Leadership & Resilience: A Conversation with Former Army Combat Engineer, Dan Joseph

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking for more leadership tips?
Join our weekly email list to receive episode recaps, previews, and most importantly, communication-rooted solutions for your everyday workday questions and experiences.

Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/h91B0v

P.S. Check your spam folder...we like to send these out on Mondays :)

Have a question for Dr. Leah OH? Is something at work driving you nuts? Have an idea for an episode? Reach out!
We'd love to hear from you! Send us your questions and requests via email or a voice note to TheCommunicativeLeader@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Dr. Leah OH: 0:00

Dan Joseph, a former Army combat engineer joins us today on the communicative leader. Dan wrote a recent book linking leadership and resilience to mental health after having a soldier in his platoon attempt suicide. In his book, Dan educates leaders on the importance of proactively strengthening mental health and resilience for themselves and their team members. I learned a lot from Dan and I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation too. Hello, and welcome to the communicative leader hosted by me, Dr. Leah Omilion-Hodges, my friends call me Dr. OH. I'm a professor of communication and leadership communication expert, and the communicative leader. We're working to make your work life what you want it to be. Dan, thank you for joining us today, before we dive into the ins and outs, your view experiences with leadership. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? And maybe what brought you to this career and passion for leadership? Yeah, definitely.

Dan Joseph: 1:05

So I was in the in the army for three and a half years, I was a combat engineer. And while I was in the military, I realized, obviously, the obvious importance of being a leader who has consideration for people's emotional well being their mental health, a lot of nuances when it comes to feeling states, that may not be as explicitly discussed when we learn how to do things tactically, right how to plan a mission set, how to execute out in the field. So it became very especially working with combat veterans, I was impacted by the amount of weight that they carry, that we're not often told about. Because people don't want to discuss this stuff in a professional environment, right, they don't want to talk about what is affecting them or hindering them or keeping them keeping them up at night. But I was able to grow really closely with these folks, these men and women have been deployed all over the world and who've fought who've gone through some crazy experiences. So as a leader who's sort of managing the everyday life in the military, that in that we're doing, it was critical that I start paying careful attention to how they're operating and functioning, you know, beyond the uniform.

Dr. Leah OH: 2:29

Yeah, right, that idea of the whole person, and that we're not working with robots. And, and honestly, sometimes they think we actually treat robots and technology with more care than we do with our human peers, unfortunately, but I love that you are making that shift. And we're seeing that shift in a in a larger way, too. So Dan, you know a little bit about your background, and this passion for leadership. And you know that you have some experience and you're really passionate, especially about resilience. Can you talk to us about this role, you see resilience playing in leading?

Dan Joseph: 3:10

Yeah, I mean, resilience when I think about it, as a leader, especially as a leader, what I see is that we need to foster it and other people and allow them to have that space that they need. And the tools that they need to down regulate their nervous systems, right to offload and process stress. And that's not really discussed, we talked about bottling it up compartmentalizing it, society globally, we'll self medicate and dissociate. But it's rare for a leader to say, Hey, guys, hey, team, you all need to take some time off, decompress. I want you to find ways to let the stress out, kind of remove that stigma of shame over it and just say, I mean, whatever it is people need to do based on their personality traits, to enable that, that's how I felt compelled to foster resilience and soldiers that I worked with. And I needed to work on my own as well. It's like a practice what you preach kind of a thing. And so, I mean, how cool is that? I have to invest in my own self care, in order to promote that in the soldiers. So learning how to distress learning how to, we can talk about the specifics if you want, but there's so many tools out there that work and so resilience isn't just kind of white knuckling it through the bad stuff. It's about the dynamic inflow and outflow of stress through our bodies.

Dr. Leah OH: 4:40

I love that. Because I think that for so many of us, we are actually taught it is white knuckling it like you are being resilient. You are pushing through that pain or what is it like pain leaving the body and instead of overriding that now we're thinking about healthy ways to address it. So you mentioned some of these two Walls, do you have one or two that are a nice easy Andreea? That you kind of recommend offhand?

