Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Sarah Snyder. As you know, Sarah is a senior recruiter on my team. She is awesome. She came up with this idea to do what she calls an unscripted fireside chat with Tom Caravella. So she interviews me. I did not know these questions ahead of time. Hope you guys enjoy this episode. Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok, YouTube.
And, of course, check us out on our MSL talk live discussions are the 1st Tuesday of every month at 1:30 pm Eastern time. So hope to see you there as well. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Sarah. Welcome back to the podcast for, like, the 10th time. Hi, Tom. How's it going? Hi. Good. Yeah. This is, like, our 4th time doing this, so I love it. I'm excited. Me too. Yeah. So, alright.
So you and I were talking about doing a podcast together, and you came up with this topic. You came up with a couple of topics, but we settled on this one. So what was the kind of the inspiration, or how did you come up with this idea? Yeah. Well, I am just super grateful to be here today. And I'll be honest.
You know, I've learned so much from you in 2022, and I felt like you have value to give to the listeners, that doesn't always come across because you're so busy interviewing and listening and, you know, talking about other people's agenda. So I really wanted to ask some of the questions that I know I am curious about, and I'm sure that you are out there, whether you're in your car or working out. You know? So that's that's why.
It's all the unscripted questions for Tom that, you know, we haven't gotten a chance to discuss. So Awesome. I call it the unscripted fireside chat with Tom. So let's go. I love it. Well, I am gonna let so you're gonna be the host for this episode. Yeah. So I'm gonna let you take it from here. This is your show. Yeah. Okay. No. This is awesome.
So what I wanted people to do to start out is just, like, take a moment to think back to the first episode that you ever listened to of the MSL talk talk podcast. And, like, just to like, take a second to think about it because maybe this is your first one. So then you need to go back and listen. But otherwise, you know, you maybe you've listened to one, maybe you've listened to all of them. But I talk to people every day who legit say it changed their life.
Like, it either helped them land a job or it helped them change their attitude about something or maybe their communication style with the KOL. And so it's it's not just a podcast. It's literally like teaching people life skills. And when I came up with this topic, I thought, well, jeez. People might stop listening after 30 seconds because they're like, I listened to this for medical affairs content, and, you know, what is Sarah talking about with the fireside chat?
And I wanted everyone to know that, like, everything we discuss is gonna be about communication. It's gonna be about getting along with people. It's gonna be about how you stay motivated, and we can really translate that to anything, whether it's medical affairs, your personal life, just the whole gamut. So that that was the whole idea behind this. I mean, I'm a listener just like everybody else out there. I started listening to this in my car when I was traveling to MSL meetings.
Before I asked Tom any questions, I just wanted to take a step back. Tom, you know, he started out that I've been on this three times before, but when I was on it before, I didn't know Tom like I do now. And so I'm gonna take a second and don't turn red, but I'm gonna tell the audience, like, 3 things about you that I've learned, because I think it's really important. And the first one is that you're incredibly genuine and that you look for the best in everybody.
And it doesn't matter who it is, whether it's an aspiring or it's the CEO of a company, you literally find something positive about him and you share it. Number 2, and we're gonna drill into this today, is you're unbelievably hardworking. And you get more done in a day than most people do in a week, and that's a huge reason that I think we need to do this episode. And then the third thing is that you have wisdom to share.
You are, right now, you're like the lifelong learner that, the most that I know personally. So I think we can all learn from this. And we're coming about like a holiday weekend, and people might just wanna watch Netflix. But, hopefully, after this episode, they're gonna be like, you know what? I'll watch Netflix, but I'm also gonna listen to an audiobook, something like that. So, anyway, that's that's my three things really quick.
And then the rest of this, we're gonna start with some general questions, and then we're gonna, end with a fun rapid, like, rapid fire q and a. So I want everybody to make sure to listen till the end because it's gonna be really fun. And before we get started, like, Tom hasn't heard any of these questions. So I'm gonna go easy on him, you know, at the beginning, and then we're gonna ask him, you know, some hard things that I think, you know, we're all curious about.
