The LeadandBelieve Podcast

(upbeat music)

- This is Lead and Believe.

- Oh, I believe Benny, but can you help me lead?

- This is a podcast for leaders

who wanna build a world-class culture.

- That's what I'm talking about.

I'm Brad Gustafson.

- And I'm Ben Gilpin.

- Brad Gustafson, we are back at it, my friend.

How are ya?

- Doing amazing.

Ben, as we kinda plan these shows and collaborate,

I'm usually pretty excited just to connect with you

and have these conversations,

but it's seeming more and more frequent

that we get deeper into a conversation where like,

this warrants a discussion or I need help with this,

and we landed on one of those themes today,

and I'm just chomping at the bit.

Like, would it be premature to say best show ever?

That probably sounds really bad.

I set the bar really high there.

What I'm gonna say is I have a feeling

this is gonna be really helpful to me,

and thereby it might be helpful to other people today.

Thoughts on the topic today, Benny?

- Okay, so for all of you listening,

we're in season two, episode now number three,

and we have our first guest of the season.

And so first off, welcome to Jethro Jones, welcome.

- Hey guys, thanks so much for having me,

and a special hello to Jelco.

I love you, man.

- That's right.

- I'm so glad you're editing this podcast.

(laughing)

- All right, we get a lot of help around here,

so thanks for the hat tip on that one, Jethro.

Great to connect.

I feel like we maybe did an inadvertent teaser,

or maybe I, what's the opposite of burying the lead?

I revealed the lead too soon on the topic.

Jethro's the headliner here, but we do have a topic.

We do have a focus today,

and it is the different ways that leaders heal.

The different ways leaders heal.

Jethro, what are the different ways?

No.

(laughing)

- You guys are so amateur.

- So let's just talk about this.

I'm gonna go first, and I'm gonna kind of lead in

to Jethro a little bit.

We all have our own journeys, right?

We all have that path,

and sometimes those journeys can leave scars.

Sometimes they leave these wounds,

and those wounds, we have to find ways to heal,

or the other thing we can do is we can just bury 'em,

but human nature tells us it's best to try to heal.

Now, Jethro, not saying you're broken,

not saying anything specific, but I do know

you, my friend, have quite the journey,

and I'd love for you to kind of kick off,

and tell us a little bit about that journey

that you've been on yourself,

because you have transformed yourself physically,

but I also think that there's been

some mental work there as well, if I'm not mistaken.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So I've lost 70 pounds in the last year,

which is right around the ideal medical doctor

recommended weight loss of about

one and a half pounds per week,

and that's really awesome, and that feels great.

I look and feel way better than I did a year ago,

but I wanna go back a little bit

to what you were saying before,

'cause I think it's so important.

- What I said, Jethro?

- Of course what you said.

The thing that I think is so valuable

is that you have to be able to,

what's the word I wanna say?

You have to understand that people learn in their own way,

and I have this tweet that I shared a long time ago

about what schools think learning looks like,

which is this straight line, right?

And what learning actually looks like

is like a bowl of spaghetti

with one little line going through.

So I may learn something at 40 years old

that somebody else learned when they were 20

that some people have forgotten more

than I could ever even learn about a subject, right?

And so the reason why I bring this up

is that I thought that I was a healthy guy before.

Yeah, I was a little bit overweight,

but I could do the things that I wanted to do.

I could go on bike rides, I could play with my kids,

and everything was, it was fine.

But fine is not the place where you wanna be.

And so I decided to get serious about losing some weight.

But even before I did, I lost any weight.

I went to a personal trainer for six months

only to work on my mindset,

only to work on being okay and loving my body

where it was at before I could even start to lose any weight.

And it's so weird for a guy to say loving his body,

but that was the key for me.

So go ahead, Brad.

- Yeah, quick question.

I'm thinking about the different ways leaders heal,

and I would assume it's different for everyone,

but was there a moment in time

where you made that decision to heal with intention

or to change with intention, or was it more serendipitous?

- No, it was definitely a point where I said I'm not happy,

where I realized that I needed to heal.

That's what the real key was,

because people looking at me from the outside

could tell that things were not going well.

But nobody ever said anything.

Like, people didn't say, Jethro, you look like crap.

