July 29, 2025 • 38 mins
Welcome back to The First Responder Playbook! In this episode, host Brent sits down with Tony Schmaltz, a seasoned leadership and peak performance coach who’s made a name for himself teaching at industry giants like Amazon. Tony shares powerful stories from his journey, starting as an “arrogant” young worker transformed by mentorship into a genuine leader driven to help others upgrade their lives. Together, they tackle some of the biggest questions facing first responders and leaders today: the real difference between leading and managing, why language is your most powerful tool, and how to stop people-pleasing without turning into a control freak.
You’ll hear insightful discussion about the value of taking ownership—why constant complaining is a clear sign you’re not in the driver’s seat—and learn the importance of making agreements instead of operating on vague expectations. Tony dives into practical tools like the Wheel of Life, offers strategies to help first responders cope with tough days, and introduces his book “Wake the BLEEP Up,” written to break down the barriers holding you back. Whether you’re new to leadership or looking to sharpen your skills, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration to help you lead with integrity, positivity, and impact. Grab your notebook—this conversation is one you won’t want to miss!
Want to be a guest on The First Responder Playbook: Insights on Leadership and Training? Send Brent Colbert a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1748037097521814b71b1b454
Link to Tony's book: https://amzn.to/40KbSvo
Tony's website: https://www.tonyschmaltz.com/
Tony's assessment: https://ultimateassessment.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Guys, welcome to the first responder playbook. I'm joined tonight by Tony
Schmaltz. Tony is a leadership, I'm going to call him
expert. He's a leadership peak performance
expert, upgrade coach and he's taught at Amazon.
Tony, I'm going to let you do yourself. A true introduction
worthy of yourself. I appreciate that. I
(00:22):
do the same thing on my show. I'm like, here, have at it.
No, I appreciate it. And yeah, I know it's like you said. So I've kind
of been leading, leading teams, leading people most of my adult lives.
In fact, all of my adult life worked in the manufacturing corporate
world for a lot of years. Worked my way from literally the bottom up
to close to the top before I went out on my own becoming a coach
(00:45):
and led lots of people. I've got people now that
I've mentored over the years that are now general managers,
vice presidents and so it's, it's been a lot of fun leading and mentoring
people. And yeah, so now I'm the upgrade coach and I like to help people
upgrade their, their lives, their mindsets, their, you know, their
beings, everything about them, including who they're, who they're being with the people
(01:07):
around them and it directly relates to, to what your topic, topic is,
you know, first responders, you know, it's God being a first
responder. I got nothing but praise for him. And that's first and
foremost. Being a good leader is a, and makes you a better, better at all
of it. Yeah, absolutely. So how did you
realize that you wanted to go down the leadership mentoring route?
(01:29):
How did you find that light bulb finally? Come on.
So that actually started when somebody else took interest in
me early on in my career, when I was my early 20s, I was
an arrogant piece of POS.
I was that young kid knew it all, you know, you can't tell
me I know it all. And then at one point the
(01:52):
company I worked for at the time, they're like, hey, we see you work hard.
And they flat out told me I was an arrogant bastard. But
like, hey, you work hard, you're here every day, you're working overtime. You know, you've
got, you've got some, you've got some intelligence about you, but we need to
develop this on the leadership side if you're going to go anywhere. And
at the time I still didn't quite see it. However, they sent me to
(02:15):
the Dale Carnegie course. For anyone who's not familiar with that, it's a 13 week
course where you go once a Week and we had to go after hours.
And they teach you how to effectively communicate, how to become a
better leader, how to interact with people, how to build relationships. And,
and that course, I probably, I mark that in the calendar as
the. Is kind of the turning point. You know, I was
(02:38):
always very articulate, outgoing, but again, arrogant.
That changed the way I looked at people, the way I helped people, the way
I served people. And from there I started leading instead of just
being, instead of managing, instead of being a, A
whipper, I became, I became the leader. And that was, that was the big
turning point. And that organization, the president and general
(03:00):
manager, the guys who really put their faith in me, even though I was low
on the totem pole, kind of gave me the confidence to say, hey, yeah, if
these guys are looking at me this way, maybe I just release something to this
and I can do it. Yeah. And you, you made a very good
distinction there and that There's a big difference between a leader and a
manager. Yeah, big
(03:20):
difference. Well, you know, anybody can have a title.
A leader cannot have a title. And that's what I try to always
tell people, especially in the first responder world, is
there's times where we've got a lead without supervision.
And, you know, I'm not saying go out there and just rock the boat with
(03:41):
your, you know, corporal or sergeant and say, hey, man, I'm the leader. Like,
probably wouldn't go over too well. But, you know, we have to
be the person that is able to make those decisions and make them
rightly, you. Know, and do it. And do it in a way where
you're, you're ruffling as little amount of feathers as possible. I mean,
you're, you're doing it in a way where you're building relationships or you're maintaining
(04:03):
relationships, you know, and that's. Especially with first responders, man, you come
into situations that one, you're just trying to get a grasp on. You don't
know what's happening. Some could be incredibly ugly. Some could be maybe not so ugly,
but still urgent. And you're trying to
maintain your Persona at the same time, you're trying to
evaluate the situation, know what's going on, keep people under, keep people calm.
(04:25):
That takes an enormous amount of leadership. And, and
that, I mean, it's. That you totally talk about the power of language. The
power. I mean, just the way you speak to people, the way you speak out
into the world is going to make the difference in you being that powerful
leader when you're showing up on scene Versus, versus that guy who's
pissing off somebody who's just looking for extra help.
(04:47):
Yeah, I, I wholeheartedly agree with that for sure.
You know, I was looking at the, the questions to ask you,
like some sample questions and I was like, man, these are awesome questions.
You know, I, I, I have a, a real question though is
I just got my life and career coaching
(05:08):
certification within the last month. And so I'm working on my
ICS certification right now. And how
did you get involved in that? And what stood out to
you about doing the.
So my first real involvement in coaching was when I hired, after I hired
(05:28):
my first coach, my, my family and I, we live in
Florida now, but we're originally from Seattle area. And
back in 2018, I accepted a job in Panama City, Florida.
That, that literally moved us, my wife, my kids, all the way across
country to, to Florida. And the company I thought
hey was gonna be a great new opportunity turned out to be the worst place
(05:50):
I'd ever worked ever. The grass was definitely not greener in that case.
So I went from being a positive leader that I had been the whole time
I was in Washington State. You know, I mean, I had people wanting to work
for me left and right. You know, I was promote getting promoted, raises
wonderful to this place that just dragged me down.
And at one point my wife looked at me and said, something's
(06:12):
got to change. You got to do something. I've never seen you like this before.
I was just miserable coming home from work. I know a lot of people are,
but I wasn't normally and I was just miserable. And so on the
recommendation of a friend, a friend of a friend
recommended this coach to me. So I had a conversation with him and
one thing led to another and I ended up hiring him. And I spent a
lot of money. And at the time, that was money that I didn't really have,
(06:35):
or can't say I didn't have. I didn't have to, couldn't afford to spend and
Right. But it turned out to be the best money I've ever spent.
And about six months after working with him on a 18 month contract,
I said, this is what I want to do. I said, I've been leading people
my whole, whole career, but I've always been doing it on somebody else's accord. I've
always been doing it the way the company told me I needed to do it
(06:56):
or somebody else told me I had to do it. Now I can serve people
the way I know I can do best or the way they truly need it.
And so that's where I got started. That was back in 2019, and
I've been doing it ever since. Now that's the one thing I love about
it, is being able to help individuals on an individual
basis. Whereas, you know, you're in a corporation, they're like, this is our
(07:17):
leadership style. You got to do it this way where me, I can go, hey,
I can find out what's going on in Brent's head and help Brent exactly the
way Brent needs to be helped versus what everybody else around needs.
Exactly. I, I, it's getting involved in that
domain. It's such a unknown in the law enforcement first
responder world right now. I feel like
(07:41):
maybe in some bigger towns, like, they started implementing it, but
I really want to start integrating that into this space because
there's such a. I don't want to call it a market because
I don't. I wouldn't mind eventually doing it as a job per se, but
on the first responder side, I would just like to do it because I want
to make that space a better space that makes sense. And
(08:05):
there's just such a untapped area for that because
we're taught for so long to do things a certain way and not
necessarily think on our own and think of better ways.