So, we're gonna the first question is super easy, but it's about the productivity and how you get so much done in a day. So share with us what time you get up in the morning. I know the answer to this. But more importantly, like, we all just wanna hit snooze. Right? So how do you not hit snooze? Like, what about it makes you so that you literally get up at that same time every day? Yeah. Well, these are all great questions. And, I could tell you first of all, thank you, Sai.
I appreciate what you're saying, and, I'm humbled by you because you're amazing and and you're, you're someone that I look up to. So it's it's great to hear from you that there's stuff that I do that inspires you. But for everyone else out there, I could tell you that the most important well, first of all, I get up at 4:44 every day. That's my power number. That's kind of a lucky number. That's like an angel number.
There have been moments in my life where that number has come across the clock and I've looked at it, and really good positive things have happened. So there's a very deliberate reason that I get up at that time. And it's funny, it actually started, I used to get up at, like, probably maybe 5:30, 5:45. And then there was so much that I wanted to get done every day that I, you know, I crept it back to like, 5:30, 5:15, 5 o'clock. So then finally, I was like, I'm not gonna do a quarter to 5.
I'm gonna do 4444. Because every day when I get up, I look at that number and it inspires me. It motivates me. It reminds me of times where things lined up. Those numbers are all lined up. And it reminds me of times in my life where things lined up. So I'm literally starting every day on a positive note because that number is a positive number. It's a positive reminder for me. And quite honestly, it's not an option for me to hit the snooze button. I don't have a snooze button.
And whether I do or I don't, I don't even it's not an option. It's something that's ingrained in me that I set my intention every day to get up at that time. And it doesn't matter how tired I am. It doesn't matter if I if I'm sick, if it's raining, if it's snowing. It it doesn't matter. That's what time I start my day, and that's part of a bigger plan that I've set out for myself, and I don't compromise it. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's great.
And we'll get into intentions a little bit too, but I love the 444 and, like, how it all lines up. The this is gonna relate a lot to your productivity, and it's 2 questions. The first one's kind of a funny one. And just give us a ballpark of how many LinkedIn messages you have to respond to on the day. Like, you get home at night. I know that you probably don't have time during the day. Like, what is your inbox even look like?
Yeah. So LinkedIn, it's it's hard for me to come up with, and it does vary. There are days Right. Where at the end of the day, there's, like, probably maybe 20 to 40 messages, like direct messages that come from people. And then there's other days where it might not even be as many. Then there's others where, like, all of a sudden I'm in there and I'm like, oh my god. There's like 250 messages that have piled up over the course of time that I just need to sit and try to get back to everyone.
And I do try to get back to everybody, but it is it is very difficult. Yeah. And that's what I wanted people to know is just that you do genuinely want to get back to everyone, but, like, the true volume is amazing. Like, it just shows how much value you provide back. So this is gonna go along with that, and it's just distraction.
And not that those LinkedIn messages are a distraction, But, you know, as an MSL and then now as a recruiter, I feel like, you know, maybe I'd be working on a project and make a slide deck and then, you know, a sales rep would call and then you get distracted. Or, you know, the, marketing person would ask, hey. Can you look over this? And you're kinda, like, juggling a million things. And it's the same with recruitments.
You know, you might be working with a candidate, and then someone else calls with a quick question. So do you have any advice to people of how to minimize the distraction just on a daily basis? Yeah. It's you know, one of the things that's that's important is to try not to just, you know, chase after the next shiny thing that comes across your desk, in your inbox, on your phone. There's so much stimulus right now. You're getting text messages. You're getting email. You're there's social media.
There's LinkedIn pinging your inbox or whatever. So if you have all this stimulus open all the time, you're going to get distracted. So I like to try to be very intentional and deliberate and organized in how I plan my day and how I compartmentalize my day. Chunk time to do certain really important tasks. Focus on those tasks and try to eliminate the distractions. So there's gonna be times during the day where you have to turn your phone off.
There's times during the day where you have to turn your email off. You have to turn your social media off. Otherwise, it can really infiltrate your day and derail you. So you really have to force yourself. It's discipline, and I really try to discipline myself and force myself to stay true to my calendar and the way I have things set up and not start chasing all these other things. Yeah. That's good. The chasing part is is hard to do, but it's so necessary.
