RON THIESSEN [00:00:00]:
I've been a pretty independent person all my life, so I don't feel like I need anybody. And I tell myself that I don't need anybody, and that way anybody that comes into my life is like an optional thing. I can bring them in, and for sure, I'm going to benefit from relationships. But if this relationship ends, for some reason, I'm still going to go on because I'll figure it out.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:00:30]:
Get ready for a pretty transparent conversation between my dad and I about how to know when it's okay to express vulnerability in leadership. Many leaders feel responsible to be strong for the people they lead and assume I feel incorrectly, that they must always have the answer. You've heard the saying, it's lonely at the top. But is it a common misconception among leaders that they are ineffective unless they're fixing, helping, answering, serving, or guiding? What if we need leaders to be in the trenches with us sometimes, feeling what we feel and overcoming personal obstacles of their own? It makes sense that if, as a leader, you feel responsible to have the answers all the time, that you would begin to feel like you don't have the option to need anyone.
RON THIESSEN [00:01:19]:
Hey, it's Ron Thiessen. Welcome to another episode of The Human Being Project by The Change Evolutionist, where my daughter Janelle and I explore the difference between being and doing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:01:29]:
In a world of constant distractions, sky-high expectations, and the relentless pursuit of more, we examine what would happen if we made space for more being and less doing.
So in this episode, we're going to talk to the legendary Ron Thiessen about his feelings regarding vulnerability and leadership. This is something he and I have talked about many times before, and his mind and heart are opening to this concept of letting down his walls. He's going to talk a little bit about how that affects his career and the changes that he can experience now opening the door to vulnerability in a leadership role.
RON THIESSEN [00:02:12]:
Yeah, this is such a huge area of growth for me, and I probably have been in this growth thing for a couple of years, all told. But where I really started making progress in understanding was a year ago, almost exactly a year ago now. And this all has to do with the difference between human being and human doing. I was raised in a generation where we were taught to be productive and to work hard, and that meant showing things. The work you did had to be something evident out here. I certainly adopted that understanding of what it meant to work hard and spent most of my life focused on being a human doing. And now this concept of being just being, is that enough? Is it okay to just be a human being? That's a difficult concept for me to think about. But I've been making progress in the last year or so.
RON THIESSEN [00:03:19]:
I think I've grown quite a bit in understanding it. But it's amazing because I find that my language still is around doing. And I think about that often when I'm working with clients in my private practice. And I'm thinking about, am I encouraging them or telling them or advising them or suggesting to them things that they should do in order to be more successful or more, you know, overcome their issues or their problems? And is that about doing or is it about being?
And something that Janelle and I have talked about just recently is when you allow a person to just be instead of creating standards for doing, the pressure that comes off, you know. And we've heard feedback from people too about how that releases pressure, so much pressure that we feel to produce, produce, produce. And our society is so focused on what have you produced? How does that show up in your life? What kinds of things do you have? What kind of a house do you live in? What kind of car do you drive? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of vacations do you take? All of these things are ways of measuring doing. What does it mean to be a human being?
And I think there was a very significant thing that happened to me early in the fall of last year. So I'd been thinking about this for three or four months now and I was in a class at university and one of my students shared with me the impact that this man had on him who was homeless.
RON THIESSEN [00:05:06]:
And he was in the park at the same place every day and people would pass by and he was always positive. The homeless man was always positive and was saying things to people. And he had an old beat-up guitar that he would play and this person that was talking about him said, I have a guitar too. And I was thinking about going and joining him in the park and we could just play together. And in the midst of him thinking about doing that, this homeless man passed away. And when the community heard that he passed away, they gathered for a candlelight vigil for him to remember him. And that was such an astounding thing for me to hear the impact that this man had on people. He had nothing.
RON THIESSEN [00:05:57]:
Nothing. He literally had nothing. He didn't even have a roof over his head. And his impact. The people gathered in the candlelight vigil, people were talking about the impact that this man had on their life. Astounding to me, absolutely astounding. But it was so timely for me to hear that in the process of what I was thinking about and going through and talking to people about and discussing. And this has opened up a whole new area for me of being vulnerable because just to sort of set the stage in my training as a therapist, something that is hammered home to us again and again and again is something that's called inappropriate self disclosure.
