Season 1, Episode 25: When There is Opportunity (Part 2)

with Brad Chapin

In this episode, Jenny is joined by Brad Chapin, Director of Clinical Services at Stormont-Vail HealthCare in Topeka, Kansas, a behavioral health expert, to discuss self-regulation and its impact on personal and professional life. They explore the importance of recognizing and managing emotional triggers, the role of belief systems in defining threats, and the significance of intentional actions in achieving emotional regulation. Brad shares insights from his work with educators and healthcare professionals, emphasizing the need for practical skills to manage stress and improve mental health. The conversation also touches on the challenges and setbacks in these fields, the importance of creativity and resilience, and the potential for systemic change through localized efforts and community involvement. Brad’s latest book on self-regulation for educators is highlighted, with plans for a more mainstream version in the future. The episode concludes with a message of hope and the importance of taking proactive steps to improve personal and communal well-being.

Jenny:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, where you break down heavy ideas into small buckets you can handle. Your mission is simple. Help us work through your dilemmas in conversation and process. Together you and your community will face your dilemmas and make the world a better place. In the spirit of truth, I acknowledge I’m a settler. Today I am on stolen Treaty Six Territory in the ancestral and traditional territory of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Soto, Nakota Sioux, and Metis Region Three. I take reconciliation by seeking the wisdom of elders and individuals who aim to restore water, air, land, life, or community. A healthy living relationship with the earth and each other is our guide.

Hi, Brad. Today I am joined by Brad Chapin. For those of you who follow the podcast, Brad was our second guest and helped us understand what behavioral health and safety looks like, or self-regulation training.

Jenny:

The reason why I started with Brad is because I met a woman by the name of Mary Gordy, who introduced me to Brad’s work. It resonated with me because I think one of the things I’ve experienced, especially from being somebody who worked in the oil and gas industry, and now an environmental advocate, there are a lot of beliefs that come into play. Regardless of relationships, those beliefs can sometimes prevail. And as you explained in our last meeting, if you have those strong beliefs, they can influence how you behave and what you perceive as a threat. I’m going to reflect a little bit on what I took away from your work and what’s carried forward for me.

For one, Alex and I, we’ll often refer to the phrase vague advice, and I find that at home with my husband, as well. We’ll be discussing something important to us and one will say, “Oh, you should just do this or this.” That’s very vague advice. Can you be specific about what I’m doing that’s, say, triggering you? I would say it comes up once a week. I’m quite aware of it now. I feel that’s something that you brought forward for me. The other piece is just being able to recognize when I am triggered. When my “fight or flight” system is engaged, and again for my spouse, as well. We can say, we can have these conversations of “My fight or flight system kicked in and this is what happened.” It’s just being able to, as Mary said, identify that and see it in real time is powerful. Especially in the topics that we’re carrying out in this discussion that we’re having.

Addressing a worldwide transition of social and ecological reform is not a small undertaking, but it’s through conversation that we’re going to be able to come together and eventually make some big changes together. Is there anything from our first conversation that you would like to offer or anything just from your work that you’ve been looking at recently that’s different for you? Is there anything new for you that you want to just address out of the gates?

Brad:

Just thinking about our previous conversation, I always think you never know how your work is going to be used. I developed this framework originally to try to do some upstream work, and no pun intended, on mental health because most of my day job is downstream. I work in an acute psych hospital facility. I to try to do some prevention and some upstream work and then have you reach out and say how that information could be helpful and have people maybe come together around a difficult topic and at least get in the same room or restart those conversations on areas that both sides might feel threatened by and just call out some of those behaviors as natural human behaviors.

When we get together to talk about difficult things, we’re going to have these pieces of our biology and our moods interact with the discussion. It’s going to impact the discussion. And if we can just be open about that, clear about that, not vague, and then normalize that process, I think it allows for us to get to some of those deeper levels of conversations that can be hard. I thought that it was interesting that you reached out on a topic like this and to be able to apply skills or some of these things in that area. That stood out to me.

Jenny:

Thank you. Like you said, I’m also doing an upstream effort, not necessarily on a personal level, but on trying to prevent a crisis of large magnitude that impacts many people. It is very interesting that it’s this prevention initiative that I think drew me to your work and why I respect what you’re doing.

Brad:

Well, maybe the pun was intended.

Jenny:

There you go. Haha. And the other piece to it is that you are an applied practitioner. I’m just going to repeat what you offered in the first meeting, which is tons of respect for the academic world research, and you’ve used a lot of that in terms of pulling together your system. But seeing is believing, and I’m a strong advocate of that myself. I’ve thought about getting additional degrees, but I was always very interested in being practical and being in conversation with people about the work we’re doing and what it means to them rather than becoming strong in my discipline, for example.

What brought you to Red Deer, Brad?

First of all, we’re in Red Deer, right? What brought you to Red Deer, Brad?

