Silence and the pursuit of mastery
Jordan Raynor sits down with Carmen Enns, Technical Assistant at Intel, to talk about how travel can be a vehicle for worship, why we need Christians working in large institutions, and why silence is a crucial key to mastering your craft.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian follower who is pursuing world-class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ influences their work.
Today's guest is Carmen Enns. She's a Technical Assistant and Chief of Staff to the Vice President and CTO of the network platforms group at Intel. That's a crazy long title, which speaks to the massive organization that Carmen is playing a role in. She's a super impressive executive who's risen quickly through the ranks, and one of the world's largest technology companies. She’s great at what she does. We sat down recently, we talked about how travel can be a vehicle for worship, why we need Christians working in large institutions and not just startups, and why silence is a crucial key to mastering any craft. Please enjoy this conversation with Carmen Enns.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:27] JR: Hey, Carmen, welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you here.
[00:01:30] CE: Thank you, Jordan. I'm excited to chat with you.
[00:01:34] JR: Alright, so can we talk about your hobby before we talk about your day job, is that all right?
[00:01:40] CE: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:01:41] JR: Because I think you have the best personal website domain of all time. Whereintheworld.com, did you grew up watching Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Like I did?
[00:01:54] CE: You know what, I didn't grow up watching it. I think you know, when computers first came out, we did have a where in the world like the computer game.
[00:02:02] JR: I forgot about that.
[00:02:04] CE: Yeah, back in the like Mac days. And then I did remember when it came out, and they had these acapella guys talking about where in the world. It was good. So yeah, I definitely watched some of that.
[00:02:13] JR: It's arguably the best TV theme song of the ‘90s.
[00:02:19] CE: I mean, hands down.
[00:02:21] JR: He’ll steal their soul in South Korea. Come on, it's terrific. So, in all seriousness, though, I love the focus of your blog. It's all about, as you say, “sharing stories and resources to help you unashamedly adventure while living a purposeful life that takes note of God's fingerprints.” Essentially, you're saying travel can be a vehicle for worship. So, I'm just curious, how have you seen God's fingerprints as you've traveled to, I don't know, something like a hundred countries now.
[00:02:53] CE: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's exactly it. I just love seeing how – when we see different parts of the world and help people behave differently, it just shows us the glimpse. So, I like seeing tribes. So, for example, I was in Papua New Guinea, and you see there are thousands of tribes in Papa New Guinea. And just the diversity and creativity of costumes, I find that just kind of mind blowing. And then, beyond that, as you're stepping into different cultures, and different ways of doing things, it inevitably becomes hard as well. So, I do like the places that are hard to travel to, because it provides a little bit of this kind of endurance that you come back even into your normal life and go, “Wow, I got through this. We got through some crazy roads or whatever it was and this is nothing.” My work job, this is easy, we got this. So, it provides a lot of perspective both in God's creativity and in, I guess, just the hardness of life. So, I think there are two key nuggets I love about travel.
[00:04:02] JR: In our dining room, we have this wall filled with crosses that we collect when we travel, every time we go somewhere, we collect a cross. And what I love about is they're super diverse. A lot of them really reflect the culture of the city or the country that we go to. But my kids, my three kids, especially my seven-year-old and my five-year-old, is like, “Oh, where did this cross come from?” It’s a great conversation starter, just point them to the fact that people are worshipping Jesus, in every corner of creation, and do we do really differently, but on the new heavens of the New Earth, we're going to be able to do that with all the nations of the world. It's going to be pretty amazing.
[00:04:39] CE: Absolutely.
[00:04:39] JR: I love that visual representation in our house. Alright, let's talk about your day job. First of all, you recently moved into a new role at Intel. Talk to us about what you do at Intel day in day out.
[00:04:53] CE: So, I work at Intel and first of all, some people because I talk about this where in the world, they think it’s CAA. But no, Intel is a company that makes computer chips that are most of our computers –
[00:05:05] JR: Pretty significant company.