RON THIESSEN [00:06:45]:
And what that means is we are admonished and instructed and threatened to not say very much about ourselves because the client doesn't want to know that. They don't want to know your story. They don't care. They only care about their story. And you're wasting their time if you do that. And you're letting down the barrier that supposedly should be between you and the client because you're the professional and they're the one seeking help. And yet in my practice, I have found that the people that I have the greatest impact with are the people that sometimes I have self disclosed things. I have been through exactly what you're talking about and here's what I did to get out of it.
RON THIESSEN [00:07:30]:
And that often has far more impact than if I'm talking about a theory of personal development or a theory of personality, how you're going to deal with your personality, whatever. So when I let the facade of professionalism drop a little bit, it creates more impact. And now I've been seeing that in so many areas, maybe because I'm paying attention to it, maybe because I'm doing it more, I'm not sure. But I'm just more aware of how that kind of vulnerability and some level of self disclosure in honesty really creates a different kind of rapport and connection with people.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:08:11]:
I think it's important to say, too, that when you are talking about, let's say, self disclosure, and I get what you're saying, that you've been under this, what would you call that constraint, I guess, for all of your career as a psychologist, where you keep your mouth shut, don't tell your stories. I mean, for sure there's that aspect when, psychologist aside, but when you decide as even a human being to share a story with somebody else, and especially as a leader, the story doesn't have to be always, this happened to me, I did this and look at me now, I'm on top.
The story can still be I know! I'm still in process with this too, right? I'm still working on this, I'm making progress, but I still struggle with this now and then, or this just happened the other day and it showed me, wow, I got some ways to go here. That kind of leadership, that kind of vulnerability and leadership is to me what is most impactful because that's a human being admitting that to this day, I'm still dealing with this stuff because there is no human being here who is just perfect, right? No leader that's just like, I never have a hurdle now. I went through all my hurdles and they're all done. And now I have nothing but wisdom to share with you.
RON THIESSEN [00:09:37]:
Life is never like that, is it?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:09:38]:
No. And we all know that. But unfortunately, people in leadership roles feel the pressure to be always. No, I have all the answers. That's why you've come here. You need me to tell you everything's going to be okay, and I've already been there, done that, so I know. But actually, the opposite is true. If someone's in a leadership position, you already know. The evidence is there. You're leading a class, let's say at university.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:10:06]:
Well, you are a professor, so you have already arrived as a professor. That's clear. You don't have to prove that at all. But now that you are a professor, you could admit, yeah, I'm still struggling with a relationship in my life, or I still have a productivity addiction that I can't quite deal with yet or whatever, and that's going to be okay because your credibility is already there. You're in the role. But if you admit that even in this role, there are struggles and it's okay, it's going to be okay, we're going to have struggles, and that's perfectly all right and normal, then I feel like it creates space for people to really absorb whatever that leader is trying to teach or to show them in a much easier way. You know what I mean?
RON THIESSEN [00:10:53]:
And for them to be human. Right?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:10:56]:
Exactly! You're giving them permission.
RON THIESSEN [00:10:57]:
They're human being instead of thinking that they need to achieve something more to be acceptable as a human doing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:11:03]:
Exactly. And what do we look at everywhere, all over the place, social media, everywhere. It's perfection. Perfection, perfection. Perfection. Meet the standard. It's constant and it's overwhelming and discouraging. And that's why I feel like there are so many people who feel depressed and beat down before they ever begin, because the standards are so high and they're false most of the time. They're illusion most of the time.
RON THIESSEN [00:11:32]:
Exactly.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:11:32]:
So I think you have more permission now than ever, or you should give yourself more permission now than ever to show vulnerability in leadership, because I think it's powerful.
RON THIESSEN [00:11:43]:
Well, one of my clients actually told me about a TV series on Apple TV. So I can't get it because I don't have Apple TV. It's called Shrinking, and it's about this psychologist who loses his wife, and that was kind of the center of his existence, and in his grieving and in his trying to get life back together, he just decides, you know, I'm going to start telling my clients exactly what I think about what they're telling me. I guess it leads to some pretty hilarious, unexpected consequences. But I'd be really fascinated to watch that series and see what happens.
