18 - Tom Carmazzi - How did you do this year? 5 steps to reflect and learn

Welcome back uncommon leader, podcast listeners. It's hard to believe with 2021 is coming to a close as leaders. A reflection process is a good way to end your year and prepare for the next. Hopefully you're having some time over this holiday season to rest catch up and using intentional process to reflect on it. This episode, I have a friend that joins me and a second time guest, Tom and he's on to discuss how uncommon leaders do intentionally reflect, not just on their goals, but on the condition of their hearts. And as it relates to their work or to their purpose, we've got some great tips here for leaders that Tom shares. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. So let's jump in for a great chat. Okay, so good morning, Mr. Z, it's great to have you back on the uncommon leader podcast, your second shot at going through this. And I hope we have as much fun this time around as we did last time, we had a conversation and not. Us really think about how fast the year has gone, but it's hard to believe that was eight months since we had that conversation last time. So I'm looking forward to our time together today. You think about that being eight months, you think about the spirit of lifelong learning, say hello to the uncommon leader podcast nation. And tell me a little bit about the past eight months. I'll have you in the spirit of lifelong learning, grown or changed as a leader in that time, since we last. Wow Memorial John, you know thanks for inviting. Me onto the podcast on a Saturday morning. Probably you're a podcast. People got Monday through Friday, but thank you so much for, you know, working in the end. Gosh. So the last eight months, you're right. It. Very, very quickly since we did tape it in your garage. Yeah. I think that maybe that maybe the recording quality has gone up a little bit and in the episodes that I've done as well. But I do remember somebody saying that sounds like you were in a dungeon. I said, well, it wasn't quite a dungeon, but it was pretty close. I mean, there's nothing on the walls except index cards. Yeah. That was, that was my early stages. And while you say, yeah, Second class. This is like Johnny Carson. I told you that before. I mean, when I started having people on for a second or third time, you can take it however you want to, you can take it that you're a good guest and people want to listen, or you can take it as look. I know this guy will be a good filler when I can't get other people in here. Like I said, it's the B type. And so, you know, I don't know if you're Joan Rivers. She was on Johnny Carson show 89 times or somebody else, but we're going to, we're going to see how many times we can get you on here for conversation. Well, I, I sure hope you have 89 of these pumps. So back to the eight months and the reflection you know, my biggest learning. For one of them has really been those patterns of mine or those behaviors of mine. And specifically what I'm talking about is control and patients. I love to control things and I have little patience, and I really thought that I was getting a pretty good grip on. And one of the areas that I did some reading on the last eight months has really been on the faith side for me. I I've never read the Bible before, even though. Actually, I shouldn't say weird, but I've been in five Bible studies and in each of those Bible studies, we used another structure to review various parts of the Bible. And just as a steep in our faith, never read the Bible though. So I started reading that and about a gash, a sixth of the way through and through that, and in the way that, especially in the old town, Folks are really challenged in the category of having faith, having patients surrendering, giving up control. And then I read a book called sacred pace by Terry Looper. And it was almost as if Terry was writing it for me. It was so much a direct kid and that was all about. Slowing down and relinquishing control to what was God's path for you versus my path, my purpose. And that has been really impactful for me again, to realize how controlling I am. So an example would be. You know, I'm not much of a prayer guy because like, thanks. I think I got it handled well. Whoa, what an ego that's gotta be. And then anything that I would finally decide, I want to pray about. Well, it's like, okay, God, you've got 24 hours to get back to me. I cow. I mean, really it's like when I listen to myself, I don't like hearing it well. So those have been two big areas for me. John is just how this control pattern shows up and really hinders my being uncommon. And also the whole thing of patients. I like to think that I'm getting better at it. I get reminders pretty rough basis that that I'm not at the point I want to be no. So two of those things, great awareness as you go forward with that and learning over the year. And I think as uncommon leaders, that's one of the things we do have to be. Humble about is recognizing our own weaknesses as we go forward that so having control having patients, and certainly when it comes to prayer and patience, those two, those