Speaking to a good crowd of students, staff, board members, and community guests, the president/CEO of Advantage Communications of Little Rock encouraged all listeners to maximize their potential. His presentation mirrored the program theme, “Raising My Standards to Achieve My Dream.”
“It doesn’t matter where you’re from; you can define your own terms of success,” Steele said. “Success is in your heart, in your desire. Be the best you can be every day. If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Dream big.”
“I urge you to adopt a philosophy of hard work. We need each of you to step it up, to do more and give more every day. If you do that, you’ll change your environment. Education is the only way. If you are ignorant, you can’t feed yourself.”
Steele, a native of North Little Rock, grew up in a housing project but did not let his circumstances dictate who he became.
That drive, coupled with an unparalleled work ethic, helped him succeed in school, athletic endeavors, and business. When his family moved to Ohio, Steele, because of his size, caught the eye of one of his ninth-grade teachers. She encouraged him to speak with the basketball coach, even though he told her he had never played the sport.
The coach let him take the floor but soon called the young man to the sideline. “He said, ‘Son, get out of my gym,’” Steele recalled.
The youngster related the story to his mother, and she told him to go back the next day and ask the coach what it would take for him to make the team the next year.
“I was just as naïve as I could be, and I asked him,” Steele recalled. “He looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘You need to play every day, twice a day, and don’t come back until you do.’”
Steele did just that. “He didn’t know who he was talking to. I played every day, twice a day, every day, twice a day.”
The coach didn’t even recognize him the next year, but Steele made the team and earned high school All-American honors. He later played collegiately Western Michigan University and accepted another challenge there. The coach wanted him to improve his shooting and told him to take 1,000 jump shots a day. Steele decided 2,000 would be a more appropriate workout.
“What I was doing was learning how to work and survive,” he said. “I was learning that you can do anything if you can dream.”
He also learned what it took to excel in the classroom.
“I had no idea what college was,” Steele said. “All I knew was it’s a lot of work, a lot of work. I took it serious; I did not want to be a dumb basketball player. Basketball is just a vehicle to get an education. I studied, and I studied, and I studied, and finished on the honor roll. My professors would run the other way when they saw me because they knew I would ask them questions.”
“The discipline of being an athlete taught me how to go to school. I can pass any class; I don’t care how difficult it is because I learned I could outwork everybody. The only thing that got me through class was my attitude.”
Steele excelled as a college player and was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association. He said his professional career did not amount to much.
“My goal was to get there; my goal was not to stay.”
He returned to college at Bowling Green State University and earned a master’s degree in Business Administration. Upon graduation, he landed a job with a regional brewery (Stroh’s) and worked so hard and well that the Coca-Cola Company came calling.
He began as a marketing analyst and found himself in the same office as graduates of Harvard University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “They were very bright, but they didn’t work very hard,” Steele said. “I gave 110 percent every day; I was relentless.”
His effort and attention to detail helped him earn promotions and professional honors. He represented Coca-Cola in Europe and Africa and worked with people like Nelson Mandela (the highlight of his professional life, he said) and Evander Holyfield.
He said his goals always remained the same. “I wanted to provide for my family, set a good example for my community, and do the right thing every day.”
When his father became ill, Steele and his family returned to Arkansas. He founded Advantage Communications 10 years ago, and it has become one of the fastest growing, multi-cultural, marketing, advertising and public relations agency in the Mid-South.
“People looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted to start an advertising agency in Little Rock,” he said. “But we have experienced 10 years of growth and have the most incredible organization. If you dream it and work hard for it, you can have it.”
In closing, Steele encouraged everyone to raise their standards to achieve their dreams. He said criminal behavior, unwanted teen pregnancies, the spread of sexually transmitted disease, and disunity are major issues that must be overcome.
“I urge you; I beg you. You are the future. We need each of you to step it up. We’re all one, and we need to work together.”
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