Brad:

Like I said, I do a lot of presenting and training with educators and teachers from all over the world who’ve been doing a lot, of course, in the United States, I’ve been to Canada several times, working with schools and districts and divisions here. Also some work with Singapore over the last couple of years. Reaching outside of the US around this idea of self-regulation for our kids, asking “Can we give them practical skills to use to help manage these intense emotions that human beings feel?” We often have very little formal training in that. To be able to bring that to education where our kids are at and get these skills on board early. Over the last two years, I’ve probably had more requests for self-regulation training for adults, than for kids. I think we all feel it, the stress level and the different areas that we’re all working in.

Brad:

There’s conflict, people are leaving different fields, so there’s less of us to do some of the important work. That puts more burden on the people that are left. This is especially true in education and healthcare. This is another field that I’m closely connected to because I work in a hospital. A few educators who work here in the Red Deer area saw me at a national summit, the Innovative School Summit in Orlando, earlier this year. We got to visit and they said, “We’d like to bring this information to our area, would you be interested in coming and doing that?” I said, for sure. I would love to share this information. Wherever people are interested in listening, I’ll go. And it was great. I got to spend three hours yesterday with about a hundred educators from the Red Deer area, Norman Duke School hosted us, and it was just a wonderful interaction.

We went through a lot of what we could cover. I like to do six hours, but we did three hours and covered as much as we could in three hours in the afternoon. And then, also wonderful, I got to spend an hour doing parent training for some of the parents in the local school district here. We all got together for about an hour and covered some of the same basic skills. To ask “How can we apply this information in their homes with their kids and their families?” To improve their mental health, to help with performance, to give them more energy, that whole resilience factor, and to move beyond, as you said, our catch tagline here is to “Move Beyond Vague Advice” into practical applied skill training that you can practice and implement and measure on the ground, boots on the ground. It’s been a great trip here so far. I would love to stay, and hopefully get to come back and explore more of the area. It was wonderful to have the invitation.

Jenny:

Nice. That’s great. And were there several schools involved, or was it the one school that hosted? I’m sorry if I missed it.

Brad:

There were several schools, and I wish I could name all of them, but it was a large area. And it’s great when you have these trainings that you can bring not just teachers, but the administration was there. And, of course, the support staff were also involved. You have all the team hearing the same information. And then that’s where I think the magic sort of happens is where they share information after the training, a lot of it soaks in and you start to hear, “How can we apply this here with our third graders?” or “I work with fifth graders, how’s this going to look for a fifth grade?” To have the whole team, because there were only four or five of ’em that had travelled to Orlando, say: “Wow, I’d like my whole team to hear this.” And then you get that energy from everybody about how we can make this our own here. And that’s what I loved.

I mean, we have curriculum guides. We covered information from the self-regulation training manual. But, man, when they start to bring their own ideas about, “How would this look here?” That’s where I think the magic happens.

How do you measure success, Brad?

Jenny:

I’m curious because one piece I’m focused on is how you measure success. I’m curious, you pointed out a really good example. You had five people come [down to meet you] and now you’re here speaking to a hundred [teachers and staff] and 30 parents. Just participation is one good example of a way you can measure success in the work you’re doing. You’ve talked about taking this work to Singapore, and it’s not just in North America. Again, proximity. That’s another one. What about uptake? Like you said, when you hear people reflect your work in their words, it’s a feeling sometimes when you enter a room and you can tell whether or not something’s being absorbed or otherwise. I’m curious, what are your ways of knowing that this work is being absorbed and used? And it’s evolving, or at least being adopted or expanding?

Brad:

Yeah. One of the best compliments I think I’ve ever gotten, and I have a top three. The woman that we know in common is one of those. It’s like when you have a YouTube video that you put out several years ago and you look back at it and you think, “Maybe I should take that video down?” Boy, I changed a lot.

Jenny:

Haha.

Brad:

I don’t even know if I’m recognizable, I feel like I know a lot more. We grow over 10 or 15 years in your framework, whatever it is, is going to change, hopefully. It adapts and I think, “Oh, maybe I would use a little different word there.” But when you have a person that reaches out to you four or five years or 10 years later and says, “That video not only changed my life but may have saved my life.” I don’t know. I’m not an expert in measuring success. There are lots of ways to measure it, but to me, that’s a super meaningful piece of my existence. And it’s right there as far as why I do the work that I do, the drive that gets me to get on a plane and go all over the place and do these things and keep riding and keep reaching out to people.

But I don’t want to take any away from last night, walking around a room of 30 parents, people that I’ve never met, and I’m pretty good at walking around a room and training. I’ve been speaking and training for 15 years all over the place. It’s hard to describe, but the connection that you have in the room with these people that I didn’t know before yesterday and they didn’t know me, but to be able to connect around helping our kids and do better and feel better, and then to have them come up afterwards and say, “I took something away from this. I hear things and I go to things, and we listen to a lot of stuff, but I don’t know what to do with it.” Just to shake their hand and say, and they’re looking me in the eye and saying, “I took something away from this.” “I’m going to have a different conversation with my 14-year-old daughter tomorrow.” “We’re going to be able to do things differently in our house,” and then you can apply that to teachers and have those conversations too.