And, man, I, I really want to make the first
responder world a little bit better than when I got here. You know, at the
end of the. Day, well, I think you're in the right, the right world. I
(08:27):
don't know of a lot of, A lot of coaches that are working in that
first responder world. And God, based on what
I know from the people I know that are first responders, is the,
the level of absolute hell that you can possibly go through as a first
responder? I mean, not all, but, I mean, there are times where you walk into
a, just a storm of. Perfect storm of
(08:47):
garbage. I mean, it, it, it weighs on people,
and it's nice to have somebody, Somebody who can. Who.
I got it. I really hope you put, you pursue this, because I
think that would be a great path is, is coaching first responders,
and I know they can use it. I know they could use it. Yeah.
And, you know, I, I heard a saying when I first
(09:10):
got into law enforcement 10 years ago, and it
rings true still to this day, especially now that I've been a supervisor
before. And it was, it was there.
Today's a bad day to be a cop, you know, because
there's just days. It's a bad day to be A cop. And
because you either see something crazy or you're involved in it,
(09:33):
and there needs to be that outlet to, like,
talk about these things and, like, talk about
frustrations. And I recently went through peer
support training, and I was very amazed as I went through that
that a lot of the terminology and peer support is the same thing as what's
in coaching. Right. And. And I was like, hey, I
(09:56):
know that. And, you know, it furthered my
belief is that I'm gonna start integrating those into, like,
you know, people that I work with and stuff, because
if I'm thinking about those things and how they could work, I know other people
would too, you know? Yeah, yeah. And. And. And people respond
well to it, you know, because. Because they need that so much. And,
(10:19):
you know, there's a saying that I like to use. You said it's a bad
day to be a cop. Well, the saying that I like to use that I
actually, actually got from another coach, Michael Neal, is there's
no such thing as a bad day. Now, with that said,
there are moments in our days that
are not preferred. So you may, like you said bad day to be a cop.
(10:40):
You may have three or four instances that seem really crappy at the time,
but it's our choice whether we let those three or four or five moments hang
on to us for the rest of the day. And this is why I brought
you on, because that is awesome. Love it.
And you're not wrong now that you. You break it down like that. I mean,
you're right. I mean, seven out of the eight hours could be
(11:03):
totally awesome. But we take. We choose as
people in general, to hang on to that one hour and go, God, I had
such a crappy day. No, you didn't. You had one hour of your day that
was crappy. Guess what? The rest of the day. The other 23 hours, minus the
sleep, of course, was a great day. I love
that. I. You know, that's actually putting in some. I can learn something new
(11:23):
every day. That's actually a really good perspective. I like that. So let's
talk about some leadership talk topics now.
You know, when you take. In real life, to
take ownership, how does someone know they're not taking
ownership? Yeah, that's. That's. That's actually
really, really easy to recognize if. If you're you or somebody
(11:47):
else listening or. Or somebody out there, if you are a constant
complainer, you are not taking ownership over your life.
You know, there's an example. I'm not. Are you familiar with Jack Canfield?
Wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul. Yes. Okay,
so he used to work with, he used to work at, he used to do
sales for W. Commence Stone. Major,
(12:08):
major multi millionaire insurance guy.
And when W. Commence Stone was talking to, to Jack Canfield, he's like,
he's like, hey, in order for you to be successful, you have to take responsibility.
You have to take ownership over your own life. He's like, do you ever
blame or complain? He's like, of course I do. I'm a human. He's like, then
you're not taking 100 ownership over your life. There's
(12:30):
if, I mean, we are human, we're gonna complain, we're gonna find. But if you
spend your days complaining, you're living in victim mode
and you're not taking ownership. When you can take
a look in the mirror, when you can get to that point where you find
that everything is based on your choices and the way
you react to things and the way you, you handle things in your life and
(12:51):
you see that and you're able to look, live with that, then you can start
taking ownership. But if you're pointing fingers at somebody else, oh, Joe
Bob did this, or oh, the government did this, or oh, that,
guess what? You're not taking personal responsibility. You're pulling out that victim
card. And I tell people, throw that victim card out the window. Let's, let's take
ownership. Yeah. And that's, that's something we run
(13:12):
into a lot in the first responder world is because they get,
people get so jaded and I'm, I'll own it. I've been there before. I've
been that guy. That happens a
lot. And it makes a lot
of sense that like we kind of victim blame
ourselves and we're like, or me, you know, and we don't
(13:35):
own, own what maybe we did wrong. Right? Or we don't even
have to own what we did wrong. It's, it's back to the, the, the,
the, the, the famous phrase, the glass is half full.
You know, it's, it's living in that glasses half full world. Guess what?
You can't go back and change the past. That's over. It's.
Instead of blaming even, even yourself, instead of blaming yourself or somebody else.
(13:58):
It's called full acceptance. You know, there was a
Steve Chandler, another mentor of mine. These guys I'm mentioning, by the way, are all
friends too. Now they may have started as mentors. Now I, I interact with these
guys regularly. Steve Chandler, that's awesome. I highly recommend any
of his books. This guy's written 43 books. Every one of them is amazing.
Steve Chandler said to me one time, a lot of
(14:20):
people talk about forgiveness, self forgiveness, forgiveness of others, and he's. He,
he has a different take on it. I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but
it's very interesting to listen to. It's total acceptance,
because as soon as you bring out the word forgiveness or forgive,
like I'm gonna forgive you, then you're acknowledging that that person did something
wrong, and you're putting your mind in a negative context.
(14:43):
But if you go with, you go with overall acceptance, you know what? I accept
that one way or the other. Then you don't have to put yourself into a
negative mindset. You're just accepting and moving on.
That is the hardest, one of the hardest things for anyone to do. And I
don't mean just the acceptance piece. I mean letting things go from yesterday and moving
on to today. Yeah, that's very true. I mean, you
(15:05):
see that, you see what that clock says right there? I can't see it. It's.
It's a little bit cut off.
There we go there. I like that. Because that's all we
have. All we have is right now. We don't have then. Yeah, we
don't have tomorrow. We have right now.
Yep, that's very true. That's. That's actually why
(15:27):
I've. I've challenged myself to come out of my comfort zone
and say I'm ready for a leadership role and start applying for these
different leadership roles. Because tomorrow's not
promised, and if I wait, you know, something could happen,
and I feel like I'm ready now. So you're right.
Yeah. Why wait? You know? Exactly. The time's now.
(15:51):
So I, I really enjoyed this one on here as well. How
can leaders stop people pleasing without turning into jerks or control
freaks? Because that is something that all of us first
responders struggle with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, the first. The biggest thing. The biggest thing is,
is the power of language. And, and when I say the power of
(16:12):
language, understand that the word no
is a completely acceptable answer and a complete sentence.
It's okay to tell people no. You don't always have to say yes. Now, I'm
not saying flat out say no or, or hell no. You know, you know, that's,
that's ruffling the feathers. That's. That's pissing people off.
But it's okay to, like, if somebody comes to you, whether it's a boss, it's
(16:34):
a co worker, and you're that person that has always been the yes person.
Stop that. Make the choice. Make the choice that I'm not going to be that
yes person anymore. That is the number one
characteristic of a people pleaser is that being that yes person.
Start saying no more often. Just like, hey, it's like if somebody invites you
to a, a barbecue or a cookout and you really don't want to go because
(16:55):
there's somebody there, you, instead of going, yeah, I'll make it, you know, just say,
yeah, you know what? I'm not going to make it this time. They're going to
go, why? I just don't feel like it today. You know, it's okay.
We spend our time in our minds every day worried about what
other people are going. We plan it out in our heads what other people are
going to think and say before we even ask them or talk to them, you
(17:15):
know, and that's, that's how most people get into people please remote.
So in reality, the first, first step is make a choice. Make a choice that
I'm not going to be a people pleaser anymore. Start using the word no more.
Stop apologizing. So often because too many people over apologize, they
say they're sorry and there's nothing to, nothing to really apologize for.
Absolutely. And, and second, use
(17:37):
language that's speaking positive in the world. You know, I,
when I was teaching at Amazon and a couple of the other corporate events,
I talk about the power of language being one of the most powerful things and
it's how you speak to people. And that includes not just
the way you speak in a general conversation, but think about people
in general, especially people who are either employees or co workers
(18:00):
or even family. Like I have, I do this with my, my wife and kids
all the time. Acknowledgement.
We as humans can do 99 out of 100
things right, but the only one we hear about is the one thing we did
wrong. Now, as a leader, if you spend some
time acknowledging more of those 99 things, you don't even
(18:21):
have to have to worry about the one thing that maybe didn't go the right
way because the other person's going to be so amped up they did all these
other things right, that they're not going to make that mistake. Yep.
