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to just talk and share our testimony. Woo. I’m excited.

Eileen:

So are we Dr. Johnson. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are excited that you’re here. We love your background, and we know from the stories and your wonderful contribution to society that you do lead with your soul. And leading with our soul, our definition is it’s a mixture of authentic leadership, servant leadership, and spiritual leadership. And our first question is tell me a time or a project that you have led with your soul and with passion and all those three wonderful types of leadership styles.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Well, thank you for this question, I think everything I do is led with my soul and, and being a minister it’s led with my spirit. And so I am a servant leader. And so the project that I’m most excited about as my current program, the Wo Ye Bra. Wo Ye Bra is a Ghanaian term, which refers to your menstrual cycle. And what I saw when I was visiting Ghana, West Africa, is that girls miss school because they don’t have adequate sanitary supplies. And they may have only one uniform. So they don’t want to take a chance on ruining that uniform so they don’t go to school. So that would mean a young girl would miss maybe, I don’t know, 40, 50, 60 days a year out of school because she can’t go during her menstrual cycle.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So I saw a need and I filled it. And so initially I bought 1000 sanitary pads and I took them to Ghana and passed them out in villages. And I said, “Oh, this is great. This is great.” I told my husband, I said, “God is so pleased.” And I said, “Wait a minute. No, he’s not. Because we’re giving them fish instead of teaching them how to fish.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So we created the program where I started giving away sewing machines, fabric, anything, and everything you need to sew. And we taught them how to make reusable sanitary pads. But not only did we do that, but we gave them money to start their business. And I only work with women, and I worked through the churches, through the pastors. And I only work with women who have done two things. One is that they’ve come to the altar and asked God for a miracle, or they came to the altar and asked God for a second chance because we serve a God of second chances. And now the women in the villages, now where they used to laugh at some of them… Because most of my women are uneducated. And so now in some of the villages, they call them the Madame of the village, because that means they have the respect now because they own a business. They now make sanitary pads and sell them and can sustain themselves and take care of their family and their children.

Alicia:

I’m so proud of you. And to know Adrienne is special. And so what I hear you talking about, it’s empowering women. It’s a passion. It comes out when you talk about it. I am especially pleased and happy at how you are leading. And one of my questions would be, which is one of the subjects, is how do you see servant leadership in America 2.0? We are certainly in a different phase of America, which means to me, for how we see it, is servant leadership must change. So how do you see it in America 2.0?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I see servant leadership in America. 2.0, is that I think you have to listen to what God has told you. See, I think God talks to everybody. He’s given everybody a mission, a calling. So whether you answer that call or you respond to that mission, if we do the world will be fine. But you have to hear his voice and know his voice when he’s talking to you, and then you have to be like a duck on water, where it looks like they’re just floating around, but the underneath they’re paddling like heck. And so I think you have to look for your calling, understand your calling, understand your mission. And don’t ask questions, just do it. When Jesus was on the water and he asked Peter to get off the boat, he didn’t say, “Well, come on Peter and walk for about 15 minutes, and you’ll see.” He didn’t do that. He just said, “Come.” And that’s what we have to do. When he calls us, we have to go, we have to come, and we have to do it right then.

Eileen:

Dr. Johnson, I have a question on that. Someone once told me that praying is talking to God, and meditating or being at peace, being open with your hands open is you have to be open in clear mind to receive from God. Is there a way that you could share when you say, hear his voice? Maybe some things that help you for our listeners?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