But one of the best compliments I got this year was from a 40-year veteran psychologist who’s been around for a long time say they listened to [me] for six hours. And that’s intimidating for me. That was always one of the things that I was worried about going out and training. I thought, “Oh gosh, I don’t know everything. I’m never going to know everything.” If someone out there is going to say something about what we’ve put together, that is critical. And that does happen. It’s so rare. I can’t remember the last time it happened, and I get more people coming up, with 40 years of psychology, saying, “I don’t know how you condensed and made something so comprehensive in such a small package because we take years and years to teach people this stuff and in graduate school training, and you’ve been able to break it down to where a fourth grader can learn it, or a parent with no training could take this home and apply this in a useful manner.” Those kinds of things are what I live for.

Jenny:

It’s interesting. I feel the same way. I’ve had people say, “I appreciate the work you’re doing.” You’re right. Those are the comments that, or remind me, “Yep, this is why I’m doing this.” “This is why I’m staying on this path.” “This is why this is important to me.”

Brad:

Of course, we have more rigorous research. We’re doing a couple of well-designed research projects in nursing school programs right now. We have all our evidence-based curriculum published in journals, but to support the program. But to me, I mean, statistics and analysis are exciting on one level, but the human connection and the real story, I think you need…

Jenny:

Both. And you said the word magic, and I think that’s something that you feel. It’s real. You know what I mean? I’ll just give an example. When I was in the oil and gas industry, I worked at a private company for a while and there were three of us who were the main drivers of the development work we were doing. And one day we were all doing each other’s work. I was doing some geology, no, I was doing some engineering work. The geologist was looking at geophysics and the engineer…Anyway, we were all doing each other’s work. And in the middle of it. I stopped and said, “None of us are doing our original roles”, and none of us had our backs up. We were just questioning and working on this problem together. And it wasn’t, wasn’t intentional. It just happened. Once you experience that, you want it again.

Brad:

Yes, Exactly. It feels good. And maybe that is part of the measure of your own personal success is getting that feeling, “Wow, we achieved this really difficult thing” to achieve, and then it

feels good. Yeah.

What is Brad’s new book about?

Jenny:

Speaking of achievements, you finished your book. It’s out. Great.

Brad:

Yeah, my sixth book. We have three evidence-based curriculum guides for pre-K age, for young kiddos, elementary age, one middle school, and one high school. And then, like I said, the last few years we’ve had more requests to teach self-regulation to adults. We’ve started with an educator-specific version. I love this graphic, this person on this hill with this raging storm. It: “How do I stay on this hill with this raging storm of life?” It’s called Self-Regulation Skillset. That is a seven-week journey. Seven skills, which we teach in three skill training areas of self-regulation: “How to manage oneself in the face of challenge.” It’s one skill a week. It’s a journal format. You can work through this personally, but it’s also designed to do this with your spouse, partner, or a small group of colleagues and make a book study out of it. It’s got discussion questions at the end of each chapter, and then little QR codes that take you to a video of me talking about recapping the last week’s skill and then introducing the next week’s skill, what to be ready for. Then you end with your own personal plan on these seven skills of how to apply them in your life. Being able to work through that, and share that with others, if you want to. I am super excited about that.

Jenny:

That’s awesome. Right now, you said it’s out for educators?

Brad:

It’s out for educators, specifically. I wanted to start with educators because that’s where I’ve been working for the last several years, specifically with educators. But I’ll be coming out with a more mainstream version probably next year.

Jenny:

Excellent. Yeah, we’ll be looking into that. But I will also give this to my educator friends, let them know that this is out there. I find, and I’m curious about your thoughts on this, we tend to overcomplicate things sometimes, rather, and as you were saying, I think this is why I appreciate you so much. I’ve been told that I can speak about things in a simple way rather than in a complex way, which sometimes can be overlooked or underappreciated from the standpoint of someone who’s very knowledgeable in an area. They can look at it as potentially. “Yeah, that’s just basic stuff. Who cares about that?”

When I look at the social, environmental, and economic crises. It’s an everyone problem, and it comes down to basic needs and basic, “What does community look like to us?” All of these base principles that we seem to be overlooking these days. I’m not surprised that there are a number of adults that are looking for these simple, logical, daily applicable methods. Do you have anything more to say on that?

