44. Goalsetting and Happy New Year!

Andrea and Griff discuss how to set goals and have success in using them for change in your life. We discuss how Griffin did on his goals in 2025 and look forward to 2026. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Loaded, the Honready Mix podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn, and producer Lex.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

How's it going today?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Great. Happy New Year, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Happy New Year. Yeah. I mean, we we're recording this on the 23rd. So it's not it's not even Christmas. It's very close.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

It's very close to New Year. We're just going to skip over Christmas after the last episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah. The less said about Christmas in here, the better, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Yes. And ready to excited to talk about New Year.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Absolutely. What announcements do we have today?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I have a few things. I came here over the weekend on Saturday, I think, and I noticed there were a couple personal vehicles parked over by where the trucks park. And I just wanted to remind everyone that we have that rule for a good reason. We have had incidents where people's personal vehicles were damaged because of the truck traffic. And it's really for your own protection and safety.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

I know it's annoying, especially when it's cold to have to walk across the street, but it there's a very good reason why we ask people not to park their personal vehicles over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yep, for sure. Um we had an incident this morning that I wanted to talk about a little bit. So we were delivering to a customer and had our most common cause of a rejected load where the flush tank was left on, and we dumped the entire flesh tank of water into the load on the way to the job. Uh it's frustrating because this particular truck and every truck had been fitted with spring-loaded valve that we've put on all trucks. And someone that's not a mechanic, some driver, presumably, has replaced that spring valve with a regular kind of ball valve. And so then it was allows it to be left open. So just want to make sure everybody knows that that costs us a lot of money and it's not acceptable, right? So do not modify the trucks. I get in the winter, you have to bungee back the screen uh spring valves when you're clearing your lines, and and that's a pain, but they're on there for a reason. We do not uh want the regular valves on those trucks. So if you have um put a anything different kind of valve on your truck, just consider this kind of like your chance to put back what's supposed to be on there on there. And uh because we're we're gonna have to start enforcing that, I think, a lot more stringently going forward.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, I think this is a big issue when other people are driving other trucks, right? You may know that you don't have a spring valve.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

But if someone else jumps in that truck, they don't know. Yes. And that's where we run into.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

We've also, I guess, on that same topic, um we've had a heard of a lot of drivers as we've gotten slow here, just kind of picking their own truck and not communicating with Sheldon or with Dispatch about or Steve about what truck they need to drive. Um, so I mean, you drive your assigned truck unless it's down, and then talk to somebody to figure out what truck is appropriate to drive because we've had this happen where people have assumed somebody was not coming in and got in a different truck, and then that person's comes in and their truck is taken. So we want to avoid that.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

All right. So to state that very clearly, do not take anyone else's keys or truck without approval from Sheldon or someone in dispatch.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I had that written down too. Oh, look at that. Crazy when we're thinking the same things. Um, since you had all those downers, I'll talk about some positive good news. Yeah. Um, we talked about in several episodes, and I think everyone knew we were kind of meeting with different insurance companies and having them check over our properties and locations and our processes, and that uh really has paid off. We are making a change to a different insurance company next year, and they're really excited about what they saw, and we're excited to work with them. So that's all great news. A couple things go along with that. There's going to be new insurance cards that have to go in all of the trucks. We've printed those out. Lex is uh distributing those, getting them out to everyone. But uh, just in case uh you don't see one, you know you can get one from anyone who can print it for you. Um, another thing, they have a little bit different standards for their MVRs. So, as everyone knows, when you start to work here, we check your license history and see if you have any vehicle violations. Um, and we have kind of our own standards that we use in the interview process. And then we are constantly monitoring those and we review them annually. And they're a little bit more strict with what they're looking at. And the biggest one that I noticed is that they have a flag for if anyone has a speeding ticket going over 20 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And that's a personal vehicle counts too, right? So I think a lot of people think, you know, if you're not at work, uh, you know, yeah, anything goes. And that is not the case. That that will definitely be flagged over the course of the year if that comes up and we'll have to talk about it. One thing that's always been on there, but I just want to remind people is that DUI, when you have a CDL, it stays on your record for five years and causes a lot of issues. So that's a long-term problem that you definitely want to avoid. And the other thing that comes up for us once in a while is a suspended license. We need to know about that right away if you have any issues with your license. The most frequent thing that I see with this is sometimes if you're behind on your child support or something, sometimes that will affect the status of your license. And we can help work through that. We just have to know it right away so we can work through it. If your license happens to be suspended and something happens as far as an accident or whatever, that's gonna be a nightmare. So we just need to make sure we're working through that as soon as it comes up. But overall, great news. We appreciate everybody's help with the insurance renewals, and we're in a really good place for next year.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Absolutely. I I definitely want to underline that that uh all of our hard work from a safety um standpoint, driving safety, not having, you know, workers' comp incidents and things like that, um, has really kind of paid some dividends. So we're we're very pleased with where we're at and and we can just keep improving. So it's great.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