A lot of time God speaks to me in my sleep, and that little voice you hear… I’ve heard God said, “I need you to go to South Africa.” I’ll wake my husband up… because it’s important for you to marry somebody evenly yoked. So when I say, “Honey, I got to go to South Africa.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “When?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “What’s today?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “It’s Tuesday.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “I need to be there by Friday.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And he said, “Okay, well, when do you come home?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Whatever I have to do, I have to be there Friday. And I’ll be back as soon as my mission is over.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So I fly to Africa by myself. I flew there on Friday, got there Friday. I showed up at the village and they said, “Reverend Johnson, why are you here?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “I don’t know, what’s going on? We’ve been sending you money since January. It’s now June, what are you doing with the money?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And they said, “We never got any money. We got money in January. We didn’t get any more.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Well everybody in the van, we’re going to the bank.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So we go to the Bank of South Africa and I asked the lady, I said, “Where’s the money for [inaudible 00:07:25] Baptist church?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And so the lady said, “No, there’s no money here for them. And what do you want?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And I had my collar on. And so I said, “Call the branch manager.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So the branch manager came out and he said, “What do you want?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And I said, “I’m here for the money for [inaudible 00:07:41]. I’ve been sending $500 a month since January, it’s now June, where is their money?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And he said, “There is no money. He said that was drug money.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “That was not drug money, that was God’s money. And you’re going to give them their money now.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And so I think God is looking for warriors. He’s looking for people that won’t say, “God said go to Africa. But I don’t know. I don’t know if that was really God.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

You have to learn his voice and listen for the voice. And so the moral to the story was the Zulus that I took with me to the bank when I called the manager and the manager was hollering to me and I was hollering at him, and the Zulus, they backed away from me. And they were like, “Reverend Johnson’s going crazy.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And then I said, “Okay if you won’t [inaudible 00:08:24], I want you to call the American embassy. And I need the South African police here because you’re going to give them their money.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And so they said, “Oh, Reverend, Johnson’s going crazy. She’s calling the police on herself.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And they left me. But he wound up giving me the money and we were all fine, but you got to know the voice, you got to be able to recognize his voice when he’s talking to you. He won’t tell you anything wrong. Like if he says, “You should date that guy even though he’s married but don’t worry about him being married.” No, that’s not of God.

Alicia:

Absolutely.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

No, that’s not him. That’s somebody else. I don’t know who that is, that’s not God.

Eileen:

But what I really want to emphasize on this story when I heard, and then I’ll let Dr. Alicia talk, is the fact you heard, you acted without knowing, and it all unfolded, it bloomed. And that’s what a spiritual leader does. Thank you for sharing that. That’s exactly what you know is what this is about, leading with your soul. So thank you.

Alicia:

We have Soul of a Leader value cards that we use on our clients. And as you were telling the story, and if people were here, they would have to see us, you can see the leadership skills coming out of you, leading them, really showing those ladies and those individuals how do you challenge people to stand up to their integrity, or not to even bully you. You heard from God, that inner peace, he certainly is not going to lead you the wrong way as you stated earlier. He’s not going to say, “Hey, that’s your husband. He’s married.” Well, that is not of God. As you said, I don’t know what voice that is, but it’s certainly not the peace of God or the love of God, because he wouldn’t steer you the wrong way.

Alicia:

However, what I hear you saying is that integrity is very important in the ability for you as a leader, to show those ladies, “I sent you money because,” Here’s the thing, your integrity was on the line. And you think that they have the money. And they said, “Well, we didn’t get anything since January.” You have been sending it for six months. And so from a leadership perspective, you exemplify to those ladies, what it means to first have integrity, what it means to stand up as a leader, and number three, what it means to not allow people to bully you or deter you from standing for what is right.

Alicia:

And so I would say for my next question, how do you feel that you’re making a great difference in the lives of those women? What are other examples of stories that you know for sure that you’re making a great difference in their life?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So the women in Ghana, West Africa, I know we’re making a difference. I don’t just put you in business and you never see me again. I go three and four times a year, and I have what’s called business reviews. Because I retired from the Coca Cola company. Everything I learned at the Coca Cola company, I have transferred those skills to my program, the Wo Ye Bra program. So when I go back, I will give an award for the person who sold the most sanitary pads. I would give an award for the woman who’s the most creative, who does BOGOs. In Coca Cola, that means buy one get one. So if you get creative and you do that…

