Year in Review for 2024 and One Word

Unlock the secrets of visionary leadership and purposeful living as we journey through a year of enlightening conversations with trailblazers like John Burke, Peter Benjamin, and Dr. Ira Bayak. This episode is a celebration of impactful dialogues, focusing on themes central to hospice and palliative care, while also drawing insights from outside the field. You'll gain a deeper understanding of pivotal industry shifts, including updates on the Hospice Carvin VBID program and the 2025 Hospice Wage Index, equipping you to lead with insight and intention.

Imagine distilling your life's mission into a single, powerful word that drives your every decision. Inspired by thought leaders like Meredith Elliott Powell and Brian Jadon, we explore how to unearth your core purpose and articulate it across all facets of life. Through personal anecdotes and practical tools, we'll guide you in crafting a mission statement that resonates with your roles, whether at home or in the boardroom. This chapter of self-discovery highlights the transformative potential of living with clarity and focus.

Embrace the timeless wisdom of philosophers like Rumi and Mark Twain as we reflect on the essence of curiosity and growth. With gratitude to our listeners and partners, we weave together inspiration from historical thinkers with modern voices, highlighting the importance of intentionality in life and leadership. This episode is not just a retrospective, but a call to action for 2025—a year of exploration, discovery, and purposeful intent. Join us in this rich tapestry of dialogue that promises to invigorate your leadership journey.

Host:
Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TCN / TCG

Chapters

• 0:00 Leadership and Reflection
• 8:29 Discovering Your Cause and Purpose
• 15:17 One Word
• 20:27 Inspiring Quotes and Gratitude

Transcript

Melody King: 0:00

Everything rises and falls on leadership. The ability to lead well is fueled by living your cause and purpose. This podcast will equip you with the tools to do just that Live and lead with cause and purpose. And now author of the book the Anatomy of Leadership and our host, Chris Comeaux

Chris Comeaux: 0:22

Hello and welcome to TCNtalks and the Anatomy of Leadership. I hope, whenever you're listening to this, if it's right before your holiday or right after your holiday, Happy Holidays to you and your family. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, a great end to your year. This is a fun show. We started this the last couple of years where we review what we've done over this past year and, of course, in 2024 is our first year of having both TCNtalks and the Anatomy of Leadership.  So, we're going to review with you what our top shows are, just very quickly, and then we're going to do something that's become an end of the year tradition. In fact, a lot of our listeners look forward to it, which we call the one word, and I'll explain what that is in just a couple moments.  So, let's talk about our shows.

Chris Comeaux: 1:06

This year, we actually had about 50 podcasts. If those of you feel like gosh, I've heard a lot from TCN, TELEIOS, Chris Comeaux, this year.  Well, we've actually done 50 podcasts, did about 30 for TCNtalks, and the focus of TCNtalks is to really speak specifically to hospice and power to cure leaders. What are the things that you probably need to know, you might need to be learning about, so you could perform your role and navigate what's coming at us.  And then, this time last year, we actually released my first book, The Anatomy of Leadership, and it occurred to me, the book is about 10 miles wide and about two inches deep in terms of. Here's a meta framework, a table of contents, if you will, about what is leadership. It occurred to me after we released that book wouldn't it be great to have a podcast by the same title? Use that framework and bring amazing guests and, based upon your feedback, based upon what we've heard, our downloads. It feels like we've certainly hit a good chord by bringing great leadership, great speakers, great thought leaders just adding to your toolbox. And so, no matter what type of leader you are, first and foremost, yes, hospice and palliative care leaders, but we found that we've grown even with leaders outside of the hospice and palliative care space.  So let's go through TCNtalks. And so, no, exactly order priority, although this tends to flow with the number of downloads that we had.