Dan Joseph: 5:09

Totally. So one of them was given to us by. He's a colonel in the army and talked about how he was in some crazy operations in Afghanistan, some very high stress events. And he's that he's had such a sense of humor about him, but he's gone through some pretty, pretty intense stuff. But he told us to take bubble baths. And we thought it was a joke. We all just started roaring and laughter. And he's like, No, check it out. I seriously, I want you guys to go home and take a bubble bath. And so what I what I do is, I kind of adapted this to myself, I'll do a salt bath, by candlelight. So that will allow me to especially before bed, it'll allow my melatonin secretion my bed production in my mind my brain to optic before bed. Because the frequency of a yellow candle light is actually it helps us get into sleep mode, versus the frequencies the blue light frequencies that we see in our technology, right. But I'll do a salt float as well. Because a the aromas are awesome. If anybody hasn't done a salt float, I highly recommend it. There's like a pina colada one, a lavender other so good. Yeah. But also, yeah, and then you feel it, especially if you're in the military and you rock a lot, you're on your feet a lot, you got your you got your boots on, and you're just going through rough terrain, if you're in the army, or Marines, or whatever it is. But regardless, we are standing on your feet all day, you allow the blood to flow through your body, and you can do a body scan, you know, a meditative head to toe scan on what's inflamed, what's injured, what sore, what needs rest, and there's just kind of this checklist that we go through. And so I learned to do that, that's probably one of the more honest reads of my body. And I can get that feeling state pretty quickly, that assessment on what's going on. And then another thing I would do for self care is, is stretching. So I know especially for for guys, we want to go to gym and throw weights around and you know, get the stress out that way. But there's this special kind of feeling you get when you don't go work out in an aggressive manner, but you simply just let the tension kind of melt out of your body. Because there's a way of getting a forcefully out by lifting heavy things, I totally get that. And it's necessary. But there's when you do a stretch, again, you're able to go head to toe, like a diagnostic and go through your body. And and we can talk about this later if you want but with regarding like psychosomatic markers and memories stored within our bodies, you're able to get those feelings and those memories out, you know, whether it's lower back pain or neck pain, but you can think about what are who is influencing this part of my life that's causing this pain. And I mean, I can go really deep into like the existential but yes, stretching is a phenomenal way to, to zero out

Dr. Leah OH: 8:11

what's going on in the body. Yeah, and I love that you hit on especially for thinking of this as an unreal, some. It's like a like a bubble bath. No, not for me. But when you're thinking about the physiological as well, this idea of the melatonin and thinking about what yellow candlelight can do for sleep. And then you bring in the pragmatic to, like, you've worked really hard, you have stretched your body to limits and taking this minute to check in and see what needs more attention. Even if you're just using that as fuel to be better the next day, and not necessarily, in that moment looking at it as part of resilience building. It's kind of both right, like we can sell it and frame it in a ways I think that is going to be more widely acceptable than it would have been before. And we can tailor it in ways that will reach more.

Dan Joseph: 9:06

Yeah, and you know, one thing I would say, especially if there's anyone in the military listening to this, who's like, oh, well, self care, you know, I don't know, kind of soft, it's kind of weak, or whatever it is, you know, what's the irony of this? Especially people in the military, men and women, the military would never say, Oh, you maintaining your vehicle is weak. Maintaining your weapons is weak doing maintenance on something to keep it from breaking down. That's, that's not weakness. You are investing in something to keep it going. Why aren't we doing that with our brains, with our bodies with our minds, right with our emotions, then I understand that there's so again, it goes back to the stigma goes back to so much. And I understand we don't want to talk about ambiguous feelings and something that's too touchy and feely. But this is why I like the hardcore neuroscience because if you look at the neurophysiology of the body, guess what every One of those soft, fluffy, warm, fuzzy feelings has a foundation that's rooted in our, our neurons in the circuitry in our brain, the lobes of our brain. So we can do both, we can look at feeling states, and we can look at the science. And so, to me, the coolest thing is talking about meditation, but then also talking about functional MRIs, right? Because you can do both. And that's what I love about modern science, is now we're kind of creating this holistic picture. And that's how we heal it's body, mind and soul. I mean, we're incredibly complex beings, and it's important to take care of ourselves on all fronts.

Dr. Leah OH: 10:40

Mm hmm. Yeah, I see that we're moving away from this either or either you're doing this holistic, or this very traditional medical, to both and, like, let's look at all of this. Yes. So damn, I want to ask you about your most recent book, I know you're working on another one now, and I'm gonna email you to have you back on to talk about that in the future. Thank you, but today backpack to rucksack insight into leadership and resilience for military experts. So in this book, you're connecting resilience, self care, mental health. Talk to us about this connection. I know we've kind of hit on this. But how do all three of these kind of come into play especially within that context that you're drawing from that military context?