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I also work with them, I go to their homes, I go to their villages. In fact, I even spent a weekend at a village. Wow, that was an experience. But what you have to do is you have to go the way… You have to know the way, go the way, and then show the way. And that’s what I’m doing. And so for the women, I know it makes a difference because they call me, they call me from Ghana. In fact, now they’re calling me now worried about me here in the United States with all this that’s going on. There were, “Reverend Johnson, are you okay? Do you need to come back here to Ghana to be safe?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “No, baby. I’m okay. Reverend Johnson’s strong. We’re holding out.” I know it makes a difference because now their children are going to school. Their children are able to stay in school and they can buy things. And then the great thing about it, I’ve taught them how to pivot. So not only are they making sanitary pads, they’re now pivoting in their business, so now they’re making face masks. So they’re just selling face masks. Once you got a sewing machine, that’s a tool. And I tell them, keep it clean, keep it oiled, don’t let anybody take your machine and just work with your machine because it will work for you.

Alicia:

I mean, I’m lost for words on that. I mean, I like the word that you used, pivoting. Let’s talk a little bit more about that, explain to our listeners, when you say, “I taught them how to pivot,” Because I see it as you taught them how to leverage something. They have a tool and that tool is a sewing machine. They have a business that they have to sew. When you say pivot, let’s go a little more into that. What is that?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So pivot, let’s make it in American terms. It’s like the Uber drivers used to pick up people to take them to the airport. Well, when the virus came around and nobody was going to the airport, what did they do? They pivot. Instead of taking people to the airport, they started delivering groceries. They started doing other things. They didn’t get rid of their cabs or their cars. They just pivoted and start doing something else. And that’s what I’ve got my women doing, they’re pivoting and doing more things. Some of them are making shoes. Some of them are doing masks. Some of them are training other women, so now they’re charging women to learn from them. So I told them, I said, “You are a business entrepreneur.” So when they come into wherever we’re doing training, they normally come in with their heads down and quiet because they don’t know what to expect.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

But when they come in, I said, “No, this is your brand new machine. This is yours. You are the woman of the day. When you go back to your village, I want you to walk tall and proud.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I give them a certificate because a lot of them have not graduated from high school, so they never got a chance to graduate. So I play the graduation… We march, they graduate, and I give them a certificate to put on their wall. And then I give them cash, so when they go back, that says, “You can ball out a little bit, you can pass a little money around because you’re a businesswoman.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And when I come in and I have business meetings and business reviews, I pay their way to come and see me and I buy them lunches or dinner. And so it’s just amazing, because I do dinner and lunch because I know they may be hungry, and you cannot concentrate if you’re hungry. So that’s one of the things. But I did learn a lesson. I told them, I said, “We’re going to learn how to sew,” Because I bring in seamstresses to teach them a new stitch or something new. And so I noticed nobody was eating their lunch. And I said, “Why aren’t you all eating?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And so my partner, Ellen [Aduba 00:15:35], who’s a Ghanaian, said, “Reverend Johnson, they’re not eating because they’re taking that food home for their children.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So I started crying because I was like, “I just ordered three pieces of chicken and some rice and a salad. I didn’t know I was feeding a family, I would have ordered a big box of chicken, but you would take home.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So, you live and learn, what can I say?

Eileen:

Well, what you said earlier was know the way, go the way, show the way. Not only are you doing it in your heart, but you’re doing it to the women you just discussed. Right?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Right.

Eileen:

And you’re planting seeds and making leaders out of all of these people by your role modeling. It’s not-

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Yes, but I’m also keeping God at the front. And I tell them, “Don’t worship Reverend Johnson, because I live in America. I’m going home on Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

But I hold all the training in the church with the pastor. We pray before the training, and we pray after the training and they come through the church because I tell them, “It’s not me. It’s God. I’m just the grandmother who lives in Fayetteville, Georgia, who God has whispered in her ear, “Go do this for me.” So don’t worship me, don’t honor me, it’s not me. It’s God.” So give him all the credit. When y’all go to church on Sunday, you need to pray, get on your knees, and thank God for this miracle.