So, you know, you you touch on social media for, you know, just a short thing. And obviously, you're well known on social media now. I wanna step back to before when you started the podcast and you started, you know, being more, social on social media. Like, was there anything that you thought at that time, whether it was going on video or just putting yourself out there that was out of your comfort zone? And if so, like, how did you get past that?
Because I think a lot of people, you know, in medical affairs are like, well, I don't wanna have a Twitter account to follow opinion leaders because I don't do that. Or, you know, I'm not good at video, so I don't wanna do that for my company. You know, like, how did you get outside your comfort zone and just do the hard things? Yeah. Well, I it wasn't comfortable for me. I wasn't comfortable with video. I love the idea of the podcast right from the beginning. And I embraced it.
And I was like, I'm doing this. I didn't overthink it. It was right. I knew in my heart that this is something that I was led to do, and I was really excited about it. So because of that, I jumped in, didn't look back, didn't overthink it. But when it comes to the social media stuff, and some of you may or may not know, I actually have coaches. I have social media and marketing coaches. I have recruiting coaches. I I'm big on personal development.
I read a lot of books, as Sarah mentioned before. Actually, I listen to a lot of books. I'm not a big reader, but I do listen. I listen to podcasts. I I watch a lot of video. So I've become a student of the game. And by becoming a student of the game, it's helped me develop a comfort zone. And I've also gotten to a point where I said, you know what? If I'm gonna do this, I'm not gonna overthink it.
The same way that I don't compromise by hitting the snooze button at 4:44 in the morning, I just I'm doing certain things. I follow a certain schedule in my social media postings and how I start to do things, and I try to stick to it because I think consistency is the most important thing one of the most important things in being effective, being productive, and seeing results. So I wanna stay true to that in everything that I'm doing, including social media.
Yeah. Just I'm gonna jump ahead a little bit because you mentioned the coach part. And when I first met you, like, one of the first conversations we had is talking about how you had a coach for recruiting. And he was like, this is the kind of person that I need to be with because he's like looking for someone to give him direction, someone to like coach him along.
And I think a lot of times in the medical affairs world, you just get, so, you know, into your day to day life, obviously you have met manager, but like you don't look at other opportunities for growth. So one of the things in, that I wanted you to touch on, if you don't mind, is you've been doing training. Like, you're out there training MSL teams now. So can you expand a little bit about this twofold? Number 1, why'd you wanna do it?
And then number 2, like, tell us a little bit about the training offerings that you're having Yeah. And giving. So I I training MSL teams and training field teams and training and coaching as an executive coach, as an MSL coach, whatever you wanna call it, is a passion of passion of mine. I love to do it. It's it's my way of giving back. It's part of the service offerings that we now provide. And we're this the programs are very different. No one's really doing what we're doing.
And I'm really excited about it. So when I'm excited and passionate about something, I'm gonna it's it's just it's going to be a part of my daily routine. It started really by request. A lot of people started reaching out to me, asking me if I would come and talk to their MSLs because of well, number 1, the popularity of the podcast, and the experience that I mean, I have 30 years of industry experience. I was in the field for 10 years.
I was a trainer for 7 years before I even got into the recruiting business. So I have the experience. I have the content. And the one thing that's most important is that I want to inspire people. I wanna make people better. It's not just about okay. Well, it's we're gonna have a training session on rapport building, on communication skills, presentation skills, how to handle difficult KOLs. All that's really important. I have really good content that speaks to that.
But I don't wanna just provide content to educate people where they're taking notes and they're learning. I wanna inspire them so that they have the motivation and the confidence to do it. And that's the most important thing is the inspirational part. So the training is not scientific. I'll be 100% upfront. It is all about the mostly the soft skills and report building and how to develop strong relationships. It's all territory excellence focused, and it's really impactful. Yeah. Love it.
Yeah. I think it's I mean, I've seen the slide deck. I haven't gotten to hear the training yet, but I really want to. And I I do agree that it's all about taking action and then just having that different level of, you know, it's, it's hard, you know, it's, it's hard to stay motivated, whether you're an MSL or you're in medical affairs, you know, it's, you're at home sometimes. You're not with your team all the time, you know?
So I think having an outsider come in and just give you that next level is it's just it can really change the course of a team. It's it's only being in the field sometimes. You do need you need to to get a a sense of confidence and empowerment and motivation because when you're in the you know? I mean, I was in the field for 10 years. I know what it's like.
