How To Master Creative Leadership Strategies With Brad Ball

Leadership isn’t just about managing people—it’s about inspiring them through creativity and vision. In this episode, I sit down with Brad Ball, a successful entrepreneur, award-winning artist, and co-founder of Ardent Creative, to uncover how his artistic roots shaped his leadership journey. We explore his transition from art school to building a thriving marketing agency, the challenges he faced navigating market downturns, and how he intentionally designed a family-first company culture.

Brad also shares insights into developing Verity Software, the lessons he learned from setbacks, and the game-changing role of masterminds in his personal and professional growth. We dive into the importance of creativity in leadership, why tapping into your artistic side can fuel innovation, and Brad’s upcoming book, Art of Entrepreneurs: Unlocking Your Creative Genius. Whether you’re a leader looking to build a scalable culture or seeking inspiration for your next big idea, this episode is packed with actionable strategies you can apply today.

Connect with Brad Ball:
 
Brad Ball is a wealth of wisdom when it comes to combining creativity with leadership. Connect with him at bradball.com or follow him on social media (@iambradball) to learn more about his insights, creative journey, and upcoming book, Art of Entrepreneurs: Unlocking Your Creative Genius. 

Books Mentioned:

• Traction by Gino Wickman 

Join the New Catalytic Leadership Community

Check out our new online membership site, with new resources by Dr. William Attaway and his team added weekly: https://checkout.catalyticleadership.net/

Chapters

• 0:01 From Art to Leadership
• 2:00 Family-First Company Culture
• 6:00 Overcoming Challenges in Business
• 13:55 The Evolution of Verity Software
• 18:03 Masterminds and Growth
• 20:39 Unlocking Creative Genius
• 25:40 Essential Leadership Reads

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I am excited and honored today to have Brad Ball on the podcast. Brad's the co-founder of Ardent Creative, a full-service creative agency specializing in design, development, marketing and AI solutions. He's also the co-founder of Verity Software and a partner in the Committed Mastermind. Although Brad's a successful entrepreneur, he's also an award-winning artist. For Brad, those two cannot be separated. Many of the connections he's made in his business career can be traced back to his performance art painting where he expresses his artistry live and on stage. A firm believer, nothing is by chance. Brad knows that the brush and canvas have forever shaped his life and his clients are fortunate recipients of that creativity. Brad, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Brad Ball: 0:53

I'm glad I'm here. It's always fun hearing your own bio read back to you, right?

Dr. William Attaway: 1:01

How am I supposed to respond to that?

Brad Ball: 1:02

Yeah, yeah yeah, it's all true.

Intro/Outro: 1:05

Pretty much Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:29

William Attaway. Brett, I want to start with a bit of your story. I'd love for you to share some of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Brad Ball: 1:37

Well, I mean, I guess it all starts going back to college. I got an art degree, never thought I'd be in business and but in that ended up becoming a pastor back in around 2000. And I think you know when you become a pastor you naturally have to become a leader and so I was a youth pastor and so obviously got lots of eyes looking at you and be an example and I was very much lead by example type of attitude throughout my career and that's evolved over time. But I would say that was the root of it, just foundationally in church and growing up.

Dr. William Attaway: 2:13

You know, I think that one of the things from our conversation really fascinated me and impressed me was how you know faith is not just an optional add-on in your life. This is a core part of who you are, even outside of your time spent as a pastor.

Brad Ball: 2:30

Well, I mean, I think leadership goes well beyond just kind of what you're taught. I think there's inherent values and beliefs that people have, whether that's Christian or something else, and mine's obviously based upon, you know, my faith. But our company is not necessarily a Christian company. We hire people from all walks of life and part of that is just so, you know, I can be who I am to everybody, and that's a part of leadership. It's, and so you know, we've had many conversations, whether it was faith or science or any of that type of stuff, but leadership is about, in some ways, just being there for the team that's around you being available, and for me it's always been, like I said, by example, and so if you want to have great employees, then you need to be. You know, you need to lead that way, and in the same sense I remember I'll tell you a story as it relates to leadership and our company is that we're very family oriented. I have kids that are now 17, about to graduate high school in several, just a few months, and so I could have easily made a lot more money over the years if I wanted to sacrifice family over money, and so that's one of our inherent core values is. Family is important as long as you get your work done. Take the time you need to develop your family, because I believe that if your house is in order, your work's going to be in order, and vice versa. And the minute those get out of alignment is the minute one of those areas suffers and we were doing.