Eileen:

Thank you. That’s great.

Alicia:

And it’s certainly only a miracle to some of those women. I know that it’s in their heart to be appreciative. One of our values is gratitude, and they show you, and your love for God and your humility towards understanding that it is about them and not you, it’s as exemplified to them. My next question is how do you deal with some of the challenges, trying to express whatever the mission of the vision is to grow your organization?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I guess I have to not become an American when I go to Ghana and become a sort of a Ghanaian, it’s their culture. So when I go into a village and I say I want to talk to the women, and I go to a school, it’s all men in the room. And I said, “Wait a minute, I’m here to talk about sanitary pads. Where are the women?” And they said, “No, we know, because in the village when a young girl has her period, her father will make the announcement that Adrienne is now having her period and she now could be married.” So the men know.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So I had to change shifts in thinking so that I wouldn’t say, “Well, where all the women? I want to talk to women.” I have to talk to who they say I talk to. So it’s just changing your attitude and adapting the culture. And I go with women, or I train women because one of the things I know, if you train a woman, that’s training the family, and that’s also helping the community. Because if you give women an opportunity, they’re going to take care of those children and their family and the community, everybody. So that’s your whole village, everybody.

Alicia:

Well, one of the other questions or discussions, how do you challenge the women to be their best? How do you challenge them to be their best at what they’re doing?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

So I always have a motivational speech for the women in the Wo Ye Bra program. I tell them my story. I said, “Listen, I was born in the Hills of Kentucky. I was born in Virginia, but I was raised in the Hills of Kentucky, and I was a track star. And I was on my way to Tennessee. And I had a run for the Tennesseean Tigerbelles. Wilma Rudolph was my hero. And I just knew I was going to run in the Olympics for the United States of America. And then what happens at my 11th grade at 17 years old? I’m pregnant.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “My life just goes in a tailspin. And so people start laughing at me. They put you out of day school.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

My friend said, “Oh, Adrienne is bad, we don’t want to be around her.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And one thing about being in the Hills of Kentucky, if there’s a pregnancy, there’s going to be a wedding. Now that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a marriage, but there’s going to be a wedding. I’m married at 17, I got divorced at 19,20. And so, here I am 19 years old, with a kid and with a GED. So what am I supposed to do? And so my feet got to moving. God orders your stops, but he orders your starts.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And so God ordered my start, and I tell them, I said, “Listen if I can do it, you can do it too. And I know I was in American, you’re here in Ghana.” Or Sierra Leone now, we’ve been Sierra Leone. I said, “But I let them see that I’m nobody. And God is no respector of persons. If God could do that for me, then here I am now a global speaker and all the things, and I started off as a 17-year-old with a baby, put out of high school, no friends, divorced by 19. If God could do that for me, he can do it for you.” So that’s how I teach them because it happened to me. So I know what it’s like to be an underdog.

Eileen:

And with that, Alicia and I were having a discussion this week about… I asked earlier about listening to God but also listen to the voice within you to give you that energy initiative to move forward. We have God coming in, but was there a voice within too from you, to say, “I need to do this, to follow this,” To get you to the next level?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I’ve been hearing this voice for a long time. And I was working with Coca Cola and I had gone to Detroit, to meet with Isaiah Thomas. And a little voice said, “Go back to the airport, your husband’s there.” I said, “Isaiah, I gotta go. My husband’s at the airport.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “Adrienne, you’re not married.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Shut up, Isaiah. Nobody asked you anything. This voice told me to go.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “Who is that voice?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “It’s God.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Isaiah called the limo driver, says, “Take this Coke lady back to the airport.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I walk into Delta. I said, “Listen, Delta, I need to get on the next flight going because my husband’s on the plane.” Pulls up the record. He said, “Adrienne Green?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Yeah.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “You’re not married. Your record says you’re not married.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Will y’all stop telling me this. My husband’s there. I got to go. Get me on the next flight.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “It’s all booked.” He said, “Your flight is at five o’clock.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “I got to go. I got to go.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “Who told you there was a plane?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “God.” He did like that with the keyboard. I thought he was calling security. I kept looking around for police coming to get me. He handed me the ticket. And I said, “I thought you said the flights were booked.”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