Because I think there's so much management of reactions and responses and stuff that I've been trained to do that if I was to be completely honest or say what I am thinking or feeling about certain situations, I think that it might not have the same impact. But that would be a really interesting thing to know and maybe an experiment that I could do sometime. Just try. Okay, so today I think I'll just say exactly what I'm thinking and see what happens.
RON THIESSEN [00:12:55]:
That would be interesting, wouldn't it?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:12:57]:
It would be. But you have to be prepared for the fallout. Right?
RON THIESSEN [00:13:01]:
Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:13:02]:
You know, from decades of doing this that you're able to read people and understand what they're able to handle at that point, right? Like, obviously in some delicate situations, maybe you speaking your mind isn't ideal, but then there's other people who are further along their path or more capable maybe, of handling some harsh truth that could stand it.
I have a friend in my life who her gift is that she can just tell it to you straight. And I appreciate it so much because I never have to question if she's sugarcoating or if it's BS. I know she's going to give it to me straight. So then when she says something that's positive and affirming, it's true. It's for sure true, from her perspective anyway. And if it's feedback that's like, this could be a growth area for you, Janelle, then it's probably very valid. And I appreciate that. And there are people out there who appreciate that. That's far more real and tangible to receive that kind of feedback than it is some kind of sugarcoating or sidestepping or whatever.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:14:09]:
And I think in private practice you'll always have these constraints, right, because it's part of the regulation. But in this podcast and in the other ways that you're reaching out through The Change Evolutionist, you have that freedom now to express your own thoughts and your own observations and your own stories and share your own experiences that are happening right now. And that is very helpful for people. But the question is, can you do it?
RON THIESSEN [00:14:37]:
Well, that is the question. And I guess time will tell if I'm going to be able to do that. What I've discovered in the last year, it's almost a year that I've really been thinking about this from a different perspective. It's easy to talk about vulnerability and how we should be vulnerable or we should be open and honest, but it's a different thing to live it. And especially, you and I have talked before many times about this pesky ego that we have that keeps us in such a small box, because the ego is always concerned with what is my outward projection saying to people around me, about me. So ego says that you are what you possess. You are what the title that you have and the reputation that you have, what people think about you, that is who you are. The struggle then to maintain that facade of who I am.
RON THIESSEN [00:15:40]:
And that may be something that I'm creating. I say this is who I want to show up as. It could be a pressure that's coming at me from external. This is the way you should show up. Or it can be society's pressure, or it can come from a lot of things. But if my ego is right out there in the forefront, then I'm vulnerable to all of those pressures. And this is not ego like Freud talked about ego and Id. I'm talking about how you perceive yourself and why that's important to you, how you show up.
RON THIESSEN [00:16:13]:
Is it important to you because that comes from your heart space or does it come from your head space? And most of the time, the ego thing is in your head space, right? Your perception of the way that you should be and the way that you should show up and the way that you should talk and present yourself, et cetera. So being vulnerable to say, well, this is who I really am, this is what I'm really like, you have to set aside ego and you have to say, there's a bigger picture here. There's something more at work here.
Because when I limit myself to what my ego wants to portray, then I'm definitely being more a human doing than a human being. Because there's expectations that I'm trying to meet. And for me, I guess the thing to constantly remember is to be checking my heart instead of my head to find out in my heart space, what am I engaging with today? How do I show up today?
Is it about just being present? I'm just there and living, being who I am. And for me, that's so foreign to not either show up to do something or show up to portray something or show up to send a message or show up to help someone. All these things about doing something to legitimize the fact that I am there and I'm alive.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:17:49]:
I think that when you are showing up as a human being, that in itself is vulnerable, right? Because there is no way to show up as a human being without opening your heart. Otherwise, there's no being that's coming from you. So is it possible that as a leader or just as Ron Thiessen, you have been very comfortable behind doing? Because then there isn't a necessity to show the actual being, the heart space to people.