[00:05:06] CE: Yeah, pretty significant. Yeah, just really, we create world changing technology that improves the lives of every person on the planet. And so, I love that. That speaks right to the planet that I love exploring. So, what I do is right now, I am a Technical Assistant, and so that's a specific job title that I've really only ever seen at Intel. It is basically, it's somewhat of a coveted job. It's a leadership apprenticeship really, where you become a right-hand co-leader with a VP. And basically, you're managing their teams, their staff, their presentations, technical leadership pipeline, and whatever they really don't have time for.
But what it does importantly, is it gives you a glimpse into what it's like to manage at a higher level in an organization. And I love that because I like to see how you can understand and shape that strategy with that big picture view. So, my current team, it's a lot of high-level architects and fellows, which are these, they're the top of the line technical contributors providing strategic direction for the company. And a lot of the areas that I've been able to work in are some of those key technology inflection points that are happening right now. So, some of the things we're working on, it's like moving things, from our computers to the cloud, how 5G is creating data everywhere, and artificial intelligence and the like intelligence of the edge. So, how do we get computing out to not only your computers, but all the different areas. Those are some of the awesome things that I've had a chance to kind of have my hands in, and that's what I do.
[00:06:44] JR: I mentioned before, we've had a lot of CEOs on the podcast, but not just CEOs. We've had a lot of entrepreneurs, as well, who are creating new things in the world, but in all that talk, I think it can be easy to forget, that is the larger, older businesses, institutions like Intel, they're really having the greatest impact on the world. So, I'm curious for you, like as you think about, “Man, I want to change the world.” Does this scale in the institutional nature of a company like Intel appeal to you for that reason?
[00:07:19] CE: Yes. 100%. And I think that is exactly why I really appreciated until because of that scale, and that we're working with people all across the world who are really entrenched in their own economies and their own areas. And, for example, I have been on teams that were majority based in China. I have worked in China. I have been on teams that were majority based in Malaysia. Right now, most of my team is probably moral along the Indian line. So, I really do appreciate the scope that Intel has, with the ability to change the world there.
So, I guess, going back a little bit to your question is, how does your faith influence that pursuit. The two things that I would say, you know, really my faith, I guess, pursuits, it's also a little bit more of me, but it's how I see God working with through my pursuit of mastery here at Intel. And one would be, God helps me to trade fear, to embrace his goodness. I'm not the most, shall we say, courageous person, but all those moves, all the different people, you can talk to, all that, there's a level of fear there. And by embracing God and His goodness, we have that ability to kind of get over that fear. And then the other thing is, it helps you endure when what it could be just monotony. So, I can definitely go to lengths on probably both of those key concepts.
[00:08:46] JR: No, this is really good. Go a level deeper what you just mentioned, this endurance idea. How does your faith allow you to endure what can otherwise be a monotonous career at some points?
[00:08:58] CE: There's a lot of exciting things to explore. And there's definitely, like I say, we need to go and explore. But at the same time, once we get on a path, we do have to just put our head down and keep going. That’s the one thing I can say this. So, I know I've had most recently, even, the last six years or so, I was in a job that I'd had a manager who I didn't feel really recognized what I did. And I learned so much from the role. I got to do lots of different things. But for me being an accomplished based person, I didn't get that recognition that I appreciate.
So, there's this, “Okay, put your head down, continue doing the work.” And you pray that God will make it work out in the end and he always does. So, I think there's this element of making sure you wait in that process and look to God. And it's not always fun and you might be teary in it, but what we think is done destroying us is usually making room for other things to grow. I like to think of like when I'm training for endurance events, putting a smile on my face while I'm out, like people always think, actually second nature now. When I'm out racing like really hard, I'm probably smiling like the hardest. I don't even think about it anymore. Because I've just found that when you do that, like, suddenly, everything becomes easier. And so now it's like second nature, and I look like it's easy when I'm probably working my hardest.