Brad Ball: 4:03

Coming up on Christmas this might have been eight to 10 years ago now one of our key developers who's not Christian, he's very scientific oriented and very dry, let's say he's a developer and we had some difficult experiences early on and part of it was just communication and understanding. And I remember sitting outside of our parking lot one day and we're having this conversation. It was kind of heated because we had some culture issues at the time and he said something about the company and it triggered in my mind it's like he's not being difficult to be difficult. He wants to see the best in this company and he's just very direct about saying and communicating that and when that clicks. Our relationship and him as it relates to the company has been night and day different and he's been with us for over 10 years now.

Brad Ball: 4:55

But about Christmas, we were giving out Christmas bonuses and I had our executive team. We wrote out the names and they were direct deposit at the time, but we went through each employee that was there and said something encouraging or a win that they had that year and I had each person on our executive team go through different people and this particular employee came up to me afterwards and he goes Brad Ardent is the best place I've ever worked for. He said when you talk about family, you mean it and he's still with us today and now he's on our leadership team and I think when you lead in that manner, it creates a culture that's very different than what you see in a lot of other companies.

Dr. William Attaway: 5:40

I love that. I think every team, every business has a culture. You either have one you created on purpose or you have one that you didn't mean to have, and I love that you are designing and protecting that culture at Arden. I think that's so healthy. That's good leadership way.

Brad Ball: 6:06

Truth be told is that there was a very difficult time. We had to let go of my first hire, a person I trained, and for a couple of years we went through this really dark period and I didn't understand what culture and values or any of that really meant, because we were young and we worked and did what we did and we were excellent at it. But how do you build a business? I have an art degree, I don't have a business degree. My business partner sold cars, so we had to learn what that meant and you know, reading through the book Traction by Gina Whitman was a help and there's a bunch of different books and we really established that, you know, early on or soon after that period and saw a complete shift in our company and I would say Tr traction for me as a leader was a big part of that.

Dr. William Attaway: 6:51

I love that. So how did you get and we kind of skipped over this, but how did you get from, I mean, art degree pastorate marketing agency, like how did that turn happen?

Brad Ball: 7:04

Well, so in college I worked in the communication office doing design and then the school paper, and when I graduated with my degree I worked doing design at the university, and in that time I was a youth leader. And in 2000, my mom got sick and was diagnosed with a terminal disease. So I quit my job to take care of her, and so that's really how I started my business. And what's kind of ironic is in college I had a business course. It was one of the core curriculums and I made pretty much all A's, a few B's and had two C's in college, and one was a history class. That was it was. I could go into details. It was very difficult and I had a business class and I would have made an A or B, but I bombed one test because I went completely blank. I'd never gone completely blank in a test before, and I think it's just ironic. Guess what the subject was about.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:01

Marketing, marketing.

Brad Ball: 8:05

And here we are and you know it's now. I'm on the business board of advisors and uh, made a c in the class. But you know it's just kind of funny now telling that story. But I'm very much uh, my expertise and where I would say I'm uh excellent at is, you know, branding strategy and those types of things. I don't get into the weeds anymore as it relates to marketing or that, you know the hey, this is where the ad buy goes. I'm looking at the marketing as a whole strategy, customer avatar, those types of things. As it relates to leadership, I've kind of have the Henry Ford mentality where you've got a team of people that are experts. I may understand aspects of it, but if you want to get into the weeds of how Google ads works, I've got a guy, and so that's kind of my approach as it relates to leaders.

Dr. William Attaway: 8:58

Well, I think that's healthy because it, you know, it allows you to do the things that only you can do If you're in the weeds. If you're, you know, it allows you to do the things that only you can do If you're in the weeds, if you're, you know, like doing the mechanics of a Google ad, that's time that you're not spent doing the things that only you can do, Right.

Brad Ball: 9:16

Well and I think that's the hard part, especially early on I had to learn as a leader was I had the mindset of if you want it done right, you do it yourself. Yeah, because even today I'm probably one of if you want it done right, you do it yourself, because even today I'm probably one of the fastest designers. My brain just clicks that way artistically and I'm just extremely fast with that. But I had to let go of that and let my team or employees really learn and at some points fail to get better and to learn, and that's what has made us a stronger company.