RON THIESSEN [00:18:27]:
Oh unquestionably, for sure. It's part of my training. It's part of my life experience where I've been a pretty independent person all my life. So I don't feel like I need anybody. And I tell myself that, I don't need anybody. And that way anybody that comes into my life is like an optional thing. I can bring them in and for sure I'm going to benefit from relationships. But if this relationship ends, for some reason, I'm still going to go on because I'll figure it out.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:19:00]:
You mentioned that you don't need anyone or you feel like you don't need anyone or you would like to not need anyone. And so this is how you make sure that you don't become too attached to people because then they're disposable from your life, right? There's not going to be like a big void or you won't feel hurt or you won't feel abandoned.
RON THIESSEN [00:19:22]:
I don't think it's about those kinds of feelings. I think it's about..So we've talked a lot about productivity and my understanding about how important productivity has been for me. And I think that it is about not needing anyone. I don't have to depend on anyone else to be productive. I think that's what it's about. So it's not about like, I don't want somebody to hurt me. I think it's about I don't want to have to depend on anybody else, I just have to depend on me.
RON THIESSEN [00:20:02]:
At least I think that's the way I've lived my life.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:20:06]:
That's interesting because as an observer of your life, more so in the, let's say, last eight years or so, eight to ten years. I would say...and then as a child growing up with you, I would say that you have always kept people at arm's length. Now you have always been a leader for my whole life, always been in a leadership role. So you've needed at some points to create a separation between...otherwise, like you said, as a leader, there's many people drawing on your energy and if you're not careful, you're going to get sucked into a whole bunch of stuff. And you're one person. Right? And I get that.
But I just wonder if you...something inside of me, doesn't...it sounds like it doesn't make sense that you would see yourself as being the only person that you needed to be productive. Because to me it would seem like productivity is an escape mechanism to avoid intimacy or to avoid relationships where you might be drawn on a deeper emotional level or where you may be required to be vulnerable about how you feel or what you think.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:21:30]:
I could be wrong, but to me it seems like why would you want to protect your productivity at all costs? What makes productivity so important that you need to be a lone wolf?
RON THIESSEN [00:21:47]:
Well, that was the complete focus of my life to be productive. And yet there's a part of me that knows and even teaches that if you are going to accomplish something that's going to have impact on people, you're going to need people. Right. You can't do it alone.
But I guess in my cycle of productivity, if you want something done right, then do it yourself. That kind of mentality. If I'm not relying on anybody else to come through, I've got my contingency plans in place that if this person doesn't come through, then I've got it handled. That drive to make sure that productivity happens.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:22:33]:
So I'm curious, why is one of the things that you teached that if your dream is small enough to achieve on your own, it's not big enough?
RON THIESSEN [00:22:43]:
Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:22:44]:
So that's one of the big things you teach. So if that's what you teach, why would you then be a person who feels like, if I can't do it on my own, I don't want any part of it?
RON THIESSEN [00:22:55]:
Well, this is a great question and I'm sure it's one of the reasons that my scope and my impact has been limited because it's been limited to the extent of what I can do.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:23:08]:
Right.
RON THIESSEN [00:23:09]:
And so up until I started getting this understanding last year, I was limited by what I could produce.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:23:17]:
I would have to say your growth in that area must have been huge because I've been working with you behind the scenes here for a year, and you have absolutely let me run with everything solo. Like, there's not a micromanaging controlling bone in your body, from my perspective.
RON THIESSEN [00:23:38]:
But this really is a team thing that we're doing, and you're doing all kinds of things that I would have no idea how to do, and I'm not about to learn now. I would never be able to. There's not enough time in the day, there's not enough time in my life for me to figure out all the things that you already know. And obviously that really comes down to trust, doesn't it? Like in a relationship when you trust someone and you say, you can take this and you can run with it, it really is about trust. And I've done that with you. And you have proven over and over again that you were trustworthy. So I have no issues with wondering, are things going to get done or are we on track or are we paying attention to the things that are important?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:24:25]:
But maybe that is now that I'm thinking about it, because you have lived your life as a leader, and leaders always have support teams, and there is a role, a leader believes in his mind or her mind that they are the one that pulls it all together. So maybe if your position as the one who pulls it all together was threatened, like, say, someone else was trying to kind of bulldoze their way in and sort of lead maybe lead your class or lead whatever project or whatever. Maybe at that point you would say, no, this is something that I want to be able to have a certain result here. I want to provide a certain level of support and help to people, and I know that I know how to do it best. So you're going to need to step aside here. You can do the support role, but I need to be the one who leads the ship. Or what's the term for the guy who leads the ship? I need to be the captain of the ship.
