Contact Patti Humble: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patti-humble-46651235/

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)
Welcome back to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larson and I first like to thank you for coming back to hear episode 146 of our series today's conversation features Patti Humble, the chief accounting officer at UPS. Patty is an experienced senior leader with a broad background in both business unit and corporate headquarter environments. She is also a passionate leader who truly emphasizes personal development and the need for knowing yourself first. Next, you'll hear her discuss steps to successfully getting to know yourself and how that translates to strong leadership. So keep listening as we head over to the conversation now.

Mitch: (00:50)
So I know our conversation for today is going to be about developing others, but I understand it's very important to you. And I know it's a topic that you're very passionate about. So for some background for our listeners, why don't you start off by telling us why this is so important to you?

Patti: (01:05)
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I'm just going to begin with kind of an overarching statement that, you know, what, we all have a unique purpose in our lives, right? We all want to make a difference for our families, for our workplaces, for our country, even globally. And so just pause for a second and think about that. How do you make a difference? Because in my view, effective leaders, they have to start by knowing themselves first, before they can start paying it forward to others. So for me, self journey, my self knowledge and my journey, that was a linchpin. And that's when I really started putting some of my leadership puzzle pieces together. And I'm really passionate about this because I really want to share some of my aha moments with other people. I think what I've observed is that people are often very hesitant to go deep inside themselves. It can be intimidating, it can be a little scary, but as I look back over the course of my career, I found that I really needed to know myself first. And only then is when some of these other leadership traits, my coping mechanisms, all of that started to fall into place. So that's why I'm so passionate about it.

Mitch: (02:31)
It's very fascinating. And you know, I'm curious these aha moments, you know, you said a couple of times right there, you have to know yourself first. What does that actually look like? You know, and I'm sure it's different for different people. but what do you, what does that ultimately look like to you when you make that recognition?

Patti: (02:54)
Well, I think it's knowing your style, right? It's what drains you of energy when you get home at the end of the day and you're just wiped out what happened that made that happen and what gives you energy? I mean, when you think about those moments where you're just really jazzed, what was that? What gives you energy or maybe it's where you look up at the clock and you've totally lost track of time. I mean, the hours have gone by, and you just don't even know where the time went to. It's knowing that it's knowing your personality type. I think we all kind of have a sense of what our personality types are like, what are our blind spots? Where, what are the landmines that we might step on more than once. And also it's knowing your hot buttons, right? We all, we all know what those are too, but I think knowing yourself is really, it's so important because people succeed differently. So for example, extroverts and introverts, they succeed very different in the world. And you may, or you may not know where you fit along that continuum. And when I say introvert, I don't mean people that are shy. All right, there's a misunderstanding about introverts. Introverts are people that get their energy differently from thoughtful and quiet activities, right? We know our extroverts love to, to be around people and go to events. It doesn't mean that you're different, you're different than in a way that you succeed differently. That information can be really critical to adapting how you lead and how you position yourself for advancement in your workplace. So there's that piece of it by knowing yourself and even on a more personal level, you have to know yourself to know how you cope and, and to conquer sometimes your own gremlins, whatever those might be. I mean, think about what happened to us during COVID right during this pandemic, our coping mechanisms were really taxed. They were really strained. And I think that's a global phenomenon. So you probably learned some things about yourself during the pandemic that you might not have known and some of your gremlins might've been more pronounced, but I think when you know yourself, you're aware of your thoughts, you know, how you talk to yourself and you can talk yourself through moments of fear or uncertainty, you know, how to speak to yourself in the third person. So, you know, you think about the movie that runs in your head and you know, you tell yourself, oh my God, I can't believe I screwed up or I, how could I have done that? There is not a third person that would speak to you the way you speak to yourself. So try talking to yourself, like another, someone who loved you would speak to you, they'd say, you know what? You tried your best, you did the best you could with the information that you had, or yeah. You know, I didn't handle that so great. But you'll do better next time. If we speak to ourselves that way you talk to yourself, instead of listening to yourself, you try things like being grateful, when you're stressed out, because you look to the bright side of things, it's all that, that movie that, that plays on in your head. and I think that's part of knowing yourself. It just helps all those coping mechanisms work really well. A good friend of mine recommended me to me once, to create an "I love Patti" box and then fill it up with all the positive affirmations that you get that you receive. And then when you're having a really bad day and you need a boost, you just go read all those things all over again to say, you know what I do well, I am loved. And it just helps that, that inner, that inner voice. And I think that's really, really an important part of knowing yourself because knowing your style, knowing your energy, knowing how you speak to yourself is the platform for leadership.

Mitch: (07:05)
I think that's all amazing advice. And as you were sharing this information, I started thinking, you know, we kicked things off talking about or setting the stage, really developing others. And it starts with you first. And as you're speaking, I kind of said, you know, developing others that other person can still be yourself. You know, it's, it's, you know, it's the other person that, you know, people see that maybe you don't always see. So, it's really interesting. And as you, I can understand the more you learn about yourself, the easier it is, as you just said to then eventually develop other people other than yourself and lead. And it's just all full circle. So you'd already just mentioned a few really great techniques, but I'm sure, you know, you're very passionate about this. You have other things that we could share with the listeners, you know, specific steps, anything that, again, how do you identify when you are successful in knowing yourself, you know, what, how, how can our listeners take this another step further?

Patti: (08:05)
Yeah. well, there is a wealth of information out there on the internet about personality types. I mean, if you, if you put that into a searc...

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