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Are you ready to achieve meaningful, transformative change in your personal and professional life? Let’s explore the importance of genuine self-reflection and understanding the mindsets behind your actions. Learn how addressing both the technical aspects of goal-setting and the adaptive elements like thoughts, emotions, and past experiences can drive deeper transformation. Discover why balancing doing and being is crucial and how the right tools and coaching support can unlock lasting growth. Tap into these insights and chart a path toward your desired future with clarity and purpose!

 

In this episode, Steve and Jason discuss:

  • Importance of genuine self-reflection in change planning
  • Considering visible behaviors and unseen mindsets
  • Technical and adaptive elements of goal-setting
  • Understanding deeper foundations for meaningful transformation
  • Connectivity framework based on the iceberg model of behavior

Key Takeaways:

  • Annual reflection and intentional planning are pivotal for fostering both personal and professional growth, encouraging deeper insights rather than surface-level resolutions.
  • Leading by example amplifies the effectiveness of coaching and facilitation, emphasizing the importance of practicing what you preach.
  • Genuine self-awareness fuels the success of planning tools and resolutions, ensuring that efforts toward change are meaningful and sustainable.
  • Examining underlying thoughts, emotions, and past experiences is essential to uncover the drivers of behavior, enabling more purposeful and transformative outcomes.
  • True transformation requires balancing technical actions with adaptive changes, often necessitating external support to navigate mindsets and environmental factors.

 

 

“When those bottoms change, dude, we can move the top. If you're listening to this, I beg you, get a coach, get someone around you. And when you do, make sure the focus is both — not just one. We don’t downplay technical. Yes, we have to go do things. But when we only try to do things and miss the being piece, we miss the real transformation. And if you let it, you will see this tool as a combination of both — something truly transformational.”

 - Steve Scanlon

Connect with Jason and Steve:

 

Listen to the podcast here:


Steve and Jason- Reflection and Planning

Hello and welcome everybody. This is Jason Abell, your host of LinkedIn Live before the holidays here and your cohost, Steve Scanlon. Steve, you want to say hello to everybody?

You know what, Jason, I do want to say hello.

Well, that's awfully nice. Look, our technology worked. You're into this, like, this is going to be good, really good today. Welcome everybody. We've got a show for you today. I tell you what, we've got a gift that we've sent out to our clients over the last, you know, we tried to calculate this, it's been at least five years, Steve.

I think it was seven.

Maybe seven years. And it's this reflection and planning guide that we do every year, this time of year, and we've honed it and polished it every year based on feedback, based on our own experience with it, based on the usefulness that the clients tell us. And this year in particular, we did like a full refresh of it. And it's funny, the way that I guess I'll open us up today, sometimes we talk about a client story, that type of thing, I can't tell you how many clients and even our Rewire coaches have asked us within the last 30 days or so, hey, are we doing that guide again? Hey, my people could really use that reflection and planning guide- have you guys done that yet? And so, it's been really fun that this is an anticipation type of thing. And we're happy to say, yeah, we have it. It's out in the universe. In fact, today we emailed it to a database of all our existing and past clients, we've posted it on LinkedIn, and we're going to talk about it today. And so today we're talking about charting the course, we've got our annual reflection and planning guide, reflect on the year past that's been 2024 and really plan for the year ahead, 2025. And so, Steve, I'll turn it over to you, because you've done this a few times now for groups already this year, where you've gone through in a real methodical and intentional way, the guide, the purpose of it, all of those things. So, I'll turn it over to you, brother.

Yeah, well, Jason, our group of people here at Rewire met this week and I will say that one of our core values is under the word practice. That's one of the core values of Rewire is practice, and then the subtitle of practice is effectively trying to say that we practice what we preach. And even though we're not preachers, we're coaches, maybe we should say we coach what we coach, or practice what we coach, or whatever, one of the things that I'm most excited about is this, this year, like other years, we don't just come out with these tools, we do them. I've already sat down with it and went through it, and we write it. We know what it's about, but to actually take the time to do this work, if you'll let it, you as the listener, if you'll let it do it, it was super meaningful. Almost transformational. And that's from a person that you know, you and I and our team, we wrote this thing and still to let it wash over you, because if not, then it ends up being an exercise, right? Then it ends up being an okay, check that off my list. This is not a check it off. You can do it like that, but it's not really designed for that. It's actually designed to help you be transformed in the way that you think, right? We have that saying around here, like, you know, coaching isn't, yeah, I mean, dude, coaching is about results. We're going to get into that.