RON THIESSEN [00:25:24]:
You the captain of your own ship.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:25:26]:
Yeah. I do not see that in you. Just to be clear, as an observer, I don't see you as a person who needs to be the leader. I need to be the boss. I don't see that in you at all. But based on what you're saying right now, that would go hand in hand. You would say, I like to be in control of the thing because I don't want to have to rely on anybody else. I want to be able to only do what I can produce.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:25:49]:
So then you would think that you would be the kind of guy who was like, this is a one man show, and don't step on my shoes, and you're not. So somewhere there's a disconnect to me.
RON THIESSEN [00:25:59]:
Okay, well, I think the shift happened for me when I moved to Quebec, and I had to learn a language. And, you know, what I found is that when I moved to Quebec, I didn't speak a word of French. But as I became acclimatized a little bit to the language, and I began to understand, even if I couldn't really speak, but I could understand basically what was happening. What would happen is that in a conversation, if there was a debate happening or some sort of conversation of some depth, I would hear what was being said, and I would have a contribution that I would like to make to that conversation. But by the time I formulated it in English and translated it into French so that I could actually speak and say what I was thinking, the opportunity to contribute to the conversation was gone.
And what I noticed is that if we're in a group and we're talking about it, I noticed that what I wanted to say would come up through somebody else, and I would go, that's really interesting. So what I decided to do was I'm in the midst of trying to learn French, and it really was a challenge, but I decided that I was going to take the same concept into my interactions in English, and I was already at a place where I had some level of responsibility and engagement with people. So I would be in a position where if I was in a conversation, people would be expecting me to contribute. And so if I had something that I wanted to contribute, I would just hold, wait, and see if it would come up through somebody else.
RON THIESSEN [00:27:39]:
And invariably, it did. And I think that taught me that the responsibility that I felt like I was always carrying to make sure that things went right, it was an illusion. And I think that really started working in me to realize that this illusion that I have that I need to contribute, or else people aren't going to hear what they need to hear or do what they need to do. It all depends on me. I think that's really where it started to...and probably another thing that even if I go back even a little further, another part of this growth was when I went through my divorce. And for six months, I attended Al-Anon meetings, and I was going five nights a week. Wherever I was in the country, I would find the Al-Anon meeting, and I would go.
RON THIESSEN [00:28:36]:
For three months, I didn't know what I was doing there. And then after three months, I started to understand. And when in those six months of going to those meetings I came out with a real understanding of how to take responsibility for what's mine and not take responsibility for what's not mine. And that was a huge growth step for me because I took responsibility for everything, and I took blame for everything. And when I said, okay, wait a second, there's too much going on here, and what am I actually responsible for? That was a very big step for me. And in fact, later on, when it was doing my graduate degree at McGill, and we were doing counseling, and this counselor kept asking me, where's your anger from the things that have happened to you in the past? And I don't have any anger. Impossible.
RON THIESSEN [00:29:31]:
You have to have anger over things that have happened to you. And I said, there's no anger there. And she couldn't figure out where the anger went. She was talking to me like, did you put it in your closet somewhere? That kind of thing. And I go, I just didn't have it. And I realized I dealt with it at Al-Anon, because once you take responsibility for what's yours, okay, I blew it here. This was really bad. I shouldn't have done that.
