Meet Dr. K. Shelette Stewart

We were lucky to catch up with Dr. K. Shelette Stewart recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. K. Shelette , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I found my purpose by way of Coca-Cola! I was blessed to serve in leadership roles with The Coca-Cola Company for many years. It is a wonderful organization and one that I highly recommend! I found myself in a great role, six-figure salary, stock options, company car, and traveling around the country managing the Company’s strategic partnerships. But, after a few years, I started feeling a sense of disengagement, dissatisfaction, disconnection. I had this yearning, this calling to write a book. A book to help business leaders connect their career with their calling; their profession with their purpose, so that what they do in business, they are anointed for it and truly passionate about it. So, I started writing my book on the weekends and it was pure joy! It was intellectually stimulating, personally gratifying, and spiritually edifying like no other assignment I’d ever had. I knew it was a calling from God and that it was connected to my purpose. After working on the book for a few years, the calling became so strong that I resigned from the Company and took a 2-year sabbatical to focus full-time on completing the book. This chartered a whole new course in my career and helped me to uncover my purpose around helping others align career and calling. Today my book, Revelations in Business: Connecting Your Business Plan with God’s Purpose and Plan for Your Life, has won several Christian literary awards and has been formally endorsed by many industry leaders including Dan Cathy, Chairman of Chick-fil-A.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am blessed to serve as an author, global speaker, and consultant. I am the founder and principal of Stewart Consulting, LLC and I am fortunate to have many wonderful client partners including: Microsoft, Chick-fil-A, The Coca-Cola Company, Amazon, Harvard Business School, International Ministries, Lifeworks, the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Yunnan Institute in China, etc. My firm helps organizations with strategic planning and leadership development. So, I spend quite a bit of time developing strategic plans to help my clients grow revenue; facilitating strategic planning sessions for CEOs and their Boards and executive teams; conducting leadership programs for executives; and speaking at global conferences. I recently had the honor of speaking at the Fourth Congress of The Lausanne Movement in Seoul, South Korea and I will be speaking at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in a few weeks. More information about my firm and clients as well as my book, Revelations in Business, and speaking engagements, may be found on my website: www.shelettestewart.com.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I would say, first and foremost, the knowledge of God and a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ is imperative. It is the foundation. The Bible says, in John 15:5, that without Him we can do nothing. Secondly, this notion of first praying to discover your God-given areas of calling and gifts, and then, subsequently, designing a career around them is critical for maximizing your personal fulfillment and professional success. It’s an approach that I did not truly understand and appreciate until I was in my late 30s. I wish I had understood the importance of it earlier in life. So, for people who are just starting their careers, or who may even still be in college or grad school, I would recommend beginning from within by praying and asking God to lead you to the vocation or ministry to which He has called you. Thirdly, I would say the concept of business as ministry is very important and was impactful to my journey. Often times we tend to think of “ministry” within the context of the church. But, business is ministry and should be treated as such. We spend more time at work than we do with our loved ones. Our careers consume over half of our lives. So, it is imperative that what we spend most of time doing, for most of our lives, is also spiritually edifying. I share with leaders, around the world, that we don’t have a personal life and a professional life; we have ONE life and we have to make it count! Because of this belief, during my tenure serving in a leadership role with the Harvard Business School, I made the decision to pursue a second Master’s, post-Doctorate degree from Harvard. The Lord blessed me to graduate from Harvard University in 2019. With God, truly all things are possible.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

In addition, of course, to the Bible, the other book that truly inspired me to write my book, Revelations in Business, was Pastor Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. I love that book! And, after reading it, I was grappling with the question of: What does this mean for me in the workplace? How do I submit to a leader who I may not respect? How do I know if I am in my position by Divine assignment or by default — my fault and its’ time to move on! These are some of the challenges that I address in my book. But, I often think about the fact that if Rick Warren wasn’t obedient to God in writing his book, I may not have been as inspired to write mine. And, I probably would not be sharing insights with you today! He had to be bold in his journey, so that I could be bold in mine. I had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Warren at the Lausanne Movement in Seoul, South Korea and had the opportunity to thank him for his obedience. That’s what I love about Bold Journey and the platform that you all have. It’s all about leveraging our respective paths to embolden, liberate, and emancipate others in pursuing theirs.

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