The Communication Solution

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. In this episode, we embark on a thought-provoking discussion on the scalability of mental health services and the application of motivational interviewing (MI) within systemic frameworks. Addressing the complexities of navigating the mental health system, the conversation delves into the limitations and potentials of MI, the impact of organizational culture and leadership, and the critical role of empathy and consistency in effecting meaningful change. Through an exploration of the challenges faced by both providers and recipients of mental health services, the podcast offers insights into the intricacies of enhancing care delivery on a macro scale.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Complexities of the Mental Health System: The episode opens with a candid examination of the prevailing frustrations and criticisms surrounding the mental health system, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of its systemic issues. * The Scalability of Motivational Interviewing: John Gilbert introduces the topic of scaling MI practices within the mental health sector, questioning how these techniques can be effectively expanded to meet broader systemic needs while addressing individual autonomy and well-being. * Compliance vs. Behavior Change: Casey Jackson articulates the difference between compliance-based models and behavior change models, underscoring the limitations of traditional approaches in facilitating long-term mental health improvements. * Challenges of Scaling MI: The conversation navigates the practical and philosophical hurdles in broadening the application of MI, including the need for political will, financial investment, and a cultural shift towards preventive care. * Impact of Organizational Culture and Leadership: The discussion emphasizes the crucial influence of leadership and organizational culture in the successful implementation and scaling of MI practices, highlighting the necessity for consistent vision and communication. * Empathy in Systemic Change: The hosts reflect on the importance of empathy at all levels of the mental health system—from individual care to executive decision-making—pointing out how a genuine understanding of diverse perspectives can drive more effective and compassionate solutions. * The Role of Measurement and Feedback: The episode touches on the significance of measuring MI fidelity and providing feedback as key strategies in ensuring the quality and effectiveness of scaled interventions. * Success Stories and Challenges: Casey shares examples of successful MI implementation in various settings, including the challenges faced and the remarkable outcomes achieved through dedicated efforts and strategic planning. * Vision for Future Scalability: The dialogue explores the potential for a future where mental health services are more efficiently scaled, advocating for a concerted effort among stakeholders to adopt evidence-based, person-centered approaches like MI

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

This has been part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us! Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Transcribe

Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication, we love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hey everyone. It’s Danielle Cantin here with the communication solution podcast. I’m your facilitator here with your hosts, Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hey guys. Hello. I’d like to turn this episode over to John. You have a great idea for what we can talk about today.

And instead of me trying to reiterate it, I’m just going to toss it to you. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. I think it’s a work in progress here, but I know that Casey and I definitely can riff off this and, and this is more Casey’s wheelhouse, but a lot of this relates to a recent podcast we did where we went into the lived experience of helping people that, are unhoused or dealing with that or mental health issues.

And how that is as someone that’s helping them and what that experience is like and how am I fits with that. So for those that are interested in that, you can go deeper into that dive. I’m really curious about the other kind of side of this where people have all seemingly I I’m less aware of this. I know Danielle.

You shared some things as well, that there’s a lot of opinions and a lot of, frustration and a lot of ideas about the mental health system and how it’s completely broken or how we need to do this or that. And Casey, I’m thinking of starting there with you because you had shared before this, even some extreme views that I haven’t even heard around this and just starting to think, well, when we look at this macro view of scaling.

Mental health services and behavioral health services, and in my role in that, how does that all come together from your perspective? And where are the limits of M I, where someone’s autonomy leads to hurting other people and antisocial behaviors, or that’s creating self harm and more, constant visits to the E.

R. that are. Creating lots of costs. So I’m curious to kind of look at this in that way and approach it. We can kind of take it whatever direction you’re, you’re feeling most well, the, I’ll start with the easiest thing to start with, which is, you know, in, you know, almost every state, the basic lies, if somebody’s going to do harm to themselves or others, then.

You take a more specific approach if they’re going to hurt themselves or hurt other people. So that’s one of the indicators that makes it easier to think about where there’s a higher probability that people tend to lean towards compliance. I think it’s such an, it’s just an incredibly complex topic, and I’m going to try to untangle aspects of it when I think when you’re talking about the larger behavioral health system, the mental health substance use.

It is replicated from a Western medical model, which is very much about where are the fees, how are we spending the dollars, where’s the profit margin, how much money is being spent on this, which is very, you know, this John from O’Keefe and Healthcare. Yes, there’s an element of it that really does have to do with patient care.

But if you ask patients these days and if you ask providers these days in the health care field, no one feels particularly good about where health care is providers or or the patients. And so you’re gonna hear that same level of frustration in behavioral health as well to the hardest thing with.

Behavioral health. And again, these are just always need to preface this, but this is just my bias from, you know, 35 plus years in the field is that since we’re replicating a health care system and behavioral health, health care has not had particularly good outcomes when it comes to behavior change.

They don’t have particularly good outcomes historically when you look at anything that requires behavior change around health, like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, things that require behavior change, healthcare has not done a good job with their outcomes are not particularly good. Because they tend to use a hierarchical perspective.

They tend to use a compliance, kind of finger shaking, guilt approach historically, there’s been, you know, significant changes in health care, but that still is the basic cultural context. And so that’s the basic cultural context in. Behavioral health is, you know, I know when I was raised in the addiction world, the addiction field, it was extremely condescending, extremely paternalistic, finger shaking, guilt ridden.

I remember one of the sayings from, you know, somebody that was in recovery that I worked with and I used to do groups with him and he was, kind of our, the veteran counselor in our, in our addiction agency, and I remember him telling people frequently, if you don’t think you’re an addict or an alcoholic, don’t let the doorknob hate you or the good Lord split you, get out on the streets and figure it out for yourself.

And when you’re ready to come back and talk to me, then I’ll talk to you. And which just has zero correlation with behavior change, but it really does feed a righteous perspective. The whole. Evolution of motivation and behavior change based approaches, I think, has been profound on the field. They’re not the standard.

They’re not the norm, but they’ve been profound because we’re using behavior change based interventions with behavior change versus medical interventions with behavior change, which don’t particularly work well. So instead of the expert Asking you a bucket load of questions, assessing all the things that are wrong with you and then giving you a treatment plan that most people are not going to follow and then blaming them for not doing it.

Behavior change based models meets the person with their where they’re at, helps them get clear about where they want to be. And then starts to elicit from their brain, how do you work through their own ambivalence so their behavior starts to align with their values and their goals that I think one of the challenges is before there was data behind that, that just seemed too nice.

It seemed to pass it for a professional to be able to just listen to someone and help them be a clear in their own head and help them develop their own plan like an insurance company wasn’t real keen on paying for that. So I think it’s hard to extract all these different complexities and I’m not an expert on being able to do that, but these are just from my vantage point, things that I’ve seen consistently over the years.

Could I jump in on something, Casey and John, you just, you, I just laughed out loud when you said it’s not, it’s too simple because I’m referencing another podcast, but it was, something that I did. And helping, a friend of mine who’s unhoused, and I think I did a pretty good job of what I learned from you guys.

And at the end of the day, it was like this weird training in my head of that wasn’t good enough, even though I know it was pretty darn good. But it seemed too easy. Like, no, I should be the expert and I should solve this and fix this. And it was like, when you take that out of that need to fix, or it was just, sorry, I just, because that was a really great reaction I just had to what you said, because I’m like, Oh my God, I fall into that when I’m doing something.

Well, I think this should be harder or. I need to do more, you know, Daniel, I can tell you of the so many professionals that I work with, especially in behavioral health and the mental health, you know, addiction side of the world. What’s so fascinating is that’s where people have been in the field forever start to feel like.

I can’t believe it can be this easy. Like this is why I got in the field was to show up and help people like to just be able to be myself and be present and, but be myself and present in a very helpful way. So after all these iterations of what we get trained on over the years, decades in these fields, in these practices, In these professions, it is really fascinating that the data continues to point us back to what we know works.

And what we know works is usually not we’ve been trained to train to do. I think it’s the difference between, I think of this in my own education, like. Everything in the psychology field was so much based on theory, you know, theoretical models, and you had to memorize theoretical models and who developed that theoretical model.

And then when there’s a new theoretical model come in and, and then you have to kind of pick which theoretical model you’re going to operate from. And the vast majority of those didn’t have deep, comprehensive evidence at the time. They had perspective, they were theories, and some of them were mildly tested theories, but they weren’t true, true evidence based practices like we know of today, which is why there’s always new evidence coming out.

And now in the age of your world of marketing that everybody wants to put a TM after everything they develop, whether there’s evidence next to it or not to say, here’s my fun model. Here’s my, you know, this, this, this model and, that I developed. And I think, well. Everybody can develop a model. It doesn’t mean that it’s effective.

And I think those are the things that john has really helped me hone in on just the deep appreciation for the research and evidence behind it. But the direct evidence of research comes back to being a good person and the way you show up will have an impact on how people upload information or download, resources.

On this also could go in a variety of directions here, but one thing is that people can be so diverse has been a humbling thing for me to learn over all these years. And with our cultural constructed views of how we develop our beliefs from our culture that we grow up in our life experiences to just recognize people are so diverse.

And probably beyond what you even recognize as diverse, you know, especially from a 1st world perspective to a 3rd world perspective and just recognizing the humility in different things resonate for different people. And there seems to be a certain common line of things to pay attention to that. We’re talking about here of how we treat people and maybe there’s certain types of things that have more evidence that resonate with some people say attachment theory and how their childhood relates to that relationships to internal family systems that bodes well with this way of treating to something else, right?

EMDR or something for rapid eye movement, but just recognizing that you having a menu of options that you’re trained in has a place, but it’s not as important. As this way of being seen and treating other people is the key that the meta analyses are showing from what the effect of psychotherapist book points to.

I’m particularly curious at the macro level here and the systems level, then the scalability, right? You get into Silicon Valley, Danielle, California, right? You get into these thinkings of let’s get investors to scale this, right? There’s better help. There’s all these things where there’s investors that want to get money back, which isn’t Inherently wrong.

It just creates a certain kind of a culture. So how do we think about scaling motivation interviewing in a way that supports people’s autonomy? And where, you know, do we start to go? Huh? With the limits of scaling? Am I again? Yes, there’s that. Compliance for laws, but regardless of the laws, is there an ethic to am I where someone might hurt someone else?

But we’re still supporting their autonomy. Those are some of the thoughts I have that go through my mind is the scalability as well as hearing what you both have said before this. What are people’s perspectives of how they view the mental health system? And, just get starting there with all the different perspectives and then going into the scalability of M I and where are the limits of it?

That’s what’s kind of going on for me and curious of your thoughts. So I’ll tell you one of the complexities of this, and I’m going to stay away from, I’m going to attempt to stay away from being political. I’m going to attempt to stay away from being political when the affordable health care act. Was first being talked about I was pretty heavily involved in the addiction world and the behavioral health world.

And so some of the faculty that I worked with in some other universities were talking about we need to understand the Affordable Health Care Act because this could be monumental in what we’re doing. So when I went through the first training, and this was before it became politicized. But when I went through the very first training and the way that it was distilled down was that the intention of the affordable healthcare act was to turn the healthcare pyramid upside down because the base of the pyramid is you make more money.

The sicker people are you. So the only way you’re going to show significant profit is if people are really ill. And so then it’s a management of how do we get, how do we keep people hanging in there? And keeping them fixed to for the most part, but still absorbing a lot of health care service medications.

What the intention of the health care affordable health care act was to flip that. And there was no money to be made in prevention. That was the tip of the of the pyramid. So what the affordable health care act was trying to do was literally flip the pyramid upside down so that the only way you can make money in health care is if you put money into prevention and people weren’t using services well.

Okay. That doesn’t go well because that’s not the way the system was structured. So healthcare companies, insurance companies were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don’t know how to make a profit off of making people healthy. Like that just isn’t going to work. So that’s where all the politic, politic, politicization, politicization of the concept came from was, okay, we just need to destroy this thing because if this passes, we don’t know how to make a profit off of people being healthy.

From from everything that I understood when I was learning about it before it was politicized. So, before it was politicized, it was just like, and I was thinking this can’t be right. Like, who, who is thinking that level of progressive thinking that it’s like, we, this health care system that just absorbs and makes massive amounts of money, billions and billions and billions of dollars off of illness and that somebody is going to make an attempt to flip that upside down and go.

Let’s just change the structure. The only way you can make money is if you’re helping people get healthy and serving less people. There has to be a formula to do that. And they were coming up with a formula to do that. And that was just completely obliterated over time, politically, because, because of people’s fear of profit.

So that for me, John, is where I start from in terms of how do you take it to scale? There has to be a political will to take it to scale. If there’s not money to be made in taking it to scale, we can talk philosophically all day long. We can talk theoretically all day long, but if there’s not a political will to have that happen or a financial investment in making that happen, it’s just mostly us talking from our ways that we love to talk and banter about fascinating ideas.

If you were going to take it to scale, the thing that you and I know about motivational specifically is that it’s measurable. You and I have, with large, large, 3, 000, 5, 000, 17, 000 people in our organization we’ve worked with have, have developed structures. If they choose to take it to scale, we’ve helped them conceptualize and develop plans to take it to scale.

Then it comes back down to political will. Are people going to follow through? And if you’re going to take something to scale, what that requires is a strategic plan. When you look politically. Most people’s plan is how do I get elected in four years or six years? So their plan doesn’t move beyond that.

It’s literally, how do I have sound bites to be able to do that? And even within state systems where a lot of these things could be implemented, those, the tenures of, of executive directors, is not. Stellarly long. It’s they’re not really impressive for how long people stay in this position because they’re really rough political positions when you are the executive leadership team of any, you know, health and human service organization, because it’s so difficult to navigate that.

So there has to be just this concerted will that we are going to take it to scale. And you were involved in it when we did division of vocational rehabilitation in 2000 when you were That little second half part of that, but we started that in 2007 and that was taken to scale that took five years to where it was really moving towards its peak.

It hadn’t even peaked yet, but it was just about to the peak and the data was profound. Customer satisfaction was. The best it had ever been staff satisfaction, the best it had ever been productivity, the highest that had ever been in the worst employee. This is 2008 2009 2010. This was when employment was really rough and they have their highest employment rates and retention rates ever in their history.

They’d moved from, what was it, like 47th out of 50 states because it’s a federally funded, they monitor all the states. They were like 47th in terms of productivity, and they moved up to like 12th or 11th, in that period of time. So taking to scale is, is doable, but to have that level of political and leadership will to make it happen in any mom and pop organization, let alone large organizations.

And then when you get into corporate. Perspective. That is just extremely complex. And what they’re gonna look at is where’s the bottom line and where’s the profit margin in that? Because same with in substance use or behavioral health, of course, the will is we want everybody to be healthy. But then it’s like, wait a second.

How much money do we make off of this? So there, there is this fundamental reality in our, in our culture about where’s the money to be made and how do we operate with these good vision and mission statements and kind of support our staff into doing the best that they can do. But do we really want people to never have to use our systems ever again?

Because there’s money to be made for that. That’s amazing. Just. When I think about the depth of, of what you just described back in 2007, through that, through that recession. And now when I see you working with the organizations that are saying, yes, the corporations and organizations that are, that are kind of committing to that longer term vision, because the data is there when they do commit, but it’s still takes a stick to itiveness because I mean, you’re faced with all of those pressures, so it’s like extra hats off to, to folks for, for saying yes.

100 percent Danielle. The people that do stick with it, they reap the rewards and it’s just difficult because of political wins, because of budget constraints, because of it, it takes such a concerted effort. This is why, oh my gosh, this is why for me, it’s no different from an individual level to an organizational level that hence IFIOC, this.

Burdensome, cumbersome name, but that’s the whole construct is the concept is the same for an individual when we did the whole podcast on New Year’s Day in terms of how hard it is, you said, how do we stick to it? Like, how do, how does February, March, April come and I’m still on my same path that is no different for an end of one than it is for a large organization.

Is how do you, how do you focus on a strategic plan and motivational interviewing the way we teach, excuse me, is a master of how do you stay focused when things get tough? It’s like you have to constantly not only be resilient, but you have to constantly keep selling yourself. As the leader is the visionary saying we’re going to do this and keep getting your team to keep buying into it and your investors or, you know, whoever it is that you’re selling this idea, because you can’t just sell it to yourself once.

It’s like, when you think about it, I remember seeing you at the senior living sales conference. Right. And it’s just like, typically, am I has. Staying away from sales, but it’s like, if you go in the senior living communities who are like, yes, I want to train. We’re going to, we want to learn motivational interviewing.

Cause we want to fill, you know, we want to increase our occupancy rates, increase retention. And it’s like, your whole thing is you can’t go into it with that intention. You have to be willing to honor the principles in this way of communicating. And then the research and data says you will get those numbers, but you can’t be attached to them.

And that can’t be your goal. And it’s like, you can get a visionary to say yes to that once. And there’s like, okay, yes, let’s do it. But the reality is you have to keep saying yes, let’s do it again and again and again, because. It’s tricky. We slip into what the pressures are, right? This is it. And you know, I’ve, I’ve for the most part have been leaning away from using quite so many analogies, but you know, it’s like, it’s my own recovery process.

So I’m gonna have a little relapse here. Daniel, the thing that my brain immediately goes to is, you know, for people that are under deck, rowing. Just because when you leave port and you say it’s going to take us three months to get to, you know, that continent, and there’s going to be all these riches there, you literally have to be under there rowing every day.

And if it’s going to be months and months, and there’s no status updates, your muscles are tired, you’ve got blisters, you’ve got splinters, you’re starving, you’re thirsty, and if people aren’t telling you where you are and how close you are. And if the person is calling out stroke, stroke, stroke, if you keep changing that person in that position, and, and you don’t know what’s going on above board and the captain’s never really talking to you, and then they change out captains and then they change out navigators and you’re just like, Oh my God, I just want to eat and I want to stop rowing that’s.

I just want to eat. It’s just like, it gets old after a while. Never stop your analogies, Casey. Oh my God. It’s the best in the world. And if you’re two months into that, and it was a four month journey, and you’re like, well now it’s going to be another, you know, we just extended the journey by another three months, and you’re like, well where the hell are we?

Is anybody paying attention to where we’re going? And can somebody give me a status update? And then somebody whips you in the back because you asked? Um. You know, and then it’s like, well, we decided we’re going to go to a different treasure and you’re like, well, when the hell do we find this out? It’s like, well, that was in your email a month ago.

You’re like, and you’re trying to row. Like, it’s just not fun to row when you don’t know what’s going on. And leadership keeps changing a message. You keep changing. And then all of a sudden, if you’ve been doing this for years, that all of a sudden it’s heard, yeah, we got a new captain and we’re not going to that island anymore.

We’re actually going back to where we were before. And that’s when people just want to quit. It’s just like, unshackle me from this or I’m done, you know, it’s just not fun. And that’s the, I think that’s when you don’t have that constant vision and communication throughout your system. Because of when I help lead organizations, for me, what it is, is status updates to be going to that rower and all the rowers every single day.

You guys did an amazing job. Yeah, we’re now we’re two and a half months away, but you know what you accomplished in this last three weeks? And do you know what’s going to happen when you get there? And here’s some results of it. So here’s your food and water and, and, you know, get a little rest because you guys are doing an amazing job.

We’ve got two and a half months to go. We just saw a bird fly by. So we’re a month away, but there was a bird that flew by. We’re getting closer. Like that’s just good leadership. And it makes it easier for people to do the work, but what is the number one thing? Daniel, you know, this from working with organizations.

I know the number one thing problem is communication. Everybody will identify it. Like our communication is terrible, especially the way it gets filtered down. And then you’ve got middle management. Who has to try to honor and embrace their workforce while really being able to push policies and things that are coming down the field, disjointed from the field.

So you’ve got these mid managers that are kind of crunched in between that are trying to either be company people, or they’re trying to be pro worker. And, and then they just get split in half trying to do that. Oh my gosh. Just thinking about it causes me stress. So, and I, I want to get off the boat now, as soon as I start thinking from that perspective, and I have gotten off some of those boats cause I just couldn’t do it anymore.

So that’s why it’s so hard to stick with. You’re talking about that classic, you know, very well known, at least in our Western culture analogy of feeling between a rock and a hard place. When you’re in that middle ground, you’re like, I want to do this. I want to do that. I’m getting mixed messages and I jump in here because with coaching so many people from these organizations, it can be so difficult to balance out an in my perspective with the incentives of the culture or the organization.

And And how do you do that? How do you support someone’s autonomy as best you can when there’s this initiative coming in? So that’s where I’m, I’m curious to explore a little bit more, but I’ll just highlight what you both are talking about. Casey, you are doing 3 dimensionally. It’s that even in a group we’re working with right now, DCYF, the people taking on MI aren’t getting necessarily right now, in the beginning stages, a relief of their caseload.

It’s more work on more work to do some of this, and then you feel that pressure and that stress you were just talking about, and then if you’re bold enough to submit tapes to try to start scaling this, For a QA, a quality assurance and a quality improvement process. And then you get feedback that your work isn’t as aligned with MI as you thought.

You’re rowing and getting whipped and being like, I thought I was rowing, right? I’ve been rowing for a long time and now you’re telling me this. Oh my gosh. Ah, and then it becomes an extremely demotivating for change process. Survival mindset and then leadership is now changing the next initiative to be respect or whatever it’s going to be.

It becomes crazy making when you’re the person in that place. And so just recognizing that leadership and grassroots efforts both matter because we started this Casey talking about incentives. With money. There seems to be something about cultural incentives or structural incentives that matters for our behavior.

So that’s what you’re getting at there. There also seems to be cultural values and beliefs that seem to matter on how they shape. Scalability of am I, and then there needs to be consistency and clear communication in that to feel like the people that are having to do the work and the rowing are making progress and aligning with those things.

And so there’s a number of factors that would come together to scale this. And 1 of those things you were alluding to is having motivation interviewing be measured and having giving feedback with. Certain fidelity tools that I just wanted to be explicit about that we’re talking about, but to do that takes a financial investment on the organization’s part, takes a certain level of clarity that we try to help them with upfront, but then it also takes a certain level of consistent commitment and discipline.

And that is a lot to ask. That’s why I think you said the political will. That if we can start to raise up and see the evidence for how we treat people matters and the consistency and, and, and all of those things matter for outcomes, then we can have more faith in the science to support people’s autonomy to treat people this way, that more pro social, more healthy, whatever you want to say, outcomes are likely to happen, even though we might be taking a risk.

That we can always go back to compliance, which is the thing I know we might not have time for to talk about today, maybe another podcast, but just those limits of, yes, we can always come in with compliance. But short of that, can we operationalize this? Can we? Scale this. And it seems like there’s hope there.

It just takes a certain amount of will, effort, vision and consistency. And hopefully this has helped to clarify that a little bit in some certain ways. But I’m wondering if there are any other thoughts either of you have before we wrap up our. Podcast this time around, I just think it’s just like we talked about.

It’s just a, a huge construct to get our arms wrapped around of like, when you talk about taking it to scale, I hope we provided some clarity, Danielle, you’re such a great end of one to also think about in terms of if it has, if it makes sense to you for where we start and where we end, it’s kind of a windy road, but I hope there’s some coherence to the whole concept.

Yeah. You know, I, it was interesting coming into this. You know, that’s why I tossed it to you in the beginning, John is like the scale. I didn’t, I didn’t quite understand where we might take it with the scaling piece. And now I totally have a, a big picture view of it. And also a lot of compassion for a system in general, like the energy of a system.

And it’s just like all of these shifting things. It’s like, Oh, no wonder there’s so many challenges. And. A lot of empathy for those leaders, like when you were describing your analogy of, okay, yeah, there’s a new, new boss on the ship here running things. And it’s just like, well, the old boss had a great intention.

The new one does too, but it’s just like, how do you start making everything flow and work together more? And it starts with these conversations, this awareness and Hey guys, no pressure out there, but. All you leaders, like let’s really own it. Let’s really say, yes, instead of just, yeah, communications are our biggest challenge.

Own it because you at the, that top position have the ability to set a much longer runway for success. For the organization and your people. So I love that. It’s so hopeful to me and, so insightful. So for me, it, it, this really did help bring a lot to the table. And I also think a lot of great empathy for, for all of us that have been in the, in the seats, right?

Rowing and it’s just like, we all know it. So it’s just like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense. I was so frustrated. And so the empathy all around, I think is helpful. I was just going to throw in the opportunity of how Casey, you run these leadership, classes for different organizations. I just want to throw that out.

Not as just a shameless plug, but that there are ways to go about, thinking about this and communicating this in an organizational way from the bottom to the top that. Doesn’t create that disconnect of blaming outside the self so much so much as a common way of approaching the vision mission values that you, you know, help in those trainings.

I just want to say that not as a shameless plug, but as like, there’s hope and clarity as to ways to go about. Doing this in systems, it takes work and it takes humility. It takes discipline. It takes a political will. It’s just there is possibility here. That isn’t just theory or philosophy that I just want to throw in there that we’re actively trying to do to help bridge those gaps as best we can.

So sorry to interrupt there, Casey. Go ahead. Well, no, it just and I think that that’s the link with, uh. What Daniela, we’re talking about just the empathy for those that are in the seats that are doing the rowing and then that whole, and I know, you know, this as well, too. It’s also the empathy for the executive leadership team who is, you know, getting calls about different directions that they’re, you know, intended to take and, you know, political wins and financial wins that keep changing and, and changes of people that are the mid management that are trying to understand where executive leadership is coming from and translate that down to the workforce.

I mean, just. It’s empathy for all of those individuals. And, and I, that’s why I keep going back to it. It just, for me, it’s lightens my load and lightens my heart to know that the data that we see is just starting from that place of understanding where people are at will get us to better outcomes. Starting from that place of empathy for everyone within the system.

Is not just a feel good thing that there is, there is benefit to that, short term and long term benefits. So that’s the reason why I love motivation interviewing. Yeah. And it’s like, I go back to like, you blame outside yourself. If you’re not going to have empathy, you’re going to blame. So if in rowing, I’m going to blame outside myself.

I’m going to blame middle management. I’m going to blame leadership. Leadership’s going to blame middlemen. It’s like, if you step into the space of empathy. Whoo. And then, and then I’m excited about the opportunity for consistency. Yes. So John, you mentioned it. It’s like Casey, I’ve seen you train and continue to, you know, I know we typically don’t call it coaching, but that’s what it is.

It’s like consistency means not one and done. So yes, we definitely do training, motivational interviewing, training intro and advanced. And there’s this ongoing path though, that I think. Go ahead and do one and done, but the reality is these bigger scaling ideas, that’s consistency. It’s like in branding, I always tell people, they’re like, oh my God, I’ve said this 20 million times.

I’m like the, I’m pretty sure the latest study was like, well, the 26th time somebody hears you say it is the first time they even know you exist. So it’s like, we’re sick of, we think we’ve got it, but it’s like. the consistency piece is huge. That’s very helpful. So thank you guys so much. What an awesome podcast.

I love this. I’m not sure where it’s going to go. And then it’s like, Oh, so thanks guys, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Again, keep your questions coming. Let us know if you want to join us, any feedback. And we, we really welcome you.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.Com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. This episode explores how empathy and effective communication are pivotal during jury selection and throughout the trial process. Casey offers profound insights into the judicial system’s complexities, emphasizing the critical role of civic duty and the challenges it faces in modern society. The podcast also discusses the concept of ambivalence, particularly in the context of legal decision-making and jury deliberation, highlighting the impact of individual values and biases. Through Danielle’s firsthand account, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the deliberation dynamics and the diverse approaches jurors bring to the table. The episode underscores the importance of appreciating civic responsibilities like jury duty, and recognizing its significant impact on individuals, organizations, and communities.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Jury Duty Experience: Danielle Cantin shares her recent jury duty experience, emphasizing the significant role of communication and empathy in the judicial process. * Empathy in Jury Selection: Danielle discusses how empathy and communication techniques were crucial during the in-depth jury selection process she underwent. * Navigating Societal Norms: The conversation touches on societal perceptions of jury duty and the struggle between societal norms and personal values. * Judicial System Insights: Casey Jackson provides insights into the complexities of the judicial system, highlighting its challenges and the importance of civic duty. * Ambivalence in Decision-Making: The podcast explores the concept of ambivalence, especially in the context of jury deliberation and legal decision-making. * Impact of Individual Values: The discussion emphasizes how individual values play a critical role in jurors’ ability to be fair and unbiased. * Motivational Interviewing and Jury Duty: While not directly applicable, the principles of motivational interviewing are discussed in relation to understanding and navigating personal biases and ambivalence. * Deliberation Dynamics: Danielle shares her experiences during jury deliberation, illustrating the diverse approaches and thought processes among jurors. * Appreciation for Civic Responsibility: The podcast concludes with a reflection on the honor and responsibility of serving as a juror and the profound impact of such civic duties on individuals and the community.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Transcribe Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication, we love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. Hello everyone. It’s Danielle Cantin here, your facilitator with the communication solution podcast. And I am here joined by Casey Jackson, your host. Hey Casey. Hey. How are you? I’m doing good. Awesome. We are going to go down a little path.

I was on jury duty. I was selected for jury duty. So I would love to talk to you about the communication solution, all the things you train in terms of empathy and all of these things were popping for me as I was going through this process, which honestly, I don’t remember I’ve ever participated in. I think I maybe went into a big giant room and eventually was let out.

Maybe I heard. Attorneys questioning people that they ended up choosing, but this was really unique. I actually went through a pretty in depth selection process. It was about three days long. And, then I was chosen. And I think many people might know that you can be unchosen. It’s not rocket science to figure out what you might need to do, even if it isn’t true to, Present yourself in a certain way that might not be appealing.

So, it reminds me of, did you ever see the, the series, the jury duty? Netflix, where the one guy suggested that a guy say something and it was just like, no, you don’t, you don’t. Cause it wasn’t true for him at all. But all of these things are popping through my head as I’m in this, because that’s not ideal.

Everybody, the instant reaction to jury duty is, Oh God, really? Oh, bummer. You get out of it. And I found myself slipping into just society norms of like, Oh, like drama, trauma, how, how’s business going to continue? And this is so much time and you know, all the, all the, the pokes at, well, Oh, you can get 15 a day, you know, there’s just so much negativity around it.

And yes. I would love to, to kind of get your insights on what happened for me through that process. Cause it started there and I was just like, Oh man, I can’t believe it was actually called a emergency. You actually, your group has to come in. Cause I got away Friday night. I didn’t have to, I called, I don’t have to come in Monday night.

I called emergency. You have to come in tomorrow. And I was like, Oh, snap. Transition to people telling me, well, you know, you just can. Do this or do that and get out of it and me having to reevaluate my values very much. So yeah, so it was a tough case. So I’m doing more talking probably than listeners.

I would ever want you guys to have to put up with because we want to hear from you Casey, but to give you a context and give you some questions. I’d love your perspective on the judicial system and what that opportunity and role might be for a juror. Yeah, it’s difficult because it does trigger my own writing reflex, you know, so I just will own that ahead of time, but I have my own biases and, and, and it does have an impact on the whole judicial system.

I’ve been lucky enough to work from, you know. Probation with law enforcement from the minute something happens to, working with judges who I just have been able to work with the entire spectrum to people being long term incarcerated, the D. A. Prosecutors. Yes, they love prosecutors. So I get all these different vantage points.

Um. And then when I step back and look at systems, you know, and try to bridge this from your individual experience as a juror and, you know, the system, justice system, part of the reason the justice system is broken, it is broken and you can ask nearly anyone. I’ve talked to judges who will say it, prosecutors say it, definitely the actual people that are in the justice system feel that it’s broken.

Part of it is because of this whole thing about civic duty. You know, 50 years ago, you were not, you did not try to ditch jury duty. It was an honor to serve my mother. It was, it was truly like voting or like, this is part of being part of our country, like other countries don’t all have this kind of a judicial system where it’s a jury of your peers.

So it’s sad to an extent that a jury of my peers don’t want to be a jury. Um. You know, so then you end up with a jury of people who want to, you know, and then there’s, so there’s some intrinsic bias there instead of having people that just genuinely are like, this is my civic duty. I am showing up because I want to be part of a judicial system on a larger level.

So that’s my, that’s my bias. I’m just going to own ahead of time. I, I know I have bias and I know that this has a profound impact on how I view this, but I’m going to try to pull it into the M. I. lane. Do you think, That that’s part of what’s broken is the fact that the jury of the peers really doesn’t this interesting that you said your mom viewed it as something great.

I don’t have that memory of anybody ever enjoying it or looking forward to it, but I will tell you, I got there fast because I know so many, public defenders, criminal, private criminal defense attorneys, DAs as well. I somehow attract attorneys, so I’m all set if anything’s ever needed. But I, so I know them, but I never fully understood or, or looked at the top of the mountain for me and what I value until this experience, because it was truly an honor.

And, it wasn’t, I’m doing my duty, pat me on the back. It was, man, I am so grateful as broken or as faulty as the system is. I don’t have a ton of experience of what it’s like everywhere else, but I am awfully grateful for where I live and the opportunity should I need it. On either side, right? And that’s what I got really fast was, while I lean toward empathy, like very high, high empathy, I was like, am I able to pull, have that for both?

And am I able to, be objective? And my only point is, can, will you follow the law, whether I agree with it or not, and be a fair, a fair juror to both sides to everything. And I was like, man, I would, if I was on either side, I would want someone like me and on the, on the 12. And so that’s kind of true to, to my answer jury of your peers.

I mean, that to me, it, you know, when we look at motive for me, when I look at just some of the aspects of motivation, because you can’t say, I mean, motivationally is not part of jury duty. It’s these constructs that I talk about it, that I get obsessed with. And like, when we talk about values, If you have more individualistic values and you don’t want to serve on a jury because it’s inconvenient to you, that is a value for yourself.

If you look at things like integrity, for a system to have integrity, it takes people that have integrity, and the way you define your approach to it is a way that’s integrity. What your decision may not line up completely with your values. Your decision is going to line up with integrity to what the law is and to the facts presented in front of you.

And to take that seriously is just a different mindset. Which is why they try to get a jury of your peers who have less bias because they want it to be a fair trial. And wouldn’t we want the exact same thing, you know, I would want a jury of people that despise motivational interviewing on my, on my jury, if they hated motivational interviewing, like that’s, doesn’t feel fair, if people have, you know, religious bias or cultural bias or racial bias, immediately it’s just like, this isn’t fair.

You know, and for justice to be served, it requires that level of, you know, that, the lack of bias, which is what we talked about with equipoise and motivational interviewing. And what’s difficult about that because of our writing reflex. So now you take that and drop it into like the setting you were in and your writing reflex, because you are a natural, normal human being, your writing reflex is going to be triggered.

When information is presented to you, especially if it’s a heinous crime, there’s going to be information that is going to be triggering and then you’re going to hear a different story that provides a different point of view, which could trigger your writing reflex. So now you have internal conflict, which is the nature of ambivalence, which is what motivation helps navigate.

Yes. So I really was able to pull on what I’ve learned from you and motivational interviewing to just keep pulling myself back because this was a tough case. It was criminal. And I thought I’m pretty good. I’m not, I don’t want to say I’m desensitized, but like I said, I, I know a lot of attorneys and. One in particular, I get some, some pretty big details and it’s criminal trials in LA.

It’s, it’s pretty intense. So I’m like, I can handle anything. And the judge said what the case was about and I was like, Oh, it was, I want to say five minutes. It was probably three where I was like, this is the one I’m not sure I can do. I mean, it was the writing reflex or the, the reaction was so strong, but the judge did a wonderful job.

I kept thinking I want Casey to evaluate the judge. Like, I felt like a great job facilitating because he’s like, you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have a reaction. If you didn’t have biases, if you didn’t, can you put those aside? Can you, you know, and I was like, I got there pretty quick with like, yep.

And do you believe the law is innocent until proven guilty? And I’m like, yes, because all I have is that deep empathy of like, who knows, who knows? I’m going to totally, I am just a sponge here to listen and come up with my own abiding conviction and truth and credibility and all of those different things.

Absolutely. And I think that’s the ability to just try to filter that out is it’s just fascinating and knowing how to an extent, I was going to say knowing how the brain works, but, you know, to the extremely limited extent that I know how the brain works in wrestling with ambivalence, it’s just fascinating the humanity behind it, but then our capacity, which is just amazing to me, our capacity to almost take a meta perspective on our own brain and go, okay, I am feeling triggered by this, but yes, I can be fair.

Yes, I’m getting triggered by this, but I believe in innocent until proven guilty. Yes, I have my bias, but I do want to listen to the facts on both sides and try to be fair. Yes, I have my bias, but I do want to look at what the law says and try to uphold that as an agent of a court and an agent of being respectful to my.

My social peers, you know, that this is their lives and I want to be respectful to both of their lives or whoever’s lives are involved in this crime. It just, it’s just a chronic state of ambivalence being part of the judicial process. I know it for judges. I know it for prosecutors. I know it for, um.

Corrections officers who I’ve worked with in the prison system, you know, probation officers after, you know, it’s just parole officers, like it just, it’s a field that generates massive amounts of ambivalence, massive amounts of ambivalence and massive amounts of social debate as well too. And so for me, it’s those grounding factors of we, we can pick, this came up a little bit too, and, in the, be the change training that we’ve done, you can, it’s pretty easy for us to pick one value at the top of the mountain and then get really righteous.

If you’re going to add other values that you have into the equation, it starts to get significantly more complicated. quickly. So if I’m just going to say, I am going to operate from a place of respect, respect, respect, respect, respect, respect, respect, respect. This person needs to be respectful at all costs.

You may not be operating from a place of connection or integrity or even contribution, but boy, you died on the hill of respect. And I see, I see this happen in our culture, our American culture right now, even on a global level as well. Of just around politics and other things as well, too. So, so as soon as you get into something as provocative as the judicial system, again, within the United States or globally, there is no way that is not going to be a provocative conversation with someone it should, because there’s so many strong feelings around justice.

Um. Or the absence of justice in certain countries, or communities, or the apps. Yeah, it just, I keep thinking about it in our own country in the United States, just the absence of justice and where there is justice and where people believe that there’s justice is being served because it meets their needs, even if it subverts the law, like it’s just.

It’s such a complex construct and there’s just no way if you’re going to listen to anything seriously, that it’s not going to generate profound ambivalence within us, which means so again, you’re not using motivation for jury duty, but the constructs of human ambivalence and how do we resolve that? At least there is some, again, blueprint for how do I help my brain assure that my behavior.

Is aligning with my values as dimensionally as I have the capacity to, given the circumstances. While also I’ll add a layer to that of understanding everybody else’s values aren’t yours and then you’re in the law and it’s just like. Wow, I think I’m, I’m just, I’m seeing a blue, a new blue ocean opportunity for what you train Casey, because I know you’re in there with all of these different elements of the judicial system.

And like I said, this particular judge, I thought did a fantastic job communicating with everyone. But what if you were able to get in front of a jury to help judges? Set them up or get in front of more judges to help them be trained in how to communicate to a jury. Because there’s no way jury members understand everything you just shared.

I, I like because of you of like, Oh, this is totally what’s happening. I am grappling right here right now with my own ambivalence. Yes, 2 seconds. Yes. With every new piece of information and just genuinely trying to do the best you can to the best of your ability. Like, every human being is trying to the best they can do the best of their ability, given their circumstances.

You know, just it’s just fascinating. It’s just now that your choices are going to have a profound impact on another human beings life or multiple. No matter what you do, no matter where you fall, no matter where the jury Comes up, it is going to have a profound impact on many, many people, not just the two on opposite benches, you know, it’s just the effect is huge.

Yeah, significantly. And then you get into deliberation. So up until then, sponge, you have jury instructions. It’s the law. Here’s the facts. Here’s the evidence. And of course, here’s. You know, they count on you to use your common sense, your jury of their peers, right? So it’s like, you count on that and your life experiences and common sense to come up with an abiding conviction that you believe and, you know, the validity of somebody’s testimony, that’s something I learned Casey, which was really a great example.

I think of. A total highlighted moment of ambivalence for me, the, the DA actually was questioning during the selection process and said, innocent until proven guilty, of course, is the defense, right? And it’s until, but the DA is saying, do you understand that you could actually find someone guilty based on the sole testimony of one witness?

And I, and she actually called me out on it and said, sure. You know, my number, what’s going on in your brain right now. And I’m literally, my ambivalence was, I was like, I did not know that. And the, in my initial reaction was, alarm. I was like, I went to empathy for the defendant being potentially wrongly accused by one part, you know?

And so then it was funny hearing other jurors reactions to that too, saying, well, there’d be other other evidence in the prosecutor’s thing. No, no other residents. That’s the law. One person, I was like, Oh, that’s, he said, she said, yes. And then she gave the example of, a wonderful example, not wonderful, but identifying example of you’re in a room closed room.

Let’s just say it’s a husband and wife. The wife ends up claiming the husband hit her not right away. So there’s no marks. There’s no evidence. Nobody was around for miles. There’s nothing, nothing, but. The wife on the witness stand, if you have an abiding conviction of what she’s saying, you can find, you know, of course, based on the law that he was guilty, just that.

And I was like, I felt like three days, Casey, where I was really on the struggle bus with that one. Yes. And on the third day I finally went, Oh my gosh. And I was able to see the empathy and the wife going, Oh my God, I would hope if that was me. I would have a course like that. Yes. And this is what’s so one, one person on the juror.

Exactly. Well, and the thing is, it’s so complicated as well too, is because when you’re trying to operate from that level of integrity. It’s hard for your brain not to want to become a prosecutor or a defense attorney or understand the law better or the nuances, and that’s not what a jury of peers would be doing, but your level of integrity is pushing.

You’re like, well, I need to understand a lot. I need to understand this. Maybe I need. Can we get a law book so we can study this? And it’s like, That’s not your job. You know, that’s their job. That’s what they get paid for. That’s what they studied. Your job is to hear it. The law is the law. It’s your job to hear it as a peer and render what you think is a fair verdict based on the facts in front of you.

That’s just, that’s a huge civil duty. I mean, it just, and that’s why I think I know my own, you know, again, writing reflex around is like, that just, I wouldn’t want a. A jury of my peers that think on that level that, you know, and I just think, why would we not grant that to our fellow citizens, you know, on that same level?

So, yeah, this is, this is a topic that can go on forever because of the level of dimensionality is fascinating. Yeah. And then you’re not allowed to talk about anything when you’re doing it. So I’m like, Oh, I got it. I’m like, we’re going to do a podcast. Please get Casey. I want your perspective. I’m like, I’m pretty sure this entire process is riddled with tenants from motivational interviewing.

Yeah. Again. And it’s just that whole thing about how do we navigate ambivalence, you know? And then how do you navigate it in a group, Casey? Cause when you go to deliberate, that’s when it was like, Whoa, you’ve got 12 people. Completely different approaches, completely different ways of thinking, completely different moments of ambivalence to your point, there was a couple that never took their nose out of the binder of jury instructions.

The binders of testimonies that, and it was just, and it was great because they were able to pop out with, oh, there’s a debate happening here. Here’s X, Y in writing. Yes. And that’s not something I would do, you know? So it was, it was fascinating, but everybody’s kind of, oh God, we’re all strangers now, and this is a huge responsibility.

Everybody wants to do it right and well. So it was, it was really interesting navigating all that. So I want to, I think most of all, thank you for what you have been teaching for, for decades now, because I’m just tiny bit of it, Casey, just the past couple of years, and I’m profoundly impacted by the principles you teach and the opportunity for me to be a better human on this planet.

So I really thank you. Oh, thank you. That’s just, yeah, that’s, that’s humbling, especially when we’re talking about human life. It’s very humbling. Absolutely. Yeah. So, all right. Any parting, parting thoughts on this other than everybody?

I think the biggest thing is that, you know, that I would just make sure that I kind of parted with is that, you know, as a participant, like on jury duty, you’re not using motivational interviewing because you’re not trying to help them resolve their ambivalence. It, but I think of Dr. Miller’s book on second thought, and that’s just such a profound book on just the dimensionality of ambivalence, just how, you know, multipolar ambivalence can be.

And I think those tenants that, that lean into motivational interviewing. So, you know, being on a jury is not motivational interviewing and. Being deliberating is not motivational interviewing, but having a profound awareness of just the complexity of ambivalence, the polarities of ambivalence, even more than just bipolar is fascinating.

So yeah, good stuff on second thought. There it is. You have it right there. Fascinating. This for me. So I was just like, I bought it. So I’m excited. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks Danielle. Thank you. Great to see you, Casey. Everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope, hope this was a value to you.

Please let us know at Casey at IFIOC. com and then let us know if you’d like to join the podcast as well. I look forward to hearing from you. Have an awesome day. Thank you. Awesome.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. In this engaging episode delves into the intricate balance between compliance and empowerment in professional settings that are traditionally compliance-oriented, such as law enforcement, probation, and child welfare. The discussion highlights the limitations of compliance models in achieving long-term behavior change and introduces motivational interviewing (MI) as a powerful method for empowering individuals to navigate systemic constraints while making positive life changes. Through examples from child welfare and law enforcement, the hosts illustrate how MI can lead to better outcomes for both professionals and the individuals they serve. The podcast underscores the importance of understanding individual motivations and the impact of organizational culture on compliance-based approaches, inviting listeners to engage further with the topic.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Introduction to Motivational Interviewing (MI) in Compliance-Oriented Professions: The podcast begins with an exploration of how MI is applied in fields where compliance is a key component, such as law enforcement, probation, and child welfare. * Compliance vs. Behavior Change: A distinction is made between compliance-based methods, which are often short-term and don’t lead to sustained behavior change, and behavior change-based methods that MI embodies. * The Limitations of Compliance Models: It’s discussed how compliance models, while useful for immediate outcomes, do not foster long-term change, using the example of individuals returning to old habits after probation. * Empowering Communication: The focus shifts to how professionals can use MI to empower individuals to navigate legal and policy constraints while still making positive changes. * Applying MI in Child Welfare: The podcast delves into the application of MI in child welfare, emphasizing the dual goals of ensuring children’s safety and promoting family and community thriving. * The Role of MI in Law Enforcement: There’s a discussion on the impact of MI training for law enforcement officers, noting a decrease in the use of force and better outcomes. * Navigating Systemic Challenges: The conversation acknowledges the systemic barriers that professionals and their clients face and how MI can be a tool for navigating these challenges. * The Importance of Understanding Individual Motivations: Emphasizing the need to explore and understand what matters to individuals in order to support their autonomy and encourage positive decision-making. * The Impact of Organizational Culture on Compliance: The podcast touches on how organizational culture and supervisory practices can influence professionals’ reliance on compliance versus empowerment approaches.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Hi everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin, your facilitator of the Communication Solution Podcast, and I’m here with Casey Jackson, your host, and John Gilbert. How are you guys? Awesome. Well, we’re here to talk about basically the communication solution, but really weaving in all of the principles and theories around motivational interviewing, this incredible evidence based practice that has me mesmerized by the results and outcomes that it’s able to achieve in people’s lives.

What I’d love to dive into today for a topic is, one that typically you’re advised not to talk about, which is politics. Yeah, I was, I was hoping and thinking, you know, what if we use this podcast in this time together to talk about and unpack the complexities around politics and how can we look at that topic through the lens of motivational interviewing?

How does that sound? That is a very tight needle to thread, for sure. Sounds risky, which makes me want to do it twice as much. With protection, which means that we’re putting some kind of guidelines to, I think what I’m intrigued with with that, Danielle, is You know, we talk so much about equipoise and try and keep bias out.

So I think trying to unpack it from that perspective could be a challenge, but I think it’s very interesting. I have extremely strong political beliefs like many people do and have lots of pretty emotional reactions, to things that are happening locally and, in the United States and globally. So to unpack it from that, from an MI perspective and looking at that, It’ll be a tight rope for us to walk, but I’m, I’m definitely willing to do that.

I don’t know what thoughts you have, John. Yeah. Well, what I’m particularly curious about from your perspective in the involvement with the motivational interviewing network of trainers meant, and thinking about that is how much is there this like underlying theoretical philosophical basis to, am I, and how much is, am I a sort of approach that’s ever evolving?

With the outcomes. And I just, I think getting oriented to what is the lens we’re even looking through might be helpful for everyone, us talking and others involved to just get oriented. And I say that too, with our time that we were in, at the international training. This year in Copenhagen, there were people talking about integrating more philosophy into MI.

And I just think we could be shooting in lots of directions if we don’t kind of get oriented first to what is the lens we’re looking through with this and then maybe going from there. I don’t know, you know, when you say that, that the things that I would clarify pretty quickly is that. Using motivation learning to talk politics is a mismatch because you can use aspects of it to reduce resistance.

You may be able to have somebody work through their ambivalence, but I think the caution or almost the red flag in that, not even the yellow flag, is how would you do that if you don’t, if your own bias is involved? Like, how ambivalence towards what you want them to? Do or because they’re trying to resolve something internally.

So we’re not going to go down that path of like, how do you use motivation in a political conversation? That is not this conversation. That’s not what we’re going to talk about. Because that’s, that would not be an accurate application of motivational interviewing just based on bias. I think when we step back and look at the construct of motivational interviewing of how do we want to work through our own ambivalence, interacting with people in our lives that may believe differently than we do, or people that we run across that may behave in a way that’s very, Antithetical to the way the things we believe or how we believe people should treat each other.

I think those are the things that you can think, how can I be more effective in my interactions in the next period of time as, as the U S is rolling towards, you know, another presidential election. And there’s a lot of political unrest globally as well too. So I think if we can tease that out, I’m pretty excited about, seeing where we can go with that.

Easy. Easy. So, well, one, there’s, there’s so many areas to explore here. It’s kind of like what is most salient and that’s part of getting oriented to the, the lens first. So I’m kind of curious for you, Casey or Danielle, what, Rings is most salient to start with, either from an M I perspective or what’s happening locally or globally.

What, what, where’s the salience here to kind of hook on? Yeah, I think the thing for me, because I, you know, as I’m preparing for the whole, be the change training. Series, I’m just so immersed in reading different things and and looking at the research of what produces the most change and I’m going to lead into this by saying this isn’t the right way.

It’s not the only way. You know, the reason why I’m even leading in with that is I think there. It’s hard for me. I’ve had this conversation in my brain this morning, ironically, that I really believe so strongly in my heart because my mother was such a strong advocate and a fierce advocate for human rights, women’s rights, you know, underserved population, just that was my mother.

And she was a force. And I so respected, admired that. But what struck me this morning is that that doesn’t always generate change. In the most effective and efficient way. So how do you tell people not to advocate how not to march for their rights and march where they believe in? Because it’s, that is one of our rights in the United States to be able to do things like that.

So that’s why I want to make sure that I’m not saying I’m agreeing, disagreeing, saying this is the right way to do it, or this is the right way to do it, or that’s the wrong way to do it. I just want to preface what there’s lots of right ways. Depending on what fits with your values, this is where I think we can open the door to conversations and motivational interviewing, because it’s like, how do we make the best values based decisions?

What struck me about this, John, was that just really being so immersed in the research recently that, Dr. Miller and Dr. Moyers produced in, in their latest book, looking at the meta analysis around the impact of empathy and acceptance and positive regard. Are some of the strongest indicators for people to change behavior, which is the antithesis of arguing and marching, and advocating because that pounding your fist on the table can feel very validating that I’m doing something and I’m not doing nothing.

It’s. interesting to look at the correlation between that and actual systemic change. So you can’t say that that’s not affected because you look at some of the times that’s happened in the U. S. history or in histories in other countries and sometimes those revolutions brought about significant change.

I, I think about this from change in my fellow human, Not political change or, you know, hopefully environmental change, but I think that’s what’s difficult to do this. Well, so for me, when I’m looking at the data side of it, I look at the foundations of motivational and I look at what the data shows around what changes behavior or thinking and it really comes down to ironically, just that high accurate empathy and starting from a place of acceptance.

Because it doesn’t generate a reactive response. It doesn’t generate a resistance response. It may not generate change immediately, but there’s a higher potential. There’s higher change potential when there’s not already an inertia being built up to stop yourself from changing. Because you need to fight against somebody or justify a choice or justify a decision or justify a behavior.

So I think those are the things for me that are really intriguing that I think looking through that motivational or viewing lens, looking at what data shows us, it’s interesting that some of the ways that we’d interact with each other would almost be the opposite of what we think we’re supposed to do or what we feel driven or compelled to do, which tends to be more of a confrontive approach.

Yeah, when it related to that, I can just think of all these examples and maybe we could talk through one if we wanted to, but we’re, we’re thinking about this conceptually and the, the sense of thinking that, if the person just knew is a bias, I have listening to lots of examples for coding. I was just listening to a.

Child protective services won the other day that, oh, this person doesn’t believe that their child having a positive. Test for drugs in their system, really matters that much. Well, that seems to matter what I think you’re pointing out, Casey, that the tendency is, and this could be the same with our blood work, with our health, that the tendency is to focus on that and not focus on the accurate understanding first and curiosity first and acceptance and sense of that.

They seem to care about something at all. And That those fundamentals that are in effective psychotherapist book that, that you’re alluding to seem to be more important as a foundational default. Then the eighth one of that would be some potential information related to all that. And it’s just so difficult as humans to not be triggered and jump to, especially when we feel it’s really important and we’re passionate about it.

The writing reflex and all that stuff to the information and trying to get the person to see. And I think it’s just so corally, you could get into tribal, you could get into all sorts of ways of looking at it. But it just seems so difficult that it seems like the core you’re talking about just takes a lot of basic practice.

Well, that’s it. And even when you talk about, you know, the eighth. You know, indicator, you know, from the research, he, the only time using even that eighth indicator is if the person wants it or it’s in there based on their value set. And usually we want to give our opinion or advice or education because we think they need it because we think they’re not where they need to be.

And so I think that’s why this becomes so complex. It’s like, well, they don’t get it. They need to understand. So I’ll wait and be empathetic until I explain to them what they need to do. That is not motivational learning either. And it’s not as effective. It doesn’t mean it’s ineffective. It’s just not as effective.

I think what’s so complex about this is even in the situation you talked about. You know, with like a CPS referral, I think this leans into things that you have so much information around and know so well, John, around like confirmation bias, people want to continue narratives that support their own behavior because the fundamentals of motivational learning is we don’t want to be perceived that our behavior is not in alignment with our values.

So the louder I scream and the harder that I march, or the more that I do the behaviors or say the things that I say that look like I’m completely tied to my values, the more righteous I can become about that. When you look at it from more than one value at the top of the mountain, this is where internal conflict starts to come up.

This is where ambivalence can come up. So you can say it from an advocacy perspective, I know this is going to help. If it means that you’re actually doing damage to other people. Does that cause a different reaction in your brain about potential ambivalence inside of you? Like you’re, like you’re making a conscious effort to put your finger on one side of the scale, which is not bad and it’s not wrong, but if it’s going to create potentially from a physics perspective and equally an opposite reaction that could cause damage, where’s the righteousness in damage is damage?

And I think that these are really complex, extremely complex moral issues, personal issues, values based issues, you know, that we’re trying to untangle, but that’s where, for me, motivation, at least I get, I get to kind of put up a stake in the ground and and pop a compass on top of that. It gives me some direction of how do I.

Unpack these extremely complex issues. I, I, you know, and John, you know more about this than I do, but I’m, I’ve been fascinated ever since I was exposed to the Dunning Kruger effect in terms of. In a major argument, someone is inaccurate, but neither believes that they are both believe they are completely accurate.

And the Dunning Kruger effect is the reality is that somebody is not accurate, but neither people believe it. That’s a really fascinating. So every time I get into conversations like that, I think I need to try to keep my brain open because I believe in truth so much, and I’m, I’m such a huge proponent of honesty and transparency.

I try to be that as much as I can every day of my life. That how can I do that if maybe I’m the person that’s not accurate right now, which always gets me to stop for a second, think, try to absorb more information, not just so you can win. That’s not the intention. It’s that I believe in truth and I want to, I want to understand what the most effective or the most right thing is given the circumstances.

And if I’m not right, I think that startles people sometimes because I’m like, oh, my gosh, you’re 100 percent right. I was completely wrong on that. And it almost seems too easy. And they’re like, They think that I’m either shining them on or placating them. And it’s like, no, no, I, that, I, that was just a complete, that was my, I’ve just misunderstood that it was a misread on my part.

I was not accurate in that. John, that’s happened with you. And I, I cannot even count the number of times in 10 years that it’s just like, Whoa, that was, I didn’t have the right perspective. I was missing information and I could feel how righteous I felt, but that was just inaccurate. You know, and I always try to just as humbly as I can just go, yeah, that was.

That was, that was me, that was my, I was taking the righteous road in a way that was inaccurate or not what my intention was. That’s not always easy for us to do. Does that really feed into the concept of the unconscious bias? It’s like, you know, I don’t know that everybody’s walking around really appreciating the fact that they have that.

Um. And I’m speaking about it just because I happen to come off jury duty and it was just so reinforced that we have all of that, you know, so it’s like, let’s, let’s, let’s call it out. And can you put that aside? And it sounds like in these conversations, unpacking anything you might have around the ambivalence or even strong, strong feelings about something.

Are you willing to kind of interject that acknowledgement? That there’s things you don’t know about yourself. I think what’s so fascinating to me, John, I’m really curious. Your perspective on this is I think what’s startling to me, which shouldn’t be, this is all part of the Dunning Kruger as well, too, is that it startles me that some people just don’t care.

You can explain what unconscious bias is, and they don’t care. You can explain what very clear bias is. And there’s people that just, they, they process the data, they agree with the concept, and they don’t care because that’s not what they’re, they’re not going to make decisions based off of how that affects other people, or they just don’t care.

So they’re aware, they’re informed, they understand concepts, but that’s just not how they operate. And I think that was, I was under a delusion thinking that everybody wants to do the right thing for the right reasons for all people. The majority of the time, like we’re here to be helpful and interact in the most healthy way with our fellow human beings.

And I was startled that I even have a very specific friend I can think of that says, yeah, that’s not my job. And I don’t, I don’t give a shit about somebody else’s family or kids. And I’m not paying taxes to take care of their kids or educate them. That’s my job to take care of my family. So I don’t care.

And I don’t care if it hurts their feelings and I don’t care if they’re homeless and I don’t care. And it was just like, Literally, I could feel brain cells exploding in my brain ground. I’ve never, Oh my gosh. And it’s somebody that is a friend of mine that it just, I didn’t know that perspective existed, which was just complete naivety and ignorance on my side.

Which is Focus mountain, right? Cause it’s like, I even have the unconscious bias of like people have similar values, which for me, it’s, it’s about integrity. It’s about truth. It’s about learning and growth. So I’m always actually tuning in and super aware of, do I have an unconscious bias? Whereas other people are like, don’t care.

That’s it, Daniel. It’s so funny. What struck me when you said that, because I’m thinking about this example with a friend of mine and thinking about what you were just talking about. I remember this. I, I was. Lucky enough that I worked super hard during my master’s degree, worked overtime, like I was going full time master’s, working overtime, saving as much money as I could because I’d been working since I was 18 in the field, and I was saving money to go to Europe for a year.

And it was about month 7 when I was in Europe. And I was just, I was in a hostel. I can’t remember where I was at, even what country I was in. But I remember, you know, a guy walks into the hostel, you know, young guy like me walks in the hostel into the room and it’s like, you know, says some salutation in, in their language.

And I said, Oh, Hey, how are you doing? And I could hear my accent. I never thought I had an accent because I’m from the Pacific Northwest, but so every, most people believe they don’t have an accent, you know, or there’s a Southern accent, but I could actually hear like, Oh my, I have an accent. I didn’t think that I thought I was the only one who speaks clearly, with no accent, but when, as soon as I said that, it was like, I couldn’t stop, stop thinking about that for the next few days.

Like, Oh my gosh, I have an accent. I just. Heard it when I said, how you doing, like there’s a cadence or there’s an accent to that. And I think it’s the same thing is when you’re so immersed in your own reality of truth or growth mindset or integrity, the way that we individually define it. And then you find your human mates that kind of resonate with that.

Then you think, okay, I’ve got other people out there that believe this and it really validates what I believe. Not knowing there’s another tribe somewhere who’s doing the same thing from a different belief or a different value set like that’s it makes sense when we say it, but when we look at daily operations, it’s mind boggling to us that it happens, even though it’s been happening since the dawn of, you know, human, that there’s tribalism and there’s things that happen.

There’s different beliefs. And even within within groups, there’s infighting because there’s different beliefs or values and how those get, Actualized or, or people try to operationalize those. So why is it any wonder that, you know, in the U S our countries being split in half or globally, you can look at other countries that are being split in half by wars and religion because it’s been happening since there’s been humans.

So that ambivalence has existed and then it gets into how righteous am I going to get in my, get in my behavior in terms of how I approach these things that I have heartfelt, soul felt investments in that I believe with every fiber of my being and somebody believes 180 degrees the opposite of what I know in my every cell of my being to be true and then somebody believes that 180 degree opposite of that.

That is discombobulating. So what do we need to do? We need to be righteous. And what we’re talking around, it seems with the eight components of what seems to be most effective for helpful helpers in an effective psychotherapist, that book, it seems to be. The opposite of that is to, you could say, squelch or dissolve everything we’re talking about, depending on how you want to look at it, how you want to approach it, active, passive to then surrender, suppress those sensations for what, right?

And I think this is the key is what’s our motive behind doing what we’re talking about. I want to, I want to parking lot that for a minute, just to. Respond to some things that you both brought up, but I do want to bring it back to like, why would we even go to the work of this? Right? Why would you try to remain humble when it feels a lot more comfortable and a lot more, great in the moment to just let it rip, right?

With your feelings, your emotions. So why would we? I think that’s really important to get oriented to. I just want to comment as briefly as I can that, you know, Casey, you and I have talked about this a lot being egocentric. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not egotistical per se, but centric, focused on our perspective. I still am very aware of this myself, a lot of my own, not growing up as much with, focused on other people’s perspective and how I view the world.

But a lot of humans, we could say, I don’t know of a study to point to, have this way of viewing the world from their perspective. With that. Comes what you were talking about Danielle that I have biases. We all have biases and how we look at the world Well, we need to make sense of all this Otherwise, we’re going to be two or three year olds that everything is crazily different all the time And we have no way of operating in the world.

We have to have these frameworks of schema and learning a by product of these frameworks are going to be stereotypes are going to be un Irrational, less based in objective thinking things because we’re making quick decisions that serve us a lot of the time. And I’ll just point people to the book Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Amos, I can’t remember his last name.

But they show in a series of research how incredibly irrational we are as humans for how rational we want to think we are and basically how Maya Angelou’s quote of people won’t remember, you know, what you said necessarily or what you did. I’m paraphrasing, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.

Has wrong. So true in my life and seems to be so important is do I feel competent? We could bring in self determination theory. Do I feel like I relate to those people around me? Do I feel like I am right? Right? All these things we could bring in. And the more I feel those things, the more I feel hardened to me being right and you being wrong.

And it’s uncomfortable for me. To leave that. So why would I leave that? And that’s what I want to kind of bring up is we could get into the psychology of Dunning Kruger sunk cost implicit bias, which, by the way, if anyone wants to test those. University of Pennsylvania has a great series of tests you can go on there and I found mine and you can find yours and it’s all free that are validated.

We can’t get rid of them completely and we have some that are will stay unconscious, but anyhow, I’ll just say, regardless of getting into all that minutia, that’s its own world. Why would we not just go with feeling good in those moments then? What’s the point to taking an MI or effective psychotherapist eight stage thing to all this?

Ah, there’s so many things I’m thinking. So I’m gonna try to keep this on track. One of the things, I think one of the startling things to me is how much For being raised in psychology, you know, academically and, you know, really wanting to be a, I was obsessed with psychology and still am to an extent how much I’m drifting towards more physiology, biology, brain chemistry, neurology, because there’s such a hardwired aspect to those things, you know, the measurability of that.

Seems to be easier to measure to some extent than psychology. So that’s just an overstatement, but that’s my brain is, the more data I get, the more information I lean that way. I, I love, Lisa Barrett’s, you know, this whole new, reality around trauma and the way the brain works is, you know, flipping things on its head because it’s not the triune brain concept.

So when you’re talking about this, John, it’s so much psychology that you’re talking about. And one thing that she said that just. My reset button is, is we all came from a gut on a stick in the water. So it’s like we were a gut on a stick in the water and when things were going to consume us, we just retract it.

And it’s like, Oh my God, I don’t know if there’s much different than that between this 2024 election in the United States. A lot of us are just guts on a stick that just when something’s coming our way, that’s dangerous and we either want to eat it. Or, or we’re afraid it’s going to eat us, you know, and it’s like, so there’s psychology, but honestly, if we’re just a gut on a stick, it’s kind of somewhat of a survival mindset of, I need to put my, I need to mark my territory of who I am and what my identity is.

And then I need to assess who comes into my territory of, is it food or is it a predator? So which is, that’s not psychology based, that is, that is, you know, biology, survival based. That’s energy based. That’s a different mindset. The irony in that is, is that the basis of psychology? Are we putting all these human words around?

Ideas when the reality is, is that our neural network is set up in a way to try to think about how we’re maximizing energy and minimizing energy. So to get a certain interesting rush when we yell and scream and go off on someone, we get a brain boost. It gives it because that adrenaline rush gives us a sense of power and that power can come across to ourselves as a rock straight, a strong sense of righteousness.

So to try to tease these things out to me is just so fascinating because our brains are designed as a bank of withdrawal and deposits and because if you withdraw too much, you will die. It’s not that you’ll be poor, you will die. That’s our, that’s our physiology. That’s our biology. So you can’t shrink into your shell every time something comes by because the energy expenditure that that takes, if you do that consistently, you’re not taking in enough calorie count to sustain that.

So you have to start to discern what is true predator and what is true prey. And you have to start to pick that up. This is at the most basic cellular level of when things started to consume other things. So it’s so interesting when we start from that mindset and then start to look at psychology. It’s like, then we put all this psychobabble around it of all these different theories of that people are putting together, which aren’t inaccurate.

It’s just another way of defining. What our biological basis is, the research is extremely consistently explaining, and I’m going to just say for somebody driving around with maybe a flag in the back of their truck, ready to shoot somebody. If they don’t agree with them, is that really wildly different to the person that sees the person driving around with a flag in their truck?

Like that, that’s, is that anemone, you know, in the ocean when something that comes by that could consume it? You know, how do you, how do you assess threat? And this is again, the basis of trauma and trauma response. So it’s so interesting. We talk about this because I think it’s it’s for me. It’s almost more fun to talk about the political side and the psychological side and the emotional side.

But then there’s this other part of my brain now that’s becoming more educated in terms of, but is this all just word salad that justifies. Some things that are just basic biological survival mechanisms. But now, since we do get food, air and water, regularly, well, for me, probably too much food, that since we have access to all of these things, then we have more time to get into the psychology and the interactions with each other because we’re not in just pure survival mode any longer.

And once we’re not just in pure survival mode, then we start to stake out a ground in terms of a belief system. And once we start to stake that out, then we’re gonna start fighting people for that belief system because we can expend more energy. So, and for me, this really does it is so consistent with how I feel about politics, how I, how I feel about, you know, things that are happening around the globe, but isn’t just a representation of me and the way that I’m seeing myself in the world and how I want to perceive myself to be while I’m walking on this planet at this period of time.

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About this EpisodeWe hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment. Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. This episode In this engaging episode we delve into the intricate dynamics of political discourse, focusing on the challenges and opportunities for understanding and civility. Through personal anecdotes and discussions on the role of values, mindfulness, and the biological underpinnings of conflict, the hosts explore how individuals can engage in political conversations in a way that respects differing perspectives without compromising their own values. The podcast highlights an innovative civility summit initiative that aims to bridge divides through decisional balance exercises, emphasizing the potential for growth and understanding in political dialogue. The conversation encourages listeners to approach political engagement as an informed choice, rather than a conflict, fostering a more constructive and less confrontational political landscape. The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to share their own experiences and insights on navigating the complex world of politics with civility and respect.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Introduction to the Complex World of Political Discourse: The podcast opens by acknowledging the challenges and tensions inherent in political conversations, emphasizing the goal to understand differing perspectives deeply. * Personal Anecdote of Political Dialogue: A host shares a personal experience of engaging in a political discussion with a friend, highlighting the importance of seeking to understand opposing views. * The Role of Values in Political Beliefs: The discussion explores how personal values shape political opinions, emphasizing the need to recognize and respect the value systems of others. * Civility Summit Initiative: One host shares involvement in a civility summit aimed at fostering civil discourse among individuals with divergent political views, using decisional balance exercises to facilitate understanding. * Mindfulness in Political Discussions: The conversation turns to the importance of mindfulness and acceptance in political dialogue, promoting a deeper understanding without necessarily agreeing. * The Biological Basis of Righteous Indignation: A discussion on how the body’s chemical responses to conflict and righteousness can become addictive, influencing behavior in political discussions. * Aligning Behavior with Values: The hosts reflect on the importance of ensuring personal behaviors are consistent with individual values, even in the heat of political debate. * The Definition and Nature of Politics: The podcast examines the formal definition of politics as governance and conflict, pondering on how this inherent conflict can be navigated more constructively. * Choosing Civility Over Conflict: The dialogue suggests reimagining political engagement as a choice informed by values rather than a battleground, promoting a more thoughtful and less confrontational approach. * Invitation for Audience Engagement: The podcast closes by inviting listeners to share their experiences and thoughts on navigating political discussions and maintaining civility.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world.Hi everyone. This is Danielle Cantin. I’m your facilitator today with the Communication Solution podcast. And I’m here with your hosts, Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hello. Hey guys. Today, I thought we could dive into a compliance situation.

When you look at motivational interviewing, oftentimes we’re working in compliance type models and systems. So it makes you think of law enforcement, probation, child welfare. Where’s the benefit in that intersection with motivational interviewing? When you’re looking at these systems and people trying to help other people.

Deeply rooted in a, you know, compliance type model. This is a really, really common question that we get, Danielle, because John and I get to train a lot of these, uh, professionals in these types of systems. And there are two ways of thinking about, like, one of the first things we launch into in, in the intro training is differentiating.

Between compliance based methods of communication and behavior change based methods of communication. And what’s really fascinating about it is the more data comes out, the data is pretty clear that compliance based. Interventions don’t coincide with long term sustained behavior change. And the example that I always use with people in training is for anyone that’s ever worked with any person that’s been on probation before, especially, you know, years I worked in juvenile probation.

What’s one of the first things we know is going to happen as soon as they get off probation? They even say it. One of the first things they’re going to do is go party or use again. Um, and so that could be, they could be on probation for 2 years. And the 1st thing they’re planning on doing is getting messed up or as soon as they’re released from prison or from jail, the 1st thing they plan to do is get messed up.

So compliance models do not generate behavior change. Compliance models aren’t bad for what they’re designed for. For a swift punishment, but they are not, they don’t coincide with long term behavior change. So what you start to think about is, if I’m in a compliance based system, how do I use a behavior change based method?

And for me, the beauty in this is what we always have control over is we have control over what comes out of our mouth as a professional. We don’t have control over law. We don’t have control over policy. We don’t have control over a court order. We don’t have control over what, you know, has to happen if we need to protect the child, but we have control over what comes out of our mouth and the way things come out of our mouth can actually generate change the whole function.

Everybody listening. We know in motivational learning, the whole function in communication. Is to help move from tension or discord or resistance to ambivalence efficiently. And when you’re moving to the ambivalence and helping people resolve ambivalence, you’re helping their brain generate giving this situation in front of you.

How do you want to navigate this to get to your best outcome? So even though that rock has dropped in their path, that boulder has dropped in their path. If you’re going to stand on the boulder and say, you can’t go around this boulder. You are going to generate discord if you acknowledge the boulder and drop shoulder to shoulder with the person and look at the boulder and go, how do you want to navigate this reality?

This boulder is not going anywhere. Knowing you still want to make it further on your path. So that boulder can be law. It can be policy. It can be a quarter. It can be all sorts of things. But you, you think more from a collaborative place, knowing that the reality is, is those laws and policies are not going to change.

So you just, it’s, it’s a shift in mindset is as much as a shift in skill set, John, what are your, I know you’ve got lots of thoughts. Yeah, well, we’ve, we’ve worked with so many different groups and this can get really, you could say, unsupportive and gaslighting and manipulative. If you look at the technique and listen to the technique that you were just giving, and there’s a deeper way of being with and treating someone and trying to support their power that they may or may not want to take on.

That you’re getting at there where, you know, you had moved into getting shoulder to shoulder and asking a question for the 1st basic step, which is. To not tell to not should on them, but instead to ask how they see getting around. Right. But in the trainings, we really talk about shoulder to shoulder giving voice to what it must be like the unfairness, the sense of B.

S. This is the sense of whatever they’re going through. But I’m, I’m highlighting that because that’s another skill and there’s other skills we could get into here with him. I, but all of the skills are on a certain way of how I treat you. I think it’s important to talk about that with what we’re, you know, talking about with the different eight factors of.

Helpful helpers of like, how am I treating you? Am I treating you from a place of you are a complex human with choices that you could make? Or am I treating you in a way that’s trying to take your choice from you? Am I treating you from a place that you have to do this? Or am I treating you from a place that there’s lots of ways if you want to approach this rock as you were saying Casey However, it doesn’t mean that in that moment that rock is going to move But you can help them make some sort of sense if you address them in a different way.

And I think that’s the key and working with your group that you were working with today. We went over a key piece of this. How do you, when there is a rule or there is a poly, recognize maybe eventually you might be able to influence that. Maybe the person you’re talking with, you could help them with the power to eventually.

Influence that in society with laws and unjust equity all that. Yeah. But in the moment, I think what you’re getting that that’s critical is how am I with you? Am I trying to take your autonomy from you? Or am I trying to support your choice and your agency and your power in a way that doesn’t get really Unsupported to say, well, given this court order is not going to go anywhere.

How are you going to do it? It’s ultimately your choice to be happy. You should learn how to narrate your life, right? Like those, those are the techniques that people get caught up in, but it’s not very supportive and it’s not very empowering. So I just, I thought that’s important. I think there’s lots of riff.

Directions you could go with that, but I think it’s the way you see and treat people is, is a core piece of this and how we’re trained with traditional training we get, and then the systems we’re in perpetuates, just do the things so we can get our job complete. So then you’ll do the thing and you’ll be better off.

Come on. You know, it’s interesting as you were talking, because I’d like. The global application of motivational interviewing, because when I think of even with parenting, what happens is we tend to lean into a compliance based method as parents. Do it because I tell you to do it. You need to do it for these reasons, but what we know is a fairly supported stereotype or reality is when you raise children in a compliance based system, what do they do when they get to college?

They’re just, once they’re off the leash, what was that Danielle? When they’re off probation, they do the same thing. It’s the exact same thing when you’re in a compliance based party. Exactly. So as soon as they’re off that short leash. They’re going to do what they want to do. And which is why all the things that people worry about when their kids go off to college.

If you’re helping people make behavior based decisions, if they’re making values based decisions, that translates, which is really difficult because sometimes it’s just easier to go for compliance. What I want to be really, really clear with, and then give you some examples from child welfare, is if I’m, if I’m with my kids.

You know, and they’re, you know, four or five years old and we’re standing on a sidewalk and there’s a parade and they want to run out in front of a float. I’m not going to amplify their ambivalence or use motivational interviewing. I’m going to grab him by the shoulder and pull him back onto the sidewalk.

Like that’s just health and safety. I like how you always say that, Casey. When I hear you train, you’re like, there’s a place for compliance. There is a place for compliance. Security and yeah. That’s exactly it. And so that’s why it’s not, uh, either or good or bad. It’s like, why, why am I opening my mouth and what outcomes am I trying to achieve?

And we have data that shows if we open our mouth and say things a certain way, it will achieve certain things, some negative outcomes and some positive outcomes. And for most of us, we’d prefer having positive outcomes. So we want to learn better ways of effective of being that. I think, you know, just right on the heels, I just popped right out of a training.

I just wrapped up today, uh, in the world of child welfare for child protective services. Excuse me. And it’s this difficult balance. When people are so, when children especially are so unsafe, so in the world of motivational interviewing, we know that it’s going to be a profound provoking of your writing reflex for any person, whether or not you work in child welfare or not.

If we see children at risk, we’re going to have a huge reaction and want to jump into a compliance model that doesn’t make it bad and it doesn’t make it wrong. But what in working with child welfare, this particular state that we’re working with their own vision statement. Starts with, we are here to keep children safe, so that they can thrive in their families and their communities.

Keeping children safe is compliance, but helping people thrive in communities requires behavior change. So, it means you need to have a mastery of both sets of skills. And in most child welfare organizations, there’s, they’re born out of, of high levels of. Compliance based as they should be to keep children safe.

I mean, and just because you’re keeping children safe, they can be in a foster care system that is not helping them thrive. It can be helping them thrive, but it doesn’t necessarily. And what research shows is given the choice between. Like a foster home or a family of origin that even if there’s some levels of abuse going on, children actually thrive more and with family of origin, even if they’re in a more stable foster home because of all the psychological and emotional trauma.

So it’s as we get more data, we’re trying to make more data informed decisions about how we navigate really complicated situations because at first glance, we want to do, we want to do the thing that just makes common sense. Get the children out of there. And make sure they are safe and don’t put him back in a risky situation ever again.

And at first glance, you would think, well, everybody’s going to agree with that. How could you disagree with that until data starts to roll out and go, Whoa, this is interesting. If they go into foster care, they graduated significantly lower rates. They end up in longer term counseling in the long run for mental health and emotional issues.

They suffer a different level of trauma, not being with their family of origin. So it’s just like, wow, that’s just, if we look at this holistically and from a complex perspective, it’s like, well, this is not as simple as we would think it would be, you know, that’s why Casey by, you know, the more I’m involved with your trainings and talking with these groups that you’re working with.

When you see them understand that that, oh, gosh, we are compliance. It’s not wrong or bad. This is what we should be doing. And when you break down their vision statement like that and help them realize. With what they have to bridge, right? What they have on. I just have a lot of respect for these organizations that are kind of forward thinking and willing to step in.

Um, and you’ve gotten some pretty amazing results, um, in particular with 1, 1 state that you’re, you’re helping with the entire child welfare system. They’re seeing the results, right? As they, they start to learn motivational interviewing. Oh, absolutely. And it’s, and it’s not only just anecdotally, we see it in actually performance outcomes.

This, we’ve talked about it on other podcasts before, you know, the most startling ones for me, it’s, this is just how deeply rewarding it is, but some of those startling ones was in the work that we did with law enforcement, just the significant changes in outcomes of even use of force. That there’s a less, there’s less use of force when officers are more skilled, measurably, measurably skilled at motivational interviewing, when they’re measurably skilled at motivational interviewing, they use less force and we get better outcomes and that’s pretty impressive.

It’s the same thing as we keep looking through these things with, you know, child welfare, same thing. If you’re going to engage, think about this way. This is that trauma informed way of looking at the difference between compliance based models and behavior change based models. All of the energy that a brain needs to do to protect itself prevents it from being able to thrive.

It’s survival mode, which is fine. But if that’s what we’re doing to families, like in child welfare, that they’re always on the defense because they’re always feeling accused and they feel like they can’t do anything right. And they have to jump through all these hoops. And no matter how many hoops they jump through, nothing is going to change.

That is not changing behavior. There was an aha moment for one of the, the. Participants today who works in child welfare. And she said, it just clicked with me because we think that if they go to treatment, then they’re going to be better parents and they’re not going to use when the reality is, is we force all sorts of people to go through treatment and it doesn’t mean they change behavior.

So the compliance is not the thing that’s going to make them change. And we, I think the way that it feels for people that work in compliance based systems, that they feel like they’re beating their head against the wall and that these interventions are like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Like, we’re just going to throw all these service at them and see which one sticks.

And it’s like, and then what we do is we end up labeling and stigmatizing and add more diagnosis to the people we’re working with because our interventions are not working. When, if you just step back and look at the data, the data will tell you they’re not going to work because they’re compliance based and compliance based models don’t generate sustained behavior change.