[00:10:32] JR: Yeah. Now, this is a really good word, I think it's going to encourage a lot of people. I just think about all throughout Paul's letters.
[00:10:38] CE: Yes, Paul, yes.
[00:10:41] JR: This frequent command to work heartily as unto the Lord, as he says in Colossians 3:23. And he doesn't say, “Work heartily if your boss recognizes your work.” Or, “If your customer appreciates how hard you're working for him.” It's, “Work heartily as unto the Lord,” because there is a reward coming for us as we do that. So, even if you don't love your job, work heartily, knowing that the Lord will reward your service to your employer, and to him, right? Sometimes we'll see that on this side of eternity. Sometimes we won't, but the guarantee reward is there for working hard as under Him.
Hey, I want to go back to something you mentioned before, artificial intelligence. You spent a few years working on this team, here at Intel. There's beginning to be a lot of talk about how the church should respond to the rise in artificial intelligence technology. I'm curious, if you've dug deep into this and thought about how your faith should influence your approach to this rising trend?
[00:11:47] CE: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. My initial foray into artificial intelligence is – I had been working for a video surveillance segment. And so, it's, how do we get computing into, in your stores? You might have video surveillance, and you might want to use it for theft, control, and things like that. And AI becomes very helpful, because now we can start tracking things like, we can track those anomaly behaviors, so we can know, if that's going to happen perhaps, before it happens. And so that is super helpful.
There's a lot of ways that AI is super helpful. For example, you can have on machine, on industrial controllers, you can find defects in the factory of products before they get out in those defects. Might not be recognizable, even to the eye, but we can find that with AI and machine vision.
[00:12:51] JR: Yeah, it's a great thing.
[00:12:53] CE: And in hospitals. You were using AI to find much better than the human eye, say, problems we have with X-rays, et cetera. So, there's a lot of really good applications for AI. I guess the problem can be, for example, privacy concerns. We get into some of that problem. I don't know. I guess, I'm bullish. Another issue, I see that I think can run into ethics problems is AI. So, what AI is? Let's just make it much simpler, break it down a little bit. Instead of being it's not, some super awesome mind out there, it's basically, we train a computer to know what something is to identify things by giving it a bunch of data. So that, for example, in my case of doing defect detection, it's we give a bunch of images of this is a defect and a bunch of images of this is good, and the computer can start understanding what's good and bad, right?
So, we can run into the problem of the data that we give to these kind of AI models might be unethical. So, for example, recognizing faces, and you might have all white people, instead of having some Asian faces, and then it's not trained for those faces and going to have some other issues. But in general, I see so much potential in the use of AI. We did have one issue where, for example, some of the AI algorithms and equipment that was being used for AI was you being used, for example, to identify people in China, and that was a bad thing. So, we do have to deal with those kinds of issues. For example, we quickly got out of any companies that might be supplying equipment to those kinds of operations. And so, you have to keep an open eye to make sure that you behave in an ethical manner, but overall, I mean, I think it's super beneficial to society.
[00:14:56] JR: Yeah, I think so too. I've run tech startups that have built AI technology. So, I totally get the value. But I think it's a great example. These are very powerful technologies that can be used for good and for evil. I think it's just a great reminder of why we need Christ followers in every corner of creation, not just on the “mission field”, but inside Intel, asking harder question. I think of Esther in the palace in the Bible. I think of Joseph. I think of Obadiah. If Obadiah wasn't there, a bunch of prophets would have been killed, right? We need faithful believers being a faithful presence in these places, so that these big institutions can be thinking differently and more redemptively about these issues.
I appreciate the way that you're thinking about this. I think it's really interesting. So, shifting gears a little bit, I read in your bio, is something that we share, you're a three on the Enneagram, which means that we are performers. If you're listening and don't know what that means. And because of that, and basically, for those you listening who don't know, three on the Enneagram is basically saying, like, we do things, for the praise and applause of others. That's what we mean by performers. At least, that's how I interpret it, for me personally. So, because of that, I've struggled for a long time with finding my worth in my job titles, or in my latest professional accomplishment. I'm curious if you've struggled with this? And if so, how the resources of the gospel have helped you kind of combat this?