All right. Should we get started then?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

All right. Well, I think it's very timely that you have suggested that we talk about new years and new goals. Yeah. Um, I can't wait to hear what you have planned for next year.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I mean, I don't know that it's like there's there's not like a grand announcement of this is a goal for the company or whatever. But I think we it is a good idea, good time to sit down and talk about uh more personal, you know, or or I should say individual goal setting, right? Uh both work and personal. Uh a lot of people do that at New Year's, much to Lex's chagrin. He uh he doesn't believe in that.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

He's a hater.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

But I am a hater. Well, you got you, you know, it is a it is a a good starting point that you can say, hey, listen, I'm gonna do something different this year. I'm going to improve, I'm going to, you know, make it a change that's necessary in my life, whatever it is. And the New Year's is a great time to do it. And so we wanted to talk about um kind of strategies for being successful in that today.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, I definitely like the idea of reflecting on the past year. Yeah. It's it's so easy to just kind of power through and take the next day and the next challenge and the next problem, whatever, yeah, and push through. But I do think that you know time between Christmas and when you really get started, mid-January, is a really good time to look back on how the year went.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

So I think when we talk about goals, what that is, is intentionality, which Andrew, you should love because you talk about universing things all the time. Yes, that's it. It just finding intentionality to achieve the results you want to achieve. Um but declaring a result, which is what you do when you set a goal often, is a lot easier than achieving it, right? And and I think there's stats out there, I don't know the exact numbers, but like the amount of New Year's goals that don't get achieved is like 90% or something like that, right? It's hard. And a lot of the times that's because people are setting goals that are unrealistic or vague, there's no accountability, you know, tied to it. Uh, so that's kind of what we want to get to today is is that they don't have to be, you know, you don't have to say, you know, I'm Lex and my goal is to, you know, change my life 100% and get a whole head of hair next year, right? Like excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I think we should stick with this. I think we should keep using Lex as the example of goals.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Uh, you know, you can you can set incremental goals that are um small improvements that that kind of compound over time that that is more achievable and you know, something that that you can you can do like every week, right? So what one of the things I want to talk about is what has been successful for me, and it's not necessarily what anybody else has to do, but setting weekly goals, recurring weekly goals. Like I'm gonna do uh this every week has been a real game changer for me. And my because I would set these goals and say, I'm gonna do better at getting out to all of our plants, not in the quad cities. And it's like, okay, well, that's a vague goal. I didn't set a quantity, I didn't set a time frame, and and those goals just are easy to put by the wayside. So setting goals that have a cadence to them, uh a specific number, and and it's really helpful, I think, to write them down and to share them with people, right? So that's kind of what we're gonna do today. But I people should keep in mind progress over perfection, right? Nothing, no goal you set is ever, you know, unless it's just a simple yes-no goal, you're ever gonna get it 100% of the time. But if you make progress on it, that is what's important. Um, and consistency over motivation. If you use your goal as just your motivation, it's not gonna last all year, right? Just to say, I want to do this. It's about finding consistency and repeating.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I like I like where you're going with that concept of progress and consistency. But I think maybe the first step is to think about where you are right now and where where you've been over the past over the past year. So let's talk about that. If you yeah, if you're comfortable sharing with us some of your goals, let's talk through that and how what are you what are you proud of over the past year? What were you working on and where are you now?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah. So, like I said, I I did weekly goals this last year and found it really helpful. So I had a bunch of them, both personal and work related. And so I'll share them and I'll go by what I did worst at to what I did best at about.

unknown 11:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

So one of the things I set a goal for all of our management folks was to do one safety journal a week.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Oh wow, wow. Especially you.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

