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October 16, 2023 36 mins

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Dan Joseph, a former Army Combat Engineer, talks to us about some important and heavy aspects of leading.

It is a nice reminder that leading is hard, because it is hard -- not because you are doing it wrong.  

Inspired to help others after a soldier in his platoon attempting suicide, Dan wrote a book entitled, "Backpack to Rucksack: Insight into Leadership and Resilience by Military Experts."

Dan draws from his vast experience to leave us with some pragmatic self-care and resilience building tips.

I really enjoyed this conversation, and I think you will too!

Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Leah OH (00:00):
Dan Joseph, a former Army combat engineer

(00:03):
joins us today on thecommunicative leader. Dan wrote
a recent book linking leadershipand resilience to mental health
after having a soldier in hisplatoon attempt suicide. In his
book, Dan educates leaders onthe importance of proactively
strengthening mental health andresilience for themselves and
their team members. I learned alot from Dan and I think you're

(00:26):
really going to enjoy thisconversation too. Hello, and
welcome to the communicativeleader hosted by me, Dr. Leah
Omilion-Hodges, my friends callme Dr. OH. I'm a professor of
communication and leadershipcommunication expert, and the
communicative leader. We'reworking to make your work life
what you want it to be. Dan,thank you for joining us today,

(00:52):
before we dive into the ins andouts, your view experiences with
leadership. Can you tell us alittle bit about yourself? And
maybe what brought you to thiscareer and passion for
leadership? Yeah, definitely.

Dan Joseph (01:05):
So I was in the in the army for three and a half
years, I was a combat engineer.
And while I was in the military,I realized, obviously, the
obvious importance of being aleader who has consideration for
people's emotional well beingtheir mental health, a lot of
nuances when it comes to feelingstates, that may not be as

(01:27):
explicitly discussed when welearn how to do things
tactically, right how to plan amission set, how to execute out
in the field. So it became veryespecially working with combat
veterans, I was impacted by theamount of weight that they
carry, that we're not often toldabout. Because people don't want

(01:51):
to discuss this stuff in aprofessional environment, right,
they don't want to talk aboutwhat is affecting them or
hindering them or keeping themkeeping them up at night. But I
was able to grow really closelywith these folks, these men and
women have been deployed allover the world and who've fought
who've gone through some crazyexperiences. So as a leader

(02:12):
who's sort of managing theeveryday life in the military,
that in that we're doing, it wascritical that I start paying
careful attention to how they'reoperating and functioning, you
know, beyond the uniform.

Dr. Leah OH (02:29):
Yeah, right, that idea of the whole person, and
that we're not working withrobots. And, and honestly,
sometimes they think we actuallytreat robots and technology with
more care than we do with ourhuman peers, unfortunately, but
I love that you are making thatshift. And we're seeing that
shift in a in a larger way, too.
So Dan, you know a little bitabout your background, and this

(02:52):
passion for leadership. And youknow that you have some
experience and you're reallypassionate, especially about
resilience. Can you talk to usabout this role, you see
resilience playing in leading?

Dan Joseph (03:10):
Yeah, I mean, resilience when I think about
it, as a leader, especially as aleader, what I see is that we
need to foster it and otherpeople and allow them to have
that space that they need. Andthe tools that they need to down
regulate their nervous systems,right to offload and process
stress. And that's not reallydiscussed, we talked about

(03:33):
bottling it upcompartmentalizing it, society
globally, we'll self medicateand dissociate. But it's rare
for a leader to say, Hey, guys,hey, team, you all need to take
some time off, decompress. Iwant you to find ways to let the
stress out, kind of remove thatstigma of shame over it and just
say, I mean, whatever it ispeople need to do based on their

(03:56):
personality traits, to enablethat, that's how I felt
compelled to foster resilienceand soldiers that I worked with.
And I needed to work on my ownas well. It's like a practice
what you preach kind of a thing.
And so, I mean, how cool isthat? I have to invest in my own
self care, in order to promotethat in the soldiers. So
learning how to distresslearning how to, we can talk

(04:19):
about the specifics if you want,but there's so many tools out
there that work and soresilience isn't just kind of
white knuckling it through thebad stuff. It's about the
dynamic inflow and outflow ofstress through our bodies.

