Lessons from a Life of Hands-On Creation with Carole Del Vecchio

If you piss me off, you know that you piss me off. You've been in education.

Have you been able to see that dependence grow?

This country was not dependent the way it is now.

Oh yeah, miss Carol is bringing the fire. In the first half of our conversation we talk a lot about learning through our mistakes and I think, more importantly, we talk about learning as an adventure, and that means that some people are scared and the best way to people get off center and get into action is to show them that the sky is not going to fall down. Miss Carol brings all kinds of wisdom. If you're a gearhead and you like working on taking things apart and putting them back together, you are going to appreciate Carol and some of the stories we talk about, and the gist of our conversation is around figuring it out. Life does not have an instruction manual and we got to figure it out. That's just the way it is. L&m family and I want to give a shout out to L&M family member, mr Daryl Delafoss, who has gone out of his way multiple times to share his thoughts and his experience with some of the stuff that I put out there. So Daryl says Jesse offers pure inspiration and heartfelt engagement, and I'm only 50 pages in. So Daryl's been reading the becoming the promise you're intended to be. And, daryl, thank you, sir for sharing that because, like my goal, the one thing I want to do is offer inspiration to others, to help people get unstuck, and you echoing back to me that that's actually happening for you is super meaningful. You're putting gas in my tank. My brothers and the rest of L&M family members, let me know what's going on in your life. I'm here to support you and introduce you to super cool people. Here we go to Miss Carol Delfackio. I am here with a very special guest that we've been tinkering around, figuring out how to get her on and things the stars have aligned so we have Carol Delfackio. She's a educator, lifelong learner, mentor, world shaker. What did I miss, carol?

Non-traditional worker person welder, an auto mechanic working on getting better at that. Just, I'd like to restore vintage vehicles. Let's put it that way. I built a couple of motors along the way. But yeah, if I'm out in my woman cave, I'm in my happy place.

So when you say vintage vehicles, restoring them, is there a particular decade that you prefer particular?

body style? Interesting question. I started all this with a 70 XLCH a Harley, an old Kickstarter that I bought in 97 or 98. It was all there but didn't run very well and the owner decided to paint all the chrome black and paint all the 10s in a room, so I thought I could make it look a little prettier but I fell in love with Harley at the age of 10, much of my poor mother's chagrin who wanted me to be a doctor, marry a doctor, play golf bridge and go to luncheons at the country club and I was like.

Yeah, exciting stuff right.

Yeah, and I'm like holy jeans, flip flops, t-shirts, yeah. So at the age of 10, I knew that one day, somehow, some magical way, I would own my own Harley Davidson, and I waited a long time to do it but it was a gas. To take it all apart, put it back together. I've changed it several times from now. I'd say that bike is like 97% stock. I have some NOS to put on it, but I like my SNS car by my straight pipe, so we'll leave those on for now. Okay, that was the first bike. There have been others, but yeah, vintage, I had an FLH shuttle head. That was my first real big bike and then in 2014, I actually had enough money to go to a real Harley Davidson dealership and buy a brand new motorcycle. I bought a Dyna switchback.

All right.

I love that, but I go on rides and these dudes would pass me doing 100 with tunes, laughing out of these speakers, and I'm looking at my little cell phone or handle bar mount going. I think we could up this a little bit. So, 2018, I broke down and bought a streetlight.

And that's the bike that I'm riding now.

Yeah, Cars Camaro's man first, John Camaro's. Yeah, I have two of those in process right now. One was supposed to be wicked stock but my son has got ahold of it, and then I was on the track drags. So there are others that I've purchased along the way, waiting for retirement. And he just getting up when I feel like it and going out to the garage have fun.

Tinkering around with them. So what is it about restoring these motorcycles, Camaro's, trucks, vehicles? What is that experience like for you? Because some people don't know If they never really got that itch, they don't know what it's like to just take on that project. So what do you get from that?

Super interesting question. Of many questions that I have paired down to the microscopic level, that is not one. I will tell you that I grew up around them. One of my family businesses was automotive.

Okay.

And my younger brother got to do it and my old school Italian father said stay in the office, answer the telephone, it's be nice to the customer. So I was sneaking out all the time to do other stuff that he didn't want me to do. Okay, so that's where the attraction started, just because I was around it so much. But I have also been raised as a sole proprietor do it yourself or so and my family, not knowing how to do it, never entered into the question when it was time to go do it.