And there's no better feeling than after you have that team meeting and everybody's together and you're you have fun and maybe you do a couple meals together and you have some trainings together and you get pumped up. Well, like, how do you take that and bring it with you for the rest of the year? And that's what I one of the things I focus on. Yeah. Love it. Okay. Yeah. Let's pivot it back a little bit to the recruiting side. And, you know, I've been doing this in 2022.
It's been a learning curve, but I love doing it. And I wanted to ask you, like, what is something you wish that the especially the listeners of the MSL Talk Podcast. Like, what is something you wish people understood about recruiting that is kind of a misconception?
Well, I think well, there's a lot of lessons or there's a lot of things that I I wanna share with people, but I think that the the most one of the most important things is that you as a candidate, as a job seeker, you need to be your own advocate. You need to take action into your hands every day to navigate your job search. Recruiters like me and you, we're basically a support system. We are representation.
We are your advocate and your representation, but it's up to you to take the actions necessary. The other thing too that's really important is I just people need to realize that transparency and honesty goes a long way. And I'm not saying that people aren't honest and they're not transparent. I just think that what happens is people overthink and they overplay their hand a lot. And a lot of times, they it's not even you don't have to think that. It's it's it's very simple. Just be yourself.
Be transparent. Be responsive. Be on the up and up, and good things happen. It's a frustrating thing going through a job search. I totally understand that. I'm very sympathetic. So we as recruiters try to have patience and try to do the best that we can to navigate the difficult waters that are ahead of people when they go through a job search. So the best thing that you can do, again, is try to take the advice of recruiters and stick to just take the high road.
And because there's a lot of people that try to play games or they over negotiate or they disappear or they're unresponsive or they don't show up for interviews or they think it's okay to cancel at the very last minute for no reason. And those are the things that make it very, very difficult, for that relationship, but also for that person because sometimes it's hard to recover from that. Yeah. Well said. I am gonna expand a little bit on that.
And, you know, I mentioned that outside Tom didn't get to hear any of these questions. But part of the reason I wanted to do this too is just to let him, you know, not brag, but, like, just, you know, explain a little bit about the Carolyn Group and, like, how he feels we are different, how he feels we can really impact both the client side and candidate side.
So, you know, you talk to us almost on a daily basis about the the candidate experience, the client experience, and the experience versus being transactional. And if you could just expand on what that means to you and why it's important, I think it's I think the audience needs to hear it. Well, and I I think that it what what you're talking about is excellence. It I I as a core value for myself personally, and as one of the core values of the Carolyn Group. Excellence is the overlap in the 2.
So my personal core values and the core values of the company are different to an extent. But the one thing that's consistent is that excellence is both a personal core value, and it's a company core value. How we do one thing is how we do everything. And that's why I mentioned the word transparency, which is one of our core values at the Carolyn Group. Positivity is another core value. Integrity. I think that the way you treat others and the way you treat your clients is what your brand is.
That's your brand. Whether or not I if so, I have we have candidates that come to us and whether or not we place them successfully in a position or not isn't going to change the way we treat that person and how we try to be people of excellence. It's the same thing with our clients. We try to do the best job that we can in being excellent in everything that we do and focus on quality. And then good things happen. And that's really the whole basis of what we do and how we do it and why we do it.
Yeah. Love it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you show that value of excellence on a daily basis. And one of the questions I had for you, that I give I I think others will really benefit from this too because in medical affairs, maybe you have a really difficult KOL and you just had a you a rough day. Maybe you got yelled at by somebody in marketing. You know, maybe you forgot to do something or you said the wrong thing at speaker training. I don't know what it is.
Yesterday, I had a tricky situation and, you know, I got on the phone with Tom and, you know, he kinda talked me down a little bit. So I'm curious how over the years you've changed and you've dealt with the highs and lows and just how, you know, when you get into a sticky situation, you have a very calm demeanor. And I know that inside you can't be calm, you know? So what advice can you give to people to just stay a little bit more even keeled during this difficult situations?