Chris Comeaux: 2:26

We had a very successful show this year called Imagine Heaven with New York Times bestselling author John Burke, and so we did that one as a gift to hospice and palliative care staff, john did a lot of research around near-death experiences and that we did that show to offer hope and light.  So, if you'd never listened to that one, go back, check it out. It's one that has become a bit viral because a lot of our listeners pay it forward to friends, family members, use it in a lot of different ways. People may be dealing with some trauma, dealing with grief in their life. It just was a show that resonate with a lot of people. Another show this past year on TCNtalks was the Future of Hospice. According to Peter, always love having Peter Benjamin on the show. He provokes my thought, he provokes a lot of people's thoughts, and so Peter will certainly push your thinking and also probably put a little bit of urgency behind the innovations in your organization. So that was a great show with Peter Benjamin.

Chris Comeaux: 3:21

Again, you can find all of our podcasts on any platform that you listen to, whether that's your iPhone, Spotify that's the word I was looking for. On Spotify, any platform that you listen to, you could find all of our podcasts and, of course, you could subscribe on our website, and, of course, you could also subscribe on YouTube, and so it's available on all those different platforms if you want to go back and find any of these shows. Another show that was a really big hit was what's the Diagnosis of the Problem for a Hospice and Palliative Care Movement, and so that was right at the very end of last year, going into 2024, with Dr Ira Byock. Always love having Ira and he's just one of those pioneers that's still around, still provoking in a good way, and so that was a really great show. And then we actually had a couple of times Judy Lund Person, but the show that definitely resonated we called it Judi Lund Person Unleashed. Judi is semi-retired now. Many of us know Judi. She has just been such an amazing regulatory industry hospice movement expert over the years, and so we called that one Judi Lund Person Unleashed.

Chris Comeaux: 4:30

And then a couple of our top news stories of the month. We do those every month just to make sure you don't miss what were the top news stories for the past month. We realized hospice and palliative care leaders are super busy, a lot going on, and so we wanted to make sure each month, and so the February, march, April shows were pretty well downloaded shows. And then another great show was with Dr Katy Lanz, from Substitution Competition to Collaboration, and then Katy and I had to go back and actually append part two to that one, because after we taped the show the very next week it was announced that the Hospice Carvin VBID caravan was actually being sunsetted and actually will be sunset literally right whenever this show is actually going to be aired. And then the last one this one had Judy Beck, but also Judi Lund Person, with our own Annette Kaiser at TCN.

Chris Comeaux: 5:22

Title of the show was the Need to Know on the 2025 Hospice Wage Index. Of course, those come out usually August, September, October-ish, and so we aired that show later this year really top downloaded show, just because we're all kind of curious. If you're like me, when I was still a hospice CEO, I always like would take a weekend and go through that wage index because it was so densely packed and Judy did a great job in that show just kind of saying, here are the things you really shouldn't have missed, really hitting those high points, which is why it was a probably well-downloaded show. So that hits again. We had 30 total shows in TCNtalks, but those are ones that just got a lot of play, a lot of people paying it forward, et cetera.

Chris Comeaux: 6:02

One of the fastest growing areas of our podcast seems to be a lot of hospice and palliative care board members as well, and each of these shows would be great with your board members. Next up we've got the anatomy of leadership and so I've really enjoyed those this year because again having that meta framework from my anatomy of leadership book but bringing great thought leaders, I'm learning. That's where I love the podcast, where I'm learning as well. So hopefully you've checked those out this year. But here are some maybe that you may have missed Caring for Others with Quint Studer, who's really one of the great mentors in my life.

Chris Comeaux: 6:34

Anytime I get to sit down with Quint, I was thinking really the essence of that show. One of the questions I asked him was one of my biggest takeaways because Quint's a master about how to create a great culture. But I asked him the gist of the question was how do you create a great culture? But yet what if you have a team member that's not performing where they need to be? But let's say that it's because the team member at least, they have a challenge going on in their life and I love Quint's answer and the gist of his answer was you know, you love them. We talk quite often in our own organization, that we talk about mission as mother and, first and foremost, we love our employees. Our team is our greatest asset, but we exist together to serve mother, and the paradox is, when you're serving mother, even when you're dealing with challenging circumstances, you could bring the best of who you are on a day-to-day basis and, paradoxically, it actually provides something for the journey of what you're navigating in the personal life. So that was a huge takeaway for me from that podcast.