I love that. That's one of the biggest ones. The biggest one is the power
of language. But ultimately, stop apologizing so much. Make the decision
and don't be the yes person. I love that. I love it.
(18:44):
Tell me about the agreements over expectations. What's,
what's, what's the difference there? Okay, so
expectations. Expectations cause only two things
and it's emotional, it causes disappointment, or nothing
at all. Because when you expect something and somebody doesn't deliver,
you're disappointed. If somebody does deliver, then it's nothing because that's what you expected.
(19:08):
However, the agreement is actually having that conversation. So
for example, let's say one of my employees
says, or, or I have a project I have for one of my employees and
I say, hey, can you get this done by Friday? And that person says
yes, because they're a people pleaser and my expectation is going to be.
Or, excuse me, I tell them I need it done by Friday. They don't really
(19:30):
acknowledge either way, but my expectation is that they're going to get it done by
Friday. They don't, and I'm disappointed and I harass them for it.
Well, in reality, to make an agreement would be, hey, can you get this
done by Friday? And they say, you know what, I really can't. How about
next Wednesday? And you're like, okay, that's cool. What can
I do to help you get it done by Friday? Well, if you help, have
(19:51):
Joe come and help me. Then together we can get this done by Friday.
Cool. Can we, can we agree to that? And, and if they say yes,
cool. Otherwise, if not, what else do you need? So it's,
it's getting past the things. Like even at the household,
you know, a lot of spouses or a lot of wives are like, oh, I
expect my husband to take the garbage out every day. Great. But we've never actually
(20:12):
had that conversation to where you say, hey, can you please take the garbage out
by seven o' clock every day? And, and so one of them's
getting pissed off even though the other one doesn't even know. That's the expectation. So
it's about coming to the agreement, having the conversation. And
then once you agree, don't. This is back to people pleasing. Don't
agree to something that you can't commit, you can't actually
(20:34):
commit to. So if you know you're not going to get it done, don't agree
to it. Only agree. Only create an agreement that, you
know, both parties can commit to and finish.
I like that. I like that a lot actually. What's one
thing you wish every leader high performer would start doing today to
upgrade their life? Oh, that is, that has got to be what
(20:57):
I talked about earlier. The power of language. It's got to be the language big
time. Because the. I've seen so many people
who have Potential to be great leaders and they're in high level
roles, but they got there for different reasons that are
just crapping on their employees. And so morale is low,
production is low. And it's, and there's a couple of these that I've worked with
(21:18):
that as soon as they turn that language around, I mean the, just, even the
acknowledgment that I was talking about, they start acknowledging these people for some of the
things they're doing and they, they come back to me a couple weeks later like,
I don't know what happened. My, my team's on fire. Everything's coming. I'm like, did
you, did you do what we talked about? Did you start acknowledging people? Did you
start speaking more? Yeah, that's what happened.
So that's, that's the biggest one. And, and the other one is the,
(21:42):
so you've already mentioned it, the agreements versus expectations. Start making
it. Start speaking more positive. Start acknowledging. Start creating
agreements over having expectations and do any. And
that goes for the leader too, whoever that leader is. Do what you say you're
gonna do. Don't, don't commit to something if you know you
can't get. You're not going to get it done. Only make commitments that
(22:04):
you're going to complete and then complete them. Lead by
example, lead by positive example. Yep. I love
that. So I want to talk about this because I was looking at it down
at the bottom. Tell me about the ultimate assessment.
So this is a, this breaks down mindset, action,
procrastination. I've got five different sections here and
(22:26):
if you go to that, if you go to that link ultimateassessment.com
and fill it out, you can rate and find out where in your world
you may be lacking or need some help. And it could be all of them.
It doesn't, it doesn't matter. There's no harm to this.
But a lot of people don't even know. We talk about looking in the mirror.
You can look in the mirror and you go, okay, I look fine. It looks
(22:47):
like me. You may not know where you're actually lacking until you take something like
this. So each, each section has, I think, five questions. And each
question has a numer numerical value based on the answer you give.
And that at the end will tell you, hey, I'm, I need to really focus
on my mindset or I need to focus on my motivation or I'm, I'm not
taking enough action or, or whatever that may be for you.
(23:09):
So that's really what that's about. That's about helping people find out where
they can improve in their lives, which is all of
us. Can I still go back to it myself? I wrote it. I still go
back to it myself.
You know, that's something very important that you hit on, is that
we always have room for improvement in some area.
(23:32):
I actually had this discussion today. I'm working on my
doctorate in strategic leadership. Wow. Somebody and somebody
said, well, how do you feel like you're doing in life?
And I said, professionally, I feel like maybe I'm not
necessarily where I want to be yet, but, like, educationally, I feel
like I'm knocking it out of the park. And they were like,
(23:54):
well, so you feel like you're doing pretty good? And I said, yeah, I could
agree with that. But I've got a lot of improvement professionally, so
socially, because I don't have a ton of social time, you know, like,
there's plenty of room for improvement in my life.
Things may be going good, and they are, but it doesn't mean everything's
perfect. And there's plenty of room for improvement in my life. My friends right now
(24:16):
that probably listen to this would be like, you only text me. I don't ever
see you. Yeah, sorry, guys. Love you. But,
you know, there's always room for improvement in some area of your life.
And you have to be willing to admit that. Well,
100. 101 of the. Outside
of the ultimate assessment that you're talking. We were talking about when I. When I
(24:38):
work with somebody, one on one, one of the first things that we work on
is what I got from. I got from Tom Zigler, who's Zig Ziglar's son.
It's called the Wheel of Life. And when Tom first. I mean,
I read it in his book first, and then when him and I got on
a call and started talking, he's like, here, now let me walk you through the
actual Wheel of Life. I love the Wheel of Life. So you. Do you know
what I'm talking about then? So you're familiar. So did you get it from Tom
(25:01):
Ziegler's book, or did you get it from somewhere else? I got it from the
coaching program I went through. But tell my listeners about the Wheel of Life, because
I haven't talked about it on the show yet. All right. So the Wheel of
Life is literally a circle, and it has different spokes to it. And each
spoke of this is like a wheel, a wheel on a bike. And you've got
your personal life, you've got your business career. You've got your
(25:22):
finances, you've got your, your
health. Oh, I'm missing two. Missing two. Your
mental state. And there's one other I'm missing off the top of my head I
usually have to look at. Anyway, what it is, is you go through and you,
you rate each one of these as on a scale of 1 to 10 or
00 to 10, 10 being the best. And the 10 will be the outside
of the circle, which is the wheel. And what typically
(25:45):
happens is when you're being truly honest with yourself is you'll
have a flat tire somewhere. So you could be good. You could have like
sevens to tens around this part of the wheel. And then inside here you'll
have fours and fives. You'll be like, these two or three areas are fours and
fives and that's where you spend most of your focus. Okay,
Yeah, I know I need improvement in these other areas too, but holy crap, I'm
(26:06):
looking at fours and fives here. I'm going to put my focus on that.
I love it. And the wheel is so
honest because as long as you go in there with an open mind and say,
hey, I'm going to be honest on here, you will visually see where
you need improvement very quickly. Exactly, exactly.
And they're, and, and they're so versatile. You can actually apply them to pretty much
(26:29):
anything in life. And it doesn't just have to be like those,
those just, you know, basic ones like we talked about, because that's what you use
usually in an opening one. But you can even apply those in the business
world, like first responder world. Like, they're
so versatile. I love the wheel. Like I, I went down a rabbit hole one
day of looking at like 30 different, like how people applied their wheels of life.
(26:51):
And I'm like, man, I like this thing. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's. I actually, my coaching is also
my concentration in my doctorate. Oh, really? And,
and I am in my
concentration classes right now. And we use the wheel in there.
And I was like, I was so glad to see it in there. It's like.
(27:14):
And we had to make like a little coaching packet or something like we could
put together to like draw back like inspiration. And
I, I made sure to put the wheel in there because I was like, I
love the wheel. It's so versatile. That's great. I've been using it for five years.
I mean. Yeah, five years. It's. It is, it's great. Now
I gotta ask you now about your coaching. So what, what do you
(27:35):
have any. Do you have your own coach right now. I don't have my own
coach right now. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Just curiosity and is
there any particular coach or coaches that you follow when you're, you know, you
say you're going through the ICF and things like that. So
I just went through, it's called tcta.