Dan Joseph: 11:26

Well, I'll start with this this. I had a soldier in my platoon Cody, he actually wrote the introduction to the book, he survived his suicide attempt while I was platoon leader, and that is something that really changed my life is I mean, I spoke with his mother that day and promised her that we're gonna get them help. And I, man, I just, it's not something you walk away from and think, Oh, that was a close shave. Okay, let's just carry on with normal life. It's, you know, there's a lot that got called into question in my own mind and in my heart. And at the same time, I had a friend, Austin, he wrote the foreword to the book, he lost 13 men from his unit to suicide. And that is just on, it's so I mean, I can say the number. But it's, I can't even contemplate that and seeing 13 People that are no longer here. And so I realized that this is a much more serious issue than I wanted to admit. And once it almost touched me personally, with Cody, I realized I wanted to speak up, but I didn't want this to be an emotional event. I didn't want it to be just me lost in my own feelings, because I can tend to do I have a tendency to do that. While I was in the military, I worked on my master's in psychology. So what I realized I could do is validate what I was going through with objective research, you know, peer reviewed journal citations, journal publications, and whatnot. And so I wrote a journal entry of my own to process almost losing Cody. And then I started writing another page and another page, and then I thought about, well, what did I do in my master's program? Okay, I would, I would look up a research article related to this, whether it's suicidality, depression, you know, leadership dynamics, whatever it is. And then I started stringing page after page together. And then this book kind of it was a shotgun approach. It wasn't this, I make it sound organized, it was very disorganized effort. But then I created a common thread throughout and then got an editor and the book came to be now it's 400 pages long, and I apologize for that. I'm pretty long winded clearly. But I what I love is the cross disciplinary aspects of, you know, again, resilience, mental health leadership, and then the military giving tactical orders. And the book is for anybody, it's applies to any industry, you know, but I just love how this is all interconnected. You know, the stronger a teammate is, or a soldier is or whoever, the stronger that unit becomes, it's not selfish, you know, by and I would tell my soldiers in this, you know, go get your college degree, go read books, go invest in your own psychological well being because the smarter and stronger you become, the stronger the unit and the military overall becomes, and I think having that perspective, it just really is shaping my, my motto, my my kind of like philosophy as a leader.

Dr. Leah OH: 14:31

Mm hmm. Yeah, I love I love the focus on the collective functioning, because we think, especially in the US, and in many industries, it's I mean, my that individual achievement model, and it, it helps some, but it excludes most, right, and what does that do to the team and then to the collective output that's lost when we're chasing this old model. So I love that integration there. And I will not follow up on that. So we're thinking about resilience in the case of challenges. So you highlight the importance in your book, but you also provide some really pragmatic strategies to develop that mental strength that adaptability. Can you share a couple of those strategies with us? Yeah, I

Dan Joseph: 15:22

mean, for me personally, jujitsu is powerful. I loved going, you know, onto the mats. And basically, like, it's, it was so important for me to get submitted and tapped out and just, I responded well to that, because there's this primal element of humbling my ego. And it I had some ego defensive mechanisms that leaned more towards narcissism, superficiality egocentricity, I had a lot of issues stemming from childhood that as an adult, I was still acting out, and jujitsu brought me back into my body. It allowed me to be in this tribal tribal environment where we actually protected one another. So it wasn't about violence. It wasn't about hurting others, it was about throttling aggression and responding appropriately. And so that was something that really affected my ability to be resilient, because I would be thrown in the gauntlet with some of these people that I trained with. And it made life less intimidating. It took a lot of adrenaline and fear out of situations and allowed me to stay calm. And I learned through meditative practices about deep breathing. And so again, going back to what we spoke about earlier, this is all tied together. So in jujitsu, when I panic or want to freak out, I'm getting choked out somebody, this is getting bad. I'll just start breathing, right belly breath, calm breathing in then, and then my prefrontal cortex would switch right back on, you know, like, Hey, you're okay. Think about the technique. Think about how to get out of this, what's the appropriate angle and amount of pressure? And again, the same philosophies on the mats and jujitsu, we would, would apply to any relationship, any work environment that and it was just so cool, the philosophical approach of these things, you know, whether it is deep breathing, whether it is jujitsu, for me, and then plethora of other practices. If we really pay attention to the core principles, and the foundations, on which we're building it, it's so cool. It's a massive toolkit for us to work with.

