EPICS GM Leadership Series Fall 2019 Part 1 of 2

Summary

In the first segment of the EPICS GM Leadership Series Fall 2019, Tom Elliott, the director at Habitat for Humanity of Lafayette, delivers an engaging talk about his life journey and leadership experiences. Elliott emphasizes the importance of personal stories, diverse experiences in leadership roles, and the development of confidence and identity. He shares his upbringing in a unique communal setting, the challenges he faced in school, and his passion for sports, which shaped his leadership style. Elliott outlines his transformative experience at Camp Tecumseh YMCA, where he discovered his leadership potential and learned valuable lessons about tradition, progression, and creating meaningful connections.

Highlights

• Tom Elliott emphasizes learning from personal stories 📖
• He stresses the significance of personal background in leadership 🌍
• Elliott discusses the impact of changing schools and finding passion 🎓
• His story highlights developing leadership at Camp Tecumseh 🏕️
• The importance of balancing tradition with innovation is key 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Leadership is a journey of personal stories and diverse experiences 📚
• Understanding your own story enhances leadership capabilities 🧩
• Leadership isn't about being the most vocal but fostering the success of others 🎤
• Balance between tradition and innovation is crucial ⚖️
• Life's challenges can build leadership confidence and define personal values 🌟

Overview

Tom Elliott kicked off the EPICS GM Leadership Series with a relatable recount of his leadership journey, filled with personal anecdotes and crucial life lessons. He establishes the importance of personal stories in shaping effective leaders. Sharing his transition from a small school to a larger one, Elliott underlined how facing challenges early on can bolster confidence and strengthen one’s leadership persona.

Elliott’s account moved through his discovery of a love for sports, which initially taught him about drive and discipline. These childhood passions were pivotal in shaping his leadership style, providing essential lessons on motivation and dedication that Elliott carried into his professional life. A significant turning point was his experience at Camp Tecumseh, where he stepped into leadership roles, paving the way for his future endeavors.

At the heart of Elliott's message is the balance between respecting traditions and embracing innovation. His leadership evolution emphasized creating meaningful connections and helping others succeed. His tale of transitioning from an internal processor to a confident leader speaks volumes about personal growth and the importance of nurturing environments, which ultimately contribute to thriving leadership.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction The chapter titled 'Introduction' begins with a conversation or interview where individuals are trying to recall who has spoken so far. One of the names mentioned is Sheila Klinker, noted as a supportive person and a good friend to their cause. The dialogue indicates a casual or friendly tone, possibly setting the stage for a discussion or presentation related to their shared interests or objectives.
• 01:00 - 04:00: Early Life and Family Background The chapter titled 'Early Life and Family Background' begins with the speaker setting a casual tone before sharing their personal story. They emphasize the uniqueness of everyone's story and lay out some ground rules for the audience, such as avoiding sitting in the first three rows and the back to maintain closeness. The intention is to foster an intimate and engaging atmosphere before delving into the narrative of their early life and family background.
• 04:00 - 09:00: School Experiences The chapter 'School Experiences' discusses the concept of leadership. It emphasizes the importance of individual stories and experiences, suggesting that everyone has their own unique path to leadership. The speaker aims to provide practical insights by sharing their journey while encouraging readers to reflect on their personal leadership stories. The goal is to offer guidance by connecting with leaders from various industries and parts of society, making leadership more accessible and relatable.
• 09:00 - 11:00: Passion for Sports The chapter titled 'Passion for Sports' revolves around a speaker who wants to share their personal story and experiences related to leadership. They invite the audience to ask questions and engage in a discussion rather than just passively listening. The speaker intends to discuss the various positions they've held and the lessons they've learned about leadership within the context of their passion for sports.
• 11:00 - 15:00: College Years The chapter titled 'College Years' begins with Tom Elliott, the director at Habits for Humanity of Lafayette, initiating a conversation about his background. He engages with an audience by asking if they are familiar with Habitat for Humanity and if any are part of the epics team that collaborates with Habitat of Lafayette. A humorous moment arises as Tom jokingly mentions giving special favor to those who are part of the team.
• 15:00 - 27:00: Working at Camp Tecumseh The narrator clarifies their origin, mentioning they are from Newcastle, England, not Australia, which people often assume due to their accent. This clarification is made to prevent distractions during conversations. Newcastle is described as being on the northeast coast of England, near the Scottish border and not close to London.