(27:55):
It was a coaching program I found on the ICF website. And then I went
through first responder coaching. I went through two programs and I did that because
I wanted two different perspectives on coaching. Right, right. And
one of them used a laser focused model and one of them used a coactive
model. But what I learned is, and I'm, I'm
very glad I went through both of them is there is no
(28:16):
one size fit all approach to coaching. That's for
darn sure. And there is so many different,
like you can put your own flair on it, your own style.
And man, I'm, I'm honestly, it's still,
I'm still in that stage of. It's like drinking from a fire hose.
Yes, it is. You know,
(28:40):
I don't have anybody specifically yet that I'm, I would say
that I like, you know, as a mentor yet.
I just, I'm trying to find as many coaches as I can
and pick each one of them's brain. Nice. Everyone
offers a little bit different take on what coaching is
(29:01):
and how to be successful in it. 100%. Don't stop doing
that, by the way. Don't stop doing that. I mean, it's these names that I'm
throwing out there. I mean, even though I call them all my mentors, I mean
I've got a hundred of them because I don't. I. You,
you're always going to get a different perspective. You're always going to get something different.
And that's, that's what's great about this. That's what's great about
(29:22):
getting into the coaching world. Especially like you said, it's. There's no one size fits
all. And each one of us is different. Each one of us is unique. And
what works for Joe Bob may not work for Brent, may not work for Tony.
And so I might be able to take a piece of Joe Bob and a
piece of, of Steve and a piece of this person and put them all into
my, my schmaltzy world. But that's that, that's how it
(29:43):
works. You know, you gotta, you gotta, gotta get out there and, and just get
to know some of these people. Get to get to know some of these people
read some books, you know, take some courses and, and learn it.
Yeah, I, I'm,
I just had a, a guest on here a few weeks ago.
She is a executive coach out of Texas.
(30:05):
It's a Pradeepa Naran Swami
Pradeep. I'm sorry, I know I butchered it. I got my Oklahoma accent going today.
But she's, she spoke on like TedX stuff and
uh, she sent me a copy of her book the other day and
I'm so excited. I'm actually going to start it tomorrow. Nice. And
I, I, I'm a creature of habit. I can't
(30:28):
start one book while I've got another one open. And so I was finishing the
other one up first and, but I was so grateful
that she took five minutes of her time to like send me
a copy of her book after being on the podcast. Yeah. And like
she, it's same thing you said. She was like never stop,
like learning. She's like just keep picking up different things from different people.
(30:51):
And that's very true. I mean that, that goes for coaching,
being a cop, being a business person. Like you can learn in
every profession and never stop. Well, and you said, you
said it yourself. You're like, it's like drinking from a high fire hose right now.
Guess what? It should always be drinking, like drinking from, like drinking from a
fire hose. You should never stop learning. I mean, look at this. This, these,
(31:13):
I mean that's just, that's not even all my books. That's just the, the ones
that I've read in the last four years or so. And, and
like you, I, I don't like to pick up another book until I'm finished with
the first one. So I've got, there's, there's some on this
shelf that haven't been read yet because they haven't made the list yet. Yep.
But, and I also, right here, I've got like 12 here that are like my
(31:35):
go to books on my desk that are like, oh, I gotta reference that one.
I gotta reference that, that one. That's awesome. So let's talk about
your book. Yeah. All right.
Yeah, so I've got, I've got actually a second one on the way
too. So. Wake the BLEEP up. Break down the
walls blocking your possibilities. So this is,
(31:57):
I wrote this, I actually wrote this originally. Most of
it I wrote about four years ago. And at the
time I was still, I was still full time employee.
You know, wasn't full time, I was coaching, but I wasn't full Time, coaching.
And so when, just before, about six
months before I released it last year, I went back to it and I started
(32:19):
reading. I'm like, yeah, this just isn't the same anymore. Or I'm not the same
anymore. So I kept a few of the chapters and rewrote most of the rest
of it. And this is kind of the manual for, for
people who are just getting started. This is the get, get out of your head
and get into action type of book. The whole first part of it is
all about, you know, talked about getting out of people pleasing. We talked about,
(32:40):
you know, forgetting the vic, throwing the victim card out the window.
We talked about getting over the programming that we've had for
all of our lives. From our teachers, our parents, our pastors, you know, we've been
told to thinking and act a certain way by the mainstream media, by
everybody. So it's, it's a little bit of everything. And there's
action stuff, there's business stuff. Man, it's just an all around book.
(33:04):
That's awesome. Where can they get it at? Everyone can get it on Amazon.
Just search Tony Schmaltz or wake the bleep up and you can find it
there. It's. And I'm gonna put a link in the
episode notes for your assessment and your book and your website.
Awesome, awesome. So everybody be able to find it there pretty quickly. Soon,
before the end of the year, my next one will be coming out and that's
(33:25):
the Hitchhiker's guide to leadership. So I like that
title. That's actually an awesome title. Yeah, so
I, I had to. I just. Because I've had so much. Even in,
even in that first book, there's so much of it that I'm just leadership I'm
so passionate about. I was like, okay, everyone, all my colleagues, all my
friends, I go to coaching schools and programs and they're like,
(33:47):
you're always talking about leadership. Why don't you write your next book about that? I'm
like, okay, all right. They didn't really have to twist my arm. I was already
all in. That's awesome. So
if anybody sees you on here, what's, what's your
actual website to where they can get in contact with you if they want to
book you for speaking or coaching. How can they get a hold of you?
(34:08):
Yeah, go to my, go to my website, which is Tonyshmaltz.com and
all one word. And there's all kinds of free stuff on there. There's videos,
there's testimonials, there's links to wherever you want to go
to my, my show as well, which, which is the Wake the Bleep up
show. Okay, I, I guess I missed that. I did not know
you had a show. Absolutely. Where can you find that at?
(34:31):
That you can find on any platform that is, that is literally on any major
podcast platform. And it's, it's,
it's, it's good. It's a kind of, I kind of let that thing roll.
I, I, I schedule people for up to two hours and
I just go. And sometimes we make it 45 minutes. Sometimes. Hey, I've had
some go over two hours. It's just a lot of, a lot of fun conversation.
(34:53):
Well, I'm a police officer and I have a lot of drive time and I
love podcasts, so I'm gonna follow that right now. Awesome.
And to be honest with you, that's how I got into podcasting. I love
listening podcasts because I drive around. Right. What I do.
Right. And you know, I will
never encourage someone to not
(35:16):
listen to podcasts because there's literally a podcast out there for
everybody. I know, I know. And that's. The challenge is try,
the challenge is try to get. Because I love to read and I love to
listen to those too, but there's only so much time in the day to be
able to listen to these. It's like, because some of the shows, you know, some
of the shows you listen to, they're a half an hour. Other ones, like, if
you listen to Joe Rogan, they go three hours. You're like, holy crap, I'm stuck.
(35:40):
Yep, absolutely. Tony, I want to end the
night on one question for you. All
right. If you had to pick,
besides the language,
what's one thing you would tell somebody that wants to be a good
leader?
(36:03):
I would say definitely, definitely the,
the action. And what I mean by the action is, is doing what
you say you're going to do. I mean, that is being your word. I
mean, not just how you speak. Like you said, not just how you speak, but
being your word is probably the, they're
probably both up there at the top. But it's, it is the way to
(36:25):
gain the respect of the people around you. To truly lead by example. When you
tell somebody, hey, I'm gonna, like, in the, in the law
enforcement world, if you, you tell a co officer, hey, I'm gonna make sure and
run this route by 7pm they then at 7:15, well, how can they
count on you, you know, do what you say you're going to do when you
say you're going to do it. You know, I have a. I have a. A
(36:47):
colleague of mine, also quasi mentor of mine, Devin Bannison.
He. He laid a challenge out for me. I was at one of his workshops,
and him and I coached together a little bit. After he said,
I am the most committed person you'll ever meet. He's like,
I would literally have to be in the hospital with something
major happening for me not to make a phone call, not to make an appointment,
(37:10):
not to show up, not to do this. He's like. He's like. And if
anybody can prove to me they're more committed than me, then I will work with
them for free. I'm like, wow. And this guy charges 100 grand a
year. So I'm like, that's a bold statement. I'm like.