[00:16:36] CE: Yeah, definitely struggle with it. I would say, it's not just the praise. And obviously, I talked about that situation where like, a boss, he didn't like giving any kind of accolades, and I'm like, “This is a problem. I don't feel very good about my job.” And those kinds of situations, we have to look to God for our, say, pat on the back. I think the other thing is that we can just look to other people, right? So, I have to make that shift in my head of, “Okay, where can I help develop other people and praise other people?” So, I think that helps me, because, so much of what God is doing, and Jesus doing is that he is looking at people and pulling out. I like to think of it, the jewels that are in them.
If you think of a story where the man goes into the treasure in a field, and he goes, sells everything for it. That treasure in a field might be that person right in front of you, and how can we pull out those nuggets, that are good in the people that that we are working with? And how can we bring out their potential. So, I like to kind of flip that and really, help the group and the people around me, make sure that they have what they need, and they're able to grow.
[00:17:59] JR: Yeah, that's interesting. So, you're using a tool like the Enneagram, to better understand you and your need for praise. But turning it around and thinking about it in a way that you could bless others.
[00:18:10] CE: I guess a whole another level is, as I think of it, that I'm like, “Oh, that's like the one thing that'll like turn me on.” And so, what I love to do, as I look to pull out the jewels and other people. So, the first thing, anybody that's like working for me and interns anything, I want them to take the StrengthFinder. It’s the Gallup StrengthFinder. Basically, it'll pull out – I don't know how many, it's like some 60 strengths. But I have found it to be very helpful and accurate at pulling out your top three or four strengths that really make you light up. So, understanding people's strengths and where they basically are wanting to play and what it is like, for me, I want that accolade, and I like that future, and I like to be focused, and I like to arrange.
So, understanding where they like to play helps me, help position them where they can get what they need.
[00:19:07] JR: I love that. I love that. So, as you know, on this podcast, we talk a lot about, if we believe that our work matters to God, we should care about doing it well. We should care about doing it masterfully well. And the question, I love to ask our guests, what does world class excellence in your field look like? You're an executive of corporate America. What do world-class executives at Intel do differently? And they're less masterful counterparts? What does that look like in your field, Carmen?
[00:19:34] CE: Yeah, I think in general, like the first thing I would say is what I just highlighted. It's leveraging your strengths no matter what those are, and I think almost any role can be done – in my role in particular, it can be done with any different smattering of strengths. As long as you're actually leveraging them, right? So, you can pull in those different pieces, just as long as you're leveraging your strengths. They might look very different.
Now, I would call out that my strengths are what helped me to be good at my job. But again, that's for me. Other people, they can do the same job with a different set of strengths. So, that's why I think that's super important. But then the other piece is that you make goals. So, goals, super important. Especially from accomplishment, Enneagram threes, we understand that idea. But I can speak to this more. That's actually an area where Intel, I think, is falling a little bit shy, and we're really picking up the reins there again. And then, like I talked a little bit, focusing on that people, and then the very key thing is making time to think.
And so much of what I do, what a lot of managers do is you're going from one meeting to the next to the next, and you're just doing things and there's always something to do, there's always things to answer. So, the biggest piece is, how do you make time to think so that you can know what feedback to give, so that you can know what your goal is? Are you hitting those goals or not? That's a key thing, as well.
So, if I go back a little bit to some of those when I think of goals, I've always been super goal-oriented. We make those goals, and it's one thing to make a plan to travel. It's almost easy these days, there’s a lot of organization, now with COVID, but you can do it. But when you think of work goals, it can take a lot of time to sit and think through, what is it that you really want to accomplish? And one of the processes that we’re really working through right now is this idea of OKRs, and it was brought together. I think John Doerr has a book called Measure What Matters.