Chris Comeaux: 7:38

Next one was self-mastery, with John Locke. This was one of our early Anatomy of Leadership podcasts, and one of the things that John just talked about is sitting is the new smoking, and he really gave kind of a holistic framework to take care of ourselves, because it's hard to become the best version of yourself hence the term self-mastery If you're not working on every aspect of your life. Are you physically fit? Are you mentally fit? Are you working as far as your relationships in your life? What about the spiritual part of your life? And so John just had a lot of great pearls. In fact, I actually several things I adopted from that meeting, but one of which is how much time I spend at my standing desk versus my sitting desk, and then, of course, our Anatomy of Leadership introduction show. That was actually gotten a lot of play, I think, people, it's a great, actually orientation to what we're trying to accomplish with this show.

Chris Comeaux: 8:29

And then another good friend, Meridith Elliott Powell. Title of that podcast was Influence and gosh. The key phrase that I walked out of that podcast that I feel like I've probably quoted weekly now is your network, is your net worth. And that's one of many pearls from that conversation with Meridith Elliott Powell around influence and how to use your influence. Meridith Elliott Powell around influence and how to use your influence. And then one of my shows that just touched my heart but it was with Cause and Purpose, with Brian Jaudon a well-downloaded show, in fact, a couple of our team members said it was their favorite podcast of this year. So again, that should give you kind of a flight, an appetizer, if you will, of our top five shows from Anatomy of Leadership. That's five of 20. And so just a great body of work out there. We do this in service to you on the TCNtalk side, but also on the Anatomy of Leadership, and we're going to continue both of those as we go forward into 2025.

Chris Comeaux: 9:28

All right, well, this is my final thing, maybe considered as a holiday gift to you, your leaders, people in your life.  You could actually pay this forward to your family, but it's called One Word and so I have always been a huge proponent of cause and purpose. My mentor, which I talk quite a bit about him in our Anatomy of Leadership podcast, is Dr Lee Thayer, and he probably used that word cause and purpose more than anyone I've ever encountered. And of course, he was Stephen Covey's mentor, and Covey was well known about having your personal mission, so you could almost say those words are synonymous. But, as I've kind of thought about, it is, quite often people will take personal mission to write a mission statement, but your mission statement is your attempt at what is my cause and purpose and I say attempt at I'm getting a little grayish If those of you are watching on YouTube and this beard here.

Chris Comeaux: 10:21

There is a challenge in telling people what's your cause and purpose, because some people by that are almost paralyzed by that question and it's a scary question to wrestle with, like what is my cause and purpose? One of the tactics I adopt and literally I'll probably be doing this when you're listening to this show, because I try to do it right at the end of the year, pretty close to New Year's Eve, and I actually try to wrestle with the question and I write down here's my current understanding of my cause and purpose, and I use those words very intentionally because it does feel like a daunting exercise. But even if you only get a couple of sentences down and you use that throughout the year, but at least once a year try to come back to it. The best analogy I could think of that I'd like to pay forward to you is you go to school where you are, whatever your current role is within your organization, with your family, all the different roles in your life. Use that statement paragraph, what it is, whatever you've used to try to document your current understanding of your cause and purpose. And looking now back through the rear-view mirror of my own life, it feels almost like if you've ever looked through a telescope and it was blurry at first and you start kind of dialing in the telescope and it gets clearer and clearer. That is my best way to describe wrestling with cause and purpose, giving myself permission of I don't exactly know yet, but this is my attempt at what my current understanding is, looking through the rear view mirror of my life that has gotten clearer and clearer and clearer. Now another tool and I'm going to get to the one word, be patient with me Another tool that we teach within TELEIOS and Teleios Collaborative Network is a role description.