• 27:00 - 30:00: Leadership Lessons and Philosophy The chapter, titled 'Leadership Lessons and Philosophy,' explores the historical significance and industrial contributions of Newcastle. It highlights two major aspects associated with Newcastle: its reputation for beer and its pivotal role in the European Industrial Revolution due to its coal mines. The town's coal was crucial for powering the revolution. Additionally, Newcastle was a major hub for shipbuilding, with a significant historical claim that one in six ships globally were made there.
• 30:00 - 35:00: Roles and Responsibilities at Camp Tecumseh The chapter discusses the town of Newcastle, known for its historical significance in shipbuilding and industrial background. It highlights the town's working-class nature and the narrator's connection to it, being the only member of their family born there. Newcastle is also noted for its pride, particularly in its local soccer club.
• 35:00 - 41:00: Team Building and Staff Development The chapter 'Team Building and Staff Development' discusses the challenges of achieving success in a team, using the analogy of the long-awaited success of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. It also introduces a personal story about the speaker being the youngest of three siblings, suggesting the significance of family dynamics in shaping one's understanding of team roles and development.
• 41:00 - 48:00: Challenges and Rewards of Leadership The chapter begins with the speaker, who has a significant age gap with the people they are discussing. They describe their parents as 'hippie progressives' and 'evangelical Christians', creating an interesting environment during their childhood. The speaker plans to share their story in five or six sections to set the scene for the challenges and rewards of leadership.
• 48:00 - 50:20: Maintaining Passion and Drive The chapter 'Maintaining Passion and Drive' begins with the author reflecting on their upbringing, which was notably unique due to being born into a Christian community living situation. Several families resided within the same building, and this environment was a significant aspect of their early years. The author underscores the influence this had on their life, alongside having considerably older siblings, contributing to their formative memories.

EPICS GM Leadership Series Fall 2019 Part 1 of 2 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 okay who's talked so far okay all right you remember any others was that Sheila Klinker okay she's a good friend of our cause so I like Sheila yeah yep good all right I don't know if I'm just supposed
• 00:30 - 01:00 to start I'll wait a little bit I'm gonna wait a little bit I don't think this is everybody so you might need a pen and paper and I want this is gonna be I wanted to make it as casual as possible and I'm gonna tell you my story because I think everyone's story is is kind of unique first three rules please first three rows no slope and in the back I want to make this as close as possible and I'm interested in what you
• 01:00 - 01:30 want to know about leadership so some of that will be hopefully sparked by my story but you all have your own individual story and I know the purpose of this is to give you access if you like to lead us from different industries different parts of society and so I want to know what you want to know because I want to make it as kind of practical as possible so at any point
• 01:30 - 02:00 if you have questions write them down and we might stop along the way and you can ask questions but basically what I want to do is just tell you my story and the positions that I've found myself in and ways that I've had to learn about leadership and then if there are certain concepts or aspects of that that you're most interested in then you can you can fire away okay I don't want this to be a sit back and okay and then leave at the
• 02:00 - 02:30 end I want it to be a conversation and I want to be the conversation starter and just tell you a little bit about my background you think it's okay to start yeah okay so my name is Tom Elliott and I am the director at habits for Humanity of Lafayette so how many of you have heard of Habitat for Humanity how are any of you in the epics team that works at Habitat of Lafayette we got three yeah okay good I'll give you special favor as we go no just kidding
• 02:30 - 03:00 I am from England originally not Australia so you can stop guessing I have to tell this upfront because a lot of times when you talk and you see people kind of doing this and I know that they're trying to figure out where I'm front and then they're missing what I'm talking about and so I'm from Newcastle anyone heard of the town in Newcastle yeah north east coast of England nowhere near London and it's close to the the Scottish border all right and if you do you know anything about Newcastle the
• 03:00 - 03:30 beer okay that's one of the things that people know about Newcastle the second is a Newcastle was a highly industrial town all right and so Cole's from Newcastle have you've ever heard that phrase it powered a lot of the European Industrial Revolution the coal mines around there and the second thing is that was big for shipbuilding and so they say at one point or at some point in history one in six ships that were made in the world were made in Newcastle
• 03:30 - 04:00 they made the biggest warships in the world at some point before the outsource to all the shipbuilding to other shores all right so it's a highly industrial town it's very working-class and my parents were not from there originally but they moved there and I was actually born the only one of my family that was born in Newcastle it's a very proud town I wish it was more famous for its soccer club and he soccer fans in here yeah okay but