two things generally are, and even control to a certain extent. You bring all that together with prayer. Those two things, three things don't go together very well. We want to ask and we want to answer the answer we want by the. Sometimes the answer, isn't what we want. And we want that answer to your point in 24 hours or on my time versus on really gotta let us know when, when he's ready for us to have the answer to that. And so I appreciate that. And the learning that goes through that during the year, I mean, if I put that. Some of what I'd done. I love, I love actually the talk of the book, sacred pace. Talk to the book that it ends up talking directly to you and it's timing. It's generally it's perfect timing all by the way. There's those answers like I needed to hear this right now with regards to what's happening. And I had, I had a couple of those books in 2021 as well, that went through that one that you had given me before the monk who sold his Ferrari was a great. Awareness book for me. And as I told the story back on the first podcast, I think, or one other one is that, you know, that book you gifted to be nine years ago. And I just got to it in 2021, so that you talk about timing and having patience for something that's there. That one was nine years in the making when I really needed to hear that message. So it actually leaves. Thanks for sharing that in terms of your growth and it leads into maybe what I would consider to be the topic of today's podcast. We're coming to the end of a, another year, as we said, eight months flew by, in terms of, since we last chatted, 2021 has flown by again, another year is taking off the calendar. My mom would often say, the days are long, but the weeks, months in the year go by really fast. And you look back like, how does that really happen? And so, you know, to understand how fast it's been in so much has changed. It's important for us as leaders, especially in an uncommon way. That we take the time to sit down and reflect on how things went, whether it's a time period of a week or a month or a year, they enter the year generally provides us that good opportunity. And a lot of common leaders are going to be, I'm going to set my new goals for the next year. But looking at what I want to do, my new year's resolutions that exist there, but I believe the uncommon and what I learned. You know, even some of my teaching through growth on the Toyota production system or lean that concept, deep reflection as to looking back can be that much more important as well. When you think about the process, the mechanical process of reflection, what does that look like for you? How do you kind of end each year? If you will, maybe it's, it's something that, where you are now on something where you were as a leader, as a CEO as well before he retired. What's what's a process that you'd like to use to say, how did I do this year? Well, Don, I, it was definitely different when I was CEO. It was a very structured process. Like I'm making up a lot of CEOs and all that companies have, you know, we call that was policy deployment. And so throughout the year we had basically structures mechanisms, which tracked our progress based on where you were in the organization. I mean, if you're on the shop floor, gosh, it could be tracking your progress every hour. Yeah, you were at the corporate office. It would be monthly, but, but nonetheless kind of a red.green dot structure, which helped the team know if they're on track or not. And then at the end of each year, we would talk about, okay, well, gosh, so let's look at our structures. I mean, you know, you could visually look at them and they, and they told a story based on their color. You know, how much red did you have? How much green did, did you have. Reflection period, you know, so what did we learn? What's changed in the economy, you know, kind of this documenting over reality phase. And, and then based on that, it was okay. Given our upper level, vision and admission, what do we want to do in this coming year? That's gonna get us on that track. And so it was pretty much again, I, I think that's pretty based on common. You know, what I would like to believe was our, was our uncommon part of that is there was a big people or culture part that we've had over and above the normal mechanics of a business. So. At retirement or since retirement, I would say I've become really almost embarrassingly. So, you know, it's, it's just funny how much as I would like to believe that was part of my core. It was part of my daily discipline. Truth matter was, is, is I think about. You know, one of our acronyms back when I was working was this smart in terms of our goal creation, which smart stands for specific measurable action oriented, realistic. And time-based so that's the aesthetic MBA, the R and the P and gosh, I mean, I didn't really think about my smart goals per se. I mean, I blurted some out. I, I believe I had a purpose, but I really didn't articulate it. And it was very, very directional. Now reflecting on really 20, 21 you know, I retired at the end of 2019. Reflecting back on that, I realized first off that I need to tighten up