And I some people I did very poorly on journaling in general. Um, so I did this one, a solid F for me, did not do well. Two weeks out of 51 so far. I have uh done the um the safety journaling. So that is definitely a place where I could do better next year. So that one didn't do well. Uh the next one was always going to be one of my most challenging ones. I wanted to do three working lunches a week. So three times with either a customer, a vendor, somebody from our team, somebody from the industry, you know, something like that. Three lunches a week because I think that that kind of time away from the office is really valuable. You can have good discussions. And I did that 30 of the 51 weeks. So a little more than half the time. So um, there's a lot of a lot of weeks where I had two and I didn't couldn't get the third in because things would come up or whatever. So um I'm okay with that one. I I think I could that's that's one that I can grow on next year, try to get more. Um, and I think I did pretty good on the rest of them. So one of my goals, I was talking about going to visit plants outside the um, you know, not just this one uh at our office here. And so I did I set that as a goal that at least once a week I'd go to a plant that was not the main office plant. And I did that 42 out of the 51 weeks so far. So most weeks I did. And the only time I really didn't was looks like I struggled to do that in February of last year.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

So too cold.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Uh it might have been too cold, nothing going on, uh, didn't get out. The next one was I had four job site visits per week during our season, right? So I kind of counted that from uh mid-March to um uh Thanksgiving, basically. And I did that 31 out of 33 weeks in in that period. So pretty good on hitting those. I did this is a personal one, no sweets, so no cookies, no cake, no not nothing sugary in January and February. And I was solid eight out of eight on those weeks, so that was good. And then I set another personal one to work out four times a week, and I did that 50 out of 51. In in middle January, I got uh the flu and got sick, and I did not work out that week. So that was the only week I didn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah. So um that one was yeah, that was a good one. I said, this is really disappointing. I set a goal for no candy for the whole year.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

I saw this one fall apart. It was epic.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Uh, for the whole year. I set a goal for no candy. And last week, literally, the somebody gave us a box of C's candy, and Sam was looking at it. Sam and maybe it was John, or I can't remember who else was standing there. And they're like, I wonder which one is this one the cherry-filled one? And I th they're arguing. And I said, well, just let's just find out. And I ate it and I went, oh no. I mean, I made it 49 weeks out of 52 and blew it.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

So uh Do you normally eat a lot of sweets and candy? You have two sweet-related goals.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Uh I do eat a decent amount of like I love desserts, right? But I don't eat a lot of candy. So the the reason why candy was an easy one, except I don't love candy, and so it was an easy candy.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Oh, so it was a fake win for you? You just created a goal that meant nothing to you, so you could win and cross.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

We have a lot of candy around the office, and I eat it because it's there, not because I like it. And so if I so if I wrote it down, uh, and all of these goals were I printed out this little, I got it with me here, this little piece of paper where I could mark them off. They taped it to the wall of my office so like it was constantly there, and I could look at the spaces where I didn't cross them off. So that that was that was my personal accountability. Was I written them down, they're on the wall. Anybody could come in and look and say, wow, Griffin, you really sucked at going to lunch last month, you know. And and that's fine, right? That's what it was there for. So um, it was all an accountability measure. And um, so yeah, so the candy one, once I wrote it down, then it's like, oh yeah, just say no and don't eat candy. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Caught it.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah. So I'm pretty happy. And then uh the final one that wasn't on my sheet, but we had a major goal to start a podcast. And 43 weeks out of 43, yeah, so far, um, nailed it. So is this 44? All right, 44. This is our 44.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Fact check over here with producer relax giving us credit for all 44 episodes.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I do it, was not always easy to make sure that we had an episode ready uh for the next Monday, but uh I'll give you credit for that. You you did it. I I'm gonna challenge you to be more thoughtful in your planning process for next year so that our topics are more timely and relevant. I think we've been better with that here at the end of the year, so I think we can carry that into next year too.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Well, it's you know, I when I look at when I'm making professional goals, I have um I sat down with Steve Ott a couple years ago and and talked about my role and the the kind of shoes I need to fill and the the things that need to be done in my role. And one of those things was um chief storyteller, right? And so I think that that is you know, communicating our values, communicating how we want to do things. Um, I think the podcast is a great way to accomplish, you know, one of the the things that I think I need to be doing. And so yeah, so it's not just a fun thing, you know. I I know that we have fun on here and and that people enjoy it sometimes for the not works related stuff, but the the communicating how we want to do things and who we want to be is is the most important reason why we do this podcast. So yeah. What about you? What goals did you get done this year?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