• 04:00 - 04:30 it's not because they haven't had much success in a long time I used to liken them to the Chicago Cubs before the Cubs won the World Series we still haven't won anything but the Cubs have won the World Series okay I am at the youngest of three siblings anyone the youngest in here again all right and my sister is five years older than I am and my brother is three and a half years older than I am and this is significant in my story one that I'm the youngest and two that there
• 04:30 - 05:00 is quite a large gap between me and them okay I was born my parents were I would label them as hippie progressives but also evangelical Christians all right so it was an interesting environment that my parents created when I was a child and I'm gonna kind of break up my story into kind of five or six sections and I'm kind of setting the scene right now
• 05:00 - 05:30 and I think that what characterized my kind of upbringing early the early years was I was born into community and so my parents lived in a Christian community and I was born into that so there were several families that all lived in the same building and I was born into that situation which is kind of unique I think and again my siblings were considerably older than I was all right but I have pretty good memories of my
• 05:30 - 06:00 childhood up until about the age of 12 and as I talk about life I think you've probably heard of that the dips and valleys are the peaks and valleys of life and this is how I would as I have spent time kind of thinking back on my life this is how I would kind of picture it right slowed ascension into a long valley and then it goes back up here all right to be determined all right so this what
• 06:00 - 06:30 I've just explained to you was part one of my life all right and I have fond memories of that time but then I went to a very small Church of England's which is the national school in England I went to a very small school I have fond memories of that time I had good friends I felt like as much as I can remember I could be myself and then overnight that changed because that school closed down and I had to I had to go to a much bigger school anyone changed school before in their childhood is that was
• 06:30 - 07:00 that a fun memory or a challenging memory it did it was challenging right and part of what we do at habitat is we try to help create a stable environment for families so that the kids don't have to change schools I had to change schools it was much bigger it was much I label it as rougher all right there was a lot more that I was exposed to in that school then I was in the other school not the good exposure all right and so instantly I found myself in a much more challenging
• 07:00 - 07:30 situation and as the youngest of three who that my elder siblings were experienced in life a good amount further along than I was I found myself in this situation where I had this challenge in school where I lack then I started lacking a lot of confidence I started living kind of within myself in my head all right because I I struggled to kind of create a lot of close friends in this kind of environment and it was
• 07:30 - 08:00 it was a hard period of my life okay and so I share these things because that defined a lot of my personality all right and your whole life dictates a lot of things when you move forward all right and so for me this was a this was a key moment in my life was when I changed schools okay I felt like my parents gave a lot of attention this is in hindsight to my
• 08:00 - 08:30 older siblings because they were experienced in things first if you're a younger sibling maybe you have that younger youngest child sin syndrome but they weren't able to give me as much attention they loved me I had no doubt about that all right but I didn't I always felt like I didn't get as much as they do as far as schooling and you know what what we were gonna do and stuff like that so um so therefore I I had these kind of I would say it was it was a little bit more lonely through those years and and
• 08:30 - 09:00 that developed in me this I I processed life a lot in my head okay and that's a lot of what my personality is today is I'm an internal processor and a lot of it is in the head as opposed to the heart or the gut all right then I would say a lot of my childhood I didn't really like school I didn't care for it because a lot of again I up in a industrial town it was
• 09:00 - 09:30 rough I had this sense that I always had to be looking over my shoulder wherever I went whether I was going to school coming from school at school you know it was always this sense of look or look around you and make sure you're looking over your shoulder and and so there was this kind of survival mindset that I went into and again I didn't realize it at the time but looking back on my childhood that's that's what a lot of my childhood was like okay and so schooling if you're in a survival mindset becomes
• 09:30 - 10:00 much harder because it's more about surviving rather than thriving and excelling in everything that you do but the thing that got me through a lot of my childhood was a passion for sport okay any sports guys and the guys girls in the room not many okay and this was my first taste of what it feels like to be driven towards something okay yes it's sport but and it was an individual
• 10:00 - 10:30 thing I couldn't get enough of having a soccer ball at my feet and practicing you know I'd watch it then I'd go outside and I'd want to mimic it and that was the first time in my life that I'd really fence kind of experience this drive to get something done okay and I think this is an important concept in leadership as well is when you do in something that you really want to do the drive level goes way through the roof okay so whether it was playing tennis playing