And so somebody asked me, well, have you met that commitment? I'm like, I'm not
even trying. I'm just. That's a good challenge to go by. I'm like,
(37:30):
yeah. I mean, I believe in paying for value, so, I mean, if I hire
the guy, I'm gonna pay him, but I'm not like, I just. I'm taking it
as a challenge. Hell, yeah. I want to be that committed. And
everyone that knows this guy knows they can count on him. When he says he's
going to do something, he does it. And that is the one thing I would
say outside of the power language, when you say you're going to do something, do
(37:51):
it. Love it. Guys, take the assessment.
Check his book out. Listen to his show, because I know all the first
responders got plenty of time driving around. Guys.
Tony, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for coming on. And I'm
gonna order me a copy of the book tonight, and I'm gonna follow the podcast.
Tony, have a great night. Thanks a lot, Brett. See you.
Guys, welcome to the first responder playbook. I'm joined tonight by Tony
Schmaltz. Tony is a leadership, I'm going to call him
expert. He's a leadership peak performance
expert, upgrade coach and he's taught at Amazon.
Tony, I'm going to let you do yourself. A true introduction
worthy of yourself. I appreciate that. I
(00:22):
do the same thing on my show. I'm like, here, have at it.
No, I appreciate it. And yeah, I know it's like you said. So I've kind
of been leading, leading teams, leading people most of my adult lives.
In fact, all of my adult life worked in the manufacturing corporate
world for a lot of years. Worked my way from literally the bottom up
to close to the top before I went out on my own becoming a coach
(00:45):
and led lots of people. I've got people now that
I've mentored over the years that are now general managers,
vice presidents and so it's, it's been a lot of fun leading and mentoring
people. And yeah, so now I'm the upgrade coach and I like to help people
upgrade their, their lives, their mindsets, their, you know, their
beings, everything about them, including who they're, who they're being with the people
(01:07):
around them and it directly relates to, to what your topic, topic is,
you know, first responders, you know, it's God being a first
responder. I got nothing but praise for him. And that's first and
foremost. Being a good leader is a, and makes you a better, better at all
of it. Yeah, absolutely. So how did you
realize that you wanted to go down the leadership mentoring route?
(01:29):
How did you find that light bulb finally? Come on.
So that actually started when somebody else took interest in
me early on in my career, when I was my early 20s, I was
an arrogant piece of POS.
I was that young kid knew it all, you know, you can't tell
me I know it all. And then at one point the
(01:52):
company I worked for at the time, they're like, hey, we see you work hard.
And they flat out told me I was an arrogant bastard. But
like, hey, you work hard, you're here every day, you're working overtime. You know, you've
got, you've got some, you've got some intelligence about you, but we need to
develop this on the leadership side if you're going to go anywhere. And
at the time I still didn't quite see it. However, they sent me to
(02:15):
the Dale Carnegie course. For anyone who's not familiar with that, it's a 13 week
course where you go once a Week and we had to go after hours.
And they teach you how to effectively communicate, how to become a
better leader, how to interact with people, how to build relationships. And,
and that course, I probably, I mark that in the calendar as
the. Is kind of the turning point. You know, I was
(02:38):
always very articulate, outgoing, but again, arrogant.
That changed the way I looked at people, the way I helped people, the way
I served people. And from there I started leading instead of just
being, instead of managing, instead of being a, A
whipper, I became, I became the leader. And that was, that was the big
turning point. And that organization, the president and general
(03:00):
manager, the guys who really put their faith in me, even though I was low
on the totem pole, kind of gave me the confidence to say, hey, yeah, if
these guys are looking at me this way, maybe I just release something to this
and I can do it. Yeah. And you, you made a very good
distinction there and that There's a big difference between a leader and a
manager. Yeah, big
(03:20):
difference. Well, you know, anybody can have a title.
A leader cannot have a title. And that's what I try to always
tell people, especially in the first responder world, is
there's times where we've got a lead without supervision.
And, you know, I'm not saying go out there and just rock the boat with
(03:41):
your, you know, corporal or sergeant and say, hey, man, I'm the leader. Like,
probably wouldn't go over too well. But, you know, we have to
be the person that is able to make those decisions and make them
rightly, you. Know, and do it. And do it in a way where
you're, you're ruffling as little amount of feathers as possible. I mean,
you're, you're doing it in a way where you're building relationships or you're maintaining
(04:03):
relationships, you know, and that's. Especially with first responders, man, you come
into situations that one, you're just trying to get a grasp on. You don't
know what's happening. Some could be incredibly ugly. Some could be maybe not so ugly,
but still urgent. And you're trying to
maintain your Persona at the same time, you're trying to
evaluate the situation, know what's going on, keep people under, keep people calm.
(04:25):
That takes an enormous amount of leadership. And, and
that, I mean, it's. That you totally talk about the power of language. The
power. I mean, just the way you speak to people, the way you speak out
into the world is going to make the difference in you being that powerful
leader when you're showing up on scene Versus, versus that guy who's
pissing off somebody who's just looking for extra help.
(04:47):
Yeah, I, I wholeheartedly agree with that for sure.
You know, I was looking at the, the questions to ask you,
like some sample questions and I was like, man, these are awesome questions.
You know, I, I, I have a, a real question though is
I just got my life and career coaching
(05:08):
certification within the last month. And so I'm working on my
ICS certification right now. And how
did you get involved in that? And what stood out to
you about doing the.
So my first real involvement in coaching was when I hired, after I hired
(05:28):
my first coach, my, my family and I, we live in
Florida now, but we're originally from Seattle area. And
back in 2018, I accepted a job in Panama City, Florida.
That, that literally moved us, my wife, my kids, all the way across
country to, to Florida. And the company I thought
hey was gonna be a great new opportunity turned out to be the worst place
(05:50):
I'd ever worked ever. The grass was definitely not greener in that case.
So I went from being a positive leader that I had been the whole time
I was in Washington State. You know, I mean, I had people wanting to work
for me left and right. You know, I was promote getting promoted, raises
wonderful to this place that just dragged me down.
And at one point my wife looked at me and said, something's
(06:12):
got to change. You got to do something. I've never seen you like this before.
I was just miserable coming home from work. I know a lot of people are,
but I wasn't normally and I was just miserable. And so on the
recommendation of a friend, a friend of a friend
recommended this coach to me. So I had a conversation with him and
one thing led to another and I ended up hiring him. And I spent a
lot of money. And at the time, that was money that I didn't really have,
(06:35):
or can't say I didn't have. I didn't have to, couldn't afford to spend and
Right. But it turned out to be the best money I've ever spent.
And about six months after working with him on a 18 month contract,
I said, this is what I want to do. I said, I've been leading people
my whole, whole career, but I've always been doing it on somebody else's accord. I've
always been doing it the way the company told me I needed to do it
(06:56):
or somebody else told me I had to do it. Now I can serve people
the way I know I can do best or the way they truly need it.
And so that's where I got started. That was back in 2019, and
I've been doing it ever since. Now that's the one thing I love about
it, is being able to help individuals on an individual
basis. Whereas, you know, you're in a corporation, they're like, this is our
(07:17):
leadership style. You got to do it this way where me, I can go, hey,
I can find out what's going on in Brent's head and help Brent exactly the
way Brent needs to be helped versus what everybody else around needs.
Exactly. I, I, it's getting involved in that
domain. It's such a unknown in the law enforcement first
responder world right now. I feel like
(07:41):
maybe in some bigger towns, like, they started implementing it, but
I really want to start integrating that into this space because
there's such a. I don't want to call it a market because
I don't. I wouldn't mind eventually doing it as a job per se, but
on the first responder side, I would just like to do it because I want
to make that space a better space that makes sense. And
(08:05):
there's just such a untapped area for that because
we're taught for so long to do things a certain way and not
necessarily think on our own and think of better ways.
And, man, I, I really want to make the first
responder world a little bit better than when I got here. You know, at the
end of the. Day, well, I think you're in the right, the right world. I
(08:27):
don't know of a lot of, A lot of coaches that are working in that
first responder world. And God, based on what
I know from the people I know that are first responders, is the,
the level of absolute hell that you can possibly go through as a first
responder? I mean, not all, but, I mean, there are times where you walk into
a, just a storm of. Perfect storm of
(08:47):
garbage. I mean, it, it, it weighs on people,
and it's nice to have somebody, Somebody who can. Who.
I got it. I really hope you put, you pursue this, because I
think that would be a great path is, is coaching first responders,
and I know they can use it. I know they could use it. Yeah.
