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Brand Storyteller Richie McNamara and Accounts Payable Manager Katie Smith sit down to discuss Katie's journey with C.E. Floyd's Dream Manager program, where she is discovering how to prioritize herself, chase her dreams, and build a brighter future.

Transcript

Richie: In this episode of Building People, I sit down with Katie Smith to discuss C.E. Floyd's Dream Manager program.
Our leadership team developed this program to provide our CEFamily with the opportunity to recognize the initial steps toward chasing down their dreams.

Hi Katie, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.

Katie: Thank you for having me.

Richie: I'm really excited to talk to you today about the Dream Manager program. Congrats on being selected. But first, do you want to talk about what your role here is?

Katie: Sure. So my title is accounts payable supervisor. I oversee our accounts payable coordinator. I also oversee all of the accounts payable processes, incoming payments, getting the bills paid, and making sure things are paid on time and in the most efficient process possible.

Richie: I just wrote a little profile on our LinkedIn page, go check it out, about your jujitsu practice. Do you want to want to give the audience a little teaser of what that's like?

Katie: So the profile that you did talked about my experience with competing in a very specific match I had last year, and the connections you make with the people I compete against. And a lot of the parts of jujitsu that spread to the rest of your life, the ability to stay calm under pressure, the ability to like, prioritize and just look at your life and realize, like what's really important. And since then, I'm excited to share. I got my first gold medal back on May 20th!

Richie: Congrats! So a little bit about the Dream Manager program, it was introduced in 2020. The Fully Living Out Your Dreams program is what it's been coined. So it's a talk series, a series of self-help seminars, and it's kind of inspired by this book. The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. 

Katie: The idea is laying out all the dreams that I have in life and focusing on one specifically and just having that support and being able to make that happen

Richie: So you applied and were selected to have this dream manager experience. Just out of curiosity, what was the application process like?

Katie: Chris asked two questions of the applicants. And the first one was, what is your motivation to invest in yourself and explore your dreams? And he asked us to kind of explain the commitment to that. And my motivation came from a cycle in my whole life of people-pleasing. I always kind of thought that if I put others first, that would turn around and make me happy. But as I get older, I'm starting to realize that I have to fulfill my own happiness in order to be my best self, to present as a friend, as a partner, as a manager, as an employee. So I think working on myself and prioritizing that will kind of spread out into the other areas of my life.
The second question was what barriers do you currently face that working with a dream manager could help you overcome? And I think my biggest barrier has always been waiting to take action until I feel fully ready for something, waiting until the situation is perfect, waiting until all the pieces fall into place. And sometimes I need someone to say, like, this is as ready as you're ever going to be, and let's go. And I think that's what that dream manager is going to help me with, just kind of sticking with me side by side, making sure that I keep moving forward and thinking today rather than someday.

Richie: Yeah, absolutely. I love both parts of what you said because if you can't help yourself, how are you going to help other people?

Katie: Exactly. I think another thing is I have always been very independent. I pride myself on standing on my own two feet and doing things for myself. But that has created this idea that it's not okay to ask for help. So it's something I've been working on, and I think this is going to be a big help with that. This is inherently someone helping me through this entire process and I'm accepting it and I'm opening myself up to it.

Richie: So you just had your first kick-off meeting with the dream manager,  who is the dream manager and how did it go?

Katie: His name is Tony Ferraro. He is the director of training services for Floyd Consulting, the company that Matthew Kelly created to establish this program. And it was great. He seems easy to talk to. I felt like an instant comfort with him. He knew a lot about jujitsu, so we kind of instantly bonded over that. And just right off the bat, I felt like he was going to be someone, like, easy to work with.

The kickoff meeting was mostly just an introduction and very high-level laying out what this program is going to be like. You know, the things we talked about, how we're going to work on like a specific dream, how he's going to help me with different aspects of my life, like physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual. We'll meet once a month over the course of the next year, there'll be little bits of homework and things to work on.
He sent over a bunch of materials, this binder that kind of goes through each session and gives me things to focus on in between our meetings, as well as a couple of books. The Dream Manager book and another one by Matthew Kelly that is called The Rhythm of Life. The basic idea is that the four areas of your life, the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, are kind of the areas you need to focus on for like overall happiness and fulfillment.

Richie: So why is this meaningful to you?

Katie: Like I said, over the course of my life, I've always put other people first. And I think this is helping me to put myself first, for one, and to focus on something that is... although it's going to help the other people in my life, it's really for me.