• 10:30 - 11:00 soccer this this was something that I really experienced that feeling of Drive okay let's see I think also in the early years of my life I recognized what I didn't want to be involved in my parents were teaching me good lessons and then I saw bad examples at school and this really gave me a strong sense of principle all right there are the good things to be involved in in the world
• 11:00 - 11:30 and there are the bad things to be involved in but a lot of what I learned about leadership through my childhood was from my parents as I said they were strong Christian people and the way they lived out their faith had the biggest impact on me when I was a kid and what that looks like is not just going to church that probably had less impact on me than actually the way they lived it out and so first of all they take the commandment of you know loving God and then loving others which is as a Christian is the biggest commandment that were called to follow and I noticed
• 11:30 - 12:00 that the most in the way they loved others there were many times as a child where we I can remember specifically for different people or families that they actually invited to live in our house all right and so that was huge for me because I got to experience that and I got to see what that looks like all right it's not just swooping in and helping people and super now they're inviting them in and saying hey come be a part of our family for an extended period of time because you're in a you know you're in a tough situation second thing is I can remember
• 12:00 - 12:30 specifically watching out the window as my parents rescued this lady that was getting beat up by her boyfriend right outside my house they didn't call the police they just stepped outside and they jumped in and they stopped this thing all right this was the kind of neighborhood that I grew up in and that that was a huge example of leadership for me where it was putting other people before yourself and then other things
• 12:30 - 13:00 that they did that really influenced who I became as an individual you know teaching me good manners you know a lot of people get taught that the love of good food and cookery my mother really takes that seriously and then also travel was a huge part of what we did as a family loading up a tiny car with a roof rack and driving you know up to Scotland or to you know all the way to the South of France and camping along the way keeping bird counts along the way all of
• 13:00 - 13:30 those kind of things really influenced my love of the outdoors and also you know a love of nature and those kind of things all right so that was the early years and but as we go into I did go to college but these were the kind of the darkest years of my life I hated college I'm coming out of this period where I'm lacking confidence because I've been you know struggled to make friends I had I had
• 13:30 - 14:00 good friends but I didn't feel like I could truly be myself with them I hope you're in this survival mindset and you know always looking over your shoulder and so therefore confidence is law and you don't truly know who you are as an individual all right I think it's really important as a leader that you truly know who you are as an individual and so college it didn't set me up for success at college and those were the darkest years and so then I sought after things from an acceptance standpoint instead of what the the drive that I was talking
• 14:00 - 14:30 about earlier all right and some you may have been around some of these folks at college that they're just kind of lack direction on what they're supposed to be doing that was me when I went to college I didn't know why I was there I didn't have a strong drive to do well there I felt like I was supposed to be there and that was it and then while I was there you know I just got involved in things that I probably shouldn't have got involved in and those were probably the darkest times of my life which led me to this point once I came out of college where I'm asking the question what do I
• 14:30 - 15:00 want to do with my life a lot of you maybe already know that I didn't when I came out of college and I knew that I had again these things that I enjoyed earlier all right and so I love travel I loved working with kids and I loved kind of getting involved in kind of teaching situations as well I wanted it I thought I wanted to be a PE teacher and so I signed up for this one summer experience
• 15:00 - 15:30 to come to America 20 years ago to come and work at a camp that's north of town about 20 minutes camp to come so YMCA anyone been there yeah at college or when you were a kid when you're a kid with second grade which school uh-huh I worked with Mohawk trill several times yeah how about you okay all right all right so I decided I got
• 15:30 - 16:00 accepted to come and work as a counselor for one summer in America at Camp to come so YMCA and that somewhat changed my life because I came into you and I didn't know it before I came but I came into this community that was one accepting all right I found people that were encouraging and met me where I was at and encouraged me all right it's a strong Christian camp but I was kind of searching at that point there's a strong
• 16:00 - 16:30 Christian influence throughout this story but they accepted me where I was at all right and then I got to do a job where I'm outside teaching kids involved in sports and it just it was like it all made sense all right but it was just for one summer or so I thought okay I came back the next year and I did the same thing again except I started working with school groups he came with his school probably second grade you said right and I did that for a while the