Dr. Leah OH (04:40):
I love that.
Because I think that for so manyof us, we are actually taught it
is white knuckling it like youare being resilient. You are
pushing through that pain orwhat is it like pain leaving the
body and instead of overridingthat now we're thinking about
healthy ways to address it. Soyou mentioned some of these two
Walls, do you have one or twothat are a nice easy Andreea?

(05:01):
That you kind of recommendoffhand?

Dan Joseph (05:09):
Totally. So one of them was given to us by. He's a
colonel in the army and talkedabout how he was in some crazy
operations in Afghanistan, somevery high stress events. And
he's that he's had such a senseof humor about him, but he's
gone through some pretty, prettyintense stuff. But he told us to
take bubble baths. And wethought it was a joke. We all

(05:31):
just started roaring andlaughter. And he's like, No,
check it out. I seriously, Iwant you guys to go home and
take a bubble bath. And so whatI what I do is, I kind of
adapted this to myself, I'll doa salt bath, by candlelight. So
that will allow me to especiallybefore bed, it'll allow my

(05:55):
melatonin secretion my bedproduction in my mind my brain
to optic before bed. Because thefrequency of a yellow candle
light is actually it helps usget into sleep mode, versus the
frequencies the blue lightfrequencies that we see in our
technology, right. But I'll do asalt float as well. Because a

(06:15):
the aromas are awesome. Ifanybody hasn't done a salt
float, I highly recommend it.
There's like a pina colada one,a lavender other so good. Yeah.
But also, yeah, and then youfeel it, especially if you're in
the military and you rock a lot,you're on your feet a lot, you
got your you got your boots on,and you're just going through
rough terrain, if you're in thearmy, or Marines, or whatever it
is. But regardless, we arestanding on your feet all day,

(06:38):
you allow the blood to flowthrough your body, and you can
do a body scan, you know, ameditative head to toe scan on
what's inflamed, what's injured,what sore, what needs rest, and
there's just kind of thischecklist that we go through.
And so I learned to do that,that's probably one of the more
honest reads of my body. And Ican get that feeling state

(06:59):
pretty quickly, that assessmenton what's going on. And then
another thing I would do forself care is, is stretching. So
I know especially for for guys,we want to go to gym and throw
weights around and you know, getthe stress out that way. But
there's this special kind offeeling you get when you don't
go work out in an aggressivemanner, but you simply just let

(07:22):
the tension kind of melt out ofyour body. Because there's a way
of getting a forcefully out bylifting heavy things, I totally
get that. And it's necessary.
But there's when you do astretch, again, you're able to
go head to toe, like adiagnostic and go through your
body. And and we can talk aboutthis later if you want but with

(07:44):
regarding like psychosomaticmarkers and memories stored
within our bodies, you're ableto get those feelings and those
memories out, you know, whetherit's lower back pain or neck
pain, but you can think aboutwhat are who is influencing this
part of my life that's causingthis pain. And I mean, I can go
really deep into like theexistential but yes, stretching

(08:07):
is a phenomenal way to, to zeroout

Dr. Leah OH (08:11):
what's going on in the body. Yeah, and I love that
you hit on especially forthinking of this as an unreal,
some. It's like a like a bubblebath. No, not for me. But when
you're thinking about thephysiological as well, this idea
of the melatonin and thinkingabout what yellow candlelight
can do for sleep. And then youbring in the pragmatic to, like,

(08:32):
you've worked really hard, youhave stretched your body to
limits and taking this minute tocheck in and see what needs more
attention. Even if you're justusing that as fuel to be better
the next day, and notnecessarily, in that moment
looking at it as part ofresilience building. It's kind

(08:53):
of both right, like we can sellit and frame it in a ways I
think that is going to be morewidely acceptable than it would
have been before. And we cantailor it in ways that will
reach more.