That's a really good question. I think that, there's you become battle tested after a while where you go through so many highs and lows that you get used to it, but you have to train yourself. You have to really, you know, having a strong, emotional response is, I think, a huge part of success for anyone, especially MSLs, emotional control.
As we know, just when we when we talk about training and we talk about how important it is for MSLs to have emotional intelligence, Emotional control affects everyone. Nothing good happens when you have a negative reaction or when you panic. And I've just convinced myself that no matter how bad a situation is, the take a pause. Things happen. Right? Just take a pause and just think on it for a second. Because sometimes things aren't always what they seem.
Sometimes something negative happens, something bad happens, and you get hit with something unexpected. Well, take a pause. Maybe there's a way to fix it. Maybe there's something that we can do to turn it around. And that pause, I think, creates a gap in the emotion. And it gives enough room to say, okay. Let me let this settle in. Let me let me deal with this. But let me deal with this strategically, and let me deal with this with a level head.
Nothing good comes from high emotion, high panic, especially negativity. And then at the end of the day, I think what's really, really important is that if you're a hard worker, and if you have good habits, and if you have a really consistent process, and you're putting in good efforts, good work, and that compounds day after day after day, there's gonna be so many good things happening in your life, that you'll be able to handle the bad things.
So that's another lesson is that every single day, the reason I get up at 4:44 is because I'm working to compound those good positive things. Because things are gonna go wrong. There are gonna be negative things like you just said. But it's easier to handle the negatives when you have so much positive going on in your life. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And just to take that another step further, like, because you talked about, you know, how we the 444 and just the different things that you do.
Like, how do you continue to challenge yourself? Like, I know that you have the intention, but for the people out there that are kinda like, you know, I'm doing pretty well. You know, how do how can people take it like that notch up? You know, how do you just continue to raise the bar for yourself, whether it's month after month or year after year? Like, what's that is it inner drive, or where do you find that? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. You have to you have to decide that you wanna win.
I wanna win. I don't wanna settle for mediocrity. I don't wanna be like everyone else. I don't wanna settle into the status quo and just be average. I I can certainly sit sit back right now and say, you know what? I've built a successful business. I have a lot of really good stuff going on. And I'm I'm just gonna kinda like, I'm gonna take it down a notch. I'm 55 years old. Maybe I'll work for another 10 years. Maybe I'll coast a little bit. That's not me. It's not gonna happen.
I'm resetting my goals. I'm setting my goals higher than they've ever been before. And that's what gets me out of bed every day. You have to know who you are and what you want. And once you do, you have to take massive action to go get it because nobody's gonna bring it to you. No one's gonna come and give you what you want. So when you set your goals, that's great. Listen.
Now is a perfect time to talk about goal setting because we are right on the cusp of Thanksgiving is tomorrow for those of you listening to this in the future. We're recording this on Thanksgiving eve. Now is when you start thinking about and setting your goals for next year. And when you set those goals, if those goals and dreams don't scare you a little bit, then they're not big enough.
So I set these high goals for myself, but that motivates me to take action because in my heart, I see them coming true. I visualize my goals happening, and that's what gets me excited. Yeah. And we could do a whole another episode about the visualization, but I'm glad that you touched on the goal setting because that's another thing.
I mean, in pharma, you know, a lot of times your goal setting is, you know, you do your performance development plan, you know, and you set your goals for the next year. Well, whose goals are those? Those are the companies usually, you know, and then you might have one at the bottom and then people think, oh, well, I did my goals for the year. You know? And I think we forget to take that other step over and, you know, have this separate personal goals.
And I know you have a different episode on that, too. I can't remember which number it is, but I recommend listening to that one almost every month. It's number 86. It's the episode on intentions. And it's one of the most downloaded episodes of I think we've done a 130 episodes. It's one of the most downloaded episodes. It's episode 86. It'll change your life. I would recommend you listen to it. It's my daily intention strategy.
It's it's one of the things that I would say has has helped me find success. And not just success in achieving my goals, but in personal fulfillment. The idea is to find happiness in your life and to live a life of gratitude and not just, you know, it's not just chasing things. It's finding a sense of gratitude and peace and being fulfilled. And that's part of it. Yeah. And that'll take me right into the last question. You would think I gave you these in advance.