Brad Ball: 9:44

I think as leaders it's hard to do that sometimes because you're used to doing it a certain way. But if you hire capable people, you can train them and lead them in a much bigger way, and so if you can in some ways clone yourself, that'd be great. But the more you sow into people, the more they're going to learn. And now we have team members that sound just like me because they've been in meetings long enough to know what to say. Or sometimes I don't even have to ask what do you think about a design? They're already going to know because they've spent enough time with me, and so then I can really step away and look at things from a 30,000 foot view, develop relationships and things like that.

Dr. William Attaway: 11:56

You know, I think some of the folks listening may be listening to your story and maybe they've checked you out online and they think, oh wow, yeah. Well, brad man, his journey's just been up and to the right Like he's never had to deal with the struggles and the challenges and the difficult days that I have to deal with. You know, he's just his, his, his ride's just been just a rocket to the right. If they were to stand in front of you and say that, what would your response be?

Brad Ball: 12:25

I would say they're naive. If you've been in business for any length of time, you're going to go through ups and downs. Business is a rollercoaster.

Intro/Outro: 12:36

I've written about that.

Brad Ball: 12:37

There's no smooth sailing. If it is, they're lying to you. When you look at YouTube sensations like Mr Beast or Hermosi or any of those guys they put in the work for years before they exploded. It's not like it just happens overnight. And so you know I've had IRS audits, I've had to sue people, I've had sales tax audits, and you know those aren't fun to walk through, but it's part of business, but that's also what makes you stronger.

Brad Ball: 13:10

And so I've walked through 9-11, you know the market crash in, you know the 08-09. Actually built a house in that time too, which is kind of interesting, oh my goodness. But I can go through our books and you know we were very good in some of those early times because we were small and agile. So we actually grew during the 08, 09 era, but then COVID was, you know, a whole other animal. We were ready for it, but a lot of our clients weren't, and so obviously we took a big hit there. In the last couple of years have been up and down and we've been trying to build softwares and watching those, and so we've invested in a lot of other things and navigating employees that aren't necessarily bringing money to the bottom line, but you're building out something. It's just a tough road when you're trying to do things that are outside the box and build something unique.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:08

So tell me about Verity Software. What is that about?

Brad Ball: 14:12

So we built a software for an oil and gas client back in 2018, and they didn't have the budget, so we retained the IP and we're going to take it to oil and gas. And then it crashed. You know, oil and gas plummeted, so there was, you know, we had some people lined up to look at it and then they weren't spending money anymore and so we kind of migrated that during COVID. We rebuilt it from scratch during COVID and to try to go into different markets. One was schools, because in Texas, the Senate mandated that schools need to threat, assess and track students after the Uvalde shooting and so, like, well, our software basically does that, so let's redo it and so. But schools were a nightmare.

Brad Ball: 14:53

Covid hit and basically shut that down, because they weren't looking at it, and so that's kind of been, you know, hidden because they weren't looking at it, and so that's kind of been hidden. And then in the Build Back Better plan, biden put in there oil and gas companies need to track methane emissions or they're going to get fined, and obviously with the political, the politics of that, there's some nuances. But we went ahead and added that feature into the software and so we have officially launched it this year. The client that originally had us build the software is in the new software and using it 100% now, and so we're kind of in the launch phase. But what it does it manages a well site, not the drill itself, but like the property around it, so they can track and manage incidents If something's stolen, because oil and gas companies know if a certain person walks on a well site it's going to cost them X amount of dollars, and if they can mitigate that they can save a lot of money.

Brad Ball: 15:46

And so the client has ultimately saved about $2 million year over year by utilizing their process and the software to mitigate those incidents. And so that was a great case study, and so now we're just trying to get that software out there. And so it's been what four or five years now, and we put a lot of investment in that. And how we got into that is because we build websites and we have in-house developers and we do complex application development, and so they came to us hey, can you do this?

Dr. William Attaway: 16:14

Yes, and we just ended up building our own and you're a partner in the Committed Mastermind, which is where you and I met that's correct At one of the Mastermind events. How do you balance all of these different things? I mean the old proverb you know chase two rabbits, catch none. You know you are demonstrating that it's possible to lead at a very high-performing level with multiple things, multiple irons in the fire, so to speak. What's your secret.

Brad Ball: 16:48

Well, I would say sometimes I feel like I'm failing, but I think it's putting people in positions that you trust to do the job for you, and leaders necessarily aren't meant to do the work. You hire teams and you build trust to do the job for you, and leaders necessarily aren't meant to do the work. You hire teams and you build people to do that work. And I think a successful business, the leader isn't involved in the day-to-day, because if you go to exit, the more that leader's involved, it devalues the business. That's right.