Yeah.

And I just I'm gonna digress just for a second. Around 1980, I don't remember 86 days, I don't know when IBM personal computers came out. Up until then I was hand doing my father's books with a pencil and a ledger and he heard about all these new Fangled improvements Office one day, and the whole corner was boxes Just piled on top of each other and he said to me that's something they call a personal computer. Read the box, put it together. I want all the spreadsheets on the computer and you know Okay. So I found out that you could make many mistakes and figure out how to fix the mistakes and I actually did it. So with that as my background, that's only one small example of the idea of taking a car apart and putting it back together not intimidating, I knew I could do it somehow, some way. And Just being able to say that I did that, that I took the time, I learned how and it like came out really nice. That kind of hands-on Creation, innovation, invention it just has always sparked my soul. So that's why I'm so into Manufacturing and making sure the kids get exposed to that kind of a challenge and Success, usually, ultimately, if you stick with alarm.

Yes, I absolutely yes, because I've never taken a vehicle apart and rebuilt to have a 57 Ford Ranchero that someday, like that's part of the list, like someday I'm gonna have that shop, or I could just go out there and tinker around and get that bad boy where I want it. Now I have. You know I don't recommend this to anybody, but I have yanked off the transmission from my 88 Dodge pickup that I used to have, change the flywheel and reattach the transmission by myself Not the right tools and it's not. It's not. I was taking break. The hardest part was Lining up the dang spline with the flywheel. Oh, yeah like that. I was Exhausted, but I had the damn transmission on my chest, I'm under the truck and there's. I don't have the right tools to do it, but you know what I got it done. I yanked the rear end off of the thing, played around with the differential, put it back together. About a hundred miles later it grounded all up in the shavings, in garbage, because I did it wrong, and so I took it off and put another one on, and so Common sense says send it to. Somebody knows what they're doing, but I, it was a thing like you described with the computer, like there was no, I don't know how, like that wasn't an option. Right, that wasn't even it was.

Just let me figure it out Because of time, but I'm gonna figure it out your brain often turns to pudding, and that's what it's time to take a little break, but just chill for a little bit, think about it and go back at it. There was a time when this country was not Dependence the way it is now, and people didn't think about handing it off to someone else. It was, I don't know, a matter of pride, even, and even economics. I'm gonna just I'm gonna do this up to down and figure it out, or I know I'll make a million mistakes. I don't really care. I don't care about mistakes. Let's make some part of it right.

Yep.

Yeah okay.

So you said something that I think is critically important. You I'm sure that you've been able to observe it over throughout your career. You said dependent. I don't think I've ever framed it that way in terms of how we operate nowadays. It's interesting to me when people are just I'll take it to plumbing right, because I'm plumbing background. I worked with get with guys and they'd be like I've never installed this drinking fountain before. I'm like okay, okay, me neither. So can you be done by tomorrow? No, I can't. Like can you come show me? I don't, I haven't. Here's the thing I haven't been trained. And don't get me wrong, I am a huge advocate for having training and development systems to help people grow, learn and expand their earning capacity. I'm not an advocate for somebody to say I can't do this because I haven't been trained, because I'm like when you got your first kiss, did you call me to train you for that? No, you got your first kiss right Like your first day. It's your first day. You didn't call me for that. You didn't need training for that. You figured it out. It bugged me. But you said dependent, and so You've been in education for some time. Have you been able to see that dependence grow?