Richie: Great. I do want to document your whole process, so I'll definitely have you back once you're at the next step of this experience, whatever that is. Is there anything else you want to share about this experience so far?

Katie: It sounds like my first session is going to be when I'll get the chance to build what's called my dream list. So they listed a number of different categories adventure, emotional, financial, professional, character, and psychological goals. They provided me with a journal, so I'll get the chance to sit down and list out I think it's 100 dreams that I have, so that's going to take some time, but it'll be cool to kind of dig into that. And then I think I'll get the chance to really select which dream I'm going to focus on for the next year.

Richie: Well, thank you for joining me today, Katie. I'm so excited to learn more.

Katie: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to share it.

Richie: Two months after our initial conversation, Katie and I met up again to check in about her dream manager journey. We discussed the progress made in narrowing down her goal and the tools and guidance the Dream Manager has provided her so far.

Welcome back! Thanks for joining me. How are you? How's your summer? 

Katie: So far, so good. It's gone by really fast. In June, I got the chance to take a vacation to Key West with a couple of my close friends. So that was a nice reset and refresh. Since coming back, I started my eight-week training camp for Master Worlds, which is a big Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Las Vegas at the end of August. So that's ramping up right now.

Richie: Wow, you're right in the thick of it. 

Katie: I'm in the thick of it right now. Yes. 

Richie: Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this with me. The last time we talked was two or three months ago, and you were just getting started with your dream manager journey. You've met a couple of times with the dream manager since we talked. What have you accomplished since? 

Katie: So the first meeting was kind of just an intro to the whole program, and my homework from that meeting was to come up with my list of dreams. The goal was to come up with 100 total dreams and they fit into a bunch of different categories like adventure, emotional, material, creative, and psychological. Breaking it down by category made it a little easier to do 100. I didn't come up with 100. I came up with 89. And they vary in scale from, you know, a variety of places that I want to travel to, to little things. One of the material dreams I have is buying a car outright in cash, with no payment. So they kind of scale from big to small. And then in that last meeting, we talked about how to prioritize dreams because I have this huge list and it's overwhelming and the idea of achieving all of these dreams feels overwhelming. So we did an exercise on how to compare and contrast things, using the example of when you and your partner/your friends are trying to decide where to eat and you come up with three or four restaurants and you can't decide which one. So it's kind of a compare and contrast. Compare number one to number two. Number one to number three, and that helps you narrow it down. So we compare that to the idea of dreams and the goal now is to narrow it down to four dreams. And this will help me establish the dream that we are going to work towards. So he broke it down. Two of the dreams that I'm selecting are something that can be obtained in the next 12 months. So he suggested that those be either financial or physical because they're easy to track, they're easy to break down into manageable steps. And I think it's easier to achieve dreams when you can see the progress, you know, then the third and the fourth. The third dream to select is one that I would imagine achieving in the next 1 to 5 years. The last one is something I would imagine achieving in five-plus years. So I think the one that I will select to work with him on will be one of those 12-month dreams since we're doing a 12-month program. But I think the idea of the 1 to 5 years and the five plus years is good to keep the idea of dreaming and working towards my dreams, and my goals, even after we meet.

Richie: That's great that it's kind of like setting you up to build these habits that keep you consistently working on self-improvement and achieving your dreams. 

Katie: Exactly. He used the example of if one of the dreams that we work towards in the 12 months is financial, whether it's paying off debt, building a savings account, you know, things like that, that can set you up for some of those bigger dreams, like to own my own home. And the adventure category was the biggest. I want to travel and see things. So getting in a better situation financially could potentially help set me up for things like that in the future.

Richie: Last time we talked, you mentioned how part of this dream manager journey for you is doing something for you, prioritizing yourself. Do you feel like you have started adopting that kind of mindset since you started working with the Dream Manager, just like in your daily life?

Katie: Yeah, I think I've been trying to prioritize myself and my needs more and put myself first when I make decisions. Because I think, as I mentioned last, the better I am, the better I can present myself in every situation, whether it's at work, at the gym, as a teacher or training partner, you know, in my relationship and my friendships. So I feel like if I fill my own tank, then I can fill up your cup, and you can share with others. And I think I've been trying to think of that more often.

Richie: That's great to hear. So I know you aren't totally narrowing your dreams down yet. You aren't at that stage. But do you have like a handful that you think will end up making the final cut?