my purpose. Cause I retired to give back. I've been very blessed with experience and education and my learnings, a lot of those coming from the things I screwed up or messed up. But so as, as I look back on 2021, I can see that, that purpose, I want to tighten up to be much more specific about the heartfelt also to still, I'm going to go back to the control and the patients. I believe that God is still painting that for me. And that it isn't exactly as I believe it is. I think there's some additional learning there for me that God will continue to tighten that like also my smart goals they were too mechanical. They weren't sufficiently heart felt and, you know, being a, a historic quant guy, I can get seduced by having a quick. And so, as I reflected, I thought, you know, where do I really capture the heart in those? And so that's something that can be just as simple as on a scale of one to 10, the heart, you know, where is it? I'd love for it to be much more objective than that, but you know what that's going to be good enough for, I believe 2020 to have me think about it more. The only other structures, John, that I I'm really pleased that I've been pretty rigorous with. And I didn't do this much when I was working, but it's been something that I've taken on now is this daily journaling. And so in terms of reflecting, that really helps me. And so what do I journal? Well, I journal the learnings from the previous. I journal the messages that I believe. I was aware of, I think I get messages on a regular basis. I think we all did this in about me. I think we all get messages from God saying, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, you know, here's something. So I journal those messages and then I also journal what is my intention for the day. And then finally I write down at least three positive. That happened in the last 24 hours. And so that process has helped me just daily reflect daily reflect, and that's been very, very powerful. And so as I prepare for 2020. How did those reflections change? So I feel like I'm talking too much. No, no, no. So what I, what I love about that and if I, if I, you know, take a step back and, and please don't almost allow me to make mechanic what you just said, but here's what I heard. You know, first of all, is that you started with your wife. Okay. And you understand like really reflecting on the purpose. I think that the common side would say, I'm just going to look at that scorecard and how did I do on my metrics? What went well on my metrics and what didn't, and I'll just reset different metrics for the next year, the next time period that I'm looking. But, but what I, what I appreciate about what you shared is that you started with that. To understand, like, and again, one of the questions I was going to be is that I had in my mind, not listening through you, but I had written down prior to the event, is that does the purpose change? And so. As we reflect on it. And while the purpose doesn't change, I love the word you used was tightened. The purpose may be the same, but what becomes clearer through the messages that you get through the gratitude journal that you have, the process, the habit of daily journaling, is that the message or the purpose that gets gets tightened up, it becomes a clearer picture. To you and what that might look like in the future. So I appreciate the fact, again, you, you start with the why, and you can reflect on that. Why and the other pieces that you still have, the scorecard and wow. You know, in traditional business, those scorecard in the smart metrics that exist may be very specific. They've got to go to the board and things like that. When you, when you look at those personal life plan type targets of where my heart is, Where's my time being invested. What am I investing my time? And they don't always have to be this measurement of, I want to have a 25% improvement if he can be there, it's there, it helps. But it also to your point on a scale of one to 10, it talks about, you know, how am I really doing and putting a habit in place to do that daily? How am I doing today? Because we're going to have good days. We're going to have bad days as to what that means. So that that purpose is there. And then. I think unknowingly or whatever that was through that reflection process, the new habits that you create it. So that, that journaling process is a habit that came out that allows you to check where your heart is. So despite maybe the feeling of. A metric that feels soft, that feels heartfelt. There's still a discipline that you must do on a regular basis, whether it's daily, weekly, or monthly to move you forward. And that's a process that I like to use in setting mind for 20, 22. After I reflect, after I look at how I did against those metrics and I have a scorecard. You. And I review that on a regular basis on that personal scorecard. Then I say, what, what do I need to keep doing? What do I need to start doing new habits? And what do I need to stop doing? Some of those things are stops and you'll realize that through your gratitude or through the messages that you're getting, like, this is something that I don't