So I think that’s why it’s such a fascinating application to think about how do we do this? How do we orchestrate really effective communication in a way that you see behavior changing, changing substantially and reducing recidivism in every one of these systems. So, so parents aren’t getting more referrals, or people are not getting rearrested, or they’re not cycling through treatment over and over and over again.

That is not a personal failing of those individuals. That is a system that doesn’t know how to orchestrate, orchestrate behavior change. Well, and related to this, there’s, there’s so many things to wrangle to make that practical for the person that’s showing up at the door and knocking on the door and that professional you were speaking with today, Casey, I’m sure has various kinds of training, but there’s a belief at the core of it that if you do this thing.

You will get better. So what can I do to get you to see or get you to say or get you to buy in all these traditional ways of persuasion to do the thing that I think is best for you and that can come from a heart of gold. And I just want to honor the people that do this work. The amount of berating if you don’t work in this work, the amount of get the F out of here.

You, you know, all the things they hear that might be personal attacks, and it’s just extremely emotionally draining to be in this kind of work. And I just want to honor that for the type of respect at the systems level, Danielle, but also at the individual level, and that if we just boil this down, as we’re coming to a bit of a close here, it might be that they have a positive UA with, uh, a child.

Um, present, or it might be that their child, uh, tested positive for a drug. Um, recently, there are very difficult things to navigate, and there might be a need for saying this isn’t okay, and this isn’t. But short of doing that, interview them about their motivations. What matters to them? What does it matter?

And what do they believe? And maybe information in there would be helpful, but maybe I don’t do it in a way that tries to show you I’m right and you’re wrong. And maybe I could open up my mind that there’s more than one way for you to go about making change happen in your life. It doesn’t take away that the court order is here and we can talk about that if that’s worth it to you to do or not.

And then how to maybe change the system so other families don’t have to go through this. But right now, Casey, to wrap this full circle, that rock, unfortunately, for your situation isn’t going anywhere. So what does it matter about this UA, the drugs in your child’s system and what matters to you and how much do you want to work together to figure this out, right?

For you to get your behaviors aligned with your values. And hopefully that’s just a clear takeaway, practically and tangibly that this can be done at a macro level or a micro level with how to think about MI with compliance. You know, and you, you know, having your expertise in the health world to John, what I think of is there’s so many protective factors, the more skilled you get at motivation wing, not because it’s motivation wing, because there’s so much data that shows when we’re more mindful.

It’s going to help our blood pressure. So even if people are attacking us or berating us to be mindful that it’s not as personal as it feels if you really understand the nature of what’s happening here and then to know that you have a skill set to de escalate the negative energy within minutes and to see that happen actually becomes very self reinforcing to want to do it more often because then these, these things that can be so draining.

Um, and could be mentally and emotionally physically destructive to us. We learn how to have it almost a restorative practice in the way we’re interacting with people. And that in and of itself, not only is a better outcome for us as professionals or helpers, it’s better outcomes for the people that we’re serving as well, too.

So there’s so many things that are a restorative process, um, that can get us to the best possible outcomes. And again, this is why for me, it’s not even just motivational interviewing. It’s just, how do we master communication? In a way that we walk away, always feeling like this situation is better because I was because I was involved in this conversation.

This is a better outcome than if I wasn’t involved in this conversation that becomes. So it may not be the X or the Y that needed to get to, but it’s the fact that this situation is just. Overall, a better situation because I had a chance to interact with this person and communicate with them. That becomes a restorative process for us.

So that’s why I love, you know, when we get into these topics about communication and how can we be more effective and how does it work in these different, you know, these different arenas that we all work within? How do we bring it home and know that we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons to get to the best outcomes?

Yeah, and I’ll just lastly say, because I know we’re wrapping that we didn’t talk about all these labels we could have talked about, like intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, uh, all these aspects of what’s our people around us in our work environment doing, perpetuating us to want to use compliance or our supervisors using compliance with us.

So we want to pass that compliance down and there’s lots of other factors going on in the system and the individual that we didn’t get into. But if you’re interested in that, you can always go to Casey at IFIOC. com. Send us more inquiries, challenges, questions, as well as if you want to be on here and maybe get into any of this, of what that lived experience is like for you, be it in CPS, child welfare, or other situations.

Maybe we could talk about this same sort of thing with research and healthcare in the future and how, uh, how to talk about that. So anyhow, I wanted to just invite Danielle Casey, is there anything else you wanted to wrap up with him? I think, um, what I, I would say is I just love the range that we cover on these podcasts, stepping in and knowing all the way from, you know, somebody who is, you know, working in motivational interviewing to fidelity on, you know, in a police department.

The kind of data and results, tangible results you can get in terms of reducing, um, uh, aggressive behavior or any kind of violence is huge. And then all the way down to these practical tips of like, all the way to, gosh, is this. Outcome better, did something better happen because I was part of this communication, part of this conversation.

I think that is really empowering, um, to kind of give that range, which is why obviously this is motivational interview interviewing infused, but it really always comes down to communication, how the brain works and how we can keep making everybody’s lives. A little better, including ourselves, like high blood pressure, you know, like, wow, with these tools, we can start to ourselves, live better lives.

All about health and healing that way. Excellent. Great topic, Danielle. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks guys. We’ll catch you on the next episode. Everybody thanks for joining us. Have a beautiful day. And we will catch you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.Com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. In this engaging episode we delve into the intricate dynamics of political discourse, focusing on the challenges and opportunities for understanding and civility. Through personal anecdotes and discussions on the role of values, mindfulness, and the biological underpinnings of conflict, the hosts explore how individuals can engage in political conversations in a way that respects differing perspectives without compromising their own values. The podcast highlights an innovative civility summit initiative that aims to bridge divides through decisional balance exercises, emphasizing the potential for growth and understanding in political dialogue. The conversation encourages listeners to approach political engagement as an informed choice, rather than a conflict, fostering a more constructive and less confrontational political landscape. The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to share their own experiences and insights on navigating the complex world of politics with civility and respect.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Introduction to the Challenge of Discussing Politics: The podcast opens with an acknowledgment of the complexities and sensitivities involved in political discussions and the intention to explore these through the lens of motivational interviewing (MI). * The Risks and Rewards of Political Discourse: The hosts express excitement and caution about delving into such a contentious topic, emphasizing the importance of setting protective guidelines for a respectful dialogue. * Motivational Interviewing and Political Conversations: The discussion clarifies that MI is not intended to change political opinions but can be used to navigate personal ambivalence and improve interactions with others who hold differing views. * Exploring Political Beliefs with Empathy and Acceptance: The hosts discuss the potential of MI principles like empathy, acceptance, and positive regard to facilitate more constructive political conversations and reduce conflict. * The Influence of Unconscious Bias: The conversation touches on the challenge of recognizing and setting aside unconscious biases to truly listen and understand opposing viewpoints. * The Biological Basis of Strong Political Reactions: A shift towards the physiological and biological explanations for the intense emotions and reactions often observed in political debates. * Aligning Political Engagement with Personal Values: The hosts reflect on the importance of ensuring one’s political actions and discussions are in alignment with their broader value system. * The Psychological and Biological Drivers of Political Behavior: A deeper dive into how human psychology and basic survival instincts may underpin political beliefs and behaviors. * Considering Politics from a Survival Perspective: The discussion explores the idea that political affiliations and conflicts might be rooted in fundamental survival instincts, such as assessing threats and allies.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

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In this podcast, we discuss:* Understanding Motivational Interviewing: Exploring its importance in effective communication and its application in real-world scenarios. * The Journey of Learning MI: Falin Wilson shares his transition from academic knowledge to practical application of motivational interviewing. * The Art of Conversation in MI: Discussing how motivational interviewing is akin to having a natural conversation, tuning into the individual’s thoughts and emotions. * Navigating Ambivalence: Strategies for addressing and embracing ambivalence in conversations. * The Impact of Double-Sided Reflection: Utilizing this technique to prompt individuals to explore their own solutions and desires. * Integrating Brain Science: Discussing how understanding brain functions enhances the effectiveness of motivational interviewing. * Recognizing Resistance and Change Talk: Identifying these key elements in conversations and using them to guide individuals towards their goals. * Professional Responsibility in Communication: Emphasizing the importance of not imposing one’s own narrative but facilitating the client’s self-exploration. * Empathy and Focus in MI: Highlighting the role of empathy in understanding the individual’s perspective and maintaining focus on their goals. * Building Pathways to Success: Discussing how motivational interviewing helps in constructing mental and emotional pathways that lead to personal success and change.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Transcribe Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. Hello, this is Casey Jackson back for another communication solution. And I’ve got a guest on here, Falin Wilson. He is a counselor at OnTrack Academy. Working with youth in, in the school system and alternative school. And Falin’s been through, A few trainings with me and he’s one of those guys that, will come up a break and come up after the class is over and ask really pointed questions and wants to know the answer.

And so I said, Falin, would you come on to the podcast and ask some of those questions that you’d like to ask from training? So, so good to have you here, Falin. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. They were always never meant to be pointed, but I, definitely wanted to know some of those, those, answers.

Yes. So what’s been your intrigue? Because you do, you know, even in the more recent training that we had, I can see your brain in the room really genuinely doing application and processing. What, what draws you into motivational more viewing or the concepts and. And get your brain to start to chew on it more because I watch you process it in the training, and, and trying to integrate it more.

I mean, what, what’s going through your head? I mean, why does this integrate for you? Why does this resonate with you? I think when I was in graduate school, we were learning about it. I thought it was kind of interesting, but it never really caught my attention. And then we went to, so Spokane Public Schools offered a MI training through you and I was like, okay, I’ll try it.

And the way that you approached the whole MI aspect, kind of like a brain, like a view of the brain, and kind of breaking it down that way was probably the most helpful I’ve ever seen it. And that was really intriguing to me, because you said that it’s a conversation. It’s just like, you’re having a conversation with somebody, right, and you’re tuning into what they’re saying, and then you’re trying to navigate from that.

And I found that to be, like, the most fascinating thing ever, just because, like, you’re working with the brain. And you’re trying to figure out where it’s at and all this processing. And I think the more that I continue to learn about it, I was like, there’s this really thing, the awesome thing that Casey’s doing, I just don’t know how to implement it.

So the second time I came back and we kind of, you kind of like walked us through more of like some of that advanced and then kind of going over that, like beginner stuff again, I found that really helpful because it kind of just solidified, like. It really is a conversation and you can do it in a few minutes.

And even though it’s really hard sometimes, like anybody can build these skills, but it’s, I think that we’re so bad at communicating. I feel that we really are. And I was like, well, I would love to just learn better ways of being like a better person, like better communicator. That’s great. It’s, it’s interesting too, because I, if I’ve heard this often that especially kind of the college version or, you know, grad school version of motivational meaning doesn’t catch like, there’s something there.

But then people don’t tend to gravitate it towards it as much what I hear in a lot of my trainings. And so, I think once you get into the real world and you’re working in the real world, you can start to see some of that crosswalk between some of the core constructs and then look at it as just kind of, how does this work?

I, my favorite thing is always based in reality, like based in reality, how would this really work? I mean, you’ve got, you work with kids that struggle, you know, with in an alternative. Amazing wraparound in high school. I know that I know that program fairly well. I’ve done training for on track. What I think of is when you’re in those conversations, what are some things that you see almost cross reference between like, wow, like, this is a moment like I can see now from what I’ve learned to the way that this new vantage point I’m looking at it from what do you notice with either, you know, the colleagues you work with or with the students you work with?

Things you’re starting to notice more while I’m using, am I, yeah, or opportunities to the missed opportunities. Like after the fact there was this really fun one. I was working with a student who uses substances, right. And I had asked that question at the end of the seminar. I was just like, how do you, like you get them to wrap their arms around it, or you wrap their arms around their tree tire, right?

Yeah. Cause like you want to double down on the, like sustained talk before they do. Yes. I was like, it seems so counterintuitive, right? But like, the way he had talked about it was so good. So I was like, okay, like, like, what the hell? Like, I’ll give it a shot. So I was like, okay. So I go in with my client and I’m like, you know that you’re never gonna, like, you know that you’re not gonna use, or sorry, you know that you’re gonna continue to use and that you’re not gonna quit.

Like, what would that even look like? You know that you’re not though. And she was like, I know that I’m not. And then she gave me the solution, like, she was like, that could look like this. And then the example she gave was like, cutting down to, to smoking, like, two to three times a week instead of every day.

So I was like, oh my gosh, like, that’s awesome. Um. And then sometimes I found it kind of difficult to, like, double down often, like, So, like, using substances, right, I can be like, Oh, you know that you’re not gonna stop using, like, what would that even look like? And, like, wrap their arms tighter. But I don’t know other scenarios where, like, I could try to apply that.

Or I guess I struggle with trying to identify them. Because I see the potential and how helpful it is. Right. Because you’re getting the brain to engage in change. Talk. I guess I’m just trying to figure out like how else I can apply that. Like, those would be some of the missed opportunities if that makes sense.

It does. I think what the, and the population you work with, the thing I think of too is at least what I hear quite a bit about and with youth that I work with is just around sex as well too. Or, you know, just some of those situations what you’re thinking when I think about it through the M. I. lens and.

And how to make it an organic conversation that doesn’t feel like you’re trying to use a technique, you know, and you can see how organic it sounds when it’s like, you know, you’re never gonna stop smoking weed. You know, you’re never gonna stop using. So that’s that’s yours. But if you did, what might it change here?

It’s that part just. It allows the sustained talk to feel so heard and understood that it just opens the door to allow change to come in. Because, you know, when I think of youth, I think of anybody, when I think of youth, they’ve got the other side that goes through their head. If they’re laying in bed at night, just thinking about their situation, they They know both sides of the equation or have entertained both sides of the equation.

So just like you said, let them double down on their stuck talk. I, so I think about that with sexual situations, you know, you’re going to continue to have sex, you know, that’s, that’s just not going to stop. But then there’s this other party that’s thinking, you know, what, what would be different if you weren’t doing that?

Does that make sense? So, I mean, it’s almost any topic you’re dealing with youth. Anything that they tend to be overly invested in and honestly, Falin, for me, when I think that strategy with youth, as soon as I can feel my writing reflex clicking in, like, I’m never going to stop smoking weed or no, I’m going to keep having sex.

I’m going to keep doing this. I’m going to keep doing that. I’m going to keep doing this. That when my writing reflex wants to try to counterbalance it with my narrative, that’s when I tend to think of that particular. technique of being able to just go, okay, take a deep breath, lean into there’s even harder, give them that a hundred percent and say, since that sure is a hundred percent, what would it look like if knowing that you’re not going to, but what would it look like?

I don’t that helps, but what your thoughts on that? No, I think it does help because it, and I think that’s what I love motivational interviewing so much because it really is just a dialogue. Like you are listening because you, you said, like, if you just can quiet your brain for a minute and listen to a conversation and trust that you’re going to hear what they’re saying and focus on the, like, resistant talk, change, talk, sustain, talk, and like, identify those, it’s going to be easier for you to navigate those conversations.

And so I think even sitting here. Like we’re talking about doubling down, like if I’m with a client and I double down, right, like I can double down on anything, like beat them to that punch and then offer that, like offering the brain to, yeah, exactly to engage in that, change talk, is super helpful because it’s applicable to literally anything, like any conversation, like I mean, there has to be ambiguity, like you said, or, ambivalence, but yeah, I think it’s just so cool when you’re able to like, Oh my goodness.

Like there’s a person who’s struggling with identifying something. I can help them figure this out without ever influencing my, my opinions on them. Like my writing reflex. Yeah. Well, and that’s what I like about the, the thing that clicks for you in terms of just being fascinated with healthier, functional communication.

That is what I. You know, get so intrigued with what this is like, how do we have conversations where I don’t have to manipulate, or I’m not trying to play them, or I just want to help their brain function more effectively. And I think that’s some of that structure of MI that you resonate with. And it’s not.

It’s not just the technique side of things, because that technique side tends to go sideways in personal relationships when you try to use technique, but when you are just genuinely present with someone stepping inside their worldview, looking at where you can see the potential for ambivalence that exists.

And then just thinking, what is their brain hanging on to? What does their brain want to let go of? But it requires that foundational genuine empathy to be inside their brain and get a gut sense of it instead of being kind of fishbowl observer and trying to help them fix it, which is what, again, most people get paid to do.

In our field is, you know, we see the problem. We assess it. We ask a bunch of questions and then we give them the plan that they need to follow if they’re going to get better. Yeah. And you said like questions put stress on the brain and I like really stuck with me because I was like, right. You want to use questions very intentionally if you ever do them.

But there was something that we had done, like we had done the MI training the next day when I went into session. I was just like, I want to stay, if I see if I can stay in MI like the entire time, like the whole 15 minutes and really challenge myself. And like, oh my gosh, it was. There were parts where I’m like, okay, where are we going?

Right. Yes. But there were other parts where like, I could watch her self correct, like hitting on the key parts of that conversation. And at the very end of it, she had said this and it just blew my mind, but she was like, I want to be successful. And I was like, you want to be successful, like, that’s the top of your mountain, like, you, that’s where you want to go, and like, you are doing what you need to do right now to be successful, you’re changing your classes, you are taking care of yourself, because that’s so important to you, and she was like, yes, like, and that, I just look, like, I, I’m excited to come in and do that, because like, it means I’m getting closer to doing something that I want to do, and I was just like, oh my gosh, like, my mind was just like, Blew up.

It is cause I did it’s almost good. Oh, I was like, cause I just didn’t, I like, all I did was reflected back or not reflected, right. But like high, accurate empathy, moving along into like the you statements and the double sided reflections. It’s it. And I think I love listening to you talk about it because it just goes back to that reset button of some of the basics and motivational interviewing.

You’re helping the person walk through their own thought process and. I know that at face value, people think, well, what am I supposed to do as the professional? Like you’re just paying me to help them work through their own thought process that they already have. Like that doesn’t seem legit, but when they walk away and their brain is clearer and cleaner about their target behavior and what their values are, that’s different than when they came into the session in the first place.

That’s an intervention. They’re clear about who they are, they’re clear about their own internal struggle, and they’re getting more clear about what their ultimate destination is, and they, and which helps their brain start to think of a plan of how they’re going to get there, and you still haven’t interjected yourself into the equation yet.

That’s mastery. I mean, that’s not easy to do. That takes so much self discipline. And like, there was multiple times where I was like, it would be so easy to intervene, right. And then turn myself into the equation. But like, that’s not helpful. Cause it’s, I forget who says it, but there’s the, it’s either the Rogers paradox or another one.

Right. But people only listen to what they have to say. And so just like really clinging onto that with like motivational interviewing, but like, I often have to remind myself, it’s like, there has to be. Ambivalence because like, right, if there’s no ambivalence, then you can’t use, am I, because you’re not sorting anything, but I think, right, where, like, that conversation comes in is.

People are like, well, when do I use it? Right? Like, oh, you can use it in this or this and this, but like they often might forget like I have to use it when I hear ambivalence because if somebody’s mind is already decided, like I could see how you could potentially try to rock the boat. Right. What we were talking about to see if we can pivot.

But if they’re like very set in that, then it’s back to high accurate empathy. So really identifying where they’re at in that process. Super neat, super helpful, super effective. It’s just because I think it, it, Provides a segue into any modality that you need to use, which is like such a cool part.

That’s what I appreciate too, those dots you connect because it’s, I like looking at motivation in conjunction with other evidence based practices. And I just think from what you’ve just articulated, if the person is not defensive, if they’re not dug in. If they have some internal struggle going on, and now, like what you just said, when you hear things like, well, I do want to be successful, or you hear the change talk start to come through your brain starts to prep itself for how could we catalyze this and move to a more positive outcome, which means we need to listen, then what other skills or strategies do I know could be effective if I have a brain that’s not arguing or on the defensive, you know, There’s other skills in Taiwan.

You know, maybe we start to do some dbt or some cbt or, you know, there’s other interventions then that can help them be successful. Now that their mouth and their brain is going, I want to be successful. I want to move forward. You know, I wish some of this would go away. I want to be, you know, I want to pass my classes.

I want to be able to get on my house. I want to be able to get my own place. Like as soon as you hear change talk. The hardest part though, when we hear change talk is our writing reflex just jumps every time. Like when they’re hyper defensive and aggressive towards us, our writing reflex jumps when we see them struggling in their ambivalence, our writing reflex jumps, cause we want to save them.

Then when they give us change talk, it’s like, Oh my gosh, let’s work on this. I’ve got some things you can do. Then our writing reflex jumps again. So it’s just, it’s so hard to keep the ratings on the writing reflex because almost at every corner, our fix it brain wants to jump in and help people. Yeah, and I, well, I mean, like, thinking about counselors in general, like mental health counselors, therapists, like, I mean, we’re gonna see little bits of improvement, right, over a long period of time, but at the very end of the day, when they go home, we’re never really gonna see, like, what kind of production they get outside of what we do in session, right?

Like, we can talk about what that looks like and how it happened, but once they complete therapy and they go home, like, I don’t know what that looks like. And so, you Right. We want that instant gratification of like, Oh my God, I’ve helped you so much. Like, I just want to see you succeed. And, and then it’s like our writing reflex kicks in and now we’re like off the path, you know, cause maybe they had a bad week and now they’re back a couple steps and then you’ve got to start back over.

But like our brains just want to jump to the end. Cause it’s like, I’ve seen you where you could have been where you were like, let’s just get back there. It’s super easy. And they’re like, no, but I’m stuck right here. That’s it. And I think it’s so hard because. I think where my frustration when I get so lean so heavily into motivational interviewing is because I watched so many professionals do the thing that undoes the work.

So it’s like, you know, we’ll just try this. You know, why don’t we just go talk to your teacher together? Why don’t we go do this? Like, let’s just do this. And they’re like, no, I don’t want to. It’s like, come on, let’s just, it’s like, and then they turn around and blame the client. Because they don’t know how to use communication to engage the brain and behavior more effectively.

And that’s where I just get my own righty reflex gets triggered. That’s like, wow, it’s just so often it’s at the professional doesn’t have the mindfulness and the strategy and the skill set to use language effectively to engage this human brain more effectively. That’s, that’s where my obsession always grows in terms of just professional accountability.

If we know we have a technology. And the data shows how effective it is. And then we continue to blame the client or the patient. For the outcomes. It’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s what my writing reflects. Just like, Hey, it’s out there. We may not know it. We may not understand it. We may not have been trained in it.

That’s totally fine. But that’s not because of the client. Listen, literally, if we walk through the metrics of the language, it is predictable and probable that the client or the patient is going to say these things because of what you just said. Not because that is the holy where their brain is at. It’s because how you’re shaping language.

And to me, the potency of that is just Fascinating. Well, and it’s insane because like, we all want to be the authors of our own story, right? Like we love being the center of attention, like every person, I believe that every person wants that. And so, right. Like when the client’s like, well, I don’t want to do that.

Right. There’s your resistance talk. But instead of identifying that we go right into, well, like it’s super easy, like I’d be there right with you. Like we’d be able to do this together. No, no, no. Like it’ll be okay. Right. And so like. We want to help. We’re putting our needs in front of theirs, right?

Becoming the center of the attention rather than focusing back on them and shifting. And so that’s really hard, especially when we have a lot of other things in life that we don’t get the attention from, like loved ones, family, right? And so, yeah, it takes a lot of self awareness to be able to continually stay in that, like, MI zone and then pivot into different modalities.

And then when you identify, oh, there’s resistance or something has come up, right? Bounce back through, because that’s. Or back to am I just, because that is, that’s the communication and like, right, it’s, it’s like a salsa, it’s like one step at a time. You’re calling back and forth, back and forth and like, that’s really hard to do and juggle.

But I think if we learn that super well, then we can have a better way of identifying, right, like that language, we can use better language to like, navigate people’s problems and help them identify what’s going on in their life and how they wanna fix it, rather than being like, this is how I, I think you should fix it.

Exactly. Well, and I think when you, what you’d said earlier, and you connect that, it makes so much sense when we look at our own narratives and we want to be the heroes in our own stories. And if we’re not getting that in our social lives or our family lives as much as a, as a professional, as the clinician, then you do want to get credit for being a good therapist.

Oh, you know, my, my clients respect me. They like me. They lean on me. They rely on me. I’ve helped so many of them. Yeah. When our identity becomes the helper and, you know, if they would just listen to me and, you know, I’ve helped so many people, if that becomes your primary narrative, then you have to help people to have some sense of.

Positive self worth is, you know, I’m, I’m that confidence or, in our profession and our profession, our confidence is the more experts we are, the more we know, the more initials we have after our name, the more credibility we have in behavioral health and healthcare. So it’s so interesting that you’re surrendering your whole.

Expertise and personhood from an educational perspective and even an experiential perspective and you’re starting with the other person’s narrative first and then covering. I love what you said when she said, I want to be successful. You know, you’re like, I can’t believe she just said that, you know, because it’s not where the conversation started.

It’s like that narrative is what you’re working with is the That person centered narrative, and then you start to evoke or elicit. What would that look like from you? What supports would you need? What would your first step be? You know, then it’s just like, now you’ve got this forward momentum towards the narrative as they write it towards her version of what success would look like for her.

And that’s just like, wow, that’s just, you just, you’re just, you’re, you’re kind of flipping the game a little bit there. And I, that’s my, I think where am I such a fascinating construct to work with. Well, and like, when we have conversations with people, you notice that, like, right, we go off of the last thing that we just said, but notice that you tied it back to an earlier piece in the conversation to kind of restart, like, what, like, the main purpose of that conversation was.

So, like, when she was talking, I think at one point we started talking about the movie Trolls, right? And I don’t know how we got that far, but then I was able to kind of correct a little bit about Like, it’s so important to you that, like, you take time to enjoy things that you want, so that way you can be successful, instead of, like, parroting her trying to find that, like, way of getting her back up on that balance beam, and then she did it, right, and then she kind of stayed with that, but being able to identify, like, Well, not identify, but trust ourselves and like, okay, like just because they are right here in this conversation, like, maybe I can go back a few steps and try to get them to get back on this right and take that path of like slowing down and then trying to like, like recourse.

The conversation rather than just being like, all right, where are we going? Every time they finish a sentence, because like, that’s not our job. Our job is to help them figure out whatever they’re struggling on. Like, they can talk about things they like, but like, ultimately, like, you just want to be successful and keep tying that back.

And like, their brain will be like, it’s so important that they just keep bringing it back up. And they’re like, I do want to be successful. Like, this is how I could do that. Or this is how I could do that. Well, that’s it. You know, this is where that movement from empathy moves into focus. Because if, if you keep focusing on the top of the mountain or the ultimate destination, that pinnacle, the peak, it keeps saying, yeah, you’re, you’re stuck in the woods over here.

Or yeah, you tripped over that rock or yeah, you’re, you’re kind of wandering through this woods over here. We try to fix all those situations and then people are with us forever. Or they just, you know, it feels like they never making progress, but in my brain, when you are so focused, it’s always no matter what the content is, it’s that reorientation to the top of the mountain and you just want to be successful.

And I think that’s such a great reset button for my practitioners, because even when you start getting caught in the content, you can take a couple of deep breaths, get your brain pulled out of the content and go. You know what? And you just want to be successful, or you’re just trying to find your way through this, or you just want to find a resolution, all this, you just wish things were better finding change.

Talk is not that hard. If you can go to that level of just going, you know what? People just are tired of being stuck and they they’re struggling in their own life. They wish it was better. And as soon as you start to focus on that, you’re focusing on change talk. And that allows you that. Way up to the top of the mountain, so I firmly believe that, like, we can’t really help people by just addressing their problems, right?

Like, that’s not helpful. Like, we need to address, like, self esteem, self confidence, self efficacy, right? And like, by reinforcing all of those, like, we build a better foundation. Like, we lay a foundation. A lot more rebarb and concrete and like these like really good solid structures that when they leave they can apply that elsewhere rather than being like Like, all right.

This is how you have like a single conversation with somebody to like You know, have a better outcome or like address this. And like, those are important pieces, but without that self, right, without them having that top of the mountain, they’re never going to know what they want to do. That’s it, you know, and found that’s, that’s why I’ve added more of the brain science into it is because I think that that rebar and that scaffolding and the concrete is you want to help them build that elevator or the pathway to their success or to their executive function where the brain is just Functioning more effectively instead of them always listening to the expert, telling them how to live their life because they just, it just, that just research shows that doesn’t have a lot of sustainability to it.

No matter who the expert is, there just doesn’t have as much sustainability is when the person starts to define it for themselves and develops a thought process or a pathway in their brain. That becomes one that they travel on readily and the more readily they travel on that thought process, which is more success based or solution focused in a motivation based approach.

That’s where you’re building that sense of self efficacy. That’s where, as they start to build that infrastructure, there’s less dependency because they’re building a problem solving scaffolding inside of their own brain. And that problem solving scaffolding isn’t based in trauma. It’s based in solution and values.

And that’s just, that is just where the game starts to change significantly. Yeah. And I think when you bring it back to that brain science, that’s the part that like, I remember when we were in class, right? You’re like, you have the neural pathways and the more often those neural pathways will one or like first off created, but then like continually reinforced.

So that Miley and chief that protects it, the more you use it. That highway builds, it just goes faster and faster. So now when you have that first thought, it immediately goes to executive functioning. And so as you were talking and like bringing up all these great points, I’m just like, that’s why I kept clicking.

Cause I was like, we’re building these paths, like these super highways in their brain, like maybe it’s just like a dirt path and then it’s like a road and then now it’s a freeway and now it’s like a super freeway and now it’s like a bullet train, right? Like we’ve upgraded it every time. And it’s just like, Oh my gosh.

Like. Your brain needs to learn how to navigate these on its own. And if people are always stepping in and doing it for you or challenging you, right, you’re going to be a little bit more in the back of your mind rather than up in executive functioning. So it’s like when we reinforce self, we reinforce the ability to make your own decisions.

Well, it’s interesting, Falin, when you say that, cause I just, I have all these thoughts that are clicking in because I’m, I’m studying and reading the latest on, well, The latest for me on brain science that a lot of, a lot of, narratives haven’t caught up with, it’s kind of the latest research on brain science.

And, and what this neuroscientist is saying, is that it’s, it’s less about the compartmentalized brain that that’s maybe that it’s not, she’s not saying maybe that’s not completely accurate. What it really is, is, how the brain manages, energy through survival. Or, connection and that that’s from the very first organism that they could study that just was just basically a gut on a stick.

And then as, as things evolved, what she’s talking about, when you’re talking about that is it’s, it’s also the more that they focus on success, there’s less expenditure of fear, energy, and, and protective mode. Protective mode requires a certain amount of it. It saves kinetic energy when people go into the freeze mode, but it burns all sorts of other energies in the brain and the brain has to modulate energy consumption, and how the whole body functions.

And so what it is is when there’s less threat. There can be more focus on evolution or successful, processing forward. So even if it’s not the compartments of the brain as much, the basic construct holds true as far as if we’re not in survival mode, we can thrive more and the brain will release, let the body release and move into more thriving mode.

So that whole thing about high empathy that can kind of decompress that stress part of the brain. And allow the function to, to work more towards evolution without this fear of needing to retract all the time. That’s how you set up a more growthful process. So it’s fascinating to combine kind of the psychological features that, you know, we were raised with in the, in the counseling field with some of the, the hard brain science side of it is like, wow, I can see these parallels starting to come together in the way that I’m looking at this as well.

So it was just fascinating to me. Well, and I think when you offer that, like, right when they’re. A little bit further along and they’re talking about action and change and you can help build on that like being able to provide like psychoeducation on like what’s happening in the brain and how that works alongside like the biological responses.

It’s so reassuring for them to see that. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, like I didn’t realize they had a name for it or like that makes so much sense, right? And like you see it connect to them and it’s like Like, right, language, we’re giving them the knowledge that we have learned, but in a way that’s super helpful and that they can walk away going like, I understand what’s happening.

It almost kind of weaponizes it in a way of like, here’s my shield, here’s my sword, right? Like, there’s the top of the tower, like, how do I want to get through, like, this dragon, kind of thinking about that snow white, and I find that just so amazing because it’s like, you’re just giving them all the tools that they need to.

Without inserting yourself in the equation and just giving them information and building that self. It’s just such a, I, I love this reframe of it because it, to me, I think then it gets into the heart of why we do the work that we do. It’s not about ourselves. And this is what you were talking about is it’s hard because our narratives tend to be more self centered, you know, even as professionals, you know, in the, you know, when do we get attention?

You know, nobody gives me attention in my narrative, or the attention that I want in my narrative. The beauty in MI is the individuals that are identified as needing help. They get the attention they need from their narrative and it allows them to develop into the person as they define themselves in the most efficient and effective way that we know of.

As of right now. So this has been awesome. I’m so glad you said yes, you join and, and jump on the call with me. This is, this is great. Yeah. Thank you. I, I do appreciate it. I think as we kind of got going, I got a little bit more comfortable, right? It’s just like, Oh, it’s just easy. I got this totally understandable.

So I definitely, everybody with me, and if you ever want to jump on it, just, this is my favorite part is I love talking. Am I, I don’t like to just listen to myself talk about it. It’s all these interesting takes and experiences that you all have that, you know, any questions you have, any insights that you have.

This is a perfect example of if you want to jump on and have a conversation with, with john or me or Danielle or the three of us, whatever, just continue to reach out. I appreciate you listening. Everybody take care. Thanks again, Falin for coming on. Of course. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert.

As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.Com, that’s Casey@IFIOC.com dot com for more information or to schedule training, visit IFIOC.com until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

View Details

In this podcast, we discuss: Understanding Motivation: The discussion on the significance of ‘Focus Mountain’ as a metaphor for setting and achieving goals. * Sustaining New Year Resolutions: Strategies to keep up with resolutions past the excitement of January. * Role of Environment in Behavior Change: Insights on how our surroundings influence our ability to sustain changes. * Emotional Connection with Future Self: Exploration of how our future aspirations can motivate present actions. * Overcoming Deprivation Mindset: Techniques to shift from a mindset of deprivation to one of lifestyle change. * The Importance of Small Steps: Emphasizing the power of starting with minimal, manageable actions. * Identity and Behavioral Change: Discussion on how changes in self-perception can impact habit formation and maintenance. * Celebrating Progress and Finding Joy: The importance of acknowledging small wins and incorporating joy in the journey of change. * Leveraging Personal Relationships: How relationships can motivate and challenge us in our journey towards personal improvement. * Agency and Informed Choice*: The role of agency in behavioral change and the importance of being well-informed in decision-making.

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Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. Hey everyone. It’s Danielle Cantin here with the Communication Solution podcast. And I am with your hosts, Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hey Casey. Hey John. Hey. Hey. Glad to have you here. I am looking forward to helping our audience and myself secretly, not, or not so secretly, figure out how to navigate the new year.

And how do you actually sustain? Behavior. So I’m thinking ahead February 1st, March 1st, because everything’s kind of fun and glamorous in January. And seems attainable. But we’ve talked in other podcasts episodes about, kind of setting up the goals and change, you know, things that you might want to achieve in the new year.

And this seems like a great segue to, to talk about how to, how to sustain those changes. What are your thoughts? You know, I’ll, I’ll, I’m going to take this off just because I’ll do the conceptual. And then John gets into the, you know, he’s got the brilliant brain for the technical side of it. The thing I think of Danielle is that it’s like prepping for the climb.

And this is why, you know, the focus mountain, focus, mountain, focus, mountain, focus, mountain, focus, mountain. Like that’s, that’s my reset button is focus mountain. And so we were thinking about is, you know, November hits and you have a great Thanksgiving and you know what, I’m starting my diet January 1st anyway.

So I’m just going to enjoy the holidays. And then Christmas comes and Christmas cookies and the, all the little treats on the doorstep. And, but then in January, January 1st, it’s going to, then New Year’s Eve. It’s like, okay, I’m going to party it up. But because January 1st, because all we see is the top of the mountain, we’re starting to get focused on why it’s important to me, motive is huge, you know?

And, and when we give ourselves so much permission to go there. It’s almost like our own patents, like on the flip side, it’s like, you know, I’m just going to give myself permission and then I’m going to do, you know. Eight days a week, I’m going to be doing CrossFit for two hours a day because I’m going to, I’m going to do it like, you know, but, but that’s why I’m going to eat the extra pumpkin pie and with extra rooftop, like, oh, yes, and just a few more extra drinks, that I think that whole thing about I am packed, I am loaded, I’ve got my backpack in the corner, I’ve got everything in there, I bought new stuff, like I am climbing this mountain, So that’s the way that I look at motive in motivational interviewing, because we’re so clear the top of the mountain and I have got the latest equipment because this is the year, this is the year I’m going to hit the peak.

And then after one, I have to interject because I can’t stop laughing, but it’s almost like the visual you just created for me. It’s that I’m on the base, base of the mountain, and here’s the top and I’ve got a plan. To just blink myself up there on whatever day, fully prepared and completely escaping.

That’s exactly it. And that’s why the sustainability, the motive, people know how to whip up motive, you know, we can listen to podcasts. We can, you know, get inspired by things we can, you know, buy these diet plans and I’m going to do meal prep and I’m going to, you know, have them deliver my meals to me and I am going to nail it.

Like this is it, you know, and I, I’ve heard about this personal trainer. And then you’re day four into your first fast and you’re like, I hate this. And then you’re supposed to get up in the morning and go to the personal trainer and you’re like, and I hate him, or I hate turnover. I hate them. . And then it’s just like, now you’re week two and you’re like, God, I, how have I gained five pounds?

I stopped two weeks ago and I’ve gained five pounds. And it’s like, and this backpack, why did I pack so much crap in here? Like I didn’t need a. gold plated canteen. So I’m ditching that thing. And then you’re sitting on the stump rubbing your feet going, why the hell am I climbing in the first place?

So that’s the Casey version of trying to sustain behavior change from a focused mountain perspective. Now let john jump in and give you all that. The technical aspects of what just happened when I give you the visual aspects of what just happened. Oh my gosh, Casey, well, well laid out for a definite, yes, relatable laying out of all the parameters here.

Well, yeah, ultimately, oh my gosh, there’s so much in what you said, but ultimately it seems to be that we have this intrinsic motivation, right? This, Oh, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get, I’m going to get up there. I’m going to do this thing. And it’s really. It’s serving us because it justifies us feeling satisfied in the moment to indulge to be like, yes, I get to do this thing because then I’ll do this other thing and it’s this really interesting mental gymnastics of we tend to want to be Having our short term gratification and our long term gratification, at least that’s one way to perceive it.

And I’m wondering both of your thoughts on this Casey and Danielle, but this sense of we want that short term gratification and sometimes that long term gratification of really being fit and healthy. It just doesn’t have the same intrinsic draw as the pumpkin pie, as the next drink, as the whatever, as the giving our future self that sense of well being is just harder to emotionally connect with and feel.

And it’s just seems to be that blockage of we do know the next drink. We do know the next dessert gives us that emotional. Yeah. And it seems like that sense of whatever that emotional draw is and how much we can do the mental gymnastics to get past having to have some delayed gratification seems to be something I’ve noticed for myself and In my and other things, when we talk about values and the value of well being, that’s wonderful.

The value of Casey being around for your kids even more potent. And and there’s some more potency to it, but it still means you got to give yourself that future that future self. That delayed gratification in the now, and that is just so hard to do for a number of reasons. But that’s what I was sensing in the, the rawness and the relatability of what you shared.

No, one of the first thing you learned in biology too. I mean, even in middle school, biology is human beings and animals, you know. Head towards pleasure and avoid pain. So it’s way easier to head towards the second piece of pumpkin pie. And it is very avoidant that my body hurts when I work out like this is hurting me right now.

So there’s that also just that, that part of us that as creatures, it makes sense why things unfold the way that they do. Is there anything that, because your description, John really made me feel a little bit better about it. Cause I’m like. I, I just don’t connect emotionally with that future self. Like I can, but the only way I can do that is to remember, maybe pull something from the past.

That was like, Oh, I remember when I did that and I felt so good, but it’s still not even what would I do now and in the future? Cause I’m so different from who I was back then. So I’m, I kind of, I didn’t realize that, but I’m scrambling to make me feel something to, so that I’m more connected to achieving that future self.

Is there. It sounds like that might be normal for everybody. Is there something I could be doing or our listeners could be doing to make that more emotional or is that not the point? Well, this is where it gets into all sorts of possibilities. Danielle, the fact that you’re aware of that is a huge first step to recognizing some sense of direction from here of what.

Seemingly for what’s resonating with you would help you to feel more emotionally connected with your future self to give them like you would a friend or someone you care about this compassion, this self compassion, this support, this friendship, this love, this health, this stuff you would want for others.

Now, to do that emotionally, this is where there’s all sorts of possibilities on here. I’ll mostly stick to. An M I type perspective, because that’s what, you know, we’re here to talk more about. And I’ll be curious what, what Casey wants to come in with, but there’s bound to be therapies that are in my spirited, like internal family systems might be one.

That’s a very in my spirited like approach. There are acceptance, commitment, therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. There are these other types of specific therapies that are designed. Beyond MI to help you in certain ways that are beyond the scope of, you know, my full training. And Casey, of course, can, we could get into that.

Maybe another podcast, if, if viewers or listeners would like to get into that, but I just want to mention that’s one route, Danielle. And then there are other sort of self help. Books that people are looking for this, right? That’s why there’s so much in the self help section is exactly for this. But there are a variety of things just thinking about, okay, you’re talking about this sense of how emotionally connected and important is this to me?

That might be one part, but just like the book atomic habits and other behavior change books, they point to, maybe it’s the environment to just make it so ridiculously simple that I just. Keep the momentum going of tiny changes. It might be that where you don’t need to as emotionally connect. You just make it so high confidence that this is a no duh that you’re going to at least have the shoes by the door or turn this way instead of that way to walk around the block and have a different identification that maybe that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was just walking around the block or whatever.

So there’s a lot of ways to go about behavior change that the book called get it done by an Israeli psychiatrist. She gets into a lot of stuff around that, but I just want to highlight from an M. I perspective. I would say it comes down to your environment, the importance of emotionally and the confidence of how much is your behavior getting you what you want and how confident do you feel that you could even start making that progress?

But that’s just 1 kind of. Perspective on it. Casey, I’m kind of curious how you think about this emotional connection and how important that is versus other things. I don’t know. I’m wondering. Yeah, I’ll tell you because my narrative is shifted. Like my narrative in my brain has always been especially around health.

And fitness had always been, you know, I love I’ll play sports all day long, even if I’m not in shape to play sports, I’ll play sports all day long. I just don’t like to exercise. That was just always my mantra, my, just my narrative in my brain. Like I’ll, I’ll go play anything. Even if I’m out of shape, I’ll go play football or do whatever we’re going to do.

Just don’t make me get on a treadmill. Don’t, I just, I’m not going to jog around the block. I’m just, that’s just not me. I, it, is it. It is overly ingrained in my brain for whatever reason, and I think because I like sports, but I hated the workout so much, you know, with your football pads on running up and down hills and, you know, in the gym, running up and down bleep like I hated all that I hated it.

But I was in great shape. The difference now, which shifted and it’s so much because of our. Our personal friendship, John, and all the things that you’ve helped me navigate and then motivational interviewing is, I remember one of the first things that was profound for me was laying in bed, just thinking, I know I need to exercise and I don’t want to.

And then I just started using focus mountain in my brain. And what it was is. So do you want to be around for your children? I want to be around for my children more than I don’t want to exercise. And I remember literally rolling out of my bed, out of the blankets and hitting the floor and doing five pushups and then rolling on my back and doing five or 10 sit ups.

Because then I knew my behavior was in line with my values, I didn’t have to go to the gym for 20 minutes because I knew that I wouldn’t sustain that, but I knew I could sustain rolling out of bed literally. And I would do that instead of hitting snooze. I just advise in a hotel didn’t matter what I would, where I was at.

I would just literally roll on out of bed, land on the floor, do 5 pushups that became 10 pushups became 20 pushups became 50 setups. And it was just like, because. And, and every day that I didn’t want to do it because I was tired or whatever, I would say, how much do you want to be around for your children?

I want to be around for my children enough to roll out of bed right now and do a few pushups. So it never made me go to the gym and that helped change my behavior. And then I sustain that. And that’s why I love everything that you’ve taught me about lifestyle medicine is that if I’m trying to lose the 10 pounds, I’m going to yo yo diet for eternity.

If I want to just start to eat healthier, that’s going to have an impact on my body composition. When, you know, through conversations you and I had when I shifted more towards, you know, predominantly vegetarian, lifestyle, it just, it wasn’t that complicated for me because I was working towards something, not depriving myself of anything.

So people are like, how do you give up steaks? How do you, I mean, you’ve experienced this, you know, and you’re more extreme than I am in your eating. It’s like, how do you give that up? How do you give up steaks? How do you give up? And it’s like, God, my brain just doesn’t think that way about it. I love all that.

I just love international cuisine. So there’s the majority of international cuisine is just not meat based. So I just. So it’s like, Oh, that’s so weird. I don’t think about giving up steak. I don’t think about giving up hamburgers. I think about how much I love Ethiopian food. And I’m going to have Indian food today.

And it’s just like, that’s the stuff that I get excited about. And I think that’s part of that emotional shift of instead of deprivation. Which creates this clinging to, and I just going to do it one more time or, okay, I’m going to cheat today. We get into all those emotional and mental gymnastics. And I think when you’re doing lifestyle medicine thinking, it’s just more like, Oh, I’m just walking towards who I want to be.

And if I’m walking towards that, I wouldn’t pick up this bag of French fries. I need them right now. Cause that’s just, I can do it tomorrow. That was my, my thing that really helped me is if I want to eat the, you know, the cold stone ice cream. You have total permission to eat tomorrow. Today we’re just not going to eat it.

Okay. And I’m just like, yeah, today I’m just not going to eat it. But tomorrow I can if I want to. And that just helped that lifestyle mindset. And every day I just go, yeah, I can do it tomorrow. I’m just not going to do it today. So I never triggered my own deprivation mindset either. So I don’t know how that fits with some of the things you’re talking about, John.

But I just know those are things that were profoundly helpful. And even with the Peloton for me, I, it was, I was so intimidated by it because I’m not a biker. That’s my narrative. I’m just not a biker. I’ve never biked like that. But as soon as, you know, I learned what I needed to do, I just would hit the five minute warm up and that’s all I do the five minute warm or I do the five minute cool down and every single day.

And then all of a sudden, like day four, I’m like, well, I’m going to, I’m going to add a five minute cool down to my five minute warm up. So then I’m doing 10 minutes and then all of a sudden I’m doing a 20 minute ride. And now, you know, so it’s just, it just, because that’s who I want to be. And I like it when I see myself in the mirror on the Peloton, that’s like, Oh, this, this is who I want to be.

It’s not like, oh, my God, I got to get up and work out. It’s not that deprivation or pain mindset. It really is that lifestyle mindset that you really have profoundly helped me navigate. Well, this, this is huge, Casey, because you’re getting into things that actually are so much about identity. And this is what self determination theory gets at.

That is not inherently an underpinning of motivational interviewing. But this is actually part of what got me into motivational interviewing was going to college of sports medicine international conference when I was younger and and recognizing there are these things that relate to how we see ourself for change and our identity that we’re this kind of a person.

We’re this kind of someone, and so there seems to be an identity shift of, of things that happened, Danielle, to, to your question over time that Casey is getting at that, that change in identity that I am this kind of a person and or could become this kind of a person is really a huge one, and I would definitely point people towards, self determination theory and our sense of competence around something.

And the less competent we feel, probably the less able we’re going to do the pushups or the peloton or the whatever, the sense of relatedness, how much are there people around us in our environment doing these things? And if not, that is a big factor. In us engaging in that, and then there are other things that I’m ashamed to have forgotten about it, having not been able to pull up a tab and look up self determination theory right now, but there are other factors that were even talked about in Denmark when we were there, Casey, but there are other factors that go into this that I would point people to, but those, those things you were speaking about Casey are important.

How competent am I feeling? Am I making a sense of progress? Am I having a sense of what I know to do here? Well, if not, that’s a place for personal trainers or credible sources of information. I would point people to Nutrition Made Simple YouTube, channel that has a 10 to 30 minute resistance training workout that has evidence to show it’s very basic, like Casey, you were talking about.

That has evidence to show. You don’t have to do a lot. You just have to do a little bit of something and stay consistent and have that start to change your competence, your relatedness. And I’ll lastly say, Danielle, and then, of course, Casey, feel free. If you want to add anything more, it’s what is our environment.

And we live in an environment where people are making a lot of money off of our short term pleasure seeking gratification. And if we don’t change our environment, there’s a lot of research to point to this, we are likely going to be going up that really, really steep mountain that’s really, really long.

And when we then add to it, we don’t see our identity and our competence and people around us. It is a monumental task when we do not set up our environment to make the healthy choice, the easier choice or the healthy choice, our identity choice, or we don’t have other people around us to help support us to make that choice.

That’s where the intrinsic. Motivation to change our extrinsic cues can be really important beyond just your own emotional, connection with your future self, but there are apps. You can take pictures of yourself and age yourself and hold those up and think of your future self. I’ll just mention that too.

That’s kind of interesting. I see Casey, maybe not liking that, but those are things that other people use as well. That’s really my future self in the mirror every day. That’s the painful wincing. I don’t need an aging app. I just look in the mirror and that’s, that’s enough for motive for, for, for me,

I was just going to say, I think that was really helpful. I enjoyed your last point, John, about, let’s just. Be honest about what our society in the U. S. at least, is really only what I can speak to because I had a very different experience. When I went, across, you know, to other countries, but we are surrounded by a pleasure now.

Kind of society. So to getting that out there and just saying, Hey, we already have a hurdle here. So how can create we create a microcosm for ourselves? That’s the environment that’s going to be more supportive, you know, and of course, have ambitions to maybe change the greater one. And there’s a lot of people and companies and organizations trying to do that.

But, the googled while you were talking in the 3 things they say for the, is, for. No, I forget. What was your determination theory? Yeah, it was competence relatedness or connection. And then the third that’s showing at least in Google is autonomy, which you have talked about. So I think when I’m hearing you guys and correct me if I’m wrong, cause I’m that naive brain, right.

When it comes to motivational interviewing, but as I look to the new year to. Sustaining that behavior change I’m looking for and I equate it to what I know about motivational interviewing, I think I’m kind of invited into a little bit more empathy, for myself, empathy of really stepping into my shoes and saying, Oh yeah, I get it.

I get it. You, you had these goals, you set this thing out, you, you made this commitment to the new year and you were fired up and maybe now you’re not feeling that way, you know, come February 1st. So really being much more accurately, I’m empathetic with myself. And then knowing that when that resistance comes up, also getting that, getting the ambivalence that’s going to come up with, I do want that.

And I relate that to your story, Casey, of I’m laying in bed and it’s just like, I’m tired. And then, well, do I want to be there for my kids? So there’s different ways I can walk myself through even my naive brain understanding of motivational interviewing to kind of help, help me keep marching forward toward that behavior change that I want.

Is that? You know, and I think that’s accurate, Daniel. Yeah, it is. And I think the thing that I appreciate so much and why I think your contribution is so helpful is you can see. In the absence of understanding some of these constructs, why people will beat themselves up thinking they have a lack of willpower or people judging other people for a lack of willpower.

It just we we’ve, you know, when you look at evolution of just even human psychology, it’s so much about blaming the individual so often. And just, we’re fortunate in an era where we understand so much about brain science and neurochemistry and how things function more effectively that it’s like, wow, we have been really hard on ourselves, between family of origin messages between, you know, maybe religious structures, you know, there’s just so much guilt and shame and blame that comes down to willpower and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Now that we understand so much about brain science and trauma, it. It’s like, how do we capitalize on where we know the brain is the most functional and so when you’re laying in bed, you can train, you can, you can learn things about how do I maximize that the, the smart part of my brain, which just means I don’t want to.

And there’s all sorts of things I don’t want to do. I don’t want to go to work, but I’m also not five years old anymore. You know, I’m not 10 years old saying I don’t want to go to school, mom. You can feel that way, but we know we need to get up and do it. So you can capitalize on those infrastructures inside of yourself and strengthen those and reward those in a way that they become a lifestyle change.

And I think that’s, what’s fascinating about, you know, how this evolves. I’m curious, Daniel, what I wanted to ask you is, which is where we started with. Is from the things you’ve heard, what have struck you in terms of how does this fit for February 1st or March 1st for you, just all the things you’ve heard in your own process of change or new year’s resolutions when you come into it thinking, you know, I know my struggle when I hit February 1st or March 1st, or, you know, and it just starts to fade from the things you’ve heard.

John and I talk about what’s kind of mulling through your brain. With a different perspective or things that have been helpful. I think really identifying and making sure that I am spending time with the top of focus mountain. I’m going to start with just the deep, deep laughter, which it was just so true for me.

That’s why I couldn’t stop laughing at the beginning is, Oh my God, I am so great at motivation. Like woohoo, I’m in and a hilarious visual for me of like, Oh yeah. And I just want to, you know. Pull volt up onto the top of the mountain. So it’s reminding myself in, in, in a kind way, not in a, Oh my God, look at you did something wrong with me.

But like, that’s kind of funny that I do that. Okay. And now I know more, I know better. And it’s like come February 1st, I think I’m going to remind myself, Hey, enjoy. You’re actually on this path among all the trees. Don’t lose sight of what’s up top and where are you and where do you want to pivot? What do you want to do as you’re climbing up that mountain?

And then I think. My biggest takeaway is all the different tools and points of view that you guys just shared a huge one is environment Acknowledging what kind of the force that I’m up against Also the opportunity for who am I going to surround myself with and what am I going to surround myself with in my environment?

to help support that and Again a little more kindness around competency. So it’s like Yeah. I don’t like doing stuff. I’m not good at, I like to win too. And how can I set myself up to win in smaller doses? So I’ve been kind of doing the same thing as the pushups, but with planks, and it’s fun. Cause it’s like, all right, just do it for, you know, I think I’m up to two minutes.

So it’s like, okay, and now two minutes and five seconds. And you know, so it’s making gamifying it for me and doing things to increase my confidence and my competency. So those, those are all things that are popping, you know, and the thing that I, when I listen to you talk about what’s so helpful, I remember one of the most profound things in my brain understood as a therapist, you know, and I would talk to clients about this all the time to just take the guilt and the shame away from things and the kind of the, the self.

This, the negative self narratives, because it was such like a truth, like it just hit me the difference between being normal and being healthy. Normal by definition is the norm. So to not follow through to beat yourself up is normal. But the thought that you have a choice of being healthy. Or there’s nothing wrong with being normal.

Like you are in the thick of the bell shaped curve because that’s by definition what the norm is. And the norm is to not be healthy. And I think for me, that was also a motive for me in my own mental, emotional, spiritual, physical health growth. It’s just like, yeah, being normal doesn’t appeal to me. Being healthy, very much appeals to me being healthy mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically is very appealing to me.

And that’s where I wanted to put energy. So when I don’t get up and exercise instead of beating myself up, I think this is normal. You know, eating the extra piece of pie is normal. You know, indulging in my security and wine nights is normal and it’s not always healthy. And one of the things john said that I love is because it gives me that permission is everything in moderation, including moderation.

So it’s like, you know, yeah. And so there are times for just for indulgence because it’s part of the human experience is part of why we’re here. And then just for me, at least in that competitive edge is always around. Yeah, I just normal doesn’t appeal to me. And so just keep walking towards the top of the mountain.

What I found is the more I walk towards the top of the mountain, it’s, it’s, Yeah.

Without there with no judgment on it, what I find is there’s fewer and fewer people up there, the further up the mountain you get, because it’s more normal to be at the base of the mountain. It’s just normal to get caught in those trees. And so what I, what, because of me being me and I’m so obsessed with connection and intimacy with people is the quality of people I find further up the mountain are people that are more of the people like me that like talking about those things and.

Yeah. Focus on those things. That’s why john and I have such a profound bond as friends is because it’s we met each other and we push each other to climb further up the mountain even when it’s painful. And my fingernails are bleeding and you know, and I’m sweating and hurt and my body aches and I’m dehydrated and I just want to punch him in the throat, you know, but it motivates me to keep Are you guys just practicing the technique that you took together?

Yeah, I’m just practicing. I’m not letting him beat me. Even if I have to grab him by the ankle and yank him down, I’m not gonna let him beat me. So, and John’s the same way. So that’s the thing that it’s so much fun too is when you do make it past the trees to an extent and you find other people that are really craving all the things at the top of the mountain and they’re They’re doing not normal things to get there, to get to the top of the mountain.

It’s how you find people that are more supportive of that. And you can relate to and, and, and link with, and that, that is part of the motive as well, too, that keeps you going because now it’s not, I didn’t find a workout partner. I found somebody that just naturally challenges me in life. And those are the things that just again, then it triggers my competitive edge thing.

And it’s just like, I’m not going to lose. So you guys are, you guys are so funny. I’m sorry, I want to just bring in one thing as, as, one thing that I would feel remiss if we did not touch on is there’s, there’s a few things here, but one deals with the celebration of progress and we can just forget.

To celebrate accomplishment in a way that obviously the more it’s connected. Ironically, in this case with. Desserts and alcohol and stuff. Maybe there are other ways to celebrate all the time, but the idea is to bring joy back into it to bring fun and play. In particular, there’s a lot of psychology more looking to play and other things we could get into related to that.

But. Casey, that’s what you were talking about with sports and stuff. What do you intrinsically enjoy that moves your body, that gets your heart rate up? If we’re going to talk about exercise, what do you already enjoy that are foods that, you know, your mom would be happy that you’re eating that are healthy for you, you know, things that you can start with a sense of pleasure and joy and not have to have it be completely separate.

There just might have to be a shift in our flavor palette, either literally Salty, sweet, fatty, or metaphorically, to what we find joy in when we’re playing, is it joy in sitting and watching the TV, or could you see a You know, movie or something like that, while doing a little bit of walking, or is it going to have to be a game that takes the extra effort of trying to organize people and do all that?

Where are you at? What brings you joy? Celebrating success? And in your environment, what lights you up? Maybe it’s not your future picture of yourself, Casey, for you. It might be a picture of this place in For those that are fortunate enough to have, you know, those vacations and things to look forward to, it might be a picture of something like that.

It might be just your family on in a particular area that triggers you when you wake up and you’re tired or after work to go on that walk around the block or whatever the thing is. What are these things around you to set up your internal reality to find that sense of this is worthwhile for me? for other people, especially, and what lights you up around all that.

And then give yourself some affirmations, Danielle, not just empathy, your own sense of I’m on the path. I am strong. I am beyond what I’m capable of. And that’s where everyone can go on YouTube and find a bunch of incredible. David Goggins or whatever motivational, motivational, YouTube videos that talk about finding that sense within yourself, that you’re beyond yourself.

And I think when you bring all this together, it starts to shape into the responsibility comes back to us. To be getting our behavior aligned with what we ultimately want and that that can be a lot, but it can start simple and that whole journey to 1000 miles or whatever begins with the first few steps.

I think that’s what we’re talking about here and how to do that. Why to do that and where to start, you know, and And to make that concrete, what this, another experience I had Daniel with John, I mean, just when I listened to him talk about all that and the things we’ve talked about, there are those core moments, one of the most profound for me that that pulls so many of these thoughts and these structures together.

I remember a time John was over, he was leaving, he always bikes to the house. Most of the time is bikes to my house, which is quite a distance. And he was half limping down the porch stairs. And John is in phenomenal shape. I mean, he’s just in phenomenal shape and I’m like, John, you never limp. What’s wrong?

He goes, God, I just, it was such a hard workout. And I go, Oh, wait till you get to be my age. Cause I limped down those steps, but for a completely different reason. And. That was the most profound moment for me because what hit me in that moment was I can be limping down the stairs and look like John does, or I can be limping down the stairs because I don’t do what John does.

But I’m going to be limping down the stairs one way or the other, and that’s part of that lifestyle thinking as well, too, for me, and I thought I cannot tell you how often that is a motive for me, like, when I wake up in the morning and my joints are sore, and I think, and when you work out, you don’t hurt quite as bad.

So you can either walk down those stairs in pain, or you can walk down those and continue to age poorly, or you can walk down those stairs in pain because you’ve worked out and your body feels tighter. That was just that moment was so profound for me. It has been, it sticks with me when I’m writing or doing whatever I do for activity it when I’m thinking, God, this hurts.

And I think, you know what? And your body’s in better shape because it’s hurting. So, and if you weren’t doing it, your body be hurting worse. And so you get a choice, you don’t get a choice of whether or not your body hurts, you just get to have a choice of how your body looks, that, that, that is literally my little thing now at this age of just going, you know what, you’re going to hurt either way.

So you can either be limping into the bathroom. I don’t know if I’m going to adopt that. I like, yeah, I like the choice. I mean, it’s like. The, the first part I kind of recapped what I took away and this, this new, the new contributions from you guys. I’m hearing choice. Remember your choice. How do you want to experience this to get to the behavior change you want?

I’m hearing joy, make sure it’s playful and joyful and you bring that to it. And, Yeah, I think there’s so much to go on here and a big one I’m going to take away too is you know what I don’t know what you would identify this as is the top of the mountain in terms of values, but I’m weird and it’s like, okay, that’s cool.

I’m not normal. And I found, I think I found other weird people. I really like, so I appreciate you guys, Danielle. I want to add one last component that Casey has implied this whole time. That is really important that you’re getting it. that we feel like what we’re doing, we have agency that it’s actually going to affect something in a positive way that we see as positive.

And I just lastly want to say that cause that’s a big part of M I is supporting autonomy and activation is this sense of agency that you Do have choice, but you also have a sense of control and I would point you and everyone else here to a company called precision health reports that if you want to get some of the best lab work for your health and you look at all the peer reviewed research, it’s an example of a larger point we’re making, which is have informed choice of how much is your behavior.

Really aligning with your values or not, if we’re going to talk about well being in this and you can look at this more objectively with, with companies like that so that you can get a sense of how much am I really at risk or not? Or how much am I being more normal or not? That is an awareness, Casey, that you implied that you’ve gotten a lot of awareness around.

But I just want to invite that for whatever everyone is working on in their life. to seek outside feedback to get more of that sense of how much is my behavior really helping me get where I want to go. And that being a sense of competence as well as a sense of agency. And I think Danielle, that’s another just thing I wanted to add in with your choice that you picked up, that you do have a lot of power for the future of.

Your wellbeing and your future joy of yourself. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much. You guys, all the viewers, listeners, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode as much as I have, and that you are off to an awesome start in the new year. And we’re here to support you says John just mentioned you’re not alone.

So reach out, let us know what we can do to serve you. Casey at ifioc. com. Email us, reach out, join our podcast, share your ideas, give us feedback. We really appreciate you. And we’re so glad you joined us. Thanks Casey. Thanks John. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert.

As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.com If you have questions, please email me at sey at ifioc. com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit ifioc. Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this podcast, we discuss:* Casey’s Personal Experience: A recounting of a school lockdown involving Casey’s children, offering a real-world context for the discussion. * Managing Parental Fear: Insights into how parents can handle their trauma responses while supporting their children during crises. * The Duality of Reaction: Exploring the struggle between emotional reactions and the need for rational action in emergencies. * Applying MI in Trauma: Discussing how motivational interviewing principles can be adapted in traumatic situations, particularly in school environments. * Advocacy vs. Change: Balancing the desire to advocate for change with the need to create constructive outcomes. * Empathy and Understanding: The importance of entering others’ worlds empathetically, even in traumatic contexts. * Consequences and Compliance: How motivational interviewing can help in framing consequences and compliance in a more constructive manner. * Feeding Fear or Faith: The concept of choosing which emotions to feed during a crisis – fear or faith. * Role of Educators and Staff: Guidance for teachers and school staff in stabilizing situations and providing support to students. * Empowering Through Communication: Strategies for empowering individuals and communities to deal effectively with trauma through effective communication.

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Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. Hi everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin. I’m here on the Communication Solution podcast, and I am joined by Casey Jackson, your host and expert in motivational interviewing. How are you, Casey? I’m doing pretty well. Awesome. Well, I’m excited about this episode.

We’re looking at, Basically, what’s happening in school systems. I had a question for you around motivational interviewing and the communication solution when, you know, in the news, you hear about all of the challenges in school systems, and how they’re trying to keep kids safe and how they’re exposed to obviously guns and violence and threats.

And what I really enjoy, about the way that you train and the way your brain works is that, you know, how to take an idea from kind of the ivory tower discussions and make it very tangible and real. And I don’t know if that’s the visual part of myself that you just tell stories in a way that I get.

And then I also. Retain and it helps me relate to things. So I was hoping we could dive into an experience that I know you just went through recently with your kids in the school system as it relates to how motivational interviewing might be able to help be a guide in situations where. Kids are, in school systems and parents, everybody’s affected by the potential threat and the actual threats that are happening in the school system.

Yeah, it’s, I mean, at least I’ve had a day to process it now. Yeah. So, so what had happened was yesterday morning, you know, I get, first I get the texts from my daughters that they’re, they’re in lockdown and freaking out. They were separated, they’re twins and they were separated. So one is with her boyfriend and they’re in one room.

And then my, the other daughter is with two of her friends and they’re both texting me scared because they’re in lockdown and they know that there’s a potential, threat. Either in the building or outside of the building, you know, and then, then I get the emergency alert on my phone, from the school district saying that they’re in lockdown, you know, and then about, I’m just so blessed that I have friends that work in that school.

So I immediately text them, and. Hoping that they’ll respond in the middle of the crisis. And they did. I mean, immediately, which is amazing that, you know, and gave me kind of the scenario. And then some other teachers had texted separately and let us know what was going on that we knew. And, and

it’s hard because when the. The girls are freaking out as would make sense. And trying to stay calm and, you know, I’m just so in dad brain in that moment, it is hard to, to, you know, what’s the right thing to do? You know, how can I be supportive? And, you know, they, they say, you know, parents don’t come to the school.

You know, law enforcement’s involved, stay, please stay away from the area. And, and then it’s just the, as I get more information from people who know what’s going on, there was, a man with a rifle outside of their school, and it just caused all sorts of reactions in me and. You know, just anger and frustration and, you know, that gets into politics and all these other things that, that, that my brain just wants to go to just, you know, angry and emotional.

And, and then I think about some of the things that I literally, I mean, because I, I talk about this stuff every single day, I get to train every day and then my brain goes through kind of the, the practical side of how I look at motivational interviewing, which is, you know, there’s nothing wrong with being angry and advocating.

Doesn’t necessarily change behavior, not that advocacy doesn’t change behavior, but in most situations we look at when we go into a hard advocacy position, you tend to generate hard opposition pretty quickly. And that’s where my brain just continues to go through, you know, where’s the source of discord?

Where’s the source of writing reflex? Then there’s the dad part of me. It’s like, I don’t care. I don’t give a f k. I don’t care. You know, these are my babies and, and this is insanity. And when is the insanity going to stop? Like, I can’t handle this anymore. Like this is just, you know, and, and knowing just kind of where people’s brains are at in the communities that I live in, that it just triggered a whole lot of things for me.

And I remember, you know, when I was kind of driving towards the school and, and kind of in that hovering moment of, you know, staying back. But if I need to go there and pick up a girl, so I’m going to be right there to get them, the thing that went through my brain is, do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy?

And, and if I want to be happy, that means I need to create change in a way that’s productive and not react from my emotions, which is really hard not to do when you’re, you know, every parenting instinct gets triggered and, you know, you’re ready to fly over there and, and. Take that gunman out yourself.

Like, it’s just like, I can’t, you know, you’re not going to hurt my kids. You’re not going to hurt these kids. So it’s just fascinating that my brain that’s in this reactive mode and emotional mode and, and its own trauma response in the moment has this whole other lecturer part in my brain just going, okay, now let’s deconstruct this as I’m sitting in the car next to the sidewalk, just going, okay, you know, it’s wild.

So that was, that was, you know, part of the experience from yesterday. That’s a really good point. That you mentioned about advocacy. Casey is, advocacy is great. And the truth of it is, is that it can create opposition. And so you went directly to, what is that behavior? What, what is, what’s the end result you want to achieve?

Is it be happy or be right? And you had to make a decision. And then from there, you could align your behavior. To, okay, what can I do to achieve that end? Is that an accurate, assessment? Yeah, and it’s the things that I think of where I want to react or, you know, maybe from an outside perspective, overreact.

And even when I was thinking about just. How angry I was and how emotional I was, I know what happens when you take that to a school board meeting or, you know, you get people whipped up in a frenzy and there’ll be on your side and just, and then you see the counterbalance to the opposite side of that, that whips up in a frenzy.

And it just, it comes again, you know, I love what Miller talks about with the writing reflex. It comes from a heart of wanting to help, but when you have those writing reflexes. It’s nearly mathematic that you’re going to get an equal and opposite energy generated. So how do we navigate that in a way that perpetuates ambivalence versus perpetuates resistance?

And so this, I think there’s, you know, always get questions. People ask me questions all the time about, can you use it in a family setting? Can you use motivation with a group? Can you use it in large groups, you know, and. What I always tell people at any time I get those kind of questions is so much of it comes down to the complexity, of your skillset, how advanced your skills are in motivational interviewing.

And are you trying to create change or again, are you trying to advocate or teach or, you know, there’s just, I’m just such a fanatic of trying to keep, am I, what am I is and not make it all sorts of things that it’s not, but there are so many great constructs in it. So for me, what I think of in those situations is, If I’m trying to affect change, and I am a huge proponent of advocates, I think it’s a, it’s.

You know, phenomenal. When people take up a torch and do what they do. But then I look at so much of the byproduct, I’m always thinking, is there a more efficient or a more effective way to go about it as well, too? And all advocacy doesn’t mean that you’re picking up the torch and marching. You know, which again, I’m a huge supporter of, um.

Just all of those rights that we do have. So just, I think that all these thoughts that are going through my brain as I’m sitting there staring at the chain link fence, you know, and starting at the school just going, God, how, how do we do this in this day and age? How do we make change when it feels like nothing is going to change?

You know, you know, and I, and then I get angry about the, you know, sending thoughts and prayers and it’s like, gosh, can we just change something, you know? Instead of perpetuating this in communities and neighborhoods and families and individuals that trauma, where’s the impetus to, for change? So lots of things that go on through my brain through all that.

So you’re always looking at that for change. And what I hear you saying is you started with yourself. And I can imagine there are many parents out there that can really relate to, okay, here’s the news. And your first reaction is like, I would find it hard to believe if it wasn’t, I’m going to go and take this guy out myself.

It’s all about, it’s my job. I will keep you safe. I will, you know, and you’re thrown into trauma, your trauma brain. And it’s like fight or flight. Yeah. So what you were able to do was say, okay, that’s happening. Like hard to say you’re not going to have that trigger, but luckily you had this other part of yourself.

I don’t know where to point at my head for that, but I know, cause you talk about trauma and then executive functioning. So it’s like you had that executive functioning piece kind of being the trainer, you training yourself going, okay. What do you want to achieve this or this and kind of breathing and getting yourself through that to say, okay, yes, I can keep them safe and we can do it in this way.

Yeah, and I think the thing that’s striking to me in so many ways is that I was just raised in an incredibly competitive family. And so the first thing I want to do is I will take you out. I will not lose. And like, and I just, that’s the way I was raised. And so to think of how much some of those tapes, which I think that there’s, I think there’s good things that came from that, you know, that I will win at all costs.

I will take them out at all costs. And I think, I think the mindset in. In mainstream America, there’s so much of that mindset. I will take you out at all costs. It’s part of the problem. It’s not part of the solution. And those are the things that, you know, it’s just this internal. Well, it is the, I mean, it’s definition of ambivalence.

Like, it really is the devil and the angel on my shoulder of just going yes, yes, yes. And then no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no. Especially when you’re in your own trauma response and, you know, you have people you love are involved. The thing I want to tease out about this too is that may or may not be an MI moment as far as changing behavior because it’s a health and safety or a risk issue.

So I don’t want to. Conflate some of these concepts as well, too. But what I think of in those situations is really the only thing I have control over because I couldn’t control anything in that situation. The only thing I can control is how I react to it or how I’m processing it. And that’s just really hard to do when our brains are in that reactive zone.

To, to try to think logically and, and because part of where our inertia comes from is that energy that’s perpetuated in fight, flight, freeze. You know, you don’t want to anesthetize that too, because that was a survival skill for, you know, it’s how we survive. Is that fight flight race? It’s not like we’re trying to anesthetize it, but I think for me, it’s being able to process it and deconstruct it in a way that leads to the best possible outcome, for all people concerned.

Because then what I think of too, is then I think of individual I worked with in state prison or federal prison or people I’ve worked with, with, you know, that struggle with mental health issues or, you know, substance use issues. And I know there’s, I know there’s a thing about. You know, they’ve got their rifle in their hand and they’re in front of a school, all bets are off.

And there’s part of me that genuinely believes that until I’ve been inside the head of the person that’s actually in front of the school, with a gun in their hand. And since I’ve been in people’s heads like that, it’s hard because it, it, it brings you to a whole person perspective and it, and. And again, health and safety is always primary, so I’m going to keep saying that, but the more information you have, I think sometimes the more difficult the decisions of what is the right thing to do.

I think there’s a difference between the right thing to do and the righteous thing to do. What’s the, the righteous thing to do is not always the healthiest for everyone. But we can justify and defend ourselves for why we make those decisions. So, wow. Um. Wow. That’s profound to think of it that way of when you, at the essence of motivational interviewing is really the ability to, to enter somebody else’s world to have accurate empathy.

And so you’re really skilled at that. So even, even in the aftermath that is this quick, you’re able to go, yep, this was my trauma. You know, reaction, and then I was able to move more to executive functioning to help, you know, react in a way that would get me the, the behavior that, or the experience that I want, you know, was aiming for, and then at the same time, say, be aware that there was another party involved.

That you would and could potentially get into their world and, you know, have an experience with a person. That’s, that’s it. And it, it’s the, the, you know, there’s some things that I just, I really do have an appreciation that I have this mindset or this structure in my brain because it did give me things to focus on while I’m sitting next to the school.

And part of that is as well too, is that I, it’s almost like, you know, from the. The writing reflex video or the teeter totter seesaw one, then when you can see both sides of the ambivalence, my brain is just, you know, sprinting to both sides of the teeter totter, like, you know, just anger and fear and emotion and, and, and panic.

And, and, and then, you know, like, you can’t do anything right now. So what do you know in those situations? I mean, you teach this, you train this, you know, what the brain is doing right now, you know, and then I get more text messages from my daughters, which creates a reaction. And then how do I help their brains function more effectively when my brain’s starting to freak out?

You know, when they’re, they’re emotional and stressed and, and then doing what I know is the most effective thing, even through text to help them kind of center and be calm and help their brains not going to full trauma response, you know, and not knowing what’s going on. And then having these panics about.

What if they are one of the by products of, you know, somebody who loses their mind and, and, you know, and it shoots up a school like, and then it’s like, but you’re talking to your daughters right now and you have to help their brains function more effectively. Like that’s a, what if that you have no control over what you have control over is what you text.

Into your phone right now, you have control over how you’re framing this to help their brains function more effectively as I’m just, then all of a sudden you have the panic of, you know, and what if he comes around this side and just start shooting at the cars that, you know, if the parents that are kind of out of the zone, but in the zone, at the same time, it’s, you know, and then it’s like, but then you’re texting and, and trying to think that way.

I just, again, I feel so the level of gratitude I have that my brain can process this in the moment. And I think it’s because it literally is chronic exposure. Every single day I talk about the constructs and people tell me about the traumas and their, and the populations they serve. And then I walk through it with them because I believe in the model and it helps me also understand that it doesn’t make, am I, or this method, right in every single situation.

I just know what it looks like if you were going to apply it. It doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to apply in that situation. And I think those are the things that my brain was just rapidly. Processing through, you know, with every time I got a new text from somebody within the school or, you know, or the girls or any of those things that were going on.

I have a couple of questions for you. One is on the track of what it’s like to be a parent. Any, any suggestions or, constructs you can share here for, for those listening that. Are in that parent role in terms of what you do have control over is what you say to your, your kids, any suggestions or frameworks around a good approach for that.

If a parent is in a situation where they’re being triggered and, and have fear for themselves for the safety of their kids, how do they step into helping their kids? Any examples or anything you can share there? Yeah, you know, I’m always going to lead these kind of conversations off with there’s, there’s lots of right ways, and there’s probably not one perfect way.

But when I look through a motivation lens, and when I think about, you know, as a parent, what I try to do with my own children is I just want to strengthen their problem solving skills. And, and everything is everything in your body is apparent is you want to tell them what to do and why they need to do it and you want to share your wisdom and explain your wisdom to them.

And, you know, if you would just listen to me and, and, and with the, my daughter’s being, you know, 14, almost 15. Now I, I have an, an amazing ability. I really appreciate that. I can go back to vivid memories of my own parent. I, you know, my parents raising me and, and knowing when they’d say things like that, like, I know how my brain processed it as an adolescent.

Is the, yeah, you can say that, but you don’t know me. You know, like, you know, and you’re just saying that because you think you’re right then and you know, you don’t, and I’m sure you didn’t do it when you were a kid, like all the things that I know the way my brain worked back then, I can vividly remember my brain worked back then in conversations with both my parents and.

So to fight all of those parental, you know, instincts, that’s just, I think, imprinted in my DNA, in a parenting DNA, it’s just like, you know, no, you’re not going to do that. Are you crazy? You’re not leaving the house wearing that. And, you know, everybody’s going to think this about you or, you know, don’t you understand?

Like, if you don’t get your homework done or you don’t talk to the teachers, then how is this going to happen? Like all those narratives in our brains that we want to, you know, explain to and, shape our children with. Okay. It just doesn’t work that well that way. What it is is when they know and get clear what core values are within them, when you help them uncover their core values, it, for me, it’s that chronic exposure is your behavior really getting you what you want.

I think where parents struggle is and where I have struggled, in parenting challenges is when their brain thinks Like, Oh, if I continue to do this and it’s okay, if I date this person, you don’t understand. You know, just having one drink or just vaping, it’s not that big of a deal. And that wasn’t my children thing, thankfully.

But when I see those kinds of things that come up in the brain with you, their behavior really believes like it’s in line with our values. And the adult looks at them and thinks. I’ve had this conversation. They think it’s okay. They genuinely think that, you know, having sex at 14 is okay. They think that, you know, vaping is not that big of a deal.

Like they, they believe that their behaviors line with our values because partly their behavior is in line with. With some of their values at the top of the mountain, when the brain hasn’t fully developed, that’s the hardest part for parents is being able to go, okay, then how do we navigate this effectively?

And that’s also where it, it, to me, it’s without it being repercussion personal, it’s how do we create natural consequences in a way? That they would experience that, whether they were in the family or my family system or not within my family system, there’s just natural consequences that happen. And so how do I try to replicate real world consequences without me wagging my finger at them and saying, well, I told you so, or I told you this was going to happen because that comes from a righteous place again.

Versus when it’s this way, Equipoise and writing reflex is so important versus when it’s like, let’s talk about what the ground rule rules are ahead of time. And this, I learned with my adult son, when I started to just talk about the kind of the expectation, the rules ahead of time and negotiate those together in a very, very, you know, egalitarian way to the best of my ability, like what feels fair, what feels fair for this.

Okay. What consequences feel fair? And they usually come up with better consequences before the fact than they do when the consequences come down, because their belief is, I will follow through. I will do exactly what I need to do, so we don’t have to worry about this. So basically punish me however you want to.

And it’s like, what do you think the consequences are? And then from that point forward, what was helpful for me is to be not emotional about it then to actually almost be compassionate of going, this is, I just don’t want to be in your shoes to know that you’re not going to be able to have the money to go to prom now.

You know, if all these things you talked about at a time, it’s, it’s, it’s got, it’s gut wrenching for me and I don’t even want to, you know, and they get angry and defensive and start screaming and, and do the things that a normal person would do, but the reality is, is they’re stuck with the fact that their behavior got them to where they are, but I’m not in a place of, I told you so, or a finger wagging righteous place because then they miss the whole point of the lesson.