And, you know, I, I heard a saying when I first
(09:10):
got into law enforcement 10 years ago, and it
rings true still to this day, especially now that I've been a supervisor
before. And it was, it was there.
Today's a bad day to be a cop, you know, because
there's just days. It's a bad day to be A cop. And
because you either see something crazy or you're involved in it,
(09:33):
and there needs to be that outlet to, like,
talk about these things and, like, talk about
frustrations. And I recently went through peer
support training, and I was very amazed as I went through that
that a lot of the terminology and peer support is the same thing as what's
in coaching. Right. And. And I was like, hey, I
(09:56):
know that. And, you know, it furthered my
belief is that I'm gonna start integrating those into, like,
you know, people that I work with and stuff, because
if I'm thinking about those things and how they could work, I know other people
would too, you know? Yeah, yeah. And. And. And people respond
well to it, you know, because. Because they need that so much. And,
(10:19):
you know, there's a saying that I like to use. You said it's a bad
day to be a cop. Well, the saying that I like to use that I
actually, actually got from another coach, Michael Neal, is there's
no such thing as a bad day. Now, with that said,
there are moments in our days that
are not preferred. So you may, like you said bad day to be a cop.
(10:40):
You may have three or four instances that seem really crappy at the time,
but it's our choice whether we let those three or four or five moments hang
on to us for the rest of the day. And this is why I brought
you on, because that is awesome. Love it.
And you're not wrong now that you. You break it down like that. I mean,
you're right. I mean, seven out of the eight hours could be
(11:03):
totally awesome. But we take. We choose as
people in general, to hang on to that one hour and go, God, I had
such a crappy day. No, you didn't. You had one hour of your day that
was crappy. Guess what? The rest of the day. The other 23 hours, minus the
sleep, of course, was a great day. I love
that. I. You know, that's actually putting in some. I can learn something new
(11:23):
every day. That's actually a really good perspective. I like that. So let's
talk about some leadership talk topics now.
You know, when you take. In real life, to
take ownership, how does someone know they're not taking
ownership? Yeah, that's. That's. That's actually
really, really easy to recognize if. If you're you or somebody
(11:47):
else listening or. Or somebody out there, if you are a constant
complainer, you are not taking ownership over your life.
You know, there's an example. I'm not. Are you familiar with Jack Canfield?
Wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul. Yes. Okay,
so he used to work with, he used to work at, he used to do
sales for W. Commence Stone. Major,
(12:08):
major multi millionaire insurance guy.
And when W. Commence Stone was talking to, to Jack Canfield, he's like,
he's like, hey, in order for you to be successful, you have to take responsibility.
You have to take ownership over your own life. He's like, do you ever
blame or complain? He's like, of course I do. I'm a human. He's like, then
you're not taking 100 ownership over your life. There's
(12:30):
if, I mean, we are human, we're gonna complain, we're gonna find. But if you
spend your days complaining, you're living in victim mode
and you're not taking ownership. When you can take
a look in the mirror, when you can get to that point where you find
that everything is based on your choices and the way
you react to things and the way you, you handle things in your life and
(12:51):
you see that and you're able to look, live with that, then you can start
taking ownership. But if you're pointing fingers at somebody else, oh, Joe
Bob did this, or oh, the government did this, or oh, that,
guess what? You're not taking personal responsibility. You're pulling out that victim
card. And I tell people, throw that victim card out the window. Let's, let's take
ownership. Yeah. And that's, that's something we run
(13:12):
into a lot in the first responder world is because they get,
people get so jaded and I'm, I'll own it. I've been there before. I've
been that guy. That happens a
lot. And it makes a lot
of sense that like we kind of victim blame
ourselves and we're like, or me, you know, and we don't
(13:35):
own, own what maybe we did wrong. Right? Or we don't even
have to own what we did wrong. It's, it's back to the, the, the,
the, the, the famous phrase, the glass is half full.
You know, it's, it's living in that glasses half full world. Guess what?
You can't go back and change the past. That's over. It's.
Instead of blaming even, even yourself, instead of blaming yourself or somebody else.
(13:58):
It's called full acceptance. You know, there was a
Steve Chandler, another mentor of mine. These guys I'm mentioning, by the way, are all
friends too. Now they may have started as mentors. Now I, I interact with these
guys regularly. Steve Chandler, that's awesome. I highly recommend any
of his books. This guy's written 43 books. Every one of them is amazing.
Steve Chandler said to me one time, a lot of
(14:20):
people talk about forgiveness, self forgiveness, forgiveness of others, and he's. He,
he has a different take on it. I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but
it's very interesting to listen to. It's total acceptance,
because as soon as you bring out the word forgiveness or forgive,
like I'm gonna forgive you, then you're acknowledging that that person did something
wrong, and you're putting your mind in a negative context.
(14:43):
But if you go with, you go with overall acceptance, you know what? I accept
that one way or the other. Then you don't have to put yourself into a
negative mindset. You're just accepting and moving on.
That is the hardest, one of the hardest things for anyone to do. And I
don't mean just the acceptance piece. I mean letting things go from yesterday and moving
on to today. Yeah, that's very true. I mean, you
(15:05):
see that, you see what that clock says right there? I can't see it. It's.
It's a little bit cut off.
There we go there. I like that. Because that's all we
have. All we have is right now. We don't have then. Yeah, we
don't have tomorrow. We have right now.
Yep, that's very true. That's. That's actually why
(15:27):
I've. I've challenged myself to come out of my comfort zone
and say I'm ready for a leadership role and start applying for these
different leadership roles. Because tomorrow's not
promised, and if I wait, you know, something could happen,
and I feel like I'm ready now. So you're right.
Yeah. Why wait? You know? Exactly. The time's now.
(15:51):
So I, I really enjoyed this one on here as well. How
can leaders stop people pleasing without turning into jerks or control
freaks? Because that is something that all of us first
responders struggle with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, the first. The biggest thing. The biggest thing is,
is the power of language. And, and when I say the power of
(16:12):
language, understand that the word no
is a completely acceptable answer and a complete sentence.
It's okay to tell people no. You don't always have to say yes. Now, I'm
not saying flat out say no or, or hell no. You know, you know, that's,
that's ruffling the feathers. That's. That's pissing people off.
But it's okay to, like, if somebody comes to you, whether it's a boss, it's
(16:34):
a co worker, and you're that person that has always been the yes person.
Stop that. Make the choice. Make the choice that I'm not going to be that
yes person anymore. That is the number one
characteristic of a people pleaser is that being that yes person.
Start saying no more often. Just like, hey, it's like if somebody invites you
to a, a barbecue or a cookout and you really don't want to go because
(16:55):
there's somebody there, you, instead of going, yeah, I'll make it, you know, just say,
yeah, you know what? I'm not going to make it this time. They're going to
go, why? I just don't feel like it today. You know, it's okay.
We spend our time in our minds every day worried about what
other people are going. We plan it out in our heads what other people are
going to think and say before we even ask them or talk to them, you
(17:15):
know, and that's, that's how most people get into people please remote.
So in reality, the first, first step is make a choice. Make a choice that
I'm not going to be a people pleaser anymore. Start using the word no more.
Stop apologizing. So often because too many people over apologize, they
say they're sorry and there's nothing to, nothing to really apologize for.
Absolutely. And, and second, use
(17:37):
language that's speaking positive in the world. You know, I,
when I was teaching at Amazon and a couple of the other corporate events,
I talk about the power of language being one of the most powerful things and
it's how you speak to people. And that includes not just
the way you speak in a general conversation, but think about people
in general, especially people who are either employees or co workers
(18:00):
or even family. Like I have, I do this with my, my wife and kids
all the time. Acknowledgement.
We as humans can do 99 out of 100
things right, but the only one we hear about is the one thing we did
wrong. Now, as a leader, if you spend some
time acknowledging more of those 99 things, you don't even
(18:21):
have to have to worry about the one thing that maybe didn't go the right
way because the other person's going to be so amped up they did all these
other things right, that they're not going to make that mistake. Yep.
I love that. That's one of the biggest ones. The biggest one is the power
of language. But ultimately, stop apologizing so much. Make the decision
and don't be the yes person. I love that. I love it.
(18:44):
Tell me about the agreements over expectations. What's,
what's, what's the difference there? Okay, so
expectations. Expectations cause only two things
and it's emotional, it causes disappointment, or nothing
at all. Because when you expect something and somebody doesn't deliver,
you're disappointed. If somebody does deliver, then it's nothing because that's what you expected.