Dan Joseph (09:06):
Yeah, and you know, one thing I would say,
especially if there's anyone inthe military listening to this,
who's like, oh, well, self care,you know, I don't know, kind of
soft, it's kind of weak, orwhatever it is, you know, what's
the irony of this? Especiallypeople in the military, men and
women, the military would neversay, Oh, you maintaining your
vehicle is weak. Maintainingyour weapons is weak doing

(09:27):
maintenance on something to keepit from breaking down. That's,
that's not weakness. You areinvesting in something to keep
it going. Why aren't we doingthat with our brains, with our
bodies with our minds, rightwith our emotions, then I
understand that there's soagain, it goes back to the
stigma goes back to so much. AndI understand we don't want to

(09:49):
talk about ambiguous feelingsand something that's too touchy
and feely. But this is why Ilike the hardcore neuroscience
because if you look at theneurophysiology of the body,
guess what every One of thosesoft, fluffy, warm, fuzzy
feelings has a foundation that'srooted in our, our neurons in

(10:09):
the circuitry in our brain, thelobes of our brain. So we can do
both, we can look at feelingstates, and we can look at the
science. And so, to me, thecoolest thing is talking about
meditation, but then alsotalking about functional MRIs,
right? Because you can do both.
And that's what I love aboutmodern science, is now we're
kind of creating this holisticpicture. And that's how we heal

(10:30):
it's body, mind and soul. Imean, we're incredibly complex
beings, and it's important totake care of ourselves on all
fronts.

Dr. Leah OH (10:40):
Mm hmm. Yeah, I see that we're moving away from this
either or either you're doingthis holistic, or this very
traditional medical, to bothand, like, let's look at all of
this. Yes. So damn, I want toask you about your most recent
book, I know you're working onanother one now, and I'm gonna
email you to have you back on totalk about that in the future.

(11:02):
Thank you, but today backpack torucksack insight into leadership
and resilience for militaryexperts. So in this book, you're
connecting resilience, selfcare, mental health. Talk to us
about this connection. I knowwe've kind of hit on this. But
how do all three of these kindof come into play especially

(11:22):
within that context that you'redrawing from that military
context?

Dan Joseph (11:26):
Well, I'll start with this this. I had a soldier
in my platoon Cody, he actuallywrote the introduction to the
book, he survived his suicideattempt while I was platoon
leader, and that is somethingthat really changed my life is I
mean, I spoke with his motherthat day and promised her that
we're gonna get them help. AndI, man, I just, it's not

(11:48):
something you walk away from andthink, Oh, that was a close
shave. Okay, let's just carry onwith normal life. It's, you
know, there's a lot that gotcalled into question in my own
mind and in my heart. And at thesame time, I had a friend,
Austin, he wrote the foreword tothe book, he lost 13 men from
his unit to suicide. And that isjust on, it's so I mean, I can

(12:10):
say the number. But it's, Ican't even contemplate that and
seeing 13 People that are nolonger here. And so I realized
that this is a much more seriousissue than I wanted to admit.
And once it almost touched mepersonally, with Cody, I
realized I wanted to speak up,but I didn't want this to be an

(12:32):
emotional event. I didn't wantit to be just me lost in my own
feelings, because I can tend todo I have a tendency to do that.
While I was in the military, Iworked on my master's in
psychology. So what I realized Icould do is validate what I was
going through with objectiveresearch, you know, peer

(12:53):
reviewed journal citations,journal publications, and
whatnot. And so I wrote ajournal entry of my own to
process almost losing Cody. Andthen I started writing another
page and another page, and thenI thought about, well, what did
I do in my master's program?
Okay, I would, I would look up aresearch article related to
this, whether it's suicidality,depression, you know, leadership