I literally allow them generate resistance instead of having them at some point when they’re laying in their bed, staring at the ceiling saying, God, I screwed up. That’s, that’s the things that I want to be able to create from what I understand about ambivalence and how do we help people work through ambivalence based on their own values.

So it doesn’t mean there’s an absence of consequences. This comes up all the time when I train with people that work within compliance based systems, like, well, we have consequences. We have to do compliance. And it’s like, there’s consequences that happen, but you don’t have to be the compliance officer per se.

You can use those opportunities for the person’s behavior is the thing that’s going to get them in a good place or not good place. It’s not how you handle them. They’re either going to make the good choices or they’re not going to make the good choices. We can perpetuate and facilitate people making choices.

They’re going to align with where they want their outcomes to be. And it’s not, it’s not perfect because the brains are still going to do what the brain wants to do, but. You’re giving them you’re increasing and strengthening executive functioning and all that function in the prefrontal cortex. The more we do that.

Gosh, it’s so awesome for parents. What valuable information just just to work with any young adult, any anyone to help them problem solve, not. It’s almost like the instinct is to get, I’m going to get you to trust me. See, I told you so. See, like now, will you believe me next time when you’re in this situation?

And it’s like, no, I’ll believe me next time. You know, the child or the youth. So really valuable. Thank you, Casey. I have one last question for you and it’s like. As we shift around perspectives of this particular situation, you just explained how, how your child might feel in a situation, what they’re experiencing, how the parent is, can you touch on some advice or some guidance for, many of the people you train in school systems, welfare, you know, all of these different organizations that are out there, how Helping families, helping youth navigate these situations.

And I can’t help, but think of the school system in your case and the teachers and staff and the administrative folks who were dealing with this crisis yesterday. Any, any tips and guidance or insight to share with them? The thing I would say about in the middle of trauma or experiencing trauma, and I’m not a, an expert in trauma.

I just study it a lot and I know what’s worked for me. And what I. You know, at this point in time, know what we know about trauma is just allowing yourself whatever response and honoring whatever your response you’re having what has been so profoundly helpful for me and in some, some trauma situations that I’ve been in, studying this is that pathway of going, do I want to go into my fear based brain or do I want to go into my.

You know, more of a higher awareness brain and when you’re like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Like, I can’t deal with this. Even in those moments for me, it’s almost like being able to kind of dig that ice pick into the ice as you’re sliding down the, the mountain. It’s just like, I have a choice to have fear in this situation, or I have.

A choice to gather myself and, and I, I don’t want to overuse the word choice because I know people are going to say, but when we’re in that fight flight freeze, we don’t have choice. We’re just in survival mode. But if you have the cognition to be able to just go, I’m freaking out, what can I do here?

There’s part of your brain that is scrambling to get up into your logical brain. And it, I don’t want to oversimplify it, but the way that it works in my brain really is that I think it’s the Cherokee story about the two wolves fighting inside you. You know, the one that has fear and the one that has faith and, you know, and the, the wisdom keeper says, you know, the one that’s going to win inside of you is the one you’re going to feed.

So if you’re going to feed the fear, it’s going to win. If you feed the faith based one, it’s going to win. So what do you want to feed? And I think that is that resonated with me just deeply to the core of who I am. And so in those trauma response situations, I think, which, what do I want to feed right here?

Because what you feed is going to perpetuate the fear and anxiety is going to grow. And this is why. And helping the girls yesterday, I didn’t want to feed the fear, but I wanted to also honor that. They also have the responses that they have every human right to have as well, too. It’s it’s that’s why there’s no perfect answer, but at least there’s a structure in my brain that I get to work from just go.

Okay. How do we navigate this where we can honor? Our human reaction that is overwhelming and emotional and, you know, and, and getting triggered on all these survival levels and then being able to use parts of our brain that we know if we access them and, and just like to almost, almost like kind of pushing a door open or, you know, prying a window open that, you know, we, if we fight that hard to get into that part of our brain, we have the capacity to do that as well too.

The thing I need to add to it for everybody that knows trauma informed approaches is, and it is easier if you have protective factors, it’s easier for me because I had, you know, I had stability and I had, even though I came from, you know, a lower income family, I had two parents that stayed together who loved us and provided stability.

And so I have so many protective factors where my brain wasn’t chronically in trauma response. And there’s individuals in, you know, in families or in communities or in countries where it’s chronic trauma. And so their brains are just going to, they’re just. More readily going to go into that. So it’s easier said than done is all I can keep saying.

It doesn’t negate that that structure isn’t effective to think about that. Which one are you going to feed? Just then every individual is going to have their own experience with their capacity or their own trauma about how readily they can access that part, and try to get on top of it. And then obviously go through whatever healing process they need to after as well, to whatever that takes, however they define that.

I like that you just highlighted that piece because again, your visuals, you paint if I can replay back to what I see right now is this is this mountain and it’s your school system. You’re you’re the school yesterday and I see all of the teachers and administrative staff sliding down. Like, the initial reaction is Oh my God, this is happening.

And they all just go like sliding down the ice mountain and they all whip out their picks, ice picks. And it’s like, that’s the vision I have is like, that’s what happens in a, in a situation like that. And, or, a system like that is like, boom, boom, boom. Everybody’s. They locked in. Yes. So I hear you saying is, yes, do that and make sure you honor the fact that you did slide or whatever that was for you, each individual or, or staff member.

Well, and when you say it, when you’re. That’s it, Daniel. And I think that’s the thing. If that could happen, and that is a monumental ask or monumental, you know, task for for anyone in trauma situations to be able to dig that ice pick in. But when you think that we’re taking care of children in an ideal world, if we’re the ones who are the caretakers and the caregivers, just think about if, you know, all these teachers are digging their ice pick and getting and all the kids are sliding and all of a sudden they see teachers just kind of digging in.

How much Stability that provides for children around that, or for families in a family system, when things are chaotic, that the parent can dig an ice pick into their values and, and, and feel stable and then are able to grab their child’s hand. Like, that’s, that’s for me is partially what the role of adults are is, you know, hopefully we’ve learned and hopefully we, we try to grow and get stronger.

And if we understand this, then we provide that stability when, when it feels like, you know, there’s no solid ground beneath us. Which is hard to do, it’s just easier said than done and this is why it’s so complex moving from ivory tower to the main street with these, these traumas that are happening daily in our communities.

Yeah, I really appreciate you talking about this. I know what I love most is that it’s that this wrong, this, this just happened and that you’re able to process this, this rapidly enough to share it in a way that. That hopefully is helping you guys, your listeners, parents out there, family members, community members, and obviously, you know, so much gratitude to the law enforcement, you know, for the school systems, teachers, everybody doing their part.

Painted a really great picture of Casey. Thank you so much. Thanks, Danielle. Thanks everybody. Thank you for inviting us. Please let us know what you think of this episode. Was it helpful? What else can we do to help you? Any ideas you have, if you’d like to join the podcast. We would love to hear your opinion.

So reach out to Casey at IFIOC. com and we’ll get back with you. Thanks so much, Casey. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.Com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this podcast, we discuss:* Understanding the Motive to Help: The hosts discuss what drives them to be in helping positions, delving into personal motivations and the impact they hope to make. * Casey’s Reflection on Empathy: Casey shares a profound personal quote from his teenage years, emphasizing the importance of making people feel heard, seen, and understood. * John’s Perspective on Alleviating Suffering: John talks about his motivation to help others, particularly driven by his sensitivity to pain and suffering. * Experiences in the Prison System: Casey shares his experiences working in prisons, highlighting the power of being present and making inmates feel heard and understood. * Journey vs. Destination: The conversation explores the balance between enjoying the journey of helping others and focusing on the desired outcomes. * Ethical Influence in Motivational Interviewing: They discuss the ethics of influencing people in motivational interviewing, emphasizing the need to maintain autonomy and provide informed choices. * Compliance vs. Autonomy: The hosts tackle the complex issue of compliance in helping professions, contrasting it with the concept of respecting individual autonomy. * Guiding with Empathy: Casey and John explore how guiding someone in motivational interviewing involves balancing empathy with strategic direction. * Personal Growth Through Helping: They reflect on how their own journeys in helping others have led to personal growth and a deeper understanding of human behavior. * Intrigue in Individual Stories: Casey expresses his fascination with individual narratives and the unique reasons people seek help or guidance.

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TranscribeHello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We are the communication solution here to hopefully entertain and grow your brain and all the sorts of good things that you’re tuning in for. If it’s the first time, listening, you got Casey Jackson here, our director that I will be.

Interviewing Casey, this is John, one of his worker bees out in the world training on AI and other such things. And so we’re here today to talk about a topic that. And we can veer in all sorts of directions here, Casey, but it’s just something I’ve been thinking about from a conversation we were having recently.

And what are we trying to do when we’re trying to be in a helping position? Why does it matter to help people so much? Not just from a, sense of that’s what you ought to do, should do, you’re supposed to do, but what is underlying our motives in helping Positions and why not go to banking as much? And some people might say, well, you could make more of an impact if you become a banker and become a philanthropist, then being a nonprofit, you know, director and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

There’s lots of rabbit holes. We can go down, but the whole idea is what’s the motivation behind what we behind trying to help people use? Am I all this stuff? So I’m kind of wondering for you, what would you say when you start to peel back those layers? What are you trying to do in helping people help people?

You know, what struck me when you were talking, I can’t even believe this popped in my brain, but it was a, it was a quote that I’d read when I was in high school and, and the fact that I can even remember parts of it is shocking to me, but it was so profound for me at that age with, you know, depression or thing, you know, just teenage angst, basically.

And the quote was, there is no greater burden in this world than to think that no one cares or understands. Hmm. And I just thought that for me was partially, you know, when I understood what, not that I could have a living trying to help other people, that was a catalyzing moment from that quote. I had that quote written down, when I was reading all this book of quotes and that one just was like, Whoa, like what a burden.

I felt that before, you know, and then as, you know, just as I. And as an adolescent of seeing other people experience that. And then as I got older, seeing people experience that, like to think that nobody cares or understands, like, is there any greater burden in the world? And, and there’s another one about how, you know, do you just want to operate in this world, basically like a bowl full of marbles, you know, where we touch, but we don’t interface.

And that was a really interesting concept to me too. And for me, that was the foundation of just going. I don’t know if I’ll be good at this profession, but what I do know is I want people to feel heard and seen and understood. And if I release some burden on another person, if somebody would have done that for me or people that did do that for me, and that’s a way that I could actually pay my mortgage or, you know, pay rent.

Like, why wouldn’t you do that? Like that was. For me, what it’s always been about. And I think, you know, we talk about authenticity and genuineness, but I’ve never lost that, like in my heart and in my, that pit inside of me and my solar plexus is just like, I, something resonates and harmonizes when I’m able to do that for another person.

You know, whether it’s mentally, emotionally, spiritually, whatever it is, you know, and I think for you physically and spiritually and mentally and emotionally. When you can do that for other people, there’s just, I love, you know, there’s a there there, with that. And so that’s, that’s what I’d launch it off from when you ask that it just coincided me that I just, I just, I want people to feel heard and seen and understood.

So interesting because it’s, it’s, it’s a way of you’re, you’re entering this compassionate way of being with people for the very intrinsic sake of that sort of. Outcome. And it’s so interesting that we can both be wanting to help people, but have different salient outcomes that we especially resonate with, such as for you heard, seen, understood that sense.

Yes, and and to bring something in that I’m curious about from your perspective, that is a motivated for me pain and suffering. And for whatever reason, it’s my own probably mental blocks that Rumi would point to and all sorts of things that, your resonance with that heard and understood piece is so core to so much.

And yet, for me, I’ve, I’ve had to more emotionally resonate, learn how to resonate with that and that it’s. Just the pain that people go through and working at a vet clinic like I did and seeing people in my personal life go through difficult things and have such good hearts, but just really break down crying or things like this that just it’s heartbreaking.

It’s I can get emotional. It’s so heartbreaking to and then start to think about all the people going through all the things it starts to become this bigger. Who, you know, and, and it’s very motivating for me to alleviate some of those things, but it’s so interesting that the way in might be similar, but I’m that initial part.

That’s probably, I don’t know, it’s, it’s important to the way in that you found was being heard, seen and understood. So I’m wondering. As you’ve gone into seeing and hearing people, especially when you were in the prisons and some of these other things, what has that taught you? What has that been like to go in to hear and see and understand people’s perspectives, whether you agree with them or not, and what has it, you know, garnered for you?

What has it taught you about your own motives to help people? I’m just curious. It’s interesting because what I think about is I think getting the social work degree, you know, I wanted to get the psychology degree because I genuinely wanted therapy is all I wanted to do. I just wanted to help people.

That was that was it. And then just because I was, you know, as I was exposed to more than it was the reality that getting a master’s in social work is going to give me a different level on a macro level. Like, I want to understand systems like that was fascinating to me as well to. But to me, it was just, I want people to feel heard and seen and understood.

I think what, what pulled it together for me. And again, it’s weird that these weird stories are coming to my brain, but, and this was emotional for me is I remember the starfish story and I’d never heard it before, and just to say it for people that have never heard it before, and it may not translate for everyone, but.

You know, there’s a young man walking along the beach and all these starfish have been washed up on the beach and, and, and so he starts picking up the starfish and trying to throw him back in the ocean as they’re kind of drying out and dying in the sun. And, and then, you know, an old gentleman comes along and says, you know.

There’s, you know, hundreds, thousands of starfish here. You’re not going to be able to save all of them. You’re wasting your time, you know? And he looks at the one starfish in his hand. He says to this one, it matters and throws it into the ocean. And I think that is kind of the answer to your question around that for me is, you know, from all the places that I’ve worked in, I can get the imposter phenomenon when I started working in the prison system, you know, both state level was probably more, more intense and overwhelming for me than the federal level, as a therapist.

But. What translated away from the imposter phenomenon, or when I would could leave the imposter phenomenon, like who am I to help this person with their life? Like, I can’t relate. I don’t know them, but to this one, it matters. So for me to be fully present and not try to fix someone and not think I’m the psychologist or I’m the therapist, or I need to dig into their issues.

And I went through streaks of doing that. But the most profound moments that I think were probably the most Yeah. Impactful and that’s what clients had shared with me is the fact that they felt that they weren’t being judged and they could get some of their thoughts out of their own head. And, and just, and just be with their own thought process and another human being with them, with them in that moment, who wasn’t trying to fix them.

That was just that capacity to be present. And that was pre motivational interviewing, even that goes back to what we’re just talking about is I just knew that there was, there was potential health and healing in people feeling heard and seen and understood and not judged. And that was something that. I could do, and I think there’s part of me that was voyeuristic about it, that somebody, the level of intimacy of someone being able to open up and share the deepest, darkest parts of their life with me, that was fascinated.

That’s a whole different level of intimacy, and that was very intriguing to me, and then did not have to manipulate it. And just see what would, what would be born from that internal truth for that person. I was obsessive to me. I love, I’ve never, I mean, I’ve been in the field for over 30 years and 35 years now.

And I, I’m just never bored. And that’s what I knew when I went into this field. I have never, ever, ever been bored. I’ve been exhausted. I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve been emotional. I’ve been all sorts of things, but I have never, ever been bored going to work ever because it’s fascinates me to be able to be present that way with another human being.

Everything is an adventure. Like every, it’s a new, it’s a new trip or it’s a new travel destination. Every time that I get to put myself to the side and step into someone else’s reality. And that’s, that’s obsessive for me. Yeah. Related to that. So interesting is what I’d be curious also about for you. And then just a little qualification is that balance between empathy and direction that, you know, is talked about in MI that we’ve trained on that Moyers, you know, you can give her a single mom example if you want for a taxpayer, all that stuff.

It’s that there’s a balance here with being with. And helping support towards, and it’s so interesting to hear the interest level that you have in the journey. Cause what was going through my mind is journey versus destination, or how do you mix the journey and the destination? And also in another podcast, we talked about, well, based off of your professional training or who’s funding insurance or cash pay.

Things go into our sense of perceived sense of pressure and time and efficiency or real, depending on how we are and depending on what system we want to perpetuate. But I say all that to bring in what your sense of okay, there’s the journey that intrigued you for your motivation. Then there’s, you know, like my lean of how I got in the outcome, the destination, the impact alleviate suffering and can’t you see you’re going to alleviate this.

Jeez, come on. And then getting more compassionate about that over time. Whereas you’re like, Oh, this journey. Wow. Oh yeah. And there are these things that we can find along the way. Cool. Like the, the, the essence of my tone there has a different feel to it from different trainings, different backgrounds. So how did you then come around to like, Yeah, I want to be strategic, but not lose the melody of the song and be still highlighting strategy.

And how do you, how do you kind of come to that direction and, and impact thinking with that journey thinking? I, I know my evolution was. Especially in choosing to work with youth and young adults originally, I was more of a, an ascriber to reality therapy, you know, which is meet the reality where their reality is at.

And then slowly and gently bring them to a healthier reality, which is very egocentric in hindsight. Now I think of it as being more egocentric because a healthier reality is a healthy reality as I define it, which gets into patriarchy and colonialism. And now that I really have a deeper understanding of things, it’s whatever the health professional thinks is healthy.

And that is danger. I mean, now in hindsight, it’s like, Whoa, that is very interesting, especially when we’ve talked about autonomy and sovereignty and other things. You know, when we talk from that perspective, what that journey was from more of a psychotherapy perspective is the more they talk, the more problems I can see and the more identify those problems.

And then I try to fix those problems because that was my version of where I was raised with psychotherapy. The evolution was fascinating to me is. When I started shifting into motivational, everything was exposed to it more and then hearing different voices about the guiding and directing. So how do we do that?

Effectively? It’s why I was so, you know, when I started creating focus mountain was, well, if they’re clear what they want, what their values are, I can see that their biggest internal conflict is their values and their behaviors are not aligning. And even in that part of my evolution, then I’m like, I’m trying to help guide them to how to do that better.

Okay. So I’m still have that expert perspective on it. And I know that that still is. Some people believe in that and invest in that and motivational interviewing, even, you know, there’s, there’s a reason we’re there and there’s a reason we’re getting paid and we’re got to get into this direction. The part of it that I think is so profound and this is where the guiding comes in is there’s the journey part of it.

And, and at this stage of my career, this stage of my life, what I, what I really defer even further to is they get to choose if they just, if they. Want to give their resources to me because they enjoy my personhood when they’re on their journey of being feeling heard and seen and understood, but they’re not craving a destination, but they’re willing to give resources to me because they want that experience.

I don’t get it to find that an insurance company can define that. But if people feel health and healing and growth, because somebody lays hands on them and massages them, you know, whether there’s no true measurable outcome, which we know there is, but that’s still the right to do that. That’s a human being making a decision with how they want to allocate their own human resource, or financial resource or whatever resource they have the ethical.

And I think this is ethical application that you and I can get into. At depth is the guiding, and this is the story from Terry Morris, which I know I’ve told before to people, but I remember this conference. It was a gathering of mentees motivation trainers in San Diego. And there was a panel of the who’s who of am I there’s 5 or 6 people on this panel.

And Dr Teresa Morris was 1 of them and. And it was this, you know, balance between where does empathy and where does direction at the time before guiding where does direction fit in motivational interviewing and everybody was leaning heavily and it was actually, I don’t know if it’s ironic, but it was, I think there was four or five males and, and, and one female, on the panel and these men, brilliant men are just leaning into, you know, research is showing.

We can lean heavier into empathy because we went through, I remember kind of, industry wise, we were so heavy into managed care, managed mental health, managed, you know, behavioral health, which means really how you’re spending your dollars very tightly. And now what they’re saying is, Hey, the research is showing high, accurate empathy is going to give you better outcomes.

So people are just like, and the whole crowd is just like, yes, back to empathy, back to empathy, back to empathy. And everybody’s like in it. You know, and, and Terry, kind of almost like not sheepishly raises her hand and says, you know what, I, I love this conversation, but if nobody else is going to speak about direction, I’m going to speak about direction.

And, and she said, for me, everything has to pass the waitress test, you know, and I’d never heard this before. And, um. So the reason why I believe in direction and, you know, and today’s version of kind of guiding so much is that the waitress test for me is that there’s a single mom out there that has just worked two shifts in a row.

So she’s just putting 16 hours, she hasn’t seen her kids in two days and after working 16 hours on her feet as a waitress job, I am taking part of her paycheck because most of the people in this arena. In this room, in this, in this training room, most of you get some form of public dollars. If you work in the U.

S. you either work for a university or you work for a private nonprofit. Like some of you are getting, you know, the majority of us are getting some form of taxpayer dollars in grants or funding. So I literally have just taken part of her paycheck after 16 hours of her being on her feet and not seeing her children.

She is going to be very resentful. If all I’m doing is talking to this person about how their week was. Because she’d like somebody to talk to her about how her week is, and we’ve taken her money now to give to me to talk to this person. She’s going to want to see an outcome from that. And to me, that was and the room just kind of went silent.

Because there’s this reality of why are we interfacing with this human being? What are we taking from them? What are they giving us? Will by choice or not? And what outcome are we expecting from that? That’s not just, you know, a passerby saying hi or somebody sitting on a plane next to you or a bus next to you or in a coffee shop with you.

What is this interaction happening? That’s helping you get that one step closer towards your ultimate goal or destination. And that’s why when you’re bringing up the guiding or the journey piece of it, how you can be so present, but in motivational interviewing, what guiding is, is where’s this person’s ultimate destination and what are we evoking or eliciting from their thoughts or their ideas that will move them along that path.

And if they’re stuck and they look to us, we don’t need to be the expert. But we can provide information or education or insights that help them get clearer or stronger or more invested on this path as they see their destination more clearly. And that is guiding that’s beyond just kind of wandering around the forest and picking flowers and laying out in the sun and, and, you know, having lunch while we sit on a stump.

I mean, that’s just there’s enjoyment to that. But is that we should collect money for, or get compensated for? And I think that’s that that that really complex or difficult balance. Yeah, it brings to my many, many things. And so feel free to riff off of any. Any of these for your own sense of what are we trying to accomplish and what are we trying to do and how does M I relate to that?

And for those that are, you know, probably listening to this, a sense of what they can, you know, hone in on for themselves as they’re in that moment of how to ethically influence people you brought in ethics, right? And so a few things that came to mind. One is like, what’s our intention? And we talk about that with motivational interviewing competency assessment, the mica, these 5 motivational interviewing intentions.

And you have kind of a way you talk about that. That can be helpful if you want to go. And mentioned that you might have mentioned that in other places, but that was 1 thing that went through of the whole captainship and all that stuff that we’ve amended to be more cross cultural. But that was 1 thing that went through is like, okay, what’s our intention?

And then what’s our impact, which is what I was kind of talking about before and how would we know? Well, sometimes we can anecdotally go for it. Like you said, with a massage or try to take some more specific measures like I do in my world with labs or, or other, other things that are being noticed. So what’s our intention?

What’s our impact? Intended or not, be it with positive intent, the road to hell being paved with good intentions, and race, all sorts of LGBTQ stuff that gets in involved with this too, but and then so our intention, our impact, and then who’s responsible or where’s the responsibility. And that’s really interesting to think with the example you just gave of, well, we are responsible to not just have feel good conversations, particularly when it’s taxpayer money versus maybe direct pay.

So those were some things that went through to either talk about the mica and those intense intentions. The other related to that with. What you dreamed up with the Micah is what William Miller talked about with guiding and the whole, a good guide on a vacation. And that whole checking in with you as you have a guide on your vacation, concept that you taught me years ago that you can probably remember much better than me, but that came through too, to just give a visual to some of this as well, that.

May or may not be helpful. So then there were about 3 other things I could say, but I’ve already been talking enough. So, but there are more more things to dive into from what you said, but I’m just wondering kind of your, your thoughts or response on all that for, for making this more dimensional. So just as brief of context as I can to answer this is every single day, I’m becoming more profoundly aware of my whiteness, my privilege, my male, like, I’m just so profoundly aware of that.

And I, and, and that influence intentionally or unintentionally that that has, that’s why. You know, conversations you and I have had around what is the nature of sovereignty or autonomy in the deepest sense, in the deepest form. So when I think about this, and we’re talking about a journey, if that’s my mindset going in, it’s different than I think of somebody trying to climb a rock wall.

So whether it’s an indoor rock wall or, you know, out in the world climbing a rock wall. I can come in as a, as a phenomenal free climber and show people exactly what they need to do to have it happen. There’s nothing wrong with that. I can just say those shoes are not going to work. You need to buy these shoes.

I can say you’re going to need to buy these gloves. What I’m getting to now at this stage in my life of trying to be as non intrusive into someone else’s journey, but be as. Helpful as possible is when you look at the clothes you’re wearing, where do you ultimately want to go? Like, what, what do you want to get out of it?

You just want a free climb. Do you want to get to the top and do you know why you want to get to the top? And there’s so many right ways to do that, which goes back to one of the very first things that just drew me into Motivational is that whole concept of being more than one right way then what it can come down to is I’m just going to wear these clothes.

This is what I want to wear. This is what makes me feel comfortable. And it’s like, then it comes into, it’s not ethical. It or the ethical influence of it could be. You have every right to wear those kinds of shoes. It is going to be more difficult. And there’s a reason why you’re attached to those shoes.

You could slip significantly more, but you have the right to do that. And they’re like, I don’t care if I slip more, they’re my favorite shoes. Then it’s like, they have the right to do that. Every place they can put their hand, you’ve got two or three places you can put your hand. One is going to cause significantly more strain on your shoulder.

This one, if you put your hand over here, it’s going to cause more strain on your muscle. Like you, you get to choose that. And ultimately there’s so many right ways. There can be somebody that’s just kind of screaming in there the whole time. Move it, move it, move it. Come on. Don’t slow down. You got this, you got this, you got this, you got this, you got this.

There’s just so many right ways to do it. But what I think comes down to is that individual gets to choose. With informed choice, and this is my obsession around informed choice, is if they know the array of, clothing and accessories they could have access to, if they have the true understanding of all the ways that people could guide them to the top, and if they’re really clear about why they want to get up there and the experience they want to have, it’s their right to choose however that experience comes out.

So, if they want to do that in a bathrobe and slippers and try to climb a wall, they have every right to do that. That’s not mine to judge. If they want to carry, you know, coffee French press with them while they’re doing it, they have every right. Everybody’s going to go, you can’t, that’s just bizarre.

What the hell are you doing? Because maybe the only thing that matters to them is when they get up there is they just want to have a cup of coffee and enjoy the view, you know, I’m not going to get out of their hand. I’m not going to help you. If you’re going to carry a French press to the top of this mountain, because you need both hands.

Or if it’s an indoor gym, there’s kids. So you can’t wear your robe because you’ll expose yourself too much to these kids. And then the coffees give a spill everywhere. So there’s a place for compliance for certain kinds of, other things. Short of compliance, what you’re getting at is that who are we to do it?

If we’re not going to do compliance, if we’re not going to create a line in the sand, which is a big. Separate podcast to talk about where and when and how to create lines in the sand that’s deep. And, but the idea of if you’re not going to do that, what you’re getting at is there’s a place for guiding towards either motivation or what you just did was information because implicit in that.

Is that they want to be successful, they want to play or climb or whatever it is that you are recognizing the motivation they have towards doing whatever the, in this case, the rock wall climbing and you gave a little information in a way that wasn’t trying to coerce or manipulate, but you did give information that helped them get clearer.

And I just want to bring in that that’s. That’s the ethical influence direction in this example that you were doing. That’s really important. That can be very helpful for someone to make more of an informed choice or have an oh, crap or aha, but doing it in a way that’s relevant and appropriately timed that helps them advance their outcome.

As we exactly say in partnering in the mica. And I just want to highlight that that’s the criticalness in which you did that and how you did that. That’s different than my outcomes of them getting to the top are judged. And I need to get them to get to the top without their coffee and without the robe.

So I’m going to implicitly use my awareness of being in a power position versus them. And especially if they have any adverse childhood experiences and traumas and all this stuff and helping professions where. I’m going to use all my awareness to try to get them to the destination that I think is best for them, which it could, could also have things pop out like that, but it’s a very different mindset.

It’s a different intention, and it tends to have a different impact of staying power is what I’m sensing from you of. Not just the autonomy being taken away, but the autonomy being taken away has a different outcome would be my interpretation of what you’re saying. Yeah. And I think this is why it’s not demonizing compliance.

What it is is if somebody, if somebody walks in and they’re. Arm is dislocated from their shoulder and some of their fingers are broken and they come in with a coffee pot. It’s like, well, there is a compliant, there’s a health and safety thing. First of the shoulder needs to be put back in the socket and the fingers need to be sad.

And so there is a compliance. So it doesn’t matter how you feel about it. Like, these are the things you’re complaining about. And I just need to fix these first because they’re so concrete. If it’s disease, if there’s. Broken parts. If there’s, you know, that’s, that’s a different thing. And I think this is where it becomes more gray area in terms of who gets to choose that still, you know?

So compliance isn’t fundamentally bad. I think what I love so much about motivational interviewing, kind of wrapping this up and bringing it back to, you know, some of the original points of this is when the person walks into the climbing gym in a robe with a French press for me personally. It’s the giddy intrigue of who the hell is this person and what’s going through their head right now.

Like, this is so fascinating. Like, I don’t care if they ever climbed, I just can’t wait to get inside their brain because maybe they just wandered in and thought it was their friend. So it’s like, I just want to find out what brought them in here. And what is their narrative and what’s the outcome of why they walked through that door?

What, what outcome were they hoping for? And did they even have an outcome when they walked in that door? That level of intrigue for me just surrenders my personhood and I get to start stepping into their personhood out of the gate and find out, okay, where are they and where do they want to go? And that, that to me is the nature of, you know, deep, high, accurate empathy without judgment.

Really not having a writing reflex because I don’t feel like I have to get them anywhere. It’s it’s where do they want to go? And does it involve me or not? That it just and it’s even when I say it, I just think the amount of stress and pressure that it relieves for me, even as a quote unquote professional.

To not have to be the fixer or the, you know, the healer or the, I don’t have to be that I have to be with them first and they can define what they need. And I either can do that or I can’t do that with them. And that’s where it’s like that, you know, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, before you jump into your professional role, it’s just like starting from that place of high, deep, accurate empathy.

Well, yeah, as we’re, we’re wrapping up, it’s, it’s, there’s so much more to get into with the motives behind helping people and what you’re bringing up with MI and the journey. There’s just so much around what the quote you said to, which I feel like a whole podcast on just that quote from high school that you were talking about of to have someone care.

And I just wanted to kind of conclude with how the more I’ve. Gone into different angles of, of different books and things and talking with people and experiencing things in the world, there seems to be a there there that we are a catalyst for each other. We are an influence. In each other’s lives now, how much you want to depend on that can be healthy and it can become unhealthy how much you want to see yourself as the purveyor of healing everyone and the bringing power to everyone that can get toxic, that can be healthy, but that what you’re getting at when you’re talking about it is trying to be helpful and caring and compassionate for another human being includes recognizing they are their own person to make their own decisions, And there’s an intriguing thing to get into for a journey with them to have that interest.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions. Suggestions or ideas, send them our way at Casey@ IFIOC.Com that’s Casey@ IFIOC.com for more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. This episode provides a rich and insightful journey into the realms of communication and behavioral change, guided by the deep knowledge and experiences of John Gilbert. This episode, in particular, highlights the transformative power of empathetic and informed communication, showcasing how it can significantly impact personal growth and drive positive societal change. John’s unique blend of intellectual rigor and emotional empathy elevates the discussion, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the nuances and complexities of effective communication. The podcast stands as a testament to the pivotal role that thoughtful dialogue plays in our collective pursuit of a more connected and understanding world.

In this podcast, we discuss:* Introduction to John Gilbert: Casey Jackson introduces his co-host, John Gilbert, and sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of John’s perspectives on behavior change and communication. * John’s Academic Journey: John shares his academic background, focusing on his fascination with behavior change and how motivational interviewing became a crucial part of his professional growth. * Self Determination Theory: John discusses the significance of self-determination theory adjacent to motivational interviewing and its influence on his approach to human behavior. * Evolution of Professional Development: John reflects on the profound moments in his professional life, particularly how motivational interviewing reshaped his understanding of communication and behavior change. * Lifestyle Medicine and Health Outcomes: The conversation shifts to the impact of lifestyle choices on health, emphasizing the potential of reversing or preventing major diseases through behavioral changes. * Importance of Respecting Autonomy: A critical discussion on the importance of not taking away an individual’s autonomy, focusing on the respect and dignity in treatment and communication. * Cultural and Environmental Influences: The hosts discuss how cultural and environmental factors shape behavior and the importance of understanding these influences in communication. * The Role of Motivational Interviewing: Casey and John delve into the role of motivational interviewing in engaging individuals meaningfully, beyond the superficial layers of modern communication. * Challenges in a Capitalistic Society: The podcast touches upon the difficulties of implementing these communication strategies in a heavily capitalistic society where everything, including human interactions, can be monetized. * Fusing Empathy with Intellectualism: John concludes by expressing his aim to blend his intellectual knowledge with emotional empathy to make a more profound impact on people’s lives and society.

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Hey everyone. This is Casey Jackson and this is the communication solution. We’re missing our trusty sidekick Danielle today. But it gives John and I a chance to kind of dive a little bit deeper. So I was thinking about this.

There’s so many guests that I’ve had on. You know, I get to talk about my perspective as well too, but I thought it’d be fun to. Have a chance for people to get to know John a little bit better. So I’m going to dive in and, and, start to pick his little brain apart and, and let you experience that wild, wacky, wonderful world that happens inside of John Gilbert’s brain.

And, um. I’m going to interrupt to say, as an out loud processor, I’m a little afraid of what’s about to happen since I didn’t know you were going to ask me about this, so I’m a little afraid of what’s going to be processed out loud and how long and how many words that’s going to take. But, I am going to be conscientious of that and try to have some level of empathy for.

Anyone that actually cares to listen to this. Well, you know, the, the biggest thing for me, you know, John and I have known each other for well over 10 years now. And, you know, he was a grad student, you know, In his master’s program, looking at, you know, healthcare and nutrition and all the things that he’s obsessed with.

And we crossed paths and there was kind of an immediate connection in terms of our desire to work with people, and help to kind of help the world a better place. And I was coming from the mental health and emotional health side of the world. And John was coming from more of the healthcare side of the world.

So John, what. When you saw, you know, you saw the, the, the poster for me doing an MI training, you know, you kind of wandered down there, you and I connected, what was your fascination with behavior change at that point in your kind of academic side of your career? I mean, what, what, what triggered you that you became that obsessed?

You actually followed it into a training room to find out what’s going on, seemingly logic, but it’s probably not that simple. That’s what I’ve learned from human behavior change and, and, psychology. But I want to give some credit where it’s due leading up to that, where, Judy, Judith Knuth, who is an exercise clinical exercise physiologist, and she with American College of Sports Medicine, she was one of my professors that introduced me to, or instructors that introduced me to motivational interviewing in a course because the evidence was showing it seemed to be more effective, or at least As effective as other things, as an approach.

So then that led me to doing a deep dive on it and writing this big long paper of how, wow, look at this evidence. If this was a intervention for a pill or something like that, we would all be using it. And, we would be using it at the dose that it has been shown to be used. And so it was very.

Logical to me that this is something that would be implemented if it’s efficient and effective at helping people. And we would lean into this. And so that’s what the paper essentially was about and integrating it into the program more and integrating it into health care more. And that is essentially what introduced me.

And then I saw signs literally on the campus that led. To you, and then there seemed to be a good vibe with you and we were getting along and whatever my name dropping conversation acting like I knew what I was talking about and my own credibility issues. I worked through and then from that, you invited me to shadow you and so then I started to learn more and I started to realize how applicable and how much this can go deeper And be even more effective and how logical it can be.

And again, that flow of, of the diagram that you and I were talking about assessment intervention, when someone’s with this, there can be here. So all of it just stirred up a bunch of stuff in me of just how this could be so helpful in so many different situations to help people with long term change, which then to finally cap, this answer is that that is what’s at the heart.

If I wanted to answer this succinctly, I would have done that at the beginning. That’s at the heart of what this is all about in healthcare is addressing the underlying cause with lifestyle medicine factors where we could prevent up to, you know, 66 or so percent of cancers. We could prevent nearly all heart disease, nearly all diabetes of type two.

If we just did what we knew was healthy for us, and that’s the underlying cause. And that is behavior and behavior change and sustained behavior change. You know, as we, as we kind of almost retrace your decision tree to what’s put you right now, right here in this podcast with your personal and professional, let’s just stick with professional development, personal development, which is adding you here.

If we trace some of that back. What do you think were some of the most profound shifts or evolutions in your thinking more purely based around motivational interviewing? I know there’s all sorts of supporting theories that you dove into and, you know, that I dive into and, but just from that motivation being path or your understanding of human behavior.

And communication and behavior change. What are a couple of probably the most profound moments in your professional development where it’s like, Whoa, whoa, like something unlocked and you have this whole cascade or flood of thoughts that are like, wow, this just takes motivation to another dimension.

What were a couple of those moments for you? Can, if you can recall? Gosh, yeah. It’s been like 15 years since we’ve known each other. So there’s a long amount of time. Well, yeah, I, well, first and foremost, I know you mentioned to mostly stick to MI, but adjacent to MI is something called self determination theory, and it’s not the underlying theory for MI, MI isn’t a theoretical basis, all that stuff that if you listen to this podcast, probably you’ve been introduced to that, but it’s a separate theory on human behavior change, I was introduced to that before I was introduced to MI and I was just like blown away by the evidence on that and how much that resonated with me and went to a conference.

They talked about it. I was ambitious and reached out to try to get an excuse me, internship in New York around this. And like, it was so like blew me away how cool and how effective this could be and how it was so honoring and respectful. And there’s something about like the, the way of treating people that really resonated.

And that’s why I wanted to bring that up. It was, The effectiveness and the way of treating and being with people. And I didn’t realize until now, looking back, like that’s a big thing that resonates with me. And, and, you know, motivated reasoning confirmation bias aside, I look back on my life and I just see how treating others.

It’s important in a lot of ways, and it relates to you, with your path, but mine is a different path, but I’m simply bringing all this up to say that it was a big aha for me is how I treat people. And self determination theory was a way of introducing that then smart goals came in and those are really interesting, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound goals.

But that wasn’t really as as profound. It was more about effectiveness. It was in the depth of, of things that like we’ve talked about with that, social work podcast hosts on here about empathy and these ways of treating other people that that profoundness has continued to sink deeper in a lot of ways.

And one of those ways, has been, values based thinking that you brought up. Yeah. Looking at core values that cross cultures using the focus mountain that’s been huge in recent, you know, evolution in the beginning. It was really getting into what the difference is between empathy and reflective listening and kind of evolution.

And also the, the importance of, in later times, with the webinar, you were attending effective psychotherapy book. Yes. On genuineness and how that’s really important. That sense of genuineness that people talk about a lot, not am I in each other and all that stuff, that seems to be really important.

So I’ll just keep it capped at that, but it’s that foundational way of being and treating each other. That then I’ve had personal growth on over the years and still I’m trying to, to wrangle that with my over intellectualizing of everything and how, how to bring those worlds together. I would say that series of things has been a few examples.

You know, I, I want to dive a little bit deeper into connecting a couple of these dots, maybe not as much now, well, I still think to an extent you are. The word I want to use is singularly, and I think that’s not completely accurate, but somewhat accurate, in terms of focused on, but what does the research say?

You know, your brain just naturally wants to find the root. And what does the research say? And one of the things that have been so impactful in our relationship, and it’s helped me learn and grow with my own physical health, is when you look at the evidence around health outcomes. Mental health, emotional health, physical health, when you’re talking about heart disease and cancer and all these things that are actually reversible or preventable, depending on what stage you grab it based on the evidence.

If we, if we followed what the evidence showed and operate in line with that. That is a mantra of yours in the healthcare world. I mean, that’s, that’s what got you into lifestyle medicine. And, and as you were following those threads, talk more about that for people that, that don’t know what is dimensionally, as you know, like when you look at the, of all the things that kill us, you know, disease, What’s your, give people some context for that.

Like what is, what is the, what does this science and research show us about our choices and our behaviors and lifestyle that affect our outcomes? Okay. Yeah, this is like a huge, huge question. So let me start with a foundation of. What you taught me that I didn’t include in the last answer, that is probably even more profound than anything.

I can’t believe it didn’t come to mind at that time and bring that into this answer as the foundation to this answer, because. It’s going to matter more than all the what’s and how’s, as you say on the focus, it’s that you, when we were on the plane, I don’t know, a few months ago or whatever, we were talking about what it means to take someone’s autonomy from them and who are you to do that?

And I was just like, Ooh, even after all these years of training. It’s like, we’re going to be talking about curricul revamping and getting out of the lyrics versus, you know, the melody and trying to balance those things. As Dr William Miller talked about, and am I, it’s that genuineness that we’re talking about.

I was talking about earlier. It’s that not acting like you’re above and taking someone’s autonomy that I wanted to highlight as like, whoa, that’s big. That’s huge for how I treat you. Now I can know all this stuff. Yeah. I just want to highlight how important that is leading into all this stuff, because just because I know some of the things I could answer here,

does it really matter to you? There’s a slim slice of the population in a certain age group, tending to be male, tending to be of a certain age group that watches YouTube. People 18 or under that watch, you know, tick tock and, and all these people that are exposed to all this information of different kinds that want to just feel good and be happier and healthier.

That there’s people trying to make money off of them to do that and attention and all this stuff. And so I just am getting at like. I’m not the person to try to take that person’s autonomy from them at a certain point, though, there’s a certain level of what is our environment influencing us with our autonomy and how much is our sovereignty being taken from us to think that we’re actually finding truth when we’re finding a way to give someone attention that makes money off of us or vice versa or all sorts of things.

So I just want to highlight how important that is. To then get into, if you trust someone like you’re asking me, then I can treat you in a way that’s respectful to not take your autonomy away. And then mention things like how you can reduce your risk of stroke by a massive degree, reduce your risk of heart attack by a massive degree, reverse your type two diabetes that we now know is the cause with liver fat that we can do in a relatively short period of time.

We can do a lot for your health. And now there’s even more coming out on slowing aging with things like low dose rapamycin and things that will be coming on in the next few years. So all of those things can be interesting, but I have found that the things you and I talk about here seem to be intriguing to a lot more people unless you’re super into health.

And then it becomes, as you taught me, Charlie Brown teacher, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. So I can see, I can see more into that if you want to get into that. But I think I’m just trying to think of this podcast and anyone that wants to listen, if they, they want, we can, we can dive into research on that and totally geek out.

I just want to say that that, that whole. Foundation to all that seems to be really important to be aware of that as someone that tries to help someone else, you know, I, I’m going to go a little bit down this, rabbit hole because of the, just the stream of thoughts that I’ve had around it as you were talking, what I think what is so.

Understandable, but so painful at the same time with where our, at least our mainstream American culture is. I see it. I see it with the difference between wanting to help people and wanting to monetize people. And the information, like you’re saying, people want to feel good. They want to be part of something that makes them feel good.

Even if it’s literally killing them, because the information that even my daughters talk about who are 14 on Tik TOK, as if it’s fact, because somebody that has no education or information. But it’s just espousing opinions if it’s a, if it’s fact, but then there’s new stations that do that as well, too. So it’s like, it’s not just a youth thing.

There’s just so much misguided because people want to hear what they want to hear, which is where you and I’ve talked about confirmation bias and they only want the sources are going to reinforce the things that make them feel good and make them feel better than. Even though literally it is killing them and anesthetizing them from what’s going to help them feel truly healthier and happier.

And I have to get this out because then my anxiety comes up in terms of like, Oh my God, are we becoming the matrix? Which makes me nervous because are we just going to be batteries plugged into our phones that. You know, don’t think for ourselves, our bodies are and our brains are going to atrophy, because we’re not using our bodies and our brains to their maximum capacity.

And it’s like, then why are we alive? Why are we physical and human? If we’re not going to maximize our, our growth and our health and our healing that we. That we have. And I think that’s, what’s so fascinating with what you’re talking about on a health side of it, because, you know, I, this was so fascinating to me about the amount of research that’s been put into research, the amount of money, let me say that the amount of money that’s been put into disinformation intentionally.

So people are easier to control and I think this gets into things we were talking about earlier about sovereignty and autonomy and self determination that motivational interviewing it is not motivational interviewing if it is not That, so how do we engage the personhood of another human being so they can be everything that they want to be in a way that’s going to advance their outcomes as they define them and as they define themselves?

I mean, that’s just really complex. So that whole part that you’re talking about of. I know the amount of data you have in your brain. I know that I know as Casey, if I listened and followed all the data that you have in your brain, I know I’d be healthier and I follow maybe 40 percent of it, of all the things you share, which I know is better than many people.

You know, but then it’s like, why don’t I follow a hundred percent of the things that I know that John knows? Like those things fascinate me. And I think, and I’m ahead of the game for so many people because health is so important to me and other people just want to be plugged in. It’s just like, just tell me what I want to hear and make me feel good.

Even if it’s killing me. Like I just, that whole stream of thought as you’re talking, it’s just like, wow, that’s just how, how do you get off that, that merry go round or that carousel? It’s just like, wow, that’s, that’s a rough. Oh, I love it. Yes. So this is part of, this is one of the big reasons why you and I connect is because we love this stuff.

This is the stuff that is listening to this right now. They probably want to geek out on this stuff too, because first foremost, I got to highlight that there’s a book called the age of misinformation that I highly suggest that is really helpful about. And there’s, there’s other people I can point to because I just listened to, you know, to books all over these years of training, traveling and all this stuff.

And that’s 1 big 1, the age of misinformation I would throw out there that addresses what you’re talking about in a lot of ways, but what you’re bringing up Casey is just. Okay. So we’re in this place of, whew, I can know a lot or be exposed to a lot. And then there’s my life and there’s what I want, which is I want Maslow’s hierarchy of feeling safe.

Feeling like, well, I’m getting a little bit, okay. I was getting a little bit of echo. Okay. I was feeling into, In Basel’s hierarchy, if we all want these core things as humans, that seems to be true from a humanistic perspective of psychology. And then as you start to look at different cultures around the world, including ours, you start to see how much our environments shape us.

And there’s a book called Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman and modern day legend in psychology. And just to show how emotional we are versus rational and how our, we’d like to believe our character would go against certain things, but how our environment shapes us. And I don’t, it’s not meaning to turn into resistance talk and start to blame outside ourselves, but really to recognize things outside ourselves really influence our thinking.

Our cultural constructivism, the issues with equal opportunity or not like in our country with race or gender or other issues that all of this is so much bigger than just M. I. but M. I. gives us a. A sort of telescope lens into treating others in certain ways that has more of an objective truth to it than anything else.

We know to treat people in these ways. That seems to help. That is ideally not being used to try to. Make money off of a bunch of people by making people more efficient and effective to just make money For the agency or whatever it is, but trying to treat people in these ways So that there can be this sense of happier and healthier that you were alluding to to not turn into an AI matrix of the future of the world because We could know all this stuff and there’s a whole hour long thing I did, for, for EWU class that we were, we were working with for who to trust and how to trust, why to trust, who to trust, how to trust.

And it’s a whole long thing that basically gets into, it’s difficult. And our environment makes us want the incredible, immediate, delightful. Dopamine seeking and then awesome hits of constant stimulation and something new all the time. But, you know, as, as a wonderful coach once said one time, it’s, it was something like the dentist can find that cavity behind your teeth and be like the, the oh crap or aha and therapy as you, you would find, but it’s the brushing of the teeth.

That’s the hard part. Day in and day out. And I just want to point to that is the hard part. And that’s the part where am I comes in. And that’s the part to bring this full circle where culture and your environment come in. So we need policy. We need environmental policy and things that help create a container of a different culture.

We also need motivational interviewing or things like it, not just the feel good philosophy, But the combination of how it dignifies, how you treat others, and then how it helps them with change and can help with a larger change for which if you care about loving kindness or any of these concepts, there’s a book that William Miller wrote on it.

You would care about what we’re talking about here for how the evolution of humanity happens. Well, you know, I think that’s what’s so fascinating. I think that’s partially where we get attention for the training that we do. And the feedback I know for myself, my evolution in even training and my obsession with motivational interviewing and the, and the theoretical constructs that parallel motivational interviewing as a, as a method is I’ve evolved so much away from teaching.

And so much into trying to evoke from people. What do you want to learn? And I think that’s, you know, now having had way more than 10, 000 hours of training, I’m probably 000 hours of training. Am I my comfort level so high with the dimensionality of it that I just don’t want to teach anybody. I just want to find out what do they want to learn.

And how it applies to their own life. And I think it’s discombobulating and a little startling for people when I just keep trying to evoke from them. But what do you want to learn? And they’re like, well, what are we supposed to learn? What are you supposed to teach us? And it’s like, what do you want to learn?

Like, how do you want to apply this to your own life personally or professionally to have a profound impact? I mean, it’s literally the communication solution. Our podcast is a communication solution, something that will change your world. And you and I know this intimately, how much it’s changed our worlds, personally and professionally.

Thank you. And how much feedback we get anecdotally from other people and then how the research supports that. And we could point to books that people in the MI world and then my professionals, it’s five to 10 years. And then also, and it’s like this deep, profound thing. Yeah. It’s not just us. And so many people, it’s it.

And I think this is where it’s the same thing. Like how as professionals do we engage the brain sitting across from us in a way that’s not a tick tock or an Instagram, that it really is a human evocation and introduction to who are you. You know, do you know who you are? Do you know who you want to be?

Aside from all the things that you think you want to be because you see what other people are doing or getting from being this way, which is that whole environmental influence you’re talking about, and it’s like, how do we, how do we stunt that process? To help people engage in something from a self determination perspective.

I mean, this is, these are why you and I can get into, you know, day long, hour long conversations about these things, because it’s just, it does get to the root of why are we here and what are we trying to accomplish? And, and as professionals, you know, quote unquote, whatever that word means, like when we interact with other people, either as trainers or as practitioners, we really genuinely want the best for people.

And it’s, it’s not about the monetization of it. It’s about the, the human connection to human kindness and that growth. Potential that gives purpose, you know, beyond monetization. I think this is why it’s so wildly difficult to do in something that’s such a heavily capitalistic society. And it’s not pro capitalism, con capitalism, it’s just incredibly hard to do within that environment.

Everything, our society is just evolved that everything can be monetized. Every single thing, every part of your body can be monetized, everything in your. Around you can be monetized. It’s just like, Whoa, it just can’t even be back to the nostalgia of, you know, a neighbor more than one next to another neighbor.

It’s just like those things. How do we monetize that? Even sad, but it’s so true. Well, yeah, I mean, what’s, what’s coming to mind and flowing through for this, that, that there’s a, one of my all time favorite books. Just it’s called the more beautiful world of hearts. No, it’s possible by Charles Eisenstein and he’s evoking and, and bringing up ideas to contemplate and doesn’t try to add credibility of social credibility or anything.

And the reason it relates to what you’re talking about, Casey is it’s this place of what is this more beautiful. This that we’re seeking, what beauty are we seeking and how do we evolve into this? And what you’re bringing about is something that he talks about, which is the story of separation or the story of connection.

And you could get into, well, is that a core value and you could start to define it. Like I tend to break it down intellectually and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you just get into what it’s getting at, it’s getting into like what I’d mentioned before with Dr. William Miller’s book on loving kindness, these more.

Ways of looking at from these past wisdom traditions, you could look at Hinduism and other other things as well, but that bring together. How am I treating you? How am I seeing you? How am I treating you? Am I being not what am I having or how am I looking? How am I being, and this is where we get into things that other researchers with the flow state talk about and all these things is whether we’re talking about sports, a conversation like this, sex or whatever it’s going to be, it tends to be when we’re focused with the other person in this, this state and this sense of no thing, nothing, this, this timelessness, this sense of that.

And so we don’t need to open up the whole can on it, but it is to say, if. That there seems to be a there there by either anecdotal reports over history and recent research with the book effective psychotherapy that treating each other. This way seems to matter beyond all the information. And if we can treat people this way and have more likelihoods, which is what science is better nuanced, and I should say better, more grounded, nuanced, nuanced.

Information just like happened with the covid pandemic and treating people as people, giving them likelihoods and nuance, but doing it in a way that treats them this way. That is essentially where I’ve kind of come full circle, as I know we’re coming to a close here, but of, of trying to bring these worlds together of recognizing I’m my own person.

I’m not for a lot of people. I’ve realized I’m for certain kinds of people. Hopefully, you know, I continue to find those people. But that I can try to bring these worlds of your level of like empathy and compassion and things that I’m, I’m more emotionally integrating in my life with this intellectualism and this groundedness and nuance to try to bring these worlds together so that like that age of misinformation book somehow help with mainstream.

And culture and helping people more and not going where I was going to go to bring this back to your original question, which is into sports psychology and sports performance with professional soccer teams and reaching out and volunteering for the Sounders before they were him. And then recognizing I’d be helping the slim slice of the population get that much better.

Slim slice, slim little bits versus like helping people, even if it’s at some, you know, other cost some, you know, sense of. Whatever for me that it matters more. And I think that’s the key. And so I’ll shut up with that, but that ultimately, hopefully that resonates for a sense of my background and a sense of agreeing with you that this is really important to do this work.

You know, this John is exactly why, it didn’t matter what question I asked you, we were going to get to why John got involved in motivation. So it didn’t matter what rabbit hole we went down. People are going to get a little taste of how John’s brain works, and, and his obsession. So I really didn’t care which question I asked.

All of you are going to get a little exposure to that wild and wonderful brain of John Gilbert. So it didn’t really matter. And this was absolutely perfect. It was a perfect slice. I hope people continue to listen. This is one of my favorite things to do is to have, you know, not only being able to talk to one of my best friends in the world, John, but to have other people that just love talking about these things, you know, all within the realm of healthy communication, but how do we do this really effectively and efficiently?

In a way that helps the world around us. And that’s, that’s our obsession with finding a communication solution and talking about that. So really appreciate your time. Really appreciate people who choose to tune in. And I hope this has value added your life. Everybody take care. Thank you. Bye everyone.

Bye everyone. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions. Suggestions or ideas, send them our way at Casey@ IFIOC.Com that’s Casey@ IFIOC.com for more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
As we step into the New Year, this episode serves as a beacon for those navigating the complexities of communication and personal evolution. It underscores the significance of mindful decision-making and aligning our actions with our values. By embracing diverse paths and perspectives, especially in the context of the New Year’s spirit of renewal and change, listeners are encouraged to embark on their journeys with intention and openness. The discussions provide valuable insights for starting the year with a fresh outlook, emphasizing growth, autonomy, and the transformative power of our choices in shaping our lives and the world around us.

In this podcast, we discuss:New Year, New Perspectives: Discussing how motivational interviewing and personal goals intertwine in the new year, focusing on setting intentions without stress.
Beyond One-Word Summaries: Challenging the concept of summarizing complex ideas or goals into a single word, advocating for a more dimensional approach.
The Power of Choice: Exploring the theme of making choices, both in personal life and professional settings, emphasizing autonomy and avoiding unnecessary stress.
Navigating Life’s Multiple Paths: The metaphor of multiple paths to the same mountain peak is used to illustrate different approaches to life goals.
Integrating Motivational Interviewing in Daily Life: Discussing how motivational interviewing techniques can be applied to personal life, enhancing decision-making processes.
Values and Lifestyle Changes: Conversations about how lifestyle changes, like adopting a vegetarian diet, reflect personal values and choices without stress or judgment.
Empowerment vs. Sovereignty: Exploring the distinction between empowering others and acknowledging their inherent sovereignty.
Universal Expansion through Individual Choices: Delving into a spiritual perspective, suggesting that each individual choice contributes to the expansion of the universe.
The Concept of Sovereignty in Communication: Examining how honoring an individual’s sovereignty can enhance communication and personal growth.
Setting Intention for Growth: Reflecting on setting intentions for personal growth and healing without necessarily inviting stress or pain into the process.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!
Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Transcribe Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hi I’m Danielle Cantin. I’m here with Casey Jackson on the communication solution. And we are so excited to be chatting with you. It’s the new year. So I thought we could have some pretty awesome discussions around what that looks like for people.

How are you doing Casey? I am doing well. Thank you. In this new year. First week of the new year. Yeah, it’s, always interesting. What I thought could be a fun thing to kick off is, motivational interviewing is I’ve learned so much over the years about it. And when I apply it, I always think it’s fun to apply it to my personal life.

And there’s a lot of talk in the new year around. What’s your word, what’s your phrase for the year? And that’s always, you know, been in my world anyway for many, many years. And it is kind of funny when I think of it in terms of motivational interviewing. Cause I’m like the ambivalence I have, I can’t commit.

What’s my word? Is it the right word? I don’t know. I think I want this. What’s the phrase. And, it’s a fun thing. I go through every year and I’m like, what would Casey do? Like there’s a way for me to ladder this up to my values somehow, so that I feel more certain about. My mission for the new year. So I was wondering if maybe we could dig into, into that and how maybe you even approached the new year.

Sure. You know, even as you talked about it, you know, I, I don’t know if it’s my rebellious side. I don’t know if what it is, but I just. Don’t, you know, subscribe to the whole one word thing, even when it’s like, just summarize this training in one word. It’s like, no, I don’t want to summarize it one word because it’s way more dimensional than that.

So, so I’m just not going to subscribe to the one word thing. When people have asked about that. The one that that Matt told me about that he’s doing that I think is fascinating is what’s one thing you’re going to stop. In 2024, stop doing what’s one thing you’re going to start doing and what’s one thing you’re going to continue doing that just was an easier way for me to frame it.

So the 1 word thing, it just, it doesn’t fit my psyche very well. Because I just don’t like that limitation. And I think that causes my own reaction and resistance and ambivalence versus going, you know, I want to be thoughtful and and a hole in my thinking around it because. My life is just so dimensional, and try to consolidate into one word.

Just almost in and of itself starts to cause me stress. And it’s just, I’m not into stress as much as possible. There’s enough out there that I don’t want to pull it on myself for no particular reason in a way that’s supposed to be growthful when it feels like it’s constraining is like, but yeah, that’s just not, that doesn’t line up with my values.

So, so that’s kind of the way that I, cause it’s like, maybe I fall in that category because. It always does put a little bit of consternation in my world, which means it might not be That’s it. And that’s why I think for me that I, I like setting intention and it’s something that, you know, John and I have talked about as well, too, over the years, because it was a conversation he had, I had gotten into in terms of, but if we don’t set the goal, if we’re not working towards the goal, and I get nervous about that a bit, because I think it.

There’s so many right ways, you know, when I talk about it in motivation, there’s so many right ways to get to the top of the mountain. You know, if you think of any mountain peak, there’s so many right ways, there’s so many trailheads you can start from. And what I found is that I tend to be in my humanist, I tend to be pretty limited in the right way to get up there.

And I know that I know my ego can get into that, that this is the right way. This is the way I need to do it. And that in of itself starts to create limits. And, and from an MI perspective, it’s what I’ve tried to untangle as a professional. As a therapist. Of not getting caught into my ways the right way, or I’m the expert that the beauty and the journey is there’s so many right ways to get there.

And that for me is very helpful when I set my intention is I know I want to get to the top of the mountain. I know it’s important to me, but I want to allow the fluidity of the journey to be part of the experience as well, too, instead of starting to stress over the deadline or the. You know, what, what marker did I have to meet to get there?

And that’s, I think partially it comes with age. I think partially it comes with motivational interviewing, just my obsession with it. I just don’t want to create stress for myself. That’s unnecessary because. Stress is not my motive. Historically it was, and it just does. There’s too much by product that’s negative by product that I just want to avoid.

So when it comes to behavior change for myself or setting intention for the year, for a new year, one of my intention, part of the energy around that is just don’t create stress on yourself. Don’t create pressure. I, I, one of the things that. I really appreciate about it. Kind of a track that John had went down was, his shift towards lifestyle medicine.

It’s not about. losing weight. It’s not about fitting into the dress. It’s literally about if you change your lifestyle slowly, you’re going to see monumental changes a year from now, two years from now. It’s if you’re trying to drop those 20 pounds that you’re going to end up in yo yo dieting or doing damage and causing stress to yourself and feeling guilty.

But it really is lifestyle change. And that’s when I shift towards being, you know, vegetarian, it was just, I just know that that stuff is not good for me. I just look at the data. And so I just stopped doing it. And it wasn’t like, there’s no guilt. There’s no shame last night. Literally, literally last night, I, we went over to a friend’s house for dinner and she had made lasagna and there was meat in it and I don’t freak out over it, you know, and I don’t.

Make a big deal about it. I just, and I don’t pick around it in an obvious way. I just eat the parts that I want to eat. And I know that there’s me touching it and it doesn’t bother me. It’s not a political thing for me personally. It’s just, it’s not going to cause me stress or consternation. I’m not going to pack my own meals when I go over to somebody’s house.

Like it’s just because all those things just cause me stress, but my lifestyle is, I just don’t eat meat. And if meat is in my, is in my plate with somebody I’m with, then I just don’t make an issue of it and I’ll eat it or, you know, eat parts of it or whatever, and it’s just not. A thing, and I think that just keeps me from being wound up because I just want to be of service to myself and other people in my family and getting caught up in those negative narratives.

It just doesn’t serve me well. It hasn’t served me well. And so, and when I look at with people that I’ve. You know, served as a therapist or as a clinician, it seems like the stressors or those, those deadlines and timelines don’t, it, it can increase stress. And I don’t think they’re bad. And I don’t think it’s wrong.

I just think that our brain tends to function more effectively when it’s under less stress and pressure. So when I set an intention and I know I’m working that direction, that feels very growthful for me and I can feel growth happening. And then when I look back, you know, after a month or a year, I I notice a difference in myself, so that’s really, that’s some of my ways.

Yeah. Thank you. That’s really interesting. I heard a couple different things. One is. A beautiful analogy of the mountain getting up to focus mountain. So multiple paths can get you there and motivational interviewing. This communication solution is really about honoring those different paths and, and exploring them getting from a traumatic state of reaction and stress to let’s get more to the executive functioning of like, Oh yeah, we’ve got this path and we’ve got this path.

We’ve got this path, not right or wrong or good or bad. But. Again, we’re heading up to this value, so, you know, the ambivalence is there, but but what if it’s just a choice? Right? Like, that’s it. And I think there’s that part of it in mainstream American culture, at least because we have so much more of an individualistic thinking what I.

What I look at is why we lean so much into empowerment, you know, kind of the recent trend is about empowering people and, you know, or the concept of sovereignty, you know, how do we support that? And I just think that’s the beauty and the terminology I heard literally from Dr Theresa Moyers was, well, there’s definitely more than one right way to get there, you know, as far as getting sober or getting clean or, you know, removing yourself from substance use, there’s definitely more than one right way.

And that was just such a. It was so heartfelt and so authentic when she said that it just it just resonated my brain. Like, that’s such a fascinating thought. It’s such a surrendering of I’m the expert and here’s what you need to do. And it really does. When you think of it from, from a partnering or a collaborative process.

It really does adjust that power differential that you have the right to make decisions in your life. Are you clear what the top of the mountain is? And once you’re clear, there’s so many beautifully right ways to get there. What kind of experience do you want to have along the way? And how long do you want it to take?

You get to choose that. And that really does support that autonomy and activates that sovereignty in a different way. I love that. Can you explain sovereignty? It, you know, I’m working more and more to get away from, again, this is like, oh, you know, I just chronically aware of the kind of white male privilege perspective that I have and.

And so I was huge into empowerment, but the more that I’ve listened and learn there’s again, when I empower someone, it’s, I’m the person with power, who’s empowering them. And it’s just, I want to get on that narrative more and sovereignty is just the honoring that they are who they are, that the individuality that they bring or the collectiveness that they, they bring within their community, you know, depend on the culture that’s theirs, that’s theirs to own.

And if through communication, they revisit that or they, are reintroduced to that or introduced to that sovereignty, that’s not a shift of power. That’s a claiming of power. And that’s just for me. It may be a semantics dance for other people, but for me, there, there’s a meaningful difference in distinguishing those fine lines, between empowerment and, you know, really bringing sovereignty or autonomy forward in, in situations.

I love that. Yeah. You really had a profound impact on me when I heard you describe empowerment that. Gosh, if you say you’re going to empower somebody right out of the gate, it’s, it has issues because it’s as if you have power to hand over power or enable somebody else to have power. And it was just 1 of those radical radical shifts for me.

So, again, I really appreciate that. So the other question I have for you in listening to this is, um. When I think about people and they’re charting their new course, you know, or what they want to create in the new year and I love that you paint pictures. So I’m like, I see the focus mountain and then there’s all of these different paths.

And as you were talking, explaining how you get to choose, I think what came up for me was great. And what if I choose wrong? Like there’s many right paths up, but it’s like, cause you, you said, you need to choose what, you know, what do you want to experience and what do you. And what came to me was like, Oh, what if we take it a step?

I take it a step further and say, okay, I’m going to pick this path. Cause I think I want to experience this and this and this. And as I go, I’m like, ah, this a wasn’t what I thought I was going to experience or B. It is. And I changed my mind. Then as you were talking, what opened up in my vision was, okay, great.

So I chose this path up. And then I was like, well, guess what? At any point on that path, there’s 20 other paths. Absolutely. So I was like, yeah, absolutely. Welcome aboard Danielle. And I’m like, I mean, when you articulate, you can see in practice, it doesn’t have to be. Conceptually, it doesn’t have to be overwrought.

It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. I, I can just feel my brain is teetering. I tend to avoid getting the kind of spiritual conversation, but I can feel my brain, everything in me wanting to kind of drift there a little bit, towards this kind of a spiritual perspective. And what, what I think about that.

The journey, what has been so profound for me in my own growth process on multiple levels is it’s not only there’s more than one right way when I look at on more of a, universal level. So, from a, whatever a belief system is with a God perspective, or a creation perspective, or an energy perspective, or, you know.

Whatever that perspective is, whatever the belief system, the religion is around. For me, what I think of is this, this is my little delusional spiritual world is part of the reason the universe expands is because every path you take up to the top of the mountain expands the experience of God or the universe.

So no matter what Danielle does. The universe will expand because of what you just experienced, because no one will experience it the way you just experienced it. No one in the history of the planet, in the history of the universe, no one will taste a strawberry the way that you do, Danielle, no one will love the way that you do or look at a sunset the way you do.

And every one of those experiences expands. The universe and, or God’s experience or whatever, you know, however people define that. And so when you’re thinking about, well, which is the right path, there’s such a, for me, it’s such a gentle reset to go. No matter what you do, it’s going to expand the universe, through the way you experience it.

So it’s removed a sense of right and wrong from me or the angst over what’s the right path. Cause I used to have lots of internal turmoil about, should I take that job? Should I stay in this relationship? Should I do this? Should I do that? Should I not do this? Should I not do that? And now what I think of is, God, there’s just a beauty to sit back and go, you know, yourself, you know, what the top of your mountain is, what would most line up with that and what do you want to do?

And there’s no judgment either way, because you’re just going to expand the experience. And that’s just like, Whoa, that’s just so much more freedom. Which makes me go, well, what’s the right thing to do? What do you want me to do? Because now that I have freedom now, I’m curious, which way would you want to take me through this process?

And it’s just like, no, you still get to choose. And I think that’s part of that sovereignty. That’s fascinating. Or that, that supportive autonomy that for as much as people crave it or fight for it, there’s something very ironic if they’re given it. If they have nothing to fight against and they truly get free choice, they want somebody’s advice or what they think they should do.

Well, what do you think I should do? Or if you, if you’re not invested in my outcome, if you’re not attached to my outcome, I, now I’m really fascinated what you think. And for me, this has taken kind of my spiritual. Belief and woven it so tightly into motivation learning because it’s why I believe so strongly in helping people get clear about who are you and what are your values and what behaviors would line up with where you want to be that it’s such a fascinating concept to orchestrate that conversation, but not drive those conversations because so many people say, well, I’m paying you for your opinion.

I’m paying you for your advice. I’m paying you because you’re the therapist and and there’s nothing wrong with that. And if people want opinions that can be helpful, but it doesn’t help develop executive function and critical thinking. And if people are really looking for growth, then those are the things that we, you know, I like to put a little bit more energy into.

Well, I’m glad you opted to go down that route because that was really a beautiful, a beautiful way to look at whatever path you choose. I think, you’re going to laugh when I share with you, I, I, I, I actually created the phrase. I think I landed on the phrase and now you’re making me rethink the phrase.

So it’s kind of funny. Want to hear it? Yeah, absolutely. Make better choices. I was all like, okay, I think I got it. I think this is it. And then now I’m listening to this going, oh my gosh, is it really better? Or is it just, I Make choices like what, with peace, with, with joy, with, you know, anticipation and excitement, not better, worse, good.

You know what I mean? Like remove all of that judgment and just realize, and then I’m like, Oh, and how does that ladder up to my values? And I’m like, well, I don’t, I don’t know a hundred percent, but I, I know that I. I do know a hundred percent. I love learning. I love it. Learning is huge for me. So why have I spent so much of my life trying to find a path with?

So much certainty and comfort. I’m like, wait, learning is expansive. It can be crunchy. It can be uncomfortable. So that I know that’s what fuels me is learning. So why don’t I get a little bit more honest with myself around what that means and what that could look like. Yeah, as you talk about that, Daniel, to the thing that clicked in my brain, as you said, it is, it’s even from my vantage point is even the modification to you have choices and, and there’s something that’s, I think that takes weight off and creates interest at the same time.

It’s like, I do have choices, so it, there’s two things that went through my brain, so I’m going to talk about when I had the opportunity when I was young, I got through my. Pushed really hard through school, so I graduated a little bit early, went straight into my master’s program at a very young age, finished those 2 years, was working full time through the whole process and getting all this experience because I knew what I wanted to do for a living as a, as a, as a therapist, as a clinician, as a social worker, and then I had the opportunity to, I’d saved a ton of my money so I could take a year off and travel around Europe.

And there’s just so many things that can happen, but that when you understand you have choices, I remember when I activated my URL pass and it was a two month unlimited youth URL pass. And I remember I activated it in Munich, Germany, and. And when I walked out, cause you have to go in the little thing and you have to sign it and there’s carbon copies and all these things.

And so I do all that. And then I, we had kind of a plan where we’re going to go, but then when I walked out on the platform, there was 32 trains lined up going to Portugal, going to Switzerland, going to Sweden, going to like, there’s 32 trains. It’s like, Oh, I have choices. I can, I could go on that train and tomorrow I could wake up in Barcelona or I could go on that train and wake up tomorrow in Vienna or like, whoa.

And I think that was such a profound moment for me. That that’s where to know that I just have choices was helpful. And I want to bring this down to the other thought that I had was, all I keep thinking from is how privileged I am from, even though, you know, where I was raised teetering, not completely on poverty, but, but definitely lower income family and large family.

And, and so I always thought I wasn’t privileged because that was just the narrative as a white male. I. I felt like I didn’t have privilege because it was financial, and now I understand how much privilege I had compared to other people in other cultures. I had profound privilege. I had the privilege to go to public schools.

I had privilege for all sorts of things. I wasn’t under fire. I wasn’t being, you know, touched. I had all sorts of privileges and what struck me about the same, same thing about I have choice or I need to make good choices, and how that continues to modify in my brain from what you talked about is I remember.

When I was working in the prison system and I’d, I’d left the state prison system and was working in the federal prison system. And this had hit me pretty profoundly working with, with, people who were incarcerated is I remember telling them when they kept telling me they don’t have choice. And I, and I need to be careful how I frame this because I, I really want to honor people’s trauma and their stressors.

But what I really wanted, what I was working with people to understand is. You have more choice than you think even though you’re incarcerated. You have the choice to go throw your jacket over the barbed wire and crawl over. You have that choice. There’s benefit or there’s consequences that come from that choice.

It’s just first realize you have choice and then realize where you want to go and how do you want to get there? And and so that can be a bold statement when you’re coming from a place of privilege because there are there’s all sorts of Circumstances around the world where people don’t have choice, but then I think of the most inspiring people In our histories around the globe, and there are people that have found ways to exercise their choice when it appeared that they had no choice when I think of Elie Wiesel or Gandhi or, you know, you know, Nelson Mandela or just people that were, it looked like they had no choice.

They were making very active choices, and I think those are the times that were the most inspired. Instead of making a good choice, it’s understand that you do have choice. You do have options. And I think that’s so hard when the brain is under fight, flight, freeze, and so stressed. It’s so hard to believe that because we’re just in a survival modality.

We’re just in truly survival. And how can you fault? A human that goes into survival mode, but I think that’s partially when we’re talking this whole thing about a new year or what are your thoughts as you go into this new year? I have, I think having such as rich narrative in my brain of, I know that I want to capitalize on the fact that I am blessed that I have privilege and I don’t, I moved to a place where I try not to have guilt over that or shame over it.

But I feel like if that’s, if that’s an inheritance that I’ve been given by whatever, whatever. Energy has given me this inheritance, use it wisely. So it’s not even the right choice. Just make sure that you’re getting the most out of it and doing the best you can do, which is why I love my career, which why I love what I do.

It’s why I love being a clinician. It’s why I love getting up and helping other people. Like it genuinely feeds my soul because it feels like I’m using my inheritance wisely. With whatever I’ve been given with power and privilege, I want to use it wisely. So I do want to make good decisions. I don’t always know if they’re the right decisions because I’m human and it’s just, I trust there’s an interrelationship with life or the life force or God or whatever that energy is, you know, that, that, that moves us.

I just want to be more in sync with it than not in sync with it. And I don’t want to be in sync with the chaotic. Of social reality, at least in mainstream American, the, the social chaos doesn’t intrigue me. It doesn’t, I don’t wanna be part of that because it doesn’t feel healthy and growthful. And so that’s why when I think of what I’ve been given, I don’t want to invest in the things that create insanity, and chaos and division.

I want to invest in things that create peace and health and stability, and that’s when I’m operating with intention. To move in that direction and it’s hard because we have writing reflexes and we function in a social world and we bounce off of all these things. So I think that’s what I’m thinking about moving forward in the new year.

I’m so cognizant of all of these things that I just want to continue to be a good person trying to do the right thing for the right reasons and do as you know, as little damage to other human beings as possible and to be a way to. To give them a sense of growth and continuation in their life in the best way possible.

So, so it’s not about, you know, getting back to the gym. It’s not a matter of, you know, eating less meat. It’s not those things for me as much anymore. It really is trying to move to how do I make a difference in the world with the time that I have and the inheritance that I’ve been given by whatever gave me this, you know, privilege.

That’s amazing. My, my final question to you, I think you may have just answered, but excuse me, you, kind of started with. How you choose, you don’t want to choose a stressful path, up, up your mountain. And I was going to ask you to tie that to what your values are. So when we have any of these discussions, a lot of times it’s like, how do you tie that choice or that behavior up to your values?

And so I was listening to everything you were saying. And trying to extrapolate, what would I guess your values would be? And so you get to test me now and see, cause I’m like, no stress isn’t a value. So I’m like, what would it be? And I heard you say, peace, health and stability. Yes, I would say yes.

And then when I always add in there for myself is integrity. The reason why for me, Danielle, and this is, you know, in all my spiritual pursuits, you know, outside of my work world, um. I remember and it’s kind of what you’re talking about as well to, you know, I was, I just want growth. I just want to growth.

I want to, I want to create growth and healing. And then I’d be, you know, rocking in bed at night, just going, why does it have to be so painful? And then somebody told me it doesn’t have to be. Just when you say you want growth and healing, just ask for it to not be painful. And it’s like, Oh, I just thought,

exactly. I just thought it was part and parcel of growth. You don’t know, pain, no gain kind of a thing. And so that’s why that sense of peace. It’s like, I want to have. Growth and I want to have healing. And, my intention would be that, that it doesn’t need to be stressful or painful. And if it is, I can definitely navigate that, but if I’m setting my own intention, I want to continue to grow and create and be able to help and heal other people and not.

If it’s my preference would be that it’s not painful or stressful. So, yeah, exactly. So it’s just like, oh, well, if I get a pick, I’ll tell you exactly what I’d pick. I’d pick kind of best case scenario. So that was Yeah, that way it’s easier to follow whatever path I go, then it’s just easier because it’s like, oh, if this is going to, you know, I’m going to go the path that gets me to the top of my mountain and it doesn’t have to be a stressful and a, you know, a painful process, as long as it’s a beautiful journey and, and, more people are healed and helped because of it than hurt by it.

Then that’s my goal. I love that. Yeah, it was a big takeaway for me. It’s like whatever choice I make, it’s not right or wrong or anything like that, but it is, I do have a choice. And how I react to whatever choice I make or whatever experience I’m having. And that, that can change the game. I love that.

Well, I’m now, I need to ask you this now, now that, since this is kind of the game that I’m on this year. So tell me, Danielle, what do you want to stop doing in 2024? What do you want to start doing in 2024? And what do you want to continue doing? Oh, I’m right on the spot. You’re putting me the first thing that came first thing that came to me to stop doing.

I mean, it’s, it’s a big one. Is that okay? Stop worrying and I don’t want to, I don’t want to be like black and white, like who’s going to just stop worrying, but I would like to stop worrying. more love it. And then what do I want to start? I want to start, genuinely enjoying this incredible world we live in every day.

And it doesn’t have to be like extreme things, but like literally just looking outside brings me such joy in nature. So spending more time doing that. And what are you going to continue doing? What are you going to continue doing? Growing, but with way more ease and grace. Love it. Love it. Love it. Can I ask, can I, can I ask what yours are, or sure.

So I am going to start. Offloading more things off my shoulders to other people, because I’m not particularly good at that offloading. So I’m going to start offloading more things in 2024. I am going to, stop limiting myself for the sake of other people. It’s something that I tend to do is I’ll limit myself at times for other people, and I am going to continue.

Operating every day with gratitude. That is just something that I started a while ago. And every single day, and it’s not even a forced activity. It’s so natural multiple times a day. I just, I just, I operate from a place of gratitude. I’m just in awe of where my life is. And so I’m going to continue operating truly every day from a place of gratitude and acknowledging that gratitude every day.

Oh, my God. I love it. That’s awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What a great segment. I hope everybody listening has enjoyed this as much as I have. Are you sure these podcasts aren’t just for me? Positive. Positive. Positive. Oh, my gosh. I would say yes. So thank you so much, everyone. Please reach out. Let us know what you’re going to stop doing, what you’re going to start doing, what you’re going to continue doing.

And what kind of values you’ve identified that are important to you in your life. We would love to hear from you and just wish you the greatest. It’s joy and happiness and everything you want on that path of pure focus mountain. Thanks Casey for everything. Thanks Danielle.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world.

So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.com that’s Casey@IFIOC.Com. For more information or to schedule a training. Visit ifioc. com until our next communication solution podcast Keep changing the world

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In this podcast, we discuss: Adapting Communication for Impact: The podcast delves into how judges like Logan are seeking to adapt their communication styles to maximize impact in limited timeframes. * Empowering Individual Change: Logan discusses the concept of empowering individuals to identify and work towards their values, using tools like the Focus Mountain. * Integrating Personalized Approaches: The potential for personalized approaches in judicial settings, including the use of symbolic items like rocks representing personal strengths, is explored. * Response to Judicial System Critiques: The podcast acknowledges the current criticisms of the justice system and looks at how innovative communication and empathetic strategies can contribute to reform and improvement. * Fostering Community Reintegration: Logan emphasizes the importance of judicial practices that support community reintegration and reduce recidivism. * Potential for System-wide Change*: The conversation suggests the potential for systemic change in the justice system through improved communication techniques and empathy-driven practices.

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Transcribe We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment.

Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

And when you say that Mary, the thing that I just, I mean, we’re in the middle of this, but I can tell right now, just between you and I right now, I, now it’s making my brain. I think because when you were talking about what, when you’ve watched the officers and those videos that I have there, there are just profoundly short.