I I'm not prepared. Uh not prepared to go into that. Um, but I think the way I look at goal setting is a little bit not vague, but not necessarily specific to an every week thing. It's more of a, you know, like you said, universing something like having more of an intention about like some of your very specific goals about eating, not eating sweets and not eating the desserts and working out is like a a health conscious intention. Yeah. Right. So my goals are less specific, like doing this this week, but more like going to focus on this particular area and then setting up some systems that support that intention.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, I think systems is a very important word there. Yes. Because I think if you look at goals versus system, goals are outcomes, but systems are what bring the results, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Um yes, I think this is where we can win Lex back over on the idea of goals that I think the turnoff of goals sometimes is when they're too results focused, right? Like you're whatever the end goal is is all you're focused on. Where if you walk it back and really make the goal about the process or the system or the intention that you're putting there, yeah, we can get people like Lex on board.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah. I had an example of that. So like we could say as a goal, you could say we want to drive safer, you know, as a as a company, we have less accidents or whatever. Yep. Um, and that's that's great, but just telling everybody our goal is to drive safer this year isn't going to mean we will drive safer. So our systems that we set is the goal is hey, we're going to set up the Samsera footage. We are going to follow through on coaching every time we see uh unsafe driving behavior so that we can improve. Right. So that is a that is a systematic goal that we say, okay, our goal is not actually just drive safer. Our goal is let's coach every time we see something unsafe. And that is what will drive results.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yep. And that that takes consistent effort from a few different people too, right? Like it takes, you know, Chris and dispatch is reviewing that and sending it to us, getting our attention. We're looking at it. People like Sean and Zach and Sheldon are and Jim are doing the actual coaching with the drivers. Um, we're also, you know, sending out and celebrating the people who have the top scores. Like it's taking a consistent effort in a lot of different directions, all driving that same result that we're going for.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, what else?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Any other systems that you want to talk about? Processes?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

No, I think we have a bunch of them, right? Our our whole that's kind of your forte, right? Is setting up systems and our our company, the way we operate, is full of systems. Uh ways to make sure that we don't drop the ball, um, but ways to make sure we we hit our performance goals. So I guess the challenge would be for anybody out there that's like, gosh, I have something I've wanted us to do as a company or my team or whatever. And if we have been too vague, then let's think about how we can dive into what drives that result that we want and let's set those goals.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yeah. I think one area we've made a lot of progress in was goals for everyone was to improve our inventory processes. And we have have really made a lot of uh strides there. But I think we've realized that the next level that we need to get more consistent with is at the batcher level. Like, are they all doing the exact same thing the exact same way with their inventory events, with entering their tickets? When somebody's out and someone else is follow filling in, are they doing it the exact same way? So we're kind of taking it to the next level this this next year and going to work on the processes at that level. In in looking back in the past year, there's a few questions that I am going to think about over the next couple weeks. So I just want to share these. With people in case it is helpful for you. I love normal days. Like maybe this is partly why I don't love Christmas or holidays or birthdays or whatever. Like I love when a day goes how it's supposed to go. So I like to look back and think about not my best day, not my craziest day, not my hardest day, but just my good, solid normal days and like what I do, what the habits are that make it a good day, a good normal day.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

So, you know, things like I don't like to feel rushed, right? So setting myself up to have enough time to do what I need to do to be where I need to be. And I think that is something that applies here all the time. Like the worst stuff happens when we're rushed. Absolutely. Bad decisions are made. So thinking back to your normal days and what are the things that you can do to make your day good. Um also like preparation, right? We talked about that with you know, pre-tripping trucks and post-tripping, especially gives us more time to be ready the next day. Yeah. Like think about how you can prepare the day before to make the next day good. Um, also look at what do I want to spend less time on? Go back through back through my phone or go back through my calendar at work and like was this meeting a good use of time? You know, that we we did it every week, but was it actually accomplishing something or was it really just wasting time?