(13:14):
dynamics, whatever it is. Andthen I started stringing page
after page together. And thenthis book kind of it was a
shotgun approach. It wasn'tthis, I make it sound organized,
it was very disorganized effort.
But then I created a commonthread throughout and then got
an editor and the book came tobe now it's 400 pages long, and

(13:36):
I apologize for that. I'm prettylong winded clearly. But I what
I love is the cross disciplinaryaspects of, you know, again,
resilience, mental healthleadership, and then the
military giving tactical orders.
And the book is for anybody,it's applies to any industry,
you know, but I just love howthis is all interconnected. You

(13:56):
know, the stronger a teammateis, or a soldier is or whoever,
the stronger that unit becomes,it's not selfish, you know, by
and I would tell my soldiers inthis, you know, go get your
college degree, go read books,go invest in your own
psychological well being becausethe smarter and stronger you
become, the stronger the unitand the military overall

(14:19):
becomes, and I think having thatperspective, it just really is
shaping my, my motto, my my kindof like philosophy as a leader.

Dr. Leah OH (14:31):
Mm hmm. Yeah, I love I love the focus on the
collective functioning, becausewe think, especially in the US,
and in many industries, it's Imean, my that individual
achievement model, and it, ithelps some, but it excludes
most, right, and what does thatdo to the team and then to the

(14:52):
collective output that's lostwhen we're chasing this old
model. So I love thatintegration there. And I will
not follow up on that. So we'rethinking about resilience in the
case of challenges. So youhighlight the importance in your
book, but you also provide somereally pragmatic strategies to

(15:15):
develop that mental strengththat adaptability. Can you share
a couple of those strategieswith us? Yeah, I

Dan Joseph (15:22):
mean, for me personally, jujitsu is powerful.
I loved going, you know, ontothe mats. And basically, like,
it's, it was so important for meto get submitted and tapped out
and just, I responded well tothat, because there's this
primal element of humbling myego. And it I had some ego

(15:43):
defensive mechanisms that leanedmore towards narcissism,
superficiality egocentricity, Ihad a lot of issues stemming
from childhood that as an adult,I was still acting out, and
jujitsu brought me back into mybody. It allowed me to be in
this tribal tribal environmentwhere we actually protected one

(16:03):
another. So it wasn't aboutviolence. It wasn't about
hurting others, it was aboutthrottling aggression and
responding appropriately. And sothat was something that really
affected my ability to beresilient, because I would be
thrown in the gauntlet with someof these people that I trained
with. And it made life lessintimidating. It took a lot of

(16:25):
adrenaline and fear out ofsituations and allowed me to
stay calm. And I learned throughmeditative practices about deep
breathing. And so again, goingback to what we spoke about
earlier, this is all tiedtogether. So in jujitsu, when I
panic or want to freak out, I'mgetting choked out somebody,
this is getting bad. I'll juststart breathing, right belly

(16:46):
breath, calm breathing in then,and then my prefrontal cortex
would switch right back on, youknow, like, Hey, you're okay.
Think about the technique. Thinkabout how to get out of this,
what's the appropriate angle andamount of pressure? And again,
the same philosophies on themats and jujitsu, we would,
would apply to any relationship,any work environment that and it

(17:09):
was just so cool, thephilosophical approach of these
things, you know, whether it isdeep breathing, whether it is
jujitsu, for me, and thenplethora of other practices. If
we really pay attention to thecore principles, and the
foundations, on which we'rebuilding it, it's so cool. It's
a massive toolkit for us to workwith.