I mean, these interactions that are 8 and a half minutes long and life changing, truly life changing suicide prevention, just things that change people’s lives. And when I developed the motivational interviewing competency assessment that might get a measure. Conversations when you and I, when you submitted the 1st, recording of chambers that was, that was okay for you to submit to me to, to review, the tool that I used at the time required a 20 minute sample size of an M.

I. based conversation. Part of the reason I developed the Micah instead was. So many doctors and nurses I worked with their conversations are five to 15 minutes long. They don’t even get it. So it’s like, how do we, how do we use this in a way that’s truly looking at fidelity and not just good communication?

Good communication is, is important. It’s great. Good communications, great communications. Yay. But where does evidence show that we’re going to impact behavior change? And that’s why when, when I was working on the mica to think about how can we measure this and get feedback? Now, my obsession with you is now I want to sit in the community court and watch these three minute conversations and just analyze those and go, okay, how do you maximize time?

How do you maximize time? How do you maximize time now that. Now, if the judge has maybe four minutes of quality time, other than the three minutes of doing the required reading, how do you maximize that four minutes? And, and I don’t know if it’s possible, but I think this is where I get excited about innovation because people didn’t believe that this could happen with law enforcement.

When I started working law enforcement, officers did not believe it could happen. When I first showed up, they were the, they were the, they were first in line to say this won’t work. As I’m sitting there standing in front of them in trainings, and now that they see it working, I see this now on the judicial side that it’s like, wow, if we can maximize three to four minutes and the more that I’m studying on brain science, like the precision, if your brain, Mary Logan’s brain is so precise around law and application of law at this stage in time, wouldn’t it be fun to come to that level of precision of being able to understand language and have both of those skillsets to be able to master.

Like to me, that truly is the next frontier potentially in, in restorative justice is like, how do we think from that perspective and use every time I open my mouth, I can see the impact it’s having on the brain. And I’m not even the therapist, you know, I’m sitting on the bench and thinking about how can I help this person reintegrate into their community, which reduces crime.

And, and I don’t see these people again, because they’re, they’re moving on with their lives. I mean, that to me is wow. I mean, fairytale. But fairy tale in a good way. It’s like, oh my gosh, let’s read that book and see where it goes. Like, I . That’s right. I wanna go, I wanna go sit in. I, I really do. I think I, if you know, if it’s appropriate, if I can sit in on some of those, situations, my brain is just gonna be, that’s like open court.

We’re, we’re an open, but what you just said, also as I’m thinking about in community court, ’cause I have the luxury of time in community court, and I was just, as you were saying those things, I’m like, and I waste it. I have to do it and it’s part of our, I mean, like what I’m thinking about here is I, sit face to face with our participants in community court.

So they’ve just by fundamentals, they are referred in, they come to the downtown library, they are, um. met by the attorneys, the strength of the cases measured. Can it go to trial? Do they want to go to trial instead? Because our court’s an opt in, you don’t have to. But if they opt in, then they immediately get evaluation to see what their needs are, and then they craft up what’s known as the stipulated order of continuance, with the conditions being Get your identification, have, maybe a SUD evaluation, follow through with treatment, and then, you know, sign up for housing and, you know, all of the details of their lives that are lacking, that they need the support for, then become the conditions they have to meet in order to have the case dismissed, along as, as well as, you know, don’t pick up new charges.

And that’s all discussed with them with, by their attorney, and then they come to me. And I go through that. So my, my, it’s this, I’m having an epiphany right in front of you. My, my first moments with them, other than I always greet them. How are you doing today, sir? You know, they, they, they’re very, very open, free flow conversation to a point.

I have to put some stops up to begin with or at some points, but, but then when it comes down to we’re going on the record and they’re entering the deal, I spend. All of that time going through that contract with them, what, you know, so you’re going to be with us for the next three months. And then I go through the details of it and reiterate the same thing that they’ve already heard.

And then that’s it. That’s it. I don’t, I mean, I try to imbue more into it. But at that point, again, I’m at the very end of all of that process, and they have been handled now for anywhere from probably at the very least 20 to 30 minutes and probably upwards more of 30 to 40 minutes. So coming into the court and you know having their stuff set aside and then talking to the attorney and then talking to our probation officer and having that evaluation and then striking the deal and then coming to me.

So they’re like, I want to go, they’re done with the super gritty stuff that’s there. And while I, I tried to talk to them at, in that process, and there’s times where there are revelations that are made about the agreement where I’ll bring in the attorney because it’s like, this doesn’t, Seem to make sense in terms of where we’re at.

So they see me not advocating for them, but listening to them and then addressing those kinds of issues. But it, as I, it is, it is, I wish there, I want to create more different time than that with them. And so now I’m gonna work on that because it, it, it is the, it is one of those opportunities. The only pressure is they want to get out of there because they’re tired, right?

And we feed them lunch and they’re always hungry. I try to feed them along the way so that blood sugar is maintained and, you know, if they’re coming off of some whatever bad drug night or alcohol night or whatever the night before. That they can get at least something in them to, to try to stabilize them, physically stabilize them.

And that’s, that’s not so anxious as to, can I get my lunch now? Like, can I stop talking about these things? Because it’s a big, huge load of stuff that lands on their lap. Here, here’s all the stuff to fix your life. Yeah. So, you know, I try to back it back down again and say, okay, so let’s talk about what’s the one thing you’re going to work on.

I have to, I have to enforce the community service component. So, you know, I, I give them options about that. And it’s all very technical. It’s not, it’s not, okay. You’re living on the streets. Which I acknowledge with them, you’re living on the street and I’m asking you to come either to the, one of the shelters to do community service or, you know, trying to figure out how to change that so that they can see that that behavior reintegrates them into society.

And that’s the reason why we have community service as a component is they are disenfranchised. They are like aliens in our city and I don’t want them to feel like aliens because. If they have ownership of our city, I’m hopeful that that change in their mindsets, right, would change in their behavior, as they interact with the city.

So, that, you know, I do have to talk to them about why I have to front load that and we can kind of get into the details. But such valuable time as they sit there, we are eyeball to eyeball, I don’t sit up on a dais, I’m not up above anybody, it’s just us all at the same level and they’re, you know, whatever, two feet away from me, probably closer to a judge than they have ever been, under circumstances that are super relaxed.

It’s not like we’re surrounded by guards or anything, as we’re not. Right, right. So very frank and open possibilities. And there have been times where I could, I have stepped into, where I would feel like maybe I had used it a little bit more successfully, but I’m, I have to re figure out those first, that first contact with them that is so formal.

Cause it’s just like court and we designed it to be just like court. And yet there we are doing the exact same thing as if I were up where I’m normally in my regular courtroom, the thing, the very thing I’m trying to avoid. You know, Mary, I, I mean, this is a little far out there, but, but I think conceptually for me, what’s clicking with me is, there’s an organization, a center for employment opportunities.

It’s a national. Nonprofit that not in Washington state, but in lots of major cities that they specifically help, recently incarcerated individuals get into employment. They literally give them paychecks every day. They get cards and they get paid every day. So, because that’s part of the problem is they can’t even wait for the first paycheck for most of the individuals once they’ve been released.

Phenomenal, very progressive program. But what struck me about that was that they were so excited when I went down into Oakland, the office in Oakland, they were like, I was going down to another training with them and they’re so excited. Okay. See, you can’t wait to see this. We got this for you. And I show up there and what they had done is in the lobby where they do the intake, they had painted.

Focus mountain on the wall from floor to ceiling. And that’s where they sit and that’s where they sit and do the intake and show them the different things, the trees they have to go through. But all they focus on the whole time is we’re voluntary. And do you want to get to the top of the mountain? Nice.

It was literally, and they painted, I’m saying black and silver for the Oakland Raiders, but the entire mountain is this literally floor to ceiling, you know, probably 10 to 12 feet wide. Going up to the ceiling, and they kind of walked as they’re sitting there doing their initial intake with them.

They’re walking through the process and pointing out and they said, our whole focus is to get you to the top of your mountain as you define it. So that I want that. As my backdrop, right? That’s exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking, Oh my gosh. And if that’s where you started conversations, because they’re going to go, what the hell is that behind her?

And, and they go, you know what? I am just one of the trees here. Instead of, I think that pulls you, you know, off the bench and straight into the conversation and going, these trees are not going anywhere. These boulders that have dropped in your life that, you know, partially you’ve pushed in your life aren’t going anywhere.

But we can help you get to the top of the mountain if you so choose. So if you think this is a dance to reduce a sentence or to move into something else, many people use it that way. But the reason why I’m here is to help you get to the top of the mountain. And I don’t want you to think that I’m just one of these trees.

This whole process is to help you, but I know most of you sitting in front of me. Genuinely just think this is a way to get something else off your record or to, you know, I, that’s where your mindset, which is normal because who wants to be in this process. But if you truly want to get to the top of the mountain, those are the conversations that I want to have with you every time that we meet.

Cool. Yes. So I remember the first time that I went through the training with you, I’m like, I need to blow up that tree. I want to put, you know, put it in my courtroom and then I didn’t do it, but I tell you what, I’m going to get ahold of Sarah, who was also a part of the training this last time with you.

And we have a little bit of funding now, and maybe, maybe it can be used for that. If not, I’m going to do it on my own. What we do have as the backdrop, which is probably too subtle of messaging to be really absorbed by the individuals because, you know, so broken when they’re sitting in front of me, they are fresh, hot, cold off the street, but we have all, I have graduation trees and each of our participants is a leaf on that tree.

And so when they graduate from community court, then they get to place themselves on these trees. So we have the backdrop for me as the 3 trees that we have right now filled with. the names of those folks that had graduated. So again, the idea of being visualizing themselves as a part of that treat. But I think it’s too subtle.

I don’t think that, you know, well, they get it at graduation time. I’m not sure in the middle of it where, you know, they just took their last fentanyl hit five hours before they came into court that they’re looking at that going. Oh, yes, I want to be one of those. Oh, my God. Okay. I’m such a visual person.

Here’s my thought. What you do is you have that graduation tree. As the only tree at the top of the mountain with all the values, and then you have leaves all along the path of people that haven’t made it lower down, not the names, but just leaves without names. And then the, the 1 at the top of the mountain, there’s just 1 tree.

Your tree is at the top of the mountain, and that’s where the leaves go, and just have leaves scattered around the rest of the mountain and only name the trees on focus mountain with the things are part of the court process with treatment. You know, classes, they have to go to community service, just have both the trees and just say, we, you have, we have to navigate these trees, but here’s the people that have made it to the top of the mountain.

And, I think that, and all, and, and what I would do is if I was in your position, I would just say, what are two or three things, your best case scenario, what are two or three of the values at the top of the mountain. That you think best describe who you are and how you want to operate, because that’s how I’m going to see you.

And those are the things that I’m going to hold you accountable for as your judge, is, is your behavior in alignment with these things. So here’s another, a reversed opportunity that I’m going to now switch because. As a part of the graduation process, I stole the idea from, when you make your way through a, a, the coins, right?

As you’re making progress, you get a coin, right? So for graduates, I use, because I get to know them fairly well, or a little bit at any rate. I, I have rocks that have words inscribed like courage or strength or faith or things like that. And I tried to pick a word that kind of matched their progress.

So that when they leave court, they, that rock goes in their pocket and it’s from, I say, and I tell, I, you know, I fill that rock with those, that same, which is, this is how I have seen you. And this is the strengths that you’ve demonstrated. And if you have, you know, I said, everybody waivers when they get out, but if you have, I want you to look at that and understand that you successfully navigated this, and it was because of this, this one particular strength here.

That was one of the mini so that they can always have, you know, a little bit of us with them as they make their way. People love those. They tell me all the time, but I think it’s a lost opportunity for them to be invested in that from the get go. Right. To create their own courage, their own strength along the way.

So. I love that. Okay. Now there, I should be writing notes. And I’ll tell you the other thing, Mary, I’ll add one more little twist to that is I would, I think it would be phenomenal if you did two rocks. I think if they identify the top of their mountain and that’s one of their rocks and there’s this, whatever the, the quality you saw in them is the second rock.

So there’s the one rock that they focused on the entire time for the top of their mountain word. And then the one that you and saw in them as kind of the, the backup support from as an outside observer, what you witnessed and you’d like them to hold on to for the, you witnessed for them. I think that would be one, one rock for each pocket.

I think that one for each hand, I just think that, and I think would you working from that focus mountain perspective and having them define that and just saying you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you needed food. I would literally even put lunch as one of the trees. I’m just saying, you know, there’s all these things that have the attorney, you know, the public defender here and the, and the, just all the, all those, I would put every part of your process as one of the trees, everyone, and then I would just have them and the exact same words that I have on the top of the mountain and just have them pick one word and say, this is the thing as the judge, I’m going to hold you accountable to.

Are you really operating from a place where you genuinely want your freedom back or your independence or do you operate from integrity and that’s what I’m going to judge you on is if your behavior is aligning with that. That’s wonderful. Thank you. What a gift. Perfect. This is, this is where I, this is where I get a little giddy.

I get a little goofy in these situations. I’m like, Oh my gosh, this actually makes change in the world. This is exactly what you and I were talking about. Like, I got in the field as a social worker as way. You know, you went the path you did. It’s just it to this one person. If it matters, my day is like, I, I can’t believe I got a paycheck for helping one person today.

Like that is mind boggling. Feel very lucky. I’m very fortunate. Yep. Yep. Awesome. You and I are going to have ongoing conversations, obviously we’ll have to be shooting emails back and forth to go, okay, would this work? But I do, I think with open court, I, I want to, I want to learn more about that. And I really do want to start to get my brain to think that next frontier of innovation.

In the judiciary of like, how can I help people understand? How do you maximize 3 to 5 minutes after you’ve had to do the script of what you have to say for record? Is there a way to maximize that? Are there specific ways to ask open ended questions? Do you get truncated answers that aren’t closed-ended questions.

And then how do you master finding change or change talk in three to five minutes like that? Almost like on steroids, like, am I on steroids for a three to five minute conversation? Yeah. I, I wanna start to and learn culturally and contextually how the court system works that way and how to. How in these situations that you could take this to a whole different level that hasn’t been applied yet.

So I, I have was of course, in my ever ending quest to try to improve this, I went online and this, I just typed in motivational interviewing for judges and there’s a social worker MSW. I think he is Michael Clark actually created 13 questions or openings or something like that when you are, you know, on the bench.

which I spread far and wide through the District of Municipal Court Judges Association and, in an effort. He actually came and spoke. I, I had asked for you, but they went with him to judge me. And, and so I have handed out that just as, at least it’s something for other judges, just even if they don’t go through any training, if they just could see, you know, how those questions are really about.

behavior change, like one of them, was, felt like it was a little bit confrontational. But just to asking somebody that’s made some changes is like, how in the world did you do this when you had that, you know, in essence that monkey on your back? And like it sounded like a little bit chastising, but people were very responsive when, well, for example, I had asked that question to them because they, it let them know that I saw how hard it is when you’re struggling with addiction and it really is.

It’s not a monkey. It’s like a 50 zillion pound weight that alters your entire world’s perspective. But, but when you see that glimmer, right, when you start to see that radiation coming from, it’s like acknowledging that work that, that comes along with it. And so that, that, that has been very helpful, but it just, again, it’s just, it never feels like it’s enough.

I agree. Thank you so much for doing this. I am just like, I can’t even, I’m just, I’m very appreciative. I, we may have to do this again to see how things go. So I just, for you to carve out time and to, to be so open and, and, transparent about it is just, and I just extremely appreciative. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

It’s, it is, it is, I’ve always tell everybody anytime I can talk about these things, give me, just give me a mic because I think it’s important. I, I would hope that more judges would participate in most racial interviewing training, as well as the attorneys that I just system wide that if, even if it’s who knows how they would use it or how they would incorporate it, it’s the exposure to it to understand there’s a different way of communicating than just that wrote.

Whatever, in essence, credit for time served and close and I feel like you’ve, you know, done your, done your job because we’ve only just begun, you know, and I, and I think absolutely. And I think this is where I think, you know, not that we’ll have a road show, but I think that if you and I push this a little bit and and look at it through a fidelity application model, and, and, and see any.

If you feel any different, even any, any outcomes change because of that, I think that’d be just wonderful to share besides just sheets of paper that we can actually give them some structural, like, how do we do this better? How do we, how do we go to the next level? How do we write the next chapter of the fairytale book?

Down the yellow brick road, we’ll go. so much. All right. Good for today. Thanks for showing up and hopefully we’ll chat again soon. Thanks, Mary. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world.

So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas. Send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com that’s Casey@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC. com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this podcast, we discuss:* Guest Profile – Judge Mary Logan: With 35 years of experience in law, transitioning from a public defender to a judge, Mary Logan discusses her approach to legal practice. * Balancing Legal Models: The conversation explores the balance between compliance-based models and behavior change models in the legal system. * Emphasis on Motivational Interviewing: Logan highlights the importance of motivational interviewing in legal settings to improve communication and outcomes. * Specialized Courts for Targeted Needs: The establishment of veterans and community courts is discussed, showcasing tailored approaches for different groups. * Empathy in Judicial Proceedings: The significance of empathetic and effective communication in court proceedings is emphasized. * Challenges of Time-Limited Interactions: The podcast touches on the difficulty of making a significant impact in the short interactions typical in court settings. * Judge’s Role in Facilitating Change: Logan speaks about the judge’s potential to contribute to behavior change while maintaining legal responsibilities.

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Hello, this Casey Jackson. I am excited to be here. I’ve got a judge, Mary Logan, who is somebody that I’ve known for years. In spite of how young we are, we’ve known each other for quite a few years. Actually Mary knew my mother extremely well too. And they were buddies and kind of on the same team and advocating.

And we’re talking today about. It’s kind of that balance between where do you find the kind of that that sweet spot or a corridor between compliance based models and behavior change based models with all the things we talk in my so I asked the judge if she would come on and she was like, absolutely.

I’ll come talk to you. So so Mary, would you just kind of. Introduce yourself and talk a little bit about kind of your role. And then I’ve got at least 5, 000 questions that I want to dive into and kind of let your free reign as well, too. So. All right. Thank you, Casey. I appreciate that. And I really appreciate being on here with you and having this opportunity to talk.

I, I don’t know where you want me to start with it other than I’ve been a judge since 2009, but actually I’m celebrating as of this very day, my 35th year as an attorney, which that actually just struck me about two seconds ago. And, I think I, in my whole concept of where I wanted to go in my legal profession, it was always to change people’s lives.

Of course, when you’re younger, which I am no longer, it is, you want to change the world, right? What came very clear to me as I matured in my role was that. If I could help one person and then the next person, that I, there’s a possibility that I might be able to actually have that super small ripple effect throughout the world.

So, you have to humble yourself sometimes in the, in those capacities, but. In 2009, I ultimately was appointed as a judge, after having spent, years in the public defender’s office, defending folks in the criminal legal system and seeing the really negative or non, non change outcomes with.

It’s simply the retribution model in the criminal legal world. I had, I have a civil background. I did medical malpractice. It was my first, avenue of practice. So definitely, you know, narrowing down on one individual family because we dealt with families whose children had been, severely damaged in the birthing process.

And so, you know, you can only make, it’s just that one instance right there, what is, which is cataclysmic. But being able to make some, some change, even if it’s just applying money, as it were, because up in the civil realm, that’s what you do, but bringing those wrongs to redress and then having the family have at least some support so they could move forward.

So that’s a bit, a bit, a little bit of the flavor of my, my practice and, and my approach in the law. But in 2009, when the city stood up its own municipal court, instead of contracting for digital services, which is something that can happen. We were able to do something different with this court.

And I took that mantle very seriously, having come from practice in the district court since 1997 until 2008. And, and just seeing that, you know, punishing people wasn’t really changing behavior. It was getting the pound of flesh for the moment. But ultimately I would watch as those individuals will just continue to come back into court over and over representing first the father and then representing the grandfather and the father and the children.

And it was just this awful cycle and really wanting to do something to change that. So Mary, the thing that I wanted to just find out is what was going through your head or what, when you a decided to join, because It wasn’t mandatory for you to join the motivation training, with the, the folks that I was training at that point in time, what, what drew you to that training and then what kept your interest kind of locked into it or, or, you know, captured your, your thoughts around it.

Yeah, I was very excited when I learned about it because I had at that point in time. We had already started two, therapeutic, problem solving courts. One was, actually stood up my veterans court, which is, veterans enhanced treatment court before I stood up the community court. And, but for each of them, it, it was with the idea being, you know, how, how best can I communicate with the individuals that are here before me?

Veterans, of course, are a very different population, very used to discipline, very used to order. And then they, their re entry is in the civilian world and we are chaos out here. And so, I mean, some of their response to that chaos. And some of it is, you know, PTSD and TBI and some, some other overlays that had happened in the, in the, their military experience and some that they brought to their military experience that was only made worse by their experience.

Because they’re certainly trained to not reveal any aspect of any mental health issue that they have at all. And they’re, you know, it’s very individualized, suck it up, go forward, you are one of a unit, the unit is the thing, the mission is the thing, all of that messaging. Contrast that with my incredibly chaotic, community court with individuals that are, you know, struggling with shelter.

And, and that wasn’t my upbringing. And so that, that my upbringing was that I was placed in a position where I could help people. I was the youngest child, or for whatever reason, that was just what I took on. I was somebody’s champion. I can remember all the way back to elementary school where I was just very motivated to not allow someone to be victimized.

So all of that really culminated in then learning about motivational interviewing where there was this ability to reach someone in such a short period of time. And I always only have a short period of time. I’m the last one they talk to, right? They’ve spoken to, they’ve been, they’ve been out of scene, they’ve been spoken to by police.

And just as a segue, the fact that there were officers that were going through motivational interviewing, I think at the same time. That was amazing to me that that, you know, that you could reach to them and that they would, and I’ve known many of your instruction videos have we’ve watched as police officers unfold this scene that is, it starts out again with chaos and then does not end with anybody getting harmed, including the officers.

As they then handle somebody that’s, you know, on the outskirts of, of dealing very well with the situation. So I just, I was attempting and I have throughout my career attempted to educate myself on those things. I am no expert. I am far from anything of an expert on any of these topics, but, but at least having.

A gem. And I can tell you, so I sit on the bench right now. It just happened to be yesterday. Someone will say something where I think, Oh, if only I was good at this, I could do something with this person. And instead, you know, I have transport on the side, drumming, you know, the bass there waiting for us to be done.

And as we’re in our Billy and sentencing for the day or whatever, and they’re just like process, process, process. And I’m like outreach. How, how do I get this person to not come back? They’ve been in front of me before. Right. So it was that hope that. Even though I don’t do it or I don’t do it well, that there would be something that could change in the manner in which I was communicating with the folks that come in front of me, when it either be in my community court and my traditional alpha court, or I have even less time, if I could just write, it’s that one person at a time kind of change that I was hoping for.

So that was the, you know, the thing, the other thing that. That strikes me. And I’m curious about is, one of the judges that I know that gravitated pretty strongly to motivation was judge Culp. And I know you two are pretty close colleagues. And what were your conversation? I mean, when you, when motivation came into your conversations, what was that about?

And what were the two of you talking about? Because I know he’s a huge fan of motivational learning as well, too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he and I met because we are both, on the judicial assistance services program, which is judges helping judges, it’s hard for judges to seek out any kind of assistance if they’re struggling in, you know, confidence or in just, there are lots of, of challenges that can arise in the, in the role, you know, And, and yet we are deemed to be impervious to all of that and we certainly can’t reveal it.

So this Judicial Assistance Services Program, he, I believe he was one that helped stand it up to begin with years and years ago. And I was then drafted into it, because again, it spoke to what I would like to do regardless of who I’m, I’m talking to or who I’m dealing with and to be there to support my colleagues.

So we talked about that as well, about having that language, because We are also peer counselors in that capacity. So if a judge is struggling, then they call into the judicial assistance services program, they are first contacted by our clinician, a psychologist that we have on staff, and then she determines which.

Pardon me, which peer counselor would be reached to to assist with that particular judge. And so we use motivational interviewing techniques, at least reflective listening and, you know, attempting to draw people out. And so it was with that in mind that we felt, you know, it would enrich in that, it would enrich in that skill base as well.

In our capacities as peer counselors, you know, when you’re talking about that, I think the other thing that I’m so curious about is, I mean, hearing your history and your mindset and the desire for change, it’s for the people that I think naturally gravitate towards motivational interviewing. Anyway, it’s just like, there’s a there, there.

In terms of there’s something in this method of communication that I see we can reach people in, like you said, like, in this brief conversation in a completely different way. I think that I’m fascinated with is talking more about your thought process because it is threading the needle. And it’s interesting when I was just thinking about the concept of threading the needle and I was going to bring this up is like, because The needle itself is steel.

I mean, that is the justice system. Those things aren’t going to change it. And it’s a very tiny hole to get through. When we’re talking about threading the needle, just walk through some of your processes of, or thought process when, when, you know, for both of the trainings you’ve gone through, how, how is your brain threading that needle when you’re looking at some of the concepts of motivation learning specifically and the role that you’re in, how are you trying to navigate that?

It’s like you said, the accountability has to be there. The structure has to be there, the impartiality has to be there, and then you’re really thinking from this restoration, reducing recidivism, that you’re, that you are part of a process that genuinely does make community safer and the citizens within the community a healthier through the justice system.

I mean, so what, when you hear motivation, when you sat through those trainings, what are things that go through your brain when you’re sitting in those trainings, listening to some of the concepts? One is I wish I had more time, even though when we watch those videos and when in a skilled clinician can, you know, raise that communication level so quickly, and assist the person to, you know, back down on the emotions that are stopping them from, from actually moving forward.

And actually it’s, it is. How to expand that in the, in the therapeutic realm, you know, we’re told you need at least three to seven minutes. You want to give at least three to seven minutes to each person that’s in front of you. And getting the most out of that time period with them. And so it’s, it’s trying to weave in that skill set to get us out of, and we just had this, I had a great experience with a vet just yesterday and, Johanna Camp, who was also a part of the most recent training with you, also recognized when I was talking about it because this guy had been in the trees, like his whole, and we just thought, I do not know how he is ever going to make his way out.

He just was. Yeah. You know, holding onto those branches way down there and just really rocking around in it. And then we, he, there was a foul that had happened and there was a misstep that had happened along the way. And. If we had responded in a, a retributive manner to it, like if I had said, you can’t go because of this bad behavior, and the thing was, he had, he’s not Native, but for some reason he was allowed to dance a Sundance.

And so, like, incredible honor to even just be included into the fold. Wow. And then he had been training for the last year for this, he had to go remote. And in the past when he’d gone remote, he’d come back and test positive. And so, you know, all of those grindies, you know, trees, just couldn’t get him to move beyond.

And the idea was, well, that, you know, it had been happening so many times and so this has to be the sanction, right? He can’t go. And I thought about it overnight. I’m like, that cannot be the sanction. We will crush this man’s soul. He has been working at this for so long and so hard. And again, this incredible honor to even get to do it at all.

And so when it came time to it, you know, we acknowledged, we acknowledged the problem, brought it out. And I said, but. I’m going to give you a chance on this and, and you’re going to be able to go dance the sun dance. Yes, I want you to test when you come back and, you know, all of the ties that I, I have to, to a certain extent, but to allow him that freedom to continue to go do it, and he did.

And it was at that point that, I mean, I’m sure you see this. I say this to my, this is a whole room full of, and I don’t, I don’t mean to be, you know, sexist in any way, but I’m in a room full of men for the most part, very shut down, except for that. When things change it, you can see it in any person, but this room lights up when someone does.

Come to that point where it’s like I have turned that I’ve heard a degree on that dial has changed and I always Right, I can just see how you have felt so much better about yourself and that happened with this guy And this has been this was back in the summer and he just kept taking off from there so it was with this and you know, it isn’t specifically am I but it It is absolutely imbued with it.

I just can’t help but think it’s a flavor on that kind of processing. And you know, of course, embracing the more therapeutic components of what can happen in those therapeutic courts. And so let’s, I try to have that happen. It doesn’t always work that way. And then in the non therapeutic courts, like I said, if I’ve got an in custody person and I’ve got Transport that’s like, would she just stop talking or trying to draw this person out?

They always want to tell me so much, right? And it, and all of the, I think that is a little bit unique in my courtroom is, is that I have a lot of very chatty participants and the folks that are, you know, getting sentenced and stuff. But I open it up because I want them to hear their own voice, right? When they hear themselves say, I really do want to go to treatment.

I really do want to change my life. And I know there’s, you know, a little gamesmanship that goes on with that because I want to get out and they want to tell me, you know, what I’m looking to hear. But that’s okay because I know it, they know it, and they know that I know it, but they hear it, right? And then I can come back to them and say, well, last time we talked.

This was the path that you were hoping to be on. And here’s some of the steps that you’ve taken. So it’s trying to, that’s why I say, I wish I was much more skilled at this than I am, because there are some very golden opportunities that I just, like I said, I just feel them go plop. How do I get there?

Well, you know what I want to deconstruct from what you shared is that I know when you’re talking about it, and I just want to connect the dots for everyone else is that when you’re talking about the trees and the weeds, I know you’re literally talking about focus mountain that I talk about. Yes. And why I love this, because this just happened this week.

I mean, I was working with, you know, child welfare this week. And, and I was actually working with, I don’t know if you know, in King County, the. Not it’s PDA, but it’s not the public defenders. It is, a peace and dignity. Their attorneys who work with the kind of the pact co lead teams, you know, those, those systems that are trying to maintain people in the community.

Well, these are the. Attorneys, that work for the agency to support them when they go to court. So I was working with them this week as well, too. And what I want to, what I want to walk through with this as far as what you were talking about and connect the dots for people that are listening is what I tell people that work in the compliance based system is you don’t have to be the keeper of the boulder that fell in their path.

The boulder fell in their path because that’s the path this person chose. If you stand on the boulder and say, you shall not pass and here’s your consequence, that fundamentally is going to generate resistance and in your role, those are things that you do have to do as a judge. And on the flip side, why I love the, the, the, example with the, the individual who had that amazing opportunity to do the Sundance is it doesn’t mean the boulder didn’t land in the path.

It was a matter that you can take your mindset from a judge perspective, from a judicial perspective and a restoration perspective is, and anything we can do to support you to get to the top of the mountain, your values we’re going to do. And it doesn’t mean there’s not consequences that need to be followed with this.

So, yes, this has fallen in your path. Yes, this is some time that we’re going to go, okay, we’re going to, we’re going to carve this, you know, a little bit of a walkway around this boulder, but there still is accountability for what’s happened here. And I think as long as you’re going to continue to focus on climbing to the top of your mountain and finding that sense of integrity and that sense of fulfillment and the, all the restorative things that your mindset sees that from being in the training.

I know that that’s, those are things when I hear you talk about the branches and the trees, and I know that’s literally, it’s so hard because law. Is in the literally that was either legal or illegal. That was either you cross line or didn’t. And then there’s the, you know, the, the way that that gets, the way that you assess that and look at, you know, where is the, the restitution that comes from that, that process.

I think there’s that part of it that fascinates me when you look from that lens, but I think as you’re. The other thing that struck me when you’re talking as well, too, is that 3 to 7 minutes. There’s another thing that I want the people listening to understand and it hit me. I think it was on day 2 of this last training that you were in.

And when I went over and sat at your table for a few minutes, and you were asking some of your colleagues, like, how do you see this? Playing out and it was so interesting because would you just say not exactly what you said? I’m just going to queue it up for you. So you know what I’m talking about, but it’s, you’re literally almost talking about the facts of the case for the first two to three minutes, or that’s what they’re, you know, people are telling you the facts of the case.

And then you have to kind of repeat these certain things, which is part of your three to seven minutes. And that’s what I was thinking. Oh, I get why you barely have even three to seven minutes, because there’s things you literally have to come out of your mouth. That need to be said that eats up part of that 3 to 7 minutes.

What are some of those things that you have to say because I want people that are so into motivation to hear how you’re trying to maximize that 3 to 7 minutes you have with each individual. So what are some of the things that you have to say are typically you end up having to say during that time.

Yeah, if I’m in one of my therapeutic courts, we have to hit on the, you know, the, let’s say check the boxes stuff. So, you know, I, I see that you’ve, you know, you’ve gone through, you have your evaluation and you’re gonna have your first session on whatever, December 20th, and you’ve otherwise had good contact with your mentor.

And so it’s the, the essentials that must be met for them to be deemed baseline compliant. Because that’s the part of the agreement when they enter into the court is those, those things, you know, dealing with the treatment, they are all assigned mentors in the vet court arena and likewise in, in my community court, same thing.

So you, you met with the navigator and you were able to get your identification and, or you’re well on your way to get, you know, the papers and. And so it’s just, that’s that the accountability piece, which is, I have to hold you to what you agreed to from the, I’m like, I’m always in a hurry to get through.

It’s like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I, but I always then find myself saying, not that I’m diminishing that it’s really important, but tell me how, you know, and then I want to launch into the next, which is. For to give them that opportunity to tell me how their last two weeks or their one week has been since last week met so that we can, you know, bring humanize it and and also bring to the table from from my perspective that.

Is as important to me that you check the boxes as it is that it isn’t just about checking boxes that you are also, you know, leading a much more fulfilled or fulfilling life where you’re on that path to do so. And so trying to open that up with some open ended questions and then, you know, hitting on reflective listening as much.

So it sounds like and trying to eliminate. I’ve noticed myself so much more since this last training. Eliminating I am so, you know, in any sort of, I am so it’s like, if I say it, then I’ll say, but it doesn’t matter what I think, what do you think about what you just told me? And, you know, trying to pull myself out of that, to give them that space to, to blossom.

And I think that’s what respond. Sorry. No, that was it. And I think that’s the thing that I want people to understand is just, I think that’s why for me, I just keep looping through that threading the needle concept is because you. Take the three sub minutes that you have you, even if you do, you know, the two to three minutes of checking the boxes and making sure for the record, you know, these things are, here’s what’s going on.

And then when you ask an open ended question, you’re just going to get a lot of information. Some of it’s just extraneous that it’s just. Not irrelevant, but they won’t explain their situation. It’s not necessarily behavior change, which puts you in a really, it’s just the level of precision at which you’d have to know.

Motivational learning to be able to like maximize every time you open your mouth is just a high, extremely high level of precision. I think law enforcement has a rough because, but they also have latitude and you have such little latitude. In time, latitude in what you, what you do, but very little latitude in time.

And time is so precious in MI in terms of how you’re using each statement to help the brain function more effectively. And, and I think You know, even as I say this, I can see that part of the struggle when you were talking about the gamesmanship, because this is a population that I’ve worked with for part of my 35 years as a social worker is, you know, unhoused individuals, mental health, you know, incarcerated individual, just all these different situations and and there is that.

An aspect of it, because the system sets it up for gamesmanship. So how do you listen authentically and empathetically to someone that’s looking new? And it’s like, if I can get her to see this a certain way, it’s going to put me in a better position, which is more feeding the compliance narrative and the gamesmanship than it is the behavior change that you’re really trying to emulate and just radiate that it’s like.

I, we just want to make this never happen again. And not because I’m a judge saying, I don’t want to see you here again. It’s because I’m a human saying, I don’t want to see you here ever again. Like it’s just, and I think that translation in that limited amount of time just requires such a high level of mastery.

And I think that’s what I want to. Acknowledge for people that are listening as well, too, is this truly is what innovation is. It’s this how it’s almost feels like a square peg and round hole until you start to understand how to massage that and make the things the whole shift slightly and the pegs lift shift slightly to get to a better outcome for everyone.

And that is just a. That is the nature of innovation and to be on the forefront of that, and constantly thinking from how do we make a difference in our communities through the power that I have in the position that I’m in and honoring the community and honoring this individual in front of me, that is just, that is just extremely difficult.

And I think what fascinates me. Even more Mary is that I think that I don’t know another time in my lifetime, you know, in 57 years, I don’t know of another time that there’s been as much attention on the justice system is in the last six months to year between the Supreme court, between all of the Trump trials, I just, I’ve never.

I mean, we know there’s judges and it’s interesting to me, even as I’m saying this out loud. Now, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. You just, you just always thought police were the good guys. I mean, literally I was talking to somebody yesterday at a training and during a break and they were saying, God, you remember the days when we were kids that you either want to grow up and be a doctor, a nurse or a police officer, a fireman, like that.

And the same thing, you just always assume that judges were part of the justice system and you just wouldn’t. Question that because they go into there for the right reasons. And I think there’s partly an allusion to that. But there’s also, that was just an embedded fabric into our democracy as well, too.

So I think it’s so fascinating that the justice system is getting tried and tested more than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. At least in the States and to see law enforcement. And again, I’m a bleeding heart social worker, which I would never think that that would be kind of my mindset of going, yeah, but they’re the, not the bad guys, but it’s just like, they’re just part of our system, but they’re not leaning towards the healing side of it.

It just seems like they’re towards the negative side. And then when you see all this progression in the last 25 years, and the mindset shift in 30 years in, the justice system, it is just fascinating to me that while that’s happening, it’s during some of the most. The, some of the deepest criticisms of court systems that I truly have, I’ve ever seen on a consistent basis in every state all the time.

Like it’s what, from the Supreme court to it’s just fascinating to me. And then how do we use these methods and mindsets to lead innovation? So just as you were talking, all these thoughts have just been. Hanging around and, and how do we use communication to move this to the next level? Yeah, it’s, it’s very, it’s been a very dynamic time.

And I, and I, you know, again, I’m hearkening, back. So two things, I also had a very interesting experience. Prior to going to Atlanta, which I’ll talk about in a second, because I was invited to bring, it’s just, I laugh because, I’ll just, I’ll be the, I will take away some of the mystery, which is, they weren’t ready.

They were not ready for me and the other part of my team for, for what we were bringing, which was individualized person centered justice to the Kyrgyz Republic, which is in Central Asia, a former Soviet. And then when the, you know, Soviet Union fell in what, 91 or 92, and they had been, attempting to stand up on their own prior to that.

But of course there was the enormous amount of suppression and all of that kind of stuff that was going on. And the Soviet Union did not want the, you know, Union to be busted. But then it happened. And so they have really only been, you know, they’re babies in terms of their attempts at a democratic role, or, you know, imbuing a more democratic principles in their society than, than what had previously taken place.

And we saw everything from incredible enthusiasm from what they call para lawyers, which are nothing like our paralegals. They were like, yeah, we want to come meet your paralegals. And I’m like, you, you all are doing navigation roles that paralegals in the United States, that’s not their role. They, they are there to assist attorneys.

But their role is not as what they had developed, which is really as a, pardon me, a systems navigator because it’s so complicated to do anything there from identification to property rights or anything like that. And these individuals have taken on that role to do it. So they were very enthusiastic about the messaging that was coming from us, myself and the Center for Justice Innovation about, you know, how to do this and, and, and, and supporting what they’re doing.

To the opposite end of the spectrum where I had a Supreme Court justice tell me what I was doing in the therapeutic realm sounded like a fairy tale and not, she didn’t say it in like a happy, happy way. And I thought, well, first of all, why would you ever be so critical of somebody that’s coming here?

Clearly designed help, trying to help and bring some different messaging. Why would you say something so really inflammatory about that? But that was how she felt because that’s just not, they are nowhere near that in components of their system. And yet they could be, just as when I broke into this role.

And I’m not saying that it’s the same because it’s very different there. So I’ve never been in a country where Vladimir Putin was a welcomed guest and where the red carpets were rolled out and the city was turned down for him. But that happened when I was there. So some of our contact points were shut down because he came into town.

So there’s still quite a bit of that flavor and there’s a, there’s a fair amount of corruption that exists there. That’s way more, more overt than what you see here in the United States, but definitely exists. But they have, there’s like, they have a probation that they’ve just set up. And I’m like, there’s your avenue.

If you as judges have these narrow bands, then here’s the way, right? Educate your probation, get them up to speed on some of the evaluative tools that exist in the world. They then can feed you information that makes your sentencing more person centered. That you can individualize it based upon the needs that have been determined to exist on, on that side.

Because you have this robust report that would then come to you. And then when it comes time for sentencing. You can individualize it to the person in front of you, and they may get there. We’re not done working with them, but it was just what it also made me very grateful of is the freedoms that we have here in the United States, and we can’t hide behind the fact that there are.

Really some significant things that have not been spoken about in the realm of the judiciary and in the realm of what’s happened with policing. So it’s uncomfortable to have that, but I think it’s a part of how we process as to what maybe our next steps should be or could be if, if instead of it just feeling like an all out, you know, assault or attack on the credibility of those institutions.

That it’s, you know, looking back on it and saying, okay, well, how, what could we do differently? Could we incorporate a better communication style with people? Could the events have been avoided if there was a better communication style instead of assuming That this is not even a person that is being dealt with in front of you.

And and dealing with them as a as a entity instead of a human being right there’s Bringing that in and it doesn’t have to be so squishy feely, you know out for the police officer But just acknowledgement that Again, this person is going to be a part of your community. What can, in the role that you have in the ability to open up doors for someone, how could you open that for this person so that they don’t come back in a negative way?

As we, as we make, as we help them make their way through a system that, we didn’t choose for them to be there, but we, they are ours to, to attempt to, to sort out. So I think that’s how, you know, even just exposure to motivational interviewing as a, as a communication style and attempting. You know, tiny little inroads using it.

When, like I said, when that gem lands and you’re laughing, you’re like, where’s Casey? Can I just have an earbud and be like, okay, no, we’re going to do it.

This has been part one of a two part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey. To change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC.com. That’s Casey@Ifioc.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC. com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this podcast, we discuss:* Essence of Helping Others: Casey Jackson shares his life-long dedication to helping others and his journey from being a hands-on therapist to becoming an educator and trainer in effective communication and motivational interviewing. * Importance of Evidence-based Practices: The discussion emphasizes the significance of using data-driven methods to bring about effective change in individuals and organizations. * The balance between Being and Doing: Danielle Cantin brings up the concept of ‘beingness’ – living and embodying the values one preaches, which is a key element in Casey’s approach to training and personal growth. * The Concept of “Be the Change”: This new training program aims to equip helpers with tools to make a meaningful impact while also taking care of themselves to prevent burnout. * Integrity in Practice: The conversation highlights the importance of practicing what one teaches, ensuring that one’s actions are in alignment with their values and teachings. * The Challenge of Sustaining Energy and Passion: The hosts discuss the common issue of burnout in helping professions and the need for continuous support and learning to maintain enthusiasm and effectiveness. * Community and Shared Learning: There’s an emphasis on the value of learning and growing within a community, sharing experiences, and learning from one another. * Invitation for Engagement: The podcast ends with an invitation for listeners to participate in the conversation, either by reaching out with questions or by expressing interest in joining the podcast to discuss related topics. * Reflecting on Personal Journeys: Both hosts share their personal experiences and insights into the field of motivational interviewing and effective communication, offering a glimpse into their personal motivations and journeys.

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TranscribeHello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hello, everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin, your facilitator of the communication solution. And I’m here with your host, Casey Jackson. Hey, Casey. Hello. How are you? Doing good. Awesome. I’m, I’m really excited to talk about our topic today. Which is something that you and I have been working on for over a year, getting to know all of your different clients, all of the people who are so drawn to training with you, to learning from you and with you.

We really saw this need. I know in my, from my perspective, what I saw. Was this incredible opportunity of what you help train other people do these people are out there changing the world in these organizations, in these businesses, they are so dedicated to doing good, to helping others that it became very clear to me, Ooh, if you’re not on it.

You could get depleted, you could get, you know, burnout. Of course, that was all, you know, a while after the heels of COVID, but still we’re so mindful of that. And so we’ve talked about, about the need to support all of the people trying to help other people with the communication solution. With motivational interviewing, I’d love to toss this over to you to tease out a little bit.

What is it that you’re so passionate about helping these folks? Because we’ve got a training lined up. It’s brand new with you. And you, you were, you knew right away, it’s called be the change. You knew the title. And I’d love to just dig in a little bit more about your motivation for it, who you want to help and why.

Cause I have my ideas and passions about it as well. But I think obviously the most important thing is. Is your perspective. Well, and I, and I want to, because you’ve had so much energy around this, I do want to bounce back to you to find out where, why this has become kind of your pet project, in your work with me.

For me, I wasn’t even necessarily thinking about the, be the change. This was, this was so much about your brainchild. It’s just the more you talked about it. I think, well, there’s two things. I’ll start with what you asked. You know, why am I so passionate about it is I don’t understand. I don’t understand why we’re here on the planet if we’re not here to help each other.

So that’s just, that’s a source of why I do what I do. It’s why when I found my career, I knew it was my calling, you know, as a therapist, as a, as a trainer, it just, there’s something effortless. For me about being present for other people that to help them heal and get clear and, and feel like they’re progressing on their journey for me, my journey is to help other people on their journey.

It’s just the way I just know that’s the way I was born. That’s just what my calling was. So to be able to look at, you know, have had these, the privilege to get an education and the privilege to, Work for a university where change was studied and mental health and mental illness was studied and evidence based practices were formed and I can see data behind what helped people change.

That was different than when I started in the field, which was, I was just a good person that really wanted to help other people. And I loved working with youth and I wanted to help them with addiction issues and mental health issues and depression. To start their lives on a better path. I mean, that was just what I was drawn to do.

I knew that was my calling. I had no doubt about it ever. And never did I waver from that knowing this. I know that my desire to do that. Helped people and change people because I still get feedback from, from people that I worked with back then, but the more I learned about research and the evidence about, okay, what is the most effective, what is the most, I love words like potency and dose, like, what’s the right dose, the right potency to get the best outcome.

Because those words make sense to me when I think about my own health or my own, you know, health struggles or issues that come up, you know, it’s like, I just want to know, what can I do to get to the best possible place? And that’s what I think of with, you know, all of my peers in the helping world, you know, my colleagues in the world that, that help.

Other human beings, I just want to know that the energy that I expended was the best way I could have spent it and expended it to get the best possible outcomes of the people that I work with it. It’s just a light year evolution from well, I know I did my best today. Well, I know I did my best today. I don’t know if I helped anybody, but I know I tried my hardest.

I know I did my damnedest. I know that I wanted to make a difference and I know that I gave my life. Blood. And I know that I, I was there with them and I bled with them and I sweat with them and I cried with them. That’s the way we’re coming at kind of my, my benchmarks or my mile markers before. And I think that there was healing that happened in me being present in that way.

I think a lot of that energy was not expended the way that was in the best interest of everyone. I think that there’s ways that I could have been better and more effective. So I don’t grieve that. I just allow that that was part of my own evolution. But it’s my obsession with how do we consolidate this?

How do we bring what we know and who we are and maximize that for the greatest impact for human good? That’s my intention. That’s my goal. That’s what I want to accomplish. That’s what I want to facilitate and foster in my communities, in the world, whatever way I can do that, that, so that answers, that’s kind of my big answer to the question of why, why do you do what you do or why are you doing this?

And, and then I want to, and I think you and I connecting was something when I was presenting that you picked up and you could feel that or tell that. Not only in what I was communicating, but how it’s communicating it because the content that I was communicating in that keynote, I think you resonated with.

But it was also me as I speaking it that you resonated with. Then once you got to know me a bit better. It really be. The change was not my brainchild. Be the change is much more your brainchild. So, because you’re the one who has all this energy, you keep pouring into it. Like you’re keeping it at the forefront.

You’re, you know, you’re thinking of it. I’m going to throw it back to you in terms of when, with all the things that I just said, which is a consolidation of things that you’ve thought, what what’s made you want to make sure that this gets out in the world and that people have access to this. Yeah, it’s all of these podcasts.

It’s killing me Casey. Cause I just, I have to kind of hold back from getting emotional. I don’t know what that is, but, thank you or not or not. So thank you for sharing that. And I think it, it really helps me. It makes me laugh that I guess this is my brainchild, that you absolutely knew the name of, which is interesting because you touched on it.

When I saw you speak, the content was amazing and I loved the evidence based nature of it because I’m a very, externally focused, but it’s about the sense that it’s, it’s about energy. It’s about the sense of, Oh, there’s alignment here. That’s what I picked up on the, not just the content, but the how, how you deliver who you were on that stage.

It was a beingness that is so rare. In the past, I’ve been obsessed my entire life. The word I’ve used was integrity. There’s an integrity in what you teach, what you do, what you learn, what you apply to your own life so that you are a walking, talking, breathing, being of. I don’t want to say the communication solution, motivational interviewing, but the spirit of all of it, it’s not something you do and then turn around and don’t live and breathe.

It’s not something you train. And I think that’s one of the most magical gifts I’ve ever seen. And it’s just the, it’s evidence based, so I see the results that organizations get anybody you work with. It’s. It is phenomenal in and of itself. When I think about all of the people I talk with that are leading the charge, getting this training into their organizations, going to the mat for it.

And in many cases, they don’t even have to, because. It’s, it’s the data is there proving it, but new people venturing into it, putting their toe in the water going, Oh my God, is this going to be the solution? When I look at all of those people out there, they are so passionately aligned with what you described, your mission that you’ve known your whole life.

And I see so many people. Out there with a heart of gold, wanting to serve others on their path, and they don’t have the tools and instead they do what, what you said, you don’t want to punish yourself for, or, or belittle that you had a journey of where it was. I’m going to give blood, sweat and tears. I’ve got to be in the muck with you to be able to help you.

I see so much of that. And that is the tie in with burnout. That’s the tie in with how do you deliver and a healer and a helper. Get tools that actually are going to help you have a greater impact that you can even imagine while honoring yourself while making sure you’re really cared for and, and don’t get depleted so that, that I think we’re aligned.

It’s that’s what I’ve seen when I, the day I met you and what I see with all of the people that you’re helping. And there’s people definitely who have that integrity and are where you’re describing, but it’s kind of like another podcast we did about sustainability of it. How do you do that without the constant touch points of, Ooh, I slipped back into my old pattern.

I know I’m famous for that. I’m like, Ooh, Oh yeah. I’m going to slip into that. I’m going to give blood, sweat and tears instead of making sure I’m shored up.

You can tell part of my. As we’re walking through you and I developing the whole be the change together. And again, you continue to keep it at the forefront and, and asking me the questions as we’ve worked to develop this. I can tell even as you talk where I won’t say tripping points are for me. I can feel where I stutter step or where I halt inside of myself is I on the flip side, I start to get emotional when you talk because it’s, it’s what so many people say is.

Everybody wants to feel heard and seen and understood. We talk about high accurate empathy, right? And the power and the potency of that. When you see that in me, I know that’s who I’m trying to be and I, there’s nothing martyr ish about it, but I don’t need to be acknowledged for it. So when you get acknowledged for it, it causes a stutter step about like, well, I don’t want, people don’t want to learn from me on how to be.

What I do. And you’re like, Oh my God, Casey, people do want to learn how to do that. And it’s not to be you. It’s to, how do you do what you do the way that you attempt to do it? You know, I, one of my, one of the pinnacle of my mountain is integrity. And so when you said that, as you were kind of talking, you’re part of it.

That’s what you’ve always drawn to been drawn to that word. And I know, I know how imperfect I am. I know how imperfect I am. But every day that I ever, every one of my new days, I wake up with the intention to operate from a high level of integrity. And some days I’m in awe. And then some days I am not surprised.

Because of, I don’t have no problem owning the fact that I’m human. You know, and I am imperfect, but, but more days than not, I do operate from a high level of integrity. I just, it, it serves, it served me well and sort of think that I could create a class or a gathering. For people, you know, when you’re talking that evergreen, that there, that there’s a way for people to be able to have a touchstone or a, a home base to get refocused and clear with like minded people.

And then to just have someone else articulate, how do you take and put 1 foot in front of the other? I mean, I know it, but how do you do it in the face of all of these things that you can get distracted by? How do, how do we do it? Practice it on a day to day basis. And so could I do yoga on my own? Yes.

Could I exercise on my own? Yes. Can I, you know, read a book on my own? Yes. But there’s also book clubs out there in yoga classes and everything else, because there’s something about being with other people that adds a little different energy to it. And so that’s how I’ve. Moved from kind of stutter stepping of like, I can train motivational interviewing, I can train effective communication, I’ll, I’ll develop curriculum for any of those classes you want me to do, Danielle, but be the change is such a human experience thing.

I’m not sure what you’re asking me you want me to do with this, but as we talk about it, I get it, but I think there’s this, um. It’s not even a humility side of it. It just, there’s a part of it. It’s just like, who am I to help other helpers that, you know, and on one hand, when I hear you say it, I get it.

And I resonate like there’s something in my body that resonates like, yeah, why wouldn’t you help people? Why wouldn’t you be a yoga instructor then? If you can do yoga so well, then why wouldn’t you be a yoga instructor and help other people? If I go to that mindset, I’m, I’m okay with it when it gets into how do you help other people help other people and show them what you do, then it’s like that feels more itchy for me.

And I think that’s why the more we’ve talked about it, the more clear it helps me get in terms of if, if me talking about my process helps other people with their process. Then that feels like, Oh, I can do that. And I think that’s as you and I really tease this out, kind of the lane that’s, that’s helping me.

It’s when we start getting into this air and energy and electricity in our lungs and our, our spinal column and in our forehead and in our top of our head, that’s just like, Oh my God, but it’s more than that. And I’m like, I know it’s more than that, I know. And you know, we can provide more than that.

And I will provide more than that, but it’s just to bring it down to a concrete concept that people go, okay, what the heck are you talking about? Would be the change. It’s how do we operate in the way on a day to day basis that has integrity. And we know that we’re having the greatest impact on the people we’re trying to serve so they can have the best outcomes in their lives that they possibly can have access to.

Awesome. I love that. I love your willingness to step into it as well, because, you know, I’ve never seen you back down from any challenge with an organization when we get on a call with them. And it’s just like, well, we need to address this, this and this. And it’s like, I’ve never seen anybody operate like you, where you’re like, you, you create and you didn’t walk into that.

Conversation knowing much, so the, the speed to, with which you can create a solution really doesn’t cease to amaze me. And I know you’re uncomfortable with compliments, so I’m sorry. But I will say, I like you being willing to step into this training, which, you know, now we’ve nailed down the date in January for it.

So I’m really excited about it. It’s It’s, it’s a co creation, I believe it’s truly a co creation and there’s so many people already signed up, and wanting this without the full understanding because they’re resonating with something about it and you’re willing Step into it without having that what you’re used to, which is I can lay out a curriculum for anything, no problem.

But this is a little more co creating in terms of service to the people that show up on that in that training. So I appreciate that. And then, I have to laugh at the, the give and take of what I was attracted to when I first saw you on stage is as a branding person. Everything’s deeply rooted that I’ve done in an organization with revealing the soul of the brand of who they are at their core, their beingness.

And then I’ve never met out of all of the psychology, all of the different tools, great things out there of how do you actualize and actionalize your beingness. So that your team and your business and your brand can actually take the steps to live and breathe that culture and make sure there’s integrity.

You’re, you’re saying you’re being this, now we’re going to say it in marketing. We’re going to show it. Are you living it? Are, where’s, you know, so you can see how that ties to my mission in life of integrity. So I’ve done that. I’ve never seen anybody until I met you on stage. I’m like, Oh, that’s. That’s the solution.

That’s what I’ve been. Every organization needs to know this opportunity exists. So I have to laugh because I’m very familiar with the beingness. My attraction is into, Oh, show me the doing this Casey, how do you do this? How do you actualize this? And now I’m bringing you back full circle to, Oh, you’re training all these organizations, all these people who want to join these individuals want to join this, be the change training.

You’ve taught them how to do. And now it’s like, it’s that dance of going back to, yes, this is what you do. And it’s the beingness and it’s the doing this and the beingness. So I think that’s, I don’t know if that’s way too woowoo, but, No, you know, Daniel, the thing that clicks for me when you say that as well, there’s a couple of things, two things that really stick with me with that.

I think part of it is that the click is that I want to help as many people as possible while I’m here. Like while I’m on the planet, as many people as I can help be. And I, and it’s not that it’s not the exclusion of my own fulfillment in life. It fulfills me to be able to do that. And then I have all sorts of personal things that I get to pursue and that I just love and fulfill me as well, too.

But for as much of my waking life as I can help other people, it just, that fulfills me. It just, so I think you seeing that and knew yourself from even a branding marketing perspective, like I want to be able to, I want to be able to. Put those things in the world and expose people to those things so they know they exist.

I mean, this is what you helped me understand, which is being able to, all your job is to do is to get more people to understand what products exist and if it’s going to be a value to their life. And if it’s a value of life, those are the things that you gravitate towards. So that’s one part of it. The second part of it that struck me as you were talking is, you know, I’ve never done branding or marketing for IFIOC.

It’s always been word of mouth because it just. I didn’t, there’s nothing I needed to sell. It just, it was just something that people sought. And I loved that for, you know, before you and I met for 10 years, 11 years before I’d met you, my business existed because people were seeking what I could do. And that was just.

For me, that’s all I ever needed where things started to change in my own brain. And I think this is why, you know, synchronicity with you coming to my life when you did, excuse me, was that where I was getting frustrated with all the white noise and you know, there’s, there’s amazing Ted talks and there’s, there’s so much great information.

You know, no one has the market cornered on amazing information and health and growth and mindset and what, where I was starting to get frustrated was. When I looked at just the actual research and where change is created and sustained is from the things that I’ve been tracking and trying to research, you know, and again, and I don’t know at all by any stretch of the imagination, but what I kept thinking it, and this is what my own kind of tagline in my brain is anyone can motivate anyone can look at the YouTube and learn how to become a motivational speaker, you know, and, and there’s so many people that specialize in training people on how to be motivational speakers.

And. And what was my brain, my tagline in my brain about what I F I O C is about and what I’m about is, well, anyone can motivate, but very few people can deliver on how to affect change. Anybody can. You can go to all sorts of inspirational things. You walk away and just go, Oh, my God, my life’s forever changed.

And within a week, you’re back to the old grind again. Anybody can inspire and that’s exactly. And I think that’s what you were kind of drawn to is, Oh, my gosh, there’s data behind there. So there’s, there’s mechanics behind there says that I love the construct of a technology. There’s a technology and communication.

There’s a, there’s, there’s understanding of how human communication and the human brain, that if we understand how to engage the brain more effectively in its own change process, and you know, my obsession with, you know, brain science and trauma informed in the last few years, if I can understand how the brain fires, and if I can understand how the brain fires just by literally when I open my mouth.

And words bounce off that brain and then words come out of that brain again. That’s, that’s an assessment. I can learn how to assess that and I can help this brain more effectively. I think where people step into the lower hanging fruit is, Oh, I can use that to manipulate people. And my thing that I always love for my safety net is that, well, then it’s not motivational interviewing and that’s not a communication solution.

That’s, that’s more of what my old school thinking about what marketing was, you know, when you and I talked originally, it’s just like you’re using technology. Either for good or for evil is always the way I thought about it. You know, whether you’re talking about a laser for killing people or a laser that can do gamma surgery and save someone’s life like that, that’s what I think of with all technology and my obsession with the core of motivational interviewing is it really has to do with.

How that person sees themselves and what their values are and is their behavior in line with their values. It’s just how do we lower the brush, clear away some of the muck and help them be a clear what the top of the mountain is. And then what are the services and resources they need to become who they want to become as they define themselves.

That’s really important to me. And I think that’s your idea of can we help other professionals or paraprofessionals or volunteers or whoever get to that state in their life where they’re feeling that way? And they can do that for themselves. So then they’re even of greater service to others. Why would we not?

Create that space because that doesn’t exist in abundance out there. I think what you’re thinking is, you know, and I think that was putting it gently is, yeah, that’s not an abundance out there for people to have access to that. So if we can create a space for people that are seeking that there’s, there’s, there’s a, they’re there.

In terms of being able to help people get clear about how do I harness this? How can I replicate it? How do I learn how to do that for myself as I’m doing it for other people? And, and I know that’s, I know that’s kind of the coalescence of you thinking about all the potential for, you know, The very simple construct would be the change is so much more complex and dynamic than that.

I remember when I, I met you, we were chatting and I think, it really was, how do you use this technology to help yourself when, when you shared with me that, that you had been, you know, working with it for so long. And when you looked and went, Oh, I can apply this to my life. Like, how do I do this to change the relationships and communication in my personal life?

And I’m like, yeah, that that’s the next level integrity. That I experienced on the stage, which does crack me up by the way, because, you know, I’ve done and help companies do a lot of events and different things like that. So I’m really familiar with amazing keynote speakers. And I only went to the conference you were on stage for because it was a senior living sales conference, because there were two, two huge names that I adore, very huge names.

And then you, yeah, they’re like, you know, cause I do a lot of behind the scenes stuff. They’re six figure speakers each and I’m like, which they were remarkable as I expected and anticipated. But I walked away kind of remembering them, like who’s Casey, Casey Jackson, God, it was so great. It’s Lil Scrub from Sixth and Bowdish.

Yeah. What’s that? I said the Lil Scrub from Sixth and Bowdish in the Spokane Valley. God, it was so, it was so great. Wow. Who knew? Be the changes. I feel like there’s a deep, deep connection to integrity, integrity, and, and making sure that that it’s woven throughout your life in a way that’s going to really benefit you as the practitioner, I guess, is the word that’s coming.

Very much so. And I think that that’s why for me, it’s so easy for me to lean into this. It gets me excited. I get, you know, that, that nervous excitement at about two, because it, it will draw people that just genuinely do want to make that difference that just like, okay, I’ve. I’ve done so many things and I’ve done so many great things in my life.

And I’ve helped so many people. I just, I want to be able to take to the next level where I want to be able to sustain this, or I am starting to get burned out or God there’s days where is it all for not like, why am I doing this? And I know that if there’s like minded people that come together for this concept, it’d be the change.

And knowing how I’ve been able to navigate it. I know great things will happen. That’s where I can let go of trying to make it a great trainer, make it a great experience for people. And just knowing it can’t help, but be, there’s just no way it couldn’t be. Because of just the nature of people getting together to try to improve the quality of the work that they do and the quality of their life.

It, it also has helped a bit too. Cause my brain gets a little overwhelmed with all of this, but. When I can look practically when I can look in third person, I think, well, Casey, you live your life. This is truly it is. I, you know, it’s nothing other than it’s what I want to do is be as healthy as I can be.

So when I think from that perspective, and then when I think of how many. Hours I’ve spent in front of people training motivational interviewing. Oh my gosh, you know, Malcolm Gladwell, and I have way more than my 10, 000 hours. I have probably closer to 50 to a hundred thousand hours in. And so it’s like, Oh, you do know this, but I think it’s so much who I am.

It’s hard to think that people would want to have part of what I just am because I have more than my 10, 000 hours, my 50, 000, my a hundred thousand hours in, because it’s just. How I live and breathe and operate on a day to day basis. So, and then that’s not what everybody does. I keep going. I think that’s why I’m so comfortable with the construct of a yogi or a yoga instructor.

It’s like, well, you’re, yeah, you do it effortlessly, but there’s people that want to learn how to do that. So why wouldn’t you set up a yoga class if that’s what people are looking for? Just people are seeking that. So do you know how to teach yoga? I do. And I’m really good at yoga. I’m not, I’m not that flexible.

Just, yeah, that’s just my analogy. So, but yeah, it’s so awesome. I think, you know, the being this piece of this really is. I think that’s another, another way for me to describe what I want to get more out in the world is to be, to have a beingness, you have to be present. And in the moment, and that’s what I think why so many organizations, so many people are drawn to you is because you still, after all these years, after all the hundreds of thousands of hours, and I’m not going to say you’re perfect.

You would correct me if I did, you know, God, yeah. But your high percentage in terms of a willingness to do what you have done and you’re an expert in, you still approach it with humility and curiosity and a presence. A presenceness of, Oh, what, what is this? What is like the, I haven’t seen that very often.

So I think that’s why I’m like, Hey, everybody, you need to experience this, more, more under the, under the hood or, you know, just a different iteration of a training. So I’m excited about this. Thank you for stepping in. Absolutely. You know, one of the things I want to reinforce is we’re wrapping up.

Danielle and you know, we always wrap up with inviting people to, you know, ask questions right in, but part of that, the organic energy of it that I appreciate so much, it’s so many of the guests we’ve had on here, if you are listening and any of this resonates with you deeply. Any of the podcasts, I would hope that you would just email and say, I know this is a long shot, but can I just get on the podcast and talk with Casey?

That is what I’m hoping for. We don’t get enough people. I just have these people I randomly am training and things that are happening. And they’re just like, Oh, I listened to your podcast. And it’s like, Oh my God, come on and talk to me. And they’re like, what? I don’t think I can do that. I just want people to know that’s the whole point.

That’s the whole point of this is, it’s the questions. It’s the reason why I love having these conversations with Danielle or John is we get into very organic, real conversations. And I think we want you to be part of the conversation. It’s not an echo chamber. I just, I don’t want it to be white noise of podcasts.

I genuinely think that if you’re listening and any of this just resonates with you deeply, please just reach out and say, 10 questions I want to ask you or 50 questions or, you know, that, that would be my happy place. So I think just as we’re talking about be the change, I want to invite you to be the change as well, to, you know, just email, text, do whatever you need to do and just say, Hey, I want to, I want to.

Get on there. I want to talk to you. I have questions. I disagree with you. And I’d love to talk about it. It’s like, I’d love to talk about that too. So, I just want to throw that out there, Danielle, as we’re wrapping up today, because I know you always kind of wrap up with, you know, email us, you know, reach out, ask questions.

So I just want to put my plug in there from a very genuine place as we’re on this topic as well, too. Yeah, that’s awesome. Cause it’s true. Everybody that joins, you’re just like, Oh my gosh, what do you, you know, like, what do I have to do? Or can I bring value a hundred percent? And, Yeah. I do appreciate how organic it is and I know we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that we do appreciate that it’s not planned and structured.

And there is a flow to it. Sometimes, you know, we, we pull it together pretty good at the end, but flow can mean all sorts of things. So you’re right. Yeah. I look forward to you guys reaching out. If you’re interested in be the change, definitely reach out Casey@IFIOC.com. And, we look forward to, to, having you on our, one of our upcoming podcasts, if you’re interested.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

View Details

In this episode, we discuss: Forward-Looking Approach: Casey Jackson emphasizes the importance of a forward-looking approach in motivational interviewing, contrasting it with traditional psychotherapy that often delves into the past. * Cultural Reflections: The hosts discuss how different cultures view relaxation and being present, highlighting the often hectic pace of life in the U.S. * The Journey of Change: The concept of life being a journey, not just a destination, is explored, suggesting that sustainable change involves enjoying the process, not just focusing on the end goal. * The Impact of COVID-19: The pandemic is mentioned as a catalyst for people to reassess their lives, priorities, and what truly matters to them, similar to the reflection that occurs around the New Year. * Sustainability of Change: The hosts discuss the importance of making sustainable changes that align with one’s values, rather than temporary or superficial adjustments. * Role of External Feedback: John Gilbert emphasizes the value of having external measures or feedback to complement internal reflection and ensure alignment with values and goals. * The Concept of a ‘New Day’: Casey Jackson introduces the idea of each day being a new opportunity to progress towards goals, rather than seeing setbacks as complete restarts. * Balancing Internal and External Measures: The discussion acknowledges the importance of balancing internal feelings and motivations with external, objective measures for sustainable behavior change. * Invitation for Listener Engagement*: The podcast concludes with an invitation for listeners to share their thoughts, agreements, disagreements, and topic ideas, emphasizing the interactive nature of the podcast.

TranscribeHello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hello everyone and welcome to Creation Solution. I’m Danielle Cantin, your facilitator for today and I am here with your hosts Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hey guys. Hey Danielle. Hey Danielle. Hey, I’m excited for this episode today. I thought we could dig into a topic that I’m, I want to say might be really emphasized in the U. S. But I’m sure it’s felt somewhat across the globe. The new year and with the new year comes It’s lots of ideas around resolutions and such. And that makes me think of motivational interviewing and how that might affect, you know, not only the fresh start that we look at as an individual with, Hmm, what might we like to go into this new year with, but also as a business, you know, people are looking at that as well.

And when I think of resolutions and, you know, you have to laugh at the age-old. Sayings and beliefs of like, Oh yeah, you go at it hard on January 1st and you know, you peter out with that long-term behavior change. So I thought that could be a really fun topic to think about motivational interviewing, the communication solution, and maybe how to reframe or think about the new year and in a way that could help people take steps forward in a really positive way.

You know, I think it’s fascinating when you were just talking about it and kind of introducing this, Danielle, I don’t know why, but my brain just went to the difference between motivational interviewing and kind of, I was raised a little bit more in the psychotherapy realm. You know, I was going through my schooling, be a therapist and, and I think that really for me is a bit the difference.

What I love about motivational interviewing is who do you want to be from today forward. Psychotherapy is talking about what’s happened to you in the past. And, and so I, there’s something that just, I think the thought of new years, I think in so many different celebrations around the world, always have this kind of celebration of new life or rebirth or starting from here or moving forward.

And, and that part just really, that intrigues me. It literally almost lightens my chest even talking about that. Like, just think if, If your thought process was, where do you want to put your foot today? Where do you want to take a step towards today? And I think that is the nature of New Year’s resolution of, you know, the year is gone.

You take a deep breath, you know, give your loved ones a hug, shake off the last year, and then think about literally baby New Year is you’ve got a fresh start. You, you, who do you want to be? How do you want to navigate this? I think what happens where we falter is we straddle our old thinking and our old behaviors and try to straddle that with new thinking and kind of this excitement on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s resolutions.

And then we move back into our old life. And if you’re going to do that, you’re just not going to make progress. And I think this from that, I mean, just brainstorming out loud. And I think that’s one of the things that I wrestled with as a therapist is, you know, every week you talk about what’s happened the week before and, and how that relates to trauma from the past.

And, and I don’t think that’s bad or wrong, but I think that consumes energy for what do you want to do today about tomorrow? So all the, the moments I’m talking about the past and. And the past week are moments that I’m not paying attention to the present. And what can I be doing to create the life that I want today?

And from this point forward, I think I’m in such a transformation myself right now, living this and believing this, you know, implementing all the things I know about health and growth and mindset. And teaching it, it’s very present in my mind in a, in a dimensional and visceral way for me right now. So it is interesting that, you know, you brought up the topic of New Year’s because I’m really in this kind of trying to be forward growth mindset, and feeling the potency of it and how, how many people want to pull you back into old ways of being.

And I think that’s the same for New Year. Yeah. And I think also that is such a brilliant insight because it’s not just other people want to pull you in, but it’s what we know. So it’s just like, Oh my God, I want to leap into this future that doesn’t exist yet. And I want to do it from a place that I’m familiar with, which is contradictory.

I’m also secretly laughing because I’m drinking out of a coffee cup that says counselor, the counselor, which is, you know, just cracks me up because it’s very true about, it’s all about looking back and our facial interview viewing is looking about looking forward. That’s exactly it. And, and I think from.

You know, as I think about this, we’ve all talked about this before with businesses and sustainability and, you know, and I know we need to talk about this on a separate podcast as well, but I think that when you’re thinking about if you’re going to sustain or have forward movement, it just requires change.

And so many people find, we know we find comfort in status quo. You, you, you, there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the old pair of sweats. It’s the old blanket we like to cuddle with. It’s our old coffee mug that we like to find and pour. It’s just, we like that stability and chronic change is just hard on our brains.

It’s hard on our biology, chronic change. I mean, it’s good for growth, but there also needs to be a time for reset and. you know, regroup as well, too. And I think our world is so chaotic that we’re chronically in a state of change. It doesn’t feel like we get a lot of status quo, except this is where I think why I like that we attempt to think more globally.

There is the U. S. phenomenon that we just Can’t sit down, you have to be multitasking. So I think there is this, how much do we have to do it and how much have we bought into, you know, kind of a, a cultural phenomenon that if you’re sitting down, you’re wasting time and you’re not productive anymore and you don’t have value.

When you compare that to more traditional cultures, where that’s an art, the art of relaxing, the art of just leaning into being the art of being present. Those are the things that I think, I think our brains get wrapped around this. Go, go, go, go, go. And I think, and. As we go, go, go, go, go. If people are not feeling fulfilled by multitasking, which I think COVID brought up this quiet quitting and all these other, you know, the great resignation and all these things that all of a sudden, when we do stop for a second, it’s like, what the hell am I doing?

Like, am I think I’m going crazy and I have nothing to show for it, which is why I think younger generations historically have always said, we’re not going to be crazy. Like you are. You know, we’re going to have a work life balance, and this has been since the dawn of man. You know, as soon as we had civilizations, I think younger generations always said, we’re not going to be crazy like you all are.

And, and then they end up getting sucked into the same thing about productivity. Yeah. That shift is really interesting that you can even see in the U S happening. And I know having traveled overseas, that was a big awareness for me was, Oh my God, there’s such a. Centered quality to, the countries I visited where there was just this confidence in this quietness in, like you said, the art of relaxing, of really being in the moment and enjoying it.

And I kind of brought that back for me to the U. S. and I do see it since COVID people more re evaluating. So when I think about the, the new year and approaching that. It really makes sense to stop and pause and really make sure whatever choices you want to make, whether it’s for yourself individually or your business, where I see the connection for motivational interviewing, the opportunity is make sure whatever you’re choosing, is it aligned with your values?

Instead of just a task to do or a thing I’m going to work out every day, I want to do this, tie it up, up the mountain. So you, so, you know, in your training, is that accurate? That’s it. And this is where you, when you’re thinking about for me, a new year’s resolution is. It’s not, am I going to lose weight?

It’s not, am I going to, you know, drop that last 10 pounds? It’s not that I’m going to hit the gym every day. It’s for me, the, the behavior changes I stick to consistently, this is where I just, you know, have such a deep appreciation for all the things John’s brought in my life is truly that construct of lifestyle medicine is it’s not about the five pounds of 10 pounds of 50 pounds.

It’s how’s your lifestyle today going to lead you to where you want to be. And that links so tightly with motivational interviewing is I have control over what I choose today. One little, this is one very concrete, silly thing that I do, but so effective for me, with all of my eating behaviors, even being vegetarian, just all that my eating behaviors is like when I want ice cream or whatever it is, it’s like, you know what, today we’re not tomorrow.

You can totally have it. Let’s just kind of skip it today. It’s when I get into a deprivation mindset that I struggle. But when I just make an active choice that today I’m not going to, but tomorrow you can totally have two bowls if you want to, Casey, that, that makes it more of a lifestyle thing. And then each day that I kind of stay focused on that, and I genuinely believe that I, in, my narrative isn’t to trick myself, or, what it really is, is I genuinely believe tomorrow if I want to have a bowl of ice cream, I can have a bowl of ice cream.

I believe that. And I also believe right now, it’s not in my best interest to do that for my health. And I don’t really need it right now, but if I need it tomorrow, I can totally have it tomorrow. So, and I think that makes it less about the five pounds or am I going to the gym? It’s just like every day, am I living in a way that my behavior is lining up with my values?

And for mine, Especially around my health is just, am I having integrity in the way that I’m operating? And I am wildly imperfect, but at least that I know more often than not I’m taking, trying to take steps towards the top of the mountains. And, and there’s days that I just don’t want to, and I’m partying in a field.

You know, and having fun in the meadow and dancing and drinking and having a great time, you know, and then when I wake up, then I start taking steps towards the top of the mountain again. And that’s part of the journey as well. It’s not just a, a trudge to the top of the mountain, because that’s not the only reason I think that I’m here.

I’m here to party in some meadows every once in a while as well, too. I’m so borrowing that whole bit for me. Oh my God. And you know, you bring up a great, a great point. I can’t wait to hear from you, John, on this, just given your background and. And please share that too, because I’m not sure everybody listening, is aware of your expertise.

Yeah. Well, the short of the long is, getting a master’s for human nutrition, dietician, clinical exercise, physiologist. Health coach, all that good stuff. Realizing that I probably should have done, you know, physician assistant or some sort of ARNP assistant, you know, nurse practitioner or something to have my own practice.

But anyhow, getting a bunch of alphabets. So I’m really glad you didn’t. Yeah. Yeah. It all worked out the way it was meant to. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

So it’s been an interesting journey, going deep into the communication and behavior change side, because that’s really what we know we’re talking about health right now, but of course, this is beyond health into other areas of it could be, you know, financial stuff, organization stuff with papers or digital or wherever, you know, we’re talking about, but the reason I want to highlight what you’re talking about, Danielle and Casey, what you’re building off and off on is the importance of, well, what are we talking about?

Right? What does it mean to have a new year’s resolution? And you know, this is where, well, we’re trying to help resolve something. So some kind of change, but like Casey, you were just talking about that might mean ongoing pursual. Or maintenance of something, right? And what is that something? Well, ideally, we’re going to have a sense of whatever that something is our health or something related to that, that we can then measure, right?

So we need to have some sense of reflection of what are we doing that’s aligning with our values and what’s not. And that’s what you two are both talking about, right? What, what are the things that I’m doing that are helping me get where I want to go, where I get some fulfillment from dancing and drinking or whatever the thing is?

Where does that line of the, the mountains start to become, maybe this isn’t as fulfilling or helping me in other ways, right? So where is that sense of that? And have you hit quote unquote, Some people have to hit quote unquote rock bottom whereas other people kind of sense that earlier or get feedback from people around them earlier about their health or their doctor from labs, right?

So I think there’s something to be said here about well, how would you know that your behavior is getting you? Where you want to go or not. And I think there’s a discussion that I’m kind of curious, Danielle and Casey, what your thoughts are. And like, well, how would you know? And how do you help yourself?

And how do you help other people align their behaviors with their values? And what does that look like? What does that sound like? And what, where would be the line? I think that’s an interesting concept to think about if MI is trying to help people get their behavior aligned with their values. I think, you know, what I think of John is that it, it does come down to how any individual wants to look at the quality of their life or the quality of their community, if it’s more communal based, you know, is, is my behavior in alignment with that.

Ikeep going back to the, these cultural phenomenons, at least in the U S in terms of, you know, the great resignation or quiet quitting. That wasn’t just a handful of people that was, that was across our culture that that happened. So, which is a basic, I think there’s partly a reset when I go to COVID and I’m making this connection of a reset between new years and even COVID is there’s a moment where it’s like, wait a second, what do I want to do?

And who am I? And I think that’s the same opportunity with. You know, kind of a new year’s resolution construct or, you know, Chinese or new year’s kind of thing. It’s just like this, I’m starting from new, you know, I’m kind of going, who am I now? Where, where do I want to go? And I think, you know, the, the phenomenon of the pandemic really caused people to really rethink what is important in my life.

And it pulled us to a. Into basically a survival mode. And so when you’re starting from scratch from a survival mode, it’s like you kind of partially wipe the slate clean. Is this the career that I want? Is this the relationship I want? Is this financially where I want to be? Like, what are my priorities?

Am I, am I living the life that I want? And now that I’m being just brought down to. I can’t leave my house and I have some nervousness over my own, you know, mortality, what really matters to me. And I think, I think that’s a profound place for people to be at. And so it’s a much more extreme, very much more extreme version than New Year’s Eve, but it’s the same construct.

What is important and who do you want to be and what would your life look like if your behavior was aligning with what your deeper values are? And I think because in our culture. When we talk, when I talk about Focus Mountain, you know, and it’s just, it’s just the concept of that mountain with the values of the top and then just all these trees that are just numerous, countless trees that we can get lost in about family and relationship and kids and job and, you know, everything we just, it’s social media, it’s just wrapped around our heads 24 seven.

I think of it like, you know, the, I’ve been using this analogy lately with the, the, the, The briars in the black forest that springs up in sleeping beauty when the queen just is like, I’m going to stop you from getting to sleeping beauty. Or I think of the trees in Wizard of Oz throwing apples at, you know, Dorothy and the Scarecrow.

It’s just like, in those moments, that’s all we pay attention to is the trees. And then we lose sight of Oz or we lose sight of, you know, sleeping beauty in the castle because the, the, the potency of the here and now, and the fear and the anxiety and the, this, the senses of it being insurmountable distract us.