Brad Ball: 17:16

And so probably seven or eight years ago, I was trying to work out of that day-to-day and so probably seven or eight years ago I was trying to work out of that day to day. And so I would say the reason why I feel like failing is like what should I be doing in the business? Because I'll design a little bit, but not as much. But my creative director, kind of my ops guy, he's like you don't need to be doing this stuff, and so they try not to give me certain things because I shouldn't be involved in the day-to-day. And so that's true leadership is when you have a team that takes the mantle and runs with it and then you just basically lead them, build them up, train them, and you're there as somewhat of a coach or consultant it's great, great counsel it's.

Dr. William Attaway: 17:58

It's almost as though you have continued to grow and learn, uh, as you have led, and that yields so much fruit. I'm curious, like how do you do that? How do you continue to level up and develop the skills that your team and your clients need you to have?

Brad Ball: 18:16

the easy answer is masterminds, which is how I got into the committed mastermind. So I was in one called C12, which is a Christian board basically. Then I went into EO and we were a sponsor for Fort Worth EO for a while and then ended up joining one called War Room, and I'd say War Room was probably the most beneficial I mean, just the people in the room were amazing into that of what's going to be the most valuable to me as a leader, and Amazon Audible has been a huge game changer for me. So I'm a visual guy but with Audible I can listen to a lot more content faster. But just being in that room and being around those leaders even though I may not feel like I'm on the same level as many of those guys, or even, especially in the beginning, that I was a fit in the room, that I belonged I learned over time that there is value.

Brad Ball: 19:34

And how I got involved and committed was I was speaking at an event and asked how many agencies in that room had done over a million dollars, and there's probably 40 people in the room. Two people raised their hand. One was my mastermind partner and then another was one of my buddies who owns a VA company and that was more than likely in his VA, but none of the other people in the room had done over a million dollars and so it made me step back. It's like, huh, okay, I do have something to share and I do have value. And that kind of led into conversations with JC Heights and Karen over there with Committed and ultimately where they asked me to be a part of the team be a part of the team.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:22

You know there's so much value in learning from other people, and putting yourself in environments like that with a teachable spirit and a teachable posture, I think adds so much value. And I really want to challenge the listeners If you are not engaged in a mastermind environment, you need to make that a priority in 2025, because there's nothing that will help you go farther faster than learning from a community of people who are like-minded, who understand the entrepreneurial journey, and I love that. You shared that, brad. Thank you for that, of course. So where does painting fit in? In? Because you are, you're a, you're a painter, a stage painter, you, you paint on stage in front of live audiences and come up with some phenomenal, just astounding works that I have seen. Where does that fit in to the life of brad?

Brad Ball: 21:13

so it comes in waves. Uh, early on, when I first started, I did about half painting and half design and then also youth pastoring on the side. That's how I kind of took care of my mom and grew. And then in 2004, three or four, I was so busy doing design I gave up the pastoring because it wasn't fair to the kids and focused just on design and so eventually business took over and so it's like one month I'll have two events and then go dark for three or four months. But I still do painting, like I just did a painting for an event. It was a studio painting and it went very well fits in as a creative outlet.

Brad Ball: 21:56

And if you look at creativity and your business, it doesn't matter who you are, what you think, what you do. You're creative by nature and I think that's how God created us as human beings throughout our history. If you have kids, look at them. Their imaginations are amazing. Their creativity is off the charts. But then we're stuck in an educational system that suppresses that. And I'm actually in the process of finishing a book called Art of Entrepreneurs Unlocking your Creative Genius, which kind of outlines some of my journey and the artistic side of it. And the more you tap into that creativity, the more you're going to impact your business. And an example of that is I was doing this painting I just mentioned recently, and we had this new client that came across.

Brad Ball: 22:45

They wanted a logo design and they were kind of burned by a previous agency. They didn't like what came out and so my team did a couple different versions, which were good, and I was like here, let me have a stab at it. So I'd been creating and I took this concept and something just triggered. I was like here, let me have a stab at it. So I'd been creating and I took this concept and something just triggered. I was like what about this? And I mocked it up in like 10 minutes, gave it to my creative director, he put it in the presentation and they ended up choosing that design.