Dr. Leah OH (17:32):
Yeah, and I love that, in your response, you
talked about reflection, youknow, there's a lot of link
between successful leaders. Andwe can look at success in terms
of their ability to promotewellness, and their followers
and their paychecks and theirlivelihood, and their ability to
climb rank. But what we see is acommon denominator is the fact

(17:57):
that they're reflective, selfreflective, right, and that only
I have the blind spot. But whatdo I do now? Right. So making
sure that it's not onlyacknowledgment, but also
commitment to figuring out howdo I get better? How do I
address this? And you, you know,integrated that so well into

(18:18):
that response. So thanks fortouching on that. So, Dan, this
one, I think this is a funquestion to think about. I as an
organizational scholar, I loveto think about if more people
were doing these kind of goldstandard behaviors, what work
life would look like and feellike. So with that in mind, what

(18:41):
do you think organizations orworkgroups would look like if a
most titled leaders practice,resilience and adaptability, and
then B, they also praisedemployees for doing the same?

Dan Joseph (18:55):
I mean, I think obviously, it'd be a much calmer
environment. I think that goeswithout saying, because we all
know what it's like to work withsomebody who has that intrinsic
ability to just self regulate,you know, and that we would see
less Oh, man, we would see lesspeople using less leadership
using others to whether it's getthose ego strokes that they want

(19:16):
that they didn't get throughoutlife, maybe projecting emotions,
so we could talk about Projectprojecting or transference as
well. So just basically, notbeing aware of what they're
putting on others, right, wewould see just a more objective
criteria for the workenvironment. It's not about
playing the politics and makingcertain people happy. It's about

(19:41):
being healthy. And there's adifferent there's a dichotomy
between happiness andhealthiness, sometimes right and
so I think it's, it would be socool to have work environments
in which people felt seen forwho they were and the
productivity they're givingrather than what loyalty He's
there. They're creating or, andagain, we're human. So I

(20:03):
understand that this is probablynever, it's probably not going
to be as clean as I, I wouldenvision in my mind. But it's
worth approaching that, right,it's worth leaning towards that.
And, and one thing I would sayis, it's really important not to
just be resilient, but to offerthat to others. And what really,

(20:25):
I was thinking about the otherday was how there were some
people in my life, who were,they had a different upbringing
than I did, they had differentoptions, they had different
resources available to them,they knew what therapy was, they
knew what counseling was, Ididn't know that for so long.
And what was so cool is whensome friends came around me and

(20:47):
said, hey, just want to let youknow, you're worth having
boundaries, you're allowedboundaries in life, you're
allowed these, and they woulddrop the certain words that they
learned in therapy, and it wouldblow my mind. Because I suddenly
felt relieved, like, Hey, thankyou for telling me that. And so
I think people who areresilient, they've learned that
resiliency from somewhere. Andit's so important to not just

(21:10):
hold on to that, but to givethat gift to others. Because
it's, it'd be selfish to justsay, well, I can handle this,
this person's losing their mind.
But I can handle it's like, no,teach them about breath control,
teach them about objectivity.
And again, especially as leadersand managers to give those not

(21:31):
just have a sensing session,because I think a lot of people
have sensing sessions nowadays.
But then to say, Let's equipourselves with tools to handle
these things. And, again,different than just a
PowerPoint, checking this off,but let's go through actual
pragmatic steps, because that'swhat helped me is like, give me
the generalities. Okay, but canyou please give me like a very

(21:53):
dumbed down list on what I needto do? That really helped me
heal?

Dr. Leah OH (21:59):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I really like, like, so much of
that. And I'm thinking too, andyou're talking about these
workplaces, this idea of beingseen, amazing, right? I think
most people like, you know, Ivalue you, this is why you're
here. This is what you bring tothe table, and our team wouldn't
be the same without you. Andthat idea of boundaries, I think

(22:20):
to workplaces would feel lessurgent. And there's this
artificial urgency. I think thatthat manic energy brings and
part of this is digitalcommunication. There's so many
layers, but I think if we'rethinking about being adaptable
for thinking about resilience,and we're praising these things,
I think we can recognize noteverything is a fire, and stop

(22:41):
treating it as such. And then Ithink to have some, you know,
nice outcomes with our nervoussystem as a as a happy bonus.
Totally. All right. So we've,we've talked about all of these
proactive kind of outcomes thatwe can pursue and reap when we

(23:04):
are thinking about mental healthand resiliency, adaptability.
But we know that we all havesetbacks, right? They happen to
the best of us. So from yourexperiences, from your research
from your book, what advice orrecommendations do you have for
us to help us bounce back?