Okay, so I didn't. Before I became officially became an educator, I had my own trucking business, so okay talk about doing something that you have no experience of that. But I had gotten to ride in an 18-wheeler Illegally when I was 18. My girlfriend didn't want to go by herself when I was always up for an adventure. I loved the machinery eyes at home. I have to be able to drive one of these one day. And after 15 years as an interpreter translator, I gave my two week leave of absence which was really the alias dayonara and I went, got my class a CDL, ended up starting my own trucking company because I wanted to make some money. And I did it, Just Looking up information. Okay, who do I go see what's the paperwork involved? And it's a lot. Anything new is a learning process and I didn't expect it to be easy. I understand wishing and wanting and hoping sometimes that, like a guardian angel, will fly in and take care of a critical situation, but that's the software. That's not the way that you start to develop self-confidence, but anyway. I tell you about the trucking company because it was very demanding. Some days I was 20 hours in a truck and then I had to come home and do paperwork and or help with repairs. But I'm used to under. I grew up in this. If you're going to run something, it's all on you, so don't bitch and mow in wine, nobody else is going to do it. You got to do it. What I had to get out because it was fuel just went skyrocket, killed me. But I was so wrapped up in my business I missed this time, warp regression, whatever happened in education. So when I went back into it I was like in shock. I was in shock. I went to a high school. Our first welding, the very beginning of our welding department, was in the basement of high school, because that's the only place we had. But we had to go through security and deal with the high school people. I was like I was in lock up. It was like every floor. I had to get a guard, the key and to do this I had to be in the kitchen, be a triplicate. And these kids were just not human beings. They were either so submissive that they had no spirit or soul or they were totally out of control when I really got into teaching and I stood in front of a class and can you tell, I have a gift of gab. I can talk pretty well. I start talking to these kids and they just stare at me and I'm like hello Carol to the students of earth. I can say ask a question, and I would get nothing. I know they're still like my powers of mental telepathy have not developed to the point. Read your mind. So I need a vest or something. I started to realize that they have been trained. Talk about training. They have been trained to just be there but not really participate, just be there. These students that I've had since I became a teacher has gotten over that and we have serious discussions about why are you that way. I would say that I know why a lot of teachers quit is because you guys are not meeting us halfway. You have to do your part of the job, so dependence is more on their part. Fear, I see. Fear of talking and saying the wrong thing, fear of getting in trouble, fear of being embarrassed. So I tell them my most humiliating teacher story on the first day of school. But what happens is they start to see that you can survive it. So I'm expecting you to say silly things, or I'm expecting you to make mistakes, and I'm expecting you to feel like you have the right and the power to be proactive. If, some days, jesse is like I need my seventh cup of coffee to just keep pumping out the energy, and you're the energizer bunny. You're everywhere, but unless you're putting it out, it doesn't come back anyway. That's just another law. I'm actually believing, but I am nervous for them. I am nervous for their apathy. It's a kind of an apathy, but I'm not really sure I can't blame them. I don't look at them as victims, but I don't really blame them because you can't superimpose your life history on another generation. They don't understand it. But while I, do everything in my power to shake that up. Oh yes, I will do that. I will do that, don't be afraid. Make them safe. That's what I do in my shop when the kids come to a little. Yes, so you screwed up that well royally, we'll grind it. You do it again. Is that the end of the world? No, it's not the end of the world. But in an adult world, talk about what you just said. What were you saying that you were putting in a water fountain? Here's the difference. I'm not a pointer outer of oh my God, you made a mistake. I laugh, I go oh, I made a mistake. But as an adult in this world, what happens to you? If you royally screw up a job, there is an aftermath that you're willing to deal with. A lot of people don't want to go there either. But you got it, it's going to happen.

Yes. So you talked about the apathy and the fear and them not being victims, which I agree. What I see is the system is producing this. The system is producing conformance, compliance, yes, no multiple choice. There's only one right answer. We know when we get out into the real world there ain't no right answer.

There's many different ways to get to the same place.

Yes, absolutely. Now, what I'm taking from your interaction with these students and tinkering around and showing them a different way to do life, what you're helping them see is the adventure and gain access back to their spirit and their soul. Now, that's their experience with you and that's your intent. That's what I'm feeling. So there's this idea or spirit of adventure. How do the adults in the world, in your space, do they receive it and recognize it or appreciate it as adventure, or do they see it as rebellious, non-conformity, anarchy?