And I think that is no different than when we, you know, are giving friends hugs on New Year’s Eve and saying, okay, this is my year. And then within, you know, a month we’re back into the old routine. Because it’s just like, we’re back in the trees again, and it’s, we’re just doing the daily grind and we lose sight of the princess and Oz, you know, it just, and that’s, that for me is, you know, Daniel, you keep leaning so heavy into the, be the change because you can see the potency and the potential there, you know, that we’re starting.

And for me, it’s just, how do you live this? Lifestyle. How, how do you live with this level of mindfulness? It’s not even lifestyle. It’s such a, a daily consciousness. You know, you can hear about it in any self help book or any, any self help guru will talk the same basic construct, but to be able to operationalize it.

That it feels like it’s part of who you are and how you’re operating. I think that is always the, how do I find that keystone that unlocks all of this? You know, I can hear it and I can want it and I can crave it. And I can cry over it and say, and kick my feet and say, I want this. I want this. I’ll do anything.

But do we, do we. What’s that formula to get it. And it’s, I think you touched on, on what’s needed and why I love the communication solutions so much is because, you know, as a branding specialist. It’s that journey. It’s a hero’s journey. We’re storytellers, right? Your brand is a, is a story. And how many times do we get caught up in the forest, like you described?

That’s such a cool analogy. You’re so good at those, but it’s like we get stuck there and it’s like we can have the best intentions, whether it’s for ourselves, for our business, our team. But if we don’t hold ourselves accountable with communication, it can’t just all be in our minds of our head if we don’t have that support.

And I think, I think that’s why I’m so passionate about be the change because I’m like, where is that ongoing support for the people who are out there? And we are deeply committed. To this level of transformation, this level of staying connected to Focus Mountain, to those values for ourselves, for our team, for our business.

What kind of support do those people need? And yes, we have trainings and all of that, but it’s like that consistent touch point for, for folks. You know, I think that’s the value of motivational interviewing. And the way we tend to approach this is what we know is that we can have all sorts of internal narratives in our head.

There is something about when it comes out of your mouth. It sounds so good in our head. And we can justify things and deny things in our own head. But it just sounds different when it comes out of our mouth. And if somebody hears it and kind of paints what we’re saying on the, on the wall in front of us, and then we have to think and go, wow, is that what I really think?

Is that what I really feel? And here, let me erase this little part of it and clarify this piece of it. That is the function of motivational interviewing to have somebody that’s, you know, from them. Our version of motivational interviewing that is unbiased, that’s really listening to you, helping you, your thoughts out of your head back up on the wall.

And then as you’re kind of painting this mural or putting this mosaic together, this is why we always talk focus mountain is we’re always looking at that. Those thoughts and those behaviors in alignment with your own values as you define them, as you define yourself and as your behavior in line with that, that, that human interaction, I think is the, the beauty of having human interaction.

I mean, to me, it’s one of the reasons we’re on the planet is to be able to not just be little marbles in a vase, but to interface with each other differently. And that to me is really important for, to, to be able to have this human exchange that we’re both better off because we. Engaged in this and, and to take that as the spirit from which you’re operating from and help another human being get clear about their own value system and their own behavior without trying to guilt them or pressure them or persuade them, you know, or coax them to do it in a different way that you’re, you’re igniting that from within.

That which they would they want to be that what that which they desire inside themselves. I just don’t understand why everybody wouldn’t want to do that. I mean, immediately I just think, my God, I’m so lucky I have my career. This, why wouldn’t you want to do this? And you can, even I can pay my rent, my mortgage just by helping other people figure these things out and, and me feel better because of it.

And it’s like, that’s how I draw down a paycheck. Like, are you freaking kidding me? Why doesn’t everybody want to do this? But I just know that that’s not everybody’s calling either. But that’s why I think that, you know, we all have such a passion, you know, John, for, you know, diving into the whole world of health and human growth from that perspective.

And me from a mental, emotional, spiritual side of it, you just find your like minded people that are like, why would we not want to help people be the best version of themselves as they define themselves? Like that, that just, that’s just. That’s a language my brain understands. That’s why I love John. And just because of what you said of, Oh, I should have gone down this path.

And it’s like, Oh God, no, because the amount of organizations, you know, just think of all of, all of the organizations that you help that literally are like, what? You have an expert like John in our area of expertise. That can weave in motivational interviewing and understands, you know, what, what they’re doing, because they’re trying to help people improve their health, their fitness, you know, what their, their nutrition, what they’re eating.

So it’s really awesome that you’re, to me, you’re kind of that bridge that helps those organizations. So I think you’re in a perfect spot beyond what Casey was saying, like, just cause we have you, but it’s like, there’s, there’s really immense value with your expertise layered in on it too. Well, first I’ll just say, thank you.

That is very kind of you to say that, but more importantly. Yeah, I think it comes into what we’re talking about with the impact we want to make in case you help me get clear early on about kind of going further upstream to help people help people a little bit more. And what that means for the world.

And then in so doing, I had to balance that out with other values, you know, and think about the other areas. And then as we grow and we have a life. We get clear about our values. And this is where I think it’s interesting to think about our earlier conversation, because be it with friends or counselors, like your cup is saying Danielle or therapists, they can help like with Casey and how he was trained.

They can help with insight into, is this a new thing that looks like an old pattern? And so is it really new, right? Is it really change or is it a repetition of the same? And I think that’s really important to recognize that sometimes Seeking help can help us get clear about is this really a new resolution or is it just painted in a different way in my mind versus maybe I’m just repeating patterns.

The other thing is there’s also something to be said about talking about change out loud, Casey, that you’re talking about of just that alone and focusing on that has a lot of good research. So it could be insight. from the past to inform the now. It could also be about the now moving forward. But I also think part of this discussion is that it’s easy to talk about focus, mountain and values when we have experience with it.

But at the same time, it’s like, well, what is a value versus a tree, right? And, and we’ve talked about this on other pod, podcasts, but Casey, your example of, you know, family being a value versus this sense of contribution to the world, this sense of legacy, the sense of feeling connection of a part of a tribe.

All of those things seem to be core values that are really important. So I just think that’s its own insight too is insight into what are our values and what’s this feeling I’m having of not rightness versus rightness or trueness to who I am. I think that sort of space to self reflect and that sort of insight is its own thing, whatever we want to label that.

But I just think that’s important where someone like A person trained in EMI could help someone be, make more values based decisions about their life, whatever exact label they want to do, label it, but about how much is their behavior getting them what they want or not. And so I just want to highlight, there’s a.

A broad picture of you could do that as a friend. Ethically, like Casey, you were getting that, you could do that as a counselor. You could do that as a therapist, but there’s this balance of how are we being in the world and how much is that getting us where we want to go and the impact we’re trying to have.

And it seems like the one thing we haven’t talked about, maybe with resolution that I know, Danielle, you had brought up is the sustainability of that. Because I know getting working on getting hours from my board certification and. In adult weight management that it’s extremely difficult, especially in our culture, to keep off weight that we lose.

And so that’s one of many examples that is hard to sustain. So I think that’s something that we could talk about if we wanted to spend a few minutes is the sustainability of what are we focused on and how would you know? You know, that you’re sustaining a change versus not. And I think it comes back Casey to what you said, but I’m, I’m curious if we want to take it there, like sustainability of your new year’s resolution, how do you do that?

Or how does that relate to MI or something along those lines? Yeah, I think that’s really, really interesting. And it almost feels like a little two part podcast. I like how we go with the flow sometimes here. I would say let’s dig into sustainability because. What I’ve heard from you guys, is as we look to the new year, I love the correlation with COVID.

It’s the same kind of framework in terms of we have this opportunity to hit reset and not, not so much look backwards as, Hey, now where am I and where do I want to go? And the, the vision is always related to Focus Mountain and your values. So how do you start to uncover those values to make sure you’re aligned?

So the other thing I heard there too is something that’s helpful is not only to think about your values, but actually start verbalizing to somebody that you trust that can be non judgmental, right? And doesn’t have skin in the game, so to speak, that can really hear you and be that reflection so that you can map out a new, to your point, Casey, mural on the wall, right?

So it’s just like, Oh God, that was in my head, but now that I see it. Reflected through, through you, is that really what I want? So these are really wonderful tips. Anything to add you guys? And I think maybe we should maybe shift to the sustainability piece, if that sounds good. Well, and I think that for me, the segue is.

Think of the concept of New Year’s or rebirth or restart is a great place to start with and then the sustainability of it. So it’s that whole thing about what is the top of my mountain? How do I want to navigate the trees in front of me? Sustainability for me, I think we did touch on a bit in terms of it’s that one foot in front of the other.

It’s, you know, we can, you know, party in the field, but then get back on the path and start climbing back to the top of the mountain is sustainability. And, and, and I think getting away from this, I think of the culture I was raised in specifically around the addiction world as a professional and relapse was just such a dirty word.

It just, it, it meant you lost everything. Every time you relapsed, you lost everything and that was the mindset in substance use. Was if you relapse, you lost everything and you start from scratch. And what I like from a growth mindset and to move away from that, you know, black and white thinking is that just because we went and partied in the field, and I’m not going to say this for people with substance use, that, that equivalency it’s, I don’t want to make that equivalency, but if we’re climbing up the mountain and we, and we choose to, you know, you know, sleep on the side of the path for a couple of days or a week or go fishing.

That’s part of the journey to it doesn’t mean we’re necessarily walking, taking steps towards top amount, but when you pull off to a creek and set up camp and fish for a while and enjoy the, you know, the view and the beauty of the nature and then you pack up and get back on the, that is what for me, sustainability is, it’s not, Oh my God, we just lost a week.

That, that’s such a, it’s, I just don’t like that mindset. That mindset is just such a deprivation mindset, or, you know, I made a bad decision mindset versus a growth mindset. This is like, I can’t even, I’m like, Oh my God, this is so transformational on every level. Oh my gosh. And I’m so secretly selfish.

Cause I’m like, that’s when I get stuck when I make it bad that I’m fishing or that you start and I’m a such a start from scratch, start from scratch. Like, cause I love fresh start. Right. Yes, it completely has hurts all the entire journey that got you to that point of quote unquote quitting. Yes. You know what?

And Danielle, even what you just said, it’s like, and it just clicked in my brain as soon as you said it, it’s the difference between a fresh start and a new day. At the end of seven days of fishing, you wake up to a new day. That’s not a fresh start. That’s a new day. So it’s so nice to think that there’s a new day and it’s not a fresh start because you fished for a week or you, you know, danced in a field for a week with your friends.

That’s that just means. And then when you wake up, you go, ah, I think I’m satiated. And I think it’s time to pack up now and start back up towards the top of the mountain and just with, you know, savoring those journeys makes each step. You know, over these rocks a little bit easier because you’re savoring the fishing trip and you’re savoring the dancing.

And, and now you’re five more steps closer to the top of the mountain. I think, isn’t that why we’re here? I mean, it isn’t, we talk about it’s the journey. Let’s enjoy the journey. So instead of a new start, a new start means that you’ve got dropped all the way back down to the trailhead again. And it’s like, Oh my gosh, that is such a, that’s that relapse mindset.

That’s like, oh, you know, I got knocked back to the trailhead and I got to start over again. And it’s like, oh my, what, that causes stress in my chest. I know, I played Monopoly, but I feel like there’s the Monopoly correlation there too. It’s like, oh no, I’d rather just wake up in the morning after, you know, fishing or partying or whatever and just go, okay, I’m ready to start climbing to the top of the mountain again until my next, you know, time to take a timeout happens.

So how do you weave the excitement and the lure and the love of the fresh start new year without completely putting the new day away because it isn’t a fresh start unless you’re a brand new person. Thinking baby, right? Right, right. This is the beauty in looking from baby new year perspective into, you know, how do they integrate it into a chaos, you know, multitasking life.

And I think that’s where it’s like, this is about the journey. It’s never losing sight about what the top of the mountain is. And why are you here? We’re only, you only get so long to walk to the top of the mountain and we may not achieve it, but it’s about the journey to get there. The delusion is that we’re going to get there.

I mean, I would, I would, I’d love to get there, but after I literally had been working on getting to the top of the mountain, cognizantly, I had been so mindful and conscious of my own mental, emotional, spiritual, physical health. I’ve been conscious of that since I was 18 or 19 years old. That’s why I got in the field as early as I did.

It’s like, it was, I just knew it was my calling. And it’s when I get distracted by thinking that it’s to get the degree or get the initials or to get the private practice or to get the podcast or to get the, it’s, those are the delusions. It’s like, that is not my journey. Those are just all these adventures I get to have for me being able to help another human being, have a happier and healthier life.

Whether I ever get a dollar for it or not, it really is. That is my, that’s my journey and I’ve been doing it since I was little and I will continue to do it until I’m no longer here. Like it just, that’s the journey. It’s when I get diluted by all these other things that they define who I am. When I know who I am, I am somebody that gets emotional at being able to connect with other human beings intimately and seeing our lives change and transform because of it.

That’s the everything else is just becomes trees and trees and trees and trees about. Well, that’s inappropriate. That’s not okay. Or why aren’t you charging for that? Or why are you doing this? Or why? It’s like, Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It makes me not want to be on the journey anymore. And that’s not fun. I love the journey.

I love the journey. This is a mic drop on sustaining behavior. We just went for it, John. Casey just took us on a tour. I don’t know, any comments or thoughts, John? This was amazing. Well, to the point of what Casey’s bringing up, it’s this sense of, are you feeling this light up ness, this lit up ness, this sense of alignment?

And I think that’s absolutely an internal thing. I think there’s also an external thing to keep in mind around sustainability, too, of like, well, what are the things that you can look to to know if you are aligning, right? And that’s where my world of health care with labs or things that you can measure might come in.

And I just want to highlight sometimes there’s this internal sense. And with all the biases we all have of doing mental gymnastics to make us feel amazing as best we can that sometimes it’s good to have measures outside of ourself or things we check in with regularly if it is going to be a more subjective thing.

And I would just add that to the of we know that with finances, if we’re in debt, that’s a pretty objective measure or certain things with weight and energy balance. That’s a pretty objective measure. There’s labs. Those are more objective measures, right? I just would add that to the mix that there’s this internalness and a potential externalness because what you measure probably matters and just what matters to you and just continuing to keep in mind.

External and internal ways of being in the world and senses of that to just help you be where you want to be and then seek out people that can help you, hopefully with things like am I to hear yourself out loud, talk about change and try to help that for other people in the most ethical, balanced way possible, and we will be in the realm of what we’re trying to do.

Sounds good to me. Yeah, that’s awesome. What a great conversation. Thank you so much, you guys. I don’t know. I’m pretty excited for a new day. Sounds good to me. Awesome. Thank you so much, you guys. I’ll see you on the next episode of viewers. Thanks listeners. Thanks for being with us. Please send your questions into Casey at IFIOC.

And reach out. We want to hear what you think, what you’re going through. Do you agree? Disagree? Topic ideas, you name it. We can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks so much for being here with us. See you next time. Take care. Take care. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert.

As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at IFIOC. com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC. com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* The power of effective communication in organizations. * The importance of making employees feel valued and understood. * The relationship between recruitment, retention, and workplace culture. * The “Great Resignation” phenomenon and its impact on organizations. * Creating an infrastructure and communication web that meets employees’ needs. * The role of authenticity and genuineness in communication. * Aligning personal values with organizational values. * The concept of “Be the Change” and its focus on mindset and heart-set. * The intentions in the MICA (Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment) and their impact on communication.

TranscribeHello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution. That will change your world.

Hello changemakers. It’s Danielle Cantin here, the facilitator of the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson. How are you, Casey? Awesome. I cannot stop thinking about a podcast that we did around why you named this podcast, the communication solution instead of motivational interviewing or something around that topic.

We really dove into how the communication solution, Can can help bolster all different kinds of organizations and to me coming from the business world and working with so many founders and leader leadership teams. There’s something that I feel very passionate about, which is. How do these companies actually help take care of their workforce?

So a lot of times businesses are so focused, so focused on the end client, the end customer. And what I’ve seen through all of your trainings of different organizations is the power. That even if that’s not your intention going into it, the end result is this beautiful workforce, this team culture that in theory, visionaries think intellectually, I should say, yeah, take care of your team and they’ll take care of everything else for you.

What are you actually doing it? Are you actually giving your team? The environment, the tools, the trust to do and be that for you. So you can tell I get really fired up talking about this because it’s, I’ve never seen anything like what you train the results that, that flow out from these organizations.

Can we dive in a little bit about. About retention, about recruiting, about building that team that then uses the tools to, to kind of pass the love on right. To your ultimate end consumer. Yeah. I think, you know, for me, it’s easy to talk about it when I start from an individual perspective and then talk about how my brain.

Expanded into more of a macro level or organizational perspective or, or, you know, the social perspective on it. I think what it makes sense, if you’re thinking about a company or a corporation, profit or nonprofit, you have to be financially viable. You just, that is literally basic arithmetic. 1 plus 1 equals 2.

Like, if we’re not, we’re not making money, we can’t be around anymore. You know, on some level, and then it’s a matter of how much money do we want to make? I think it gets into as well, too. So how do we incentivize? How do we motivate? How do we engage our workforce? You know, all the things that we can do for being a social worker.

I’m startled by my own professional development of how much appreciation. I’ve developed around data and research, in terms of just looking at the science of how things work. And if you just research, and most people know this is, it’s not always about salary. You know, people have said they’ve done research over and over and over again, that people to feel like they’re fulfilled in their job and that they actually love going to work.

People will take a pay cut to have something that improves their basic quality of life because of how much time we spend in our chosen profession on any given day, it’s a ton of time, on any given day, on any given week. And so if it’s something that feeds you and nurtures you and you feel better about the work that you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what the industry is.

You know, this is this, you know, we touched on it last time. It was the kind of phenomenon with the kind of where people talk about the Google work experience or the ebay work experience that people just felt like, oh, my gosh, this just it feeds me like this. This is this aligns with my lifestyle and not every company can do that.

But what it comes down to is it’s not creating that structure per se. It’s how do you engage the workforce from an internal perspective instead of an external HR? Management perspective, you know, yes, the benefit packages are amazing and those are going to get good for recruitment, but that isn’t necessarily going to create retention.

And I think this was the, the great resignation was just a phenomenon, you know, post covid covid post covid that just really rocked the, you know. The corporate world, and the nonprofit world is, you know, what do we, we hear about it consistently in the health care arena. Like you can’t pay me enough to stay in this workforce because none of this aligns with my values.

This is just actually going against my value set. So how do you. Create an infrastructure. How do you create a communication web where people feel that from an internal perspective that their needs are getting met and not only are their needs getting met, it feels like it’s a growth mindset environment.

So we can read books on this. We can watch podcasts on this, but how do you actualize it? That’s my obsession. And that’s why, that’s why I teach what I teach because it’s like, how do we actualize, how do we take these philosophical and yeah, it sounds good. And yeah, I’m inspired when I listened to this.

But how do we operationalize it and measure it and improve it because that in and of itself sounds fairly sterile. But this is again where I’m obsessed with M. I. with motivational and the communication solutions that I’ve come up with because we were able to do is we can catalyze this, we can measure it, we can provide feedback and people can actually.

Feel the improvement in the quality of their own life while the bottom line is improving at the same time. And that’s just, to me, it’s the Holy grail. It’s, you know, unlocking that, that ultimate combination. Yeah, it’s in what I love about it too, because it’s, am I right? Motivational interviewing, like, oh, it’s a, if you focus on the skill piece of it.

It can feel like, oh, I’m not being myself and I’m just implementing a tool and I’ve never seen you do that. Every, every time you do it, it’s a conversation. And when you’re in that room training, these organizations, there isn’t a single topic that comes up. Where you aren’t able to, communicate in a way that is 100 percent authentically you and opens the door to something greater for that other person.

That’s it. There’s an authenticity that moves beyond technique. And, you know, it’s not surprising in one of the podcasts we talked about this with, you know, the latest research from Dr Miller and Moyers. You know, what improves outcomes and that authenticity and genuineness. So it’s not, yeah, there’s ways to teach that, but it’s also, there’s the embodiment of it that you, you can’t technique your way to authenticity.

There’s no technique in that. That has to be a mindset shift. You know, and being able to give people feedback about how is that being perceived and received, on both sides. So, yeah, it is, you can’t technique into most of these things, but that’s what people continue to get trained on is technique.

And so bridging these concepts in a way to pull it together to that improves actual hard outcomes, like retention and, and, and productivity. Yeah. I think about, benefits too. Right. Cause cause you’re looking for employment and it’s just like, well, what’s the benefit package or look ongoing.

Everybody puts in their budget, ongoing professional development. And it’s usually a very small little line item. And it’s like, what if you actually brought in the kind of training that revolutionizes somebody’s world and makes them as a person just feel like. Wow. I got something out of this that isn’t even tied to this organization.

It’s something that can improve all of my relationships and loves in my life. What I see visually is this like great resignation you brought up. You’ve got, an employee sitting here going, Oh my God. Like what is happening in the world? I don’t even know what my values are. What do I value? And so you’ve got them in this job, in this organization, and they’re sitting over here going, okay, I’m trying to work for you.

And then I’m having to figure out this whole existential business on my own with my own life by providing the communication solution. This organization is now saying, I’m going to help you do that. Exactly. It’s a benefit to the organization. It’s a benefit to that employee, whether it’s the right fit or not will be revealed.

Either way, that employee is indebted to you and not in a bad way indebted, but like gratitude, whether they leave or stay. That’s it. And I, and I think where people. Struggle is in so many organizations that are struggling. If you ask your workforce, do you feel like you’re valued or do you feel like you’re disposable?

Do you feel like you do feel like you’re seen and heard and understood in unhealthy organizations? People do not. And in healthy organizations, they do it’s, you know, the way my brain always bridges different models or concepts is it’s not wildly different than a lean model or lean process. If, if, if the person at the whatever level doesn’t feel empowered to have an impact on the system or the outcome, then they feel like they’re just a cog in a wheel.

And so many people talk about that. I mean, I do so much work with. With state agencies or government agencies. And I mean, that’s tends to be the epitome of people feeling like they’re a cog in a wheel. When I, when I’ve done work with on the corporate side of it, at least people feel like they’re getting compensated for being a cog in a wheel.

And yeah, I know I’m giving my life, but I know I’m giving, I have a friend who worked for a, a major, you know, Company that was, you know, huge, you know, trajectory for financial gain. Just, just kind of blown it out of the water. And, but he’s working 80, 90 hours a week and, and he knew he was disposable.

He knew there was somebody nipping on. He literally, this is mind blowing to me because this is so not the world I worked in, in human service, in social service. He was producing, his outcomes were at 125 percent of what he was supposed to be at, and they fired him for low productivity, even though he was at 125 percent of his productivity, because there’s people that are climbing up and getting at 140 percent or 150 percent of the productivity expectations.

And it’s just like, I mean, that is when you’re talking about literally just mulch for a machine. You’re just kind of mulch for the machine. Like it’s, is somebody is going to produce higher than you, even if you’re going above and beyond in your hours and your productivity, at least in the corporate world, what he was able to say is I, I made a ton of money, you know, it was, you know, it was only for, you know, 14 months, but I made an incredible amount of money in that time.

So, but people that jump into that system. Know that it’s not about their own personal worth within the organization. It’s like you are a disposable widget. And as long as you’re producing high level productivity, then you’ll have a job. And when you’re not, you’re going to be replaced. There’s people that like, fine.

If that’s the game we’re going to play, I’ll play that game. I mean, I’ll, I’ll jump in there and I’ll do exactly knowing that ahead of time. Yeah. In a way, it’s For that moment in timing time, your values did align with what you were doing. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s just a shorter trajectory probably of how long that might sustain.

If that’s not really one of your deep values, would you say that’s where I question? Well, and, and what, what hits you is when you’re unemployed then, and it’s like, and it takes a blow to your ego. That’s like, wow, I’m producing at 125 percent and I, I’m not, I can’t be, retained. And it had nothing to do with personality or anything like that, that it genuinely was just a productivity measure.

Then it’s like, do I really want to work for that kind of a company, which is, he was really rethinking that and going, you know what, I think there’s probably a happy medium in here where I can generate the income that I want to generate. But I think I want to work with a more values driven corporation to, really does value me because it is odd to not be valued personally for giving, you know.

80 to 90 hours a week and producing 125 percent of productivity expectations and that there’s no intrinsic value. And that is just an odd feeling. So I think that’s where it comes to you. But when I take a step back from all of that, I think the vast majority of people want to feel heard and seen and understood in their workplace.

I think they want to feel like they’re contributing or they feel like their value. I don’t care what the widget is. I don’t care if it’s a human widget. I don’t care if it’s a, you know, a corporate widget. I don’t care what it is. It just, people want to feel like what I’m doing and what I’m getting paid for, it makes me feel more valued in the work that I do.

It feels like I’m doing something that helps me on my path on this planet at this point in time, you know, that it’s contributing to something. You know, I know we did that series at the end. We’ll, we’ll. Show people where they can go to grab it, but you did a free training on recruiting and retention for people.

And that 1st, I think it was like, 3 videos. And the 1st, 1 was, really diving into empathy and making sure that people, your team feel seen and heard that’s so valuable. Through the recruiting process, because as much as you say, you might be able to recruit them. It’s just like, oh, what if you could even recruit better than you’re doing and then the retention piece as well.

And, you know, what I’ve seen in every organization inside every organization with the leadership team is. You hit the nail on the head. Everybody wants to be seen and heard. And the, when you think about politics within an organization, they, everybody’s trying to get the eyes and ears of the CEO, the leader, and it’s just like, what if you can actually start creating this culture where you feel seen and heard amongst yourselves for, and with each other.

You know, what does that, how does that change and shift the dynamic of everybody clamoring to make sure that they’re seen and heard to one person, you know, can you speak a little bit about what that could, could, transpose in an organization? Yeah, well, I think it might be going down a rabbit hole, but help me get out of it when I go down here.

What? When you said that, it popped in my brain. So I’m going to say it. I’m thinking, well, this is probably not the smartest thing to say, but I’m going to, so one of my brothers, I have lots of brothers, and one of them, I would, he gets an A plus when it comes to courtship. I, he is everything that any woman would have ever wanted for somebody that knows how to court them.

He is a flowers, open the door, take your favorite restaurant, make your favorite meal. No one, I’ve never in my life met somebody that courts better than he does. And he’s on his third marriage. And I think that’s the difference between retention. And recruitment, I don’t know why that’s such a blatant example.

I think I’m such a visual person because once he is in the relationship or is married, he goes back into his man cave and they’re clamoring for attention and they don’t feel heard or seen or understood and they just tolerate that. It’s like, what happened to the courtship? And I think this is the difference between recruitment and retention.

Is you can be phenomenal at recruitment the best in the world and provide the, you know, sign on bonuses and, you know, great benefits, but if you’re not able to make sure that people feel heard and seen and valued and understood, I’m just curious how long this is going to last. And if you feel like, you know, well, we, we put the money in up front.

Now you owe us, boy, that I just don’t see how retention is going to be strong in those kind of companies. And if you don’t treat them well, but you bring them flowers once a month while you treat them, not particularly well, that still isn’t going to be good for the relationship. So if you’re a jerk most of the time, but take them out to dinner once a month, that’s just not enough.

For sustainability, or you get a workforce that really starts to disengage and it’s like, well, this is probably the best I can get. And they’ll just kind of hang in there, which is not good for a culture. It’s not good for a family. So it’s those same things that my brain kind of looks at that end of 1.

And then again, on a macro application level, it’s just, these are the things when I look at retention, and recruitment that if you don’t understand how to make them fit hand in glove. I love that example about your brother. It’s so true. Cause it’s like, there is something so thrilling about the newness of it.

Like, Oh my God, you love me. I love you. And it’s this courtship and then you get on board and that’s a wild ride getting know the company and the people and. And I actually was just speaking with some, some team members of a company I worked with and I had been with them really, even though it’s branding, it’s really, it’s communication and it’s a franchise system.

So that’s pretty impactful. And, so I had a really big role in developing and nurturing trust and, and put all of my energy into that and moved up, moved along. And so checking with the team. And how they brought in people, you know, never quite in, in the role that I was, was doing brought in different people and courted them and then brought in others and kind of like forgot about the one they courted already brought in a new hero or a new whatever.

And it’s like, that is what really breeds that unrest in an organization. It’s like, how do you make sure and use the communication solution to really lift up and prop people up through every step of their journey? I mean, what organization does that? And it’s like to see all of them, you know, cause you train so many organizations, the more and more that keep raising their hand, I get so excited cause I’m like, Oh my God.

Well, I mean the results speak for themselves. That’s why they’re doing it. And word of mouth spreads. Exactly, but, but I, I love that. That’s what your story triggered in me was I see that in companies over and over again, where people feel pushed aside or not seen. Well, you know, I think it links a bit to, I know it’s been one of your kind of passions in the work you do with me is the whole concept of the, be the change.

It’s like how from a leader perspective, how from a. Parent perspective from a partner relationship perspective from a workforce perspective. How do I get my behavior line with my values? How do I ensure irrespective of the system that I work within? How do I find my power? And I know every interaction I have personally and professionally.

I know it’s the best interaction. It could be, I just, I can feel the difference in the way that people are operating around me. I can feel the difference in the way that I wake up in the morning. I can feel the way, the difference in the way that I go to bed at night. I can feel the difference in the way that I talk to people that I love and care about, like, how do we orchestrate that consistently?

And I just, I, again, I keep going back to, you know, pandemic post pandemic of, I think people are just seeking that. Clarity, like where it’s, I know it’s out there somewhere. And I think this is why for me, having been so immersed in it for 25 years now, 20 years, 25 years of motivational interviewing, I just see how this makes a profound difference in, in people’s lives.

It has forever changed the quality of my life. I wake up in the morning and I can’t believe that I live the life that I live. It just, it’s mind boggling to me. And every day I get to wake up and feel that. And I think that’s, I think those conversations is what sparked your impetus for leaning heavy on me to think about, you know, how do you, how do you, can you teach that to other people?

Can you provide that? Is there a structure for that? And I think this is why it links for me. On that personal and professional level, or when you’re, when you kind of deconstruct it from a corporate or a business or organizational level, the more you can replicate that, there is no way that is not going to generate improved outcomes.

There’s just no way again, personally and professionally. Yeah, I love the opportunity and, you know, for all of you guys listening. Before we forget, we should share that there is a free training. If you want to really, especially hone in on recruiting and retention, Casey Jackson. com forward slash free training.

That’s where you want to go. Grab your, grab your free training, for recruiting and retention, but. What you’re talking about here to Casey is this opportunity to go at the communication solution from a different couple couple ways. You do a ton of of team organizational training, but what we’re looking at, offering January.

12th, I think it is. It’s a Friday 9 to 11 Pacific is a training called be the change and it’s geared toward the individual. So whether you’ve trained with Casey and, a larger team organizational training, or just on your own have taken some trainings, with Casey or anybody else, you’re really welcome to join this training Because it can also start from, from you.

That’s where it actually starts and you can see that change. Exactly. And it, it, what I was thinking about, the more that you were kind of pushing me to think, you know, what would that look like? How would you go about that? I wanted to be able to create something that moved beyond again, just the technique and lean even heavier into the mindset.

I had a moment that was pretty. It was profound for me that, a couple of people had shared. They were managers, which ties all this together. They were, they were supervisors and both of them separately had to deal with, a personnel issue. And 1 of the individuals, they both said the same thing, which was so fascinating to me.

I heard this within the same month. 1 of the individuals have supervised somebody that they’d actually been peers. And now she was in a supervisory position and she really. Had a strong personal relationship, but there was a profound personnel issue that she had to deal with because she’s a direct supervisor.

And she said she stressed over it, lost sleep over it, was emotional over it. It was just like, I don’t know how to do this and just, just consternation pain that she was struggling with. And she said, and then I had this aha moment. And when she was driving to work on the day, that she had to have this conversation, she said.

I don’t care if I’m doing motivation or not, I want to try to score fives across the board on the, am I intentions on the Micah? I just went, I’m going to lean into all five of those intentions and see how it goes. And she said it was one of the most transformational conversation that she’s ever had as a, as a supervisor.

There was emotion, there was tears, there was a warmth, there was compassion. And it came to the resolution that was in everybody’s best interest. And her, you know, employee slash friend felt heard and understood and more clear and, and made healthier decisions from there. And she said, and all I kept thinking about is just, I just want to operate from the 5 intentions.

And I talked to another supervisor who. Shared a very similar story that she said, you know, I didn’t know if I was doing my, but I knew I would have scored fours and fives on all the intentions in the Micah. And that is kind of for me where I wanted to move to with the be the change concept is how do we get our mindset?

What are specific things that we can measure that research shows? Will improve outcomes of human beings around us, and it doesn’t have to be so technique driven. It can be very much mindset and heart set driven. So we can be that change. And what are some of those things that we can practice on a day to day basis?

And if we practice them, the world around us will change. And that that’s kind of the foundation for me in kind of developing some of this curriculum or the way to have these conversations and that. Kind of an offshoot part of the communication solution, but an offshoot that kind of veers a bit away from motivational interviewing.

Yeah. And it sounds like it bleeds out of outside of your role. So it’s like, maybe you are using these intentions in your role to achieve a purpose within a business. And it’s like that lightbulb goes off, Oh, my God, I can actually have this kind of a conversation and have these kinds of attentions in a difficult situation with a friend or a family member.

That’s what I really love. It’s like, okay, let’s bolster you up as an individual as a person human in your own world. Can you for those listening? You might not know. Maybe be the change is, is a good training, you know, for you, if you’re interested in these, in these intentions, can you, can you list off what the intentions are?

Well, the intentions in the mica are, you know, how do we support autonomy and activate a sense of personal agency? How do you guide conversation toward solution or resolution? You know, 1 thing we. Talk about every aspect of motivational learning is just accurate empathy and not just am I, but now what research is showing about the impact on outcomes, irrespective of motivational interviewing, just the potency of accurate empathy.

How do you partner? How do you come alongside someone and collaborate shoulder to shoulder to get to a better outcome? And then, how do you evoke or draw out their thoughts and their ideas, to maximize the potential in other people? Be able to do that. Those are the ones within motivational interviewing.

And then there’s other ones about genuineness and authenticity and hope. Yeah, we did that whole podcast on hope, but looking at some of the data around this and the, I guess, beyond the data to the humanity of why that creates positive outcomes, I just want to harness all those things together. And be able to share them in a way that people can implement them in their lives and improve kind of the quality of their own life and the lives of people around them.

Awesome. I’m so excited for that training. Thank you so much. Casey. Really appreciate, appreciate you expanding your, your role to help even more people. And, Everybody just reach out. We want to hear from you. You know, is this helpful? Is it not? Do you have ideas for the podcast? Do you want to join the podcast as a guest in the podcast?

Yeah. Email case Casey at I F I O C dot com and then go grab, your free training at, Casey Jackson dot com forward slash free training. And then also that that will put you on an email list so we can notify you when we have the be the change training up and ready with information for you. Thank you, Casey.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit I F I O C dot com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* The serendipitous encounter with Jessica at the Mint Conference and the value of authentic connections. * A closer look at the Mint Conference, an annual gathering for MI practitioners. * The significance of empathetic conversations and personal connections at professional events. * Delving into the core principles of motivational interviewing (MI) and its departure from traditional approaches in the criminal justice system. * The pivotal role of reflective listening in MI, with a focus on overcoming resistance. * Validating clients’ feelings and experiences as a key component of the MI process. * Empowering individuals to harmonize their actions with their deeply held values. * Emphasizing the importance of empathy and compassion in guiding individuals through the justice system. * Jessica’s valuable insights into utilizing MI to foster positive outcomes and reduce recidivism in our communities.

Hi everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin here facilitating the communication solution podcast with our favorite Casey Jackson.

Hey Casey. And we are so excited because we have a special guest today. We have Jessica Keaney. She is a licensed social worker from Massachusetts and she works in community corrections. She’s got an incredible background. I’m going to let her share more about who she is. But what’s really fun is how they came to meet at the mint conference in Copenhagen this year.

So as you know, if you’ve listened to our other podcasts, the mint conference. Happens every year, the international motivational interviewing network of trainers conference. So it’s kind of fun. I think I’ll let you guys explain the story of how you met and turn it over to you, Casey. Well, I am excited because I love having people on to chat with, you don’t love having John on here, but just the story is fascinating to me.

So I’m sitting, having lunch, at the for with some buddies of mine. And the forum’s an amazing place to just see people from all over the world that you have kind of this heart connection with and, and mind connection, because we share the connection over motivational interviewing and, and what that means.

And I’m eating lunch and, and then just makes a comment about the food. Because I’m vegetarian, she’s vegetarian. And I’m like, yeah, the food has been awesome here. Like just surprisingly good. And then everyone just kind of keeps talking. She’s talking to the person she’s sitting next to. And then there’s a comment about social worker.

And then she’s like, I’m a social worker too. And then we kind of high five because we’re both social workers. And then Jess, I’ll turn it over to you because this is where I was like, then I’m kind of talking and eating and, just. Benign sitting there. Yeah. So I just, I’m like, where do I know that voice from?

Where do I know that voice from? And I’m like.

I was like, I think I said, are you Casey Jackson? Like, if you were like an A list Oscar winner, cause to me, you know, that’s sort of, you know, how I think of you. And so we just were chatting and I think you felt bad for me. Cause you were like, Oh, this girl is my big fan. And you were like, come on my podcast.

You know, what I was shocked is I said, Oh, you’re the one person that listens to the podcast. So you’re like, no, I love this podcast. I’m just like, that is just crazy. Cause I just forget that people actually listen, you know, I love talking. Am I, we like getting into these kinds of topics, but you just don’t know who listens and every time we tend to wrap up with, Hey, if you want to be on the podcast, if you have questions, so then you, as you and I were chatting, it’s like, Jess, come on the podcast.

So it was perfect. And now here you are. Yes. So, and one of the things that was fun about that was, and where it started, the idea of even just like, where it’s like, come on, the podcast is we just started talking about, we’re talking, I don’t even know how it came up about the reflective listening. Do you remember your, I think in a training with the way that you train with the population you work with.

Oh, yes. I don’t even, you’re right. I don’t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden we were minutes into a conversation about reflections. And I think I sort of said like these forums have been great because I think it gave a different way to think about training, reflections. And so, cause I find a lot of times, some of the folks in the trainings.

You know, struggle with reflections and what they think reflections might mean and all those sorts of things, which, which is so common. And that’s where I think you and I started chatting about it. There was so much fun. I thought this is such a perfect podcast. I mean, we talked about reflective listening in the podcast, you know, we get into all sorts of MI skills and techniques, but I know that it’s so much more complex in the world of law enforcement and corrections.

It’s just, it can feel like. You know, well, we don’t do hug a thug, or this is a little too counselor technique for me, or I’ve just got to be real, you know, I’m not going to pussyfoot around. And, all these things that people tend to think of, especially in those professions, but that is so different than expressing accurate empathy, which I think.

You know, so many people have the capacity to do, but they get it consolidated into a reflective statement and it feels like it’s not going to have the potency and that’s where you and I started going into, yeah, that’s so fascinating to train it differently because it’s kind of beyond the or skills when we’re looking at empathy.

And that was just, that conversation was just a blast for me. Yeah, definitely. Definitely wasn’t. It just, I don’t know. It was like something clicked to me in that moment. I was like. Maybe I just ask the folks I’m training have, which again is a closed ended question, but closed ended questions aren’t bad, but you know, have you ever said to somebody you look tired and just, and then their conversation with like, what made you ask somebody if they look tired and get to say like, that’s actually a reflection as like a way to maybe help them.

You know, understand that or grasp the concept of reflections a little bit easier. I don’t know. I love that because I think where people struggle is in regurgitating language and that’s, I think when they think of kind of traditional gerian reflective listening, it’s that kind of regurgitation or paraphrasing or parenting it back.

And when you said that what was so I thought was such a smart way to frame it, is it’s what I teach or push people into trusting their instinct a little bit more. Like when you can see somebody is clearly tired and you say, you know, you look tired. That’s, that’s a reflective. That’s like, you’re getting a good sense of how this person is thinking or feeling, or just from some observations, but they didn’t just say that you have some instinctual sense.

And that is the nature of what high accurate empathy is versus just repeating the last three words that they said, which is what so many people can reduce reflective listening down to. You know, if you guys don’t mind me jumping in, coming in as like an outsider from motivational interviewing, I think it’s really interesting because of my background, I was taught the reflective listening that you just described, which is more regurgitation.

And you just painted a great picture for me in law enforcement, where it’s just like, no, I gotta be real. I gotta be this. I can’t do that stuff. I mean, they’re going to call me on it. What I don’t want to put you on the spot, but could you give an example of. What you think somebody would say or how they would say it or think they should say it to be real and then a way that they could actually say it that that would be filled with empathy and in not in, in, what do you call it, address their fears?

Like, look, it doesn’t have to be that way. And you just did it with your tone when you said. You look tired. It’s like there was no, like, Oh, you look tired. It was like, you look tired. Like you, it’s solicits, like just the energy of it makes some, I would imagine makes somebody want to respond. Yeah, I’m trying to think there’s so many things that people say.

I don’t know, Casey, do you have anything that pops to mind like of any. Yeah, I think that, I think of things that are high empathy is instead of saying. The person says, you know, I’m just pissed at the judge. You’re like, yeah, you’re really pissed at the judge. And you know, this bullshit, I shouldn’t even be here.

And it’s like, yeah, you really feel like you shouldn’t be here. I think that’s what people tend to think reflective listening is. And for, for CCOs or POs, they just tend to go, yeah, I can’t sit there for 15 minutes and just regurgitate what they said. When you’re thinking high empathy, it’s like, you know what, you’re, you’re just tired of this process and you want to find a way out.

Like you just want to, like, you want to get out of this situation with as few consequences as possible. That would be your best case scenario, but you’re not even sure where to start. Like that is much more strategic than just regurgitating. You’re mad at the judge. You don’t want to be here. You think it’s BS.

You know, you think your UA was clean. Like all those things that people think at first glance, reflective listening is, which it is Rogerian reflective listening. But in this day and age, we don’t have time to do that kind of just benign reflective listening and regurgitation. And I think this is where you can see that rub with.

professions that like, Hey, we’ve got only 15 to 20 minutes. We have to make some progress and there’s a whole litany of things that we need to get through that I need to talk to them about. So you training me to do reflective listening is not helping me. I think those are the barriers that we can run into depending on the populations that we train.

Yeah. And actually you just. That just led me to think of an example that I actually heard yesterday when I was talking to, to someone, and it’s similar to what you said, they, you know, sort of said, you know, and I don’t even, I don’t even need to be here. You’re forcing me to be here. And I sort of just said, and, and you’re frustrated that, you know, you haven’t done anything wrong, but the judge is telling you to be here.

And I said, and at the same time, you want to be done with the criminal justice system. And I sort of just. Left it there and the person affirmed, like, absolutely. And it was sort of like, I just said, now what? That’s it. And this is when I think this is where people can overcomplicate motivational interviewing and just in a training I was doing yesterday, I was talking about one of the, one of the most effective things you can do.

Which is very strategic, but it’s not manipulative. It’s just named the ambivalence, which is exactly what you just did. It just named the ambivalence this you’re kind of feeling this way. And you wish this was the situation. And in the world, what we know that is, is that’s the sustained talk and the change talk potential and landing on that and just seeing where their brain goes, which is way more strategic than just saying, Oh, it sounds like you’re frustrated, you know.

It sounds like you don’t agree with this. It just sounds like, and I think that’s what people tend to reduce it to when they’re first learning motivational interviewing. Absolutely. You know, it really strikes me about what you guys are describing is the courage it takes to do motivational interviewing.

I mean, you’re putting yourself out on a limb in a society where I feel that we’re compelled to have the answer. We’re compelled to fix things. We’re compelled. Where there’s fear around, I don’t want people to, I don’t want to get caught that I don’t know what I’m doing or that I don’t have all the answers.

And it’s like, well, you guys are just walked through. I’m like, wow, that takes courage. It’s interesting because participants will say that, that it feels scary to do it. And they’re like, I’ll tell you one of the things that I hear a lot, and I’m sure you do too Jess, is that like, I don’t, I don’t want people putting words in my mouth.

So I don’t want to put words in the mouth and I don’t want to make assumptions. And it feels like when they watch some of the videos, it feels like they’re making assumptions. And Miller made a comment that I really appreciated. In one of the last trainings I went through with him on that, on the new book that he and Moyers wrote.

And what he said is, you know, make a guess and try to end up in the ballpark, because if you’re not even in the ballpark, you don’t even try, how can you even play? If you don’t even try to get in the ballpark with your guests, if you don’t guess. And you can’t get in the ballpark, how do you even play? And I just thought that’s fascinating.

Just get over it. If you want to, if you want to get in there and try to help individuals. And what I always think that takes it further, and it seems like this gives people permission is trust your gut. Even though the face is different, you’ve had so many probationers. If you had so many patients, you’ve had so many clients that have used some of the same language.

And if I say, well, what do you think’s going on? You can rattle off 15 things. You have a pretty good guess are going on inside of them right now. And it’s like, just trust your instinct. Like, you know, you know, this it’s when you try to make it a counseling technique. That you start to fumble all over yourself and go, yeah, this is just more difficult.

Absolutely. And it’s, it’s funny. That is the common refrain me here. You’re making an assumption and I don’t feel good about that. And so, you know, you have to allow for the space for the folks that you’re training to sort of talk about what that feels like to make. An assumption to put themselves out there and at the same time move the training along so they learn that skill and it’s just like a, a delicate balance and sort of what I say is, yes, it is an assumption and so I affirm that and I also say that nine 10, they’ll let you know if you’re right or you’re wrong.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s why I love how simple and smart it was what you said about how often when you tell somebody, you know, gosh, you look tired. You know, it looks like something’s bothering you like that. That’s such a smart, simple way to go. You make these. Guesses every day because you observe and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to go.

Well, they look tired. They look like they’re having a hard day. And it’s like that, that’s the start of it. So is it this? Oh, you’re putting words in their mouth, making an assumption, this wild random assumption. It’s like, no, you’re kind of tuning into who they are and what’s going on in their experience.

And you’re like, wow, is this, this is what’s going on for you. And, and they’ll usually more often than not, we’re yeah. Pretty close to on target. And the point is not to make the reflection . The point is, as soon as that lands, the person starts to talk more. And as they talk more, they’re literally opening up their world and their brain and their mind and their experience to you.

So I think for that to happen is the whole function of just you float the first one or two out there, and if people know you’re listening without judgment. they will tell you what’s going on because people want to feel heard and understood. So it’s not that complicated to make that first. You know, kind of trust your gut and then they’re going to start to open their world up.

And all of a sudden when they open their world up, you’ve got so much data to draw from them. That’s going to be much more accurate than your first one. Absolutely. And just to add onto that, the other sort of thing I mentioned is that how great if you’re. reflection doesn’t land that you get to apologize and humanize yourself and say you don’t have all the answers.

Because there is that feeling, well, you’re the law, you’re in charge. So if I don’t land my reflection, I can say, Hey man, you know, man, I’m, I’m really sorry. I read that wrong. And they’re going to talk and give you the right answer. That’s what I always tell people. If you get it wrong, then people are gonna say, no.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, Oh, they just gave me the right answer. Oh, so it’s not this for you. It’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for you. And they’re like, exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. And it’s just like, yeah, just as long as I remember you saying that in a training Casey and I was like, that is so brilliant.

So even if you’re wrong, it’s a win for them. Absolutely. Yeah. As you’re engaging, it’s, it’s interesting as I’m, again, I’m kind of weaving that little thread of all the courage it takes to, to make that assumption to. To do that reflective statement and then what it does is it sounds like it creates a vulnerability where the person that you’re talking to does feel a little more safe.

Like it isn’t a compliance, which is bizarre what you do, Jess, because I’m like, you’re in a compliance land and they’ve got to be a little rattled by that. It has to be a really cool experience. Yeah. Sorry, Casey. Go ahead. You picked up on that like it, I think it is jarring for them because they’re sent, you know, our clients are sent to us from probation and then I say to them, Hey, look, I can’t force you to come back after this intake and they’re like, Yeah.

Okay. And it’s just like, you know, that’s really up to you, whether, you know, you, you come back or not. And I sort of say, you know, if you come back, you’ve obviously made the decision that it works out better for you to continue on, even if you might not want to. And if you decide not to, you’re like, you, you think that it’s worth the risk.

To see what happens, how the court responds. And they, it just, it’s sort of wild. They’re sort of look at me and they’re like, okay, it has to freak them out. Okay, lady. That’s exactly. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Casey. Oh, all I was going to say is it just, that so reminds me of a, one of the audios I listened to, Dr.

Teresa Moyers, and it’s not one of her more. Popular ones, because it’s just an audio, but it was so profound to me. She did the exact same thing is the person said, well, the judge made me come here. And Terry being Terry says, well, yeah, I don’t work for the judge. And, and he’s like, no, but the judge says I have to be here.

So I have to go to treatment. She goes, yeah, like I just said, I don’t work for the judge. I work for you. And if you don’t want me to work for you, that’s totally fine. I know, but then I’m going to get all these consequences. And she goes, yeah, like I said, I don’t work for the judge. This is totally your decision.

If this is something you want to pursue or not. He’s like, but what am I going to do if I don’t choose? I’m not sure. I just don’t want people coming here. We help them. They’re kind of out of trouble, but ultimately it’s your decision if you want to participate in treatment or not. And it’s so disarming and discombobulating because they’re used to running into compliance and you will and the finger shaking.

Which just generates resistance and reduces outcomes in a compliance driven system. So I love the way you said that because it’s like you literally see how it disarms them because they don’t know how to fight with somebody that’s not going to take it and fight with them. Yeah, it makes me think of when we were chatting, Jess, just about your interest and what a gift to be able to give, your clients that you care so deeply about.

Are your values aligned with your behavior? And I think what you had said was, you know, you could talk all day long about values and criminal behavior, you know, as your behavior, bringing you closer or further away from your values. I mean, when do your clients actually have an opportunity? To have somebody care about that, to help them figure out what their values are.

It’s just an incredible gift. Can, can you talk a little bit more about that? Cause you seem really passionate about it. Yeah, absolutely. So I, Casey said, I mentioned the finger wagging, like, you know, they’re the folks are constant, constantly brought up with, well, you messed up, you did this, you did that.

Now you have to do this. Now you have to do that. And that’s not. And so I just sort of like to ask, so what’s important to you and just start that conversation, by gathering like, you know, really honestly information about themselves, and what, you know, what drives them, what moves them, and then sort of going backwards.

And looking at, so maybe some of the, offenses and sort, like, how does that, you know, work in unison? Like, does that, you know, how’s that feel? Like knowing that you care about your family and, you know, you’re also now separated from the family. What, what’s that like for you now? And so just asking, I think what’s so impressive about that in real time, cause there’s so many right ways to do it.

And so it’s interesting, just listening to the way you talk about it and the way you train it and the way you embody it. Fundamentally, what you’re doing is you’re just disarming the person. And it’s not because you’re trying to disarm them traditionally from a compliance perspective. It’s just disarming when it’s like, I’m not here to argue or fight because this really is just your life.

And when you make those comments that you get to choose. Which is so am I adherent? It’s hard to take a swing at somebody that’s telling you you have choices and they’re not doing it from a parental. Well, you’ve got some choices here that still feels authoritative. That is just genuinely authentically.

You’ve really got choices and when they’re less defensive to go and this looks like a struggle you have and this looks like some values you have. What do you make of it? What do you want to do from here? Which is just literally what I get obsessed with when, you know, talking to other mentees about these things is looking through a trauma informed lens.

You’re, you’re allowing the executive function to kick back in instead of keeping them perpetually in fight flight freeze mode. And that’s what I think of is the, it’s not being gentle. It’s not coddling them. It’s like, let’s just be. Productive to get to a better outcome. And if the research shows this is going to lend itself to a better outcome because it’s just the way the human brain works, it’s the way the human spirit works.

Why don’t we just sync up with that so we can get a better outcome so we can reduce recidivism, which is kind of the point, you know, kind of why we’re employed. I mean, I make the joke, I say like, you know, I hate to break it to you, you know, if, if telling people what to do or, or, yelling at someone so that they would do the right thing worked, we would be unemployed.

Absolutely. So that does not work. At all. I mean, certainly, there are maybe some, some folks that are justice involved and maybe one, you know, offend once. Yes. Cause they don’t end up re offending. So some of that scare tactics sometimes does work with one time offender, you know, one time offenders. And I don’t like necessarily using the word offender, but I also think it helps folks know who we’re talking about.

And then some of the folks that, you know, have, recidivate. That doesn’t work. Well, and the system is not choked up with first time offenders. That is not what chokes up the system. Those people actually move through the system fairly quickly. And don’t reoffend. So that is not where the problem is in the system.

The problem in the system is, and I mean, this is my, just I’ll own all my bias, is you’re dealing with people with probably significant amounts of childhood trauma who their executive functioning has been damaged. Which means once they’re caught in this spin cycle, their natural reaction or what they’ve developed because of their trauma response is going to keep them in that spin cycle.

And we’re going to continue to stigmatize and diagnose and blame and choke the system with people that are experiencing significant trauma, have had a significant childhood trauma. So it’s just like, and I, the data bears this out, which is why so many systems, you know, justice involved, we’re looking at.

Any of these, these systems, when they look at data, they’re trying to implement all of these evidence based practices because they’re like, hey, what we do does not work. I mean, you can’t escape the data. The data says we’re not good at what we do and what we’re doing is causing more problems in communities and in families and in our society.

So we need to do it differently. But boy, when it’s so. Enculturated in some of these, you know, justice systems, law enforcement systems. It is really, really hard to kind of dislodge that and make it more of a forward thinking evidence based approach. Absolutely. I think it’s fascinating. You know, I always look at.

These conversations, I love seeing the different industries where motivational interviewing works and I’m just so moved by, the, the criminal justice system and how the gift of reducing resistance. or eliminating resistance. It’s incredible because I just think somebody who is like, you had mentioned like an offender, right?

It’s the trauma that’s involved most likely in their past. The way my brain works is they have a lifetime of swinging and resisting everyone and everything around them that this is the first gift they get where it’s like. Oh my gosh, let’s remove that. So you’re swinging. And then finally you’re like, oh God, there’s nothing to swing at.

Cause there’s nothing to resist anymore. That’s the first opportunity they get to go, what’s that resistance in me? What, what is that, that debate happening in me, the ambivalence that I’ve seen you, you talk and train about it’s really, it’s very, very moving for me as. It’s just a regular Joe on the street, you know, I’m like, Oh God, I can’t believe this work is happening out there.

It also makes me think of the times where I’ve just said to someone, I don’t know why, but it just came to me to say like, Hey, like that’s the way that you react in these situations, kept you alive. And kept you safe, you know? And yes, it’s drawn attention from law enforcement, you know, and ultimately you’re here.

Because that kept you safe, and just sort of not agreeing with it, also giving, like, yeah, and just, I don’t know, just making space for that person in that moment, because again, it’s that, you know, you did this, you did that, you hurt people. And yes, they did. And also there, it served a purpose, a protective, right?

Do you think it’s fair to say what you just described just to me is like, Oh, you invite them to have a little empathy for themselves. Cause oftentimes we think with compliance, it’s like, no, no, you know, like you, you hurt people and this is horrible. There could be that piece inside of them too, feeling that way.

And that might not help them get to their next step, whereas this feels like it’s actually by pointing out some things like that, having that empathy, that maybe they can take a little breath to say, Oh God, yeah, yeah, it did keep me safe before. Not that it was, that it’s okay to do that now, but a little more compassion or empathy is, is that fair to say?

I hope so. It hasn’t steered me in the wrong direction. And I know that. It could be some folks listening to this or even some people that I work with that would be like, I would never do that. And that’s okay. Don’t do it. It’s not authentic to you. Right. It also is going to be when you do it. It also is more associated with positive outcomes.

I mean, research continues to show that so you don’t have to do it if it doesn’t feel right to you, but then does it feel right to you to resist or push against skills or strategies that can actually get the outcomes that you kind of signed up that you want to do, try to accomplish, you know, just so there’s a discrepancy there between our professional behaviors and our own professional goals.

And desires at the same time, and I think it does make it difficult. It’s not, it’s not a simple slam dunk. I think it is something that people have to wrestle with. The beauty in it for me is the same, the same ambivalence that the professional is struggling with is, do you want to get your behavior in line with your values is the exact same ambivalence that the, you know, quote unquote offender is dealing with because it’s just human behavior is my behavior in line with my values.

And what do we do when our behavior is not aligned with our values? We want to blame outside of herself and make excuses, which is resistance talk and sustained talk. So it’s, it’s, it’s not overly complicated when you just kind of take a deep breath and go, wow, this is just a human experience in different Petri dishes.

You know, it’s just like, this is just. The things that we’re trying to navigate and what do we want for the ultimate outcome? I want to feel less stressed in my job I want to feel like at the end of the day I made a difference and my community is safer and this individual is happier And healthier and I feel happier and healthier and the individual walks away going You know what?

I need to get my head screwed on straight and stop screwing around and and really do what I need to do to support my family and and would that be kind of a A nice win win. And it’s just like, that’s what using this kind of an evidence based practice and effective communication generates. Wow. As, as, as we look to close, and I’d like both of any parting last thoughts from, from both of you as we close.

Sometimes I like this because we go through the episode and I’m like, the title just hits me. It’s, it’s like, I want to call it keeping it real. With motivational interviewing, because we kind of started with that of, of maybe the pushback of, of, people trying to help saying, I just want to keep it real.

Like, you know, we’ve got to keep it real with these people. And I haven’t, everything you’ve described is such, such a cool opportunity to be real and authentic with yourself, as you, as you help somebody else through this. So, awesome. This has been so helpful. It’s I opened my eyes to, to, an even deeper expression.

I think of what motivational interviewing can do. Any parting thoughts? I don’t know, Jess, if you want to jump in or Casey, any, our viewers or listeners. I think we have more than one Casey. What would you like to share with them? Just, well, I’m, I’m have my calendar open for my next gig with you.

So we’ll, we’ll book, we’ll book that. No, I, it’s like, it’s so funny. Cause I had in my mind, like, Oh, this is, this is where I want to go with this conversation. And then it just went in ways that I wasn’t planning. And that’s Literally, am I, because you’re working with, you’re talking with another person and they have thoughts, they have feelings and it’s going to go in places where you didn’t expect and just sort of buckle up, I think it’s sort of all I can really say.

Well, just, I, I, you know, it just, for me, just kind of wrapping it up too, is just, I, there is this. Kinetic energy that like being a mint or that even draws just 9 to having the conversation and, you know, Daniel, it’s no difference in the same, you know, kind of energy that drew, you know, you and I ended up having a connection and doing some work together. And I just think there’s, if you genuinely, genuinely want to make a difference in the world, you’re going to find your tribe of other people that are going, okay, how do we make the world a better place? How do we do this? How do we engage more effectively? And how do I stay authentic to myself?

That’s my obsession. That’s why I love this whole concept of communication solution is there’s, there’s things we’ve noticed. There’s things we’ve learned. There’s things that we can. Master that are going to improve the quality of our life and the lives of people around us. So I, I just, that’s why I love having these conversations.

It just, for me is. That’s the whole point. So just appreciate this. Just thank you so much for coming on. I told you it’s going to be fun. Effortless just I love these conversations. So thank you for coming on and having this time with us. Oh, thank you for having me. I’m very excited that I fangirled on you.

This is very enjoyable. Awesome. Thank you both so much. Everybody. Thanks for joining us today. I hope you tune in for the next episode. Thank you. Thank you. Have an awesome day. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* Casey explains the choice of the podcast name, “The Communication Solution,” and its connection to motivational interviewing. * The significance of motivational interviewing as a powerful skill set for personal and professional growth. * Casey’s perspective on communication’s impact on individuals, systems, and society as a whole. * The idea that effective communication is a solution for improving outcomes in various aspects of life. * The role of communication in different areas, from relationships to organizational culture. * The importance of aligning behavior with values and the role of communication in achieving this alignment. * The challenge of implementing motivational interviewing in organizations and the need for fidelity to make a real impact. * The connection between effective communication and improved organizational outcomes, such as reduced turnover and higher satisfaction. * The shift from a control-based mindset to a more open and supportive communication approach.

TranscribeIn this podcast, we discuss: Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication.

We love to talk about solutions. And we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hello, beautiful people. It’s Danielle Cantin here, your facilitator of the communication solution, and I’m here with Casey Jackson.

Hey, Casey. Hey, I’m excited today to talk about why you named this podcast. The communication solution. We know that you’re kind of a master with motivational interviewing. You train, so many organizations and help so many people with this incredible tool evidence based practice. Why did you call this podcast motivational interviewing?

Why, why communication solution? You know, I think partially it’s from my background as a social worker and a social work perspective is that you’re trying to help as many individuals, but looking at systems, you’re looking at a micro level, you’re looking at a macro level and motivationally is not the end all be all.

It’s the most phenomenal, truly the most phenomenal skill set I’ve ever accessed and, and, developed for myself. It’s had the most profound. Impact on me personally and professionally, but the more I grew my skillset and expanded my understanding, I just think there’s a profound awareness of how communication impacts our lives or the lack of communication or, or communication.

And. For me, it’s not that every conversation is, am I, nor should it be motivational interviewing, but by definition, if there’s a conversation, there’s communication, you know, no matter what that communication is. Can we find a way to be more effective? Can we find a way to be more efficient and, and heal ourselves, heal families, heal communities, you know, heal societies.

That’s, that to me is a solution. And the one thing we have control over is what we say when we open our mouth. So for me, it was just kind of that, You know, meditation that came to me is just like, this is truly a communication solution. So that’s, that’s kind of my walking into that and just thinking that would be, for me, that’d be a fascinating podcast to listen to.

Something that really does give me kind of a mindset and a skill set to improve outcomes of things around me. I love that one. And you know, when I met you on stage, you were, you know, speaker at the senior living conference and. I was just blown away. I was blown away because I, I did not know motivational interviewing and in branding and marketing, which is my career, my background, my expertise is like in branding and marketing, you touch every single day.

If you’re not touching every single department, you’re doing something wrong because you’re a reflection. That’s what you’re bringing to life is the culture and, and how are you making sure it’s aligned? And that’s why I was like, Oh my God, this is a tool that you can use. To actually make sure everybody is aligned if it starts from the top.

So it was really, I’m really drawn to that. It’s called the communication solution. And I also understand the difference that motivational interviewing, is, is the tool that you pull out when you want to address behavior change. Is that fair to say it is, and you know, the communication solution is a much better term than the nightmare that you look at with the, the name of my company, which is the Institute for Individual and Organizational.

All right, that’s example. And that’s exactly what I was thinking. The same thing with communication solution is I was looking at the more I was evolving my understanding and application motivational interviewing. This applies on an individual level, but it applies on an organizational level or on systems levels.

And again, this goes back to my social work mindset of how do I have a micro level impact and a macro level impact. And like, you and I’ve talked about so many times, whether I’m talking to an individual or you’re within an organization. So the issues come down to poor communication or the absence or the lack of communication.

So I don’t care if you’re talking about a marriage or a relationship or parenting or with your friend group or in your office or within the organization. I mean, probably the number one thing you hear more than anything when people are disgruntled is it feels like I don’t know what’s going on. Nobody communicates with me, you know, there’s miscommunication.

Well, that’s not what they told me. It’s just. Communication, communication, communication, communication, which makes sense when you talk about from a branding and marketing, like, well, branding and marketing should be, you know, have the fingers, you know, at least in connection with every single department or program.

And what does that mean? That means communication, whether it’s written or, or, yeah, it’s, hands down every single organization I’ve worked with. Communication is the number one pain point, and they just don’t have a solution. That’s why when I met you, I was like, we’ve got to make sure everybody in the world knows about this.

Every single CEO and leader needs to know there really is, there really is a system that you can use a way of being and actual tools and, and.

So Casey, can you tell us, a little bit about the actual companies that you’ve helped, in the, I would say the for profit world with their communication solutions or their culture? Yeah. The thing that’s so, why I get so You know, passionate about this is, you know, I’ve worked with all sorts of companies in, in senior living, you know, at least there’s a, there’s a business or an industry for everything.

And somebody has got to do those things, and, you know, behavioral health, mental health, substitute. There’s just so many organizations that I’ve had the privilege to work with. I think where it’s difficult when you were talking about CEOs. You know, thinking from a CEO or CEO or CFO perspective, I think there’s so much marketing out there for use our brand of communication and then people use it and it’s like, yeah, that was helpful, but it really fades over time or it just doesn’t stick.

It doesn’t make a cultural shift and, you know, part of my. Investment in motivational interviewing is it does make system change. It makes cultural shift if people will follow it to fidelity. So it’s not because Casey Jackson says it’s so it’s not because I found a brand or I did a TED talk. It’s literally because the data bears it out.

It is an evidence based practice for a reason. Because the research continues to bear out and continues to evolve the way we use language and apply it. So what does everyone do in leadership positions or program managers? Okay, let’s get somebody to train MI. So somebody comes in and trains MI, and they’re like, well, that didn’t change our outcomes.

But people really like the training. And that tends to be the way that things unfold, typically. Because most people don’t want to invest in the full fidelity model. So. You know, I like being very transparent when I talk to any organization. And I think this is where I think there’s more of a, of a hesitancy in the corporate world because they’re always being sold something.

And in motivation, I mean, you’re not selling anything. You’re really trying to help them have the culture that they want. So they’re always filtering who’s selling me the new software, who’s selling me new it, who’s selling me. Yeah. I know yours is the best, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But where the rubber hits the road, how is this going to make a difference?

And I think that’s what we are talking about for administration. Those are decisions that they have to make. What it comes to with motivational interviewing is when you’re following a fidelity model that has as much research as MI does behind it, you know, for 40 years of research, what you’re looking at.

And it’s why I use that analogy with grandma’s recipe. If you’re only going to pay for flour and sugar, and you’re only going to bake the cookies or whatever you get out of flour and sugar, you’re only going to bake it for half the time. It is not going to taste like grandma’s recipe. So this is what’s so hard.

I think is in the corporate world. It’s like, I don’t want to be sold a bill of goods. We just don’t have the resources to throw away if this isn’t going to affect our bottom line. But if this actually changes our culture, it changes our outcomes. Yes. We’ll invest in it, but everybody tells us it’s going to change our culture and change our outcomes.

So it is, how do you move above that white noise, which is why for me, it’s just easier because behavioral health and healthcare knows this works. They know the data works in their world. And in spite of that, they continue to just want a one day training on motivational interviewing. So even though they know yes, and they’ll put on their websites, yes, we use motivational interviewing research shows.

If you go in and measure those people who say they’re using MI, they’re not actually using motivational interviewing. They’re doing reflective listening and open ended questions. So. It gets reduced because people say, well, we only have this amount of money, or we only have this much time. I only want to train this number of staff.

And for me, why I love that recipe analogy again is because it’s like, well, I want this phenomenal chocolate souffle, but we’re not going to buy the good chocolate. I need you to make it in 10 it in 10 minutes. And the oven only goes to 200 degrees and you’re like, well, I can’t make that souffle.

Like you’re not giving me the ingredients, but if you really want to taste that way every single time that people are blown away and have a transformative experience, here’s exactly the recipe. Here are the ingredients that you need. This is how long it’s going to take. And this is the outcomes that you’re going to get every single time.

Which is why with grandma’s recipe, if she does it when she wants to, and she starts in the morning, she has everything at her disposal that she wants. At the end of the day when she, she pulls it outta the oven. Everybody’s like, oh my God, this is amazing. How does she do this every single time? Well, that’s fidelity to a model.

If you’re going to skimp on the ingredients, if you’re not gonna put enough prep time into it, it just is not going to taste the same. And that’s why I use that analogy for fidelity because most people say, yeah, I know that all the ingredients you need are going to take, you know, 100. We’ve only got 20 in our budget.

And I know that she likes to bake them for 20 minutes, but we only have 10 minutes to bake them. And it’s like, well, it’s just not going to, you’re talking language of every business. Exactly. And that’s exactly, that’s why I’m talking about why this is so difficult when, when you look at the data, but what they do is they just drool over the data going, what do you mean that it reduces?

Like I think of law enforcement, what do you mean? It reduces use of force by 40%. Because that an organization, a law enforcement agency that actually followed Fidelity, it reduced their use of force by 40 percent when I used it in employment services for a division of Oak Rehab, you know, they went from a kind of 48 to 52 percent rehabilitation rate to a 78 to 82 percent rehabilitation rate.

That’s mind boggling. That’s literally a significant increase, a 25 percent increase of people getting back to work that have struggled with. Disabilities or in the world that you and I’m in senior living, where you, as if you help people work through their ambivalence, instead of having an occupancy rate of about 80%, 85%, you’ve got 100 a waiting list because people are helping, they’re working through their own ambivalence.

It’s not how do you stick a crowbar in there and leverage people into your, you know, getting a head in a bed, which is what people continue to try to do, which is why they can’t break that 85 percent occupancy rate. What you’re looking at is how do you communicate more effectively so people work through their ambivalence so they’re making a decision that aligns with their values.

And that’s just when we’re talking about your customer base. We’re not even talking, Danielle, about your workforce. So when you take a workforce who’s under stress and pressure and trauma, their own trauma, pandemic, post pandemic, their brains are not functioning as effectively. So increasing productivity expectations is not wrong.

It’s not bad. It’s going to increase stress and you’re going to have a difficulty with retention. It is just math. And so people like coming into a one day training online, it’s just like, and so this is that the cycle and pattern over and over and over again, this is why you and I connected so well, because it’s not a matter of money.

Like you said, it’s a matter of investment. What do you want to invest? It’s not a matter of training dollars because fundamentally training dollars are basically budget dust, you know, depending on, especially in the corporate world, like that’s, that’s the least, that’s the least amount of their budget is corporate training.

They’re spending. Millions and millions and billions in other areas and then training. They’ve got the budget dust for it that they give to it, but they’re not thinking about what can we do to fundamentally shift and invest in our organization to make a shift in primary outcomes and primary outcomes means if you have a robust workforce and an exceptionally good product, you there, you should not have a problem at all with your profit.

If you have a culture that people are really invested, I mean, look, you and I know this, look at just the, the. com phenomenon, look at the Google phenomenon. They broke the mold in terms of how they set up the workplace culture. So you have people that are walking, working by choice, 12 to 14 hours a day, because they have a bunk bed in their cubicle, you know, and they have a gaming system in there and they have all the food and snacks and everything they could ever want.

And so it’s like, well, if you’re going to give me all this stuff, I’ll, I’ll work because I love doing this kind of a job anyway. So if I wake up, so if you, so it’s not a matter of, so then what do people try to do? They try to replicate it. So they try to put bunk beds and they try to put gaming systems in.

It’s like, that’s not the point because that’s not going to work for people that work in behavioral health. That’s going to cause more stress. Like that’s not, it has to be, what is your vision? What is your mission and how do you maximize the capacity of your workforce? When you do it through really effective communication, you help them continue to ensure that their behavior is aligned with their own vision, mission, and values, and that their vision, mission, and values aligns with the organization’s vision, mission, and values.

The most complicated thing in this, Danielle. The thing that makes it so difficult is, and I tell this to when administration has me come in and have conversations, these initial conversations because I am so transparent is once you make the decision to go there, it puts executive leadership on point because from this point forward, your behavior has to start to be above reproach because if your behavior is not going to line up with the

shadow of the leader. You’re giving permission to the rest of your workforce to stand around the water cooler and blame outside themselves and make excuses, which is what administration does often is they make excuses. And it doesn’t mean they’re not real excuses. And it doesn’t mean that it’s not legitimate blame.

You’re just literally creating a culture that is what we do here when we don’t, when we don’t get to where we want to go, or they say all these amazing flowery things in their vision and mission statement. And as soon as you ask the workforce, the workforce says, oh, yeah, they may say that, but it’s about the numbers.

They can post whatever they want in our lobby, in this beautifully painted lobby, in this beautifully scrolled, gilded vision of mission statement, but when it comes down to it, if we’re not hitting our numbers, then we’re out of here. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a discrepancy between values and behavior, which is literally no different than somebody that’s struggling with substance abuse.

Who says they want their kids back? And it’s like, yeah, but your behavior is not lining up with what you say your values and your goals are. So this is for me, why the communication solution comes into it, because it’s like, how do we use language to close those gaps? Yeah, I think it’s interesting. It makes me think of the visionary, the leader, and the courage that that person has to have to, to really provide this level of training to fidelity to your point.

I noticed with all the trainings that you do with different organizations, many do start with just give us the intro. And then it’s not soon after, but they’re like, can we have the advanced if they didn’t jump already? Because I’m also in awe for people who jump in and say, I want intro and advanced and they see the big picture.

And there’s 2 things I’ve experienced in talking with these organizations, the. Is the, the champion there’s somebody in that organization that believes so deeply in this work in that bigger vision that they go through all the politics that are needed inside an organization to, to communicate to use the tools, actually, to communicate with their leadership and make sure everybody’s aligned.

And buys into it, I’m really in all of those people. That do that for the organization. And it’s not always the leader and in fact. Is it typically somebody in, inside that then brings it to the leader? It’s, it’s, yeah, it’s pretty rare that it’s the executive leader that is the one who has the brainstorm.

That’s, that’s pretty rare. It usually is somebody that’s been through a training or has been exposed or was at a conference and heard about it. Now they’re exploring it. That tends to be it. It, the most profound changes I ever see is when executive leadership gets it. When they truly something clicks in their brain and they’re like, we’re in, we’re, we’re going all in.

That’s, that’s like one organization that, you know, we’re working with right now made the decision to go to full finality and their, their workforce is going through the skill building process and getting measured and getting feedback. And I just let, well, this is an email you and I were on yesterday was that already October is one of their best months ever.

Because. They’ve moved to full fidelity and people have let go of over practicing reflective listening, over practicing the or skills because those things get pushed so hard in intro trainings, which that’s a communication technique. That’s not a communication solution. And that’s why, for me, it’s beyond motivational interviewing.

There is a mindset and a skill set that moves it to, to a, to a solution based process, not a technique driven. skill set. So that’s, that’s why I think what we do is so different. I think that’s the thing that stood out to you is like, yeah, this just seems different. It is. And in that example that you’re giving with the organization we’re working with.

The, the success story, I, I had like tears thinking about this one team member who is dealing with a gatekeeper. There isn’t a company in the world that doesn’t have a gatekeeper, some kind of gatekeeper who really was making it his job to mess up everything. I refuse. The wall is as big as in Game of Thrones, man, you are not proud of it.

This team member was like. You know, yes, he’s been through training, but he’s like, I guess I’m not really good, but I’m going to have to give this a whirl and yes, and the joke, I don’t know if you heard this piece, but the joke was he spent two hours with this gatekeeper and it was, it was a tough gatekeeper and he flipped was now their advocate in two hours.

Yes. The joke internally was Casey would have done it in 10.

That is hilarious. Craig’s like, God, way to go. This guy, we can’t say who the company was, but the guy that did it, you could feel, I could feel the, the, the head gal’s story. She’s talking to this guy that’s sitting there going, Oh God, I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough. I don’t know what I’m doing yet.

And then taking that leap. I think it’s the occurrence of this vulnerability that just locks my world with this. Yes. You know, and, and Danielle, the, the thing that makes it accessible for me or ways that I want it to be accessible for everyone is that that really is no different than if you spend a month, you know, with a golf coach and, you know, and you’re going on the green with your golf coach for the first time, you’re getting out of the Bay area, you’re getting out of the, you know, you’re getting out of the.

The golfing bay and you’re, or you’re getting out of the batting cage or you’re getting out of the, and it’s like, okay, now we’re going to go play a game. You’re like, I don’t know if I can do this. Like, oh my gosh, you’ve been practicing this. You’ve got to do it sometime. You’ve just gotta, you’ve gotta step out of the nest and flap your wings.

And it’s like, oh my God, I’m flying. I’m flying. I’m flying. I’m flying. It’s like, yes, you’re flying. You’ve got the wings for it. Now you’ve got the skillset. You’ve got the mindset. You’re good. And then all you do is improve from there. That’s honestly, Danielle, it’s the reason why, you know, my mindset in when we developed the MICA, the measurement tool, the motivation competency assessment.

What’s the reason why one of those striations of I wanted people to get feedback of is this a person centered conversation is this competent motivational interviewing or do you want to get to a level of mastery where you’re highly proficient like it’s it’s such a growth mindset and a growth model that you can see your progression and continue to get coaching and get better and better every single time I do a training I get better at motivational review every single time.

And people think that I’m this expert in it. And I, and I’m just always in awe that every time I talk with somebody, my knowledge and understanding and skills around motivation can improve. And it’s like, what a lifelong gift. You know, people talk about tennis, or golf, you know, as a skill you get to age with while learning really effective communication is a skill set that you can always grow with for the rest of your life, no matter where you exist and where you.

You know, I think of Dr. Bill Miller who developed, am I one of the key founders and, he’s on his board in his senior living community, you know, with really effective communication, which is really helpful for the organization, you know, but he’s not. That’s what I love about it. Yeah. You never, am I anyone?

It’s incredible. Have you noticed, as everybody’s listening here, most likely everybody’s part of something bigger than themselves. in their career or business. Have you seen this trend? Cause I’ve seen it with the people in your world where they might start with intro and advanced, but more and more seem to be really seeing the big picture and going, Oh God, I do want fidelity.

I do want to get to that point of let’s do the Micah assessment and individually get. That, you know, make that investment in their people and their team to say, yes, we will, we will support you in getting this code coding and coaching individually. I’m seeing more of that is, is that just in my head or do you see that too?

I see it too. And I think what it is is because the, the thing that’s. Very validating, reinforcing for me is that so many people that go through any level of training are just like, I just, I don’t know if this is going to change my job, but I feel better in my life right now. And that, I mean, it’s just such a common like out of the gate, what people tend to say is like, I just feel clear in my own brain.

I feel like I’m going to be healthier in my own family interactions. And I think that is just the, just to go, I want to get better. And the more they use it after an intro or an advanced training. It’s like, I’m, I’m ready to start pushing all in. And I think because what, what my sense is, Danielle is I keep going to pandemic post pandemic, I think that it’s like people have been.

Craving a solution or craving way out of their depression or craving a way out of their anxiety, and this is providing concrete skills and a mindset, a growth mindset that aligns with what so many people have been seeking. So I think organizations start to see the improved outcomes, but you read into this as often as I do at IFIOC is that so many people are like, you know what, let’s just keep kind of pushing into it and we’ll see if management catches up or, well, I’m going to talk to leadership because we have got to do the advanced training.

So we’re going to find a way to make this happen. It’s coming from the inside. That’s why when you said. You know, is it often that it starts with executive leadership? It’s it does happen at times. It just tends to be more rare because again, it gets reduced to, Oh, has our workforce gone through the M. I.

training yet? It’s not the mindset of this truly is a solution that could fundamentally shift, you know, our, the culture that we work within. And it will help us align from a leadership perspective. I think the one that one of the very first trainings you ever sat in on in person was with a healthcare company, and that healthcare company, which was a relatively small, all things considered, it wasn’t a United healthcare company, but it was a service provider, all different business lines.

But you sat in there and watched their brain shift over time to go from, yeah, this is great. This is fun. This is interesting to when it started impacting outcomes and how much they started implementing in HR. And the difference was making from an HR perspective, which helped them not clean house. It helped people find the right fit.

And I think people. Think that they’re doing that or say that they want to help people find the right fit, whether it’s with our organization or not our organization. But HR really glommed on to this and the COO really glommed on to MI and it really started changing the fundamental culture. And so some people from the outside were saying, wow, they’re really cleaning house there.

But from the people that were experiencing, even the staff themselves were saying, I don’t know if this is the right fit for me and other people coming into the organization thinking, I cannot believe that this is a health care organization. Like, this is what I’ve always dreamed of. What do you mean?

This is the way we operate here. And so it really did just kind of recalibrate and they went from a 3. 5 Rating star rating as an organization in healthcare and senior living, they went from a 3. 5 star rating to a 5. 0 rating to the highest rating you can get, within three years. That’s, that’s, that’s data and their outcomes have improved their staff satisfactions, improve their retention rate, where they have pretty decent turnover rate because it’s healthcare, there’s decent turnover.