RON THIESSEN [00:29:54]:
But you let go of the responsibility of feeling like, well, I should have made sure that happened, then there's no reason for anger. If you want to deal with your own stuff and say, well, I'm not going to do that next time, or I should respond differently, I should be more aware. Okay, you deal with your own stuff. But the anger comes when you're feeling like you're trying to control something else, and it's not working because the only thing, the only person you can control is yourself, right? And so when you're imposing something on somebody else and then they're not doing what you want them to do, well, that's when people get angry, and that's when the anger was building in me. So to let go of that, then there's no anger.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:30:40]:
So I don't know. I'm going to be really bold here, but I feel like we're still deflecting. We're off topic as far as the vulnerability in leadership. The statement that you made that you don't need anyone or that you don't want to need anyone. I think so many leaders feel that way because the weight of the responsibility on them is so great that...tell me at one point, or confirm with me this.
Do you remember not too long ago telling me that you have only so much bandwidth, and you have to be strong and capable, and you have to lead and guide other people. So the weight of all of that requires you to be strong and resilient and on top of things. And there's no more bandwidth left for feelings or for the complexities of close relationships, either with friends or with your spouse or with your kids.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:31:48]:
Describe that. Describe that what you described for me. Because it was so profound, the way you put that. And I'm sure there are other people in leadership roles who feel the weight of that. Do you know what I'm talking about?
RON THIESSEN [00:32:02]:
Yeah, I do. I remember that conversation. What I was describing is that, first of all, you set it up really well. The pressure of the responsibility, what I feel responsible for, there's always another responsibility that needs to be taken care of. So you can't ask in my life, I can't ask myself, this is what I was describing to you. I can't ask myself, how do I feel about this? It doesn't matter how you feel about it. You just got to get it done right. And so if you feel, talking to myself, okay, if you don't feel very good today, too bad.
RON THIESSEN [00:32:38]:
You got to get it done. You don't feel like doing it. You feel like you want to just go sit out on the deck or go swimming in the pool. Too bad. There's no time for that. You've got to get this done. You have responsibilities. You've made commitments.
RON THIESSEN [00:32:50]:
People are counting on you. There is no bandwidth left. And I think I was talking to you about this when I had a student in class who was talking about rejuvenation. I was asking them, what kinds of things do you do to rejuvenate? And he said, I binge Netflix. I'll sit and watch Netflix shows for a whole day. And I'm going like, I cannot imagine doing that. And I said that out loud in the class. I can't imagine doing that.
RON THIESSEN [00:33:20]:
And I can't imagine that feeling like rejuvenation. And as I said that, I realized that that makes me a one-trick pony. The only way that I know to respond to the pressure and feeling like I need some time to rejuvenate. The only way that I know to respond to that. I mean, I have my mindfulness times and my quiet times and devotional time and stuff, but I'm talking about something else where you feel like, okay, this is just too much. I need a break. The only way that I know to do that is to bury myself in work so that I feel like I'm making progress towards the goals and the commitments that I have. And so then there is no bandwidth to say... there's no options then.
RON THIESSEN [00:34:09]:
Then it's not like, well, would you like to read a book? Or would you like to go on vacation? Or would you like to sit on the deck? Or would you like to go for a bike ride? Or would you like to... No, there's no options. You have work that has to be done.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:34:22]:
That specific conversation was about a personal relationship that required more of your heart space at the time. It wasn't about the student with the Netflix binging, okay? It was about you would have to tap into deeper parts of your heart space to understand somebody and to be present for them in a way that would resonate with them. And you were explaining, I'm maxed out here, man. You can't ask me to be strong, to be the pillar, to be the resource center, to be the guide, to be your safety net. You can't ask me to be all these things that require strength and big shoulders and then still somehow just be able to tap into the soft inner recesses of my heart and deliver whatever was needed at the time.
So for me, I'm wondering, is that one of the reasons why maybe you say you don't need people because maybe you just don't have the bandwidth left, and maybe that's something leaders need to work on, is creating that balance. Because they believe that they need to lead and provide all the answers and carry the weight of so much responsibility. But I think if they asked the people they were leading, do you need this, this, and this from me, they would find that actually the requirements on them are not as intense as they imagine.
RON THIESSEN [00:35:54]:
So that question that you're asking, if a leader could ask the people that they are supposedly responsible for, what do they need, or do they actually need what the leader is providing and is burning that leader out? Yeah, that's a very good question.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:36:15]:
But then that would be vulnerable, right? Asking the people you lead, do you actually need all of this from me, or is there a way that I can meet your needs with less? I mean, then the leader is like, well, then it's ego, right? I'm the leader. I'm the one who's got you. I carry the responsibility. Don't you worry. I got you. It goes from that to, hey, I'm a human being and I could use a break. And do you really have to have all of me?