Yeah, anarchy, I don't know. I think it's just how I was raised. I am definitely my own person and I definitely have my own mind on just about every topic. I've never followed the herd, so to speak. It's not that I'm purposefully trying to not conform that's not my intention at all. But I'll tell you a quick little story that just happened two weeks ago that really put this in my face. I'll do it very quickly. I went to an event with our sister in university. It was a paint and sip, and I went for many reasons, but I went mostly for connection, because I need some outside influence where I work. I need some other people to know me and I needed to know them. I thought, yeah, let's go. So I went and you sit down, have a little food, have a little drink, and I found a paint. So I'm the first one done and I get up and I walk over to the table where everything's laid out and I get my little apron and I get my little canvas and I get my little easel, I get my little paint. And I'm talking to the woman that does this for a living. She's a teacher and there is an exemplar, an example of a painting that she had done. And I go oh, that's really nice. I go are we supposed to do that? And she didn't really answer me. She said even my students all day long they asked me that do we have to do that, just the way? And she didn't answer me. So I sat down and started to paint. In like 10 minutes into my paint I hear and now let's all pick up the one inch brunch for a brush and put it in the yellow paint and paint. And I'm already got my black tree with like blue and white and you, she's already painting, but I'll show you a picture of later. It came out cool. I haven't done anything in a long time, but it just was so glaringly blatant to me that I don't wait for other people to tell me when, where and how. And I'm not taking that to any extreme in life is not necessarily a good thing. But I don't depend. I don't depend on someone else to give me direction. I figure it out or I do it trial and error, and I think that is such an incredible teaching and learning tool. It has to be part of our educational system, it has to be.

Yeah, now, I agreed 100% and you understand that through your life's experience. And I was having a discussion with the friend about, of course, about the education system and why people aren't in the trades and why people don't talk about careers in the trades, and I'm like, yes, heavily geared higher education. I get that. I was like, but here's the other truth that I don't think we're accounting for is people that are in the education system had to follow this formula to get into the education system. So, if I zoom out from that, they got a career that is sustaining their life, that they're getting tremendous value from by following this formula and it's the only one they have experience with. So naturally they're going to advocate for it because they don't know the experience of the other side or maybe I shouldn't even just say other side of other options, whereas you started your own business, you know how to take stuff apart. You got, so you can see that there are multiple ways. There is not. It's a windy road and I don't care which path you take, it's not a straight line, would you agree?

Oh yeah, totally. You would be surprised. Oh, Jesse, how many professors were deer heads as a kid? How many engineers yes, how many engineers did this? I'm not saying in all aspects of education, but I was surprised to see that. The other thing is I used to believe in the left brain, right brain, separate. I think that I've seen some research later lately that kind of waschates, that, and I've also had experience with kids with disabilities that come into my shop.

And.

I see the integration of both sides of the brain by the hook. This is fun, let's do this. But in order to do this, you have to learn that. My point being that, yes, there are people who only know one way, but I made it my business almost too I wanted. I am a yin yang person. I knew that balance only came. Only the true balance has to come from understanding both sides, and I did it for me, selfishly initially. I did it for me, but I also have always innately been an educator. I've always taught. When I was a kid, when I was, I was a jock when I was a kid, I started playing tennis when I was like 10. When I was 18, I was hitting with guys in their 40s and 50s back when I was like really strong and trying. But I found it easier to teach kids. I mean, I would teach these classes and I'd talk to an adult for 30 minutes telling them how to improve their serve, and I'd come back 20 minutes later and I was like I've never spent any time. I don't know, that's just a little aside, but I think that most adults are open to seeing it from both sides, but then that's a courage thing too. That's a courage thing. I just want to throw out a guy's name, matthew B Crawford. He wrote a book called Shop Class of SoulCraft and he started out as a gear head of the kid Got talked out of it. You know how society says you gotta get an edge case. So he did. He got a PhD, he was involved in a think tank and San Francisco, I believe and when he got there was an emptiness and Because of how he had started out, so he actually went back. So I have that kind of a same Perspective and it's not that one is better than the other, but they're both better together. So I think that has been that has driven me in the way I teach and it's I've been told it's unusual and I just thought everybody did it, I thought everybody saw it and it's not the case and it's mostly, again, fear-based, like you said, to deviate, to step outside, to color outside the lines and do it differently. And I'm not gonna say that I haven't. There hasn't been For me because I'm just, I am held. Then I'm doing it this way because I see it as the better way.

Yeah. So, carol, I'm clearly just know what you've shared. Those all indications that you're fine with coloring outside the lines and and you and I have talked, communicated via LinkedIn, about what some of the consequences of coloring outside the lines are, and you continue to. I don't see you not Ever Coloring outside the lines again. I think that's something that's just the way you roll. Yeah, so, like we're gonna come back to another topic. But on this specific thing, for the young adult, the young student, the Seasoned adult, doesn't matter that that does not challenge or cross the line for fear of consequence. Right, you face them over and over again. Yeah, what keeps you going when that is, even when you know I'm gonna do this, feels right, it's the best thing to do, and I know they're gonna blow up in my face and get scared and yell and freak out. What keeps you going? How do you keep that drive going?