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

And same thing when I look back at, you know, time wasted, you know, on my phone or whatever other time wasting things I have and how I can audit that out of the next year going forward.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, we are I mean, we nobody is a hundred percent efficient with their time.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yeah, and you shouldn't be like there should be times where you're you know enjoying yourself or celebrating or whatever, but there's also just time that slips away with waste.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yep. That's where, you know, when I look at that, that's where to-do lists are helpful for me because I can just go from one thing to the next. If I don't have it written down, it's really easy to get looking at my phone or you know, check something that's not work-related and and and then yeah, time slips by.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Okay. What's next?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Um well, I think we should talk a little bit about dealing with setbacks.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Okay. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

There's a lot of a lot of times, for example, my candy goal, right? This week I'm not eating candy. I could have just said, You already blew it. I blew it, now I'm gonna go eat. And there's a whole table full of treats out here. Angela's got all the Sour Patch kids in there that are just calling my name, right? There's the one candy I actually like. I could have just thrown in the towel, right? But I think it's really important to know that you will make mistakes. You will miss days or or milestones, right? And that's okay. That's we're human, right? That's part of the human experience is perfection isn't exist. So the the whole idea is just don't quit. Just don't give up on it. If you if you have a setback, say, oh I'm gonna I let me get longer before I have another setback, right? You know, whatever whatever time, you know, frame of mind you need to put yourself into like let's just get back on the horse and go for it. So yeah, don't don't give up if if it's hard, if you miss a uh a milestone.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I like your accountability tracker there, that even you don't see with most of your goals. You don't see like where you missed one and then you missed another one, right? You can well if you don't have too many in a row.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

There's some lunch ones there, but yeah, not a ton. Not a ton.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

I like that thought of you can you can miss one, but don't miss two.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah, right. Well, should we talk about next year's goals?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Do you have any goals you want to share for next year?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Not yet. Not yet. I'm on vacation next week, and that is when I plan to do like I like I said, with the audit of my time and re realigning myself for next year. But so that's a cliffhanger. When I come back the next episode, I'll be able to share some goals.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Okay, great, great. Okay, I have some that I'm gonna add. Uh I'm I'm a for one, I'm going to repeat all of my goals for this year because I think they are a good uh personal and professional kind of baseline and and tracking that is helpful for me. So I'm gonna repeat all of my goals, including the candy one. I was gonna not do the candy, but then because I because I failed for to get the whole year.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

I'm curious, are you um are you better when it's a hundred percent or not? Like could you have a goal that was like I'll eat candy only once a week? No, absolutely not as better than any.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

I live in the extremes. Okay, yeah. Um, so I'm gonna I'm gonna repeat all those and I'm gonna add some more. Um, one of them is just not a weekly goal, but uh I want to get more involved with the Illinois Ready Mix Association. You know, I've been on the board of the Iowa Ready Mix Association for eight years and I roll off in March. So it's a good time to find some other way to be involved in the industry. And I think there's a lot of opportunity in Illinois for that association to grow and for us to make connections in Illinois. So um planning on getting on some uh committees there and and finding ways to get more involved with the Illinois Ready Mix Association. So that's one just it's kind of vague, but uh I don't exactly know what the roadmap looks like on that one yet. I'm gonna add three journals per week to my I wish you could hear me rolling my eyes about this one. I wish starting small, we can grow it.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yours yours was it was one a week last year, and you didn't even do that. So now you're gonna increase it to three?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yes. I'm doing three. And my my hope is that at least one of those three, one of the things that I don't think I'm great at always is holding our team accountable when we get outside the bounds of our values, right? So if we have someone that's you know doing something that's counter to our company values, I especially, you know, if it's on the management team, I really feel like it's my role to try to step in and and set those guide rails back up. So my goal, and and it it certainly won't happen every week that somebody is doing something outside the bounds of our values. But uh every time I see that, to make sure I record that in a journal and and provide that feedback so that we can continue to live the values we've set and and hold each other accountable to. And then just two uh, you know, so my hope is at least one of a week would be that um, or or that that never happens. And so I don't I can't do it. But three journals, I think, would be a good step as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Yeah, I think you could even on weeks where you don't see any redirection that needs to happen, you could celebrate something really there.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

You go. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. So those are those are gonna add. I reserve the right to add more goals.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I'll think about some goals for you too.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Great, wonderful. So one thing you should do. I uh I I I take I I set my own goals better than I do take it direction for. I'm aware.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

I'm aware.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Excellent. Well, what else do we want to talk about today? Is that it?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

I think that's a good start. I think there will be some good follow-up conversations. Hopefully, this is kind of just a conversation starter for people to talk about their goals. Um, we'll be doing manager reviews in January. So we'll be talking individually with all those guys. And uh I'll come back with some updates on mine. I bet Lex will have some for us to talk about too.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

The look he just gave. If we could record the video of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. Remember to send us your loaded questions. We'd love to hear about goals that you've set. We can talk about that on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Have a happy new year.