Big time.

And we know that we don't, you know, get results until we take actions, but you and I both know that there's a precursor to actions.

True, yeah, I'll give you two comments based on what you're saying, practicing what we're coaching. You know, we shut Rewire down the last week of December, and it's one of my favorite activities to go through our own reflection and planning guide. Like, I can't wait to do that. It's not a box checker. It's like, I can't wait to do it. And then the other comment that I would have is just this morning I had a client, a long standing coaching client of ours, and he was like, yeah, you sent that out. And that was this morning that we sent it out at 6am. He's like, I've already grabbed it and gone through it, like before our coaching session. He's like, I'm on it. And so, I'm just excited for those that listen to this, that see this, that have access to it, to really be able to dig into it.

Yeah, I love that. And so, you know, because we're coaches, there's one of your first actions. You know, we don't put a gun to anybody's head like it's like, we're not the kind of people that talk like it. If you don't do this, you're going to shrivel up and die. You're not. What might happen to you is that if you let it deep into you, if you actually walk through it and do it, it can become incredibly transformational, which I appreciate you looking forward to that. That's one of the goals that I set for myself intentionally for this half hour LinkedIn Live. I want anyone listening to this to walk away and feel excited about getting this tool and looking forward to the depth and really how profound it is with regard to what it's trying to walk us through. So, let's get into it a little bit here. So, you know, the first thing I want to say is this is the time of year we talk about resolutions, right? When we're thinking about reflecting, planning and connecting, which is what our tool is all about, I understand that I've been asking people this now, and I think a lot of people that know me know that I ask this question about resolutions. Jason, when you're in groups of people, at least in the United States, how do I know about what's going on in the rest of the world, but if you ask people about resolutions, you almost get this eye rolling, like, really? No, we don't do that. Like, that's so, like, whatever. And when I ask people about it, do you do resolutions? No. The number one reasons people don't do resolutions, they say, is because they don't work. That's the bottom line. And so I guess I just want to kind of come against the grain a little bit as we set forth this tool, this reflection and planning guide, out of it, it is very likely, hence why we call it a planning guide, it's not just a reflection, that there are going to be some things that you resolve to, right? And I know this can be controversial and if you're going to sit there and eye-roll and I can't get you anyway, whatever, but I gotta tell you something. It's not that resolutions don't work, if we're being honest. If they don't work, it's because we didn't work them.

Yep, right on.

Right? They do work, but they're not magic, right? I think that's part of the problem, right? And that's why we're bringing this tool when we do. Maybe people get into December 31, they go to a party, you're sitting around, I don't know, the music's about to go down, God knows what state people are in, like that's it, I'm going to get on an exercise plan. There's not a lot of thought in that. Well certainly, that methodology might not work, but I just want to let you know that actually resolutions do work. Now, is January 1 some arbitrary date? Sure. I get it. But why not? I mean, it's as good as any and look at what you're doing, Jason. You're gonna go take this time between the holidays and the end of the year and do that. What greater way to get our spirits, our hearts and our mind in a position ready for transformation?

Yeah, so well said. I mean, the thing that I think about is, Steve, it's any tool, it's any resolution, it's any goal. It still depends on you, the person to do something. It's not the resolution that doesn't work. It's a human that doesn't work.

Exactly.

And it's the same thing with this guide, right? The guide, sitting on a shelf is really no better than a rock sitting on the shelf, but put to use, it’s going to work.

Well, business plans don't work either.

Yep, exactly.

And they don't. If it becomes an exercise, you just slap in a drawer and did it because somebody asked you to do it, yeah, clearly, that doesn't work. Anyway, we're trying to bring to the table something entirely different. And you can kind of see this here, this is a model that we use. We've probably used it in many times, even maybe in LinkedIn Live, anytime anybody's showing you a picture of an iceberg, the implication of what they're saying to you is whatever they're implying is above the line of that water is a fraction of what's going on below the line. And again, I know very little about oceanography, or whatever it might be. I think it's true, right? My understanding is as a metaphor and as a material floating object in the ocean, icebergs are notorious. Ask the Titanic people, right? Icebergs are notorious for whatever's underneath the surface is much greater in mass than what you see above the surface. It's much more powerful and guides the thing much more. So we use this often to look at this and go, people come to us in coaching, and even as you do this tool, as you plan forward and you look back, did I get results? Are there results that I want to get? And I don't think it takes a lot to go, we know, as I told you before, our actions are going to determine our results. I personally want to say that I think if we stop there and just go, well, that's all I need to do, just act differently, right? I call that Nike Coaching. Just do that differently. It's not that it's wrong, it just maybe underplays the power of what's below the surface.