I think I have this kind of a blind face that somebody has to do it first. Hmm, somebody has to break through and show that the sky doesn't fall, and I think it gives other people courage. Like I mentioned, udl, universal Design for learning it is what I do. It's much more organized and specific, but it is my way of teaching and it's been around for a long time Jesse, I didn't know like I think maybe the 60s or 70s they started with it. So my university offers trainings, cohorts and I just the podcast they did the other day. It's gonna eventually go nationwide and even the interviewer said that I have an even more light-hearted view of how to do this than some of the other. More that's a good word staunchy, okay, but I feel and the last question on the interview was what would you say to other educators who are considering doing this but are nervous about doing it? And I just stole Nike's phrase I said you just go do it, jump on the on YouTube, watch a few videos about it. It will inspire you. Take a little training, because this is the kind of thing that you can change one item at a time. You can affect your teaching ability by just implementing one small little thing at a time, and I care about the kids, I and the bottom line is they're people and they're not treated with the Care that they should be. A long time ago oh, you've got me rolling now. A long time ago I read a paper and it really Hitting hard. It was by a university professor to also couldn't understand this invisible magic line that we draw between high school graduation and adult life. Okay, you know, I graduated high school. Now you don't need to be taken care of. Talk to respected you, just this. I don't know a number, so sit over there, shut up. They work. And I never did it that way, ever. I. My relationships with my students are everything to me, because I get to know them and by Knowing them, I can reach them in such a different way. And this, professor, do you have to have data points? You have to do all this research to verify that what you're saying is legitimate. And the students graze went up astronomically Just by caring a little bit. So I don't get it. I don't get it. I'll never get it. I'll never change Because I, as I'm talking to you, this is how I talk to my class Serious, we do serious stuff, but I'll just break out in a joke every once in a while and they'll go wake up, come on. Let's do this. We're in this together.

We're just people no matter how old we are.

It's just ridiculous. I find it totally ridiculous. It's fake. Why don't we all just get real and say we're just like little kids in big people body and we try our best to navigate through adulting 101. It's just be a person, try it, try it. It's not the end of the world, right.

Yes, you don't have. You really don't have to wear the costume. Yeah, you put into wearing the costume. Yeah, could be better spent in being real.

Yeah.

But it requires vulnerability right, because, yeah, there's a period of time where I had the mask, I had the armor and it might ask, an armor was my knowledge, my experience, the big sexy projects I was on. All the square footage, the millions of dollars that I've managed in my life, nobody cares, but all the energy I was putting into letting them know how awesome I was Was actually what kept me from connecting with them, because I was never just being human.

But part of being human is drawing lines, though, to Jesse.

True, right. So that's this weird thing, right, we do this.

Yeah, it's trial and error and sometimes you do great and sometimes you don't do it so great. But I'm not gonna. I don't want to play pretend. I just I am who I am and I'll still work with you, I'll still care about you, but you will know that you should not do that again.

There you go. That's a nice line to maintain. So you've talked about education and You've heard you say the word university in a here you say the word kids and we're connected on LinkedIn so I get to see your content. Yeah, so Right now you're currently educating a couple of generations. Is that the fact?

oh.

I hope you'll come back for part two of my conversation with miss Carol so you can hear the response to her question. We get into like some super meta fancy stuff, talking about helping people find their agency. So come on back next week for part two with miss Carol del Vecchio, and I got to let you know that this episode was sponsored by becoming the promise you are intended to be. If you're trapped by perfection, the stories in this book will show you that imperfect is Okay. All the messy stuff that sometimes we wish we can wipe away is Okay. The win for me was in ironing out the wrinkles I created in my own life For everybody to see. I did not anticipate it having the impact or growing my influence in the way that it has, but I think that's part of the miracle. So that's why the book is out. There is to help give you some inspiration. Help give you some hope for yourself and or a loved one. So you get a chance. Check it out. We'll have a link down in the show notes. Be kind to yourself, be cool and we'll talk at you next time. Peace.