Brad:

That’s a gift you have. I would say that’s a gift to be able to take complex ideas to a layperson because it increases your circle of connectivity. I mean, if you are so well educated and so knowledgeable and just don’t have that gift, you might be able to talk to five other people about this that are going to understand what you’re saying. But if you’re able to take those concepts that these five people can talk about and then talk to another hundred thousand people and explain it to them in a way that they can grasp and use and understand, I would say that’s quite a gift. I’ve been able to try to do a similar thing in psychology. You’ve got 200 years of complex research. I mean, you could stack that fill up a huge warehouse of all that information, and it’s just overwhelming for a person, a parent, or a teacher, a new teacher, to go out and try to figure out, “How do I want to help this individual sitting in front of me the best?” If you Google ADHD or any of these other mental health issues, you get 2.6 billion options to click on.

Jenny:

Yeah.

Brad:

It’s just not helpful. How do you filter through that to find something useful? I would say if you’re able to do that, that’s quite a gift.

Jenny:

Well, I’m working on it. I wouldn’t say I’ve nailed this skill, like you, I’m working on it and trying to build a system. Just to remind you, this conversation is not just a conversation of many topics, we’re working in a method ourselves as we go, and it’s based on a complex decision-making course that we took. Rooted in the six Ws, including hoW. What’s interesting is that we started with the why, whereas when you list off the six Ws, you say, “Who, what, where, why, how? Well, that’s not the order this course recommends. It’s interesting because when you’re talking about a sensitive issue, people want to know why you’re asking a question first and foremost.

Brad:

I always start with the why.

How does your belief system impact your relationships?

Jenny:

Yeah, we’ve been going through that and trying to build this. What came up for me, when I was thinking about this conversation, is, we’ve been having some conflict in my broader family. My family has been going through this process that we’ve built and trying to ask ourselves these six questions before we go into a conversation that we know is going to be a challenge. I think that was one of the things that I took away from our first conversation. I was saying to you, “But what do you do when you’re triggered? And you said, “Take a break.” Once you’re triggered, you’re triggered. The only hope you have is to step away and get some space. But this prevention is really what you’re trying to build in this systematic approach of addressing [challenge].

Can you talk a little bit more about the seven skills? Can you maybe just hit them at a high level? What are they?

Brad:

You hit it there. Take a break, and step away from that threat because once that threat response is set off in us, remember we talked about how our brain operates, we’re not engaging this awesome [front of the brain] piece anymore. What we usually end up doing is damaging the whole process or damaging relationships, which is going to not get us anywhere. The break, sometimes it’s purposeful, going out, taking our attention away from the threat, letting that threat response dissipate so that we can re-engage the challenge. This part of our brain [front center], that thoughtful part. The calm piece, rational piece. it also holds empathy. Connectivity is up in this part of our brain. When we’re down in that reactive, we call it lizard, part of our brain, that old brainstem part, it’s just going to be reactive and not thoughtful and we do things like try to hurt the other person with words or it’s going to be withdrawn, using people in difficult conversations. Just push away from the table and shut down completely.

It’s not going to get us where we want to be. That’s why we teach physical regulation first. We’d have those three areas we teach. That physical part is about recognizing when that threat response is happening in me, realizing when I’m no longer effective, is what it comes down to. I’m not going to be effective in that state to try to solve a problem. And then two, take a break. And then, of course, we give some concrete ideas about what to do during that break that could be helpful by distraction, categoric, repetitive over a walk with a drink, listen to those kinds of things that are going to be, because if you go over here and take a break and you’re still thinking about the threat, probably not going to get you where you want to be. That’s that first step of getting calm and safe.

And then emotion regulation comes next where we start talking about, “What am I feeling here? What is that? What is the emotion?” Connect the energy that we need to do something. Labelling that. Am I, was I, sad by what they’d said? Or angry or scared? Maybe there’s fear. A lot of times, anger masks sadness and fear. If we’re able to connect well, what is sad about that for me, connecting with that emotion and then how I want to express that sadness in a healthy way versus some of the unhealthy things that we know people can do when they feel intense emotions. Being mindful and thoughtful and concrete and proactive about how I want that energy to come out. Intentional. We’re really hooked on that word lately. Intentional.

Jenny:

Yeah, you mentioned that in the first conversation.

Brad:

It’s … you can know a lot of things, and if you’re not intentional about doing anything with it [head shake]. It’s great to know it, but I’d rather see it in action. Otherwise, it’s just up here [hold top of head], it’s not being applied. Practicing how that energy is going to move, directed. Those are skills four and five, that ownership piece. Not always being mindful of, “If I am angry, how long do I want to stay at this level?” I like to use numbers, “Do I want to stay at an eight on a scale of one to 10 for two hours or two days or two years or the rest of my life?” And “Who’s the only person on the planet that decides when I go to a seven?” I think it’s helpful to remind people of how much responsibility [you hold].

No one can make me move to that level. They can influence me, but I have ultimate control over that. I can turn that dial a little bit if I want to. The last thing, and I know we talked briefly about this before, is a cognitive area of what defines threat for me? How do I define a threat? And that’s our belief system. How do I be mindful and intentional about, “What are the beliefs I want to carry? Which ones do I want to gather evidence for and strengthen and which ones need to be questioned still?” This is something that humans do all the time.