They would be polite and nice,

and they weren't actually being kind to me

and telling me what was really going on.

And so after I had lost about 40 pounds,

I met a guy named Kyle,

and I told him that I coach school leaders,

and he said, "Why would anybody come to you for coaching?

You're fat."

And I was like, dude, I just lost 40 pounds.

What are you talking about?

But at the same time,

he identified what I knew was the problem,

was that I didn't have confidence in myself

because I was so overweight,

and how could I expect anybody else to have confidence

that I could help them

if my life was a mess itself?

So that was when, and again, I'd already lost 40 pounds,

so I was already looking much better than I was,

but I needed his truth,

him saying the honest truth with love and kindness

for me to be able to really make the decision

to be serious about it and to commit to it.

Because up till that point, I had lost 40 pounds,

but I knew at any point it was gonna go back.

I was gonna gain that weight back.

Now, I don't believe that I'm going to anymore.

- I have a question, Jethro.

By the way, and I mean this with all due respect,

you do look radiant.

I don't think it's my camera.

You're just glowing, okay?

And I've known you for a really long time

and cared about you for a really long time.

And with that said, when you share that story,

it makes me wonder,

I always thought you had high competence and trusted you

and cared about you.

However you showed up, I wasn't subconsciously thinking,

God, he's a train wreck.

So part of me is wondering, Kyle's message to you,

I guess I'm pushing back a little bit or I'm confused on,

because just because someone is bigger or smaller,

I don't know if that's a fair assessment.

I'm trying to understand that.

- But if I'm understanding this correctly,

that your weight impacted or influenced your self-esteem.

- Yes, and that is the key,

because I don't think that you specifically, Brad,

were judging me because I was overweight,

but I was judging myself.

And because I was attacking myself,

then I was saying no to myself

before giving anybody else the chance to say no to me also.

So for example, I coach school leaders, right?

And so I would get on a call with somebody

that could be a potential client,

and I would find reasons for them to not work with me

because I didn't have confidence or belief in myself.

And that makes an impact on your livelihood,

on your self-esteem, on all that kind of stuff.

And so going back to that piece about loving my body,

no matter what size it was,

I had to do that first when I was still 70 pounds heavier,

I had to really love who I was first,

and that is the part of healing that I think is important.

I spent six months working with this personal trainer,

all about mindset, to get to that point

where when Kyle said that to me,

I wasn't offended that he said that to me.

I saw that he was speaking truth and I could handle it.

What I would have said six months previously,

if he would have said that to me,

I would have said, "Who is this jerk?

"I'm never talking to this guy again."

Instead, I hired him to be my coach

because I knew that he would always tell me the truth.

And that's what I was looking for.

So it wasn't that I was fat,

it was that I saw myself as fat and not good enough

for what I wanted to be.

And so it was a lot of things

that happened in my life previously that led to that,

that led to me not believing in myself,

including getting pushed out of my school

six weeks before the end of school,

including getting pushed out of another school

and another school.

Those are embarrassing professionally things to admit,

but as I've shared that story more,

I've heard from more and more principals and superintendents

who have had that happen to them.

And it's not as uncommon as we pretend like it is.

And here's the reality,

we all are struggling with something, every one of us.

None of us is perfect.

So we need to be able to address those issues

and support each other in those.

And we don't need to hide behind them.

- Yeah, I'm always shocked at how many people,

it's not something that come,

you just don't always just lead with like,

hey, here's the laundry list.

But I've just talked to a lot of people and friends

and principals across the country who their story,

there's a lot of similarities Jethro

and it's shockingly, shockingly common.

So would you say that kind of prompted the mindset thing?

Because most people I talked to wouldn't gravitate

towards that route, which sounds highly effective.

Like I'm inspired that you did that before,

hitting the exercise bike, I mean, making up an example.

Like how did that decision happen?

Instead of just setting a new year's resolution

and changing eating?

- Well, because I've done that a dozen times already.

I've gone through diets, I've lost weight,

I've gained weight and all that.

And I was like, I actually want this to stick

and I want it to actually change.

And I need to do something so that it does

because I don't wanna die young

and I wanna be there for my kids

and I want to be there for myself and for my wife

and I want to be healthy and live the kind of life

that I wanna live.