RON THIESSEN [00:36:42]:
That's a difficult thing to do when you feel that people are counting on you. And yet the discussions that we've had and certainly people that we've even interviewed and talked to, when they are a person who is looking at a leader and that leader is vulnerable and is human, they go, that's such a load off my shoulders. I don't need to be perfect. And it's not like I look at you and I say, that's where I want to be one day, but I'm not there now and you are.
It creates this feeling that you will never get there and there again, that's about ego. Because if the leader wants to feed that reaction from people, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you can...well, you know, we just keep going. Well, that's then about ego, right? I want to be perceived then as a leader who gets things done and you can count on me and I'll be there.
RON THIESSEN [00:37:42]:
And it's killing you.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:37:44]:
Think of how empowering it is for people when, say, they come face to face with somebody they have mad respect for. Mad respect. Like, for example, say I'm having a conversation with an author, one of my favorite authors, and I have some that send emails to my inbox. If I was having a conversation with one of my favorites, and I said something and she said, wow, that is powerful, Janelle. I hadn't really thought of it that way.
She's admitting a) I may have had something valuable to say that she hadn't thought of, but I have mad respect for her as a leader. Let me ask you this. Do you think I'm thinking, oh, she didn't know that I don't respect her anymore? Or am I thinking, oh my goodness, I have so much respect for her, and I was able to share something that she found powerful? You make me feel like that all the time, dad. Because I share things and you will do that. You'll say, wow, that's incredible! And I have mad respect for you.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:38:51]:
I think you're such a wise and wonderful human being with so much life experiences to draw from and so much courage and resourcefulness. And if you say to me, wow, Janelle, that's insightful, or you really hit the nail on the head. I feel so empowered! So, I think as a leader, if you could remind yourself that acknowledging the strengths in others is not a sign of weakness, it is a huge empowerment of other people's self-awareness, huge empowerment of other people, period.
RON THIESSEN [00:39:28]:
And admitting that you don't have all the answers or that somebody is sharing something with you that you never thought of. Exactly like what you said, you don't have to be the one leading the knowledge charge all the time.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:39:40]:
Exactly. And I don't think that the people you're leading are losing respect for you if you admit that you're a human being with flaws and things you're working on. In fact, I think the opposite is true. So it pays to be vulnerable.
RON THIESSEN [00:39:57]:
I'm sure, you're right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:39:58]:
It helps everybody.
RON THIESSEN [00:39:59]:
Well, that's a lesson I'm learning.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:40:02]:
Yeah.
RON THIESSEN [00:40:03]:
Not there yet.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:40:05]:
Oh, you're doing so good.
RON THIESSEN [00:40:07]:
I probably never will be there. When I say there, that's like you accomplish something. No, it's a matter of being and growing every day. Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:40:17]:
It's a process till the day you die. Yeah. I would argue it's the reason we're here. To learn that, the essence of being.
RON THIESSEN [00:40:25]:
Yeah, I know you would argue that. And that's what I love. Because you can bring me up short on this, because I slip there so quickly. Right. So rapidly. Even a year into this, I still very quickly go to the human doing side of things, both for myself and when I'm talking to other people. There's lots of knowledge in the concept of vulnerability, but the wisdom comes from using it and actually implementing it in life. That's what I'm in the process of doing.
RON THIESSEN [00:41:01]:
Sometimes I do well and sometimes I don't.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:41:03]:
So would you say then, as a leader, that vulnerability is important?
RON THIESSEN [00:41:10]:
I'm beginning to realize that it's probably one of the most important ingredients of being an impactful person. Because when you're vulnerable, you're human, and when you're human, other humans can relate to you at that level of humanity.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:41:29]:
I think people confuse the word vulnerability with oversharing. They think, well, if I'm being vulnerable, I'm telling them about things that could be inappropriate oversharing, but it doesn't need to be that.