Yeah.

So, the reason, Jason, and we'll show people the tool, that as you go through our tool and we took the time as coaches, seven years in the making, I gotta tell you, next year might be even different. We ourselves transform. We didn't have one thing and just call it day. No. Stephanie helps us with this and Longen, our team kicks in, and we go, how can we continue to evolve in this thinking? But part of the thinking, as we look at this past, present and future is us claiming that the thoughts and emotions that we have around what we got, what we're doing in the present and where we're going are ultimately going to determine our actions.

Yeah, right on.

Right? That's ultimately going to be the determinant of the action. So, as you're going through the tool, and I know that our colleague, Steph, wrote about this that went out even this morning, and one of the things that she wrote about, that she attached to the tool that we sent to our clients, was the idea that, you know, she pointed out entrepreneurs. We know a lot of our clients, are people that are leaders and entrepreneurs. We have people look at the past, present, the future. I'd love to hear your experience, Jason. My experience is having entrepreneurial people think about the future is no problem.

That's right.

They're already there. You know, maybe you've already got like 2025 is going to be this. In fact, I would argue that some of the clients that I work with, they're there to a fault. You can go into the future so much that you're not even present anymore.

That's right. Yeah.

Right? And so, we've noticed that helping people think about the future and having a vision, you know, that's why 80 million people, or whatever it is, have watched Simon Sinek’s thing on know your why, because that's not hard for us to imagine. That having a vision and knowing your why, like all that future oriented stuff, that's easy. Actually getting people to sit back and go, let me really evaluate myself as it pertains to what happened last year.

Oh, big time. So, so important. Shout out to a past leader of mine, Joe Rogers, who's retired these days, but I remember as a young mortgage banker coming up, I asked him, he was an executive at this big global company that I was at, I was like, what if one day I wanted to be an executive, Joe? What recommendations would you give to me? And the very first thing he said was, do excellent at your job right now, because there's so many people that are in the future. I want to do that, I want to do that they're not paying attention to doing excellent work right this minute. He said, that is step number one. Make sure that you're crushing it today. And this tool does do a little bit of a look back, but also brings you very intentionally into the present before then looking forward.

Well, I love that. And you know, blessings to Joe Rogers, wherever he is. But I personally struggle with the past. I get to that part of the tool, and I feel myself going quick, get me to the future, because that's where we're going and stuff, but to really learn, and I will point out that the way that we've structured this tool isn't about what happened. You know, there's some of that, but if you'll really pay attention to the questions, it was more about learning about me, right? The Oracle at Delphi, and I learned this from my coach, the Oracle at Delphi had this great saying, and it was, know thyself. Know thyself. And I want to just say to everybody listening, there's room for you to know yourself that much better.

For sure.

And when we look at the past, it isn't just what happened, the circumstances, the results, some of that's important. I found myself going, how about me in the past? What am I learning? What do I need to get from that? How was I? And that was important, you know? And then obviously, as we go into the present, in our tool and again, I really credit Lyndon, my coach, for this, but he was like, that's when you start getting into emotional intelligence.

Yeah.

And what he meant by that is, in the present, how do you respond to things, right? And our tool does a pretty good job of saying, well, those things, and Stephen Covey called these things big rocks. Actually doing an evaluation of what are my key relationships? How am I finite in the present? Like actually where that is, and stuff like that. And so, the tool does a pretty good job of bringing us into the present. But again, for me, it wasn't just where are those things, but I found myself going, no, where am I with those things in the present? And it was just a subtle change for me this year that I wasn't looking at those things being things, but rather seeing myself in those things. And as I did that, obviously, as we look in the tool towards, now we get to saying, okay, once you understand that, where do you want to be? And where do you want to go? And, like I said, that one seems to be a little easier for the people that we work with. But I gotta tell you, it was the sequence that our tool brings people through. We didn't start there. And again, I think Steph did just a masterful job of pointing out, and we were looking at all kinds of metaphors for, I'm gonna forget the word and she is gonna kill me, but it's not mountaineering. She’s gonna kill me. She's probably gonna come on and put it in the chat or something like that. But there's a whole like, if you don't really know where you are, like in life, if you have no evaluation of where you are, and you try to plan for the future, it could go really cattywampus.