• 16:30 - 17:00 next year I came back again and I worked as a this was kind of my first leadership position if you like in one of the units that they have I was responsible not just for teaching kids but I was kind of the supervisor for my peers as well all right so I learned some things about leadership there then I I joke that I met my wife there we always joke I needed a green card and she fell for the accent all right it's I
• 17:00 - 17:30 can say that because I'm happily married 18 years later all right but I met my wife at camp there are many people that meet their spouses at camp because it's a you see each other at your best in your worst you spend this intense kind of summer together well you live there you go through the ups and the downs together and it's because of that yeah that's a great place to meet people all right it's not designed that way but it is all right so I did that we and so about here I got married okay which
• 17:30 - 18:00 we're talking about leadership that involves all aspects of life all right and then I got a full-time job there and in this full-time job worked with adults given helping adults have a camp experience all right so college aged and older and so from a confidence level I came into this thing low on confidence in this whole process right here was just building my confidence around supportive people put in situations that were
• 18:00 - 18:30 challenging but again in in a position where people were encouraging you to take this challenge and walk in with you through this process all right and for me to teach kids the first year was slightly intimidating I'm responsible for coming up with this lesson now he's saying I've got to teach adults all right so I keep up in the challenge but it was it was good and it was healthy all right and then about here this is where they asked me to take
• 18:30 - 19:00 on a more major leadership position all right so not just responsible for leading programs with participants coming through but more of the big picture that's going on at camp all right and so at that point I was responsible for overseeing 50-plus counselors during the summer I was hiring training program oversight all of those logistics organization intentionality through programming all
• 19:00 - 19:30 right all of that I was responsible for and then at this point right here then it went to the next level where I was overseeing all of programs and so they're hiring you know usually a hundred and twenty people during the summer your age college age that are coming in for the summer and this is not just supervising but it's big picture what outcomes do we want to come out of this program camp is more than just the
• 19:30 - 20:00 activities that happen there all right for to come sir for example you may know some things about camps some some camps have certain things that they specialize in and so you know you probably maybe been to like a soccer camp or a sports camera or an arts camp or these kind of things well we try to specialize in was relationship development all right so how do you help people connect with kids their own age and and make healthy relationships or
• 20:00 - 20:30 help create healthy relationships how do you help the counselors that are living in the cabin become role models for these kids so that they have someone they look up to feel comfortable with can learn from all of those kind of things and how do you do that for you know there's usually about 6,000 kids that come through there every summer 520 kids a week check in every Sunday and leave on a Saturday and you want every single kid to have that experience how do you do that okay and
• 20:30 - 21:00 so what my job with other people was to help make sure that that happened for all the 520 kids that came through not just the individuals same for the school experiences all right so that made me this I would say was the building is this was the applying yes right here okay and there are a lot of failures as a leader and there are a lot of successes okay as we as I was going
• 21:00 - 21:30 through this journey right here what I realized is that I this is a the camp experience right here we see as a training ground and you think of a training ground a lot for the kids that come through but I think it's a training ground for the staff as well we realized that we probably have more impact on the staff that worked there for 10 weeks than the kids that come there for one or two weeks at a time we hope they keep
• 21:30 - 22:00 coming back and they're on this track where they keep growing and growing and growing but really we have the most impact on the counselors that come through there all right and so that became the driver if the counselors are having a great experience and they're learning and they're growing that can only mean good things for the kids that are coming through as well all right but this is a training ground and it was a training ground for me as well I thought I love this job and I talked about Drive earlier there were many times in my positions that were there that I could
• 22:00 - 22:30 not wait to get up in the morning drive was so high to create intentional programming that was creative that met people where they were at and that hopefully had the outcomes that we wanted right we didn't want people leaving camp the same that they were beforehand we wanted them to grow from the experience and some of that a lot of that is on the kind of culture that you create all right and so culture building became a big part of what I was about as
• 22:30 - 23:00 a leader and how to try and help other leaders within camp be on the same page and create that synergy so that when the kids came it really created this fantastic experience for them that makes sense so what questions do you have at this stage about leadership I haven't really gone into any concepts because I'm more interested in what you want to learn about leadership so what questions do you have I'm just telling you part of my story what are you most interested in