Before we do the rapid fire, my last question was really about how you stay well rounded. And I'm not going to say balance because I don't like the idea of work life balance, but you work super duper hard, but you also like to go have fun. And so I'm like, what advice do you have for people of just making sure you have that, you know, that external outlet too, that you're not just working, you know, you know, maybe it's a lot of hours, but, you know, personally, how do you deal with that?
I think you have to know and and this kind of is a little redundant. And it goes back to some of the stuff I've said before. And it goes back to what I start my episode 86 about when we talk about intentions is you really have to know what you want. What's important to you? I know who I am. I know what I want. I know what's important. And I make time for it. And even going back to my episode on core values. So I have an episode where I talk about core values. It's all personal core values.
And I forget which episode it is, but, I think I wrote them down. I think it's episode 117. But the thing is, once you know what's important to you, and what you want, and what makes you happy, and what your goals are, what your dreams are, but, you know, also how you wanna spend your time. If you're intentional about those things, it's going to keep you balanced. I'm a work hard, play hard kinda guy. Those that know me know that I work super hard.
But I also like to, you know, hang out and belly up at the bar with my friends at happy hour. I don't play golf, but I'm a really good happy hour guy. So don't invite me out to play, but invite me to the before and after party. That's the type of person I am. That's what's important to me.
There's things that I make time for deliberately because I know that by giving myself that piece of, I know I'm gonna be working this hard, but I also know that at the end of it, I'm gonna be able to have this much time to celebrate or to just relax or to maybe watch Netflix, whatever that might be. So I'm really, really super deliberate and super intentional, and it all works for me. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's excellent. So are you ready to move to the rapid fire? Let's go. I can't hardly wait.
I'm sure you can. Well, hopefully, everybody stayed put for this part. This I got from Tim Ferris. So I really like how he does, like, the rapid fire questions. So these are just some fun things that, I thought we'd end with. So, what's a book that you give away the most? The Power of 1 More by Ed Mylett. Mhmm. Yeah. Highly recommend it. Okay. What's the least favorite part of your workout regimen that you do anyway? Well, least favorite part of my workout regimen, probably, my shoulder workout.
Yeah. Shoulders don't really excite me that much. I don't think so. I still do it, though. Yeah. See? You do it anyway. And no. Actually, you know what? Stretching. I hate stretching. Good one. Yeah. I don't know. My answer. Stretching by far. Yeah. By a1000000. Yeah. Good one. What it what music is usually playing in the Caroline Group office? It depends on who's here. Right? So I could tell you that we are in the office 3 days a week, and then the I'm here every day.
So I'm in my office right now. If I'm in here, I'm usually listening to Metallica Radio on Pandora, or maybe something, some kind of classical rock. We do a lot of, like, Fleetwood Mac radio when the team is here, but then it depends on who is changing the station. So, like, Rachel loves, like, these independent indie groups. Ariel, who is a musician herself, she'll put on all kinds of stuff. And then Bridget's just if you know Bridget, she's just, like, super happy.
So she just always wants some kinda happy music. That's true. I can see that. That's good. Okay. Everybody else is remote, so that's that's all we have in the office nowadays because everybody else is remote. True. True. That's true. Okay. How about a hidden talent? Hidden talent. So I've actually said this before, I think even on this podcast because I think, I was interviewed one other time by Bridget, and I think she asked me. And I wanna be consistent in my response.
But, my hidden talent is I'm the guy that when you all a lot of people go out to dinner, I'm the guy that orders the apps for the table. I know exactly what to order, how much to order. And there's there's, like, a system and a method behind my madness, but, that is absolutely one of my hidden talents. That's a good one. Okay. Alright. True story. How about a podcast that you listen to other than the MSL Talk podcast? So I listen there's a couple of them, but I listen to the Ed Mylett podcast.
You guys know I'm a big Ed fan. I listen to MF CEO and Real AF, which are both by Andy Frisella. I listen to The Burn, Ben Newman. And I like Alex Hermosy. I think Alex Hermosy is awesome. I used to listen to Dumpster Fire. I forget her name. I love anything with, Andrew Huberman and Mel Robbins. I love those guys. So I look for those guys in podcasts. That's a good list. How about, this is a funny one, a common misconception about you?