Sure, yeah.

Because what are you planning for? Where are you going, right? And so anyway, the connectivity that we put together, the things, I really think honors what we do with the iceberg model, Jason,
and I think as people go through it, provided that it's not a checklist item, that I think it can really be meaningful for people.

All right, so what else do we have here?

Well, you know, the last thing I want to say about the tool, and I don't want to leave this up here too long, and I would certainly love to hear your thoughts on it, there are parts of any good plan or tool that help people plan and whatever, and there are parts of it that can be technical. Technical meaning, if you're going to have a plan for the future, maybe you want to come out and you're in financial advising and you say, look, I want to have this much asset under management. That's a vision. Great. You want to do that. I want to do these things, do these things, do these things. Those things that you're going to go do to build your life and build your business, we would put those under the category of technical. There are technical things that you want to go do. It's a good part of any plan. And our reflection and planning tool has thought around the technical. The adaptive piece of this, and by the way, that technical adaptive language, I wish we would have made that up. Frankly, I would have tried to come up with a better word than adaptive, because I don't think it describes it very well, but this comes from Robert Keegan and Lisa Lehey’s work in Immunity to Change.

One of your favorite books. Steph said orienteering, by the way.

Dang it. I was practicing this yesterday, and I was like, I couldn't think of it then. And she's like, this guy's losing, I probably am. But anyway, really quickly, with the technical and adaptive, the technical or things that we need to go do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Adaptive really starts to address more of who are we going to be?

That's right.

So, what I really appreciate about a good tool that's going to help us actually go and take action and get results, it’s not just behavior modification. Do this, do this, do this, do this. It's not that so much that's wrong, it's just incomplete.

Yep.

If we don't think of who we are alongside of what we'll do, then we ultimately are not embracing this adaptive piece of it. Adaptive because technical things are what we'll go do. Adaptive is, how do we have to change?

Big time.

How do I have to change in my mindset? Right? Jason, there's a reason you and I call ourselves mindset coaches. We're so into actions and results. Make no mistake, that is the point of the iceberg, and we get it. But unless we learn to adapt, and that is asking questions, not just about what we'll do, not just what happened or what's gonna happen that revolves around technical and doing, but rather, where will I be different?

Well, and how do you, under your unique set of circumstances, your unique personality, your unique background, your unique environment of people that you work with and work for, and who you serve, all of those things are taken into account from an adaptive standpoint, because anybody that comes to us, they want some sort of difference between where they are and where they would like to go.

There's some gap. Without a gap, there's no coaching.

That's exactly right. And with most of the gaps that people present to us, especially now with AI and Google, you can get the technical answers pretty quick and pretty free, and they'll be pretty good. That's not where the juice is, though, because if it were that simple, everybody would be doing it, and that that's really why we have a profession, because the mindset and the adaptive piece for your particular set of circumstances come into play. That's why I love our guide so much, because it's not just a, oh, you want to have a better culture at your company. You want to be able to have your leaders communicate better or give better feedback. Well, just do these 10 things. Not so simple, because everybody on your team has 10 different personalities and 10 different backgrounds and 10 different experiences coming into, you know, 2025, that's where the adaptive piece comes out, and that's why I love our guide so much.

Yeah, well, and you know, it's our show. This is our show. Wouldn't you agree with that?

Yeah, sure.

We don't do this always so overtly. There's a reason you mentioned the people that have been instrumental for you, right? That thing that Joe Rogers told you, by the way, was that a technical thing or an adaptive thing?

Oh, yeah, it's a great point. It was technical in nature, but it was in an environment where it was one on one. He knew that I could receive the information that he was giving me, and he was a trusted advisor of mine, and he looked me in the eye when he was telling me those things, like, there's a yes, there was a technical nature to some of the things that he was saying, but it was wrapped in this adaptive deal, right? So, it was a little bit of both.

Exactly and here and again, yes, I realized that this is a bit of a shout out for ourselves, but I will say this anyway. Whatever. Here we go. The adaptive change is very difficult to do alone.