We’re looking for evidence to support our belief systems, but we have to recognize that those belief systems define what’s threatening to us, that it puts a line here. What I really like people to know is you don’t have to move that line, but I want you to know that you are the only one that can move the line. You have the power to move it over just a little here or there. You don’t have to, but there’s something about knowing that you’re the only one that can move that line for yourself. That’s interesting. It is also recognizing that that connection goes right back to the physical regulation because of something comes across that line, it’s going to be interpreted as threat, and then we go through the whole process

Jenny:

Again.

Brad:

That’s it in a nutshell.

Jenny:

That’s great. Thank you. I’m curious, one of the things, I dunno if you remember, but I ran in the election, as well. I had a very large, I thought, social network before running in the election, but I didn’t run for the party that was expected to win. I ran for a party because I wanted to do something different. I know we needed to do something different here. I was trying to find that avenue and I looked to those relationships that I built, fostered for a long time and they were gone in a sense. That support network that I had was no longer there. I’m curious, how does our belief system override these relationships that we build?

I will be honest, I relied on the knowledge that I had invested in relationships and invested in, “Do unto others as you wish to be…or give and expect to get back, and all of those things. I would say that even today there are several people that their belief system is so ingrained, potentially, and these are my assumptions, where our relationship is not necessarily a value or understood as to what my intention was, let’s say. I don’t know if there was a good question in there, but if you can touch on how does your belief system override this history? You’ve talked about it even when our relationships with our spouses, for example, it’s very easy to say the worst things to the people that you care about the most when you’re under threat. Can you speak a little bit about how it overrides all of this? What we should have is a basic understanding of people and their intentions.

Brad):

Part of what I heard there was it sounded like you experienced a major loss. That’s what I would [feel], if I have this group or I think I have this group and then it’s gone. Loss is, it is one of those areas, I think it’s probably one of the most underrated, under-talked about, emotions and experiences that human beings have. And yet we all have losses in our lives. I think of kids, “How does a 9-year-old know what to do with loss? I think, “How does a 29-year-old or 59-year-old? Where are you trained in this? To me, loss is a huge threat. You’re going to go through the same sort of process. Our bodies respond to loss in a way. We’re going to have that biological response. It’s threatening to us, especially if the loss is, I kind of put numbers to think that it’s a big loss.

We’re going to have an intense, our sleep can get disrupted. We’re going to have that adrenaline rush. We’re going to have tension in our muscles. We’re going to have all the things that could affect the way that we think because of the different areas of our brain. Also, another thing that I heard you say was that we sort of have this belief that people will treat each other in a specific way. Beings will treat … I heard you say that we have this golden rule type of thing. When we see behaviour, or we have experiences, that doesn’t match that it leaves us feeling confused. Sometimes I see this in trauma situations where we have these events happen in our life that are so in the face of what we believe, like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that this is even possible, that people would do this to another person” or those kinds of things. It can shake our whole foundation of what we think is true.

Jenny: Yes.

Brad:

… about people and the way the world works, and just life in general, and humanity and all those things. When you have that happen, and honestly, that’s a part where trauma can do lots of strange things, but you have a biological response, you have lots of emotions around that. Fear and sadness, “How am I going to express those things? What do I want to say to these people or this experience? How am I going to direct that energy?” It sounds to me like you put it into a cause that’s important, and it makes a lot of sense. We work with people on that all the time. How do you want to direct this energy in a positive way that’s going to help you and help the rest of the world? And that emotional piece, that expression scale that we work on.

And then, “What are you going to do to readjust?” I don’t think you want to probably go back and say, “Well, I guess that’s not the way humanity works”, or “I still want to treat people in a certain way and I want to see if we can influence other people to treat others as they want to be treated.” You go out and promote this belief that we can still work together.

I also heard another piece in there about having this belief that people can disagree on topics but still have connection. We don’t have to lose connections because our beliefs don’t align. I think there’s something there, and I don’t have all the answers to that, but that was a third part…

Jenny:

You’re right.

Brad:

… I heard that you were bringing.

Jenny:

Yeah, because it does feel that way. There are some relationships that I do feel are severed. I am not sure if that’s permanent but I do think that I’m experiencing an overlap between those connections versus beliefs. I think it goes back to what you said in our first conversation, “How strong is that belief?” If it’s an 8, then maybe that’s enough that it overrides that connection.

Brad:

Yeah, for sure.

Brad’s Thoughts on Degrowth, a Focus on Care for the Earth and Each Other

Jenny:

Yeah, something to explore for sure. One other thing that came up for me here, and now this is getting a little bit into my work, I hope you’re okay with us exploring a bit. One of the concepts I’m really excited about is called “Degrowth”. It’s based on this concept of where we have a developing, miners world. We are mining and extracting from the earth.