need to be going after at all. So I think that's very important, the reflection process. So now I feel like I'm talking too much, but as I turned in the conversation, The the, the side of the uncommon is to, is to check your heart as well. Right? The, the common is going to be, I'm going to check my scorecard. Did I hit my revenue targets for the year? Did I hit my weight loss goal for the year? Did I, you know, hit those things? Even to a certain extent for me checking a box was the Bible reading. I mean, as, as we record this today toward the end of the. I just saw, I just checked the box off on my app. I'm at 345 days in a row of reading. I got 21 days to complete the Bible for the first time ever. And it's going to be a celebration to finish that off, but it's going to be a reflection as well as to how did that change my heart as I went through that discipline, what was there for me? I lacked. And some, I asked somebody, I said, it's kind of like the P90X system. I don't know if you've heard of that, like that 90 day exercise program. And I said, when you get to day 91, what do you do? It's kind of like reading the Bible in 365 days when I get to day 360 6. What do I do now? And if it hasn't changed me, then I don't know, but I believe it has changed me. And so it, it goes to something new, something more of a growth. I thought, as I said that, I shared that with somebody this week and I said, well, you need to go and do it again. I'm like, Gosh, that was a hard discipline to do every day for 365 days. No doubt about us. We find out how hard it is, but if it changes us, that's a really good thing. So I actually liked that. And Tom, if you're talking to others, as you've learned, if you're talking then to other leaders, if I'm, you know, being true to the purpose of growing champion, And have that grow. Other leaders that are subsequently going to grow. Other leaders grow more champions, bear fruit in the lives of others. What's advice that you would have then with others who were on that journey and facing the same kind of challenge being too mechanical and reviewing that at the end of the year. What, what would you tell them? How would you give them some hope? John? I, you know, one of the things that been my learnings, like let's let let's say is So I mentor students from universities and, and this is skin 2021. When I first started, it really was the very mechanical, you know, as a coach, as you know, very well it's the coachee's agenda. It's not mine. It's theirs. Having said that as the coach, there's certain areas you want them to expect. There's their areas, but there's a certain area you want them to explore originally I let their agenda run. And as you can imagine, I'm coaching MBA students, and they want to talk career resume, you know, things of that nature. And those are easy for me to talk about. So easy to give them guidance easy for me to talk about. I really wasn't much in the learning zone. But then I said, gosh, upon reflection, this really isn't. Them, it's more mechanical. It's it's the mechanics of the career. And so I switched to asking them about their values. So, you know, just simple questions, like who are you? And let's talk about your values. When I found a lot of times they were challenged to manage. They didn't know what they were, they were in them. It wasn't like they didn't have any, of course they have, but they hadn't articulated them. And so as I would ask them to articulate them, and this would be over several calls, then it would be okay, well, let's define them their definitions, not Webster's their definitions. And then it'd be okay. These are really cool. So. How do they show up for you every day? And then there was on a scale of one to 10, how are you doing towards those? And as you understand this process, or what would be my counsel going forward, and this is also true for me is what's the foundation. Maybe you want to go, you know, this purpose that I want to pursue, what's the foundation upon which I'm going to pursue that. And so. For anyone. It, it really is. What, what are those values of yours that you're going to be a stand for? Because guess what? You're the only one that's going to stand for them. You know, they're your values. So if you look around well, who in this room is going to stand for my values? Yeah. Go quickly. Run to the mirror, take a peak right there. That's who's going to stand for that then. Just something that gosh, for anyone that, that, that here's this call and, you know, kind of like, oh yeah, I got my values. Just stop for a moment and write them down. What, and don't think about, well, they gotta be the usual valuable words. They gotta be integrity, responsibility, respect. I was last two days at a company in which I helped them create their Christian family values. And. One of their values is light. Think about that light. The closest thing they have to a common one is a patient. The rest of them are shepherd. Love. Great. Whoa. Whoa, whoa. I mean, so, so those are uncommon words and they've written the uncommon definition. So as I, as I say, know what your values are and don't force them. And one of the things that I've