Yeah, right on, yeah.

When I talk about some of my greatest adaptive changes, you'll notice that I was with you. You and I make a point every year to go be together. You live in Maryland and I'm in Oregon, and, well, we're together a lot anyway, because we speak a lot and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but we actually go and because if it were only technical, if that's all it is, go read a book.

Right.

Go get the thing. You know, our coaching would be fairly single dimensional. Just do this. Just do this. Just do this. Just do this. I noticed that when I know I need some of the most transformational things in my life, I just don't have a 360 around me.

Yep.

I can do some technical things. We all can. I don't even know how I'd go about doing some of the adaptive things outside of going to people like Linden and Jack and people that I work with, that work with me and go, here's what I'm thinking, or whatever, and they ask me these adaptive questions to help me know me better. That's working the bottom of that iceberg. That's down here, and when that bottom changes, dude, we can move the top. And if you're here listening to this, I beg you, get a coach, get someone around you, and when you do, make sure that the focus is both, not just one. We don't downplay technical. Yes, we have to go do things.

Sure, sure, sure.

When we only try to do things and miss the being piece, which, again, back to the tool, we were ultimately, every year, trying to get to both. And if you'll let it, you will see this tool as a combination of both that we again, hope is very transformational for you.

Well, Steve, I'll bring up the tool here for a minute, because I think you wanted to float through it a little bit, but this is the actual tool.

Yeah, here it is. Look, we can show it. And there's been some people like you; I've already had a couple of clients reach out and thank me. They start telling me the dates, you know, it's going to be, December 27 you know, whatever. Like they go and they do this, just like you. So, hey, by the way, here's another core value of ours. Simplicity.

Yeah, right.

We are ever trying to make things simpler. When you get into adaptive work, Jason, and you know this as well as anybody it can, you know, if you go back to the iceberg, you know the depth of that thing, it can start to get pretty profound and deep and complex.

Sure.

So we're forever trying to pull that out and go, how can we simultaneously get the marrow out of the adaptive part of reflection and planning and still not have it go so deep that people are just at the bottom of the ocean going, wait a minute, what's going on? And so, the tool itself, I think, and again, I do credit you guys and Steph for doing this, but the tool itself is, there's a little bit of explanation, a look back and it's just some questions that you ask. It's a sequence of questions that if you let it, can wash over you as you get into as we look ahead and we look forward. And so that's just a brief glimpse at the tool itself. And when people get it, my hope was that this time today could get people fired up and excited and going, this is going to be my day.

Yeah, it navigates you through it. I've had people go through it in an hour, and I've had people take an afternoon away. And so, it's really, it's what you need it to be. And people are like, do I have to fill out every answer every question? No, just do what works for you. Like, follow the program and do what works for you.

Yeah. And the goal of our thing, again, isn't, I did it. If you can't even remember what you did by January 15, then it didn't accomplish its purpose.

Yeah, yeah, right.

What we ultimately want this to do is be a pivotal time for there to be a transformation.

Right on.

That's ultimately what we're looking for.

I'm gonna tie a bow on a couple of things here. You'll see in the comment section of this LinkedIn Live event is a link to the actual guide itself, where you can download it and print it out, if you so choose to print it out, or you can do it electronically, but there's a link of this episode that we just recorded right now, that we're finishing right this minute, that is going to drop as a podcast episode. So, for those of you that want to forward it and listen to it again on our podcast, The Insight Interviews, or forward that to somebody that you might think would be useful, you can do that. And then lastly, as we end every episode of LinkedIn Live, we've got a QR code here, if any of this is interesting to you and you would like to pursue coaching a little bit further, where you would like a thought partner, somebody by your side to help you as you are doing your planning and even your execution into 2025, or really, if you need a speaker at one of your live events on anything that we've talked about, boy, click that QR code. I will personally have a chat with you. And we would love to chat and talk about your event, your coaching needs, those types of things. But Steve, as we wrap up 2024 brother, this has been such a journey of a year. We've done 12 LinkedIn live events, we've done, I don't know, 50 or so podcast episodes, helped hundreds and 1000s, really 1000s, with all the live events and everything, and so I just want to let our group know, our listeners know, and Steve, specifically you, it has been a pleasure and a joy. So Happy Holidays. 2024 and bring on 2025 bring on the transformations.

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