And this concept talks about, we need to stop doing that and start investing in nature. Rather than having capital, money, we put natural capital at the center of our economy, and we focus on reducing the complexity of our world. Thinking more locally and building that social democracy in what we’re doing. One of the things that comes up, they talk about [degrowth] is the structure that we have in society. And one of the concepts I appreciate is ecofeminism.

They talk about the structure being alpha male at the top of our current system, and then anybody who cares for either nature or people ends up being lower in that social structure. And then women fall into that next. Again, this more dominant female is at the top of that structure and a more sensitive female is at the lower part of that structure.

My best friend years ago was talking about my journey in the industry. I’ve had moments where people have appreciated what I was working on and they’ve been supportive. And then, as she said, then the lawn gets mowed. The structure comes back into place. I’m a worker bee, I’m not a leader. Therefore, I get reminded, “No, you just do as you do and you conform.”

Jenny:

And what this “Degrowth” speaks about is the opportunity to restructure society in a way where caring is central to the work we’re doing. I mean, this is pivotal to the work you’re doing. And I guess, do I have a question in here for you after that? [haha] I’m curious if you’ve experienced any setbacks, maybe let’s go there. In your work, what are some of the setbacks you’ve experienced and what are some of the ways that you’ve overcome those?

Brad:

Interesting that you brought that up because in healthcare…I was on the flight up here, I was just thinking…we’re going through just like everybody else, we go through difficult budget seasons and sessions, and we’re not in super great economic times. And then in nonprofit healthcare work, it’s like …

Jenny:

Everything’s stacked against you, right? Yes.

Brad:

I was just having this thought, and we [motions to Jenny] hadn’t talked about this, but I was just thinking about, “Wow, I feel like every meeting I’ve been in for the last two months has been about finances or been about something other than caring, patient care.” I look at the agendas for a lot of our meetings and I was just reflecting on that on the way up here. Why is[n’t] 90% of our meetings around what is important? Like you said, what’s at the center? What’s driving that should be patient care.

Jenny:

And outcomes, results, the people.

Brad:

And, of course, the argument then is, well, if we don’t have the funding, we can’t care for patients, but you would think it would be at least equal to the conversation. And I get that they are connected to each other, but, “What’s the vision and where’s the focus and where’s all the energy going?” And I do think that signifies what’s most important to people. It’s on the agenda, what we talked about.

Yeah, we absolutely have setbacks. And I think if you look at education and healthcare, I really see that similar track over the last few years, especially since the pandemic, just trying to redo our work in different ways and not having support to do it. You really have to get creative and you also have to practice your resilient skills. I don’t believe people are born resilient or not resilient. Human beings are pretty darn adaptive and resilient. Some of us have learned skills and practice skills, and some still need to have exposure to those skills in practice.

But wow, we don’t have a shortage of setbacks and challenges in our areas. But I think your resilience and your ability to acknowledge the skills that it takes to do this and set forth kind of some clarity around what the issues are, and then also take proactive steps to connect around these issues, or at least keep the conversation, or restart the conversation, is admirable.

The Current State of Not-For-Profit Healthcare and Education

Jenny:

I like how you discussed being creative, I pay a little bit of, well, not a little bit. I do pay attention to what’s going on in the education system. I have two kids in high school now. It’s at a point where there has to be radical changes in terms of support. And the idea of being creative and looking elsewhere where it’s not available and especially not funded, I think is a big piece. I love that you’re meeting with parents. I think that one of the most untapped areas that we have is to try and increase parent involvement.

Again, as you were saying, people are busy. The system that we work in is so busy, it’s hard for anyone to even come up and look at what’s happening. But what I appreciate about the work you’re doing is it’s not complicated. It’s very bite-sized tangible pieces that a parent can really feel empowered to support their teachers and support their kids. Do you have anything more to say around that? Just around support?

Brad:

I think you were talking earlier about localizing some more decisions and things and bringing some of that, because I see some of that happening in the states with education right now. There are some intense conversations going on around public schools versus private schools and people forming more community-based schools for their kids. Whether it’s a faith-based organization that’s at the center of it, or just a neighbourhood where parents are coming together saying the public school is so challenged right now that maybe you get creative and think of other alternatives if we’re not going to support this one well enough to make it effective. Really intense discussions, but an important discussion is for kids in the future of education.

Jenny:

I really think that we’re on the verge of a lot of changes when it comes to the education system. Like you said, we’ve compartmentalized the system in so many ways. Between private schools and religious schools and specialty schools and sports schools, and there are so many variations, and yet they’re all overloaded. It really feels like simplifying and localizing is going to be a very powerful method. I’m just so glad that you’re taking this work close to my hometown. It’s so nice to see you. Is there anything, Brad, that we didn’t cover that you’d want to touch on before I ask you a couple more questions?