learned also with the coachees or the mentees is as they look for how they show up, they get better definition. They get, because they, first of all, bored them out, like, okay, cool. Well, let's just tell me about your last two weeks and how they showed up. Like, oh, well, so is it really this, or is it something else and away they go. So that would be, my counsel is just make sure your foundation is really strong and that foundation is you. It's not your skills. It's not your career. It's you? Who are you? And these stand for it and see how that shows up. And Vince, another question I asked my mentees is, is that who you want to be, who you want to be. And I've been pretty fortunate so far, I think all but one who said, yeah, that is cool. Okay. So one to 10 where I, and we start working on closing those gaps. No, I love that. And again, it goes right back to how we started out with reviewing your why, and then attaching to your, why, who you want to be through those values. I think that's a great process to go through of, of developing your own values and, and not to have, I mean, it's that while I have a coaching company, not to be self-fulfilling it really actually bulls right down into almost a, a conclusion or a summary. Who do you have in your life? That's holding you right to that accountable. You need to hold yourself accountable. Absolutely. But sharing those values, those challenges that you have, those things that you're struggling with and sharing those and not just keeping those inside is very important. So, you know, you being that person to them, Bringing that out of them is very important, finding a person. And whether you call it an accountability partner, a coach, a mentor, or just a friend that's willing to speak truth to you in love to say, are you really showing up in this way is a critical part to this journey of, of development as well. If you try to do it all on your own, it's not going to. Work for you as much as if you had someone who would hold you accountable to that, that you share that. So a lot of times we set these goals, we do this reflection and we keep it to ourselves. I would encourage that, you know, the listeners and even myself to be better at this. And you and I do this on a regular basis is to share your goals with someone else so that they can share your values with someone else so that they can help to. Hold you accountable to that being one thing in terms of where you are, but secondly, challenge you and be that idea, lifter that thought lifter, that light that helps you to expose what that means. I know Tom there've been times and I appreciate you talking about gratitude each time how you've helped lift my ideas, my thoughts, and challenged me on the journey to. Bigger and not just bigger from hit a bigger goal, but bigger from who I am and who I want to be in the future. So I appreciate you for that. And I would encourage our listeners. To go forward and find someone who can be that person in their life as well. Again, it generally isn't your spouse, but if that's who it's going to be for you, you still need to share it with them. But someone who can really hold you accountable, be separated from it and ask you tough questions all the way through the year to help you. When you get to the end of 22 next year, have more of those pluses in that category. And even more of those challenges as you continue to. Go back and grow your why. That's pretty cool. I mean, as you, as you talk through that, there were so many things, there was, there was something for you and what you've done and grown as a leader, as you've transformed from the mechanical side over to more of the heart side, with those that you're coaching. And there's something for them that they have you in their life for someone to hold them accountable. And to bring that out of them, someone that never would have seen that before. That's the essence to me, going back to when I think about growing champions, Is that, you know, if we're going to change our world, if we're going to have an impact on our communities, on our homes on. Country and our world that we've got to grow on a regular, we've got to be on that lifelong journey. So one of the ways to do that is to have an end of year or some periodic reflection process. So, Tom, I think today was a pretty cool conversation. I'm going to give the last word just to kind of send off the year. Maybe tell me what's on your Christmas list from Santa this year and what you're really looking for and how you see 20, 22 pan and out. John, you know, I'm really quite a simple guy. So on my Christmas list, no. So one of them is a ski coat, you know? I I've got this ski coat that, oh my gosh, it looks like I've hit every tree in the forest. I mean, it's got bark marks and it looks awful. I mean, the zippers almost ripped off. It's a, it's a sticky chocolate mess, but so, you know, I I'd love for Santa to bring me, you know, a Patagonia three and three in one coat. That's got the liner in it, so on the really cold days. But anyway, so, so, so yeah, pretty, pretty simple straight stuff. As, as, as I think. 