Dan Joseph (23:22):
Yeah, definitely, I would say the number one thing
that I've learned about myselfis take the shame out of it.
Shame is just this whole man.
It's like this period of sittingthere with feelings, but not
moving anywhere with them. Andthere's just ambiguity of like
everything. Just bad, justmiserable. I shouldn't have done
that. Or it's, there's noactionability there. And once I

(23:45):
started minimizing that shame,or removing it entirely, then I
would think, okay, cool. Imessed up because I'm human. And
every human messes up. What do Ineed to do to fix this? How do
I, whether it's, I got toapologize to somebody, I need to
stop the behavior and reorientand then have in the right
direction. You know, it's justlike inland NAB in the military.

(24:07):
If you get knocked over, if youfall over a branch or a log, you
got to pick yourself up, grabyour compass. Okay, which way
was I going? Grab your map?
What's my destination? And thenmake sure I have all my items on
me, and then start moving inthat direction again, right. I
mean, I face planted a lotduring land plan that and that,

(24:27):
to me is just a perfect exampleof life. I mean, it'd be weird
to not faceplant. It'd beinhuman. Right? We can't always
live a high a highlight reelthat, you know, social media,
just excerpt from our lives. Imean, we're gonna have ups and
downs. And again, going back toresiliency, that's resiliency

(24:47):
isn't a static phenomenon. It'sdynamic, right? It's elastic.
There's mode, there's movementand motion to it. Our life is
not just a picture. It's anmovie. And so understanding that
each scene can change, there arebright moments, there are dark
moments. But the biggest thingwe can do for ourselves and for

(25:09):
others, is to just believe that,you know, we're worthy of
bettering ourselves and movingforward. But I personally have
struggled a lot with that. A lotof being stuck. And that
stuckness. Again, there's nobenefit to it. And so it's
really important to find wayswhat you know, to understand

(25:29):
where is this inner voice comingfrom? Where did I receive this
shame messaging? And how, youknow, how is it holding me back?
Who would I be for a minute, ifI didn't speak to myself this
way? And it's just amazing tosee all the options that light
up.

Dr. Leah OH (25:44):
Mm hmm. Yeah, because it can be so
debilitating, right, we can justmake up paralysis there. To
recap, I really love thisadvice. So for literal or
figurative face plants. We canstop, Reorient, regroup, so grab
what we need literally orfiguratively, and then move on.

(26:06):
Yep, that's right. Yeah. That isthat is so simple. I always
think the best tips in life arethe simplest ones. Because
they're right, right? It gets tothe essence of it. And then
you're not you're not stuck. Soif you got stuck in the shame,
of literally falling, what's thealternative? You just sit and

(26:27):
sit? Right sit? Right. Next?
We're not going to do that.

Dan Joseph (26:30):
I've done that. I mean, I've done that. And it's
like, yeah, come on, buddy. Likeget up? Like, let's go, you
know,

Dr. Leah OH (26:36):
it's time. We're moving. Yeah. Awesome. So I have
a couple more questions for you,Dan. So we know that much of
your background is in themilitary? What are some of these
lessons or experiences that youhad in that particular arena,
that you, you know, kind ofcoach others on or think about

(26:59):
in everyday civilian life?