• 23:00 - 23:30 about leadership that maybe is spark some things yeah yeah yeah I think I guess I'll land on what I've learned a little bit for me I think so many things in life are about finding a healthy tension all right so as a leader if you think about assertive and passive I
• 23:30 - 24:00 think there's a healthy tension somewhere in the middle of there all right it's not a balance its attention all right there are times and some of you when I was about this stage I learned the definition for leadership is helping others be successful that's how they define leadership at Camp it's very simple but this is the time that I had conversations with sixth graders about
• 24:00 - 24:30 leaders don't have to be the most vocal once right or the most assertive ones and there are times in in my leadership journey where I would say especially like right here after I've been in this position for a year and I felt like I got it figured out became way too assertive and I jumped on people a lot more when they made mistakes right and so I think there's a there's a there's a tension right here in the middle between you know being
• 24:30 - 25:00 assertive and being passive okay other things I would say that I've learned with this finding a healthy tension is [Music] tradition and progression right this camp has been around for 90 plus years and they've had a strong traditional program for that time and I come in and and several of us started asking why do we do this alright and some people feel threatened by that well it's what we do it's what we've done for a long time
• 25:00 - 25:30 well I'm gonna throw out that I don't think this is as effective as you think it is right and so let's not just just do it for the sake of it but at the same time on the other end you don't just want to throw traditions out the window that have got you to where you are and so you have to ask these questions right between the two and I've made mistakes on both sides of that as well I would say so that make sense I can remember specific times though where really I really blew it with with counselors in my approach to
• 25:30 - 26:00 addressing problems with them and the longer I was there the more I realized this is about meeting people whether at in the same way that people met me where I was at and and moving from that point all right and so again there's a is a balance there or tension between the two any other questions no what are you most interested in about leadership yeah
• 26:00 - 26:30 yeah what I learned you know part of it is when I'm due at leat facilitating team-building events a lot of adults struggle with the same things that a lot of the sixth graders struggled with right they think they know it but putting it into you know applying it in these kind of situations I realized that that was the same thing but I also in those kind of situations
• 26:30 - 27:00 that's where I felt like I grew as a leader in creativity and finding out more about the groups I was working with before they came in and when you know exactly what they're trying to get out of it then it helps you to create something that is gonna meet those needs as opposed to assuming this is this works for every group right another I had to grow in confidence standing in front of a group of adults and so there
• 27:00 - 27:30 are times and maybe you felt that like this before you go into something that is that is challenging I can remember very vividly along this journey where you're like I don't want to do this and I think that's an okay place to be right where you that I'm a big John Maxwell fan he made that he said this caught everything worthwhile is uphill just think about that for a second everything worthwhile in life that you work for is
• 27:30 - 28:00 uphill right so I got married in the middle here it's marriage easy nope you got to work at it every day it's leadership easy nope you got to work at it every day and I think sometimes we come into these positions and you think this is gonna be perfect it meets all of the things that I desire in a job and then you get into it it's like man this is hard but everything worthwhile is uphill and so I can remember very specific situations where
• 28:00 - 28:30 you before you go into it you you don't want to do it right for me again it is a confidence thing you know standing in front of a group of people at camp the first time the first year I'm standing in front of a group of people I want nothing to do with the large group activities but over time when you put yourself in that position what you say I want to do that but it's hard that's a good place to be so yep
• 28:30 - 29:00 does that answer your question yeah any other questions yeah how do you keep passion and drive up that's a good question well here I forget who came up with this quote but you know with a strong
• 29:00 - 29:30 tradition a camp and so many people coming through and having the positions that you've had and looking up to those people I think the tendency is to say I want to be exactly like them and I think that that's not the right thing you need to be you that's part of the reason I'm telling you my story it's my story it's not like anyone else's story okay nobody else has the experiences that I have and we we would tell people this at the be and a team-building experience is no one this group will never be the same again because you'll never have this exact
• 29:30 - 30:00 group of people in the same room but forget where are what was the question again passion and drive right so not rep trying to replicate people before you I think is really important and so I heard a somebody say you have to create a winnable game all right