(19:08):
However, the agreement is actually having that conversation. So
for example, let's say one of my employees
says, or, or I have a project I have for one of my employees and
I say, hey, can you get this done by Friday? And that person says
yes, because they're a people pleaser and my expectation is going to be.
Or, excuse me, I tell them I need it done by Friday. They don't really
(19:30):
acknowledge either way, but my expectation is that they're going to get it done by
Friday. They don't, and I'm disappointed and I harass them for it.
Well, in reality, to make an agreement would be, hey, can you get this
done by Friday? And they say, you know what, I really can't. How about
next Wednesday? And you're like, okay, that's cool. What can
I do to help you get it done by Friday? Well, if you help, have
(19:51):
Joe come and help me. Then together we can get this done by Friday.
Cool. Can we, can we agree to that? And, and if they say yes,
cool. Otherwise, if not, what else do you need? So it's,
it's getting past the things. Like even at the household,
you know, a lot of spouses or a lot of wives are like, oh, I
expect my husband to take the garbage out every day. Great. But we've never actually
(20:12):
had that conversation to where you say, hey, can you please take the garbage out
by seven o' clock every day? And, and so one of them's
getting pissed off even though the other one doesn't even know. That's the expectation. So
it's about coming to the agreement, having the conversation. And
then once you agree, don't. This is back to people pleasing. Don't
agree to something that you can't commit, you can't actually
(20:34):
commit to. So if you know you're not going to get it done, don't agree
to it. Only agree. Only create an agreement that, you
know, both parties can commit to and finish.
I like that. I like that a lot actually. What's one
thing you wish every leader high performer would start doing today to
upgrade their life? Oh, that is, that has got to be what
(20:57):
I talked about earlier. The power of language. It's got to be the language big
time. Because the. I've seen so many people
who have Potential to be great leaders and they're in high level
roles, but they got there for different reasons that are
just crapping on their employees. And so morale is low,
production is low. And it's, and there's a couple of these that I've worked with
(21:18):
that as soon as they turn that language around, I mean the, just, even the
acknowledgment that I was talking about, they start acknowledging these people for some of the
things they're doing and they, they come back to me a couple weeks later like,
I don't know what happened. My, my team's on fire. Everything's coming. I'm like, did
you, did you do what we talked about? Did you start acknowledging people? Did you
start speaking more? Yeah, that's what happened.
So that's, that's the biggest one. And, and the other one is the,
(21:42):
so you've already mentioned it, the agreements versus expectations. Start making
it. Start speaking more positive. Start acknowledging. Start creating
agreements over having expectations and do any. And
that goes for the leader too, whoever that leader is. Do what you say you're
gonna do. Don't, don't commit to something if you know you
can't get. You're not going to get it done. Only make commitments that
(22:04):
you're going to complete and then complete them. Lead by
example, lead by positive example. Yep. I love
that. So I want to talk about this because I was looking at it down
at the bottom. Tell me about the ultimate assessment.
So this is a, this breaks down mindset, action,
procrastination. I've got five different sections here and
(22:26):
if you go to that, if you go to that link ultimateassessment.com
and fill it out, you can rate and find out where in your world
you may be lacking or need some help. And it could be all of them.
It doesn't, it doesn't matter. There's no harm to this.
But a lot of people don't even know. We talk about looking in the mirror.
You can look in the mirror and you go, okay, I look fine. It looks
(22:47):
like me. You may not know where you're actually lacking until you take something like
this. So each, each section has, I think, five questions. And each
question has a numer numerical value based on the answer you give.
And that at the end will tell you, hey, I'm, I need to really focus
on my mindset or I need to focus on my motivation or I'm, I'm not
taking enough action or, or whatever that may be for you.
(23:09):
So that's really what that's about. That's about helping people find out where
they can improve in their lives, which is all of
us. Can I still go back to it myself? I wrote it. I still go
back to it myself.
You know, that's something very important that you hit on, is that
we always have room for improvement in some area.
(23:32):
I actually had this discussion today. I'm working on my
doctorate in strategic leadership. Wow. Somebody and somebody
said, well, how do you feel like you're doing in life?
And I said, professionally, I feel like maybe I'm not
necessarily where I want to be yet, but, like, educationally, I feel
like I'm knocking it out of the park. And they were like,
(23:54):
well, so you feel like you're doing pretty good? And I said, yeah, I could
agree with that. But I've got a lot of improvement professionally, so
socially, because I don't have a ton of social time, you know, like,
there's plenty of room for improvement in my life.
Things may be going good, and they are, but it doesn't mean everything's
perfect. And there's plenty of room for improvement in my life. My friends right now
(24:16):
that probably listen to this would be like, you only text me. I don't ever
see you. Yeah, sorry, guys. Love you. But,
you know, there's always room for improvement in some area of your life.
And you have to be willing to admit that. Well,
100. 101 of the. Outside
of the ultimate assessment that you're talking. We were talking about when I. When I
(24:38):
work with somebody, one on one, one of the first things that we work on
is what I got from. I got from Tom Zigler, who's Zig Ziglar's son.
It's called the Wheel of Life. And when Tom first. I mean,
I read it in his book first, and then when him and I got on
a call and started talking, he's like, here, now let me walk you through the
actual Wheel of Life. I love the Wheel of Life. So you. Do you know
what I'm talking about then? So you're familiar. So did you get it from Tom
(25:01):
Ziegler's book, or did you get it from somewhere else? I got it from the
coaching program I went through. But tell my listeners about the Wheel of Life, because
I haven't talked about it on the show yet. All right. So the Wheel of
Life is literally a circle, and it has different spokes to it. And each
spoke of this is like a wheel, a wheel on a bike. And you've got
your personal life, you've got your business career. You've got your
(25:22):
finances, you've got your, your
health. Oh, I'm missing two. Missing two. Your
mental state. And there's one other I'm missing off the top of my head I
usually have to look at. Anyway, what it is, is you go through and you,
you rate each one of these as on a scale of 1 to 10 or
00 to 10, 10 being the best. And the 10 will be the outside
of the circle, which is the wheel. And what typically
(25:45):
happens is when you're being truly honest with yourself is you'll
have a flat tire somewhere. So you could be good. You could have like
sevens to tens around this part of the wheel. And then inside here you'll
have fours and fives. You'll be like, these two or three areas are fours and
fives and that's where you spend most of your focus. Okay,
Yeah, I know I need improvement in these other areas too, but holy crap, I'm
(26:06):
looking at fours and fives here. I'm going to put my focus on that.
I love it. And the wheel is so
honest because as long as you go in there with an open mind and say,
hey, I'm going to be honest on here, you will visually see where
you need improvement very quickly. Exactly, exactly.
And they're, and, and they're so versatile. You can actually apply them to pretty much
(26:29):
anything in life. And it doesn't just have to be like those,
those just, you know, basic ones like we talked about, because that's what you use
usually in an opening one. But you can even apply those in the business
world, like first responder world. Like, they're
so versatile. I love the wheel. Like I, I went down a rabbit hole one
day of looking at like 30 different, like how people applied their wheels of life.
(26:51):
And I'm like, man, I like this thing. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's. I actually, my coaching is also
my concentration in my doctorate. Oh, really? And,
and I am in my
concentration classes right now. And we use the wheel in there.
And I was like, I was so glad to see it in there. It's like.
(27:14):
And we had to make like a little coaching packet or something like we could
put together to like draw back like inspiration. And
I, I made sure to put the wheel in there because I was like, I
love the wheel. It's so versatile. That's great. I've been using it for five years.
I mean. Yeah, five years. It's. It is, it's great. Now
I gotta ask you now about your coaching. So what, what do you
(27:35):
have any. Do you have your own coach right now. I don't have my own
coach right now. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Just curiosity and is
there any particular coach or coaches that you follow when you're, you know, you
say you're going through the ICF and things like that. So
I just went through, it's called tcta.
(27:55):
It was a coaching program I found on the ICF website. And then I went
through first responder coaching. I went through two programs and I did that because
I wanted two different perspectives on coaching. Right, right. And
one of them used a laser focused model and one of them used a coactive
model. But what I learned is, and I'm, I'm
very glad I went through both of them is there is no
(28:16):
one size fit all approach to coaching. That's for
darn sure. And there is so many different,
like you can put your own flair on it, your own style.
And man, I'm, I'm honestly, it's still,
I'm still in that stage of. It's like drinking from a fire hose.
Yes, it is. You know,
(28:40):
I don't have anybody specifically yet that I'm, I would say
that I like, you know, as a mentor yet.