Dan Joseph (27:03):
Man, I would say that we shouldn't be afraid to
kind of love others and showlove in our leadership style and
the way we communicate. And Istill struggle with this. I
mean, I was, yeah, this issomething I'm trying to work on.
It's not something we talk abouta lot, especially in the
military. But when you havethese young men and women who

(27:25):
are, they are literally ready todie for for an order you give as
a leader because they sign acontract, and they sign away
their life insurance at 18 yearsold, sometimes, right? I joined
at 32. By the way, that's, youknow, ancient compared to these,
these young uns, but when yousee these young service members
willing to lay their life downfor the job, to not show love in

(27:51):
leadership is to me, it's justsuch a cold approach. And I
understand we have to treatservice members like we're all
replaceable, we learned that,you know, that's that's how the
military is structured. So ifsomething happens, and we're no
longer here, people fall inright away into our position,
and then the mission carriesforward. But that doesn't mean

(28:12):
that we should lead only withthat in mind. And what I believe
love does from aneurophysiological standpoint,
is at a subconscious level, italleviates stress that doesn't
have to be there. Like you said,Not everything's an urgency. Not
everything has to be critical.
It doesn't have to be aboutthrowing the book at people.

(28:32):
There needs to be you know, theysay that the letter of the law
and in the spirit of the law, Ithink there's a lot to be said
for the intangibles of how wespeak to others, whether it's
the tone of our voice, the bodylanguage, eye contact, whatever
we're feeling from another issuein life, are we then projecting

(28:57):
that in our current state, andagain, I'm guilty of this
totally. So it's super importantfor me to check myself and say,
Hey, this is not them. It's a mesituation. And it's okay for me
to feel whatever I'm feelingwhether it is tired, sick,
miserable, but then to vocalizethat, hey, just want to let you

(29:17):
know, I'm going throughsomething I apologize. I'm not
100% right now. Just be patientwith me. And you know, just if
you have any questions about it,ask me but my mood right now
isn't because of you. I'm justgoing through something
personal. Right. That's, I needto get better at that. And I
would try to do that with mysoldiers like, yeah, so that's,
this is a piece of advice thatworks for any human being,

(29:39):
because we're all going to gothrough ups and downs, and we
have to show up to work. Butwhile we're going through that
we can have grace for forourselves and for others, and at
the same time, honor what we'regoing through, you know, honor
that feeling state don't justrepress it or self medicate. I'm
sorry, I can I can rant all dayclearly. So I'll stop Now,

Dr. Leah OH (30:00):
you're all good. I love that. Because, like you
said, we all get in these moodswe have off morning, something's
happened. And if we don'tverbalize it, people around us
off, especially if we're incharge, they think maybe they
did something or wonder whatthey did. Right? So then all of
a sudden, they're carryingsomething they don't need to

(30:22):
carry. So simply by vocalizing,so this is 100% me, not you, I'm
working through this. You're allgood. I mean, it's two, three
sentences, and we can take thataway from them. We can role
model that we are not perfect,we can have these conversations.
And then we can move on with whywe're there.

Dan Joseph (30:46):
That's right. Note to self, I'm gonna work on this,
because I've been going throughsome stuff lately, where it's
been kind of impacting some ofmy personal relationships. And I
think I, the these people I'mthinking about No, I was, I was
going through some stuff, but Ijust wish I did. I wish I did
better, you know, and that'skind of why I wrote this book,
too, is I wish I learned bettereven. Yeah, not to like beat

(31:10):
myself up too much, which I tendto do. And I have a, for one of
my good friends. He's a mentorof mine who's been to war,
right? I mean, he's been throughsome some crazy stuff. He's lost
friends in battle, and he toldme stop looking back and
wondering the should have wouldhave cut us, right? That's,
there's a difference betweenjust meandering down that
alleyway and versus taking whatdid happen or did not happen,

(31:35):
and then leading better the nexttime around. So that's something
I want to give others too. Ifyou're going if you're like me
in any way, where you can justget hung up on stuff. It's so
important to give yourself thatgrace.

Dr. Leah OH (31:45):
Yep. Yep. Even taking the time to circle back
then if you realize, oh, I'mstill carrying this. I wonder if
they knew I'm going to send theemail, send the text, make the
call? And then they probably donow. And that's okay. But then
it's a gift you give yourself aswell. Right?