Brad Ball: 23:12

Wow. But I was in that frame of mind of creativity and almost visionary, thinking that when I saw it it just boom, it came to me and that's what happened. I've had more vision, more dreams and things like that when I'm in that mindset and so really challenging entrepreneurs and leaders to tap into something creative, because if you're struggling with ideas, that's the outlet to increase those ideas, and so that's kind of the premise of the book, talking about looking at things from different perspectives and some of my artistic journeys. But I just love I mean I'm an artist by trade and that's rolling into the business. I always struggle with how to merge art and business and painting together, and so this is kind of that avenue of how they all fit together.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:01

That's fascinating. I cannot wait to read this book. This sounds like something I'm going to just dive into, and I can't wait to when does this one come out?

Brad Ball: 24:11

Well, I was hoping I'd have it ready for Christmas and I've got one of my buddies who's an editor. He's had some stuff happen so he hasn't gone through the final. It's basically the final edit. I'm on the third edit. Once I get that back and I'm not trying to pressure him because he's kind of doing it as a friend and he's a very well established editor and waiting for that and then once I get that back, I'll probably have a release date early in the year. So I want it to be done right and I want it to be as good as it can be, but also not overthink it too.

Brad Ball: 24:45

As an artist, you know, sometimes I'm very much stage painter. Nothing's ever perfect. There's some artists that they keep going and they keep going until it's perfect Right. I think there's a lot in the imperfection that people miss, and the same thing can be applied in anything in your lives. It's through that imperfection that we learn and grow, and so you know we'll see what happens. I'm excited where it is. You know, I started with like 33,000 words, went through a first round of edit. Now it's at like 48,000 words, enhancing stories and telling stories like Netflix. You think about Netflix and what they've done. If they weren't creative and visionary thinking, they would have died back in the blockbuster days. And even now, if they didn't start doing their own content, disney and all those other content creators would shut them down and those types of stories that people know but they don't always realize. And if you can apply those types of stories into your own business and get a different perspective, it's going to have a huge impact.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:54

I love that. I love that, as you are in this continual learning posture, is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening? Hey, if you haven't read this, check it out.

Brad Ball: 26:15

Well, there's a few of my favorite books. I mentioned Traction already for Mission Vision Culture. There's another one like. Dream Big by Bob Goff is a good one. Yeah, why am I going blank? Love Bob Goff, others. Oh man, now I have to look it up. There's one of my favorites that nobody ever hears about and I'm going completely blank. So give me one second. Well, now I have to know it. If nobody hears about it, it may be one I going completely blank.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:38

So give me one second. Well, now I have to know it. If nobody hears about it, that may be one I haven't read, so bring it.

Brad Ball: 26:42

That's probably true. Oh no, another one that's really good. Business wise is hard thing about hard things. That's a great book, mad genius by Randy Gage.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:52

I don't know that one.

Brad Ball: 26:53

Yeah, it's a creative. It's a creative book. It's probably what inspired me in some ways to write my book. But yeah, it's a great, easy read. But if you need a motivational book, aside from the language, can't Hurt Me by David Goggins is probably one of my favorite books of all time. Just what he did. I'll just give you a little synopsis. He was a Navy SEAL that went through SEAL school three times. He dropped 100 pounds, just that. Went through SEAL school three times. He dropped a hundred pounds just to get into the SEAL school in a matter of a couple months, my goodness. And he puts his mind to something and he does it and it's, it's amazing, true story biography. It's, it's phenomenal.

Dr. William Attaway: 27:33

Uh, if you need inspiration, but to get yourself out of your chair and do something crazy. That's another one, Brilliant. I look forward to reading it. Thank you for this.

Brad Ball: 27:43

Yeah, Sorry for the delay on magic.

Dr. William Attaway: 27:45

No it's all good. There are so many great reads and I find, in asking this question, not only do I get to learn about books that I may not be familiar with, but our listeners do as well, and we get to build a list to read list which I think every leader should have the books that you want to read next that other people have mentioned. You're like I want to dive into that. Yeah, brad, every time we talk, I learn something and I'm encouraged and inspired, and this is no exception. I'm sure our listeners feel exactly the same way and, if they want to, if they want to connect with you, learn more about what you're doing, what is the best way for them to do that?

Brad Ball: 28:27

They all are. I am Brad Ball Nice. Originally they were Brad Ball Art, but that was kind of confusing because people thought Brad Ball Art, oh and so I swear Nice Wise.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:49

I like that. We will have those links in the show notes. Brad, thank you for your generosity in time today and in sharing what you've learned so far in your journey and sharing those insights. So grateful, and I look forward to seeing what's next for you because I think your best is yet to come.

Brad Ball: 29:06

Thank, you, it's been an honor.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:07

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:43

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 30:27

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.