He said, “Didn’t you say God sent you?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

I said, “Yes.” From that day, I know God will put people in your path when he tells you to go do something. So I’m walking down the airport. I was like, “God, my husband’s here. Which one is he?” There’s a bunch of people. Do I have to marry that guy in the wheelchair? Or the guy with the gray hair, what is it? It’s been 25 years, I can’t see him, God. Just then I saw this fine brother come by, I was like, “God you going to give me a fine brother?”

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Sure enough, long story short, we dated. We met on the plane. We dated six weekends. We eloped to Las Vegas, got married. We’ve been married for 28 years.

Eileen:

Oh my gosh. What a story.

Alicia:

Only Adrienne can do that story.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

Alicia’s heard that story 1000 times. She’s already met Joe and everything.

Eileen:

Oh my gosh. Well, that tells you, people, when you hear that voice, you act.

Alicia:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

It works out, a lot of women went to the airport looking for their husband.

Alicia:

Exactly, right? If it happened to Adrienne, it’ll happen to me.

Eileen:

But you have to hear the voice. It may be in the grocery store. It may be walking down the street. It may be anywhere. You have to listen to that voice.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

That’s right.

Alicia:

Before we end, Adrienne, because the conversation can go on and on, you are a woman of wisdom and we would like to know what are some words of wisdom that you would like to leave with our listeners for today?

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

All right. So, because I ran track, I still think I’m a track star 50 years later. So the lessons I learned from the track are the lessons that really helped me, and a couple of things in running track. I learned to focus on and run your race. Don’t run anybody else’s race, run your race. Stay in your lane, if you go in other lines, you’ll get disqualified. Don’t compare yourself to other runners or your competitors, run your race. Don’t drop the baton because you’ve got to pass it on to someone else. And don’t ever look back. It’s not what happens in the past, it’s where God is taking you forward.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

And the last one is to celebrate the wins. God is an awesome God. He does great things for us and we deserve greatness and he wants us to be great and powerful. We don’t serve a God who wants bad things for us. Jeremiah says, “I know the things I have, the plans I have for you to prosper you and to give you peace.” I mean, oh my God. I wish I could just tell all my women friends out there that, and man friends too, that God has something great in store for you as a person.

Alicia:

Absolutely.

Eileen:

Wow. Wonderful advice. I love it. Run your race. Stay in your lane. Don’t drop the baton. Don’t look back and celebrate the wins. You can’t beat that, it goes in every area of life. Thank you so much.

Alicia:

Yeah. And don’t compare yourself with others. I mean that right there is just another huge conversation. So often we want to compare, as Adrienne said, our race with somebody else’s race. Well, God didn’t give you their race, he gave you your own race. And obviously your race is going to look different. You may be running the same distance or you may be running down the same road, but you cannot compare your race with another person’s race. So that one is really strong. I like don’t drop the baton too.

Eileen:

I really liked the compare one because I can’t remember who told me this, don’t ever compare yourself to anybody because you always find people above or below. What you need to do is compare yourself on where you were last year, and have you grown or contributed or served in a manner, and that’s the comparison is where you yourself was and aligns perfectly. Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Adrienne Johnson:

No, thank you, ladies. This has been amazing. I always love to tell people about the goodness of the Lord because he’s been good to me.

Eileen:

Thank you for joining us on the Soul of a Leader podcast. We are igniting a new way of leading with your soul, and interviewing ordinary people with extraordinary impact. Thank you for listening to the stories of our leaders who will help and guide you on your leadership journey. For more information on our podcast, please visit our website at wwwsoulofaleader.com. Thank you for listening.