Chris Comeaux: 12:01

A role description is a tool that helps you take that understanding of cause and purpose. And then this is the role that I'm playing at this moment, and I'm saying it this way on purpose.  That role like in my case, I'm the CEO of Teleios Collaborative Network, I'm the CEO of Teleios Consulting Group, I'm obviously also a podcaster, I'm also a father, I'm also a husband. Those are all different roles that I play in my life and I've actually documented that in terms of. This is my role description and I'll give you actually you may go what?  Yeah, here's a couple of ideas. I'll give you my role description as a CEO of TCN, Teleios and I'll give you a little snippet of my role description as a dad. So a couple of keywords in my role description at TCN is the maestro, the TCN culture cultivator, the organization composer and chief recruiter and the chief strategy practicist. Now, all of those words paint a picture in my mind that this is my role and, interestingly, those roles are very well connected to my cause and purpose and, like, literally, when I am playing that role, I have this kind of vision of this is my role description and, like, literally, when I am playing that role, I have this kind of vision of this is my role description.

Chris Comeaux: 13:16

Role descriptions are an incredible tool. It is not a job description. It paints the picture of your role. I'll give you one as dad, and so Chris has fathered, loved and shaped his children to live life in a purposeful, talented and creative way, to leave the world a better place for them. Having been here, that gives me a vision of what my role is, as being a dad to my incredible five children. So those are just two examples of a role description and they're very well connected to my cause and purpose. In fact, if we can, we're drawing this as a diagram.

Chris Comeaux: 13:49

If you picture the cause and purpose as the core and the role descriptions are kind of outgross of that and you may going okay, well then, what's that got to do with the one word? I love that question because what I found is the one word is a beautiful tool that becomes a theme over the year and by using a one word and, having a theme, it has so many beautiful fruits to it. First off, I find it gives me better understanding of my cause and purpose and it also helps me become better capacitated to fulfill the roles in my life, and so people will usually meditate on it, they may pray about it, just spend some quiet time of what is my sense of what my one word is. This year we typically do it within TCN. We will actually share our one words with each other. Usually I do a one page document for my family where we'll actually share, kind of put in bold letters, what each of our one word is. And, by the way, some of you that are very detailed oriented if you look at some of my past years, like I, may have a phrase. Like one year my one word was wisdom revisited and the restoration project. Obviously I can count and that is not one word, and so sometimes a phrase actually works for folks, and so we're actually releasing a blog about the one word at the same time and in that blog so we'll make sure we have a link to it when we release the actual podcast.

Chris Comeaux: 15:17

There's a great video that the guy who wrote the book One Word, I think John Gordon was at least related to it. It was by Dan Britton and Jimmy Page, but they did a little bit of a. I think it was like a one minute YouTube video and just a lot of people actually sharing their one word, and so it does come from. I think it was like a one minute YouTube video and just a lot of people actually sharing their one word, and so it does come from. I think originally it was a concept and they wrote a book about it, and so we share an organization that one word. We share it within our family. One of the organizations we work with Compass Regional Hospice.

Chris Comeaux: 15:47

Those guys have just taken it to a different level this year. They actually a lot of them not only were creating the one word for their going forward, they also wrote down maybe some negative words or some things they were struggling with in their life. And their amazing HR leader actually created a box and we may put a picture in when we do the actual podcast release and on the outside of the box they did a sticky of their one word and maybe something they were struggling with. As they looked at the rear view mirror the past year they put that, stuffed it in the box. So the outside of the box is all of their one words and inside the boxes things that they were actually kind of struggling with. And so the great thing about that and I don't know if they've done it yet, but they said at some point in time this year they were going to take their one words off the box and they were going to burn that box. I love that because I think it's a beautiful metaphor of kind of letting some things behind some baggage.

Chris Comeaux: 16:45

And your one word is living life out of the windshield of this upcoming year. And so here's what I can tell you. I've probably done this now for seven, eight years. I actually have a history in my journal of all of my one words, that theme of what I think that word is supposed to mean throughout the year. So it's living your year with some intentionality, but yet living it in the year, you come to understand that one word at a much deeper level and then it gives you greater insight around your cause and purpose. So my one word this year was Co-Author.