RON THIESSEN [00:41:42]:
That's one thing. But I think leaders that when you talk about vulnerable, I think they hear weakness.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:41:52]:
Admitting that maybe they don't have all the answers.
RON THIESSEN [00:41:53]:
Right, needing somebody else.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:41:57]:
Well, good for you. You're certainly on a path of opening and opening and opening some more. And I think that's exemplary. I mean, I'm not going to reveal your age here, but you're older than me. And for a person to never stop pushing themselves towards personal growth, that alone is a testament to other people. It could be leadership on its own. You could do absolutely nothing else with your life, but still, every day, try to push yourself to learn and grow more. And that, to me, it's a testimony of an amazing human being.
RON THIESSEN [00:42:32]:
You read a quote from somebody just earlier.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:42:38]:
Yeah, I have it right here.
RON THIESSEN [00:42:39]:
Yeah. Would you read that again?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:42:41]:
It's from a groundbreaking book written by oh! Written by Ron Thiessen. called Reset Your Internal GPS. And inside of it, there's a quote from the late Leon Fontaine, a pastor of a church in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
RON THIESSEN [00:43:00]:
Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:43:02]:
He said, "When I really listen to people and care, it keeps my heart soft. Although I want to be strong and competent, if I don't keep my heart soft, I lose passion and excitement in life. The richness of life is the friendships that are around me."
I thought that was so awesome because he's talking about that very thing. The burden of leadership is one thing. You have to be competent and strong. But to keep your heart soft while you're doing it, boy, that's tricky business. But so powerful at the same time.
RON THIESSEN [00:43:40]:
So powerful. Yeah. And at his funeral, people from around the world, so many of them use the same term. He was so reachable, he was so touchable, even though he had so much responsibility.
One guy shared he had been an alcoholic and he was in AA. And so him and Leon were having coffee, and he told Leon, he said, Well, I got to get to my meeting. Leon looked at his watch and he said, I could tell he was calculating some things. And he looked up and he said, Can I come?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:44:15]:
Wow.
RON THIESSEN [00:44:16]:
And the guy said, that's the kind of person that he was. So when you're reading that quote, those are the things that he did to keep his heart soft.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:44:25]:
Yes.
RON THIESSEN [00:44:25]:
Because he could have said, well, I don't have time for that. I'm a busy guy. Go to your meeting and I'll see you later. That's real leadership. That's not a position of leadership. That's real leadership.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:44:39]:
And look at you're telling the story that you heard through somebody else and it's still powerful. It's something I'm going to remember now. It's something our listeners are going to remember. So his one act, who knows? That's the thing. You never know. That one little action, that one decision that you make that you think nobody sees, and it's inconsequential. It actually changes the world. It actually changes the world.
RON THIESSEN [00:45:08]:
Now I'm seeing this in a different light. Just being who I am and allowing people to benefit from that, to draw from that if they need to. Whatever benefit that is to them, that I am who I am. It doesn't take superhuman effort from me. I just need to be.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:45:28]:
You don't have to work all the live long day.
RON THIESSEN [00:45:31]:
That's right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:45:32]:
You can just be Ron. Yeah, exactly. All right, good discussion.
RON THIESSEN [00:45:38]:
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having it with me.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:45:41]:
Oh, my pleasure, as always.
Tune in next week for a conversation with Brian Gardner, the author of an article called "We Are Defined by the Things We Don't Do." Together, we're going to explore the concept of minimalism, but not just in the way you think. Minimalism is a mindset, and it's less about getting rid of all of your stuff and more about curating the things that bring value and meaning to your life. We'll talk about how reducing things that consume your time, your energy, and your physical space can free up precious spiritual and mental bandwidth so that you can live more intentionally and feel less burdened by expectations and competition. This is a conversation that provides some pretty cool insights that are going to help you live more deeply connected with yourself and the world around you. See you next week.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:46:33]:
What did you think of this episode? Head over to the private Change Evolutionist Community Chat to join the conversation. Find the link in the show notes.
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Ron Thiessen is a practicing psychologist and educator. To apply as a guest on the podcast please visit thechangeevolutionist.com/podcastguest.