2022 and my goals there, it really is this further continuation of the deepening of the values deepening of the heart. You know, John just want to share two things that I've learned that I'm gonna carry forward. Just more rigorously, more heartfelt in 2022 is a couple of times in discussing values. People would say, well, How I know. I mean, how do I know it's this? I don't know if that, and so one of my values, it starts with a common word, but it's very deep almost to the point of human dignity, but the word is respect, respect. And so, so how do I know that's one of mine. Because when I see someone being disrespectful, either see it or done to me, it's this whole reaction. I mean, I, it just really makes my skin crawl. And why is that? It must be because I have a deep value for it. And so when I'm coaching folks and I'm like, well, how do I know? That's my opinion. It's okay. Well, let's just talk about how it's shown up this last week or not. And what was your reaction to that? And through those kinds of dialogues, it's like. All of a sudden it's like, oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't even get the psych. Yeah. So today had a bad day. Well, what was it that happened that caused a bad day and they'll share in essence what's happened. One of their values has been stepped on. So anyway, so that's really key something I'm going to carry forward to 2022. The other one is something that seems to becoming more prevalent versus less than. I don't think folks understand how damaging that is. The funny thing is it's not about the person being talked about. It's the person doing the talking and how damaging that is for their leadership and for their. And it is so funny that I was just in a meeting that I said the last couple of days, and I asked the folks there. So what do you think about gossip? And they're like, oh no. Yeah. They, you know, I don't, I don't do that yet, yet. Like, okay. So what do you think of the person that's doing the talk and I mean, in a heartbeat, bam, it's like, well, I don't trust them. Oh really? Why is that? And of course I say, well, evidence, they're probably gonna talk about me next. So, so just to bring that to light, to something that I think happens for you. In Brookstone realize just how damaging that is to their uncommon leadership. Continue the journey on is this whole control thing. Oh my gosh. Oh boy. So that's a really hard stop for me. I just, and so what I love is this serenity, prayer, you know, which, which really is this, you know, trying to learn what is really within my control. And once I can put my ego in the box, I control so little, I control my breakfast, you know, my cereal in the morning. That's about it. So, so I but yeah, so anyway, John, you know, thank you so much for, for inviting me to come out and play with you on this Saturday morning. I've I've, I've just had a blast and, and just thank you for allowing me to share. And it's truly been a pleasure 20, 21 being with you. You, you acknowledge me and how I helped you grow. It's been mutual brother, so, so, so thank you very much. Cause we let each other and I greatly appreciate that. I appreciate your time as well. Bring the podcast at the end, but I'm looking forward to 20, 22 and growing that as well. So I appreciate you being a part of this. I expect you'll be a part of this continuing going forward into 2022. And we'll get you back on for some fun conversation as well, but you have a great Christmas season and happy new year. And thanks for being on. I so appreciate how Tom humbly shares his learning, how his faith has shaped him and how his purpose comes out in the work that he does, whether it's mentoring other students or whether it's with his family, the end of your process. We discussed at some very important steps that I think each of us as leaders could take. One of the sets we talking about was to review or tighten up your purpose. Your why understanding what your, why is? I think that's a great first step in a reflection process. The second thing is to review your goals. What goals did you hit? What goals did you miss on more importantly, what did we learn about ourselves, about our teams, about our organizations, about our home. What went well and what could have gone better? Also. Then we talked about planning for the next year setting smart goals. And finally, when you're done writing those goals down, find someone to help hold you accountable to those goals. Now the uncommon comes out when you can check your heart as well. How is your heart lining up? We all know as uncommon leaders, when the heart head and the hands come in alignment together, uncommon becomes possible. Listen, I hope you enjoy today's podcast. If you did. And you know, someone who could be encouraged and inspired, please share it with them. Let them know that's some of the best results that I can get from this podcast when it gets shared and more people listening. If you want to take a listen to some older episodes that we have over the course of the year, just go to the website at www dot, growing champions.net backslash podcast. I wish all of you, a great Christmas season and a happy healthy new year until next year. Go and grow champions.