Their retention rate is amazing now because people love where they work and the people that don’t want to be there anymore feel very good about when they, they move on to something different. It’s just a healthier organization. You’re triggering this memory for me when I was in training with you and 1 of the, you’re so brilliant, right?

In the moment when somebody brings up an example, and then you could tell they’re really stressed. They’re like, listen, we are losing people. We can’t keep people, you know, in their position. So I had, you know, my best nurse, or I can’t remember who it was was going to leave. And I’m like, holding their ankles, you know, the HR, whoever the team leader was, or, I’m holding their ankles and you’re like, cool, or you can do it this way.

And you just like ad libbed a whole conversation you could have with that person you wanted to leave that just the energetically, the way I describe this work is like control, control, control, fear, fear, fear. Let’s kind of manage everything to like, what if you release and actually stop controlling and how to.

a system for doing that. Yes. We all instinctively know that’s how you’re going to get somewhere faster, but it is, we’ll have the tools to do that. And it seems, it feels so ironic that, you know, we hear this all the time and I think it sounds a little esoteric, but what we tend to hear is, you know, let go.

If you want things to go, let go. You know, if it’s, you know, if it’s just exactly, exactly. And that’s what we think.

And now we’re back to the communication solution. I mean, full circle again, because it is how you communicate. And I just have to say it again, this is as much mindset and there’s specifical measurable mindset as it is skill set. And I think people are so heavy on the learning new skills. Or relearning the same skills they’ve learned over and over and over again, thinking that’s going to kind of dislodge.

If I keep learning the same communication skills, it’s not, there is a mindset we can measure that will help get people aligned with that. And there’s a mindset and there’s a whole, you know, grandma’s recipe. Like I keep saying. For fidelity, you know, provides a structure, and a path forward with it. So yeah, that clearly this is my obsession.

I’m so riled up. I can keep going. But, one thing I want to say, and I don’t remember where I heard you say this, but you were mentioning about, like, I think of organizations and, and I’m a sucker for a motivational speaker. I really am. And it’s like, you can listen to as many motivational speakers as you want.

Yes. But If you can bring something more than that, that’s not going to get you to a team or a culture of inspiration on a consistent basis. Right. That really resonated with me because I’m like, Oh, I see so many companies doing that. Everybody gets excited about that keynote, inspirational speaker. And I think that’s why you broke through that conference for me when you were the keynote because I was like, dang, this is not, it was so memorable and you were, I don’t want to say who you were aligned with because there’s such big names and mentors for my whole career.

Same people. And I was like, I can’t remember what they said, but I could never get you out of my head. And it was pretty profound. You know, and I think that’s, I think that’s the clinician or the social worker in me is I just want to make sure that when I’m, when I’ve had an interaction with somebody, there’s a changed outcome.

And it, it struck me early on that I, I was thinking about this, like, well, anybody can motivate, anybody can inspire, which is phenomenal. That’s great to be able to do that, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate to change. Thank So just because you’re inspired to just because you feel motivated doesn’t measurably create long term sustained behavior change consistently.

It’s more random of who did it inspire, who did it motivate. That’s more of a random shotgun approach. So yeah, you can have lots of inspiring speakers. You can have motivational speakers, but to walk away with a communication solution that we can measure and give feedback on and actually see the change in outcomes, that’s that it just gets to the heart and the core of why I love doing the work that I do again, on a, on an individual level or on a collective level of organization level.

Yeah. Thank you so much for what you do, Casey. I know this would be a short episode. I could keep going. I’m just so grateful. So grateful I met you. And you know, for all of you listeners out there, if you are struggling with communication, reach out. If you have success stories in communication, reach out.

We really, really want to hear from you. So just give us, give us a shout at Casey at IFIOC. com and we can’t wait to hear from you. Any, any party words, Casey? No, I just, I just, just even having this conversation with you, just, the gratitude and the humility that I feel both, you know, it just, it helps counterbalance that imposter phenomenon.

But then when I, when we start having these conversations and I look at all the organizations I’ve worked with and the profound difference it’s made in their workforce and their outcomes, I just, I just have nothing but gratitude. So I just, I’m just glad we were able to have this conversation. Awesome.

Thanks so much, Casey. See you on the next episode. All right. Take care. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way.

That’s Casey@IFIOC.com. com for more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

Casey and I was like, that is so brilliant.

View Details

In this episode, we discuss:* The episode introduces the role of hope in motivational interviewing and its connection to positive outcomes in various fields. * Casey discusses the characteristics of helping professionals that contribute to positive outcomes, highlighting the alignment with motivational interviewing principles. * The concept of the placebo effect is explored in relation to hope, revealing its significant impact on health outcomes. * Casey shares historical anecdotes related to the power of hope, including the story of Mesmer and hypnosis. * The discussion delves into the dimensions of hope, emphasizing the role of optimism and self-efficacy. * The hosts examine the relationship between hope, optimism, and motivational interviewing, emphasizing the importance of believing in an individual’s potential for change. * Casey stresses the need for fidelity in implementing motivational interviewing to achieve consistent and measurable results. * Ethical considerations regarding the application of motivational interviewing are discussed, with a focus on avoiding manipulation. * The hosts emphasize the need for organizations to align their behavior with their values to create cultural change. * The episode concludes with an invitation for listeners to engage in discussions and share their thoughts on motivational interviewing and related topics.

TranscribeHello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution. That will change your world. Hi everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin with the Communication Solution podcast. I’m here with Casey Jackson. How are you, Casey? Doing great. Awesome. Thanks everybody for joining us. We’re really excited today to talk about a concept that is very near and dear to my heart and weave it into motivational interviewing.

Casey, on one of our previous podcasts, we talked about the MINT forum. It’s a conference, motivational interviewing network of trainers international happens every year you go, And in that episode, you mentioned something that I’m very intrigued with, and I’d like to talk about hope. And you mentioned that Dr. Miller, was talking about hope and the value of hope. I’d love if you could weave in that concept. Does it relate to motivational interviewing? Did he say that it relates to motivational interviewing and kind of help? Positioned hope within this construct, for communicating.

There’s, there’s a lot to unpack with that.

So it was fascinating, just like the, the conversation that you and John and I had had about the book that Miller, Dr. William Miller and Dr. Teresa Moyer’s just published around or relatively recently published around, the characteristics of. The professional and how they impact outcomes. So that was not based in motivational interviewing.

That was just like what produces positive outcomes. But when they, when they did the research and looked at 70 years of data, 70 years of data of what, where were the outcomes, the most positive in healthcare, mental health, substance use, what were the factors? It wasn’t the model. It was the characteristics of the helping professional.

So that wasn’t motivational interviewing, but what Miller was talking about is when you look at the top five. The top five characteristics are the things that we teach and we train and motivational interviewing. So that was, so it was like, wow, now you can see where the data crosswalks. I think there’s a similarity to, because now the next book that Miller’s going to write and he’s researching right now is around hope.

So he’s looking at all the data around that. And he’s, he just presented his, preliminary findings and he hasn’t even started writing as much of the manuscript yet, but just still gathering data and starting to jot down notes. And it was. Fascinating. So, like you had said before, you know, we can kind of get off on the side of, of hope and, you know, the human spirit and lean into that.

And there’s so much magic and potency and power to that. There are several things that he had talked about and, and, and I think that it’s hard. You’d be hard pressed to be able to be highly skilled or proficient at motivational interviewing and not have more of an optimistic perspective. And, and optimism is just one of the qualities embedded in hope, that there’s an optimism to hope.

If you bridge it to the science, this was so fascinating to me. And this is where he was kind of chuckling about it, that for as maddening as it is to researchers, it is such a powerful reality and that’s placebo. Researchers just get, and practitioners are just. It’s, it’s just annoying that placebo effect has so much potency because, you know, no matter what the issue is, if people think it’s going to work or think that it could have potential to help, that is the power of the mind or the power of the brain.

So even though you’re just getting the sugar pill, you don’t have as much pain as other people that didn’t take that sugar pill because they think it’s some magic medicine that the placebo effect is real and you cannot escape. The research that shows how effective placebo effect is, it’s consistent and it’s maddening because

yeah,

that’s what he’s talking about

here.

If you’re in a scientist, he was laughing at the,

yeah, it just kind of checked me this like, you know, for as much as we get annoyed and we want to kind of dismiss placebo, the data keeps drawing us back to placebo effects. So placebo effect was partially what he was talking about in terms of a comprehensive assessment of hope because placebo effect is.

Rooted in the fact that people hope they could get better, and they hope this pill or this intervention is going to make a difference. And their hope is so strong that their outcomes improve consistently with placebo effect. So you can’t ignore that. And then he talked more about the research around.

He even shared a story that was. Pretty fun. I didn’t know this history, but I knew about Mesmer, which is where hypnosis came from. And, and I can’t remember his first name, but I think it was Joseph Mesmer, but can’t remember his actual name, but it’s where mesmerized came from, and hypnosis came from because he could take groups of people and magnetize them and that would, and they would get healthier and they were getting better outcomes.

And, so, and it was kind of ticking off the king because it’s like, this isn’t. This isn’t magic. Is he magic? Like what’s going on? How can you just magnetize people and put him in a room and animal magnetism and all these things he’s doing and people were feeling better and reporting better outcomes.

And so what he did is he paid a researcher, which happened to be Benjamin Franklin to research this and find out, is this true or not true? And even Benjamin Franklin was a little annoyed because he just, He disproved that Mesmer was being able to do the things that he said. So he disproved Mesmer, but what he couldn’t disprove is that the actual reported outcomes of the measurable outcomes were better.

So it was just, which it just goes back to that placebo effect that people think they can get better or want to get better or believe they can get better and believe that you’ve given them something that will help them get better. That has a dose effect. That has an effect on people and that’s, that’s rooted in health.

So, so you look at some of the research just around placebo effect and that is based off the thing that people believe or want to believe strongly enough that this could help them, that they physically or psychologically improve to some extent. That’s interesting. That’s in a concept of hope.

That’s interesting to tie it to motivational interviewing from my perspective, which is definitely novice, right?

It’s, it’s, it’s understanding that the people that get involved with training. And teaching motivational interviewing are definitely, like you said, optimists, and they have that hope they have that belief, right? Isn’t that a premise of motivational interviewing? You have a belief that that person can make a change that that person,

this is interesting.

So this is a great thing to bring up, Danielle, because. What we do measure and again, I, I, Iwant to really build these bridges between what we measure and what we believe in, what we embody, what we measure is how you support autonomy and try to activate a sense of self, a sense of self efficacy, a sense of personal agency, which is going to be a Venn diagram laying over the top of hope as well, too.

So. Self efficacy and self agency is not necessarily hope, but to activate it, there has to be on the MI practitioner’s part. There has to be some belief that there’s, there’s greatness inside this human being to unlock. There’s potential to unlock, and that the individual has the keys to unlock that.

So that is a component of hope. So that’s not a placebo effect, but when he was talking about the dimensionality of hope, that is one of the dimensions is. Can do when we look into someone, are we looking in there with the intention to see that there is a greatness that resides within there? That is a that’s an aspect or a parallel to hope they’re called other things.

But that these are all the dimensionalities of hope that that Miller was starting to tease out. So, and the way I look at that immediately or crosswalk that it’s into, it’s a variation of or a striation of supporting autonomy and activating autonomy. Amazing.

I think, you know, yeah. You’re kind of an optimist as somebody filled with hope, not to say I don’t have my dark times or my, my times when I need others to help pick me up.

And I’ve had plenty of forks in the road. I thank God have always kind of looked to the hope, the high road, right? of hope. That’s where I’m happiest. So that’s my natural place to live. And I know it isn’t for others. And so I get excited when it starts to be connected in science with, you know, brilliant researchers and scientists, like yourself, like Dr.

Miller. That gets me excited because I can’t help but think from a business mindset, right? So having worked with so many CEOs, part of what draws me to them is because they have that spirit of hope they have that spirit of perseverance and all of those qualities I love, but when it comes down to it at the end of the day, when they want to grow their business, you can’t walk in a boardroom with investors and say, We’ve got hope, like, like just sell on the hope piece.

So how do we, how do we talk to the professionals out there and the leaders who, who know and believe, yes, they are aligned with what’s possible. And so many of them are, but now does this start giving us a tool to even further. Say here’s the data and the backing and the research to actually help you through those conversations with investors or whoever you need from a scientific standpoint, from a number standpoint, to kind of get behind, action, you know, putting into action the communication solution like this,

you know, I think there’s two parts of it.

One of it I think of is. It’s not that difficult. You don’t have to dig deep to look at how positive outcomes are for businesses or individuals for our own mental health or on emotional health. The more you look at people that are optimistic or embody hope, and they operate from a place of hope they do have.

Healthier outcomes, they are more productive individuals. It just, and in some ways you can just step back and go that we don’t need, do we really need research? I mean, we have research to reinforce that, but you step back and just think, well, if somebody is excited every day and hopeful, they’re probably going to get more done than somebody that’s depressed and doesn’t want to do anything all day.

Like, it just, so from that perspective of just a hope or hopeless perspective, the level of, yeah. Health healing contribution is going to be greater from that perspective what Miller did distinguish between Which was fascinating is he also talked about false? Hope or blind hope and that that can that that has caused death and destruction in wars that people Were so hopeful and so believed blindly in a certain leader or a certain approach That they that people were massacred Because, you know, they were so unprepared because they were so blindly hopeful that something was going to happen.

And they were just wildly unprepared for that. So hope doesn’t actually blind. Hope doesn’t. It hope is not the end. I’ll be all it just because you’re armed with massive amounts of hope doesn’t mean that every outcome is the way that it could be because blind hope can get in the way. So he talked about looking at probability and possibility.

If you’re not looking at probability and possibility and you just have hope that can just chew away at potential outcomes. You have to part of hope is probability. Things will probably go. Well, they, the possibilities, which these have metrics associated with possibility and probability. We’re going to roll the dice.

There’s probabilities and possibilities. But I don’t know if you, you know, stake your entire, you know, fortune on the roll of the dice either. Even if you are a hopeful person, those are the things that you start to, how do you mitigate, hope while you’re still maximizing. The potency of it, if that makes sense,

it does, because I think that’s what drew me to you.

When I saw you on stage speaking, it was a senior living conference. And me as a branding person, you know, I’ve been doing this for decades and branding is so deeply rooted in the culture of a company and. It’s intricately tied. So it’s always challenging if I help a brand, like the leader, the vision of the leader come to life.

The checkpoint really is operations, right? It’s like, are we really walking the talk and living this vision? Cause that authenticity, you might get away with it for a minute, but it will. I saw you, I was like, Oh my God, out of all the tools out there to help operationalize, culture, you know, the specific culture, the leader once ingrained in the company.

I was like, Oh, that was when I was like, the whole world needs to know about what you do, what you’re teaching. And to me, it’s just like. The, the name of this episode is like, you know, the hope, the power of hope in business. It’s just like, how do you actualize hope? It’s such a cool, a cool concept for me, a cool opportunity, for so many, so many people.

And I’m gearing this toward businesses, but for, I think any individual, you know,

it’s interesting you bring that up, Danielle, because it’s, it’s one of the things that. In wanting to get the word out, because my, my charge in life, you know, my mission in life is just to help people live happier and healthier lives.

And if I can make a career off of helping people have. Happier and healthier wives, like I’m, it will be a life well lived for me. And what I was trying to figure out, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s exactly what you’re talking about is I was seeing all these speakers that are inspirational speakers. I saw these people that were motivational speakers, which what people think motivational interviewing is, which it’s not, it’s not about motivational.

Used to. And I would see these companies, you know, because usually private nonprofit, you don’t get to access that usually can send people to a conference. And hopefully there’s somebody that’s motivational or they’re inspirational. Their corporations bring in these inspirational people or these motivational people.

But what I, what I was able to observe in, in all of this is that just because you can inspire does not catalyze change. Because if, if you’re not catalyzing change, people walk away inspired, but over the course, you will see that titrate over the course of days, weeks, or months that then they’re back into status quo again.

And so for me, I’m thinking, you know, you can invest in inspiration, which is, there’s nothing wrong with that fundamentally, but if you’re not catalyzing that into changing your culture, it’s just another good speaker who had a really. You know, intriguing story that we’re glued to every word that they said, but it didn’t catalyze change or a shift in our culture.

And I think that people keep thinking that if you expose people to it, they will become that. And that’s just not true. You can’t just expose people to a great pianist. Now you’re a great pianist can expose them to a phenomenal athlete. Now you’re a phenomenal athlete. You know, it, there is, A formula of how do we catalyze this and move it into change that for me is my obsession about fidelity based motivational interviewing, because we know both the mindset that we can measure and the skill set that we can measure.

To help people shift and improve outcomes for themselves and other people. Now you take this inspiration or that motivation and if you can catalyze that into cultural change within an organization, it’s what I keep saying over and over and over again in terms of it is the mastery of aligning behavior with values.

And, and, and to providing a skill set for how to do that. And when you do that, and now I take a step back to hope and think, if you have a workforce that genuinely believes in the vision and they are being supported and affirmed for that, they are more hopeful. Who doesn’t want to be part of an organization?

If you, if you deeply believe in the vision, who wouldn’t want to be a missionary for that organization? And if you can see those outcomes improving, which makes you feel more hopeful. It makes you want to go to work every day. So that’s not because you’re inspiring. It’s because you’re creating change that aligns with vision.

So this for me is why you can’t separate hope from that. But it’s not about the hope in and of itself. But if you want your workforce to be able to move forward, feel stronger, if you as an individual professional, just want to know at the end of the day, what I did, I know made a difference for another human being in a positive way, we can replicate that.

We can learn that we can master that. And I get nervous because even on a training I was doing today, what people tend to continue to be leery of is they keep Having this fear response that there’s something manipulative about motivational interviewing, because it’s so effective. And the only thing that’s out of another human being means you have to be manipulating them.

And it’s just, I just feel like every day I’m trying to help people understand there’s nothing manipulative about. Fidelity based motivational interviewing, which is

why you go at it from detention, right? You always start tension of the, just make

people trade it as a, as a manipulative tool that, how do you use MI to get them to take their medication?

How do you get them to, how do you use motivation to get them to not commit another crime? How do you use motivation to get them to do this? And it’s like, well, what you’re talking about is not motivational interviewing. You know, one of the things that came out, um. I was, I’d get worked up, they came out at the conference and I had my moment of frustration, because I was in a breakout on ethical application, ethical and moral application of motivational interviewing, which of course I am.

That’s a breakout I want to go to. And I was getting frustrated. And this is where I think it might just. Missing the point am I just on my own Casey Jackson track or, you know, or is it just that, okay, you’re seeing things from a different way that really this is a, a healthier way to look at it because one of the, what came up in this, presentation, which becomes an open dialogue at a certain point in most of these was one person was talking from a different country interrogators.

On how to use motivational interviewing and so we asked, they were talking about, is that an ethical application of or motivational interviewing? And his rationale was, but if we’re getting confessions from people that will prevent a war crime from happening. We’re sacrificing the one for the good of the whole.

And for me, that’s a conflation of the issues. And that’s where I start getting frustrated because, okay, now we’re conflating two different things. Because if you’re using it to interrogate someone, it’s not motivational interviewing. And what the speaker was saying is, no, that’s not an ethical application of motivational interviewing.

And I said, so if you listen to that tape, because this presenter was somebody that actually codes motivational interviewing. Using the mighty and I said, so if you code it, will it score is motivational interviewing. She said, well, no, it’s going to score low in the spirit of mi. And I said, if it scores low in the spirit of mi, it will not score as motivational interviewing, which means it’s not motivational interviewing.

Does that make sense when I say that Danielle?

100% does, and you’re getting me riled up . You’re trying, you’re trying to get, you already claimed the result and you’re trying to use motivational interviewing to get that. Result

exactly. And this is a theme of, well, I use it in this way and this is how I’ve been able to navigate using motivation to get people to do what I need them to do.

And I raised my hand again and said, if we’re trying to get people to do what we want them to do, that won’t score as motivational interviewing. It means you will be using reflective, listening, open ended questions, maybe even strategically responding to language, but you are not going to score high. In the intentions on the Micah or in the spirit using the mighty.

So if you’re not scoring in motivational range, it’s not motivational. That’s not motivational interviewing. So this is where I was maddening. And so finally the analogy that I came up with, because you know, my brain, I did my brain works in pictures. So what I told them is where I’m getting frustrated is what it sounds like.

This is where my brain was at with and how I explained it to people afterwards were asking me what I was talking about is it feels like the conversation is, is it okay to use a ripe or an unripe plum when we’re making our apple pie and I’m like, it doesn’t matter because you don’t use plums in your apple pie and they’re like, I know, but we’re using, but we’re using an, should we use a ripe or an unripe plum in our apple pie?

And it’s like, yeah, that’s not an apple pie. We only use apples in apple pie. I know. I used a plum. They might be like

me because I’m sitting here, I don’t cook or bake. So I was like, I knew there’s a pool.

Cause there’s not, because that would be an apple plum pie or it would be a plum pie, but it wouldn’t be an apple pie. And, and this is where I just get, I think this is my obsession. Ironically as a clinical social worker that I’m so obsessed with fidelity because Inormally be on the other side arguing a different point, but since I believe so strongly in fidelity, you only put apples in apple pies.

Yeah, I know. But I use, because we only have unripe plums. It’s just like, that’s what I use. It’s like, which is fine. It’s probably an amazing plum pie or a plum pudding, but it’s just not apple pie. So let’s not say that, well, this is a variation of apple pie when you’re not using apple pie recipe. And that’s how I have to go back to my brain.

So simple that way. That’s like, I need to just keep it simple in my brain because all these applications that people are talking about ethical or unethical application of my mind going, those will not score. As motivational interviewing, because it’s not supporting autonomy. It’s not trying to expand a person’s sense of control.

You’re not partnering to get to their best outcome, which means in the mica, it will not score as motivational interviewing, no matter how nice, no matter you could do. You could do everything out of your mouth could be a reflective statement from the beginning to the end. And that does not make it motivational interviewing.

That just makes it a lot of reflective listening. And I think people keep conflating these concepts and I keep trying to go, I’m not, we need to be clear. What are we talking about? And this is why I think it’s so important when we’re talking about hope in that same vein. Yeah.

And then the way my brain translates this too, cause it’s fascinating about interrogation.

You’d got me a, give me a lot to think about there because I know that, hostage hostage negotiators, you know, call you in for, for help and support in that realm. I know where I met you was senior living. And you had to, to work through your own ethical issues of like, Oh, okay. Am I going to help all of these companies that want me to, you know, the two areas I see you working in is sales training.

Right. So, or human resources within dominantly within a company and for the sales piece, what was really important to you around this topic of what happened with the interrogation? Conversation is that the leaders in the organization has to be fully committed to M. I. In terms of allowing in senior living, for example, a prospect looking to move into the community, you have to be willing to help them come to their best conclusion for themselves, not.

Not the end game is they must move into our place. And so that was where you were like, Oh, I don’t know if we can go down this route. How many years ago? And then you realized, Oh, there are companies really willing to do that, to really put their, their, walk their talk, to put their money where their mouth is and just say, yes, let’s help people through one of the most difficult decision points and points of change in their life.

Whatever the outcome, and then they see the result, you know, obviously the results are there that, that their occupancy always increases, but, but it’s really interesting because you are committed to whoever you’re working with, that they be aligned with that, that message,

the intention. The thing that I’m the most committed to is not bastardizing what motivational being is.

I think that that’s where I get so frustrated is that. I hear people saying they’ve implied, or they, you know, we’ll use M. I. in our agency, or we use it in our organization. And then I watch the interactions and I’m like, well, this is an M. I. And again, that same analogy, because I always use that kind of grandma’s recipe analogy for fidelity is, you know, when you hand me, you know, a graham cracker with some chocolate chips melted on the graham cracker, and I take a bite of it, they’re saying, yeah, this is grandma’s.

Chocolate chip cookie recipe. And it’s like, no, that’s not, it’s a graham cracker with melted chocolate chips on it. It doesn’t even taste like what I know, but this is how we do motivational interviewing. It’s like, well, that’s not motivationally because motivationally tastes like a very specific hot out of the oven chocolate chip cookie that your grandmother makes.

Like that’s a very specific recipe. So when you hand me a graham cracker with some chocolate chips melted on it and I take a bite of it, I’m going. Well, this is an M I the response where you say, no, it is M I it’s just our version of it. It’s like, well, no, because M I is this very specific recipe that is measured this specific way.

But motivation is such a catchphrase because there’s so much funding that’s offered around it that people want to say that they’ve been through M I training and we use M I in our organization, but we have to use it this way because of our population. And it’s like, to me, that’s, there’s a gap in the training and understanding of what motivation really is then.

And then the, the harm starts coming in when the data doesn’t prove it out and it’s just like, oh, you didn’t get the outcome and the results that are amazing that, that you’re used to seeing. If somebody doesn’t do that, you know where to look. It’s like, hmm, I don’t think you really implemented mo motivational interviewing.

’cause the. The evidence based research is there that it works.

Daniel, that is right on that. That’s exactly it. Because when the data doesn’t bear it out, and then it just, it just causes a writing reflex. Then I hear, well, we used to have mine. It doesn’t work with our population. I’m like, I know it works with your population.

You may not be using MI. And usually what it comes down to is they’re trained on good communication skills, great communication skills. You know, reflective listening, open ended questions, but that doesn’t make it. Grandma’s recipe, motivational, motivational, which is why I always use that same analogy with cooking is, yeah, there’s all sorts of recipes that use flour and show you how to whip the butter and when to add the sugar in.

And when you add the vanilla in, that’s the basis for 1000 different baking recipes. But those thousand recipes taste completely different because from there, which one, which recipe are you using? If you’re using grandma’s recipe for motivationally, it will taste the same every single time and you’ll get the outcomes associated with it every single time.

So it shouldn’t taste like a graham cracker with some chocolate chips melted on it. That’s not what they were doing, you know,

now you’ve expanded your stories to plum pies.

Yeah, well, that’s what it’s like. Well, I used to have my this way. So is that nothing? And it’s like, well, that’s not motivational interviewing.

And people are really struggling with that in the, in the breakout going, well, no, this, because I use it that way too. And it’s just like, then I’m just like, oh, I’m in a, you know, I’m in a rabbit hole. That’s going to be hard for me to get out of my own brain. Because it’s like those, if it’s not measuring as motivational interviewing, yeah.

It’s not motivational interviewing. Yeah. Wow. What a winding road of hope. I just went. fun. I could talk to you, Casey. I think, you know, catalyzing hope is a very intriguing, compelling topic that I’m excited to get this out there because it is available. So anybody, all of you listeners out there, if you want to catalyze hope and prove it and back it up, reach out and we can.

You find a way, but any, any last words you’d like to share about, about this topic, Casey?

The 1 thing I’d say is just that, you know, I’ve said this so many times in so many of the podcasts. This podcast is 100 percent about you. Those of you that listen. And I’ve ran into a couple of people that said, hey, I listen to your podcast and I’ve invited them on.

And so they’re going to be coming on. If there is, if you ever want to have a conversation. About motivational and you’re a listener and there’s a question that you have, or you’re like, oh no, I couldn’t do that. Or not. These are the things that I hear from people. I’m like, this is the only reason I do it is not to hear myself talk.

The reason I do this is because I want people like you to jump into the conversation with me and pick my brain and stretch my brain and, and talk about things that you’re the most interested in. So it’s just another time that I’m going to keep throwing those invitations out there. Okay. You know, to reach out to us and just say, Hey, I’ve got some things.

Could I be on the podcast? I can tell you that more often than not, the answer is going to be yes. I want you to, I want, I want to hear what your thoughts are. And if you disagree with me, that’s totally fine. Like this is a chance and a space for people that are interested in these topics to really be able to dive deeper into it and really, you know, flesh it out and see what, where does this fit in my life and, and can this help me be who I want to be pressed professionally or personally?

So yeah, I just want to keep. Putting that invitation out there to anybody that’s listening to the podcast. Awesome.

I appreciate you so much, Casey and all the listeners. We appreciate you beyond measure. It’s incredible. Thanks for trying to be that change in the world and actually doing it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We’ll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.com. That’s Casey@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit I F I O C dot com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss: The Impact of Stress During Holidays: Discussion on the increasing stress levels during the holiday season and its effects on relationships. * Motivational Interviewing vs. Healthy Communication: Differentiating between motivational interviewing techniques and general healthy communication practices. * The Role of Brain Science in Communication: Exploring how understanding brain science can improve communication, especially under stress. * Aligning Behavior with Values: The importance of aligning one’s behavior with personal values during the stressful holiday season. * Empathy in Family Dynamics: Strategies for employing empathy to reduce tension and improve engagement within family interactions. * Ethical Considerations in Changing Family Dynamics: Ethical implications of attempting to change family members’ behaviors to align with personal desires. * The Importance of Celebrating Rituals and Joy: A discussion on the significance of maintaining rituals and finding joy in holiday traditions. * Navigating Expectations and Boundaries: How to manage expectations and maintain healthy boundaries with family and friends during the holidays. * The Spirit of the Holiday Season Beyond Clinical Tools: Reflecting on the essence of the holiday spirit beyond just clinical communication strategies. * Self-Reflection and Personal Growth*: Emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and personal growth in improving communication and relationships.

Transcribe Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution.

Hey, welcome everyone. This is Danielle Cantin. I am facilitating the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hi guys. Hey. Hey, hey, thanks so much for joining us today. I’ve got a fun topic for us to discuss. The holidays are upon us, and it seems like it starts earlier and earlier every year.

And I’m just curious as I’m starting to interact more and more with friends and family. And talking to other people and the stress that creeps up. So I thought that’d be a great topic to dive into. Just stress in general around the holidays and where that little segue or interaction is or how motivational interviewing could potentially help.

This is one of those ones, Danielle, that I think it’ll be fun to differentiate healthy communication from motivational interviewing. There. Because fundamentally motivationally, the constructs that I think would work well during stressful times or stressful family situations are things where are you trying to reduce resistance or tension or discord?

Absolutely. For some people during the holidays, that is, that would be a gift, under the tree is if there’s a little less stress or discord amongst family members or friends. So there’s aspects of MI that we know that can do that. But it’s not fundamentally, well, maybe it is about behavior change.

But then there’s more, I know John would love to dive into the ethics of trying to get your family members to change, just because you want them to, and is that, am I, but I think it is a fascinating topic to talk about it. What I would even launch a little bit with is just my brain goes to brain science because I’m just so immersed in that right now, just trying to understand better and look at trauma.

And the more pressure we feel, I think your point, especially about how early it starts now, you know, I know in our house, it was the day after Halloween that Christmas tree started going up, which tends to draw a lot of ire from some people, like it’s, you do not do that before Thanksgiving and, you know, just so already it creates tension.

It makes us happy and that’s pretty much our behavior in line with our values. But I think when it starts earlier, the pressure starts more and more and. Again, I think there’s combining features. I think one of the features to me is that when we know we’re moving to the holidays as adults, what we know is, Hey, if I can get a little extra time off or, you know, which means I’m trying to get all my ducks in a row before I leave work, which creates stress.

And then you get home because you’re probably working a few more extra hours or trying to get more things done. And then it feels like there’s a little different pressure. It just is going to pull us into our limbic system, that emotional system, or maybe into the fight flight freeze system, which makes us a little more on edge or a little more nervy, when people are putting more expectation on us.

So, and then usually people that oversee us have their stressors. So then they’re saying, Hey, I need you to pick this thing up. And you’re like, well, I’m ready to try to pick up extra things. Cause I’m trying to take some extra time off. And I’ve got to get all this stuff done. And then we’ve got this party we need to go to.

And I don’t even want to go to this party. And, you know, we’ve got to go and I’ve got to go to my spouse’s party and I don’t even want to do that. So the brain is just going to start to get more and more in that defense. Motor that fight, flight freeze mode. And then all of a sudden the holidays become not fun.

For people, you know, and whose families do we have to hit and, and, you know, which friends do we have to go visit? And, and all of a sudden the joy starts to seep out of, you know, a time of the year. That’s supposed to be, you know, wonderful for at least in construct, it’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

And then it’s been some of the most miserable time of the year. So that’s just off the top of my head, kind of rambling about some thoughts that I have. Well, yeah. And that’s where I’m kind of curious, Casey, what you think about this be related to EMI and healthy communication, because, you know, we were just at the international conference for this with, with mint, a little recently.

And It’s like, is it, is it motivational interview and becoming just helpful communication? It’s like, well, there’s a, there’s a differentiation here of what is my, and what is healthy communication. So you were starting about that and getting into kind of the thinking around the holidays. And so I’m just kind of wondering what you think might be, some key distinct factors there or things that, you know, this is really where the, some of the pieces of MI you think would come in such as empathy or some of these others Versus, you know, maybe other pieces like strategically responding to change talk or other things that maybe you don’t do as much for, you know, communication with your family.

I don’t know what are your thoughts about the difference there practically or concretely or more tangibly. I, you know, you and I discussed this quite a bit. I remember the ethics, you know, breakout session, I went to motivation being an ethics and I told you part of my itchiness around that was that people were talking about applications of MI and then acknowledging it might not score high in, in a spirit of motivational interviewing or what we call the intentions with the MICA.

And I think, well, then it’s not motivational interviewing. You know, I think, I think that’s where we get looped in. It’s like, well, I tried to use that mind. Then you listen to the conversation like, well, you did reflective listening and you did open ended questions, but that’s not motivational interviewing.

You know, I, I always talk about that, you know, that’s flour, sugar and butter, but that doesn’t make it grandma’s recipe, but everybody thinks if you’re using flour, sugar and butter, it’s just a variation of grandma’s recipe. But the difference between a chocolate lava cake and an oatmeal cookie is significantly different, even though they both use flour and sugar.

They’re not even close to the same thing. And I think people confuse communication skills with a communication style. Um. So, and what tends to happen when you use communication skills with friends or family, and you’re trying to use skills, people feel like you’re trying to therapize them or counsel them and can be very off putting, and almost offensive that it’s like, you know, stop talking down to me, you know, it, it just can create all sorts of dynamics, which is to me, the antithesis of empathy, of people feeling deeply heard and understood, that’s a mindset.

I think even more so over the years, I realized it’s more of a mindset than it is even a skill set for people to feel deeply hurt and understood. So those are the things that I think of right out of the gate in terms of where people try to say, like you were talking about, I love is, you know, is helpful conversation motivational interviewing.

Well, no. It could be the difference between a, an oatmeal cookie and a chocolate chip cookie, you know, but there’s still two different recipes, even though most of the things you’re doing are similar motivationally is such a specific, you know, method of communication that is measurable and you’re either doing it or you’re not doing it.

You can be doing aspects of it. But are you doing all of it? That’s, that’s a whole different mindset. So that’s why I love what Danielle brought up. And what you’re bringing up is if we’re talking motivational interviewing, I wouldn’t say here’s how you use motivation during the holidays, that would feel like an unethical or, misappropriated.

Use of motivational interviewing, here’s how you can be empathetic to reduce tension and increase engagement and a sense of stability in your family. Absolutely. I think that’s a great lane for us to travel down, you know, I just have a couple of things popped out for me in a big way there, because I had a very interesting conversation recently and, you know, I’m not practiced in.

Using motivational interviewing, however, the gifts of all the training and being around like osmosis with you guys. I was able to really, I think, do something quite cool with someone I love who was really, really struggling with the pressures. Not only that you described at the start of this podcast, but also the pressures and ideas from childhood of what we took on as this should be something we do.

And then you go through losses and family members and parental figures and all of a sudden you’re like, do I hold on to these things that were actually kind of instituted by them? And is that really mine? There’s. So much going on and I was able to, I feel have empathy and listen to somebody I care about deeply actually was just last night and what I was so proud of myself for was recognizing, oh, your stress is coming from you want to change other people’s behavior.

And you want the values to align with yours. And I’m like, Oh God, if I can just, I was so proud of myself for just recognizing that through all the stuff. And then to try to help redirect her, like all you can do with your decision about what you want to do around, in this case it was Christmas, is just really get in touch with your values and make sure that whatever decision you make, that behavior aligns with your values and let go of.

The other thing that popped for me, as you were talking was expectations, expectations that of anybody else and how they might react to your behavior and your values. And, and so it was, it was really something, it was like one of those things where I was like. So grateful for you guys, because I’m not sure I would have ever been able to have that, that, I just jotted it down.

It’s not communication skill. It’s a communication style, you know, that I think that’s so important. It, I think that’s a practical application of when we talk about the communication solution versus motivational interviewing. I mean, I think that is part of the solution in communication is that high accurate empathy and high accurate empathy, and then going into the values.

I it’s, you know, the first thing that clicked when you were talking about that, Danielle is, you know, in my life around the holidays, it really has reinforced is your behavior in line with your values because it’s stress. Increased in my life, I can feel myself getting more short tempered or more frustrated or more anxiety ridden as the holidays came in and from training at my salon, I kept thinking your behavior is not in line with your values.

It just is not. And, and the monumental task I can feel like sometimes to go, okay, what would it take to you to get your behavior in line with your values? And it’s like, but I can’t because I’m so stressed. It takes a deeper level of focus and intention to go, can I get my ship right? You know, can I get myself back on track and get my behavior in line with it?

When everything in you, your whole brain is getting sucked into that emotional reaction or that, you know, that more frustration or aggression or the, you know, fight, fight, freeze. And when everything is pulling you there to kind of claw your way back up into your, you know, prefrontal cortex and your executive functioning, that’s just takes a concerted effort, especially when all your human triggers are getting.

Flipped on, you know, and all your buttons are getting pushed and everything wants to have this reaction. The thing for me that really catalyzed it was having children is I just thought I was raised, even though my family had its own stress and chaos, my mother was just so. Enamored and obsessed with ritual and the joy of ritual.

And that rubbed off on me, not everybody in my family, but it rubbed off on me. So I have this just profound joy around ritual, even though we were, you know, I was raised in kind of probably borderline poverty and. It just, I had joy around the holidays and I’d have disappointments and everything else, but I, to this day, I feel magic around the holidays because I choose to believe in the magic of the holidays and I have, you know, the twins are 14 now and one is definitely not a believer, you know, kind of that, that.

Facade was cracked for her, probably about four. Cause she was always advanced for age, but probably admitted when she was probably 11 or 12, like, yeah, there’s no such thing. And my other 14 year old twin, is a believer today’s, this is the year that she’s writing the, tell me the truth, Santa letter at 14 and all of her friends make fun of her.

But she leans more that direction of, I believe, I just believe, you know, and I just tell her, I still believe you’re. Your grandma believes, like we, you know, your, your dad believes. We just believe in Santa. We believe in the magic of the holidays and you can feel the shift. If you believe you can feel the shift when either the, the weather changes a little bit, or the leaves start to fall.

You can feel a shift. You know, I can feel that shift viscerally. I can feel the shift. And that to me is the start of the spirit, and the shift in, in the world and the perception of the world. But that’s how I perceive it. Some people feel that shift and start getting nauseous and depressed and anxiety ridden and angry as they feel that shift.

And this goes back to what you had just talked about. Is your behavior in line with your values? What would it look like if your behavior is aligned with your values? And when I had children, I was very clear. I want my behavior to be in line with my values. Because that, that’s my vision. If I’m watching the movie screen of my life, that’s one that I’m going to be sitting there after the lights come up and just staring at the screen going, I am so impressed with how that played out.

That’s who I want to be when I grow up. And that’s, that’s how Casey talks to himself about is your behavior in line with your values is, is the gift is not the gift, but when you think about, all right, I’m going to shore up my values, my behavior with my values. And I’m, I’m having to interact with somebody who has a completely different experience.

Like you said, you have joy, others could be triggered by depression. Is it then just honoring that difference and allowing the other person to not poop on your parade? But also don’t poop on theirs and kind of let, let every, however it plays out. Is that like the forgiveness? The kind of,

I think that’s the mindset behind it. For me, it didn’t feel like that might be enough. And again, I don’t need to fix or change their perspective, but it goes back to, it just. Sure. When I was talking about this, it just triggered me about the whole movie screen analogy. And when, you know, I was actively a clinical therapist, you know, with with a practice, that was one of the things that I would always have clients think about is when you look on that movie screen and.

Whoever the actor is playing you, how would they play this situation out that when you walk away from that scene, you’re like, Oh my God, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Like, how can I be like that? So it’s not just handling with grace. There’s more of an intention or an activation of how do I know the situation was better than it would have been if I wasn’t in the scene, how did they walk away?

So I may not fix their perspective. I don’t need to fix their perspective. That’s not my job. But how did I do it in a way that I think has components of grace? Like you talked about, how do you do it in a way? That’s just honoring. But there needs to be something else that there’s something that I did, that the person walks away.

And I think what clicked in my brain is maybe they went from pre contemplation to contemplation, or that I shine something about them that has a beauty or a purity or a hope, Or desire for hope that I could reflect that back in a way that something activated in their brain that they’re like, I wish I could, or I’d like to be and just, I guess, from an perspective that it just initiated a little bit of change talk, not because I’m trying to change their behavior.

But just that it was granting them, a life preserver when they feel like they’re just drowning, you know, and all of a sudden they get a full, you know, full capacity air in their lungs again, for the first time in a while. And if I can do that, that’s different than just. You know, allowing them to be where they are, not triggering.

So I think that for me that I just want to make sure that if I watched that movie of myself in that scene, that what I did, I was all inspired by, not because I’m trying to be inspirational, but just because it was such a beautiful thing to do or provide for another human being that their place in the world or their space in the world is just a bit better because we interacted versus if we hadn’t.

So I think it’s just a little bit, there’s just a little bit, something extra. To that than just, you know, offering grace or, you know, not being judgmental. It just feel like there’s just a little bit extra that tries to ignite a little bit of hope in them, if that makes sense. Wow. It’s beyond making sense to me.

It’s that’s profound. And it always, I always say, I’m going to, I’m going to hold it together when I get on these podcasts, but I always get a little teary eyed when, when there’s an opportunity to, help somebody be better or live a higher quality life. That’s really awesome.

Yeah. I can see you’re going to have a thought, but I can definitely share and chime in here if you want. Well, the thing I just want to, what I appreciate about these, when we get in this level of conversation is, transparency about that. Like I liked being able to have the real questions that you bring up because it lets me talk very transparently and less clinically About what we do and I think this you know, we’re talking about now.

I’m gonna get emotional I’m gonna talk about the spirit of seasons, you know, and we’re talking about the spirit of the seasons. That is not a clinical tool That’s beyond the intention of motivational interviewing. That’s just how do we Engage each other in a way that just, let’s put the chaos and the insanity of the world to the side for a minute and just, can we just look at each other and just go, Hey, you know, I know you want it to be okay.

I want it to be okay. Let’s just, just right now, let’s just be us, be okay. And if you and I can be okay, even if we don’t agree right now, like, I mean, just be okay and just have a real conversation and not have to be on the defense and that would be, I think that just contributes to a better holiday season.

And John, what were you thinking? Well, there’s, there’s so many things here around, you know, Danielle, what you brought up and Casey, what you’re getting at with. You know, things related to, am I like compassion for other people and Danielle, what you’re talking about of what do you grow up with and, and am I motivational interviewing is not a psychoanalysis tool that gets into our childhood and gets into the beliefs that we’ve come up with and our cultural constructed a container that we grow up in that creates certain types of.

Ways of being in the world beliefs. Right. And I just want to highlight that that’s a big container that if we’re talking about Western American culture versus, you know, I don’t know, Hindu Indian culture versus a different, but we’re, we’re talking about a Western lens right now and that it’s important that that has some similarities, but, you know, other people might have different experiences in the holidays for whatever reason, but that.

Yeah. Your family growing up and how you’ve been modeled or not with things like empathy will really matter to how you treat that person, Danielle, the person you might have a lot of compassion and fall into the fixing reflex. If you haven’t been exposed to as much demonstration of understanding, like Casey, you’re, you’re really bringing up here as a key thing.

And if you haven’t been modeled that and, or you don’t have as much skill, I know I’m still working on that skill. That it takes a lot of practice and discipline to work on expressing what it must be like for others when especially we’re just used to saying, no, well, I think this or, oh, I can relate to that because I’ve had this experience and I, I, I mean, me, me, and we’re just used to doing it because that’s how we operate.

And so to not to have the modeling of that. And just the awareness that that’s a thing versus the experience when we get it from a good friend or a therapist of what empathy feels like that’s its own thing. And the compassion, Danielle, that you’re talking about, you’re seemingly like you’re feeling is its own thing.

And they tend to get conflated like, oh, if I’m compassionate, I’m in. I’m an empathic being, right? And we know they’re distinctly important and distinctly different. The one thing that I wanted to bring up around this is there’s so much around values you both are getting at. Like, do I want to connect with those people in my family?

Or there’s certain people I want to just have healthy boundaries around, but still respect them and honor them. You can do that too. And just get clear, how much am I doing this out of my own sense of obligatory connection so I don’t feel judged. By other people and how much am I doing this with a sense of integrity that tries to balance that with my own sense of being in the world and in a way that tries to not have me feel selfish.

And that helps me feel like I’m making an impact on my friend that might be depressed or my family member that’s really struggling. How much do you balance out these values of a sense of integrity? Your sense of your own self health, your sense of connection with other people. It gets really, it can get really complex, but if you boil it back to what you both are getting at, it’s like, how do I want to be with people and what really matters to me?

And I think it also could go deeper and deeper for people if they wanted to seek therapy around it. But Danielle, what you brought up that’s so powerful is, okay, what do I have control over in this moment? It’s trying to listen deeply. And listen for their perspective. Like you’re talking about Casey, listen for what motivates them and what’s important to them.

And if I care enough about connecting with them or contributing to them, which is a big, if around the holidays, certain people, depending on your own triggers and all that stuff, then if you do the spirit of, am I treating them with compassion, being curious about their thoughts and ideas, supporting their choice, things like this, treating them as an equal person.

That’s a thing that can be used in multiple conversations, even if you don’t use all the other components of MI. So I think there’s, there’s pieces of the recipe you’re talking about, Casey, that can be really helpful for how we see and treat others. But I also think there’s an internal sense of, do I have healthy boundaries or am I doing this obligatorily and building resentment and contempt for a lot of the situation?

And I think that’s its own kind of navigation of your personal values. And what you really want, how you want to communicate with others. So that was just some thoughts going through, you know, the thing that, that that brings up for me is when you look through kind of a Western holiday model, or you leave the Western model and you look, you know, more globally, it, it seemed, I think we’re some, it seems like it’s hard to reconcile is that every culture has celebration.

And. And celebration is when you think of the concept of celebration, it just kind of lightens you up and you think we get to celebrate no matter what the culture is, no matter what the struggle is, no matter what are the, you know, socioeconomic political issues are going on. Celebration is celebration.

What makes sense to me when I look through any of those different lenses or look through my own lens, when you’d have no reason to celebrate, if you’re in a war torn country or your parents are abusing you or drinking and fighting with each other. There’s not a lot to celebrate. So while everybody is celebrating, it makes the distance between your experience and their experience so vast, that chasm is so wide and so deep.

It can just develop such a resentment or an anger. So not only are you experiencing the trauma. You’re having these imprints about what celebration is that has kind of this antithetical effect, you know, that it’s just like, this is the exact opposite of what celebration is supposed to be. But when you’re feeling the exact opposite of other people celebrating, whatever that celebration is, if you, again, if you know, there’s bullets flying over your head or you’re, you’ve been separated from your children, there’s really not a lot to celebrate.

And I think this is what has given me goosebumps just thinking about it. But I think this is where in spite of that, how do people find hope now? And then, which is a whole different podcast, because when, you know, the things that you and I listened to, what Miller was talking about, about hope and the research behind it is in spite of.

You know, adversity in spite of, you know, trauma, when people access hope, it actually improves outcomes. But then how do you expect people to access hope in the middle of trauma? You know, and, and, and stress. But this phenomenally, you know, dynamic thing, you know, in our skull puts us in a place where we have the capacity to do such amazing things and just having the cognition to go, do I want to go down this path emotionally, or do I want to try to.

Raise myself up into my values to have the resiliency from childhood and protective factor that you can even do that. So even though we’re raised in the same neighborhood, it doesn’t mean our brain developed exact the same or raised in the same family, depending on what our protective factors and our resiliency is and that plasticity.

And then since it is the holidays or or the season, what I think of is it, and then what’s in your spirit, you know? Different people in the same family are born with a different spirit. And so is there just something that there’s a gravitational pull that I will succeed. I want to believe I want to see the best in people.

I want to rise above. I want to be the best I can be in spite of my circumstances is, you know, those are things we can talk about protective factors that we know of that we can measure. But then I think there’s a whole, you know, spirit side of it, of, you know, what. Did this person, what makes them tick beyond their body?

Why are they here beyond their body? I mean, now we’re really getting into the holiday season and the spirit of the season. But I think all of those things contribute to how do I want to show up? Where do I want to put my attention? What do I have control over? And this is why for me, when I can go all the way from the spirit side to the, and of one side, what I have, you know, some choice over is how do I open my mouth and what am I going to say?

There’s all the things I want to say, but what am I going to choose to say in this moment? Because which one is going to get me the outcome that I most want? And that’s what brings down to effective communication. And, and clarity and mindset. Daniel, you, you were about to jump in. I just wanted to throw in like, what am I experiencing and what do I want to experience?

And I think there’s, there’s a self reflective component that you and Daniel are getting out here. Around how much is it my role and how much do I really want to help that friend or family member that’s really struggling and how much am I aware that this is how I want to be in that movie of my life?

How much have I self reflected on these things? What are my values and what does it mean to feel connected with certain people in my family? But still operate from a place of integrity. What does that even look like? What does that sound like? I’m not very practiced in empathy, for example. So how would I even express that beyond?

I understand. And how would I even start that process with? You sound like you’re frustrated, right? Like just these different, there is skill sets and there is awareness is, I guess what I’m saying. Putting on the table here to self reflect on and get clear about. And that’s where talking with a good friend or therapist seems like there’s possibility there to help inform your M I to be the most potent with your M I skill set and awareness as possible.

But at the same time, you don’t have to have that. You could have just a sense of what am I picking up from M I. On how I treat people and how I see them, like you’re talking about, Casey, that I think is really important that you don’t have to have all that. It’s the lens in which I see other people and how I want to treat them.

And also, how do I want to treat myself and look at myself with compassion as well? I think all of that can create this sort of sense that you’re talking about, Casey. Sorry, Daniel, you were going to jump in with something there. No, I think this is great. And as we move to like final thoughts, I, I know what mine is and my takeaway.

And I want to thank you guys for it because. The movie, analogy is really helpful and also the acknowledgement that there are many people who don’t have quote, unquote, something to celebrate. I’ve experienced, you know, deep loss in my life and have been around other people who have experienced and are going through deep, deep grieving and loss and pain and.

So many different things. And you said it again, it’s that, that word I’ll, I think will always work into a podcast, which is hope. And it’s like, what if there’s always reason to celebrate hope? And if in, when I think of my movie, I’m like, Oh, whoever I’m interacting with, what, what’s aligned with my values.

And it’s like, Oh, if I can help that person walk away with a little bit more hope. Then maybe they had before they encountered me. That’s a good life. So this, this really helped me. So thank you. And I want to pass it to you guys for final thoughts, but. Super, super helpful. Thank you. But my final thought is just, I think if there’s a gift for yourself, for anyone, it’s just the gift of grace for yourself that whether you love the holidays or don’t love the holidays, it’s not always easy, just giving yourself grace that, you know, you just want it, you’re trying to do your best and you want to do the best and, and.

I think when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, when we talk about, you know, just ambivalence, I think it is just kind of looking at that movie screen and just going, what, what would be a profound interaction on that screen that would make you feel better. So when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do, I think sometimes that just helps to take, take a step outside of yourself and look at that movie screen and go, how would I deal with this in a way that I would just be profoundly in awe.

Of how that person navigated the situation. And sometimes that can move us to a better place when our brain just feels so stressed and overwhelmed. So, but that’s my thought is just grace for ourselves that, you know, life is not easy and when it may be a time for celebration, that that’s not always easy for all people either.

So I’ll just, lastly, this sense of grace for ourselves and compassion to build resilience, that some people, um. You know, grow up with extremist situations that I’ve only heard of and experienced with participants in trainings. That is just horrendous with adverse childhood experiences. And that resiliency can be very difficult to build.

So what is it that, as you think about yourself listening to this, what is it that builds resiliency? You know, we know sleep is really important for not being triggered. And so what are the things that build your own? Self compassion. Where did things go too far? If you’re talking with someone, either someone that’s triggering you and your family, how do you, how do you be that person in the movie?

But how do you set yourself up so that you’re not feeling so triggered? You can’t be that person. How do you set yourself up to have that resiliency in that moment of good restedness, centeredness, groundedness, What do you need and how do you not stretch yourself so thin that you start to have those triggers or build resentment and, or come in with contempt.

And I think creating that self health, compassion, taking care of ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally. Casey, you were talking about spiritually. How do you do that in a way to be your best self? And am I as one way to have a lens to treat other people when you can operate from that place? I love that.

I love how you brought it back to self care and, and compassion. So that’s awesome. Thank you. I hope everybody listening, you got as much out of this as I did. Keep, keep just really tuning into you and your values and, really appreciate you guys. Thanks for joining and we’ll catch you on the next podcast.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send Them our way at Casey@ifioc.com. That’s Casey@ifioc.com.

For more information or to schedule a training visit ifioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* Casey Jackson shares his excitement about the recent MINT conference and his annual attendance. * MINT stands for the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, a global community of trainers and practitioners. * The founders of MINT are committed to making motivational interviewing accessible and international. * Over 50% of the board members of MINT are from outside the United States, emphasizing its global reach. * The conference alternates between locations in North America and international venues, fostering diversity. * Casey and Danielle discuss the sense of community and connection with like-minded individuals at the conference. * Dr. Bill Miller’s research on hope is highlighted, emphasizing the importance of optimism and perseverance. * Casey illustrates how he translated Dr. Miller’s insights into practical advice to help his nephew in a difficult situation. * The podcast emphasizes the value of motivational interviewing as a method to improve communication, understanding, and human connection.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi everyone. This is Danielle Cantin, your facilitator for the communication solution, a podcast with Casey Jackson here, and we’re going to talk about everything that we love about motivational interviewing. It particularly excited Casey to hear about mint, the conference you just came back from the international conference.

You go to it every year. And for those of you listening, thank you so much for joining us. And just so you know, MINT is the motivational interviewing network of trainers. So let’s chat with Casey. How did it go? Tell us about it. It was awesome. I mean, I look forward to it every year. I will say that part of my part of my bias is that I just get to connect with people from around the world that I just are dear, dear, dear friends.

I mean, Just imagine, Danielle, if you know, I know you attend a lot of things that if you get to go to a conference specifically with people from your own kind of cut from the same tribal cloth that you’re cut from, and then imagine 400 people cut from that, from that cloth, that’s, that’s the, that’s the magic that I get to participate in, you know, annually, one of the things that’s fascinating about, I think that I’m so in awe of.

The founders of motivation and what the board has really focused on. Is making sure that it is accessible. And that really is an international group. You know, so often when I’m doing a training, people say, well, you know, how does my deal with cultural differences and, and, gender differences? And does my respond to this respond this way, or does it cross cultures?

And what I love about it, even on the. On the board level, there’s an expectation that over 50 percent are not there. They’re outside of the U. S. So over 50 percent of the board members and non English speaking. And the other thing that’s really cool, and it’s it’s fun if you like to travel. Is that, they tried to alternate every year that it’ll be within kind of Canada, the United States one year, and then outside of that, on the alternate years.

So this year was in Copenhagen, Denmark, and next year will be in Christchurch, New Zealand. So, but one of them. Best parts is I just get to meet up with people that I just absolutely love and respect and adore who speak the same. Am I language that I do? So it’s just, it’s a wonderful experience.

That’s so awesome. And it sounds like they’re just as committed as you and keep showing up every year, regardless of is in the world. Absolutely. I mean, this has been going on, you know, I was, we, we call it minted. I was minted in 2008, in Ohio. But this has been going on for three 30 years, I believe, the whole gathering of motivation training trainers, has been going on for, for quite a while.

So that’s awesome. Yeah. And you, I, it’s funny, I go to so many events myself, like you mentioned, and sometimes I have to laugh cause I’m like, I’m pretty sure I’m at this one just to see my people. And then I end up something out of the event or the conference anyway, but, but the main driver really is similar for me.

It’s to go find my like minded. Folks to, to kind of reset, you know, well, it’s, it’s good too, because I know that the way that I trained motivationally, I know the way that my brain has evolved the way I look at motivational interviewing. I do, I do stress a bit at times over. Do I drift away from kind of the norm or the bell shaped curve of learning and understanding and articulating motivational interviewing?

What I felt very positive about. Is for the years that I’ve been going now for 15 years that I’ve been going, that I know my brain just tends to process differently and it’s usually stuff starts to click in my brain and I start to pursue that line of thinking and then years later it gets talked about in motivational interviewing.

So, you know, it’s like, I can get a beat on kind of where things are going and just kind of trust that. You know, for what I know as a clinician, for my obsession with motivational interviewing kind of lean into that innovation. So I know in some ways, some of the concepts like focus mountain is still nothing that’s ever been taught in motivational interviewing.

That’s that’s not a concept that’s taught in motivational interviewing, and that’s something I developed, you know, over 10 years ago. And now more people are looking at that and using that concept. So it’s, it’s fun to listen to what your colleagues around the world are doing, where the research is coming out, how people are applying it in very complex situations.

And then looking at my little world of motivational interviewing and who all the people, wonderful people I get to connect with and just go, wow, it’s nice to be. On the leading edge, because my brain is just obsessed with what makes this work so effectively. Why is it so efficient and effective? And how is it having the impact that it’s having?

So the more I get a drill into that, the more I get to kind of connect with people and, and, you know, suss out, fair it out. Why is this working so well? And what’s the latest, the data showing. I love that. I appreciate just, you know, speaking with so many people that train with you within their organizations, really kind of dialing in on that difference that you bring to the table.

Why? Why? I know I’m not the only one obsessed with you. There’s so many, And I think it’s a big piece of it really is. I admire your ability to say, I’m going to check myself. I’m going to see where, where are, where’s my goal around motivational interviewing? How am I training? How does that align with the international association?

And understanding and appreciating that you are, you know, at the forefront. So you are a bit of that innovator and then, and then seeing the, the fallout, not the fallout, but the, the follow up of other people years later, kind of tapping into what you’re doing. I really appreciate your willingness to, to go in and check on that and just say, okay, where am I with what’s happening with the rest of the world?

You know, Daniel, you and I have talked about this. I mean, there’s a thing that I do. It almost triggers an imposter phenomenon. Like when even when you say, you know, I’m so impressed when I see you and I want to be like that. I want to talk like that. And it does trigger an imposter phenomenon. But when you were talking, what strikes me is it’s not what I do.

That’s different. I think it’s what we all want to be doing that we all resonate with. Because it’s not me specifically as Casey Jackson, because I know that’s not, there may be some truth to the way that I present it, but the only thing I’m presenting is what everybody wants to hear and what they’re seeking.

There’s a truth to it. That’s why you and I have debated, you know, do we stick with keep talking about motivational interviewing or whatever. There is a larger communication solution construct out there when we’re looking at brain science behind it as well, too. So everything I’ve learned has been rooted and based in motivational interviewing.

But I think the reason why there’s this global phenomenon with motivational learning is because people are seeking the truth and they’re seeking healing and they want to find their way back to themselves. And, and if they interact with other people, whether you’re a parent or a partner, A psychologist or a social worker or a doctor or a teacher, you just want things to be better for the people you’re working with.

You just want improved outcomes. So I think to be able to take all that information and be able to distill that down into nuggets of learning and teaching that makes sense for people and catalyze that in a way that it feels like this. This resonates with my brain. This resonates with my heart. This resonates with why I’m here.

And can I help improve the quality of life for someone else? That’s not a Casey thing. That’s what we all are trying to do. And I’m just appreciative that people that I’m able to translate it in a way that people feel like, oh, my gosh, I can access this and move my life forward or people around me. I can help them move forward progressively.

So I think that’s why for me, Danielle, You know, it does trigger that bit of an imposter phenomenon, but ultimately I think where we all resonate towards this and why people gravitate towards it is because it’s kind of a homecoming. It’s it’s, you know, there’s a truth to it. There’s a, a logic to it.

There’s an emotional logic to it that really brings people together. And that, that honestly is the foundation of why I get so excited about going to the annual conference every year, the annual gathering every year. You know, I think there’s, there’s a lot of truth to that warm. My heart, when you said what people are really gravitating to is the truth, the authenticity.

I know for me, it’s, it’s a desire and a, a bit of an awe when I hear you speak, but when I hear you speak to the organizations you train, because they’re so eager to help the people they’re working with. And that is so that desire to serve and to help, and not just from, from your perspectives, but to get the results for those people.

So I think that’s the piece that, you know, warms my heart, gets me excited to be able to support you guys, even though I’m not in the trenches doing that kind of work. I too desire and wish, you know, in another lifetime or career that I could be dedicating myself to really, really learning this communication solution.

But I will, I got to jump in here on this little piece about the imposter syndrome and maybe explain a bit more about what is, what I think is Casey, what you bring that is a little bit different and it’s your ability. You mentioned the word to translate. You’re a translator. So I think you’re a really gifted seeing you training with whoever’s in the room, coming at it from their specific brain, not even a brain of a group of people serving, whether it be, let’s just say, law enforcement in a room or in the mental health section, there’s so many people doing different roles.

So it’s not even like you can tap into the brain of that role, which you can, but you have the ability to translate for any brain in the moment. I’ve just seen it too many times to say, to not be able to say, Oh, that’s kind of special. So, I mean, I don’t mean to make you blush or make you uncomfortable, but I do kind of, I guess in a way I’m asking all that already.

Yeah. Am I, am I seeing that piece correctly? Do you think. I, I, I, I, from when I hear it, I get it because I know that that’s what I experience. And what I think of is, I think that’s why people specifically, that’s why I know I found my calling because I get to do what I’m good at, which is high accurate empathy, be able to do that translation to help people get to better outcomes.

And, you know, I think that’s the gravitation towards motivational learning as a construct and then the whole. MINT for you know why so many people gather there from around the world, you know, it’s like, like I said, there’s, I believe it’s in over 27 languages. And I know it’s at least 46 different countries of people are representative that attend that forum.

So you take what you’re talking about or what your experience has been the light that it provides for me and the guidance that I see that provides for others. And then you have people coming together in the same space to talk. Okay. Specifically about that for a week is mind blowing. And then you look at the data that comes out around it.

I, the reason why I get what you’re saying is because it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen him when Bill Miller, when Dr. Miller gets up and does the plenary and you’ve met Dr. Miller in Austin, when he gets up and does his plenary, is there’s just something that’s transformative about the way that he talks because he is.

On one hand, he’s so authentic and there’s a part of him that just has such grace. But then there’s another part of him that is just a deep critical thinking researcher brain. So to watch that magic come together of just a very analytical brain talking about the research behind hope. And what the research shows and the potency of hope, there’s just a moment that happens.

And so you’re just like, ah, I’m in the presence of this genius, who can take all this information and synthesize it so simply in a way that I feel like I can apply it to my life. And that’s the magic that happens, when you’re in these, you know, some amazing breakouts in, in the MINT Forum. I had, there’s, there are several that were.

Just really impactful for me. 1 of the things that Miller actually distinguish between, he did a whole thing. His his new research that he’s working on now and going to write a book around is the research around hope specifically, and he’s going to. Get into it started sharing some of his preliminary findings.

One of the things that he shared and I applied this in less than 12 hours Was he was talking about the differences? he’s going through these striations of hope and different elements of what you can measure and and how critical is he was talking about the difference between the data around just basically Pessimists and optimists, just the fundamental quality of life data, that the quality of life for optimists are better than those of pessimists.

And, but the research shows around that, and on one hand, you would think, well, that would make sense because an optimist, no matter how bad their situation is going to think that it’s a good situation versus a pessimist, no matter how good the situation is, they’re gonna think it’s bad. But he said, no, when we get into indicators of health.

Psychological safety. All these other indicators that there’s just the data bears this out. The other thing from an M. I. Perspective, he was talking about in terms of self fulfilling prophecy in terms of that. If you think somebody can be successful, you’re right. And if you think somebody just doesn’t have the capacity successful, you’re probably right in your interaction with them.

So he’s pulling all this, the research behind these concepts that we hear in pop psychology, so. He was pulling together from a data perspective. One of the things that he said that I used immediately was he was talking about the difference between persistence and perseverance. And, and I ended up using it with my nephew.

It was having significant relationship issues and texted me. I’m, you know, and laying in my bed in Copenhagen and, and, get this text message and my nephew’s struggling and kind of a meltdown of a relationship. And, you know, I’m such a good guy and why do people take advantage of me? And why don’t I get loved the way that I love other people?

And it was a perfect time. And it was so magical because I texted him back a response. And basically what I told him is persistence is continuing to pursue people. That are not going to love you the way that you love them. That’s persistence. Perseverance is continuing to love people. Knowing somebody out there is going to find you love finally love you the way that you love them.

So stop persisting with the people that, you know, we’re not going to love you back, but keep with your perseverance of knowing somebody out there is going to love you the same way you love them 1 day and. Let his next response was, that’s all I needed to hear it’s like, and he’d sent me this extremely long text message, but it was so the way that I’d framed it for him and, and, and teased it out.

It just was an immediate kind of relief for his brain. And I thought, here, I am translating what Dr Miller’s talking about today in a plenary session and translating into the real world. For somebody that doesn’t even know who Dr. Miller is and immediately applies it to their life in a way that they feel a sense of relief, and some unburdening of stress on their brain.

So I think those are the things that fascinate me about how we take all this brand new things that come out all the time on motivational interviewing. How do you build on something that was such an effective model to start with? And this is again, my obsession with attending the forum and being part of that.

I think that’s so brilliant. I got goosebumps when you explain the difference because it’s a way to action hope, right? Cause it’s like, Oh, I’ve been hurt. So you don’t want to. You need to pursue something that you might not be getting what you need back. And the same turn that could flip you into closing off your heart and yourself.

So perseverance is like loving and trusting that what you need is going to come back to you. Oh, I love it. And then you put it all with science. Cause I’m like, I get all of that. And I know it and I trust it. But I’m so woo woo and I kind of, I’ve got the science piece, but not like you guys. And I love that science is backing this stuff up.

Love it. And then also just a little, Oh, sorry. Yeah, no, I was just gonna say another tidbit that I love that you said is you action, you actioned on what you learned. And that’s something I had just heard at a conference. I went to my friend actually. It’s friends with Richard Branson. And, I was like, what is the key thing that you love about him that you see that he does?

And she said, he, he takes action immediately, immediately on an idea. Like he’ll, he surrounds himself with entrepreneurs, does all these different stuff. And it’s like, if he’s got something, he, he takes action on it. So I thought that was kind of cool. Well, that’s it. And when you look at that from a motivational lens, that’s commitment talk.

We can talk about change. We can talk about we want to get healthy. We can talk about that. We want to do this. You know, I should eat healthier. I should be healthier. I should be nicer. I should do this. I should do this. That’s change talk, which is amazing. But research shows it will not change unless you catalyze change talk and.

Converted to commitment talk, which is action. So what you pick up and what you know already anecdotally is some of the foundations of what we know creates effective communication and behavior change. I love that. Yeah. And lots of data to back it up. So, yeah. So being able to get together then with, with people from around the world and have those conversations and see that in action, there, there is a magic to it.

There is a homecoming to it where. Just even certain faces that you see and to know that this is on that, that, that this, you know, these people go back to their lives and their countries and they’re influencing people and having them. In fact, there’s just something that, that just feels this kind of this web connection, you know, that stretches around the planet, of people that genuinely are trying to do this.

They, they did a video this year. And so, you know, just had people kind of line up as where it’s a welcome thing. Just said, Hey, would you talk for a second into the camera? And, what is it that you like about mint, being part of mint? And, you know, I was standing with one person from Australia and another person from the UK and, and all three of us just talked about that.

It’s like. To be able to see into the eyes of another person that, that thinks the way you think, and here’s the way that you hear and processes data, the way that you process data, even though we’re completely different parts of the world, there is something about a connectivity or humanity to that that is fascinating.

And when you look at the linguistics or language differences or cultural differences or religious differences. And they’re all in this room, 400 people, you know, 1200 people, I think in the organization, 400 people at the conference. But to know this common bond, this common connection is that we all genuinely try to operate from a high place of empathy that we see the potency in that, that you can see the potency when people, when human beings.

Irrespective of culture or gender, when human beings get clear what their values are, it does help their behavior move forward. It helps. It provides clarity and that we have a structure and communication to be able to orchestrate that and and offer that to people is just, it’s, it’s a little dizzying to me when you and I talk about it, even right now, it’s just like, it’s almost in retrospect, and it could be partially.

Jet lag, and sleep deprivation that I’m getting that dizzying effect from being back to school recently. But I look back on that and think that is just not normal. Like, that’s just not a normal occurrence that people get experience on a regular basis. And I think that’s why I, it holds such a, a strong place in my heart because.

It’s like minded people that are developing a mastering a skill set and sharing it with other people of how can we effectively try to help evolve humanity as humanity chooses to be evolved individually, when there’s so much chaos and conflict in the world right now, it’s just been, it’s been fascinating.

Yeah, it’s, just again, the training. We’re going to do in January for be the change. And, I think for all the listeners too, as I look to, to wrap up this segment, I would love to share my takeaway for them and then have you expound on it or, or correct me if I’m wrong. But when I think about the listeners, some of them might have taken training, might be familiar with motivational interviewing.

And then of course we know there’s, there’s others who aren’t, but are looking for that solution that are looking for that empathy, that way of communicating. Which is why we call it the communication solution. Right. So it’s, it’s also for those people who like me didn’t know what the heck is motivational interviewing.

This is incredible. So when I hear you talk about this, I feel like somebody who isn’t. Actively using motivational interviewing and wants to keep learning. I feel really, confident in understanding there is that web out there internationally, that the science is there, the data, and also the constant striving to expand it.

Is very exciting as well, because we are such a dynamic society across all different countries as well, that it’s a organization that’s constantly changing with what’s happening and assessing, assessing it with, with those things in mind. So is that the value, do you think, you know, just kind of wrap up for the listeners?

I do. I think there’s the value in that. And I think it ties into what we were kind of, you know, in my trying to not defend myself. From the high praise that you provide. I think it’s the same thing. It’s that we are all seeking that as well, too. You know, that there, that there’s a method we can find and master to actualize that and embody that in our lives.

And, and I think this ties into what Miller was talking about with hope that it increases my sense of optimism. It increases my sense of hope and my belief in people. The more that I get out of my own head and listen to my own values and then look at the values of other human beings, there’s, there’s a way to a betterness, there’s a way to a healthierness, there’s a way to an enlightenment.

Part of this that while we’re here, that life can be better for us individually and collectively. And, and if there’s a method we can learn on how to interface with each other more effectively to do that and embody that and embrace that and create that sign me up, which is why I signed up, you know, over 20 years ago, because it’s like, well, this, this could be it.

And, and, I have not once been let down by it. Not once has this, the construct, That I pursued been let down by it’s it’s things exponentially get better when we operate from a, not only our own values, but when we’re really are trying to be person centered and helping and healing others from my lived experience, I can say that.

Wow. That’s incredible. What a test. What’s what a testimony. Awesome. Well, I think, you know, maybe Episode we can dive into a couple takeaways that you’ve gotten from the, from the conference. But essentially, Casey, you had me at Hope . It was such a great . You had me at Hope . Awesome. Thank you. Good, good.

We appreciate you and thanks listeners for being here. Remember, there’s hope there is a solution out there to better communication in happier and healthier lives. So thanks for joining us, Casey. Thank you so much. We’ll see you next time. Excellent. Thank you. Take care.

For more information or to schedule a training. Visit IFIOC.com until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* Attributes Over Degrees: The discussion highlights the importance of practitioner attributes over formal degrees or labels in driving effective communication and positive outcomes. * Efficiency of Outcomes: Assessing parameters related to sustained talk and change talk within the first five minutes of an interaction can be an indicator of effectiveness, emphasizing the efficiency of outcomes. * Challenging Norms: The evolving approach to communication challenges traditional systems and structures, pushing professionals to embody essential attributes. * Integration and Synergy: The hosts and guest contemplate the integration of these attributes across various fields and the potential synergy it can create in diverse roles, from health coaching to therapy. * The Power of Compassion and Empathy: The episode underscores the profound impact of compassion, empathy, and positive regard in improving communication and positively influencing others. * Hope as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The concept of hope is explored further, emphasizing its role in shaping self-fulfilling prophecies and outcomes. * Assessment and Competencies: The importance of developing assessments and competencies related to practitioner attributes is highlighted for various professional roles. * Challenging Established Practices: The hosts and guest discuss how this evolving perspective may challenge established practices and systems within different industries. * The Ongoing Conversation: The episode concludes with a commitment to continue exploring these crucial topics in future podcasts, acknowledging their complexity and importance.

TranscribeWe hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment. Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton. Here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC, we love to talk about communication, we love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Well, it really sounds like a sort of Way like that. I’ll talk about and I’m open to correction here, but like a way of being, you know, is what they talked about with Carl Rogers, but almost like some way of treating not. And you could say that similar, but then also embodied. And that seems to be this, like.

way of seeing where you are talking about the positive regard. And then if you go beyond seeing, now we’re talking almost about like believing certain things and holding a belief. So did they talk about like, You have to believe in the person or anything like beliefs because we’re starting to realm into The way I see you and the way I treat you and the way my attitude is towards you Starts to point towards how I believe if you have answers not just within you more traditionally But if I believe certain things, so I don’t know, I don’t know if that that was addressed or your thoughts on that.

It wasn’t, and, and the, the, I would say that that concept that you are articulating right now. Aspects of that kind of an event diagram fell under, positive regard acceptance and the way they were defining hope, which is really how we perceive other people. What I liked about, I think this is my learning curve is that I think I have my own biases towards certain words like hope when people are saying, well, it’s so critical, it’s a critical concept in people getting better and healing and healthy and all these things.

And it’s like, is it the airy fairy definition of hope? Or is it, is there something that we know we can replicate without it being scientific because hope is such a magical thing, right? So, I mean, just that’s where my brain waffles back and forth, but the way they talked about hope that, that, touches on what you’re bringing up is I loved what they talked about.

Hope has to do with basic, a basic concept around self fulfilling prophecy. If you think this person is not going to get better, odds are they probably are not going to get better under your care. And if you believe this person has capacity to get better, and that’s their version of hope, the way it’s defined in research, if you believe that, then there’s a higher likelihood, which is a little bit different than positive regard, and it’s a little bit different than acceptance.

Does that make sense? And that’s why they were really trying to, to, distinguish the definitions. But for what you were bringing up is how I view this person. Those are the three that immediately kind of pinged in my brain. Is there the way they were articulating positive regard the way they’re articulating acceptance and the way they were articulating hope?

It’s kind of that our perception of that person doesn’t have an impact and they can say very much so it’s, it’s, there’s like, there’s a visual coming to mind that this is like the, that am I, or the tenants of the seven eighths or six eighths we’re talking about that. Am I is. Embodying that that would be the foundation to helping of some kind and in health coaching.

That is what Dr, you know, Susan Butterworth was trying to make the case for some years ago that it’s the foundation of health coaching is motivational interviewing. It sounds like with this book and the research that it’s looking that the closest thing we got that embodies everything for 1 thing of all this.

Is my as a foundation, and then from that foundation, there can be complimentary, if not synergistic outcomes with anything you add to it. So it’s not to say that it’s the panacea. Then, as I’m thinking about this with. One of those pieces of that we were talking about. It’s that it seems to be the foundation.

Yes. Would that be accurate with the research so far? That would be accurate. And I’m going to keep going back to is that’s where they’re talking about kind of the skills or the embodiment of the individual. On the effectiveness of the model that they’re using, you know, and or even pulling away because that was, I want to make sure I state that clearly is there’s just going to be more about evidence based processes and not about the brand of treatment that you’re using the name brand.

It’s gonna be more about the processes of what the evidence shows, which processes that a person embodies has that correlation with positive outcomes. So, and I think that’s gonna be difficult because so many people want to lean into evidence based practices. Like, what is the brand name? Look at the research around this brand name.

I think that is so enculturated in professional circles. I think this, I think this is not gonna get, I think it’s gonna get a ton of a cred, a ton of credit, but I think it’s just like hand washing for physicians. I think it’s gonna be a slow role to get there because we are so culturally obsessed with what model is gonna have the most impact.

Um. And this really is going to push that differently. I don’t think it’s going to negate it, but I think it’s going to have to force people to expand their thinking because our, our natural tendency is just want to pull the neutral off the shelf, because it was branded really well. And there’s good research around it.

I think it’s gonna be difficult to bring people up to speed with. It’s about the individual.

I actually. You know, the one other thing I’ll say real quickly, too, because to finish this thought is that my guess, and I don’t know if this is going to be true or not, and I think this is probably go back to the individual, but I think fields tend to be more like social work fields. That tend to want to lean into an eclectic approach.

I think they’re going to more readily gravitate towards this construct than like a medical model approach that very much is you need to pull this tool off the shelf and this is what you use because this is what insurance is going to pay for and you’re going to need to be able to articulate that. So I think that would be my just leaping.

You know, five years ahead of where it’s going to be the sticking points. And I’m going to think from an insurance perspective, what we’re paying for is we’re not paying for you to be a good person. We’re paying for you to use these tools to fix this person as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible.

Yeah, I was just going to jump in because I love the diversity among, among us, the three of us and where our brains are oriented from. So mine is so many different things. One is. You brought up coaching, John, and so in contrast to something like insurance pays for a medical model type solution or tool, my head goes toward all the coaching and the how that whole industry is evolving, not only for whether it be health coaching, business coaching, whatever might be out there.

As well as like, for some reason, dentists popped into mind more and more dental practices are saying, I’m opting out of insurance, it’s private pay, and the less that the medical world is driving and insurance is driving what the solutions are. I find it interesting because when you think about being on the other end of a solution, and you’ve got a problem, do you really care how you’re going to solve it?

And you, you as that practitioner is everything because I’m trusting you. I’m engaging with you for who you are. And I don’t necessarily need to know how skilled you are to fidelity. You are with a certain tool. Cause I just want the solution. It’s fascinating when you say that. I mean, just, this is just recent experience literally last weekend for me with a friend who had called in utter desperation, like who would have said.

If it wasn’t against my belief system, I probably would step off the planet at this point in time, I would probably end my life because I don’t want to be here anymore. And in that desperation, it’s somebody who’s retired, you know, retired professional, very well respected professional, but the emotional pain was so high that it’s like, I don’t care if my insurance covers it or not, I will pay out of pocket.

I need. The level of desperation is so high that anything that is going to help me hang on, I’m willing to do. And I think that’s the whole thing about, you know, do you wait three months on a waiting list to get to the best evidence based practice when you’re in that level of dire straits? Like that’s, I think this is where people are running into.

It’s like, I can’t wait anymore. Like I would rather have some semblance of sanity back in my life and if it doesn’t come soon, I can’t hang in there because part of that person’s desperation was the waiting lists are so long to get in anywhere and if you don’t have the right insurance, it’s even longer.

But if you’re willing to pay out of pocket, it moves you to the front of the line. So I mean, it’s just those things I think are so complex. Then we get into whole, which we’re not even gonna touch, but just the, you know, the socioeconomics of, Services for people and just the disparities out there for marginalized populations.

Oh, I mean, that’s it. It opens up a whole nother podcast in terms of podcasts right there. Yeah. If, if individuals, you know, and it is all about the individual and their mindset and how they apply what. With their, their learning that opens up a whole other discussion, you know? Yeah. And is the thing that strikes me too, just now that that kind of, that construct clicked is I think what is going to get a little interesting.