Well, you know, what's funny is there used to be a very common misconception that I was really mean. So before people, like, really would get to know me, they would just think that I was mean because, you know, I have big eyebrows. And it almost looks like sometimes I'm scabbling. Like, I have this, like, very serious look on my face. A lot of people, like, before I would get to know them, like, I always thought you were so serious. I always thought you're so mean.
So actually, throughout the course of my life, I've developed the habit of smiling, even just randomly, or at least trying not to have this look on my face that I was serious because I was like walking around, not that I knew, but I was like walking around scaring people like who knew, you know? But yeah. No. Believe it or not, that's what people would say. Okay. Alright. We're almost done here. How about a sports team that you follow that always loses? That's kinda funny.
Jeez. Well, as a Giants fan right now, you know, following the Giants, big Giants fan, not doing very well. But I'm a lifelong Yankee fan, and we've certainly had our share of success. So, yeah, I would say probably it's been difficult being a Giants fan over the course of the past 5 years or more. Yeah. Okay. We do have 3 more. So I know you travel a lot, and a lot of people listening to this travel all the time. So any travel tip or essential that you can't live without?
Oh, travel tip or essential. So yeah. So I love my iPad. I load my iPad with I do love watching shows. One of my passions is series. So I'll pick a series or a documentary or something that's gonna occupy my mind and take me away for a little bit. And that way, if I'm stuck in an airport or if there's a lot of delays and if I need a break from working because normally, I work a lot of the time, but, like, sometimes I just need a break. So I load up my iPad.
And I'll tell you, it's that's a great question because if I forget my iPad, I'm upset. Yeah. Yeah. I'm upset. Yeah. It's a good release. Okay. One word to describe the Carolyn Group, and you can't use excellence because you already said that one. So a different word just to describe, the the group. We're awesome. We're awesome. We have an awesome and and I I say that just because I'm so proud of you guys. I'm proud of my team, and I'm proud of the work that we do.
And, I just I'm not saying that I I just feel like we're awesome. We're it's a good group of people. We really have the right intentions. We're trying to help people and make people's lives better. We're trying to help our clients. And I I just feel like that's the first thing that comes into my mind. I mean, I can talk about all of our core values. We already did that. But I'm just so proud of you guys, and I'm proud of what we do. Yep. Pride. Maybe pride of the right way.
Yeah. That's a good one too. Let's end with this one because it's probably gonna be like something people can resonate with. And that's just a phrase or quote that you're overheard saying a lot. A a phrase or a quote that I'm overheard saying a lot. I would say I'm kind of unprepared for this because you guys know me, I do throw a lot of quotes out. And I do have a lot of sayings. I would have to say, let's see. I know that recently, we have talked about progress, not perfection.
That's something that that I feel like as, as a recovering perfectionist and overthinker and procrastinator, I say recovering because I work at it. I think that sometimes we have to remind ourselves progress, not perfection. So that's something that I've been focusing a lot most recently. So, hopefully, that's a good one. That's an excellent one. Yeah. Well, thank you, Tom. I I know I didn't again, these were all unscripted.
Like, I just appreciate all your insights, and I think the audience does too. I mean, we can't thank you enough. I meant it when I say how many people on a daily basis just say, oh, oh my gosh. I listened to this, you know, him all the time. I, you know, I do that before my interview or I listened to the intention one. So it really is making a huge difference.
And just answering these questions, even though some of them were a little bit silly, a lot of them were, I think, things that people wonder about and they struggle with, and they need those kind of insights. So thank you. I loved it. I loved every second of it. And thank you, Sarah. I love what I do. I love doing this podcast. So I just wanna thank you guys for all your support, for making it what it is.
I I really it would it would be nothing without all of the listeners throughout the world for the guests and supporters and, and for my team. So I thank you all that all all you guys. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And we're gonna keep going because it's awesome, and I love it. So, thanks for this opportunity, Sarah. I think it's great. Sometimes, it's good to be on the other side of the chair or the other side of the microphone.
So, hopefully, I was able to add some insights and share. And I honestly did not know what questions were coming. That's true. I had no idea. As you could see, I was kinda caught off guard by a couple of those questions, but hope you guys learned a lot. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And if you enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss an episode in the future, and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment.
Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you soon.