Brad:

I don’t think so. I can’t think of anything. Well, it was a great conversation. I think we kind of covered a lot, definitely from your world. And it’s funny to hear about your world, how it intersects with my world, sort of commonalities and different challenging situations, and how they have things in common.

What is in Brad’s calendar?

Jenny:

What’s next for you? What’s on your agenda? I like to hear what people are doing going forward. You’re socializing this work, I’m assuming?

Brad:

If you’re interested or anybody who’s interested in picking up, or taking a look at that book, of course, we want feedback. This is our first go at an adult curriculum. I’d like to hear back what’s working well, what’s not. Were there parts that were difficult to get through? What was most impactful? I want some feedback on that because we continue to make things better all the time. Right now, exciting, we’re looking at…we’re getting really good data from our college kiddos, our young adults? They’re not kiddos.

Jenny:

[haha] I feel it too. My son’s going to be 18. I think, “No, he is not. That’s not right.”

Brad:

They’re kids to me. But these people that we’re preparing to go out of the workforce in healthcare, and also in education. What we found is that these courses, the curriculum for them don’t include this information. How do we expect these professionals to go out, do this work? It’s really difficult, challenging work, healthcare, education, there’s other areas, but those are the two that are [top of mind] right now because it’s so broad and it impacts so many. Those are two of the largest employers.

Jenny:

Yes

Brad:

Two huge professions, worldwide, are education and healthcare. And we’re not preparing people to manage their own emotions in the workplace. We just have super high expectations that they know how to do it, but they’ve never been taught practice.

We’re teaching in a couple of nursing schools, but also have some visits scheduled, where we can take this curriculum as part of a leadership course or part of one of their curriculum, to be able to teach these skills and practice these skills as they work toward their degree. They’re going out into the workforce at least with some exposure and practice to this skillset. I’m excited about that. Instead of waiting for them to get disengaged and experience burnout, have family problems, and take that stuff home with them and all that, why can’t we give them some of these skills upfront so that I hope over the next year, or so, we have a curriculum out there that people can use.

Please explain the concept of being intentional, Brad

Jenny:

That’s awesome, Brad. It sounds to me like you really focus on the gaps. You look for where the voids are in these areas and try to make sure you’re filling those voids. That’s fantastic. I do want to expand a little bit on the word intention because there’s good intention and there’s bad intention. I’ll back up and give you a concept.

Alex and I were discussing karma, and I was saying, “it’s funny that the expression is karma is a bitch, because to me, karma is a friend.” If you invest in things, and you think about the consequences, karma is a very important and powerful friend for you, if you pay attention to her.

Brad: Yes.

Jenny: And Alex said, well, it depends on the intention. And I said, you’re absolutely right. I said, “Yeah, there’s two sides to every coin. And he said, “No, there’s three sides to every coin, and that edge is where we come together.” Can you expand a little bit about, and so what I hear, I’ll just tell you, when you say intention, to me, it’s being thoughtful about, “Yes, I know this thing. Yes, I want to address this problem with this person, but what am I expecting to come from it? What am I hoping to get from it? How am I hoping to influence whatever that is? Now I’m getting wordy, but yeah, describe for me. When you say intention, what are you asking people to think about?

Brad:

In my world, talk about conscious and subconscious [behaviors] and proactivity and reactivity, respectively. In our world, self-regulation often doesn’t lead to success, especially in the face of conflict or social emotional challenges. To totally simplify. Our framework is about reducing reactivity. If you’re intentional, that means, like you said, you’re thoughtful, you have a plan, you’ve practiced probably before, and you’re going to apply a skill.

Brad:

You’re going to, thoughtfully, and I use the word mindful, do a lot of work in mindfulness training, and just myself and my own life and gratitude practice. I can know a lot about gratitude. I can read some books on that. But if I don’t sit down and write down two or three things that I’m grateful for, that’s what I mean about being intentional. I can have quotes and posters all around the room with cliches. And for karma, for example, if I don’t practice good intention with people or I don’t put it into play intentionally, that’s what I mean is action

Jenny:

Based.

Brad:

Conscious, action-based work that we do. Karma is an interesting thing in behavioral health and in the world of psychology. In my world, working, I would like to believe that that’s true too, and that the way that works is you put good things out and you get good things back. I think for the most part, for most of us, that does work that way. But in my world, people come to us with lots of traumatic things that happen in their life. And then if we were to kind of say,

Jenny:

Right, “That’s karma.” No, yeah, no, fair enough. Because we can’t control what comes at us. And you’re right, a lot of people will own that. Yeah, exactly.

Brad:

We have to be careful.

Jenny:

Excellent point. Yeah, no, thank you for saying that Brad because, right, there’s a lot of things that happen, especially to good people that are just not [fair].

Brad:

Bad things happen to good people, and that is true, especially when it doesn’t matter the age, bad things happen to all kinds of people, and you can live a good life and do a lot of good things for people and still have bad things happen.