I just, I'm trying to find as many coaches as I can
and pick each one of them's brain. Nice. Everyone
offers a little bit different take on what coaching is
(29:01):
and how to be successful in it. 100%. Don't stop doing
that, by the way. Don't stop doing that. I mean, it's these names that I'm
throwing out there. I mean, even though I call them all my mentors, I mean
I've got a hundred of them because I don't. I. You,
you're always going to get a different perspective. You're always going to get something different.
And that's, that's what's great about this. That's what's great about
(29:22):
getting into the coaching world. Especially like you said, it's. There's no one size fits
all. And each one of us is different. Each one of us is unique. And
what works for Joe Bob may not work for Brent, may not work for Tony.
And so I might be able to take a piece of Joe Bob and a
piece of, of Steve and a piece of this person and put them all into
my, my schmaltzy world. But that's that, that's how it
(29:43):
works. You know, you gotta, you gotta, gotta get out there and, and just get
to know some of these people. Get to get to know some of these people
read some books, you know, take some courses and, and learn it.
Yeah, I, I'm,
I just had a, a guest on here a few weeks ago.
She is a executive coach out of Texas.
(30:05):
It's a Pradeepa Naran Swami
Pradeep. I'm sorry, I know I butchered it. I got my Oklahoma accent going today.
But she's, she spoke on like TedX stuff and
uh, she sent me a copy of her book the other day and
I'm so excited. I'm actually going to start it tomorrow. Nice. And
I, I, I'm a creature of habit. I can't
(30:28):
start one book while I've got another one open. And so I was finishing the
other one up first and, but I was so grateful
that she took five minutes of her time to like send me
a copy of her book after being on the podcast. Yeah. And like
she, it's same thing you said. She was like never stop,
like learning. She's like just keep picking up different things from different people.
(30:51):
And that's very true. I mean that, that goes for coaching,
being a cop, being a business person. Like you can learn in
every profession and never stop. Well, and you said, you
said it yourself. You're like, it's like drinking from a high fire hose right now.
Guess what? It should always be drinking, like drinking from, like drinking from a
fire hose. You should never stop learning. I mean, look at this. This, these,
(31:13):
I mean that's just, that's not even all my books. That's just the, the ones
that I've read in the last four years or so. And, and
like you, I, I don't like to pick up another book until I'm finished with
the first one. So I've got, there's, there's some on this
shelf that haven't been read yet because they haven't made the list yet. Yep.
But, and I also, right here, I've got like 12 here that are like my
(31:35):
go to books on my desk that are like, oh, I gotta reference that one.
I gotta reference that, that one. That's awesome. So let's talk about
your book. Yeah. All right.
Yeah, so I've got, I've got actually a second one on the way
too. So. Wake the BLEEP up. Break down the
walls blocking your possibilities. So this is,
(31:57):
I wrote this, I actually wrote this originally. Most of
it I wrote about four years ago. And at the
time I was still, I was still full time employee.
You know, wasn't full time, I was coaching, but I wasn't full Time, coaching.
And so when, just before, about six
months before I released it last year, I went back to it and I started
(32:19):
reading. I'm like, yeah, this just isn't the same anymore. Or I'm not the same
anymore. So I kept a few of the chapters and rewrote most of the rest
of it. And this is kind of the manual for, for
people who are just getting started. This is the get, get out of your head
and get into action type of book. The whole first part of it is
all about, you know, talked about getting out of people pleasing. We talked about,
(32:40):
you know, forgetting the vic, throwing the victim card out the window.
We talked about getting over the programming that we've had for
all of our lives. From our teachers, our parents, our pastors, you know, we've been
told to thinking and act a certain way by the mainstream media, by
everybody. So it's, it's a little bit of everything. And there's
action stuff, there's business stuff. Man, it's just an all around book.
(33:04):
That's awesome. Where can they get it at? Everyone can get it on Amazon.
Just search Tony Schmaltz or wake the bleep up and you can find it
there. It's. And I'm gonna put a link in the
episode notes for your assessment and your book and your website.
Awesome, awesome. So everybody be able to find it there pretty quickly. Soon,
before the end of the year, my next one will be coming out and that's
(33:25):
the Hitchhiker's guide to leadership. So I like that
title. That's actually an awesome title. Yeah, so
I, I had to. I just. Because I've had so much. Even in,
even in that first book, there's so much of it that I'm just leadership I'm
so passionate about. I was like, okay, everyone, all my colleagues, all my
friends, I go to coaching schools and programs and they're like,
(33:47):
you're always talking about leadership. Why don't you write your next book about that? I'm
like, okay, all right. They didn't really have to twist my arm. I was already
all in. That's awesome. So
if anybody sees you on here, what's, what's your
actual website to where they can get in contact with you if they want to
book you for speaking or coaching. How can they get a hold of you?
(34:08):
Yeah, go to my, go to my website, which is Tonyshmaltz.com and
all one word. And there's all kinds of free stuff on there. There's videos,
there's testimonials, there's links to wherever you want to go
to my, my show as well, which, which is the Wake the Bleep up
show. Okay, I, I guess I missed that. I did not know
you had a show. Absolutely. Where can you find that at?
(34:31):
That you can find on any platform that is, that is literally on any major
podcast platform. And it's, it's,
it's, it's good. It's a kind of, I kind of let that thing roll.
I, I, I schedule people for up to two hours and
I just go. And sometimes we make it 45 minutes. Sometimes. Hey, I've had
some go over two hours. It's just a lot of, a lot of fun conversation.
(34:53):
Well, I'm a police officer and I have a lot of drive time and I
love podcasts, so I'm gonna follow that right now. Awesome.
And to be honest with you, that's how I got into podcasting. I love
listening podcasts because I drive around. Right. What I do.
Right. And you know, I will
never encourage someone to not
(35:16):
listen to podcasts because there's literally a podcast out there for
everybody. I know, I know. And that's. The challenge is try,
the challenge is try to get. Because I love to read and I love to
listen to those too, but there's only so much time in the day to be
able to listen to these. It's like, because some of the shows, you know, some
of the shows you listen to, they're a half an hour. Other ones, like, if
you listen to Joe Rogan, they go three hours. You're like, holy crap, I'm stuck.
(35:40):
Yep, absolutely. Tony, I want to end the
night on one question for you. All
right. If you had to pick,
besides the language,
what's one thing you would tell somebody that wants to be a good
leader?
(36:03):
I would say definitely, definitely the,
the action. And what I mean by the action is, is doing what
you say you're going to do. I mean, that is being your word. I
mean, not just how you speak. Like you said, not just how you speak, but
being your word is probably the, they're
probably both up there at the top. But it's, it is the way to
(36:25):
gain the respect of the people around you. To truly lead by example. When you
tell somebody, hey, I'm gonna, like, in the, in the law
enforcement world, if you, you tell a co officer, hey, I'm gonna make sure and
run this route by 7pm they then at 7:15, well, how can they
count on you, you know, do what you say you're going to do when you
say you're going to do it. You know, I have a. I have a. A
(36:47):
colleague of mine, also quasi mentor of mine, Devin Bannison.
He. He laid a challenge out for me. I was at one of his workshops,
and him and I coached together a little bit. After he said,
I am the most committed person you'll ever meet. He's like,
I would literally have to be in the hospital with something
major happening for me not to make a phone call, not to make an appointment,
(37:10):
not to show up, not to do this. He's like. He's like. And if
anybody can prove to me they're more committed than me, then I will work with
them for free. I'm like, wow. And this guy charges 100 grand a
year. So I'm like, that's a bold statement. I'm like.
And so somebody asked me, well, have you met that commitment? I'm like, I'm not
even trying. I'm just. That's a good challenge to go by. I'm like,
(37:30):
yeah. I mean, I believe in paying for value, so, I mean, if I hire
the guy, I'm gonna pay him, but I'm not like, I just. I'm taking it
as a challenge. Hell, yeah. I want to be that committed. And
everyone that knows this guy knows they can count on him. When he says he's
going to do something, he does it. And that is the one thing I would
say outside of the power language, when you say you're going to do something, do
(37:51):
it. Love it. Guys, take the assessment.
Check his book out. Listen to his show, because I know all the first
responders got plenty of time driving around. Guys.
Tony, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for coming on. And I'm
gonna order me a copy of the book tonight, and I'm gonna follow the podcast.
Tony, have a great night. Thanks a lot, Brett. See you.
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