Dr. Leah OH: 17:32

Yeah, and I love that, in your response, you talked about reflection, you know, there's a lot of link between successful leaders. And we can look at success in terms of their ability to promote wellness, and their followers and their paychecks and their livelihood, and their ability to climb rank. But what we see is a common denominator is the fact that they're reflective, self reflective, right, and that only I have the blind spot. But what do I do now? Right. So making sure that it's not only acknowledgment, but also commitment to figuring out how do I get better? How do I address this? And you, you know, integrated that so well into that response. So thanks for touching on that. So, Dan, this one, I think this is a fun question to think about. I as an organizational scholar, I love to think about if more people were doing these kind of gold standard behaviors, what work life would look like and feel like. So with that in mind, what do you think organizations or workgroups would look like if a most titled leaders practice, resilience and adaptability, and then B, they also praised employees for doing the same?

Dan Joseph: 18:55

I mean, I think obviously, it'd be a much calmer environment. I think that goes without saying, because we all know what it's like to work with somebody who has that intrinsic ability to just self regulate, you know, and that we would see less Oh, man, we would see less people using less leadership using others to whether it's get those ego strokes that they want that they didn't get throughout life, maybe projecting emotions, so we could talk about Project projecting or transference as well. So just basically, not being aware of what they're putting on others, right, we would see just a more objective criteria for the work environment. It's not about playing the politics and making certain people happy. It's about being healthy. And there's a different there's a dichotomy between happiness and healthiness, sometimes right and so I think it's, it would be so cool to have work environments in which people felt seen for who they were and the productivity they're giving rather than what loyalty He's there. They're creating or, and again, we're human. So I understand that this is probably never, it's probably not going to be as clean as I, I would envision in my mind. But it's worth approaching that, right, it's worth leaning towards that. And, and one thing I would say is, it's really important not to just be resilient, but to offer that to others. And what really, I was thinking about the other day was how there were some people in my life, who were, they had a different upbringing than I did, they had different options, they had different resources available to them, they knew what therapy was, they knew what counseling was, I didn't know that for so long. And what was so cool is when some friends came around me and said, hey, just want to let you know, you're worth having boundaries, you're allowed boundaries in life, you're allowed these, and they would drop the certain words that they learned in therapy, and it would blow my mind. Because I suddenly felt relieved, like, Hey, thank you for telling me that. And so I think people who are resilient, they've learned that resiliency from somewhere. And it's so important to not just hold on to that, but to give that gift to others. Because it's, it'd be selfish to just say, well, I can handle this, this person's losing their mind. But I can handle it's like, no, teach them about breath control, teach them about objectivity. And again, especially as leaders and managers to give those not just have a sensing session, because I think a lot of people have sensing sessions nowadays. But then to say, Let's equip ourselves with tools to handle these things. And, again, different than just a PowerPoint, checking this off, but let's go through actual pragmatic steps, because that's what helped me is like, give me the generalities. Okay, but can you please give me like a very dumbed down list on what I need to do? That really helped me heal?

Dr. Leah OH: 21:59

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I really like, like, so much of that. And I'm thinking too, and you're talking about these workplaces, this idea of being seen, amazing, right? I think most people like, you know, I value you, this is why you're here. This is what you bring to the table, and our team wouldn't be the same without you. And that idea of boundaries, I think to workplaces would feel less urgent. And there's this artificial urgency. I think that that manic energy brings and part of this is digital communication. There's so many layers, but I think if we're thinking about being adaptable for thinking about resilience, and we're praising these things, I think we can recognize not everything is a fire, and stop treating it as such. And then I think to have some, you know, nice outcomes with our nervous system as a as a happy bonus. Totally. All right. So we've, we've talked about all of these proactive kind of outcomes that we can pursue and reap when we are thinking about mental health and resiliency, adaptability. But we know that we all have setbacks, right? They happen to the best of us. So from your experiences, from your research from your book, what advice or recommendations do you have for us to help us bounce back?