And I knew that I was on a path

where that was not going to happen.

- So if we, okay, this is fantastic.

So, but if we, let's go, let's kind of center.

Different ways that leaders heal.

Now, when I think about that question there,

there was a six month timeframe that you mentioned

where you would have been offended

and then you came to the realization

and you mentioned something along the lines of

enough was enough, but something had to click for you.

And so here's why I'm bringing that up.

Because the different way leaders heal,

I tend to believe that you're exactly right.

We all have a level of brokenness,

but we're not going to start to heal

until we have a self-awareness or self-realization,

enough is enough.

Can you pinpoint the moment when you were like,

enough is enough?

- So this goes back to what I was saying before

about how we learn that I've known about healthy eating,

exercise, all that kind of stuff for years,

like most people have.

We know what we need to do.

But it wasn't until that actually clicked

and became real to me personally

when I was finally able to do it.

And then we learn in stages.

So we don't, it's not like an on/off switch.

It's like the dial got turned up to three

and that was enough to push me over the edge

to say this is where it is.

Because now I'm at, the dial's up to a seven or an eight.

But I know that there's more for me to learn and understand.

And so the latest realization that I have

is that I need to attach deep, spiritual,

personally for me, meaning to eating my food.

And if I do that, that I'm going to be intentional

about what I put into my body,

and I'm going to pay attention to what I'm eating,

and I'm going to make smarter decisions.

Now, that is for me at this level seven.

For you, that could be a level one.

Like, duh, of course you should pay attention

to what you're eating.

But for me, that's not where it was.

So now that's a level seven for me.

But that's just turning the dial.

And the thing that I'm really trying to get across

is you can't say that everybody has to go

through the same progression.

For you, it may be that you need to pay attention

to what you're putting into your body.

And that's the thing you need to do before your mindset.

For me, I had to do it the opposite way.

And here's the key.

Each one of us is individual,

and we have to figure that out for ourselves.

Nobody's going to come and rescue us and say,

"This is the thing that's going to solve your problems."

We have to figure it out

because we are unique and individual.

And if we don't figure out for ourselves,

nobody's going to figure it out for us.

So whether that is therapy, life coaching,

electroshock therapy, dieting, exercise, doesn't matter.

Whatever you have to do to heal yourself,

you have to make that the priority,

and you have to go figure that out on your own.

Get a coach, get mentors, get people who can help you.

But it's all going to be up to you.

You can't rely on anybody besides yourself

because nobody else cares besides you.

Not your wife, not your husband, not your parents, your kids.

Nobody but you cares enough to actually make the change.

That's the key here.

You have to care enough.

- Jethro, I just want to emphasize,

get someone who will be truthful and honest with you too.

Like I think even if that's yourself,

like, you know, I appreciate you sharing,

there's a wide range of ways that this can be done.

You might not even need another human being

to be that person if you can potentially be that

for yourself.

As I listen, I am making connections

to lots of different reasons and ways leaders need to heal.

So I know we're talking about mindset and healthy eating

and weight loss and things like that,

but I'm just putting it out there.

My mind is connecting to workplace conflict,

difficult, you know, trauma,

maybe it's from before work, maybe it's from work,

you know, just all, there's just so many different things

and complex challenges that we encounter.

- So wait, wait, wait, so Brad, Brad, Brad, Brad.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- To press in a little bit.

Does Brad Gustafson have some scars?

- Yeah, you know what's really interesting?

The answer is yes.

And I have lots of different sized scars

and depths of scar.

And here's one thing I'll say,

and I'm sure you'll press me for more, Benny,

'cause that's what you do.

The thing as I listen to Jethro and reflect on my own life

and leadership, the times where I have healed best

and more completely, it's usually involved in tension.

It's not just saying or acknowledging I'm on a journey

and kind of meandering, it's pausing to name

whatever the hurt or the scar is,

or maybe to at the very least say,

gosh, I need some space from, I don't know, this issue,

this person, or maybe some time is needed

so that the getting into physiology,

so the wound can scab over a teeny bit

so that you have a little thicker,

you know, whatever the case may be.

But anyways, times where I was not intentional,

there's just unresolved stuff.