[00:21:45] JR: Yeah. Great book.
[00:21:46] CE: And it was funny because I was on this trip biking through Italy, and one of the guys I was biking with, he's from Chile. He’s this civil engineer from Chile and he was asking me about this book. And he's like, “Oh, Intel uses OKRs.” And I'm like, “What's an OKR?” And I've worked at Intel, me and my husband, we both work at Intel. We’re just like, what is an OKR? Anyway, full swing around, we had kind of forgotten about them. And hat is back and we're making good swing at making these goals. And the idea is having, this key level objective, and then what are those key results under there that you want to make, and it kind of waterfalls throughout the organization so that everybody is pulling towards the same goals. And so, I think that's definitely a key piece in there.
[00:22:31] JR: Yeah, we had Janeen Uzzell, the former CEO of Wikipedia on here talking about the value of OKRs. I talked about OKRs in my book, Redeeming Your Time. Speaking of, I also talked a lot about the need for silence. I want you to drill down a level deeper here and how this is conducted to vocational mastery. Why do we need time of silence to just think?
[00:22:55] CE: With the things going on, we don't want to think. You almost need much more time because then you think even to stop and think, because it takes too long to just like make your mind have to do something. So, I really liked – I had read The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou. She's at Facebook and she she writes this book from the perspective of somebody becoming new into management, and she's an introvert, and she know grew into like a big team really quickly even though she was young.
So, one of the key things she found, and I think this rings true for me as well as she would have to set that block at the end of the week to simply just think through, “Oh, what happened to this week? What was good? What feedback do I need to give people? What did not go well?” So, setting that time, on say the Friday to just think without really the agenda, I think is super important just to allow your mind to put something down on paper and see what's going on.
[00:23:59] JR: Yeah. I find that if I don't have my morning run, which is usually where I do a lot of my thinking. I don't listen to anything I just run and think. Yes, I become really anxious and just a pretty unpleasant person because I'm distracted, because my brain is trying to make all of these creative connections that I didn't make the time to make while I was on my run. So, no, I'm all about that. So, Carmen you know I like to ask this question a lot. I'm curious what your day looks like, typically, from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. What's your daily routine look like?
[00:24:34] CE: So, daily without fail, we start the day with what we call “coffee, muffin and man.”
[00:24:41] JR: This is so good.
[00:24:43] CE: Every day for the last few years, and without fail, we have a coffee and my husband, he roasts his own coffee, mixes his own espresso and it’s witty and we've had these black bean muffins with peanut butter. But what we do is we listen to Nikki Gumbel’s The Bible in one year.
Is the Bible in a year. I really love that. He does a great job there. Year after year, we continue going through it. And that's a great app, definitely recommend that one.
[00:25:11] JR: Yeah, it's great.
[00:25:12] CE: But the timing of that can vary between, 4:30, or 7:30, depending on workout schedules, if we're going to go out on a bike or run or something like that. But either way, that happens first, and then we get into our work. And right now, we're all working from home. And so, feed my daughter, play with her a little bit, get into work. Lunch, we go outside, we have a salad together, and work some more, have some dinner. This is, I guess, a typical day. And I guess key in there is to make those chunks of time to do the important things. So, I do like to block off my calendar. And what I do is I like to have several calendars, and they kind of overlay so that my meetings don't – I don't look busy, shall I say, with the things that I'm plotting on my calendar to accomplish separately from my meetings.
[00:26:10] JR: Yeah, I'm curious how, as again, you're not at the very top of the organization. So, I think you probably think about this differently than a CEO or an entrepreneur. How do you ensure that you're fully focused on your family at the end of the workday? How do you have that? Or do not have a hard break between, work time is done, and now with my family? What does that look like for you?