And I, John, I’m really curious what your thought is on this too, because I know your brain will go there is what is that going to mean if we’re looking at these. I don’t wanna say attributes, but if these are things that we can, some of us embody, some of us get more training on, some of us can learn and expand and grow on.

If people embody these, how do we keep the differentiation between a coach, a health coach, and a therapist? You know, I mean, it’s just like, because we’re looking at the attribute and not the role label. Just like some people are hired based on are they confident in motivational interviewing? So they may be a therapist.

They may be a case manager. They may be a health coach, but they’re looking more at those attributes now, which has always been part of a hiring process. But this, I think, is going to push that to a whole different construct in terms of, are we hiring a position? Are we hiring a person? Because this person can do a lot of these roles if they embody these, if that’s if the data is accurate, which the level of meta analysis they did, it’s At this point, pretty accurate data is going to be more about the attributes of the individual than the actual label.

And of course, there’s going to be differentiations because I don’t know what, you know, as an RD, but how much of that is going to be critical. And I think especially when offering information advice has the least potency, that’s starts to become very fascinating. Not that it doesn’t have potency, but you know, when you’ve got seven other factors that have more potency than, than your personal expertise.

Yeah. I mean, there’s, we’re over, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re deep into our time for this podcast. So it makes me think how much longer, you know, do we go into this and maybe a future podcast? And I’m open to that. Of course, where my mind goes is thinking about, well, how would you know, do you just get a vibe from someone, right?

And this is where you can get into the psychology of what we’re, what, what are we talking about right now? It’s. These attributes that you were just referencing Casey. So if these are attributes. How do we screen for them? Well, we gotta be able to describe them. We gotta be able to assess for them in some sort of a way.

So how do we even do that? That being a really important potential to operationalize, no matter if you’re a dentist assistant, you’re saying, or a health coach or an executive coach. And you know, there’s some parts of the Micah that I think could fit with that. But I also think some of these things are different.

And so I think having some sense of. Assessing these things and having that standardized in some sort of a way would be extremely helpful as a, as an extremely foundational 1st step. Not only that, but then what’s the difference between a therapist and and someone at the bar drinking, talking with the bartender.

You know, at a certain point, we could make these ridiculous comparisons in some ways, but it’s like, there’s a certain level of experience KCU as a therapist and metacognition and, and, and things going on in your mind that are beyond the information you have that we could screen some of that stuff. I think 4 and the 7, but I also think, Okay.

Those 7 could be missing out on something in the context of the situation, and I don’t know what that is, but that’s my hunch. And the same goes for the RD thing with different RDs that have different beliefs that they purport onto the evidence versus try to, you know, all that stuff. I think there’s still other things to play into it, but I think.

This is starting the best evidence based big swath stuff that could be used to start assessing in all these areas like Danielle was getting that. And so I think coming up with an assessment around that is really important coming up with, well, what’s the competencies beyond that stuff? That matter and do they matter?

I think that’s really important. And part of why supervision exists in therapy and some other things would be to embody these things, but I bet you there’d be other things, in that I would imagine, but that I don’t know. That’s my hypothesis. Well, and I think where the, the, the friction is going to continue is systems do not want to lose power.

So there, because we, I know I’ve heard of stories where there’s a guy, you know, sitting in a bar next to a stranger and they get into a deep, meaningful conversation and that conversation got the person to never want to drink ever again. By the time they were done talking, you know, never had a drink since that day with that stranger in the bar.

I have a friend that that happened to. And so it’s like, you can’t negate that outcome. And the person didn’t have a degree. So, and I think that’s going to be difficult for systems to, if people are embodying these things, I think there’s a fear to systems that it’s like, but then where’s our place and where do we generate revenue?

If people. You know, can do these things without a degree or they embody these things naturally or focus on developing these skills, you know, it’s like, well, doesn’t matter if they’re sitting in a bar. It doesn’t matter if they’re sitting in a clinical setting. Like, I think it’s just going to start to challenge some, some norms and structures.

As we look at, you know, what people embody. So again, I think there’s at least 15 to 16, maybe 17 other podcasts just from the last 10 minutes. I’m laughing the thing that you’ve mentioned that’s coming back to me is it’s like hand washing for physicians. I feel like all of these little nuggets from everything is just like, okay, let’s see how it’s going to start integrating and trickling through the systems a lot of that’s where I hope that we can look to the evidence as well as well as our, you know, inferences of our experience to it.

Because, Yeah, I believe there are going to be research things in the future, assessing these parameters and assessing a graduate degree or a undergraduate degree or no degree with these things right now, to me, it’s, it’s, it really matters. Meta analyses are the highest degree of, of evidence for looking at stuff.

And we know that peer advocates have their own research and what, you know, what are we really talking about with that? Where maybe information is more helpful or self disclosure is more helpful where. How does that, you know, relate to some of those things, but maybe not as much explicit empathy. I don’t know, but I’m simply getting at that.

I think there’s going to be a lot to tease out as well. If we want to take a purely evidence based approach in the meantime, I think there’s some level of faith. Into what the research is showing and faith that trust, whatever word you want to use, that these parameters tend to pop out effective outcomes.

Now, how efficient do, can we be at such effective outcomes that might be the thing for me that I’m hypothesizing that is where the experience of the person, the, graduate degree or whatever might come in. To really help with the efficiency of that effectiveness, potentially, well, there are 2 things I want to comment on as we wrap up.

1 of them is Terry. Actually, Dr. Teresa Morris actually has a new research. Publishing in terms of efficiency within the first five minutes, the amount of sustained talk and change talk within the first five minutes can be an indicator. So it’s like, Oh, now we go back to, we do have some measurement about, it’s not about degree.

Is it about your efficiency of being able to hear and assess sustained talk change talk? So that’s again, another two hour conversation. But the biggest thing from us talking about this today is there’s something really settled in me. And I’m so glad that what we conceptualize was the communication solution and not that it’s.

That’s the espousing of my period. I mean, I, I love that what we have tried to do has been in alignment with what Dr. Miller and Moyers have, are writing about in terms of, we just want to help people have real conversations in real time to improve, improve the quality of life. For their, you know, professionally and personally, so it brings him back into the whole function of what the communication solution is.

What we set out to do with this podcast is just, you know, have open conversations because it’s, it’s never supposed to be applied to hostage negotiations, but we could have podcasts and explore what does that mean? And what does it mean for union strikes? And what does it mean for, I just, I like that that is kind of the foundation that we settled into is just, let’s just talk about what is effective communication.

And now we’re talking about. Yeah. You know, growing how we look at it through an evidence based practice lens, even further and pushing those envelopes and pushing the thoughts further. So it makes me excited about. You know, subsequent episodes. I love it. It breaks down barriers. That’s what I think your work does and it includes everybody.

So it’s, it’s a wonderful, wonderful, podcast. I’m sure we’ll continue the conversation. Thank you so much. I do have to leave on one parting note, which cause you kind of did a little to the hope tenant and I got excited on that one and I was like, Oh, we’re going to have to talk about Shawshank Redemption.

Cause that’s the whole crux of that movie. Yes. So there’s so many great, great things to continue. One thing I will ask you is if for our listeners, who may or may not be, you know, tuned into motivational interviewing or practicing it, but understand that this is a communication solution, what would your advice be to them, given what you learned today and experienced with doctors Miller and Moyer?

I can just tell you off the top of my head, and I can’t remember who the quote was, but it was never underestimate the power of compassion. There is no greater burden than to go through your life thinking no one cares or understands. And I think that’s, for me, is just the power of empathy, of listening, of seeing people in a positive way.

I think those are the things that I would consolidate. I think when I look at it, I mean, there’s parts about being a good person, but it’s like how to be a good person and being a good person is going to have a positive impact irrespective of if you have initials after your name, you know, it’ll make you a better parent.

It’ll make you a better partner. And those are the things I think that are so profound when we look at healthy communication. Amazing. Amazing. Great summary. Great advice. Thank you so much. You guys, we will see you on the next podcast. Thanks everybody for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey at I F I O C dot com. That’s C A S E Y. at I F I O C dot com.

For more information or to schedule a training, visit I F I O C dot com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

View Details

In this episode, we discuss:* The Power of Compassion: The conversation underscores the profound impact of compassion, highlighting its role in making helpers more effective. * Attributes Over Titles: The participants emphasize the significance of personal attributes in helping professions, advocating for a shift away from rigid role definitions based solely on degrees. * Coaching and Dentistry: The discussion extends to various fields, including coaching and dentistry, where practitioners are reevaluating their approach to insurance-based models. * Desperation and Timely Help: The urgency of mental health support is highlighted, emphasizing the critical need for timely assistance rather than waiting for evidence-based practices. * Individual Trust and Connection: The trust and connection between a helper and their client are explored, illustrating how this bond can outweigh formal credentials. * Assessing Helper Skills: The importance of developing standardized assessments for helper skills is raised, recognizing the need to measure attributes like empathy and active listening. * Efficiency and Effectiveness: The conversation touches on the balance between efficiency and effectiveness in helping professions, suggesting that experience and degrees may impact the efficiency of achieving positive outcomes. * The Conversation Solution’s Mission: The podcast’s mission to facilitate open conversations around effective communication is acknowledged, bridging gaps and breaking down barriers. * Hope and Empathy: The discussion touches on the power of hope and empathy, emphasizing their role in alleviating the feeling of isolation and understanding clients on a deeper level. * Being a Good Person as a Foundation: The conversation concludes with the idea that at its core, being a good person forms the foundation for effective helping, creating positive impacts both personally and professionally.

This has been part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Transcribe Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution.

Hi, I’m Danielle Cantin, and I am here on the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. We are so excited for another episode, everything about motivational interviewing and on this particular episode, we might even take a little journey, a little bit away from motivational interviewing and always circle it back.

thank you so much for being here. You guys, Casey, you just came off of an amazing workshop with the co founder, Dr. Bill Miller of motivational interviewing and his friend and colleague, Teresa Moyer, Dr. Teresa Moyer. so they have a new book coming out. And I think you’re pretty energized about what you just experienced and it’s going to be a great podcast.

Yeah, it’s just, it’s, it is, mind expanding, mind blowing just every time new chunks of data or new perspective comes out and this was just. Packed with, you know, kind of evolved and some new perspectives, what they set out to do. And what I liked about it, John and I have talked about this. It’s fascinating because they did not do this initiative.

through an MI lens, what they really want to do is step back, look at all of the research for the last 70 years of research on what is effective in interventions in clinical interventions, especially those that are most associated with positive outcomes. So what they did is they just dug through 70 years of research.

And one of the most fascinating things, and this is from, you know, People are highly invested in the work they put into motivational interviewing. The way they said it, that was fascinating to me is it’s going to, it has to move or research will move people away from brand name treatments and therapies.

So because it’s less about the brand name therapy, like cognitive dialectical behavior. Behavioral therapy or, you know, AC, just all these different therapies out there that what the research is extremely consistent about is that it’s not as much about the brand name. It’s about the actual provider or clinician.

Their attributes and what they find is those attributes have a profound impact on outcomes either positively or negatively. So it’s not about motivation per se. It’s not about CBT per se, but with the components that they found in individual practitioner or clinician embodiment of an approach is the strongest indicator and the top, you know, 7 of the 8.

Indicators are all things that we look at and measure and teach and motivational interviewing. So, so it’s not that it endorses motivation wing per se. It’s more that people that are highly skilled in motivational learning and been trained well at it and develop a level of master of proficiency embody the top, you know, six to seven out of the top eight indicators of what improves outcomes in, in interventions.

So it just, it was just a fascinating, way that they’ve, they’ve looked at it. The, the analogy they use that I thought was just brilliant was, is the car or the driver, the thing that wins the race. Is it the ingredients or the chef that makes a meal phenomenal? so yes, there’s some combination of the two, but a car cannot win a race if there’s not a great, it doesn’t matter how great the car is, if the driver is not great.

And it doesn’t matter how great the ingredients are if the chef does not know how to cook them. So it’s the same thing. It doesn’t matter the mode of treatment you’re using. If the actual one using it is not skilled. So that was just for me, that analogy just was a whole cascade effect in my brain in terms of like, wow, that is just.

Really fast and it makes sense when you hear it that way, but I think as a, you know, somebody is a social worker clinician for the last 30, almost 35 years. Now, it’s always been about going to more trainings on more models and having more tools at your disposable and more tools in your toolbox and the tools in the toolbox matter.

But you also need to be a phenomenal handyman, or technician, you know, and the better tools you have, the better the technician can be. But if you’re not a good technician, you can have all the tools you want to at your disposal and not know how to, you know, change the light socket. So. You know, you know, what’s coming up for me on this is something that we’ve been talking about and working on for a while, because you teach and train so many organizations and motivational interviewing in a really special way.

but our latest endeavor that really has peaked the interest of so many people who have gone through your trainings as individuals is that be the change it’s like instinctually. You’re wanting to take care of and lift up all of the individuals who are actually the ones having to implement this, this tool, this solution.

And so as you’re speaking, I’m just going, Oh my gosh, you were, you were already tapping into the importance of this in the development of the program. It is. I agree. And, and the thing that’s so interesting to me about this as well, too, is just more organically and probably the last. Year really heavily in the last six months, but in my trainings, my brain has just been so much more cognizant in being able to articulate that being skilled at M.

I. is as much or more about mindset as it is about skill set. And we just tend to teach skill set because it’s so much easier to measure at face value. It’s easier to measure if it was a question or reflection that is so much easier to measure than is somebody operating from a place of genuineness. or positive regard.

I mean, that’s just becomes extremely complex to measure and teach. And then how much bias is put into those definitions. And so those were some of the aspects that, that, doctors Miller and Moyers tried to tease out based on, you know, meta analysis in terms of, okay, what are. How do we get to a common definition of accurate empathy?

How do we get to a common, definition of, you know, positive regard? How do we get to a common definition of evocation that that’s there? And why is it? Because it’s one of our, when we’ve talked about businesses before, because the reality is this. There’s also people want to be able to brand something and sell it because you can do the training market and you can do the speakers market and you can, you know, produce a workbook.

And so there’s money to be made if you can slap your brand on it. So I think in some ways it’s, it makes me a little giddy to think that while the research is showing is, it doesn’t really matter. The brand, it really matters. You know, who’s actually applying that and, and if that’s where things are going, I think motivation thing is in a phenomenally well positioned because like I said, half the things on there are things that we measure, like at the Micah, some of the things specifically like with the evocation, with focus, with accurate empathy, those are things we specifically measure and give people feedback.

And I’ve been doing it for at the mighty in there, the motivation and treatment integrity skill too. These are things we’ve been looking at measuring for decades and decades now. So that’s, that’s what’s fascinating to me. You know, I’m super curious on so many things and so many levels right now. from the, in my geek side of it to thinking from the listener’s perspective and all sorts of things, I’m, much more on the, the nitty gritty right now than the organizational part of it.

And, but it is interesting to me to look at it from so many angles, but Casey. I’m really curious about this piece that we talk about that we want to be genuine and accurate about. That MI is a particular kind of conversation. Yes. And that it’s not a panacea, it’s not a silver bullet yet. Somehow we are because we like this stuff and we like the way it treats people.

Getting excited that MI is aligning with what it means to be effective overall or whatever that means. Whatever these definitions are. So part of me wants to kind of talk about, well, what’s that eighth part rather than the sixth or the ones that, don’t align with mi? And what are the pieces of MI that transcend mi and when does it not become mi?

So these are some of the things that are going like. If it’s not a panacea, there seems to be a lot of things that are really interesting here. Yes. and it is a particular conversation, but where’s the limitations and what does that mean for what am I is and is not. So I don’t know if you have any thoughts, but that’s kind of where my gucci doll is right now.

Yeah. So one of the thoughts I’m one of the eight, like the eighth one, they actually listed, which I can appreciate because it was the lowest. Effect, variable is offering information or advice and so that is a factor. It was the lowest effect potency and I just always own the bias that I have in the way that I conceptualize and teach motivational interviewing, you know, very invested in the fidelity base, but there’s people that say, well, the mighty looks at, you know, persuading with permission.

And I just know my own writing reflex to that concept in and of itself of persuading with permission, what, what, what came out of that as well, too. So that’s, that’s my, when you’re saying, okay, we can focus on the ones we know are good. But what are those outliers that are interesting that the data came up and popped up?

And the eighth one was offering information and advice, which aligns so much with Western medical model. And so many of the things that we’re talking about are the antithesis of Western medical model and some of the research that we’re learning. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of the language that I’ve been using for quite a while now is just moving to that humanistic perspective and away from that kind of colonialization, you know, doing things to people versus with them and for them kind of on a larger scale.

But that’s what I, that was the one outlier or not the outlier, but the one that is the one that I was thinking, you know, we, we don’t you and I. As trainers, that is not part of our curriculum. It comes up because people ask those questions. Well, how do we give advice? How do we give suggestions? So you and I do address that in training, but it’s not an explicit thing that we train the closest thing that I think we do train is partnership as it relates to the mica as well in the way we defined it in the motivation and competency assessment because partnership is a time where you can share.

yeah. You know, information or insights in a way that advances the client’s outcomes. And that’s pretty much what they were saying. You know, that was where the potency was coming from. If you share the right amount of information, the right dose at the right time, that can help advance outcomes. And you’re like, well, that, that makes sense because there’s certain information that experts have that the individual may or may not have.

So that, that was the one outlier when you’re going, yeah, okay. I want to know the things that we know, but what are those things that they’re bringing into the mix that may not have been at the forefront of an MI based conversation? Which again, to that last point you made, I’m more biased towards that point because of healthcare settings where there’s so much misinformation by influencers and all this stuff out there that then people might believe a lot of things and you’re using a humanistic approach and that might make their LDL or APOB worse.

That doesn’t have controversy, you know, over it or something like that. So, you know, That it goes to show that though, it’s a, it’s a minor part compared to all these other big things. So now I’m curious in with our, in my passion and enthusiasm, how do we think about what they’re presenting then that M I isn’t a panacea, or are they?

Kind of alluding, are we hoping that it becomes a panacea or what is it? What does this mean that M. I. is separate than these other interventions? Yet M. I. has so much overlap. Does that mean these other interventions are going to get superseded? Or I don’t know. I’m just kind of curious your thoughts on that of like, where’s the limitation of this then?

I think what the expansion is, here’s a way that I would sort that out. Is. Like I said, most of the constructs that they found through research show improved outcomes. The majority of those are things that are foundations in learning motivational interviewing. Because again, it goes back to the person and not the MI.

it goes back to the professional and not the, you know, that aspect of it as much. It just happens. To be that motivation thing is based off this because that’s what, you know, everyone who gets obsessed with them. I, there’s so many people that lean into the research side of it. I mean, you look at Dr.

Miller, you look at more. It’s just the amount of research they’ve done roll neck. Stephen is just all the people that you and I know that have done massive research on M I. Well, that’s evolved it. I don’t train. Am I the way that I did 20 years ago and so much that is dictated by what we’ve learned research things we’ve jettisoned from the curriculum have been things that research didn’t hold true on you and I have had countless conversations about, you know, when you and I wrestle through curriculum development over, do we leave it or do we get rid of it?

And you’re like, you know, the data just doesn’t show that. So are we articulating it effectively anymore if we keep Saying these certain things a certain way when we train, that’s, that is healthy growth and innovation, and moving to that level. So, so that’s what I’d go back to is I think it will continue to evolve MI as data has always evolved MI.

So, and then I’m putting M. I. Is just another brand name of all these interventions. And for me, why am I slides to the top is because it embodies those, you know, some of those core constructs. Daniel, just for your sake, I know John has touched on some of this before, but just to say them and it’s, we’re not doing a training or a power point on it.

But, the number one indicator and research is the strongest around is accurate empathy. Number one, without, without, and there’s no even contention. The data is profoundly strong that accurate empathy has a significant impact on people’s perception of their improvement, or being able to move forward and the data shows that they move forward more effectively when people feel deeply heard and understood.

Then they’ve talked about positive regard, which is very much Dr. Miller spent a lot of time in the workshop referencing Dr, the worker, Dr. Carl Rogers, and that was unconditional positive regard. And teasing out the difference in an, in a practitioner, the difference between accurate empathy and being able to express positive regard and then being able to do that in a genuine way.

So genuineness was one of the top three, acceptance. So then you think, well, what’s the difference between acceptance and positive regard? You know, so it’s just, there’s all these components that the research is, is based on, Is pretty robust around each of these concepts. What I appreciated about it is it helps clean up semantics where we tend to squish words together a lot and say they kind of mean the same thing.

When you really get into semantics and how they research it, it really does start to clarify the dimensionality of what it takes in a human being to create effective outcomes. so there’s acceptance and focus and I was a little startled by, hope. In some ways, because so many of our participants and trainings will bring up the concept of hope because there’s so much research and written about it and models that are built around hope, but they’re talking about hope and self fulfilling prophecy, from a different perspective, which really helped my brain, evocation, which is literally something we measure along with accurate empathy, and, and then the offering information or advice.

So those are the eight. Yeah. components that have data that shows these are all factors in an individual or a practitioner or professional that any combination of those, the stronger they are, the higher the correlation with. Out positive outcome client outcomes. Do you think, this is probably a very interesting question to answer, but did they set out in this research to write this book?

I have a feeling the answer is yes. Of being willing to like just forget all about motivational interviewing. Yes, you’re right. You’re exactly right. They did, and that was the intention because they, they both are, I mean, looking at Dr. Miller, looking at Dr. Morris, they are both researchers first. Neither one of them have a desire to like endorse the brand of motivational interviewing what they want to endorse is positive outcomes and healthy interaction.

And they sat out on this book to just go wherever the data led them. And I think it was more that I think there was probably a warm, fuzzy feeling inside in certain aspects that they uncovered to go, wow, this is what I’ve been training. Miller even commented on that in the training of going, you know, it is a good feeling to look back at trying to do the right thing for the right reasons and let data lead us there, which is how am I evolved.

And then to just step back from all of that and try to be unbiased and just look at other people’s research. You know, all the, all the data out there, and then just sift it out and see what lands out of that. And it’s like, wow, a lot of things that sift and land out of that align very tightly with what we measure and what we teach and believe in motivational interviewing.

So, so, and they wouldn’t, I mean, they really stayed away a lot from talking specifically about motivational interviewing and just talking more about these, these clinical skills that improve outcomes. Yeah, I’m really curious how much it kind of got into fidelity with the model. So how much alignment with whatever the model is, how much discussion was around that your thoughts on that, you know, for example.

You know, I’ve been, you know, a hot topic right now. That’s, I’ve, I heard about a while ago, it’s picking up more and more steam is, internal family systems therapy. You know, am I, it’s not therapy. So that’s why I’m kind of curious about that discussion too, because effective psychotherapy is therapy. Am I was designed as a pre treatment to engage people in their care, or comparing it to like therapies.

And we’d like to say. Therapy is different yet. Somehow we’re comparing it, but I’m, I’m simply getting that. There are other therapies that have specific approaches that might embody in my spirited things and certain approaches with therapy that might not, but I’m wondering, no matter what it is, does it matter the fidelity that you have with it or how much you seek fidelity?

Or how much you do that, no matter what it is, or that once you have fidelity, say with AMI, then it makes it even better than a certain kind of therapy, with compared to fidelity. I don’t know. They, you know, it wasn’t mentioned explicitly that way that you’re framing it, that wasn’t explicitly what came up.

What, what Miller did talk about is that it, which is, it was. It was fun for me to listen and talk about certain things that I’ve been talking about for years, just the way my brain evolves. So there’s so many, there’s just a significant amount of validation of how my brain has evolved around motivation wing to see, wow, this really does align with the trends as they’re, you know, articulated now.

But what he was talking about more is thinking about motivation as a method of communication. Which is like, that’s so much what we lead with, you know, for people that are thinking they’re taking MI as a therapy training is that it’s a method of communication. So the way that I would, the way that my brain would interpret what you’re talking about is it’s the same message again, in terms of when you’re using other evidence based practices to fidelity, your concept is it would, it would seem to be that they will be exponentially more effective if people are using an MI Method of communication when they’re applying a therapy technique, because their whole point was it is about the, the person using the model, what their skills are on these eight levels, you know, how much they embody those.

So I think that’s where you’re going to see that exponential effect. So if they’re using the model, it’s very effective, but the individual practitioner themselves, if an individual practitioner is doing the model to fidelity and not embodying these, my hypothesis would be they’re not going to have the same outcomes as somebody that’s using that same model.

And all of these, clinical skills and mindsets in combination, but that would be, I think what Terry would say is that’s something you should write a grant to NIH and get funded for because that’d be fascinating research.

This has been part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@ifioc.com.

That’s CASEY@ifioc.com. For more information or to schedule training, visit if ioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* Exploring the pervasive impact of digital technology and screen time on our lives, and the need for a digital detox. * Personal experiences with digital detox, including the realization of its effects on behavior and values alignment. * Reflecting on the challenge of balancing advocacy and social media, and the potential for generating resistance. * The importance of seeking alignment between behavior and values in the context of social media use. * Recognizing the potential benefits and drawbacks of social media, and the role of values-driven decisions in using it. * Addressing the role of social media in fulfilling the human need for connection, contribution, and understanding. * Considering the responsibility and potential risks associated with using social media platforms. * Emphasizing the value of empathy and understanding in navigating social media interactions. * Encouraging self-reflection and taking steps towards positive behavior change in the digital realm.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!

Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Welcome everyone. I’m Danielle Cantin, facilitator of the communication solution with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert, and we’re here to talk about everything related to motivational interviewing. And it pretty much does touch every part of our world.

Today, we’re going to dive into an incredible topic. One that I’m pretty sure every single human is familiar with and it’s digital detox. Oh my God. It’s taking over our world. When I see the little screen pop up to let me know my screen time, it’s just like, Oh, So what am I doing? And that’s just me as a human.

I’m not even worrying about a child or everybody else in my life and what they’re doing, but it just can’t, it makes me think of, of how, you know, we’re trying to all connect with each other. And yet we’ve got this digital interruption that’s happening. That’s really preventing us from those deeper connections.

So with that, I want to turn it over to, to you guys to dive into this world of digital and perhaps good ways to detox. Well, I’ll tell you what’s fascinating for me about this is just read this relatively recently within, you know, the last seven months, my two of my social media accounts were hacked my personal ones and deleted.

Which meant deleted. I couldn’t recover them. Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. So I didn’t, I didn’t, I just know how much Casey’s, how that’s a big deal. Well, is this part of that digital detox? That’s why I think it’s a great topic because the only thing that really bothered me, it surprised, I think I was surprised at how.

Little bit of a, little of a response that I had to that. My biggest thing was no pictures that I’d posted that I wonder if I still have them on my phone or those kinds of things. What I was annoyed with was the fact that there’s no customer service. So there’s no customer service to restore your accounts.

There’s no phone numbers. There’s no emails or nothing. You just, you just start a new one. And there was something that struck me. I was so annoyed that I just thought, you know what, if you really don’t care that much about customer service, I really don’t care that much about your product. And so I never signed up for new accounts on Facebook or Instagram, and haven’t.

So then my spouse saw that my screen time went down so significantly that then just deactivated those accounts and it was shocking the drop in, and I’ve, and I’ve never re signed up for new accounts in the last seven months. So I don’t have an Instagram or Facebook account. I’ll tell you the things that are fascinating to me, and this is where motivation comes into it.

Is it really does push? Is your behavior in line with your values? And this is more complicated than I would have thought of. Now that I’m living it, it doesn’t mean that I’m not on, you know, I don’t check things out. You know, I’m more of a news junkie than anything else. And a research junkie. But What I did notice that my habits are, I tend to want to forward political things that I have a really strong emotional attraction to, and have a lot of reaction to.

And I know that for as much as it would generate people who I’m friends with jumping on board who think that way, it also generated just as much of the opposite reaction. Um. But I am such a social worker at heart and such an advocate and I believe so strongly in the things that I believe, but the push comes to shove with motivational interviewing is on one hand, my behaviors in line with my values, but in that exact same moment of pushing send or posting something, I know it’s going to generate resistance.

I know it is. I know that there’s going to be half the people that I know that are friends of mine that are going to jump on board and say, I’m so glad you posted that, you know, where did you get that link? I totally agree with you. And I know there’s going to be another handful of people that I know that automatically we’re going to go, you know, this is what I hate when Casey posted these things.

And I think that’s the human dimensionality of who each of us is, but it is so. Counter indicated when you’re looking through an M. I. Lens. So I’m not going to say it’s wrong because M. I. Is not for every situation. We need advocates in the world. We need to do all sorts of profound things that we hope will create change.

But a very bitter, bitter pill to swallow with that as well, too, is When I’m trying to do advocacy or get my behavior in line with my values or do things on social media, there’s things that I know that I’m generating resistance or embedding and deepening resistance in people at the same time. And that’s not who I want to be with my behavior being aligned with my values at the same time.

So what are, what are ways that we do that? And I, so it’s just, it’s fascinating. To think about how do you get into digital detox when it’s so pervasive in our lives on such an emotional level, a social level, a political level, economic level. You know what I love about this? That everybody it’s such a broad topic.

If you think about detoxing from what first you have to identify what it is. So I love that you introduced right away. Are you aligned with your values? So that that because I read so many articles and points of view on social media, and if you just look at one, it can be a little confusing. Like one was how social media, everybody’s just putting on a fake persona of is there is that the reality of the life they’re living?

And I’m like, I don’t know that it ever could, because we’re not on social media all the time to, there are some people who are out there sharing every moment of their life, but, How often that is, I’m not sure. So there’s all of these different stories around, the digital world. So really identifying and starting with, is it aligned with, is my behavior aligned with social for me?

It’s a tool. It’s a tool I use to get messages of hope out to people to try to do something that’s going to uplift them to make them think differently. But I do have that bit of, Oh, what are people going to think about it? And I don’t want it to, you know, get that reaction. But at the end of the day, I think when it comes to detox for me.

Is I definitely value a sense of, I don’t know if it’s autonomy or I want to be present with myself and proactive, not necessarily reactive. So when I look at my screen time and I think of social media, I’m like, ding, ding, ding, something else is driving me other than my connection with where I want my moment or day to go and the contribution I want to be.

So that’s the detox part that I’m like, Ooh, that that’s it. And I think that the part of what I think of is I just, I don’t want to contribute. And I thought about this before we even started a podcast was I don’t want to contribute to white noise. I don’t want to contribute to that. So where is it that you want to have positive messages out there?

But when so many people are clamoring, To get their message out there, what is my personal need to do that? What’s my soul’s need to do that? And is it relevant? And is that the best way to try to get my voice out? There is through social media. And then you think that’s just really interesting. Or is it just contributing to loads and loads of audio and digital files of voices that are just, you know, droning on and on and on and on.

It doesn’t really contribute. That just fascinates me. I think about when we talk about those, that Even trying to pull back from some of that because there is, there is a status. I mean, just that, that an influencer is a career is a little mind boggling, but it is, it is in the fabric of our culture now.

Influencers are, those are careers. Those are lucrative careers if you can get a career like that. So it’s so hard to detox from things that people are so addicted to from the minute they get up and they’ve got their iPad on while they’re drinking their coffee. Like it’s, we’re so plugged in. So you think there has to be, is my behavior like my values that I know for older generations, I think, you know, any generation that wasn’t born with an iPad in their hand, I think there is that concern.

But then I think because of world. Progresses at such a rapid technological rate right now. I think we’re in a, I know I’m in a generation where it’s just like, I sick and tired of social media, but if I am away from it for too long, there’s going to be so many advances that am I going to be obsolete? Because they’re just everything that changes every day.

And so do you want to detox from all of that? Or is that the new norm is being toxified by these, by social media is the toxicity of that norm, the norm. And I think we, I think we’d all agree that it is the norm, but does it make it healthy? And that’s where it becomes my behavior in life, my values. Do you think that at the core of social media, at its essence, there’s some deep desire for everybody to connect or to be seen and heard?

Is that, I mean, there’s a nice connection between The addiction of detoxing from digital and motivational interviewing. Absolutely. That’s one thing I’ve always run through my brain is people want, everybody’s raising their hands and screaming and shining the camera on themselves saying, look at me, I’m, I’m special.

I’m unique. Do you like me? You know, please tell me I’m valuable. Tell me, hit that heart button, hit, hit that you read this or saw my picture. Of me dressing my child this morning before school, or this is what I made my family for dinner. Like, did you like me? I think there’s just that everybody wants to be seen and heard and understood.

And that’s that crux of empathy and motivational interviewing. And then there’s also the flip side of that, where there’s people who are sharing everything. And then there are people who don’t share as much, but are just as consumed looking and watching and having internal thoughts about, am I valuable?

And how do I compare? To all of these people or judging and go, Oh my God, look at posting another picture of their kid and all parent of the year award and the nastiness and all of that is energy on the internet. And it’s just like, Oh, so yeah, I’m really curious your take on. You know, where does motivational interviewing and the tenants of that come into play here?

And what are some things we can think about to help? Yeah. First off, top of my brain, then John, I’m curious what you think as well, too, because you, you come from a different perspective on social media and always has since the day I’ve known you and you’re a younger generation. I think for me, it’s, there’s too much confection to believing that that’s reality.

And even though it is a distinct reality now, social media is a distinct reality. It’s not the reality that represents who I am and the way that I want to live my life. It’s not my behaviors in line with my values. My behavior in line with my values is going to my kids You know, supporting events. it’s, me hanging out with friends and family, in an intimate setting and, and talking and getting into deep conversation.

That’s my behavior in my line with my values. And this is where it was kind of profound with my detox of, you know, it’s not. For as much as I’m an advocate on a social justice level, me posting those things is not increasing social justice. So stop doing it that your behavior is not ultimately like you can justify that your behavior is aligned with your values because you’re espousing these things or forwarding these things that you believe in, but is it really changing behavior changing the energy in the world?

No, it’s contributing to a negative energy in the world. And that’s where, for me, it was that kind of the break in the action was me starting to get my behavior line with my values with not re upping new accounts.

Yeah, go ahead, Casey. No, that’s saying dive in, John. That’s this is, because you do come from a different perspective, especially if you’re a generation, you’d come from a different perspective. Yeah, I’m just a strange one. Yes,

there’s more argument. Like not nobody’s to say extraordinary. Particularly in this, in this realm, I love your, your quick to catch there, Daniel. Yes. So, with this topic, especially with, with kind of that, that I see so much of what we talk about with values. And it goes way beyond, am I, but to keep it specific to, am I, you know, what do you really, really care about and what really fulfills you, what are you trying to align with and Casey, you started this company, this institute that, you know, has its own, has its own amazing measurable impact in people’s lives and you get lots of feedback.

That it’s transforming people’s lives and you’re aligning your values with a sense of contribution, a sense of impact. You know, we could talk clouds above the top of the mountain as you and I have talked about beyond just the top of the mountain, but that there’s a sense of alignment here that is having alignment of your values with that impact.

To me, I see these things very similar with your politics and what you were talking about, Danielle. I just am filtering them from a very biased, but values theory, mountain analogy, focus mountain we use in our trainings view, which is that we’re all trying to have some sense of our values being filled.

And so social media is really helpful for a sense of that happening. I think what you’re both questioning or bringing up, how much is that really happening or not? And how much is the impact? What I think the impact is, how much do I really feel like what I’m doing, is helping. And if you believe it’s helping, then you are probably having a healthy response.

You’re feeling like you’re doing something for the world of contributing to bettering the world. And we tend to not like negative. Things that don’t align with what we believe. So if that’s true, then great, but we’re going to also not like any information or feedback unless we really want it. That maybe that isn’t having the impact we thought, right.

Confirmation bias, uncaused bias, all these other things we can do psychologically, but I’m just highlighting what you’ve brought up already around M I is it’s a way for people to feel like they’re getting their behaviors in alignment with their values. And I have no need of like, well, is that happening or not?

I don’t know. How would you know? Well, you should probably seek some feedback and read some stuff and probably do something about that if you really want to know. But it’s, I can speak from experience. It’s a heck of a lot more freeing for me to not need to question any of that or need to feel significant in these ways.

However, I also probably don’t have the same. Value in that kind of impact, I feel like with being a part of this Institute, I’m really doing things in the world and have not partaken in a sick care system that I believe doesn’t really get to the root of things. And, and so I believe my behavior in a lot of ways is, is helping people to a degree that seems to have real world impacts.

And I think it’s something you said to me years ago, Casey, because I could. Keep going on about different angles of behavior and values with M. I. and Daniel, what you brought up, how much are we feeling heard and seen all those things we could totally go much deeper into with the social media, from my perspective, but if, if I feel that in my life, then social media just seems to be, Less of a thing that’s needed.

It’s much more of a superfluous thing. It might be a thing that, like you said, Casey years ago with me of, you know, living my life instead of documenting it. And that really resonated that I’ve, I’ve remembered for years. And it’s like, if you live it fully and wholly and presently. then maybe there’s something to be said for that.

I don’t know. I’m not trying to romanticize a particular thing, but I know for me what, what seems to resonate. And I think people are craving that sense of behavior alignment with their values seen and understood, seen, heard, and understood. And a sense of connecting, like you brought up Casey and contributing.

And I think if we can recognize that that’s what we’re all trying to do, we’re trying to feel valuable. We’re trying to feel like we’re doing something good. We’re trying to feel connected. Then it becomes less of a, you know, thing to get super judgy about. It’s just, I think there’s. A lot more to be said about how much are we really having those impacts we’re thinking we’re having and how much can we feel that in other areas to diversify as it were, our investment of our time and energy to get those needs met or values met.

And I just think there’s a lot, I think there’s a much longer podcast to be had on this, that it’s not about detoxing so much as like getting clear, like you both have brought up and get clear what really is fulfilling. I love that. You know, actually something that resonated early on that you said made me feel good.

It’s just like, is it right for you? It’s such an individual choice. And for me, it’s like. I want to be seen and heard, but I also want to like, I’ll look at what other people are saying and then repost and help to make them feel seen and heard and validated. So that’s part of my value system. And then it’s like, you said, if it feels good, then do it like that.

That’s a, that could be a signal that it’s in line with your values because I’m like, Yeah, I’m not out there a ton, but I feel good when I do share something like, I feed the homeless every Sunday. So I’d love to take a story about that and equate it with, Hey, what if you think about X, Y, or Z in your life this way, how could you improve the quality of your life?

So for me, it’s not a ton I do, but it, it does at the end of the day, make me feel good. What I don’t like is any pressure of feeling like I should be out there more or more consistent. It’s like I like when it’s authentic. So, I think that’s really, I appreciate that. And I also, there’s plenty of room for somebody who’s saying I don’t, that’s not the place for me to be.

I think that’s really empowering. I agree. And I think that’s when I think of what both you’re talking about, John’s talking about. And then we think of that, this thing about detox. I do go back to the top mountain concept and the values driven piece of it. Because you can take any one of those for any given individual.

Is it about a sense of connection? Is it a sense of contribution? Is it a sense of, is my behavior aligning with my sense of contribution? Is my behavior aligning with my sense of integrity? And if it perpetuates that, those are some of the great things about social media. It’s this, I think of social media, just like a laser, you know, it can do death and destruction, or it can heal a body.

Like there’s, you know, there’s, It’s how we’re being used and as our behavior line with our values, if you’re doing it for a sense of connection and it causes you a sense of depression because you’re not getting what you want. Thank you, Casey. I am just sitting here like, oh, my gosh, what about the social dilemma?

Let’s think because yes, Danielle, I said something in essence of what you said, but I want to be crystal clear about what I’m saying is not. Let’s only do what feels good to me. That’s a very dangerous perspective. And I just want to be crystal clear. Cause Casey, you just brought up that sometimes we don’t know.

I don’t know what I don’t know. I got blind spots, but that there’s a certain amount of these, this technology. Is designed to take your eye and put it here for the sake of making money off of your attention. So I want to be crystal clear. There’s yes, we can feel good about something smoking cigarettes or whatever for a period of time.

And yet that doesn’t mean it’s. The outcomes are as good as we thought those outcomes would be. So that’s what I’m saying is to seek that. And that depression can build this chasm inside of us that we didn’t realize. And then all of a sudden feel it to just seek that Casey, that’s such a good example of that.

And we have good outcome data to start looking at that with social media. It just is why I love motivational interviewing and the evidence based practice live on the top of the mountain.

I did. I do. I, I just, these conversations are just fascinating to me. And it really, what it all comes down to is where, what contributes to you being healthier and happier, healthier and happier, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. And if social media is contributing to that, what is there to detox from?

If there’s a restorative or a healing property. And I always love a quote that John has, you know, repeated multiple times over the course of our friendship is, you know, everything in moderation, including moderation, that’s the same thing. It’s that same thing that just quality of life where we’re here.

If it’s, if it’s contributing to your growth and a healthful and a healing way, we’re, what is there to detox from that is actually restoration. That’s the antithesis of getting to detox. So I think when it is in perspective, and that’s how we. Navigate it and it feels like it genuinely, whatever that behavior is, is lining with, for me, specifically with social media posts is yes, I can justify how this gives me a sense of integrity because I posted it, but if it’s not contributing to a sense of connection and there’s not the level of contribution that I want, I don’t know if that’s, I don’t know if I can justify the integrity of forwarding it or posting it to make me feel good as an advocate if I know it’s going to, it’s going to break down connection.

And not be the contribution. I think then I need to rethink it. And I think those are the things that are not necessarily the detox, but I think it’s the my personal accountability in terms of yes, I can justify if this one behavior is in line with this one value, that is extremely easy for me to rationalize and justify.

And I think so many people feel comfortable in that zone. Which is where righteousness can, can be born from for myself. And then on the flip side, if I’m going to run it through multiple values that I have at the top of the mountain, a lot of the things that I have modified in my life based on social media, I have changed because yes, I can justify this one value that aligns with, but it’s not aligning with who I as a human being want to be, and it’s not getting me to the top of my mountain.

As I define it.

Yeah, I feel like this one could go on for a very long time because I feel there’s so many other angles of, of this, but I’ll just say to, it’s, a tool that can take away your sovereignty of what you believe that you have control over and to just be mindful of that. Is the last thing I wanted to say that we might believe we’re buying that shirt or whatever the thing is that we now have attention around that we’re being sold on, but that’s what so much of the social dilemma and other things point to is like, okay, let’s.

Go in with eyes wide open and see that the matrix is right here and how in that go, how do I want to navigate this in a way that does align? Because for professionals, you know, as a person that’s into health and things, it’s like, yeah, if you’re pretty healthy, you can. Post pictures of yourself and try to get followers and then try to get sponsors and try to make money.

But it’s like, how much do you really need that sense of feedback? How much do you want to be now responsible for posting all these things? And then now that becomes the persona to upkeep. There’s so much around the responsibility as a professional. That’s just a vain version, but it could be as a psychologist, right?

There’s so much responsibility to that versus freedom. You get from being an individual that can post anything, however they want to think all the time. So I really like this discussion for me is it depends on the person, but it also depends on their sense of awareness of how much do they really understand what they’re getting themselves into.

And. And not that I fully get it, but that’s part of why I use the precautionary principle in this area of my life. And I don’t partake in it as much, but I do think there’s value in it. It’s a tool. And I do want to just highlight that as a final kind of thing. It’s a tool that can be risky, but it doesn’t have to be.

Awesome. Any parting thoughts, Casey? I just circle back around to like what we’re all talking about is how do you ensure for yourself that your behavior is in line with what your values are? And and we start to justify or rationalize it. It’s a potentially slippery slope. So I always just think for myself, you know, what creates connection, what, what is, you know, contributing, what has integrity.

You know, and what’s fulfilling and some of my core values that I really try to live by if those are lining up and I feel better at the end of the day, then it’s, then that’s, that’s just, I know what my version of happier and healthier is. And that’s definitely what I endorse for anybody that likes being on that journey as well.

Awesome. I just want to jump in Danielle for one last thing that I had heard from a philosopher one time, like a modern day philosopher of like, what would be the one thing we could do in the world? Like, it’s a quippy question and the person didn’t like the question, but it’s like, what’s the one thing we could do that could help improve so many things if we just did one thing.

And I want to relate this to the social media. It’s to try to steal person, the other person’s perspective. Try to take on, with empathy if you can, to understand where other people are coming from first. Before you react with your perspective, and it’s a really important thing, I think it for the future social media that relates to expressing empathy and motivational interviewing and the other podcast we did with what’s really important in the world is accurate empathy.

Is to first try to understand where someone could be coming from in their post or why they use social media or whatever is to try to understand that first and from that place, then move forth. And I just want to end with that for, yeah, that’s nice. We kind of looked at it from the user generator. Perspective, and then that’s a nice turnaround to, to also say, okay, as the viewer and consumer of everybody else, how could we, be better?

So hopefully this is really helpful to the viewers and listeners out there. You know, there’s a lot that we talk about in training at IFIOC. com with these guys, the focus mountain you heard a lot about. So if you’re wondering and really thinking about what are my values, stay tuned, check out, reach out.

We’re happy to have a conversation and help you take your next best step. And then I think again, Casey, everything’s just pointing to the be the change type training, that I think so many people need to help really get in touch with what their values are and stay aligned their behaviors. So thanks so much, you guys.

Excellent. Thank you. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Take care. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.Com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert, and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
In this episode, we discuss the concept of motivational interviewing in mindful and gentle parenting. They explore the challenges parents face, including the balance between wanting children to reflect their values and fostering their individuality. The hosts stress the importance of aligning behavior with values and navigating societal influences. A practical example is shared on applying motivational interviewing principles when dealing with a child’s low grades, emphasizing the significance of allowing children to make choices and face consequences.

In this episode, we discuss:* The podcast discusses motivational interviewing and its application in mindful and gentle parenting. * Casey Jackson, a parent himself, shares her experiences with parenting, including raising twin teenage girls. * The conversation touches on the conflict between wanting children to be a reflection of the parent versus helping them become the best version of themselves. * They emphasize the importance of aligning behavior with values and navigating the complexities of parenting influenced by societal norms and past experiences. * The hosts highlight the challenges of collaborative parenting and co-parenting, where different individuals with their values are involved. * The concept of individuation in adolescents and the natural conflicts that arise during this stage of development are discussed. * Casey shares a practical example of applying motivational interviewing principles when dealing with her child’s low grades and the importance of allowing children to make choices and face consequences. * The hosts discuss the ethical aspect of parenting, setting boundaries, and guiding informed choices to help children align their behavior with their values. * The podcast encourages parents to be mindful, gentle, and supportive while allowing their children the freedom to make choices and learn from their experiences.

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Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below! Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, and organizations. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Welcome. I’m Danielle Cantin, your facilitator of the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert, and we are here to talk about everything related to motivational interviewing and how it can help you in particular around challenging. What we’re calling mindful and gentle parenting.

Now, I’m not a parent. However, I did assist in raising 16 nieces and nephews. so I’m really curious about this. The minute I met you, Casey, You know how I felt. I was like, what on earth is motivational interviewing? I, this can change the entire world, not just organizations and teams and businesses, but your personal life.

And, and so that’s when you dove in and talked about how it affected you on a personal level. So I thought that’d be a great topic and want to turn it over. So I am in the thick of parenting. I’ve got. Twin teenage girls, who just started high school, their high school career. I have a grown adult son and grandkids and, you know.

It is, I like the mindful and gentle because

it can be mindful, but it’s not always feeling like it’s gentle motivation really up that, angle for me significantly. I think the things that I think of with, when we’re always looking for me, when I’m looking through that motivational lens, it’s always that. Narrative is my behavior in line with my values.

where’s my ambivalence and is my behavior in line with my values. And I think what’s difficult is when there’s so much modeling around us for what good parenting is. You know, I mean, even from sayings like, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child, or, you know, when that’s what you hear, or the ways that religions talk about parenting, or schools talk about parenting, or the media talks about parenting, you know, even Pre-social media days, you know, the books and the TV shows on, leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best and just where do we get our input for how to parent comes from so many sources and probably the most potent source of parenting is how we were parented and, and how that sticks with us, or how it repulses us to the place where it repels us away from wanting to parent like that.

It’s just such a complex construct and I think the thing for me, one of the things that I know for myself, As I continue to try to grow and evolve as a parent is do I want to be right? Are my children a representation of me? Or do I want to bring out the best in them in terms of who they came to be? And I think those are the belief differences, you know, that is huge.

Those are three different directions that probably overlap in certain times and probably want to take one versus over the other. I could only imagine, but wow. Yeah, those three are mindful piece. Wow. And I couldn’t help Casey, as you were explaining all of what you’re dealing with as a parent, and I just had to interject and say, oh, and then.

And then blend that with, there’s a whole nother human, typically, that’s parenting dealing with all of their stuff, and you’ve got to somehow collaborate. 100%. Because the collaborative parenting or co parenting is its own difficulty. I think of it when you take that, just the relationship. Peace. You know, I talked about this when I’ve done parenting classes or relationship classes is it’s not a matter of their behaviors in line with your values because of that.

Where so much tension happens in partnerships and relationships is your behaviors not in line with my values. You know, we don’t say that explicitly, but we operate that way. You know, you’re taking me off. That’s not the way you’re supposed to load a dishwasher. That’s not the way you for laundry. and it’s, there’s so much judgment and heat to that, which becomes then, well, that’s, that’s, we’re not giving them allowance for doing chores that they should be doing to contribute to the house.

You know, I mean, those are the points of contention in real time with real people, in terms of how things are supposed to be, you know, quote unquote, what it’s supposed to be, what it should look like, how they should behave and how you get out of that quagmire. In parenting is extremely, extremely complex.

One of the things in a parenting class that I remember this was, gosh, probably 15 to 20 years ago, and really having parents think about, do you want to make your child be a certain way, or do you want to develop a child who makes values based decisions? Because as long as you’re telling them what to do, they are not making their own values based decisions because when you’re no longer there to tell them what to do, I always think of the example of, you know, in our culture, kids going off to college, we know that first quarter to the first year, everything from the freshman 15 to the, you know, getting themselves in trouble and grades dropping immediately, it can be GPA, but they get to college that first quarter and so many kids are first semester.

And it’s like, wow, out on their own, they’re having to learn is my behavior getting me what I want and some ways my behavior is in some ways it’s not, but to be out from underneath the thumb or the roof of the parents so often. It’s a restart of, is my behavior getting me what I want versus is it getting me allowance?

Is it getting me, you know, a weekend pass? Is it getting me to the prom? Is it getting me this? Is it giving me that? It’s just a different worldview. And I, even when I talk about, I think about from a place of privilege. I’m talking from a place of privilege that those are the conversations. So what it comes down to is for when I think of motivation and parenting, what am I trying to orchestrate?

In my Children, where their first thought is, is my behavior going to help me be who I want to be instead of is this behavior and get me in trouble with my parents? Which causes lying and deception and all sorts of other things or honesty. but it queues it up relationship based versus internal first in terms of is my behavior lined up with what I, who I see myself as, or is this something that’s going to create tension between me and someone else?

Just be able to work with that is a really fascinating dynamic to be mindful about.

I think what you’ve said that is a fascinating word that popped for me is orchestrate. So if I can sit there, there’s two takeaways I took from you so far. And one is I’m going into a situation. I’ve got all of this baggage and stuff in my world of parenting. Do I want to get them to understand and believe in what I believe?

Or do I want to help them? Be the best version of themselves, just that alone. And then in a, in a different way, I feel like what you just said is even a little bit deeper because then it begs the question of how do I orchestrate that? How do I become, become that instrument that will get my child to start looking at.

An internal process versus resisting me to jump in there too, that there was another thing that I think is really important before you keep building off of that to Casey for this, it’s that there is a third factor. And that’s why I jumped in. I was like, well, wow, that third factor, how much are they representing me?

How much do I want them to be a representation of me? A mini me, or a look at, I go to this school so I can have pride that my kid goes to this specialty. Whatever school, you know, East coast to be different West coast, but whatever that is, right? Like that seems to be a really important thing to be mindful of that.

How much are you trying to, as one, unfortunately, I can’t remember the author talked about like getting the plant to grow in a certain way versus giving nourishment to the soil. And I love that metaphor of giving nourishment to the soil. Is like different and Danielle just builds off of what you said, being mindful of what direction am I taking with my parenting and how do I make sure to stay in that intentional, open, humble, whatever you want to say, place and then how do you go about the orchestration and how do you do that when you still are a human?

With triggers and imperfections, and then you see things in your partner, and it’s just such a hard thing to orchestrate. So I don’t know if that’s where you were going, Danielle of like, how to orchestrate that. But that seems like a lot to be a mindful of how much. Are you clear on that metacognitive, which is its own skill.

And then not only that, how much do you, are you even aware of what’s going on? Then how do you even orchestrate it? you just opened a whole can of worms for it with the whole like mini me, or is it a reflection and that’s supposed to be on even parenting? Like everything is like. We relate it back to ourselves and again, it, when I think at least in American culture, that it makes so much sense because it was keeping up with the Joneses and, you know, when there used to be a really solid middle class.

It really was all the lawns look the same, you know, lawns are mowed, picket fences are painted, you know, dinners on the table at, you know, five o’clock at night when dad gets home like that. And if it wasn’t in that norm or normal. It was abnormal. so your children, you expect them to behave a certain way and dress a certain way and their hair is going to be above their collar because of their hair is below their collar.

Then that’s a whole different thing of how it represents the family. So there’s so much in that representation of us that we can talk about. Yeah. We want them to play sports because we played sports, but I think it’s more. It culturated. I know our mainstream mainstream American culture. I know how enculturated it was for what I was raised with.

You know, you know, you need to be at least a B average student. You need to be and it really was your parents wanting the best for you. And knowing that you can do those kinds of things, whether it’s sports or academics or friend groups or who you’re dating, but it does become a representation and when it becomes a representation of the family unit or of the parent, it’s hard for it not to be compliance driven and it’s extremely difficult for it not then to create tension or conflict within families or within relationships.

Because one stage of development fundamentally for, I mean, this is an area of, you know, I grew up educationally in child development is, is fundamentally a necessity for adolescents to go through a sense of individuation. They have to go through a sense of individuation and when you’re going to go through a stage of individuation, there is going to be conflicts with parents that are really trying to control the narrative and the growth and development of their child.

You know, from a values based perspective, from a, you know, maybe a religious based perspective, and when, when children go through their natural individuation that they have to go through, those are the times that cause the most conflict. That’s, that’s why I never had a problem as a clinician working with children, adolescents and family work, because there’s always conflict going on, in some family somewhere about.

You know, it’s so deep that this whole premise of how are you representing the family? And it does, it does lighten the mood for me a bit. Like when you opened the podcast, I just want to start laughing with the way you phrased it at one point with me, where you’re just like, Oh yeah, with the people we love, we tend to want them to come on, get your behavior aligned with my values.

Would you? It’s so hilarious. It’s just a fun way for me to. Lighten, lighten the load a little bit when I realize, Oh God, that’s what I’m doing. Well, and you step back and you just, you can see the dynamics. This is what I love about why I’m so obsessed with motivational interviewing or the constructs of it, because it helps my brain think differently in terms of, wow, that’s so normal.

But it’s so unhealthy. It’s so normal to want to do those things because by definition it is the norm, which means that’s the majority or the, where you’re going to see the least outliers, but it’s so unhealthy when you’re thinking about healthy growth and development, because you look at the byproducts of that and, and, and the way that we’ve evolved, you know, culturally, you think about just the rebellion.

And then I think, I think what’s so funny, I remember when I was traveling, In Europe and specifically in Italy, and I wasn’t in the Colise but was in one of the antiquities around there. And there was graffiti in the gym, back in the Roman days, basically just talking smack about their parents and the teachers.

And so, and so it’s just like, oh, my gosh, just that the necessity of rebellion against. The generations above you has been going on since there’s been generations above you. Like it’s just there’s that we’re going to do it differently. We’re going to do it better. I’m not going to be like my parents. I’m not going to be like my brother.

I’m not going to be like, you know, if I was a teacher, I wouldn’t like, it’s just, we have to go through that individuation. So we’ve got to find somewhere where there’s conflict. To define clear who we are. And it’s like, wow, that’s just brutal when you’re talking about a relationship or a family or parenting, because it’s like, no, I want to have just a nice, happy family.

And, and when I say go clean your room, they go, sure, dad, and put their finger in their dimple and skip over and clean their room. So many of our conversations around motivational interviewing go back to a place of me like wanting this fairy land of goodness. And it, it. Reminds me of how important that conflict is.

It helps us grow. It helps us get better. It helps us to identify and really claim who we are. but with that said, so teenagers go through this and what, what is the gift of parenting to the, the parent to say, okay, here’s an opportunity for you to actually get to know you a little bit better and grow as a person.

It is. And, and just, and this is, I, because this is so fresh because this is a literally today situation, the, how lucky I feel to understand some of these concepts and be able to, to try to employ them in my life on any given day, you know, one of the twins grades. And I look kind of dimensionally of why the grade is so low.

So what she has a C and an F, which is, and she’s so flipping smart. So my natural reaction, when I see that is like. You are freaking kidding me. Like this is happened. And then what I love about my relationship with motivation, I’m going to thinking of parenting this way is. And the only thing that’s going to do is generate conflict, and it doesn’t mean there’s not accountability, but I don’t have to be accountable for her grades.

She gets to choose to be accountable to it, and she gets the rewards or the benefits or the consequences if she doesn’t attend to that. So, as you know, you know, as I’m co parenting and we’re texting back and forth, I said, you know, I really, let’s take a motivational approach to this, which means I’m going to take a deep breath and get back into equipoise, which means it’s not my grade.

and just to be clear, like we have about what are the consequences if your grades below fall below a certain level, you don’t get to spend time with your boyfriend, you, you know, you don’t get to stay up late and this is going to affect your allowance because you get your allowance based on your jobs, which is school and sports.

So if you’re not going to do your job, that’s totally fine. You just don’t get paid for it. and you don’t get the benefits because that time should be spent studying, but I’m not mad at you. You know what you’re at, whatever you’re doing and how you think you’re gonna get your grade up. That’s you’re gonna, you’re gonna choose to navigate that.

That’s yours to navigate. Maybe you think you’re gonna be able to pull the plane out of the nosedive and, and, and not, you know, think you’re gonna get an A out of the class or be out of class. You know yourself best. You know the teacher best. You know what the expectations that class are way better than I do.

So to tell you what I would do and how I would, you know, put my nose to the grindstone and I need to do my homework and that’s what I had to do to get my grades up and you need to do that. We’re going to block out time where you’re doing two hours of homework a night, like all the places that my brain organically wants to go.

I just know will create conflict and it will not increase a sustained behavior change. So I don’t want to contribute to something I know is not going to create a sustained behavior change that’s values driven that’s, and it’s, and all of a sudden there’s a piece that washes over me going, Oh, I don’t have to choose this for her.

all I get to choose is to, you know, to be able to lay out clearly what the benefits and what the consequences are, based on her choices. And then she has, she has a freedom to choose. And that’s one of the best things I can do as a parent. That’s really big right there, Casey, for what some conversations you and I have had that.

Have had maybe some tension and conflict is because I’m such an idealist a lot of the time, because I have, whatever in that viewpoint that can make me lose. Touch with maybe a certain level of reality or, or pragmatism or, you know, something that your approach is putting guidelines, it’s putting cost and benefits out there.

You’re not just saying, well, I’m going to be so values based that you can go out and run into the street with firing, you know, guns metaphorically, right? Like, there’s something going on that you are putting up and coming up with and Bumpers, as it were, some people might say, well, aren’t you being, and this is where you and I have had these conversation.

Well, you’re manipulating, you’re using, am I on your kids then to get them to do what you want them to do? And I know we don’t have a ton of time more here, but. I think, and we have podcasts on this with equipoise podcast and these others, but I’m wondering how you navigate kind of your own ethics as a parent to like, how do you put out those boundaries?

Cause that’s part of the orchestration. How do you know what is healthy? Or do you go off of like. You know what you can sense is healthy for them because it seems like as long as your intention is to help them get their behaviors in alignment with their values. That’s what you said is there’s a lot of things that can do that, even if it feels a little like that.

But how would you know, how do you do that as a parent to like, how would you know what kind of boundaries to put up? Like you use that REI example of getting in line and allowing them to go out and potentially smoke weed that with friends that are going to be there or not, or like. How do you know, as a parent, maybe you don’t have an answer for that, but how do you orchestrate that like to have like highlighting the choice with a little bit of boundary?

I don’t know. I think part of this is also based on when you, when you talk, the things you’re talking about, John, is I do think it comes down to what as a parent are your values or your belief systems. I don’t believe my children were clean slates when they came into this world because. I know when they slipped into this world, they were two, as twins, they were two completely different individuals from the moment they took their first breath.

Like, I could see they were wildly different individuals, and that they were not clean slates. At this stage, at 14 years old, going on 15, what I do genuinely believe, because of the way that I’ve chosen to live my life around them, and the way that we’ve kind of tried to raise a family, is that… I know that each of them have very distinct values, some that are very aligned with mine and some that are not aligned with mine, and I don’t get a choice over that at this point at 14 or 15 years old.

So, I have to believe that if I create the space and the clarity of the top of their mountain, that they’re going to want to gravitate or drift towards the top of the mountain, even though they may take some… You know, some off roads or off ramps that I wouldn’t choose for them, but I can’t control it.

And there, it’s just, it’s crazy making to think you can control someone else’s behavior, even as a parent. And so there’s a point of not, it’s not necessarily surrender. It’s more investing in, I want to continue to invest in their values and articulating their values and what values do they espouse. And then just holding the mirror up is their behavior in alignment with it.

Those, you know, core constructs. Thinking motivationally, excuse me, with the boundary you’ve put in that, that’s what I’m curious about, especially as we’re coming, like you didn’t said, well, you aren’t going to get your allowance or you’re not going to be able to go on that date. It seems like there’s something to be said for the responsibility of parenting that you’re getting that that’s part of the orchestration is beyond just believing that they have inherent values or values you brought in.

That there’s something to be said that you’re guiding informed choice along the way, in a way that’s as ethical as you possibly can. Am I being a way to be as ethical as you can, if you’re going to have any boundaries, because you are the one saying it is your values, but you choose kind of in these lines, kind of like, you know, love and logic and some of these other things that are out there.

So it seems like you’re getting clear, like. This is a healthy choice to put this boundary up. I think this is a perfect segue because this, my, my final question was now connected dots for me, cause you opened with mindfulness and gentleness are not always together. And I feel like this brings it full circle to, the gentleness that comes in into play in that story that you shared with your daughter.

It’s just like, yeah, there are boundaries there. I’m going to remind you of those and then invite you. Into it’s your choice, but the energy of it’s your choice could be that compliance vibe, or it could be that gentleness of, I genuinely want you to make the best decision for you, whatever that is. Yeah.

The way that I connect those dots, you know, in these, in these kind of the final thoughts around it is it’s no different than I think of. It keeps popping in my brain about quiet quitting, like as a leader. If people are not going to do their job, they’re not going to get a paycheck like they’re, or they’re not going to continue to, they’re not going to continue to be employed.

That’s not because I’m mad at them. It’s just not a fit. It’s the same thing. If you’re not going to follow through on the things that you have kind of on paper handshook as a Parent and a child said, yes, I’ll clean my room. Yes, I’ll do this. Did we agree on these things for allowance? What about how much do you think is fair?

And once we kind of shake hands on that, it’s not that I’m going to try to make them be good business kids to understand how the real world works. It just is, that is how the real world works. So I don’t need to preach. That’s how the real world works. I just need to show them. That’s how the real world works is once we kind of agree on something, if you don’t follow through.

There could be consequences. And if you do follow through, there tends to be benefit from that. But you get to choose. You really do get to choose. You get to choose for kind of a range that seems like a fair allowance. What feels like you’re getting an allowance for what? What do you want to put under that column?

And if you choose to follow through on it, things will go well. And if you choose not to, they’re probably not going to be as smooth. but it’s not that you’re gonna, it’s not the, I don’t have to, I don’t have to introduce shame and guilt because They just get the consequences and they get a feel how they.

They feel about that. That’s part of their own individual development. I love it. What a wonderful podcast. What a wonderful invitation to parents, to get more present with themselves, mindful with themselves and their values and to really. themselves choose. How do you want to move forward and and support your kids?

So it’s a nice tell you that it’s just a nice deep breath and it’s an exhale from a lot of the weight that can be on your shoulders as a parent. That’s the making too, because it’s like, what if you agree on something, you know, with your kids about boundaries and there’s some disagreement. So We’ll see what comes up next, but I really appreciate you guys.

Thanks so much to all the listeners out there. reach out. Don’t hesitate to connect with us if you’d like more information or some help around parenting or anything related to communication. Thanks guys. Thanks.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.Com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
Today we explore the application of motivational interviewing in union strike negotiations and emphasize the significance of aligning behavior with values and delve into the challenges of compensation disparities.

In this episode, we discuss:* Application of motivational interviewing in union strike negotiations * Importance of aligning behavior with values * Addressing compensation disparities, including CEO salaries * Role of empathy in reducing resistance and discord in negotiations * Bridging visionary organizations and effective communication through MI * Contemplating the impact of AI on negotiations and human connections

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below! Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi, I’m Danielle Canton, and I am here with Casey Jackson for the communication solution podcast. Hey, Casey. How are you? Good. Awesome. We are here to talk about everything motivational interviewing and how it applies to the world. And I’m very excited about today’s topic because there are so many union strike negotiations happening.

So what comes to mind for me is, obviously Michigan. So that’s my hometown, Detroit. So what happens in the automotive world, what happens is a trickle down effect from that. And then of course, California, the writers. So I think it’s kind of a rich topic to talk about, motivational interviewing. So I think I’ll kick it over to you.

It is a fascinating topic. You know, my brain is always trying to run things through the MI lens first. And what I always think of fundamentally is, is your behavior in line with your values. And I think what’s interesting from, you know, not being overly versed, in those two current union strikes that are happening, but I was watching one of the interviews where the CEO makes 29 million and got a substantial bonus.

And they’re saying, they’re just talking about what’s a livable wage and how to raise a livable wage and how do you argue against that? And it’s interesting because the CEO wouldn’t really answer that question because. It’s almost impossible to compare apples to apples when you’re talking that kind of dollar amount and different in, in wage, what people are making, but what I always think of is how do we peel back and go, is my behavior in line with my values?

And so when I think of union workers. When they look at, you know, espousing family values, like from an organizational perspective or for corporate perspective, you know, we’re into family values and we support our workers. And I think there’s a fundamental push to go, well, then put your money where your mouth is.

And, and so I think that generates that is the corporation’s behavior in alignment to what it espouses its values to be. This is something we’ve talked about so many times in motivation going with organizational change. I always think is the organization’s behavior in alignment with its own vision, mission.

Value statement or guiding principles and most all talk about, to some extent, not only wanting to improve outcomes or quality of life for people, but many reference their workforce and what they want to do to support their workforce as well, too. You know, we support our families. We support our workforce.

We support these things. And I think when that gets repeated or messaged enough times, I think then the workforce genuinely is like, well, wait a second. It seems like you value, you know, people at the top way more than you value people at the bottom. At least the, when we look at our, you know, Living paycheck to paycheck or, you know, busting our bodies up, you know, for the sake of producing something or intellectual rights because of, you know, a writer who’s like, nobody can create this exactly where I can create it.

There is innate value to that. So when people feel. Not valued. It starts to feel like is my behavior in line with my values. And then when that starts to percolate, then you want to look at, you know, at leadership and go, well, is your behavior in line with what you espouse to the public? So, so again, it’s for me, it’s not a matter of right or wrong.

But when you peel back those layers from motivational interviewing, those are the things that kind of. Percolate my brain in terms of, you know, so many people are scrambling. It goes, is my behavior line with my values. And, and that’s why I think circling back around that, that, CEO salary, that’s, that’s a, that’s a rough one to justify, you know, to, because most people can’t comprehend that dollar amount.

I think it was like $29 million. It’s just so hard that an individual can earn that much money for a position that they’re in when somebody else may be making minimum wage or. You know, what looks like fair market wage. And so I think that’s going to generate all sorts of blame outside the self and all sorts of ambivalence.

Yeah, it’s fascinating when you, you, I just love the way you look at any topic through the lens. And what struck me about what you just described was. The multitude of conversations happening in people’s heads. So you’ve got the workers, the workforce who are saying, wait a minute, you mentioned the writer, you know, it’s just like, wait a minute.

Are my behaviors aligned with my values? And then a conversation with the organization leaders saying, well, we’re touting this. Do we really believe it? Is that all aligned? Do we really want to support the workers? How does this work? And then, I don’t know, I feel like there’s a third of, probably the, the society in general, and how that interplays.

And what struck me when you’re describing this is. Who’s facilitating that conversation? Because they’re all having separate conversations! Yes. So how, no wonder it’s such a stressful time and feels like this moment of will we ever get through this because everybody’s in their own head. That’s exactly it.

And when you come to a table for negotiation, we can talk about win win as much as we wanted to in terms of negotiation, but there’s always that perception that somebody is going to have to give up or lose something. So I know that the, you know, the art of negotiation is to go in that with a win, win mindset.

But when you go into that individual mindset, it’s like, well, so I’m not going to get what I deserve. Or am I going to get what I deserve out of this? And I think it’s that, I mean, in a, we’re in a capitalistic society and a capitalistic society. It’s like, well, where is who’s going to get what dollars for what product?

So a writer looks at that and thinks, well, you couldn’t even have these products if I didn’t. Generate a script, especially if I’ve generated a script that’s generated, you know, millions, multi millions of dollars and, and what I got in relationship to that really is not much. And now to have that being taken away, like I know in the, with the, the writer strike and, some of the other strikes going on in Hollywood has to do with the, you know, the proliferation of AI right now, because, well, you’re going to use me once and pay me once and then you’re going to use my likeness.

You know, at Infini and it’s just like that, that’s not fair. That’s you’re making money off of me. And that’s a whole mindset of it. It’s profit driven. And, and this is, I know partially where the auto workers were frustrated is because it’s been some of the greatest profit margins in recent history for the automobile industry.

And they’re like, well, we’re the ones that are busting our humps every single day. And all of a sudden you’re handing over these massive amounts of bonuses. And we’re the ones that are in the field doing the work. We’re the ones in the factories. We’re the ones doing these things to actually produce. And if we didn’t do it, you’re not going to get those great big.

Bonuses, so where is the, where is the equity and sharing, which is just an ironic construct for some things fundamentally in a capitalist society that it’s like, you know, to others, unions, unionization, which is ironic because then some people talk about the whole thing about is a union, more of a socialist perspective or a communist perspective versus, you know, capitalism, which is, you know, we’ll just pay somebody else to do it, which is why there’s so many use union vesting.

You know, mindsets out there as well, too. So it’s just fascinating. And then it, for me, the easiest way to start to sort it out is just go back to square one and go fundamentally people are determining is my behavior in alignment with my values and then values have to do with, am I getting compensated a fair wage?

And then on the flip side, what would I be doing if I wasn’t doing this? So if I wasn’t, you know, putting in this extreme amount of. effort and labor in a factory and getting compensated at this level, what would I do instead? And this gets back into my behavior in line with my values. Am I doing it for a paycheck?

Is, am I doing it for the love of the, what I do? Am I trying to make a difference in the world or am I just wanting to put food on the table for my family? Wow. Do you think Do you think there is a possibility to help people sort through that from an MI perspective from just looking into the future of negotiations in general, right?

It’s just like, where do we need to go as a society, whether it’s a big scale strike negotiation, or to your point, just a conversation between two individuals. That are looking for the quote unquote, win win, I think the challenge will always be that you’re going to have conflicting values at the top of like, when we talk about focus mountain, you know, that the values up there, there’s going to be conflicting values for any given individual.

And then we were having an individual within a system or an organization that can be. You know, values that are aligned and values that are in conflict, from a negotiation perspective or how these, how these conversations play out is people do get nervous about what they have to give up. And am I sacrificing to some extent, for the greater good and when a greater good is.

Dollar amounts, then I think that just generates a whole lot of emotional reaction for people. Those are conversations you and I have had, you know, that it just, it just generates a lot of emotion because people get very attached to that because that is what is so much value in our, in our society has to do with the almighty dollar.

So I think in the future of negotiations, I think helping people get clear about their own values. I think, you know, even prior to that, I think just being able to articulate clearly what are our vision? What is our, what. What is our vision? What is our mission? What are our values? And mission is done by your missionaries.

I mean, it’s, it’s done by your workforce. And what do you believe in terms of supporting your workforce? I think that’s part of those conversations that could happen in negotiations, but those are not the kind of negotiations that happen when you’re talking about, you know, healthcare benefits. And are you going to pay for dental in my glasses or not?

That, that becomes, you know, what chips are on the table. And I think people get so invested in that it’s harder to make it about, you know, ambivalence and is my behavior in line with my values. And that’s where it starts to get more, you know, convoluted. I’m going to make a bold assessment here. When I met you and was exposed to motivational interviewing.

It was pretty dramatic, my reaction, in terms of the power of this work and the way that you train, you explain it, you invite people into a way of being. It’s not strictly a communication solution. It’s not a thing that you do. It’s. It’s a way of being, and I think that’s the incredible invitation. I see it as, and there’s so many organizations that you train that embrace MI that, and then more and more newer industries are saying, Oh, I see how this applies to us, you know, from nonprofit to for profit are seeing the incredible results because it is so evidence based.

So as you’re talking and I’m listening, going, I went into this conversation going, how do we help make negotiations? More honorable, more successful. And then as you just finished up Casey, I’m like, Oh my God, if every organization implemented, am I training? There wouldn’t be a need for negotiations. Am I crazy for thinking that?

I don’t think it’s crazy at all. I think what it is is that anybody that believes in a lean process or a continuous quality improvement process, it really was, then you’ll, you’ll keep looking at rewriting or clarifying or fine tuning again, your vision, what. What is, how is the world different? Because we exist the mission in terms of how are we going to get that done?

You know, the values in terms of how are we going to march together? You know, what are we kind of pinky swearing on or handshaking on that? This is who we, these are the kind of the parameters that our values were operating from. I think of that as clear in any organization and how to communicate that consistently.

You’re going to have less fundamentally, I mean, the research shows is you’re going to have less discord. There should be less miscommunication and part of the foundation foundational piece of motivational learning and the research. I mean, this is the, it’s just looking at the latest research around.

This is the profound nature of how impactful accurate empathy really is on data, whether you’re talking, yeah. Litigation against physicians, you know, with attorney, it doesn’t matter what the profession is, is what they’re seeing. The data shows is that high accurate empathy will keep risk resistance and discord to a minimum.

Well, what happens when you’re talking negotiation is people tend to want to go into their own corners and then either come out swinging or hiding things, you know, behind their back because they don’t want certain things taken away. So it’s like, where do I, where do I slide this under the, the. Rug so people don’t see it.

So that doesn’t become part of what’s on the table to negotiate. Like it just becomes this whole game process when you get into negotiation, which starts from the absence of trust and the absence of empathy. And mostly what people tend to want to do when they’re on the defensive is justify their behavior, which is where resistance comes from and which starts to increase, you know, that tension and discord more profoundly.

Yeah. I think that there’s an incredible opportunity. How do you, how do you see. When we talk about union strikes and negotiations, we’ve done another podcast and you’re invited to help hostage negotiation task forces as well. Do you see a similarity in there? Definitely. I think the difference is you’re talking about usually with hostage negotiation, you’re in an end of one, you know, maybe an end of.

Two or three or four, but more often than not, it’s an end of one. And when you’re talking about negotiations on behalf of the union, you’re talking about it, you know, like the auto union or something. I mean, you’re talking about tens of thousands of people. And I think that becomes difficult because how do you represent the collective ambivalence?

And I think that’s where skilled, skilled, union reps. They’re very skilled at being able to kind of consolidate where is our core ambivalence and to be able to draw from the collective brain and come to where the core ambivalence is. And then M. I. is just exceptionally good at helping people navigate through ambivalence to get behavior aligned with value.

So the basic construct of it is going to be. Similar if you’re thinking, am I the thing that I’ll say as well, too, is when we’re talking fidelity based motivational interviewing, you’re also looking at fundamentally behavior change. Are you trying to affect long term sustained behavior change? So that’s why for me, it’s I can’t separate out the vision statement, mission statement of value statement.

When you’re looking at workers who are disgruntled from that process of motivation, it’s always is your behavior line with your values and does your behavior represent that? Or is this an opportunity if you, if you try to peel back the emotional reaction from it, what it comes down to is. Any feedback like this from a union or from your workforce is an opportunity for continuous quality improvement.

I mean, that is the basis of good quality management is, is there something that gets kicked up in our system or some part of the assembly line that starts to break down where somebody can raise their hand and say, there’s a problem here? And then can we come up with a process to improve that? So for me thinking, I mean, when you’re asking, you know, can you see motivation wing in this, in this way, or the application that’s on a corporate or business level, it’s just like, it’s hard for my bias to tease that out.

Because I think that is just good business because when you have a happy workforce that feels that they’re compensated and there’s people that value your product, how can that not be a healthy, thriving business? That, so again, it’s almost an ivory tower concept, but I think that’s the blessings that I get is I get to work in some of these real world examples and try to, to bridge, you know, ivory tower down to, you know, a house on main street.

I love it. I love the journey I go on in a short podcast with you. It feels a little dramatic to me, but I’m like, I start with this pie in the sky. I’m like, what if we create a world where there’s no need for union negotiations all the way to wait? They can be a beautiful representation of growth and an opportunity, especially if you handle it with, with the empathy, with accurate empathy through something like motivational interviewing.

Oh, this is a great, fascinating topic. I think this is, I think it, it sparks me the desire to talk more about, you know, we’re talking about, I think because of the writer’s strike and the artificial intelligence and how that’s, it’s just being shoved into the forefront of our. You know, our social vernacular right now, because it is just, it’s looming there.

That is a, it is an opposable force that is moving forward, in our, in our cultures. And so I think of that from an MI perspective as well too. So not, not only from, I get the writer strike side of it, that it’s just like, you’re, you’re just going to, you know, try to make more money by opting me outta the equation and just taking basically who I am and then giving it to.

A computer and having the computer be me now for you forever, I’d make money off of that. That does that just the absence of empathy in that construct alone is mind boggling. So, and this is the same thing that’s starting to bridge into motivational interviewing. You know, there’s, there’s, Several software apps out there that are AI driven and motivational or parallel to motivation learning where they’re doing coding in real time.

So literally, as you talk, AI is coding your conversations for empathy and all sorts of other metrics to find out so you don’t have to do like the coding and coaching we do more and more people are pushing AI. And now that they’re pushing AI for the coding and coaching, the AI is learning how to do.

Motivational interviewing. So then it’s like, again, what are those core components that can be outsourced from an, an AI perspective? And at what point do we lose that human connection? And if we’re going to stick with research, what does the research show? And the research shows to some extent that some of the AI applications can be more effective than humans, which is just a extremely jagged pill to swallow extremely to think that, you know, a computer could outdo our humanity.

That’s just, that is. I think there’s going to be a lot of, you know, some emotional revolt against that. And this is why I think it becomes complex with evidence based practices and, and, and looking at these things about, you know, where’s the source of conflict coming from? Is there a solution or resolution?

And what if it doesn’t involve a, you know, human entity to do that resolution or negotiation? I mean, that’s what you think from that perspective. And will AI be better at negotiation than humans doing negotiation? Like that, it sounds so science fiction. I know it sounds so science fiction, but you know, we’re literally on the precipice of that.

So, and again, is that going to make a difference for, I keep going back to that writer, to that actor, to that auto worker, to that teacher, you know, of going, where do I, where do I fit in this mix? And am I not only dispensable, but does anybody really care, you know, if I can make my house payment or my car payment or feed my kids because my business.

You know, leadership espouses that they do, but on a day to day living, it doesn’t feel like many people care about that for as much as they espouse it. And I think this is where you’re going to get that disgruntled, where you’re going to see behavior, not in line with values. And then you end up with these, you know, significant conflicts that will have an impact on individuals and economies.