Dan Joseph: 23:22

Yeah, definitely, I would say the number one thing that I've learned about myself is take the shame out of it. Shame is just this whole man. It's like this period of sitting there with feelings, but not moving anywhere with them. And there's just ambiguity of like everything. Just bad, just miserable. I shouldn't have done that. Or it's, there's no actionability there. And once I started minimizing that shame, or removing it entirely, then I would think, okay, cool. I messed up because I'm human. And every human messes up. What do I need to do to fix this? How do I, whether it's, I got to apologize to somebody, I need to stop the behavior and reorient and then have in the right direction. You know, it's just like inland NAB in the military. If you get knocked over, if you fall over a branch or a log, you got to pick yourself up, grab your compass. Okay, which way was I going? Grab your map? What's my destination? And then make sure I have all my items on me, and then start moving in that direction again, right. I mean, I face planted a lot during land plan that and that, to me is just a perfect example of life. I mean, it'd be weird to not faceplant. It'd be inhuman. Right? We can't always live a high a highlight reel that, you know, social media, just excerpt from our lives. I mean, we're gonna have ups and downs. And again, going back to resiliency, that's resiliency isn't a static phenomenon. It's dynamic, right? It's elastic. There's mode, there's movement and motion to it. Our life is not just a picture. It's an movie. And so understanding that each scene can change, there are bright moments, there are dark moments. But the biggest thing we can do for ourselves and for others, is to just believe that, you know, we're worthy of bettering ourselves and moving forward. But I personally have struggled a lot with that. A lot of being stuck. And that stuckness. Again, there's no benefit to it. And so it's really important to find ways what you know, to understand where is this inner voice coming from? Where did I receive this shame messaging? And how, you know, how is it holding me back? Who would I be for a minute, if I didn't speak to myself this way? And it's just amazing to see all the options that light up.

Dr. Leah OH: 25:44

Mm hmm. Yeah, because it can be so debilitating, right, we can just make up paralysis there. To recap, I really love this advice. So for literal or figurative face plants. We can stop, Reorient, regroup, so grab what we need literally or figuratively, and then move on. Yep, that's right. Yeah. That is that is so simple. I always think the best tips in life are the simplest ones. Because they're right, right? It gets to the essence of it. And then you're not you're not stuck. So if you got stuck in the shame, of literally falling, what's the alternative? You just sit and sit? Right sit? Right. Next? We're not going to do that.

Dan Joseph: 26:30

I've done that. I mean, I've done that. And it's like, yeah, come on, buddy. Like get up? Like, let's go, you know,

Dr. Leah OH: 26:36

it's time. We're moving. Yeah. Awesome. So I have a couple more questions for you, Dan. So we know that much of your background is in the military? What are some of these lessons or experiences that you had in that particular arena, that you, you know, kind of coach others on or think about in everyday civilian life?

Dan Joseph: 27:03

Man, I would say that we shouldn't be afraid to kind of love others and show love in our leadership style and the way we communicate. And I still struggle with this. I mean, I was, yeah, this is something I'm trying to work on. It's not something we talk about a lot, especially in the military. But when you have these young men and women who are, they are literally ready to die for for an order you give as a leader because they sign a contract, and they sign away their life insurance at 18 years old, sometimes, right? I joined at 32. By the way, that's, you know, ancient compared to these, these young uns, but when you see these young service members willing to lay their life down for the job, to not show love in leadership is to me, it's just such a cold approach. And I understand we have to treat service members like we're all replaceable, we learned that, you know, that's that's how the military is structured. So if something happens, and we're no longer here, people fall in right away into our position, and then the mission carries forward. But that doesn't mean that we should lead only with that in mind. And what I believe love does from a neurophysiological standpoint, is at a subconscious level, it alleviates stress that doesn't have to be there. Like you said, Not everything's an urgency. Not everything has to be critical. It doesn't have to be about throwing the book at people. There needs to be you know, they say that the letter of the law and in the spirit of the law, I think there's a lot to be said for the intangibles of how we speak to others, whether it's the tone of our voice, the body language, eye contact, whatever we're feeling from another issue in life, are we then projecting that in our current state, and again, I'm guilty of this totally. So it's super important for me to check myself and say, Hey, this is not them. It's a me situation. And it's okay for me to feel whatever I'm feeling whether it is tired, sick, miserable, but then to vocalize that, hey, just want to let you know, I'm going through something I apologize. I'm not 100% right now. Just be patient with me. And you know, just if you have any questions about it, ask me but my mood right now isn't because of you. I'm just going through something personal. Right. That's, I need to get better at that. And I would try to do that with my soldiers like, yeah, so that's, this is a piece of advice that works for any human being, because we're all going to go through ups and downs, and we have to show up to work. But while we're going through that we can have grace for for ourselves and for others, and at the same time, honor what we're going through, you know, honor that feeling state don't just repress it or self medicate. I'm sorry, I can I can rant all day clearly. So I'll stop Now,

Dr. Leah OH: 30:00

you're all good. I love that. Because, like you said, we all get in these moods we have off morning, something's happened. And if we don't verbalize it, people around us off, especially if we're in charge, they think maybe they did something or wonder what they did. Right? So then all of a sudden, they're carrying something they don't need to carry. So simply by vocalizing, so this is 100% me, not you, I'm working through this. You're all good. I mean, it's two, three sentences, and we can take that away from them. We can role model that we are not perfect, we can have these conversations. And then we can move on with why we're there.