Chris Comeaux: 17:20

Last year I released my first book. I thought, okay, it's kind of, maybe I'm going to write another book, maybe I might write a book with someone else and, of course, as we're recording this, at the end of 2024, Hurricane Helene happened in Western North Carolina. That word has come to mean a whole lot of different things. We've been involved in just some amazing opportunities to partner with people, to be out in the community, and so that co-author has come to mean collaboration. It's meant something to me in my marriage. It's meant something to me in my spiritual life. So enough about me.

Chris Comeaux: 17:54

The point of me sharing that with you is having that theme. It almost becomes an adventure, if you will. You know, when we were in school, we used to have to diagram sentences, if you picture the beginning of the word. In fact, I did this in my journal this year. I actually did a mind map. If you've diagrammed sentences in high school, a mind map is kind of like that. Or if you've ever seen like a fishbone diagram, if you can picture that in your mind.  So, I started my year and actually have in my journal where I put my one word, but throughout the year I started actually drawing pictures, if you will, via mind map, of what that word came to mean to me throughout this year. Now I have this beautiful thing within my journal that kind of unpacks this journey of understanding this past year and all of that will culminate at the end of the year, just helping me put better understanding of what is my cause and purpose, and myself, a lot of our other team members we're already starting to pin what we think our one word is for 2025.

Chris Comeaux: 18:54

So that's my challenge to you Come up with a one word and you go. Well, do I do the one word? Do I do the mission statement? Do I do the role description? Obviously, it's up to you. The cause and purpose is a wonderful thing to wrestle with. Documenting a role description, a wonderful thing to do, and if you'd like a copy of any, maybe an example role description. In my book, the anatomy of leadership, and the appendix there is actually my role description, is actually in there, and I think we may even put we I think we had a couple other examples as well, so you don't necessarily have to do all those things as you're like. Well, I just like to start with One Word that is perfect and it'd be great if you did it with the team, be great if you did it with your family, at worst, if you did it just for yourself and use it to go on the journey and adventure of this coming year.

Chris Comeaux: 19:41

If you want to share, we'd love to hear what your One Word is.

Chris Comeaux: 19:44

Feel free to reach out to us. Share that with us. We'd love to just hear from you. Always want to thank our listeners. This is a good opportunity just to wrap and just say thank you.

Chris Comeaux: 19:55

You've made this a top-rated podcast in the hospice and palliative care space the TCNtalks podcast. We've got a good foothold on the anatomy of leadership. We're swimming in a much bigger pond with that one. If this is a service to you, pay it forward to many other people. We do these podcasts for exactly that reason. We want to give you good wisdom, pearls, tools, things that can help you just lead better, live your cause and purpose better, but also do your job better for those leaders that are in hospice and palliative care.

Chris Comeaux: 20:27

So here, as I always do for TCNtalks, I want to leave you with a quote. This one is from Rumi. I actually got it from Hospice and Palliative Care Today, which is one of our partners and the folks that we get all of our news articles where we do our top news stories of the month says, when you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a river of joy. And then I couldn't pick just one, so I picked another one from Mark Twain. 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones that you did do. So throw off the bylines or the boat lines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream and discover. Thanks for listening to TCNtalks, thanks for listening to the Anatomy of Leadership, and we're looking forward to a great 2025 with you. Be sure to subscribe. Pay it forward, thank you.

Jeff Haffner: 21:49 (Ad)

Thank you to our Anatomy of Leadership sponsor, Dragonfly Health. Dragonfly Health is also the title sponsor for April and November 2024 Leadership Immersion Courses. Dragonfly Health is a leading care-at-home data. Dragonfly Health uses advanced technology and robust analytics to manage durable medical equipment and pharmaceutical services as part of a single, efficient solution for caregivers, patients and their families. The company serves millions of patients annually across all 50 states. Thank you, Dragonfly Health, for all the great work that you do.