Dan Joseph (32:03):
And you know, yes.
And you know, what's cool aboutthat, if those people in your
life didn't have the language,to speak about things the same
way, you just taught them that?
Because I'm pretty sure that'show I learned is when somebody
apologized to me, and I thought,oh, that's allowed, like, we can
do that. We can have this metametacognitive discussion on
feeling states and how thathappened. So

Dr. Leah OH (32:22):
yeah. Cool. I'm in.
Okay, yeah. So Dan, I have twofinal questions for you. So I'm
the communicative leader, welike to leave listeners with
leadership or leadershipcommunication tips, very
pragmatic, what can they dotoday that will actually help
them to make their work lifewhat they want it to be? So in
that line, first question, tipor suggestion for our folks out

(32:45):
there who are titled formalleaders.

Dan Joseph (32:50):
Okay, I mean, if they're not already, definitely
read books. And I would say, notjust read the book, but journal,
like while you do if you can, sopick something that really
impacted you and stuck out toyou. And Google it a little bit,
look it up online, do theresearch, and then journal about

(33:11):
it, because there's probablysomething just like when you
listen to a song, and there'sthat one lyric, where you're
just thinking, Oh, my gosh, youcan cry to it or fight to
everyday just invoke thatpassionate feeling in you about
something. If there's somethinga leader drops in their book,
and it really resonates, startexploring that tug on that
thread. And what's so cool aboutthat is multiple other books or

(33:35):
ideas will stem from that.
That's the whole journey ofpsychology that I realized about
myself.

Dr. Leah OH (33:41):
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I love that idea of reading. I
love reading, I love it. Otherpeople read part of it. I read
all the time for work. But thatidea of always staying curious
than is well, and givingyourself the permission to
explore those things that arereally exciting. Okay, so our
title leaders, we've taken careof them. What about our friends,

(34:03):
our employees of all ranks?

Dan Joseph (34:06):
Self care, for sure, I would say and look at self
care before you do it. Beforeyou go get a massage, or go do
some yoga, or go skydive,whatever it is served, I don't
know, whatever self care lookslike to you. Really think about
how is your friend, yourneighbor, your coworker, your

(34:28):
whatever relationship? How isthat going to improve because
you do this? And I think thatthat adds so much weight and
validity to our self care.
Because it is self care isbasically community care because
you're part of a community. And,and I would really again, going
back to kind of The mindfulnessapproach. Don't just do it
because I'm stressed out I needto de stress. But think of it as

(34:50):
how am I going to be a betterXYZ to these folks, whatever it
is, because of your self careand And yeah, I think just not
applying too much pressure tothe question just doing that
will invoke more spontaneousimprovements in life, if that
makes sense. Because I have atendency to force things and

(35:12):
just like, I gotta get reallyanalytical, but when I just
pause and breathe, answers come.
And I think that, again, selfcare will do that you'll, your
productivity will increase atwork, because you went and got
that massage. Your phone callswill be better, you'll smile
more when you do your outreachand get more positive responses.

(35:33):
And oftentimes, I gotta remindmyself of that it's an
investment in my and tomorrow.
It's not just an investment intoday.

Dr. Leah OH (35:40):
Yeah, and I've never thought of it like that
self cares, community care, andyou're spot on. Right? Because
when we feel full, when we haveour resources, we're able to be,
you know, better friends, betterparents, better partners, better
community leaders, all of thosethings. Yes. I love that. I'm

(36:00):
going to continue with thattagline. Thank you, Dan Joseph.
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, damn.
Thank you for joining us todayon the communicative leader.
I've really enjoyed our chat andI know our listeners will as
well.

Dan Joseph (36:13):
This is so fun.
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Dr. Leah OH (36:17):
All right, my friends. That wraps up our
conversation today. Until nexttime, communicate with intention
and lead with purpose. Lookingforward to chatting with you
again soon on the communicativeleader.
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