Dan Joseph: 30:46

That's right. Note to self, I'm gonna work on this, because I've been going through some stuff lately, where it's been kind of impacting some of my personal relationships. And I think I, the these people I'm thinking about No, I was, I was going through some stuff, but I just wish I did. I wish I did better, you know, and that's kind of why I wrote this book, too, is I wish I learned better even. Yeah, not to like beat myself up too much, which I tend to do. And I have a, for one of my good friends. He's a mentor of mine who's been to war, right? I mean, he's been through some some crazy stuff. He's lost friends in battle, and he told me stop looking back and wondering the should have would have cut us, right? That's, there's a difference between just meandering down that alleyway and versus taking what did happen or did not happen, and then leading better the next time around. So that's something I want to give others too. If you're going if you're like me in any way, where you can just get hung up on stuff. It's so important to give yourself that grace.

Dr. Leah OH: 31:45

Yep. Yep. Even taking the time to circle back then if you realize, oh, I'm still carrying this. I wonder if they knew I'm going to send the email, send the text, make the call? And then they probably do now. And that's okay. But then it's a gift you give yourself as well. Right?

Dan Joseph: 32:03

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

Dr. Leah OH: 32:22

yeah. Cool. I'm in. Okay, yeah. So Dan, I have two final questions for you. So I'm the communicative leader, we like to leave listeners with leadership or leadership communication tips, very pragmatic, what can they do today that will actually help them to make their work life what they want it to be? So in that line, first question, tip or suggestion for our folks out there who are titled formal leaders.

Dan Joseph: 32:50

Okay, I mean, if they're not already, definitely read books. And I would say, not just read the book, but journal, like while you do if you can, so pick something that really impacted you and stuck out to you. And Google it a little bit, look it up online, do the research, and then journal about it, because there's probably something just like when you listen to a song, and there's that one lyric, where you're just thinking, Oh, my gosh, you can cry to it or fight to everyday just invoke that passionate feeling in you about something. If there's something a leader drops in their book, and it really resonates, start exploring that tug on that thread. And what's so cool about that is multiple other books or ideas will stem from that. That's the whole journey of psychology that I realized about myself.

Dr. Leah OH: 33:41

Mm hmm. Yeah. And I love that idea of reading. I love reading, I love it. Other people read part of it. I read all the time for work. But that idea of always staying curious than is well, and giving yourself the permission to explore those things that are really exciting. Okay, so our title leaders, we've taken care of them. What about our friends, our employees of all ranks?

Dan Joseph: 34:06

Self care, for sure, I would say and look at self care before you do it. Before you go get a massage, or go do some yoga, or go skydive, whatever it is served, I don't know, whatever self care looks like to you. Really think about how is your friend, your neighbor, your coworker, your whatever relationship? How is that going to improve because you do this? And I think that that adds so much weight and validity to our self care. Because it is self care is basically community care because you're part of a community. And, and I would really again, going back to kind of The mindfulness approach. Don't just do it because I'm stressed out I need to de stress. But think of it as how am I going to be a better XYZ to these folks, whatever it is, because of your self care and And yeah, I think just not applying too much pressure to the question just doing that will invoke more spontaneous improvements in life, if that makes sense. Because I have a tendency to force things and just like, I gotta get really analytical, but when I just pause and breathe, answers come. And I think that, again, self care will do that you'll, your productivity will increase at work, because you went and got that massage. Your phone calls will be better, you'll smile more when you do your outreach and get more positive responses. And oftentimes, I gotta remind myself of that it's an investment in my and tomorrow. It's not just an investment in today.

Dr. Leah OH: 35:40

Yeah, and I've never thought of it like that self cares, community care, and you're spot on. Right? Because when we feel full, when we have our resources, we're able to be, you know, better friends, better parents, better partners, better community leaders, all of those things. Yes. I love that. I'm going to continue with that tagline. Thank you, Dan Joseph. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, damn. Thank you for joining us today on the communicative leader. I've really enjoyed our chat and I know our listeners will as well.

Dan Joseph: 36:13

This is so fun. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Dr. Leah OH: 36:17

All right, my friends. That wraps up our conversation today. Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose. Looking forward to chatting with you again soon on the communicative leader.