Jenny:

Yeah. No, thank you. Alex will be glad that you offered that point. What I heard, and I’m just going to offer an example, for this meeting, I re-watched our video before we met, put out some questions in advance so that we would be comfortable with what we’re talking about. To me, it’s all about setting people up for success rather than going in just blind. What are we going to talk about? And then you and I are fumbling and wondering what comes next, right?

Brad: Yeah, exactly.

Jenny:

I learned that from one of my presidents at a company I worked for long ago. When she did presentations, people would say, “You’re so natural at this.” And she would say, “Well, no, I was up till four in the morning last night preparing for this. You know what I mean? Most things, even if they appear natural, it’s from a lot of effort, a lot of intention, right? Yes.

Brad:

Practice. I’m sure you can’t expect a skill to be very good if you don’t practice. That’s why I think a lot about behaviour. I always compare it to a sport, basketball or something. I just said to our basketball team, well, try harder, do better next time. And we didn’t do any, we’re not going to do any practice. It would be terrible.

Jenny:

Or even I’ve seen…

Brad:

Or it could be worse, that vague advice would be just terrible. Practice. Well, for one, it adds safety. It adds all kinds of things…

Jenny:

Right? Yeah. Sports are such a good way to look at these problems, right, because it’s a

Brad:

Good analogy sometimes.

Jenny:

Yeah. It’s interesting because I’ve watched my kids, I played sports and I’ve watched my kids play sports, and it’s interesting because you’ll have a game that goes awry, and then you watch the next practice and think, “They’re not addressing that thing that came up in that last [game].” To your point, it’s not just about practice, it’s about that intention of what are we trying to fix? What is the problem we’re trying to solve together?

Brad:

Exactly. Yeah. Like you said earlier, the why, how then applying that intentionally, you can talk all the way around it, but [instead] do something.

Jenny:

And I’m just going to reiterate what you’ve been saying about your work, Brad. I think this is central to a lot of the issues that we have is that we’re not looking at those base principles, those base skills, making sure that people are capable before we throw a bunch of things at them. And I see that everywhere. Of course, healthcare and education are primary to every society. But I just went camping with my family, and I ran into a guy that works in the industry, and I was explaining some of the bigger things that I’ve heard, and he said, “I’m just so busy”, because I said, “You came here to get away, and I’m telling you something kind of big and important.” And he said, “To be honest with you, it was nice to think about something other than the next quarter.” I think that a big part of what is driving this lack of base principal work is that everybody’s so busy with all of these tasks and expectations.

Brad:

You can lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes just in survival mode. [Brad grabs the lower back of his head]

Jenny:

Right? I like that you showed that [touching the back of her neck] Brad, because that was one of the things that Mary said that was really helpful for her is she could actually feel [survival mode] physically. She said that when she was feeling suicidal, she felt pressure in the bottom of her head. And to me, I’ve noticed that when I am being intentional with my words, I actually look to this part of my brain. Is that true?

Brad:

What I find is it’s so unique and individual, I just love hearing, especially when you talk to a fifth grader about where you feel in your body when you feel upset and they describe it to you, it feels like nails on a chalkboard, or I just feel like this rush of heat, or I get this pain right here, I feel my shoulder rub my ear. Everybody. It seems like it’s so unique, an individual. I’ve heard all kinds of interesting descriptions of that, but the point is having that individual know what that feels like and to be able to describe it, and notice it. Yeah. It can be life-changing for sure. You can’t regulate something if you’re not aware of it.

Jenny:

One of the things I learned several years ago was, like you said, to name the feeling, and it’s funny for me, I feel it in my stomach. My stomach will get in knots, and I’ll think, okay, what’s bugging me? And then I’ll try and name it. And if it doesn’t go away, I’ll keep trying to name it. I’ll keep saying, “No, I’m worried. No, I’m scared. And eventually, I’ll feel it release once I finally identify what the problem is. It’s just that exercise of diving in on it.

Okay. This has been great. I want to make sure you get on your flight, and I appreciate you taking the time for me. Alex does offer his regrets, but he said he’s happy to offer [a weather report].

Brad:

Yeah, next Time. We’ll all get together.

Jenny:

Sounds great. Well, thank you so much, Brad. Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

Brad:

This was wonderful. I always just tell people to take care of yourself. There’s a lot of hope. I think a little bit of clarity and understanding of the basics of human behaviour combined with some skills. To me, those two things equal a lot of hope. I always want to send that message of hope out to people, that there are things that we can do that can help us and others feel better and do better.

Jenny:

Awesome. I’m so grateful that you’re here in Alberta, that your work is spreading here, that somebody took the effort to invite you, and that it was a good turnout. All wonderful signs that your work is growing. And I’m excited to spread the word about your book, and I will be jumping on the public version when it’s available. We’ll keep in touch. Hopefully, we can have a conversation again then.

Brad:

Sounds great. Looking forward to our return trip.