[00:26:33] CE: I think it might even be different, and nowadays that we're all working from home. So, I probably don't even have that heartbreak during the day. My daughter is around, my husband's around. I think a key thing, my problem is, I'm that endurance junkie. And so, I will think I need to sit in front of my computer and do all the things, bam, bam, bam. But it's actually, of course, much better to get up in between, do a little something here. I pick up my daughter, talk with my husband, and maybe I get back to work. And so, I started working in my new job. I do my endurance thing and “Let's go, let's do all the things, learn all the things.” But I actually gave myself some ergo issues. It's key, I think too, to be able to not just completely segregate and do the work, I think. Being able to juggle that is actually been really good for me.
[00:27:26] JR: Yeah, I can concur with that. All right, what books do you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to others, Carmen?
[00:27:33] CE: Probably the one book that I really gift is, it's called The Insanity of God. It's an insane collection of stories, basically, from around the world, put together by a man who's wondering, is God enough, after experiencing all these crazy places like Somalia, where God seems to have turned his face away. What I like about it is that it really speaks to what faith looks like in a variety of cultures. So, unlike a lot of books that really speak debate from a Western culture, it demonstrates how God is really powerfully working around the world.
[00:28:07] JR: Yeah, it's a great answer. I've never read the book. But heard of it for years. I don't think I've ever heard that answer to that question on the podcast. So, I like it. It's a good answer.
[00:28:17] CE: It's the one I give.
[00:28:19] JR: Yeah, it's good. Who do you most want to hear in this podcast, talk about how their faith shapes their work?
[00:28:23] CE: Yeah. I think I've told you this one.
[00:28:27] JR: I think I know your answer.
[00:28:29] CE: He'll be a hard one to get. But he definitely is my model of using faith and excellence of work.
[00:28:37] JR: Yeah. Pat has been CEO of Intel. He had a couple of stints as CEO of Intel, right?
[00:28:42] CE: Yeah. So, when I started working at Intel, he was the CTO. So, he's the head Technology Officer. I read his book, when I first started. He talks about – he has a book, it's called, The Juggling Act: Balancing Your Faith, Family and Work. He talks about how you juggle that, and what that looks like, and how you can create your life blueprint to kind of balance those. I read that when I first started at Intel. It gave me this, motivated me in my decision, I guess, to do well at Intel.
One of his goals, he outlines it in this book even, is he wants to be the CEO of Intel. But at that point, there was just no line of sight to it at all. And so, he left Intel. He was a CEO of few other companies. He eventually became VMware, it was first EMC and then he was shifted into VMware and became a really great CEO. They're one of the best and then just recently, just in this last year, basically was asked to come back to Intel as the CEO. He was really excited because, as he outlines in that book years ago, that really was his goal.
[00:29:51] JR: Yeah. Intel is a heck of a company with a rich history. I can see why that was his goal. We'd love to have Pat on. Alright, one last question. What do you want to leave our listeners with before we sign off? One thing, and again, you know this audience, an audience of Christ followers who do a lot of different things vocationally. What they share is a love of Jesus and this desire to do great work for His glory. What do you want to leave them with, Carmen?
[00:30:17] CE: Yeah. So, I think the key thing is, really, so it's second Timothy 1:7, it's “For God to not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and of self-discipline.” I know, we know we didn't talk too much about like all this exploring, but everything we can do, he really gives us the ability to have a purpose beyond the goal in front of you, and to really have fun, even in that messy middle that you might want to wallow in. But he gives you the endurance to be able to push through.
[00:30:51] JR: That's really good. Carmen, I want to commend you for that wisdom for the exceptional work you do every day, just being a faithful presence, right? God's hands and feet in corporate America. And just a great reminder of the value of the ministry of excellence in the world.
Guys, if you want to connect with Carmen, you could pretty easily find her on LinkedIn. And then again, her personal blog is whereinthworld.com, which we’ll of course put in the show notes. Carmen, thanks so much for hanging out with us today.
[00:31:22] CE: Awesome. Thanks so much, Jordan.
[OUTRO]
[00:31:25] JR: Hey, if you're enjoying the Call to Mastery, do me a favor and go leave a review of the show right now, wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week.
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