And right now I'm actually in a phase of my life

where there's some really, I'll call it rebirth,

maybe a teeny bit of a parallel journey.

I'm not getting in a, what are you on online, Jethro?

A hot tub?

There's something you're in.

This'll sound really weird to people

who haven't followed your story on social media,

but I'm drawn into those cold dunks you do

and your reflections.

What is that thing?

- That is a little cold pod, that's it.

Just this little tiny thing that I fill with water

to be cold.

And that's part of this mental thing

of intentionally suffering so that I can be present,

so that I can be there for other people,

so that I can heal myself.

And I do not wanna get in the cold plunge every day.

And in fact, I haven't gotten in since Saturday

because it was time to empty it out and put new water in.

Guess what I haven't done?

I haven't put new water in.

Because if I put new water in,

I'm gonna have to get in there.

And so I am hiding from that because I don't wanna do it

because it's uncomfortable and it hurts.

- So this show, hanging out with Benny is my cold plunge.

- Yeah. - No, just kidding.

- It might be.

- Let's be real about this though.

Because of your Alaskan roots,

it has to be slightly easier for you to jump in that

than someone, let's say in Florida.

- You would think, but no.

- I would not think, no way, Ben.

It's cold for any human being.

- Yes.

- Alaska though, I mean, Jethro's Alaskan roots.

- Yeah, well, the thing is, is no matter what,

every single day when I go get in there,

I dread it and I hate every minute of it.

And part of why I do the videos on Instagram

is because it gives me a purpose for doing it.

And it doesn't matter if anybody watches those

because it's not for them.

It's for me to be able to focus my mind

and come up with some rambling, incoherent thing

that I have a hard time saying because I'm so cold,

but worthwhile to do it so that I can have a purpose

for doing that each day.

And it's, again, deep spiritual meaning

to the things that are important to us.

When you talk about intention,

that's what I'm saying, the exact same thing.

You need to have that reason why you're doing it.

And when you have that reason, you can do so much more.

And it's way, way easier to do it.

It's not easy to get in the cold plunge,

but it's way easier when I have a purpose

and a reason for doing it.

- I believe there are probably lots of leaders listening

who have, I forget the exact wording you used, Ben,

scars that are looking to heal on lots of different levels.

Can we get even more pragmatic?

This has been pragmatic, but Benny,

and then we'll let Jethro maybe close it out.

Do you have a tool, a tip, a way someone listening

might just think about the different ways

leaders heal differently or maybe even deepen or expand

how they are looking at it?

- You know, I think Jethro, he touched upon mindset.

I think that ties into acceptance.

For me, what I have learned on my journey

and just through my experiences through life

is that there are times that I was ready

for the conversation and there were times

that I was not ready for the conversation.

And that conversation was ultimately with myself.

I had some people that pressed in and pushed in

and still do have those people,

but I had to be willing to be able to hear it.

And so that's why, you know, like when I work

with principals and I work with leaders

and I work with fellow superintendents, you know,

it's some of the things, like when I try

really intently to listen because I don't wanna

come across to people as a know-it-all.

I don't wanna say this is what you have to do

because I don't know where they are at their stage

and I don't know where their mindset is either.

The one thing, and we touched upon this in episode two,

you know, I mentioned a little bit about therapy,

that was, for me personally, I had to get to that point

that I wanted to heal.

And that was a critical point on my path.

And I would never say to anyone else,

you have to do it that way.

We're all on our own path that we have to figure that out.

What I can say is, I'll steal a line from Ted Lasso,

I still feel like I'm a working prog mess.

I mean, there are some times I'm still a mess.

But there are also some times I function pretty well.

And that's just part of the path.

But I had to come to that realization on my own,

just like I heard Jethro say today,

he had to get there on his own.

We have to first accept we all have those scars,

we all have those wounds.

And so as people are listening today,

before I pass it off to Jethro,

as people are listening today,

we talked a little bit in that last episode about grace.

You know, whether you're a journal writer, a reflector,

whatever you do to kind of process things,

you have to get to the point where

you're either really happy with how things are going,

or you're thinking something's gotta give.

And only you can be the judge of that.

- Benny, before we go to our grand finale,

which now we're really building up Jethro, no pressure,

I just wanna riff off what you said on mindset for me.