Katie: Yeah, I'm looking at the idea of paying off some credit card debt. Working at a nonprofit previously... my salary would cover my rent, and my utilities, but I would have to rely on a credit card for things like groceries, gas, and everyday living expenses. Now that I'm in a much better situation, I think I'm still carrying that burden a little bit. And I think for a physical goal, that would involve jujitsu tournaments. There is kind of a scale. There are the local ones that I've done. This one in Vegas is a much bigger organization, and there's an even larger one called the Pan American Championship that's in Florida. And it's something, you know, you train for months, you really kind of put your all in, and people come from all over the world. I kind of thought that I would never be quite that good, you know what I mean? But I'm trying to think of it differently. It's not about how good I am. It's about the work that I can put into it. So I'm thinking of maybe using that as a goal to work towards.

Richie: He said the financial and the physical ones are the ones that are easiest to track or see results?

Katie: Yes, the financial, for example, if you have this much of a balance and you want to pay it down,  you can see that you're paying, you know, you can watch the numbers go down. And that's satisfying to see, you know, to kind of see that that ticking down. And I think the physical he mentioned that a lot of people talk about a goal of losing this much weight or reaching this size. And it's easy to see that, you know, as the number goes down, your clothing changes or, you know, building up to doing a certain number of pull-ups. So I think it's those types of goals that you can check in on and stay motivated instead of just looking at the big picture. It's almost like breaking it down into many goals, and meeting those many goals gets you to that big one, right?

Richie: I can totally see how that feeling, satisfaction of seeing those kinds of milestones can help. 

Katie: And I think it keeps you motivated because making this dream list, a lot of the things I'm thinking of felt so out of my reach. And it's almost overwhelming. Like, I'm looking at this whole list of things that I haven't done and I'm like, How much time do I have? How many resources do I have? So I think that breaking it down into smaller, more manageable goals I think keeps that endorphin boost going.

Richie: What are some of the specific tools or structures that the Dream Manager has provided you that you find really helpful?

Katie: Something that I found really helpful that I'm kind of thinking about throughout the month in between our meetings, we start each meeting with this thing called the Rhythm of Life scorecard. So he has four categories physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. You check in and you rate them green, yellow, or red, similar to a stoplight. You know, red means I'm not doing all this at all. Yellow means I feel pretty good, but I could improve. And green means I feel like this is on point right now. And I think then we check in quickly about if there's any that I picked green or yellow. Like, what can I do to maintain that, especially the green. If there's anything that I'm feeling red, what can I do to bring myself to a yellow or a green? So it kind of forces me to look at myself first because these four things are very personal, you know what I mean? And it kind of helps me to see what feeds into each of these, like what makes me feel the green level for emotional, what makes me feel that green level for intellectual? It makes me evaluate kind of where I'm at at the moment, which is very grounding. My brain is constantly thinking, you know, at this moment, but also the next moment, next day and next... I'm a planner for sure. And I think this helps me be in the moment for a minute, look around myself, and say, where am I at right now? How can I improve that? And I think I've been thinking about that more in between meetings. Like, you know, I'm driving to work, I'm driving to the gym. Take a minute to check in with me. Am I feeling green in all these categories? What can I do today to make that feel a little better? What can I do in the next week to make that a little better? It helps. 

Richie: That's so interesting because I think of this Dream Manager thing as like planning, structure, and foresight type of thing. But then these mindfulness techniques are really what makes you good at planning. 

Katie: Exactly. And I think the purpose is that the more mindful you can be in the moment, the more you can think about the future. And I didn't think of that. I'm constantly thinking about the next week, the next month, or next year. And it's hard for me to remember, what about the moment I'm living in right now? I'm amazed at how much I think. I mean, it's only been two sessions so far, but I can already see that this is going to spread out into the rest of my life and help me make improvements in the way I'm living every day, which is great.

Richie: Well, I'm enjoying following this journey with you. I feel like every time we talk, I learn something new about obviously your dream manager journey, but also, mindfulness and how to be your best self. So is there anything else you want to share?

Katie: My goals are to narrow down those two 12-month goals and then to look at that bigger picture, like what do I imagine the next 1 to 5 years? 

Richie: Looking forward to our next conversation!

Stay tuned to the Building People podcast to keep up with Katie's Dream Manager journey, as I'll be checking in with her periodically to track what this process looks like. You can follow us on Spotify, and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to our YouTube channel.