And that's been part of the kind of the rebirth,

or just my next step in life,

is just thinking about thinking a little bit more.

Reframing, you've probably heard a lot about that.

That's been one way that I have started to heal,

because what I have learned is sometimes

I am injuring myself with my thoughts.

Now I wanna be really careful and not try to pretend like,

I don't wanna do the toxic positivity thing

where just reframing solves everything.

And certainly there are situations that might be toxic.

There are things that require more

than just changing your mindset.

So I wanna own that.

And at the same time, I'm doing what I call the candy cane.

I'm sticking my arm out, I'm pointing at myself,

because this is the guy, this is the person,

this is a human being that I can control.

And this is the mindset right here that I need to own,

because if I don't learn how to reframe,

so I'm not destroying, just naming simple things.

This doesn't have to be some big life event.

This could be a student running inside.

I'm just making up something really lame here.

And me, the difference between me naming that

as a deficit thing, where what's wrong with that student,

blah, blah, blah, don't they care?

To me thinking, God, I'm glad that they're happy to be here.

And I wonder if they need any help,

'cause it looks like they're in a hurry.

And again, that was a lame example.

But the point is, I am getting to a point in life

where I also wanna not contribute to the scars, if you will.

So that was building up your mindset thingy.

Jethro, we've given you a breather.

How wrong are we on this?

Or like set, end the show with some credibility here,

I think is what we're looking for.

What are the different ways, what's a way leaders heal?

- So I'll say this.

I do think lines in nicely with what you're talking about.

We need to go from judging to blamelessly discerning.

And what you guys have been talking about

are these things that happen.

You can judge yourself, others, and your circumstances

about what ended up happening.

But if instead you can blamelessly discern what happened,

then you can make a better choice about it.

And so whatever these scars may be,

and some of them are horrific, and some of them are little,

whatever they are, if you can blamelessly discern

and just be unemotional and detached and say,

this is what happened, these are the facts,

these are how those facts are making me feel,

is the way that I'm feeling serving me, or is it not?

And if it's not serving me,

I'm the only one who can change it.

If it is serving me, then let's keep doing it.

Because there's no need to change at that point.

So what are those things, are they working for you,

or aren't they?

To me, that's the simple way.

Blamelessly discern your past rather than judging.

- I gotta say the energy, this conversation,

and I think I feel like we've barely even touched

the tip of the iceberg here,

but yet it feels like there's been a lot of depth,

which is a really interesting kind of paradox or dichotomy.

I'm smelling, I'm thinking, I'm hoping,

I'm wishing for a reoccurring guest here, Benny.

I think it would be really cool to stay more connected

with Jethro than just kind of our usual thing.

So Jethro, I'm giving you a chance to think ahead

and have an excuse ready for when we tap you

on the shoulder here, hopefully relatively soon.

But suffice it to say, this has been really valuable

and we appreciate your authentic sharing.

And Benny, thanks for lining this all up.

Closing words, either?

- Yeah, yeah, so Jethro, so first off,

if you're not following Jethro Jones,

he's gonna give you a little quick snippet

into how you can follow him.

It's not only a leadership journey,

but it's also, he's really shared his hand

on the weight loss journey,

but that is also part of the mental health journey.

So he's gonna give you ways to follow him.

The other piece though is,

as you're listening to this episode,

we would love to get your feedback.

Use the hashtag #LeadAndBelieve

and continue to check us out.

We appreciate the follow.

And we appreciate you continuing to tune in.

Thanks again, Jethro.

And in your last words,

let people know how they can get in touch with you.

- Yeah, @JethroJones pretty much everywhere.

Jethrojones.com, @JethroJones on the social medias.

And feel free to reach out and I'd love to connect

and share deeper some of these things

that we've just barely touched on.

Brad's right, barely scratched the surface.

So much more depth to it.

- This was a real treat.

Thank you, Jethro.

- My pleasure.

Fantastic, thanks again.

(upbeat music)

- Creating a world-class culture

requires intention and optimism.

- That's right, often it's the small steps

the leader takes that matter most.

- We hope today's conversation helps you

move hearts and mountains as you lead and believe.

(upbeat music)

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