Wow. Incredible. God, thank God for your brain and your way of communicating. Like somebody that like me can understand you is. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good. Cause I, I’m, yeah. Cause I don’t listen to what I say half the time, but I know what makes sense in my brain as I kind of laid these applications for the top of each other.

Yeah. You have a gift I think. For sure. And thank you for setting up another podcast for us because motivational interviewing and AI. Holy smokes. Let’s let’s unpack that one. I think my eyes are going to start to twitch on that one. So we’ll see how that goes. Awesome. Thank you so much, Casey. And everybody, thanks so much for joining us.

We’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey @IFIOC.com. That’s CASEY at I F I O C dot com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
In this thought-provoking podcast episode, we delve into the intersection of Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We explore the potential implications of AI on the practice of MI, touching on topics such as emotional intelligence, genuineness, and the profound connection that occurs in human interactions.

In this episode, we discuss:* Exploring the profound impact of artificial intelligence on motivational interviewing. * Reflecting on the potential of AI to emulate cognitive empathy, but the challenge of replicating emotional empathy. * The significance of genuineness and its complexity in the realm of AI and human interaction. * Considering the depth of connection and meaning that arises from genuine, soul-to-soul human interactions. * Delving into the concept of spiritual intelligence and its potential role in the future of human interactions. * Reflecting on the ever-evolving landscape of AI and the need to approach it with compassion as a moral compass. * Embracing the role of humans as the masters of AI, recognizing the importance of individual biases and experiences. * Discussing the potential for AI as a tool and the responsibility of humans to navigate it with wisdom and empathy. * Playfully envisioning a podcast episode on Spiritual Intelligence (SI) as a continuation of this thought-provoking discussion.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi everyone. This is Danielle Canton. I’m facilitating the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert, the motivational, oh gosh, motivational interviewing. I want to say nerds, experts, like the whole world of MI. We are diving into part two, a pretty cool conversation we had earlier about artificial intelligence.

I think we started with the implications it might have on motivational interviewing, but true to form, you two took it mind blowingly huge and wide with so many great concepts. To dial in on from, from ethical to practical, considerations around AI. So let’s do part two and dig in and see if we can kind of rate it in for our viewers and listeners.

Well, you know, I think that they, it just struck me. It kind of my own internal joke now is just my own. How much do I have artificial intelligence, based on my own bias about my own knowledge basis. So. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good meta one. I like it.

intelligence is relatively artificial. You know, I think when we went so wide, it is hard for my brain to bring it into the here and now and go back to that. My brain always tries to go to the end of one once I go macro. But what I do look at is, Whether we’re overrun with AI, as long as there’s human experience, I really do believe that if that’s where the pendulum swings, there will be a pendulum that swings back to, I want to see a chef cook the meal at my table.

Um. Even if it tastes better by a robot doing it precisely, I think there’ll be always be a niche and there’s always going to be, you know, the potential for a pendulum swing back to, I just want to talk to a real person about real issues, and see their perspective on it with motivation. When, when I look through the eye lens, as we talk about it, as, as I teach it, I think because I have such a fascination with equipoise.

And usually cap it when people start to understand it, that it does not mean we’re robots. And I’ve been saying that for several decades now, that just because we’re in equipoise and trying to keep our bias out of the equation, it doesn’t mean we’re robots. I’m still very actively engaged in conversation, operating from a place of deep compassion and accurate empathy and, you know, trying to draw out someone else’s thoughts and feelings.

And I think. Looking at some of those qualities, like even evocation is you do want to find a bead, you know, get a bead running on someone else’s thought process. And I do think that our little supercomputers in our skull have the capacity to, to do that, to kind of catch the beat and be able to run with a bead in a way that maybe.

Maybe I will catch up with, but I think that’s gonna be a tough one for AI to catch up with. So when John starts to talk about a topic or an issue or gets into some emotional, you know, quagmire, my capacity to try to get linked into that in his mindset, as well as his words or voice intonation. There is something that is going to be hard pressed for, you know, a computer program, you know, or even AI that teaches itself to find that beat of how do I draw out and elicit and evoke John’s thoughts and ideas, in a way that I think is going to shape it towards a better outcome.

Or deeper into the despair, there’s a mastery of that. And I’m sure that there can be an algorithm that’s developed, but I think this is where I’m finding that where’s the safe place. You know, where will am I exist in a, in an AI world? There is something I think about our ability to. Process data so quickly in human interaction in a human way, that’s, I think, I think when I see the people that are masters in motivational interviewing, that’s what I’m always inspired by.

And I think when I watch other people listen to, like, if I have conversations or videos that I’ve done. Using motivation. It’s like, how does your brain think that fast? Like, how does it look so effortless? And I think so. There’s some things that I can replicate with that, but I think there’s aspects of it, like this mastery of it, that that is going to take a while for that to get there.

Even when I see AI images, you know, or humans that are being generated AI, our brains can kind of process. It’s not quite right. You know, especially if I get up close to it and see an NHD, it’s like, wait a second. That’s not a really human face. Like there’s just something I can just tell the sheen is not right.

There’s just something and it’ll keep improving. But those are the things I think of with, from an MI perspective. As well, too, that there’s just, there’s, there’s nuances and depth and dimensionality that a, I probably can master, but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to master that when I look into John’s eyes, when I’m having a conversation, that’s at my base and see that something in his brain just got tripped differently because of what came out of my mouth.

And how do I pursue that, or reimagine how I’m going to communicate that little blip that I saw spark in their brain when I opened my mouth. That point, Casey, to me, relates to a wide world that gets used a lot, just like the word empathy gets used a lot in a lot of ways, but there are actual definitions and components to it.

What I’m about to say also has a lot of depth and components to it, but it’s called EI, emotional intelligence. And how much is there even a capability of AI to have EI is its own interesting question. But EI is a big part of what I’m picking up, at least that you’re, expressing with eyes, with a sense with, I’m going to add that wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but context of what has happened, what, what we’re in right now, what I know about you going on in your life.

Thank you. That there’s a multitude of things with emotional intelligence, of my own self regulation of stuff, your stuff. With a computer that can paraphrase, I’m wondering, for example, it’s depiction of accurate empathy and depth of that, or if that even matters. I’m wondering if… They can see the eye shift this way, or and I say, they, I wonder if the statistical algorithm that is AI can pick up on why I love you because we’re anthropomorphizing something that’s a set of algorithms.

So, yes, I was, I was, I was talking about this, I think part 1. So, yes, I appreciate you appreciate it, but it’s like, I don’t want to perpetuate. That we’re anthropomorphizing this thing, this entity. But anyways, that’s to say that is there the ability to do that? Well, first of all, we have a lot of human stuff around that, that we could work on.

We can go to Mars and do all this other stuff. There’s also a lot on this planet to take care of. Well, we can go to metaphorical Mars with AI while we continue to really probably need some help. With our own emotional intelligence. So how much do we go these routes? How much does it help learn emotional intelligence?

Maybe it does for someone on the spectrum and it provides feedback I don’t know, but I feel like what you’re talking about Casey is this Emotional intelligence part, and I feel that when you especially take into account what you said in the effective psychotherapy podcast, we did, and the components there, when you take that, what I’ll call, am I, even though it’s not just, am I, you put it with E.

I understanding what you just said, and then I. You could have an extremely interesting, complex, helpful way of being and treating someone or something or, or, or doing that. Is it going to pick up all the things? I don’t know. I think maybe eventually, but I would say there’s always going to be, I also agree with you, Casey, some degree of wanting to connect.

With someone, not some thing. I haven’t seen that movie, her, it’s its own area, philosophical, deep, whatever. Just, I’ve heard some things about it, but like I could see the desperation. Leading us there if we do not cultivate these tenants of in the world more, which is not to say it’s a cult or some belief system per se, but that it’s cultivating these ways of seeing and treating other people as a foundation.

To AI so that AI serves that rather than does the paperclip thing or whatever it is, right? All these things in AI where now it’s going to destroy every human because it’s more efficient to make paper clips about humans, right? I’m just hoping that MI can be a guide along with emotional intelligence.

That’s that’s baked into it as well as people’s emotional intelligence. I think that those two things, the evidence is showing that if we have those with AI, it could be great, but I also think there’s a fear there that maybe then it supersedes, everyone’s helping profession or. Leads to destruction with that.

So I just thought I would add that to the thing I was picking up from you. I think it’s emotional intelligence is a key there. I love that. And the other thing that I see to like when we’re talking about that in the podcast about Miller and Moyer’s book on ethical or effective, excuse me, psychotherapists, you know, their clinical skills and improve outcomes.

You don’t want to look through those part of A. I requires it. Someone to put those algorithms in there and create the algorithms and when you look at take four of those top concepts just to get humans to come up with a definition that are consistent around that and a concept of what that is, and then to program the zeros and ones.

In a way that makes sense, it’s going to probably take some time. And I think this is that wherever the bridge is going to be to emotional intelligence, you know, bridging that into artificial emotional intelligence is probably that bridge is probably quite a ways out there. You know, again, always may or may not.

And I don’t want to underestimate the power of how quick technology advances, but that’s going to be complex. I’ll tell you what struck me, John, when you’re talking, what I was thinking about was. Why I started developing curriculum around motivation, being in trauma informed is somebody had kept repeating it to me, Casey, Susan Dreyfus had multiple, multiple times secretary of DSHS and said, Casey, there’s, there’s a, there, there, you need to start to explore this.

She said it so many times that it never really clicked until I was talking with a client who’d experienced significant trauma. And I remember there’s a reflection that I landed a very complex reflection, a deep, a motive, empathetic. Reflection and I saw something in their eyes, something in their brain.

I could actually see shift in the communication. Like I saw something click. I don’t know what it’s going to take to program a robot to be able to do that. And then to connect the dots to I think that motivation could work in trauma informed care this way, because when I’m using language, I can see how it’s impacting the brain in the moment.

And if I, and when we look at things like sustained talk and change talk, which, which AI could do maybe a better job of, but the timing of when to do that is so human based because. Mathematically, there may be enough energy to give change talk, but you could go to change talking. Somebody gets annoyed and pissed off saying that’s not what I meant.

Don’t aren’t you listening to me? I’m angry and upset. I don’t want to move forward right now. Like, you know, the level of programming it’s going to take a I to be able to differentiate that when I’m looking at Danielle going, I think she wants to move forward. But I think if I try to push it right now, it’s going to tick her off.

So yes, I could go for change talk, but I think because of her upbringing and her cultural background and gender and all these other things that I can see, if I try to go there too soon, I could actually see this, even though change talk could exist in this one second right here, I don’t think that’s the smartest decision based on everything I know about Danielle does that make?

So I think those, I think trying to program that it’s going to be much more complex. But could it actually reflect change? Talk? Absolutely. Can it reflect sustained talk with high accurate empathy? Absolutely. But can it pick up those human nuances? I think that’s going to be a ways out there. This is where I think I get excited about what we teach and what we believe.

And some of the things that Miller’s and Moyers are writing about is it is about that human being. Not about the technique. It’s it’s do you embody genuineness? Do you believe in acceptance? Are you focused in conversation? That is significantly more complex. And I think for the human brain to be able to digest and synthesize that and then communicate person to person.

That’s like I said before. It’s why people are just like, Oh, when I want, how did Dr Moyers do that in that conversation? How did Casey do that? How did John do that? How did you know? When we watch these videos, it’s like, how does their brain think that quickly? How do they adjust so quickly? If most people like are wowed by that, it’s going to take a while for a programmer to be able to replicate that.

And so I think that’s where I always think of these deeper things of, you know, are you going to be able to train a robot to do double sided reflections? Absolutely. They’re getting, they can do that. Can you get them to express empathy and do a positive affirmation? Absolutely. But to do with a level of genuineness and acceptance, In a way that draws out and evokes a deeper level from an individual that I think is going to be quite a ways down the road.

I am going to, for the sake of this right now, also highlight for those of you that do not know Casey and or have not heard him in his practice. Seems to, according to me, with just one tool alone, having now, I believe, officially over 4, 500 mica coatings, has an exceptionally high degree of empathy capabilities within him that I don’t know how fair that is to other humans, but I think it’s worth aspiring to that it is a, the most important component when we look back at effective psychotherapy tenants in that podcast and that thing you took, that’s critical.

We know that’s critical according to research, according to the human feeling, the anecdote, the beauty, the whatever that is. The emotional intelligence, that’s a part of emotional intelligence is empathy. So we know that’s a huge piece if, if, if AI were to come into MI, that’s not just repeating back.

That’s not just paraphrasing, but you said a mode as deep beyond what said. So that’s a big piece that might be a limiter. Where I could see the potential is this term and, and I know something that, that, you know, can be important for us, like you’re putting out Danielle of defining certain things, but it can be helpful for us to think about what could be a foundation that AI sets for people.

And I feel like, I don’t know how this would come together, but as you were talking, Casey, it spurred in me like, well, equipoise, this equal position, this non judgment place that in the part one was what spurred this whole conversation by Danielle, that we want to feel safe. That’s a part of, you could call it Maslow’s hierarchy, all sorts of things of values and needs.

We want to feel safe and comfortable and all that stuff, right? We want, and we have these values. We have these, whatever you want to say that I’m going to a place of, well, maybe, an AI could do acceptance pretty dang well, and probably more consistently. Then humans on the average. I don’t know.

That’s a hypothesis. I need to be tested. That’s my advice. Positive regard. I don’t know because sometimes people’s eyes, you know, those people that like, they like, see you in that way or have done the work or whatever you want to call that. That’s just like, wow, I feel in your presence, right? Like, so could you get that maybe with a really good AI model that has those eyes.

Or maybe an AI model that does affirmation, but I feel like we, I believe we still don’t know what we don’t know. And there’s so many blind spots going into this of what it means to be genuine. What does a feeling of positive regard remain to someone else in a different country of a different situation than what we’re talking about right now?

And how there is the weird Western industrialized all the, the, types of research that’s been done is with particular populations. So I feel there’s a larger thing to be had with and in the meantime, could there be ways of having that’s more accessible? So you don’t need to get on a wait list that uses tenants of it of to try to be helpful in some way or suicide hotline, or I don’t know.

Is that too dangerous? I don’t know. But I feel to your earlier point, Casey, in talking about like ethics and access, I think we should do our best with what we know around ethics and access and then do our best what we know to use human brains for human brains. And I believe like what you’re pointing to is maybe there’s at least in the short term a limit to complex empathy for, for AI, but maybe there’s some stuff that it could do that could help us in some sort of a way.

And I don’t know exactly how those two worlds come together, but some people have a tough time having acceptance. I know I do at times. And sometimes it’s hard to have positive regard for someone that has different beliefs than you, you know, so it’s like, can we use that to help us help people? I just don’t know how that would work, but I feel there’s a there there as well.

You know, 1 of the things that Dr Miller was differentiating when he was talking about empathy, it links into what you were talking about earlier, John, is they were, he was differentiating between cognitive empathy and emotional, And so I think the A. I. Is probably going to master cognitive empathy very quickly and probably already has.

I think the emotional empathy is what you’re talking about because of millery, the word he even used, which is I love the word is, you know, he said there are empaths and even he even referenced star track, you know, like true empaths that they can’t help. But feel what other people are feeling that’s emotional empathy.

And, you know, I think of that as sensitives or empaths that they’re just AI is just, I, I just don’t know how my brain is too limited to think that they could actually replicate that level of emotional empathy. And I think the other thing, and just with recent conversations I have, when I’ve talked about the one woman that I was talking to is actively suicidal, you know, last week and.

And honestly, a personal conversation that Danielle and I had recently, there is something on, you know, again, I’m not talking religion, but there’s something on a spiritual level that when somebody feels seen and heard by another human being, there isn’t, there is a neurochemical energetic thing that happens when you feel heard and seen and understood.

And I, it’s going to, for me, it’s going to be hard pressed to see. Artificial intelligence replicate that because there is something there is a there’s a depth of meaning there. There’s a depth of humanity. There’s a depth of soul or spiritual connection that I do think AI is just never going to be able to catch by definition.

It could not capture that. And I think I could be a naive in that perspective. But as of right now, I’m believing that that it’s just it’s too complex to reduce that into an algorithm. Because there is something about a soul connection, you know, it generations and cultures have believed in soulmates, you know, it’s just, there’s just so much there that I think the reductionist version, that’s going to be really complex.

So when I think of that level of empathy and what you said that I love was genuineness, this part of the, you know, the, those top eight that Miller and Moyers are talking about, that’s going to be hard. Genuineness is by definition, that is more of a human trait. You know, can a, can a robot emulate or replicate genuineness?

Absolutely. I think that almost is not part of the definition of genuineness. So I think that’s the part where I start to find that that solid ground is that there’s always going to be somebody that wants to talk to someone who is deeply empathetic and is present and knows them and they know their history and looks at that person and looks through that person to the soul of who they are.

I just think. Hey, I was going to have a hard time getting there and it’s going to be a longer process and I think that’s why I’m so excited about the evolution of research that it’s not about motivational interviewing. It’s about these characteristics or these traits or these mindsets and skill sets that we can evolve individually.

That improves outcomes for other human beings. So in some ways, and I don’t get as intimidated by the thought of, I like the thought there’s AI that can help somebody that’s suicidal. And instead of waiting weeks to get to see someone that, you know, if something breathes a little bit more air into their lungs and provides their brain a different way to think about things, that’s awesome.

But. There’s going to be always a need for that human to human soul to soul connection that even when we learn to program, you know, artificial emotional intelligence, you know, we, I don’t know if there’s a concept yet about spiritual intelligence, but if, if we went from. IQ to EQ, you know, maybe, you know, as we evolve as human beings, we’re going to desk you about spiritual, you know, quotient.

So, you know, that I’m more excited about that construct than AI in some ways is, and we find a way to get to spiritual intelligence. And what does that create in the world? Well, you and Bill Miller, both, he has the book, quantum change that he says is from, at least I can. Report from his mouth. I don’t, I can’t find the quote where he said it, but he told me he said to me that he thinks that’s his most important work.

He’s, ever produced more than, am I, which is quite a statement, I must say. And what I want to, as we’re coming towards the end of this discussion, I want to just highlight. How little we still know. And so what does it mean right now? It means right now we’re kind of assessing AI related to MI. And I was kind of asking, well, how do we harness AI and MI?

But before, you know, getting to kind of ahead of ourselves, what do we even know that it means to be genuine? What do we even know about who’s creating these algorithms? Is it a bunch of… Relatively above middle class white on average males that aren’t taking into account these, you know, like, like, there’s still so much going on here around all our imaginations that run an incredible amount of almost infinity.

And yet there’s still such a finite amount, and we haven’t even talked about how then there’s different algorithms that teach itself. And then that get human feedback or that don’t get human feedback along the way. So that could be. And in two complex learning, then there’s also quantum computing at like subzero temperatures.

That’s like crazy, crazy in the future. That’s literally a thing. Now it’s like, there’s still so much going on. It’s hard to even fathom what could be possible, but there does seem to be something worth. Training for in our world worth putting out into the world of what am I is standing for, which is these tenants of compassion, these tenants of treating other people and helping, you know, uplift them, support them, help them with their behaviors and values.

There seems to be a there there that’s worth supporting, you could say fighting for, but worth being in love for, that I would like to believe. I can hopefully help and not suffocate and that’s what I’m seeing as worthwhile of where to go from here is be aware of stuff and start trying to help it help us help people and using compassion as maybe a moral compass.

And hopefully we can not lead into the matrix and all the other stuff with it. You know, and I think that’s where I, it’s such a nice thought in my brain to think, and nothing in the AI world is going to call me up to come over and have a cup of coffee and sit in front of the fireplace with a snuggly blanket on my lap and listen to who I am and help me work through some of my struggles.

That’s always going to be a place for, you know, the underlying tenets of motivational learning in terms of helping people get clear about their values, how to navigate our ambivalence in a really effective way, and to feel like there’s somebody there that cares and understands that’s not trying to make you be or do something that is not how you choose to define yourself like that, there’s going to be a place for that in this world always.

And I think that’s where I just, you know, I just kind of settled into that thought after being overwhelmed with the, the takeover of the machines into, you know, what those machines are not going to be able to, you know, brew a, you know, a cup of hot chocolate or a nice cup of tea and sit down with me and, and, you know, put their hand on my leg and just look in my eyes and just say, no, you’re going to be okay.

Life is good. You know, you’re a good human being and you’ve got lots of great things ahead of you like that. It’s gonna be a while till they replicate that experience. I love that you just brought, brought that full circle to who I’ve experienced you as Casey is you paint a picture when you’re training, when you’re talking, when you’re sharing, you paint such a vivid picture that says so much more than can even be explained.

And so to leave this note, this two part podcast with that vision is so lovely. I can’t thank you enough. Also with the humility of saying, and I don’t know, and what else, what is there? What can we learn from it? I appreciate you both so much to go on a journey that just reminds me that, you know, we are The ones in charge of the mastery, we are the ones, you know, having gone to engineering school way back, I was the one doing the zeros and ones.

And I’m a person with biases with, you know, so it’s just like tying it all in together to realize it is a tool and how can we be the best master of that tool? Absolutely. And, and then I have to chuckle. You guys just brought us from M. I. to E. I. to A. I. To now, Casey, we’re doing a podcast on SI, spiritual intelligence.

Love it. Love it. Love it. Thanks so much guys. What a, what a great program. Thank you listeners for being here. We can’t wait to hear from you and what your thoughts are on all of these topics. See you next time. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert.

As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.Com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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In this episode, we discuss:* Exploring the intersection of motivational interviewing and artificial intelligence (AI) * Discussion on the influence of AI in various industries, including branding and marketing * Contemplating the perception of robots as nonjudgmental and its impact on human interaction * Ethical considerations surrounding the application of AI in helping professions * Reflection on the potential benefits and risks of integrating AI in healthcare and behavioral interventions * Debate on the balance between AI efficiency and preserving human compassion in interactions * Consideration of the future implications of AI on professions like coaching and therapy

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Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations.

Hi, I’m Danielle Cantin here facilitating the communication solution podcast, and I’m here with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Thanks for being here guys. Thanks for showing up, Danielle. Thank you. We’re here to talk about, another journey of motivational interviewing, everything motivational interviewing.

And how it relates to everything else in the world. So, this topic is very hot. It’s AI, artificial intelligence. And I find it incredibly intriguing, being in branding and marketing, and how it’s overtaking that industry. Every single industry is being touched by AI and the influence of AI. And I can’t help, but go back to when I first learned about motivational interviewing, you exposed me to a particular article from the journal of Medical Internet Research, from, I think it was a scientist, the UK and Australian scientist that said, robots are perceived.

As nonjudgmental, more nonjudgmental than people. So I thought I’d kind of kick it off and hand it over to you guys to dive into everything related to AI. Oh, you know, and this is going to be a little bit meta, but what, which is perfect for AI is when I found that article, I was literally in an exercise for myself of not getting sucked into push notifications because I don’t want to keep feeding the algorithms.

This is just my own. Casey Jackson trying to navigate the world and not be overrun by the matrix kind of take on the, on things. And of course, so what happens, I get a push notification from CNN and the little headline on that little push notification was robots. Research shows that robots are more effective at motivation than humans.

So it’s like talk about meta in terms of, I’m trying to get out of this. And they’re throwing me an article on AI and like, it’s literally, those algorithms are that good. So of course, as I’m twitching and trying to not push the link, I obviously end up pushing the link. And my, my issue with it, and I think this is a great way to start off, and it’s going to spark a lot of thought is when I read the article, my issue with it, because John and I, that the areas we’ve been kind of obsessed with is, is fidelity and, and measurability.

So basically when I read the research, what they were saying, the robot quote unquote robot was doing, or AI was doing. Fundamentally, when they listed the parameters, it was not doing motivation. And so that’s kind of what annoyed me that they made a correlation with motivational interviewing just because what the robot was doing was expressing empathy and, doing positive regard and affirmations.

So for me, what I always compare that to, you know, Daniel, you’re always asking kind of from the non clinician perspective. What does that really mean? And for me, like when I use grandma’s recipe analogy, it’s like, well, yeah, you use flour, sugar, and butter for all sorts of recipes that doesn’t make it grandma’s specifically.

It just means that there’s all sorts of things. So when you’re using unconditional positive regard and accurate empathy, that end of itself does not make it. Measurable quote unquote motivational interviewing, but what did strike me and this is where, you know, John was talking about positive regard. I think of it in terms also of equipoise is that the finding when in this research, which is where the, you know, the headline came from was it was nearly unanimous that the participants preferred the robot interaction to the human interaction.

And what was the most consistent theme, it was nearly unanimous is because the robots were perceived as nonjudgmental and that’s one of those things that is fascinating because in some ways you’d think, well, isn’t that what makes us human is having our, our little Pieces of bias that makes us dimensional.

But when people are trying to deal with their own issues, they really don’t care what your bias is. And so I think those are the things where it looks like, wow, you know, where are the benefits to AI and motivational interviewing? And so that’s just kind of my, it’s my brain’s kind of foray into this conversation of like, wow, this is really interesting that it’s starting to penetrate and we know it’s penetrating.

You’re talking marketing, Danielle, where John and I were talking about it in terms of. You know, applications clinically and, and, in coaching and all sorts of other things that people are saying, you know, is AI kind of taking over the world or poised to do that. So that’s my two cents out of the gate.

Oh my gosh. I want to replay the last four minutes and 30 seconds because I had so much going through my mind, but trying to stay present and like, then letting that go and not hanging onto it. And then another thing come in and so much of this, there’s so many things around. What are we trying to do? And one of the things when we’re trying to help someone, or we’re trying to support someone or what are we trying to do with M.

I.? What is A. I. trying to do? Because I just want to like hone it in that if A. I. right now is an algorithm set with lots of information, it can be helpful for. Information to access in some sort of a way, so long as that’s sourced from reliable sources. And that’s on a previous podcast, we talked about, the effective psychotherapy and part of that is having information, but it’s a small part of change and sustain change and being effective with.

Getting help, right? Or, or getting guidance. So my brain goes back to maybe there’s help just in having information. I think there’s, especially for people that are interested and ready, that, that might be very helpful. Google has thrived for a reason and all that. Right. And so there’s, there’s going to be benefit well beyond, am I well beyond, helping professions.

There’s going to be a risk beyond all that. But when we think about in relation to M I is what you were kind of interested in with this, Danielle, it’s like, well, there’s a lot that comes to mind of Casey. What you said, which is. What does it mean to be human? Does it matter? You know, and at the end of the day, what are we, what are we trying to do?

Right? And I think just starting with those questions can be helpful because if we’re trying to find the things that are most helpful for other people, the, the whole thing you went through this morning and, and, and talking about, with, Training and the other podcast on, that around effective psychotherapy.

Great. We’re getting it down. Well, what if a robot could do that? What do we want that? Or do we not want that? I think that’s, that’s kind of a bigger question here rather than. Just because we could, should we, and that’s where, that’s where I question and that might get philosophical, it might get into all my biases, I believe true equipoise is possible with artificial intelligence, true equal position, I don’t believe 100% possible from a human being.

But does that mean that we shouldn’t, that we should go for AI and not a human being? And I’ll lastly say, and then I’m curious on, on either of your thoughts on this, of course, but it’s like, to me it comes back to, do we want to train compassion out of us as a humankind or do we want to go through the, and I can say this from a, or I do say this from a very privileged pla place in a lot of ways.

But to go through what it’s going to take to have more compassion for each other over time, or feel like we can put that to AI, knowing that AI doesn’t have EI, emotional intelligence right now, and then the compassion that we are trying with MI and what it stands for, we just outsource to robots. To do what?

And I just am kind of afraid, and that could just be the fear of the unknown, and all the other Matrix y stuff, but like, that by focusing on AI doing these things, we’re gonna lose compassion for each other, which is gonna have a lot bigger ramifications. So I know that’s beyond MI, but MI so much is about compassion.

That I feel like it relates to training on MI and training other people and how to help people. Yeah. Now, Daniel, I can see why you want to do this as a two parter. Because my brain, if it’s exploded and then trying to come back into, you know, coherent message and then back to exploding again. I know within the last several months that they had a international summit specifically to start to discuss.

Drafting up ethics around the application of AI. And so that’s what I think you’re talking about, John. It’s just the ethical application of it. And it’s, you know, the, the, the thing that most comes to mind for everyone is just even with, you know, the atomic bomb or lasers, there’s so much healing and health that can happen from.

Innovation and technology. And there’s so much damage that can be done by innovation and technology. It is just an ethical consideration. And I think that’s what when you bring it back down to the end of one, which is what I always try to do when I’m looking through that M. I. Lens where I struggle ethically is I look at the cost and the wait lists.

And the number of people that are drifting away from helping professions because of the burnout, especially post coven. So the access to resources is dwindling because they’re expensive. They’re not always effective and efficient because people don’t get the amount of service in the dose that they need.

As readily as they needed, which boom, boom, boom, that gets taken care of with a I, if it’s effective and measurably effective. So it’s like, wow, the benefit to people getting the service they need from something that they self identify as value added. It’s hard to argue. Evolution towards that, but on the flip side, it is really hard to argue that computers are going to be more effective than a human for human interaction and human growth and development.

The thing I think that scares me or causes anxiety in me is just how much obsession and dependence there already is on social media, period, full stop, which means that do people prefer. Interacting with an illusionary world than they do with real people. Because people don’t even like to put their own picture out there until they’ve edited it.

They don’t like to, you know, it’s the whole joke about fake book versus Facebook, you know, that it’s, people just want to put their best foot forward or the, it’s the way you’re perceived in social media thrives off of perception. And I think that’s the thing that makes me nervous is that it’s just our society, our brains culturally are so geared up for that next stage, which would be a I, you know, in the movie, I didn’t see the movie, but I know the trailer from the movie her where he falls in love with his phone, because it’s the best relationship he’s ever had, you know, in the way that she communicates with him and understands him so deeply because it’s all a I rooted.

And it’s like, it’s just, It’s, you know, we, we say it’s science fiction, except for it’s on our doorstep and it’s not science fiction anymore. It’s right around the corner. And so where does this come into with, with evolution or is it the start of, you know, this dystopian society where machines take over, you know, it’s just, I think that’s why this topic is so fascinating.

And then trying to bring it back on track with, you know, it’s, it’s relativity to motivational interviewing.

Yeah, it’s, it’s such a, a wide swath of so many areas to potentially go as well as so many then futuristic scenarios. And one thing that, was on my mind around this, that might wrangle it into some degree, it’s not particularly. Super intently listening to all the pieces you just brought in, Casey, it just kind of pulls one of those strings that it triggered for me, which was that say, as we bring this back into maybe not am I, but into helping professions of a particular kind, I’m thinking.

In the help of something like medicine, because that’s with my background training and being exposed to that and doing some with that, lifestyle or actual, whatever it is, pharmaceuticals, you have the potential to have this algorithmic. Thing that we tend to personify, but is basically like saying we have statistics because that’s what it is.

It’s a set of things. It’s not its own entity as far as we understand consciousness, which is extremely limited in its own rabbit hole. But, with these statistics, we can help deductive reasoning with doctors and other things to accurately diagnose and accurately bring information, education, maybe it’s going to help where it’s needed.

Even far more, hopefully in, say, third world countries and helping women with, you know, education and micro farm loans and all that stuff that I’m hoping for with technology and blockchain and all that. But at the same time, when we’re thinking about it from our vantage point in America, and kind of some of the discussions we’re talking about, I think there is a place.

To help helpers. And that’s what I’ve heard is how adept are you and how open are you to utilizing this statistical tool as it were this algorithmic tool to help you impact people. Now it’s, I think possible to start doing that better in certain ways. But what I am wondering is based off of a book called the more beautiful world, our hearts know it’s possible.

What I pick up from you, Casey is, well, how much beauty is there to that? What does it mean to be in a more beautiful world or what does it mean to have a more beautiful helping situation? Because we can make it better. But I’m the reason my mind is going there. It’s because it’s like, well, we could do these things.

Is it the emotional intelligent of humans? Of helping each other that we want to have AI help with, or do we want AI to take place? Of that for the sake of resources, or do we tear this in a way that as much open access to this level of good care, but if you want to get the human beautiful compassion side of it with another human, that’s where you got to wait 3 months.

I don’t know, but I feel like there’s a, there’s, we’re talking almost like, what do we want with human to human stuff? And what do we want the AI to be? Or do we think the AI is going to take it all over? I don’t think the AI is going to take it all over. At least in any near term future, according to what I’ve learned of the capabilities, but I think there’s a discussion of what do we, what do we want with, with MI or AI and MI with AI and helping professions, what would be the ideal?

Well, I think that, I think that’s probably a smart road for us to go down, because I think that for me, where my brain gets goes into the complicating factors is it’s going to go where there’s the most money to be made. That’s where it’s going to go. You and I are talking from a healthcare behavioral perspective that you look at where health care is gone and where’s the most money being made.

I mean, that’s why there’s all the, you know, stereotypes about death panels and all these different things is how do you increase profit margin? And that is, that is where power is, especially in the U S but globally it’s with. How do we extract as many resources as we possibly can to put a few people in mass amounts of power?

So I mean that I need to keep myself from going down that path is we’re having this conversation because then it’s like, yeah, not sure that has to do with them. I, but where I do think it comes in is I keep going back to access and it’s the same thing you’re talking about the, you know, loans for, you know, women microfarming like in.

Third world country, like it’s, it’s the thing that you have to get into in terms of if it improves a quality of life for an individual in a moment, I think at some point people are getting into, you know, a philosophical splitting of hairs is doesn’t matter if it’s delivered by a robot or by a human, especially if they believe.

In the avatar that they’re talking to seems to have more humanistic qualities than the actual individual may because the individual it’s always, this is what you and I talked about with equity poise and writing reflex fixing reflex is because of our innate biases. It’s hard for us not to be self centered, especially in industries where.

Your credibility has to do with your expertise and how smart people think you are is where your credibility comes from. So where is the credibility when there’s, you know, when you have an app that’s smarter than you are and somebody can touch on it, they’re not going to feel as depressed after, you know, a 10 minute AI interaction.

I don’t, I think that’s where I get nervous about the social media world is that people are more geared for that, I think, than having human interaction. They don’t want to leave their houses and go to an appointment that COVID proved that. You know, people just don’t want to do face. I mean, you’ve got handfuls of people and it tends to be older generations that crave that one on one interaction, but younger generations don’t even pick up the phone.

Anything that can be done electronically would be their preference. So the prep for an AI world is already well prepped, you know, and the fact that people don’t care if there’s an algorithm. If I was just talking to you too, that I wanted to buy, you know, a coffee table and now all of a sudden I get 15 emails on coffee tables that interest me, then it’s like, I don’t really care.

You know, I think that’s. I think, I think people are getting raised with that mindset. So I think what’s the struggle that we think of from our generations is how can you lose that human contact? That is just dystopian. That’s just gut-wrenching to think people would choose that. The problem is I think more and more things are leaning toward, I think philosophically people are saying we don’t want that to happen, but I think on day to day operations, people just want a quick fix and they want it right now.

And if this was a nine out of 10, and I waited three months to get a seven out of 10 experience, I’ll, I’ll get a nine out of 10 experience right now with a AI situation than a seven out of 10 experience, because I waited three months to get it. I think that becomes philosophical individually and collectively.

And I think this is where I struggle with, if I really bring it. To me, as close to home as I can bring it, where my, you know, where I have my own fears around it is because I know that there’s, you know, software out there, AI software that can code conversations, and some aspects they code more effectively than humans code, like we code for motivational interviewing, some aspects of what they haven’t perfected yet, but they’re getting better at it every day.

And so then it’s like, there’s that, there’s one side of me thinks great because then we don’t have so many arguments and interrater reliability because your interrater reliability is going to increase substantially if you know that those algorithms are so well done that you’re going to knock out a lot of the interrater reliability you struggle with from.

Human to human, then I think, okay, so if we’re not doing coding and coaching, what if I trained motivation better than we trained motivational interviewing? Then it’s like, oh, my God. And if they’re doing therapy better than I do therapy, where do I exist in the world? You know, I mean, those are the things that, you know, when you bring it down to that, the reality and I don’t.

I may be delusional to think that’s not going to happen in my lifetime, but I do think that those are real conversations to be had in terms of how does this impact human interaction. So it’s not just the AI side. It can go back to that behavioral health, you know, my, my corner of the world and, you know, working with human beings.

Well, and I think that’s the key. And I know we’re, we’re, looking at, for our mark of, of thinking about a potential transition time with this, but. I just want to highlight even that thinking, Casey, it’s like, there’s so many layers of thinking going on here because there are people that would say, well, then you’d be free to do something else with your life.

And then there’s people that are like, well, wait a minute. I want to do this with my life. So then who says I can’t do that with my life? Well, you could do that with your life, but they’re going to, you know. And it’s like this whole concept, cause that also deals with people losing their jobs, no matter what that job is.

In this case, it happens to be my training, but people that are coal mine workers or whatever, right? Like there’s the perspective of, well, upgrade your, you know, job skills. But then it’s like, well, wait a minute, you don’t have my background. You don’t know, you know? So it’s like that psychology is its own psychology.

Then there’s the psychology of the matrix that it’s going to take over everything. Then there’s the, my psychology of it’s going to take over compassion. For human beings, but I’m also curious about for a future discussion or where we might pick it up of like, well, what if it doesn’t do all of those things, but we could harness it for helping more efficiency and effectiveness of service provision of ways of.

Equally in as much power as we could. I have hope. And because we talked about self fulfilling prophecies before to be cognizant that that hope that we could hold might have some kind of outcome associated with it. That doesn’t need to be metaphysical. That’s where my brain goes for maybe a future discussion, but I just wanted to throw that out there as a potential to hopefully entertain.

Maybe I don’t know, but maybe I’m wrong and just optimistically naive and going to be destroyed by everything I know you that is a probability. We’ll be sitting here in your sandbox playing with your research and all of a sudden a big AI steamroller rolls right over the top of you and I went out, I went out doing something I love, which probably is closer to the point, you know, and I think, I think what we need to dial this in, you know, in a, in a part two with this is trying to reign it in closer to, okay, the world of motivation laying, because this is, you know, part of it is so far above our pay grade to even, Talk on a level of what AI really means so far beyond, but I think it is our best way of starting a conversation for ourselves in terms of, okay, what does this mean in the world of that mind?

I think that’d be a fun one to to make a part two on with this. Yeah, why don’t we do that guys? Because this is really compelling. I like how how big and wide we went. Because those, all of those considerations are really important. And I know my mind, my world just expanded by listening to all of your different points of view.

And then I think about like the way you set up social media, Casey. And what, and John, what do we really want? I mean, let’s dial back, do a, do a part two of this where we start bringing it back and in a little bit more. And it’s just fun being exposed to all of our different biases. And when I think about, when I think about AI, maybe potentially doing things really perfectly and beautifully, I go back to, gosh, I keep going back.

What do I want? What do I want? That was a great way to start the podcast because I’m like, Oh, I believe in the growth of humanity and us constantly growing and evolving and becoming better and better, more compassionate people. So I’m like the friction of having that not be perfect with each other. It’s beautiful and how does AI come in and help us accelerate that?

But again, that’s just me. I had to end with like, Oh, this is my vision of what potentially I want, but that’s what I hope all the listeners are hearing and thinking about for themselves. So let’s circle back on a, round two. Sounds good. Thanks, Danielle.

Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@IFIOC.Com. That’s C A S E Y. I F I O C. com for more information or to schedule training.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
Today we are talking about applying motivational interviewing in educational settings, particularly in schools. We discuss the challenges faced by teachers and school systems, emphasizing the importance of effective communication and the potential impact it can have on students.

In this episode, we discuss: Back to School Season: The relevance of motivational interviewing in the context of the back-to-school season, addressing the needs of teachers and students alike. * Diversity of Training Audience: The conversation touches on the wide range of educational settings where motivational interviewing has been applied, from Headstart programs to university-level classes. * Pressure on Teachers: The hosts acknowledge the increased pressures on teachers in modern times, including issues like shootings, lockdowns, and the pervasive influence of social media. * Compliance vs. Behavior Change: The discussion emphasizes the distinction between compliance models and behavior change models in education, exploring their respective roles and limitations. * Empowering Teachers: The hosts express the need to empower teachers with effective communication skills to foster behavior change and values-based decision-making. * Impact on Students: The conversation emphasizes that motivational interviewing, even in small doses, can make students feel heard, understood, and more open to discussing their challenges. * Hope and Personal Agency: The hosts discuss the importance of instilling hope and a sense of personal agency in both teachers and students, enabling them to believe in their capacity to effect positive change. * Desperation in Education*: The conversation touches on the desperation felt by educators, who often grapple with limited resources, time constraints, and challenges in managing a diverse range of students.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

This is part two of a two-part podcast. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

And I am your facilitator of the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hey guys. Hey, how are you doing? I think that an awesome topic for us to cover today is it’s back to school season. And I know that both of you teach motivational interviewing and have taught many teachers and school systems.

So as we’re all diving back into that season, and I know so many teachers and there’s so many struggles and everybody wanting to do the right thing, the best thing for our students of the world. I thought I’d turn it over to you to see how does motivational interviewing, how can that help or assist teachers, school systems?

What’s your experience been in that realm? I mean, there’s so many things that strike me, you know, I think we’ve been pretty lucky with the diversity of what we’ve been able to work with. I mean, as soon as I even start talking about this, first thing I think of is we have gone as young as. Headstart and early headstart programs and doing training for them all the way through John, just a couple of weeks ago, just to train last week, did a training at the university level, you know, so John, they do college classes as well.

So from that whole student perspective, it’s, it’s pretty fascinating. It always comes down to, you know, I think the pressure and the struggle that teachers wrestle with, I think in this day and age of, you know, shootings and lockdowns and, you know, the social media that just, So hard to keep that out of the classroom when they’re trying to keep kids focused and kids sneaking phones in it, just with that kind of pressure, it just increases that leaning heavily on compliance models.

Yeah, I think I even think about, you know, being raised in the era where you still got hacked, you know, you got spanked by the teacher or a principal and just compliance is so part of education. Even though there is that desire for behavior change, I mean, we’re giving our young children to, you know, other adults and having them spend more time with them during the day than, than parents do.

And the heavy leaning is so much on compliance just for classroom management. How do you foster behavior change and good values based decision making when you’ve got 30 and really kids and half them on their phone? I mean, I think the level of complexity has increased so much over the years. This is where I get excited about the application motivationally in an educational setting.

Well, that’s also to bring up then where is there a place for compliance, Casey, and is compliance always bad, in the classroom? I know there’s books written on this with EMI and education and, and, there’s some special specialists in Mint and things around this, but I’m just wondering your thoughts on maybe the limits of intrinsic motivation in EMI or if there are any, and it’s just a matter of setting up the conditions of the classroom to be.

You know, less people are just how you see that, how that would work in a society with unruly classroom and kids and phones. Well, you know, ironically, I use that as an example when, when we talk about in the very beginning of our intro trainings is the difference between compliance models and behavior change models.

And I tell people just fundamentally compliance models aren’t. Just unilaterally bad. That’s just not true. And one of the examples I use literally is I say, when I teach teachers, motivational interviewing, I tell them, if you’ve got a kid who’s flipping over a desk and I punch another kid in the mouth, I’m not going to amplify his ambivalence, you know, his little booty is going to be at the vice principal’s office.

But that’s what I always follow up with. And that will not change his behavior. So compliance for classroom management will make sense, but it is not going to. It’s not going to change behavior and so where is that corridor that you’re carving out in terms of classroom management or compliance when you’re literally trying to wrangle.

You know, and shepherd students and where can you develop a skill set or a mastery of creating these micro dose interventions that really do perpetuate longer, more sustained, healthy behavior change where, where, you know, it is the ideal educational system. And then, I mean, if you have an educational system that can manage with compliance when needed, but fundamentally fosters growth and development, and executive functioning and decision making in real time versus.

A classroom assignment. I mean that. I think that would just be a phenomenal educational setting. You know, this gives me so much hope that more and more school systems are reaching out to you to To get help so that shows it’s moving in the right direction. They’re trying and looking for these solutions What do you hear the most from from these these educational?

Organizations that what’s the pain point that is getting them to actually look for something different, look for motivational interviewing and look, look for you. I think partially what it is is just being unaware that this exists. It is just another brand name of things that are being. Sold to school districts.

And there are so many programs because they’re not that there’s any unlimited dollars by any stretch, for teacher development, but there are just so many things to choose from. So, so what makes motivation stand out from that perspective? I think the biggest complicating factor that I’ve experienced is, I mean, on one hand, there is just the financial resource.

I, but what I think a bigger bear than financial resources is time resource. Teachers do not have time to learn a fidelity based model, and I think that’s extremely complicated. So, those are the things that I wonder about in terms of, does this have an impact? If they can only get a one hour, you know, am I training during their, it’s called lid they’re learning development, you know, once a week where they get one hour, like the dosage is really fascinating to see.

Will that work without not work? Yeah. It, you know, in speaking with so many organizations, it seems like. It seems like it takes a real commitment. And so I know once they do experience just a brief introduction with you that they get it. I mean, the light bulb goes off and they’re like, Oh, it’s what I love is the conversations around.

How do we commit in baby steps, you know, because of that time management piece, but still committing to it. Sticking with it over time. It’s just like, if you’re in it for the short race, it’s not as effective. You know, and I, I think in my experience, what I see so often is that when they feel that they can see the progress or something happened, and this is the beauty, I mean, this is why I love teaching motivational interviewing is because the proof is in the pudding.

They, even in a one hour tour training, if they try just one thing, the conversations go differently and it becomes kind of this self fulfilling, self nurturing process that once they learn a little. When they learn evidence based motivation and they can see the functionality and they get immediate feedback, even if they’re not good at it and just make an attempt, then it becomes, well, I want a little bit more.

I want a little bit more. I want a little bit more. And that’s what we experience all the time. Usually when people ask for even a one hour training or two hour training on motivational interviewing, by the end of it, they’re like, Oh my gosh, we need. This could change our entire structure. This could change all of our outcomes.

I mean, this just happened for you and I, Danielle, with, with Life Center Northwest, but it’s the same thing. It’s like, they want to move to full fidelity because it’s like, we can see our outcomes changing and we barely have our foot in the water and it’s already making a difference in, you know. What our outcomes and our deliverables are.

I don’t want to take us off course, but I can’t help but think of the conversations I have with teachers and school systems, the conversations with, you know, like Life Center and these organizations and the feeling I get, and I get so excited on these podcasts and just in general with what you’re, you’re doing and what you offer is the word that pops up is hope.

It’s just like the, it’s just. It cracks me up because we had another podcast where we were kind of debating what hope means within motivational interviewing. But gosh, for me, I agree that, you know, and I think it is whether it’s met, you know, all the things we can talk about when we talk about hope, fundamentally, it is a thing and.

When people are feeling desperate or at their wits end, you want to be able to know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel that’s not the train, you know, that it’s like, is there really a way out of this in a way that we can show up and ensure that our behavior. Is in line with our values. And I think that is so powerful.

So for so many educators is we just want to make a difference. We just, you know, I think when you don’t know what else to do, you just want to get through the day and, you know, if there’s no damage done by the end of the day and half them turn in their homework, we’ll call that a win. And I think that that bar continues to just be.

Chuck, in terms of how high is the bar, partly from where our culture is around education, partly with how much power has been taken out of the classroom and teachers don’t generate their own curriculum half the time anymore, more than half the time, but they’re expected to go in there and when, and then they don’t have the structure to be able to.

Manage a classroom in the way that they’ve traditionally been managed. I think that they just feel like, what do I do? And to see kids that are more desperate or more depressed, struggling, just massive need for resources, they don’t get access resources. It’s hard for them to parent or set boundaries because then parents get so angry about that when teachers try to provide that kind of structure.

And so I think that, I think teachers just get frustrated when they throw their hands up in the air, you know, we can’t take the phone out of their hand because parents are going to scream. They won’t pay attention or our parents are going to scream. They’re flunking the class so their parents are screaming.

Like, it’s just so difficult. And then parents are on the school board and won’t let us teach curriculum that we know will help these kids advance. Like I, I think that just profound disempowerment and my obsession with motivation being fundamentally is, well, we still have control over is what comes out of our mouth and how is it impacting people around us.

That’s where I think there’s just profound power when in a system like the education system in the us I think educators are just feeling so disempowered on a day-to-day basis and, and desperate for resource. I mean, even concretely desperate for resources like pencils and paper, you know, for those resources.

So you compound that with communication skills that actually make a difference in this kiddo’s life. I remember it was a little unsettling, but we have, I have a lot of friends that are in the education field, principals and activities, directors, and just educators, and I remember that during COVID during the pandemic.

They were just talking about the, you know, obviously the general frustration of not being able to see the kiddos, but their biggest concern and this was bothersome to me is one of their biggest concerns was, you know, yes, it’s hard to teach online. Yes. But my biggest concern is for all the kids whose screens are black or who are not showing up.

Because of, you know, with poverty and abuse and all these other things that we know exist in our, our communities, it’s the kiddos that weren’t showing up. I mean, for whatever, because of, you know, different laws around truancy, kids at least are in the classroom and they can go, Ooh, I know this, this kiddo is struggling or this family struggling, but when they don’t show up online, I know one specific teacher I can think of who was starting to get depressed because there’s two or three.

Students in his class that he’s like, it makes me, it’s hard to sleep at night because I don’t know what’s going on. And I know that whatever’s happening, that family is not good. Just historically. And now no one has eyes on this kiddo, or this family. And that just makes me nervous. Like I think about those things.

So I think that there’s these. You know, we think about teachers that maybe are too kind of detached and done with the system and just on their hands up, but I look at the, you know, just loads and loads of other teachers that are just desperate, desperate, desperate for resource that they can use right now that will make a difference right now.

And that’s where. My belief in getting, am I access them to motivation because it is a method of communication when you open your mouth, it is going to have an impact and you don’t have to be a therapist. You just need to be able to think very quickly and very strategically in the moment to engage a different brain in a completely different way.

So, yeah, I can, I mean, I can feel myself already getting, you know, a lot of energy around this because it is, I think it’s such a profound game changer and it’s just not widely accessed. And one thing you, you both are talking about, you’re somebody I was listening to on this other podcast called the foreign hands, the forest Hanson podcast that dealt with learned helplessness and things that Casey, I know, you know, really well from your training, as well as something we have in the motivational interviewing competency assessment, the Micah.

Is this concept of self, either self advocacy or personal agency. And that’s coming to mind because if you feel like you’re trying and trying and trying something, say one of these teachers, and you’re in a system that feels like it’s so bureaucratic, you can’t make any move, like you don’t feel like you have any control as much as you try.

And then here’s, am I as a potential to have what you’re saying, Danielle hope. Or Casey, a sense of control or impact. With what comes out of your mouth, and that really is personal agency. That’s what we talk about in the Micah with having, that as a core piece of what it means to activate, someone is to have a sense of.

That they have a sense that that what they say is or do is going to impact the outcome. So I think you’re both talking language that’s, either Danielle’s, your sense of hope or Casey, your sense of like personal agency and impact that it’s a similar language of what you’re talking about. I’m particularly curious about.

The, outcomes that you were kind of talking about Casey, like what kinds of outcomes like that came to my mind that I was thinking of, like, what are you seeing? What have you heard from maybe other either mentees or things around outcomes that you aware of or know about that it affects? Also, you know, it also brought up, well, we could.

Relate this to, am I in groups because you’re talking about doing this with a group of people. So that might be something to dive into. We did another podcast on that as well as how you have, am I in something as large as the bureaucracy of a whole school system. So it opens up a lot of cans, but I think the outcomes would be one of the most interesting ones.

And then we can see kind of where you want to take it from. Well, you know, when I think of outcomes. Just in terms of fundamentally, the basics of motivational interviewing, if more students felt heard and seen and understood, we know what outcomes that produces. So even if it’s not full on motivational interviewing, just the basis of being able to dial into one kiddo in one moment in time, and they feel heard and seen and understood, I think with some of the, interventionists that we worked with on the SBIRT project in.

Seattle in King County, I can think of so many interventions that have said, I know, because the way I was communicating with this student, like one specifically pops in my brain, I know that he felt like somebody was finally listening to him and he was relatively desperate and would have been an outlier that would never have been got who.

Most likely wouldn’t have got the attention that he needed because he would just been lost in the mix because he’s not, you know, the, the, the outliers that tend to get the attention, it’s the middle of the bell shaped curve where most of the kids get lost and there are some desperate individuals in the, in the middle of the bell shaped curve.

Because as resources get tighter, as schools navigate discipline differently, the ones who are getting the attention are really the, you know, both ends of the spectrum and, you know, the best of the best and the worst of the worst are the ones who get all the attention in schools. And then most people kind of plug along in the, in the middle of the bell shaped curve, there’s so many depressed, struggling individuals in that.

Middle of the bell shaped curve, but they’re not the worst of the worst. And the, you know, active red flags flying all over the place. They’re literally flying under the radar. And I’m talking about cheerleaders and, you know, athletes and, you know, just the ones that people tend not to think of the full spectrum within all those clicks.

There are desperate individuals who are just struggling and we know that social media just makes it worse. It’s just that the bullying and the not good enough and I’m too fat or I’m too skinny or I’m just this or I’m not. That just is, that’s just part of all the chatter being an adolescent, which is why so many people say they don’t want to be.

They would never go back to school, at this point in time. So the outcomes that I see is that When people are using Motivation Wing in the school system, more, more youth, more children are feeling heard and seen and understood, and they don’t have to be with a therapist to feel seen and heard and understood.

It’s at somebody’s listening to them more deeply. So I see those outcomes and then they’re more open to talking about what’s going on, which makes them a little bit more receptive to getting access to services. So those are some of the things that I’ve seen in the project that have been where I see those direct outcomes or have experienced and been.

You know, anecdotally, well, yeah, that’s also pointing to, it seems like there’s maybe ones that, you know, I don’t have off the top of my head, but that are a little bit more, you know, you could say hard outcomes of like, cause there’s the, there’s the heartfelt individuals and, social work counseling therapy background.

That’s going to totally resonate with that sense of, well, then you’re reaching people. Right. But there’s that really almost like. Negative view of, well, that’s just feel good, right? That’s just, you know, great. They’re going to feel better. But how are we going to get the funding for that? You know, and so there’s something that seems to be going on.

I know with some of the expert that has fundable outcomes with it and, uh. As well as some things that are happening that seem to be helping with kids getting access to other programs and things. So I think that’s, important to keep in mind that that’s maybe not our expertise is specific outcomes in the school systems, but you’re kind of getting that Casey that they’ll have more likelihood of engaging in services that will help them if they have behavioral issues or.

Maybe tendencies towards substance use, like an expert or some of those things. But yeah, Danielle, I think you had some questions around maybe some tips around this as well.

Your sound is off.

It’s great to kind of go through how in touch you are with the challenges that the school systems face and the teachers and the students. I think as we look to wrap this up, what kind of tips might you share with. With the administrators of schools, principals, the teachers, even maybe parents that are, are listening, all very much concerned about, about the, about our youth, about the students and wanting to give them the best.

And also we need to take care of our people, the teachers and educators out there. The, the things if I was going to just target. administration. I know there’s always a focus. You know, I’ve recently talked to some principals and I know there’s a focus on bringing more evidence based practices. What I would say, and I remember this with working with law enforcement is yes, it’s helpful for them to understand signs of mental health.

It’s helpful for them to understand and learn things about trauma and to be trauma informed. I think what people are desperate for is, but that doesn’t teach me how to open my mouth and communicate with this individual. So yes, my brain understands the issue. My brain can see what the problem is, but that doesn’t mean that I know how to intervene.

So all I can do is just keep pushing referrals and flagging kiddos. So I think my, when I think of administrators who want to keep their behavior, And the behavior of their staff and their teachers in aligned with the values of the school, we give them more communication skills. So they feel well equipped to communicate with these kiddos and families.

And what I think from a teacher perspective, that’s what I think of as well as just seek out something that will give you the communication skills. And of course, my profound bias is the efficacy of motivational interviewing, because even if you can learn how to effectively make one student genuinely feel heard and seen and understood and not judged.

And that’s me trying to fix them or parent them or yell at them or tell them what they’re doing wrong or what they should be doing. But just to feel heard for five minutes will have a profound impact on outcomes. I mean, research shows that, you know, it, it helps the brain. Function more effectively when the brain is not stuck within itself.

And it feels like somebody else or something else understands their reality. It’s the potency of social media. So if educators could have that sense that in those moments that I don’t need to educate, I just need to listen to this one student for a few minutes. Without trying to fix them or judge them, the amount of health and healing that can happen from that, the amount of connection that can happen from that is profound.

So those would be some of my tips off the top of my head.

Yeah, it just sounds like for me with taking the last bit of this, it’s that Casey, you’re really talking about, well, is a really a potential way for people to affect outcomes. Of what they have control over, which was kind of the hope to bring it back to, and you’re like, you were talking about that. How much do you know, versus how much can you embody what to do?

Okay. So you were talking about and that embodiment of what, what could I do? Am I as an evidence based approach. Of something you can do, and that is a way that you might be able to affect the outcomes as you’re getting at, and it gives teachers or people involved in the system more personal agency to really affect the world in the ways that they want to see or the kids in the ways that they want to see.

Given that right now, maybe it’s hard to change the whole system. So I think that’s a really important point that you both brought up. I love it. Thanks so much, guys. I think hopefully viewers, listeners, this has been helpful. You’ve got some tips. If you need support, please reach out IFIOC. com and let’s have a conversation.

We’re here for you and, keep up the good work and. There’s hope.

Thanks so much, guys. We’ll see you on the next podcast. Take care.

For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment.

Today we continue with our very special guest, Aly Gibson, the director at Frontier Behavioral Health, a community behavioral health organization. We continue to talk with her about Motivational Interviewing concepts.

In this episode, we discuss:* Getting behavior in line with values * Developing different pathways in the brain * Acknowledging other people’s experiences * Looking at trauma from a power and privilege perspective * Delivering MI concepts on a broader scale * The thinking Cortex part of our brain. * Focus and motivation * Stress and ambivalence * Using MI on yourself * Getting clear on who you are * Cultural differences * How does communication impact the human brain * Difficulty maintaining access to a naive brain * Reflective listening and empathy skills * Aligning behavior with values * Moving forward vs. staying stuck * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for the second segment. Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host. Danielle Cantin here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.
Oh, I love that. I love that you’re a mix of all of it. And it is, I laugh sometimes cuz there’s a couple of phrases I keep reminding myself of. Feels ain’t real. . Yeah. Really? Yeah. Aren’t real. And so I have to remind myself of that and then I also love that. Okay, cool.
Danielle, this is awesome. That sucked. And, you’ve got 10 minutes to have like a full on pity party. . Yes. And like putting it in a container of time or something can remember. I’m so glad I’m not the only person that does that. I literally am like, okay, timer set. Okay. Yes. And we’re done. Like, let’s move forward.
That reminds me of a one-liner and a conference. I heard, there was this activity we did. The facilitator said, we’re gonna allow you to whine, but we don’t allow you to marinate in it. So and I lo I just love that, that it’s like, yeah, you can, you can get it out and then you’re done. Like there’s no marination.
So I just thought that’s that same construct about Yeah, acknowledge it, it’s real. Now let’s start getting, you know, where do you wanna go from here, kind of. , but, and, and this is the thing I wanna just wrap into it in terms of I want to continue to not minimize people’s experiences because the link that I continue to make to the brain science side of it is when there is so much stress and pressure and, and trauma neurochemically, it is so hard to get up into the executive function.
So it’s not just like, do, do, do, do, do. Oh yeah, that happened to you, but you know, back on your horse. It’s not minimizing on that level, the level of mindset it takes. But I also think it’s how we know that restorative process, reparative process, herbs, it, her, or, heals is repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.
So when every day you’re just trying to go, but how do I get my behavior in line with my values? But how do I get my behavior in line with my values? But how do I get my behavior in line with my values? You’re developing a new neural network. That when stress and trauma comes, you’ve got a freeway to hop on to get out of, you know, the rubble.
And so I by no stretch want to minimize stress and trauma and pressure that people experience, but part of this process, . And when you think of MI for sustained long-term behavior change is you’ve gotta develop a different neural network, a different pathway in your brain that, how do I get out of the rubble when rubble happens?
And it, and just because that exists doesn’t make it simple. It doesn’t make it less painful. It doesn’t mean there’s not legitimate resistance and sustain trauma there. But if you’re trying to move forward in your life, if you don’t have a freeway to get onto, that really makes it extremely complex.
So, you know, that’s interesting because I like that you brought it back to the science of it. I’m always fascinated by, you know what I’ve learned from you and you know, so many of us are in a trauma state in general. Yes. The entire world from a worldwide pandemic. Still. Yes. And, and then we all have all of our individual traumas.
And some people measure those, right? Like, well, that’s not, yes, that wasn’t that big of a deal. It could be my pen broke. It could be so many different things. And of course it could be really, really huge things. And so the fact that motivational interviewing addresses that and helps people in a state brain science state right in of trauma.
Yes. To let them choose that other path, but it’s repetition that’s gonna help. You know, I turn the line on. Yeah. I think the other thing I need to acknowledge, and then AlI know you’ll have a ton of thoughts about any of this stuff, is I think the biggest thing I need to knowledge right now is just how lucky I am with the power and privilege that I have as a white.
Because when I step back and look at the trauma, I just really, I continue to have this need inside my brain to continue to acknowledge, to not minimize other people’s experiences. And I’m in a place of power and privilege, which has allowed me to stay more in my executive functioning and not from a cultural perspective where I’ve been abused or marginalized for so many, you know, since birth, that it is much easier for me.
So I think it’s, it’s, it could be trite for me to say it really is that simple. . Structurally it is simple, but actualizing that is extremely complex and so I need to get out of a, a, a privileged white male perspective and also be able to go, yeah, it, you’re right. You have been able to have these things, but you also were ahead of the line gender-wise.
You’re ahead of the line race wise, you’re ahead of the line. So many other ways that of course it was easier for you to do that. Even though I’ve experienced all my own trauma, in my life, it’s, it’s just completely different when you put it into cultural context and, and we’ll look at it from a power and privilege perspective as well.
So. , which I’m sure Allie, you have hundred thoughts on. Yeah. Well, I was thinking about since the training with you, I, there’ve been two huge kind of buckets, different buckets that I’ve been thinking about, and one of ’em I keep going over is like, okay, for the general population, for people who don’t have an MI background,
How, how do we get these simple Yeah. Very complex things delivered to them without saying, Hey, can you go see Casey and John? You know, like, I, like, I can’t take all my friends and all the people I know who are experiencing ambivalence and funnel them to someone who does mi. And so I was just thinking about like, how do we deliver these concepts on a broader scale?
Is there a way to do that? You know? But I went back to kids. You know, I’m a mom. I have two kids, and I’ve really attached onto like Dan Siegel’s stuff, whole brainchild stuff to try to, like you said, deepen those neural pathways. Like I may not be able to. All the people that come to me in their life with ambivalence, be able to direct them where they need to go and give them the quick rundown of values and all of that stuff.
But what I can do as a parent is I can start to help my kids spend less time downstairs. Yes. And really grow that pathway upstairs. Yes. So that when they do have issues that are huge downstairs, brain issues. They are like, Hey, look at that stairway. I can go upstairs and solve from there. And so I was thinking about the broader population and like you said, just the amount of stress and trauma across cultures, across our general population over the last three years.
Yes. , they’ve spent so much time downstairs. What’s something we could give to people to help them strengthen that executive functioning, that neuroscience piece that’s attached to motivational interviewing? Cuz again, it’s very real. It’s the science piece of it. Yes. They, it’s so, so real. And there’s a way out.
This Danielle, what she’s talking about with upstairs, downstairs, with the whole brain is that downstairs is when I’m talking about fight, flight, freeze and make my little fist. You know that reptilian brain, the limbic brain, you know, that just brain’s been around for 500 million years. That part of the brain, and then we just got our 3 million year old brain.
That’s the, the. Thinking Cortex part of our brain. We just think of the strength of that and stress and trauma. And so that’s when allie’s, it, i l the, the way that Siegel simplified it was just upstairs brain, downstairs brain. So that’s what Allie’s talking about with that. Awesome.
So yeah, I just keep thinking about how do you. , how do you get, and again, I know you can use motivational interviewing to help people, and if every person that stopped by my door or called me after work, during work, I mean, I would have no gas in my tank. Right? Like, I can’t, I couldn’t manage at all.
But what, how do we help people see this piece of it and kind of open their eyes and maybe we can’t, right? Like, How I wish this would elaborate, and I know it can be used by all other kinds of practitioners, and I think there’s, there’s certain circles of the health and wellness space who are really, you know, have adopted motivational interviewing, have even, brought this focus piece in stuff like that.
But how could we get this across different? , I don’t know, different providers for all sorts of different issues so that people feel like they have more good days than bad. They are able to solve issues on their own. They’re using, you know, they’re, they’re calming that primal functioning with that executive functioning.
Yes. . That’s just what I keep going back to is like, I wish there’s a book, a single book that someone could read and just move through, you know? Cause sometimes I all have friends that are like, Hey, I’m kind of struggling with this. I know that you. Have followed a nutrition plan for years. How can you, can you help?
And I basically just give them like, okay, let me tell you about motivational interviewing. I have five minutes, but you gotta find some focus. That’s your problem. . It’s like, that’s not helpful, that’s not accurate empathy. But I’m, I don’t have time to help you find your focus today. Like so. But I just, sometimes when people are having ambivalence or issues, I’m like, you should look at focus, motivation, interviewing and go find your.
Yeah, find someone who can help you find your stuff, you know? So that’s what I kind of just keep coming back to. It’s interesting because, one of the newest things be since Daniel’s, you know, been on the team just even recently, she’s really been focused on us doing this thing called Be the Change. So now I’m gonna do my first training for people on how do I apply it in my own personal life.
And so it’s kind of that range of, yeah, the concepts are there. And again, you know what I see? We train so many different organizations, it’s. Mind blowing to me. Just even this last week’s trainings, I’m just still kind of teetering from, and because the diversity at which you can help people heal, like you were saying, Allie, it doesn’t really matter the profession because we’re dealing with humans in most industries every day, and motivations and method of communication that helps heal, it helps people move towards who they want to be.
It helps resolve their stress and ambivalence. So they can get clarity and, and improve the quality of their life if that’s what they choose to do. So, so there’s the thought of how do I orchestrate the conversation? But even this, this week in training, almost every week in training, Peop, especially new trainings, people will come up to me and say, Hey, how do you use this on yourself?
Can you use MI on yourself? Can you, am I yourself? And it’s like the, the constructs, yes. I mean, of course there’s gonna be all the people in the MI world that say, well, you can’t mi yourself, but. I live by the tenants of motivational interviewing every single day for myself, and it’s drastically improved the quality of my life.
You know, and that’s so, it’s like, yes, we may not be able to put quotes around Aming ourselves, but can we get clear about what our values and goals are? Can we acknowledge where the stuckness is? Can we acknowledge where the resistance is and then make a concerted effort to go and with all of. Capacity that I have, I’m going to try to focus on the change and the commitment and move steps forward towards who do I want to be?
Who do I wanna be in on my life? And so it’s more like, who do I want to be than, where do I want to be? And the clear eye about who I want to be helps me understand where do I want to be? You know, should I stay in this relationship? Is this a career that I really want? Who do I want to? . And I think when you start to focus on that, it starts to untangle our American culture perspective is that our job defines us or the number of kids that we have or our gender defines us or these things that we, everything tries to define us.
And the people that inspire us the most are the people that get, are very clear about who they are and stay who they are in spite of all circumstances. Those are the people that tend to inspire. and, and I think that’s where you can see all these different constructs kind of coalesce, into a process.
And for me it’s why motivational is so, it it really gives me a scaffolding to understand all these different theories and self-help and, and therapeutic approaches and, and how we live life. There’s just, for me, it just, it really does start to set up a structure or organizes things in my brain in a.
Clear and concise way that consistently works, and it’s backed by, you know, massive data. And as soon as you look at the ways of introducing mi in different constructs, you’ve got all these other theories that are out there that actually support each other. You know, I was just telling, so I just, oh, I was telling, talking to somebody yesterday.
I used to, to work with Jose, Guama, who’s, on faculty at Pepperdine right now. He and I were talking on my drive home yesterday too. , and I’ve really been into this thing about we need to be so aware of cultural differences of gender, difference, of bias, all these different things. We have to be aware of it.
And inside that vessel is a human brain . So it’s a, it’s a human brain, so we need to be aware of the vessel, but the human brain, we know how language impacts the human. and, and language is language. So it’s not just mainstream American English. We just know how language impacts the brain and with neurolinguistics and, and things, which neurolinguistics is not motivational interviewing.
But when you just look at some of these theories, it’s like, well, they’re just, some of these things are just reset in different ways because there’s all these inspirations from different people around the world, but when you get back to it, it. The human brain , and you’re talking about communication and how does communication impact the human brain?
How does my own bias impact how I communicate? How does my own bias impact how I listen? Because there’s different listening styles. You know, the listening styles is not part of motivational interviewing, but when you’re thinking about communication, how could it not be part. Communication, like an effective communication method.
So the complexity of all these different things still can boil down to is my behavior in align with my values ? So, so it, it just, that’s where I can get so complex and just almost impossible. Get your hands around and then also be able to be consolidated into, when I feel heard and understood, I can breathe a little bit better.
When I can breathe a little bit better, I can look at what my dilemma. , when I look at my dilemma, I can, I can get clear what my values are, and when I get clear what my values are, I can ask myself, what would it take for you to take one step in that direction? And that, that’s going from kind of the, you know, meta to the micro.
It’s just, and that’s, that’s, that’s my obsession with motivation. . Wow. I’ve got, I’ve got a couple thoughts a, I’d love to hear your feedback on. I feel like you just covered a lot, Casey , there’s, there’s a couple things that stood out to me. One is, how you are so into learning everything about the brain and all of the other different theories and modalities, which makes sense to me cause I’ve heard.
So many people that you’ve trained say that you’re different. You’re just, you’re different in terms of training, motivational interviewing, and it feels like you pull in some other things that kind of refine, refine it or make it, make it yours in a way. You mentioned you created Focus Mountain, which is huge.
I, everybody I interact with brings that up. Your teachings around that, but you mentioned too, and there’s other things like Simon. Golden circle his why. Yes. And I’m like, I’m really familiar with that. And I’m like, what you do is different. And it kind of came out for me in, in everything you just said in Be the change.
And I’m like, yes, it’s a being this, it’s who you are. Yes. It’s not where you wanna be, this piece of the equation, but the crux of everything is who do you wanna be at the end of the day. Yes. It’s just so cool. So I’m super extra excited about the be the change now, , it’s just everything you say. You know, it, it, it’s interesting to you, it, it’s interesting when you say that, Danielle, because I, what I’ve tried to do, and John and I have had these conversations multiple times, is one of the hardest things for us in doing curriculum is to try to maintain access to a naive brain.
Because every time we evolve our curricul I actually had this conversation with, Allie and her team when I was doing the train the trainer for them in terms. The more they learn, the more they want to teach. But the, what you want to teach is so far beyond what a naive brain that’s never experienced MI is.
And, and so there was a period in time where we just had to pump the brakes at IFIOC because we, we had drifted so far from our original trainings and people liked the trainings, but they weren’t getting some of the foundational things. And then again, going back down to the mi, the minutia, when I was talking to, to Jose about this.
Because he, this, he’s teaching counseling theory at Pepperdine and is weaving some MI stuff. And so he and I are having this conversation and he, he wanted some, some tips on this and he’s, and I was saying, you know, here’s the ways I’m teaching empathy. And he said, Casey, they can’t do a reflective statement.
I will teach them and tell them how to do a reflective statement, students at Pepperdine, and they’ll still ask questions and like, and so it helps me to hear. When we’re talking these lofty geek motivation and constructs that it really is hard for people in our culture, especially, and he said it’s, it’s worse with the social media culture, is they don’t understand what empathy is like.
They can’t, they can reflect how they feel about a situation, but it’s so self-centered and I think it’s partly from the covid. I think it’s partly from the immersion in social media. That they can only talk about their own brains. They have a hard time going into what could possibly be going on in somebody else’s brain.
It’s all projection. There’s no true accurate empathy and it was just like, that is fascinating and it makes sense when you step back for a minute, you know when kids had hadn’t been going to school and we’re going online like they didn’t have that and everything’s on the phone, you know, it’s just, wow.
I’d never even thought that They don’t have the capacity cuz they. Their friend didn’t wipe out on a bike and they run over to help ’em up and, you know, and run and get the parent, you know, it’s, they don’t do that as much anymore. You know, , that’s just the way we were raised was, that’s where empathy comes from.
But if you’re not having human interaction and your friend’s not wiping out on a bike or, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s, somebody breaks up with somebody and there’s just revenge. There’s not empathy. It’s just, it’s just fascinating. Is that, are you retooling the way you look at teaching empathy because of.
what I told him, as I said, what really helped me is it helps my brain go back to naive brain and I said the, the difference between what he’s teaching and I’m teaching is he’s teaching new clinicians that are young college students. and he’s just saying the generation generational difference. And I said, and I am drifting away from teaching quote unquote reflective listening and open-ended questions because people have been in field for 20 years, just want to stick their finger down their throat.
If I start to teach about the ORs, because they’re like, I learned this in grad school. You know, and they think that’s am I, and they try to reduce it to that. And then I spend more time trying to untangle that construct when I’d rather teach them about what is high accurate empathy. , and if you’re doing high accurate empathy, they’ll be reflective listening in there.
But the cons, what is, what is ours, Casey? The open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summary statements. I mean, that’s . The fact that you’ve known me this long and don’t know those, I can probably, I’ll get kicked outta mint. Actually, listening to this, they’ll kick me out. The fact that
you, you’re forgetting Casey, that I’m, I’m doing, I listen as a listen. So I know who’s listening that doesn’t know what yours is. Yeah. So it, yeah. So the open-ended questions, affirmation, reflections, summary statements are, are, are, micro skills. They’re just skills that every practitioner. should have needs to have if they’re going to, if they’re gonna work in human service at all.
There’re skills that everybody should have and they are the basics of motivational learning. It’s just literally MI 1 0 1 is people need to walk away knowing what the OR skills are. But since I teach so many, Professionals that have been in the fields for years, it, it can feel condescending in some ways, or redundant or I literally can see their brains shut off and, and reach for their phone to do something else while I would teach ours.
And I just think that’s not a good use. But it’s, if I launch out of the gate talking high accurate empathy and then start to show them videos and have them try to practice, they realize they’re not as skilled at that as they think they. And as they get more skilled at understanding empathy, then they get better at reflective listening.
So it’s just, it’s just different ways of training, just different ways of teaching the same constructs, and it’s all motivational interviewing from that lens. . So, and I think one of the things, and I know we talked with you about this, Casey, that, that we’re running into with this accurate empathy piece too, and just, you know, the last however many years is people are so concerned that, you know, if somebody’s topping talking about, topic or an issue that maybe they don’t align with or in society is seen as, you know, something they shouldn’t align with.
If I give a reflection, They’re gonna think I’m in agreement with them and, and we go with this a lot. And, and so then to like, kind of tie to what we were talking about earlier, but if you have really strong values and a really strong identity, then you know where you are. Yes. Right. So it’s, you know, there.
There have been times where I think of reflections I’ve given and someone’s like, oh, you totally get, get it right. And it’s like, well, actually it has nothing to do with me. I don’t agree with you. I don’t totally get it. But I’m so clear on my identity and my values in that it doesn’t matter. Like I don’t lose sleep over it.
I don’t sit in my car and go, God, I hope they don’t. that I agree with them. I hope I don’t think one minute about it cuz I know where I’m at right. And I know who I am and so I, that’s something that keeps coming up with our newer, greener people we train is this idea of like, okay, accurate, empathy’s cool and all.
And I don’t want those words coming outta my mouth cuz they may think so again, emotionally driven. Yes, they may think I’m A, B, C, and D or that I agree with this. And so that’s been a really interesting thing to navigate. Training, you know, newer people as well, is people are very, very cautious about, what’s coming out of their mouth and the perception of the person across from them, which is interesting because it, I can go empathetic with that.
And what I think of is why, if you’re getting to a better outcome, why do you care if they think you agree with them or don’t agree with? because that, oh, they agree with me, is a blip on the radar of an MI potential conversation. And what it is, is it’s so focused on the individual. They’re not really focused on you.
So why are you focusing on you? Because it really is. So if in that moment Danielle thinks I agree with her and she continues to talk about her life and. Split second, she thinks, oh, we’re on the same page, and she keeps talking about her life, and I stay focused on motivation. We can keep her brain focused and can help her get her behavior aligned with her values.
Where, where was that blip on the radar? What, what impact did that really have on do you think she’s gonna go home and go, oh, Casey agrees with me. Casey agrees with me. She doesn’t care. No, she’s not gonna think about you at all. She’s gonna, she’s not gonna about, she has her own life and people tend to be more self-centered.
So why They’re, we’re egocentric enough to think, oh my gosh, if they think I agree with them, that’s gonna over influence their life. And I think, well then you’re not an equa poise and you’re too involved in their life. So it’s, it is fascinating, but, , it’s, I do have that empathy for more of a naive brain that it’s just like the, when your brain has not experienced it consistently, it is hard to make it second nature.
And when it, when you do it consistently, it becomes second nature, you think, boy, that was a lot of wasted energy, which goes back to the original thing we talked about, the start of the podcast of it is amazing how much time we put into things that aren’t gonna yield a positive outcome. , it’s putting your foot in the right, it’s in the right direction.
We’ll get you one step closer. And even if you are climbing up the mountain and you take a step, it doesn’t mean you don’t take a step forward towards the top of the mountain and your foot ends up in some brambles or you twist your ankle. I mean, just because you’re moving forward does not mean that there’s not stuff that happens.
So it’s that same thing, that it’s not this, once you’re there, it’s this perfect path. You’re still walking up the mountain, but you can. You know, trip and fall and break your leg and, you know, and, and fall forward and break your leg. Life still happens. It doesn’t make it perfect because we, you know, you operate from this mindset and you’re still walking and you’re still walking.
That’s the piece I come back to is, and you’re still moving like forward. You’re doing actionable things moving forward instead of staying stuck in this weird momentum in your brain. Love it. Allie, thanks so much for, this is just, this was just. This is what I love about what I do. I , I never know what it’s gonna go.
I, my brain is working a million miles an hour, which is always fascinating when I do that on a Friday that it’s like, I wish this was a Monday because I’m so lit up right now. . Yeah, . Thanks for having me. It’s great. I could talk for hours. Well, you know that, but . Awesome. Danielle, any thoughts as we’re wrapping up?
No, I just, I wanna thank you both so much. It’s so great to listen to the deeper conversations and then also your, both of your abilities to, kind of come back and, and go back to the, the starting point for someone, someone new like me. And, and for our listeners too. So all of the listeners out there, thank you so much for joining us.
Allie Gibson, you are awesome. Thank you Casey, as always. And, tune in. You guys, share your thoughts with us. You can email casey @ifioc.com. Let us know what you’re thinking, any ideas for topics and guests, and keep tuning in. Thank you so much. We’ll see you guys next time. Excellent. Thank.
Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way atCasey@ifioc.com. That’s C A S E Y IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training visit i f ioc.com Until our next Communication Solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
Today we have a very special guest, Aly Gibson, the director at Frontier Behavioral Health, a community behavioral health organization, and we’re talking about Motivational Interviewing Concepts.

In this episode we discuss:* Casey’s professional relationship with Aly Gibson * Aly’s role at Frontier Behavioral Health as the Director of Child and Family Outpatient Downtown and the WISE Program, a wraparound with Intensive Services for Youth * Aly’s work with the youth Medicaid population ranges from very acute to very severe issues * Aly’s very first train trainer training with Casey * How Motivational Interviewing is part of Aly’s life now * How MI helped Aly feel less stressed, less torn in all directions, and more confident * Alignment with deeper values * The four processes in the third edition of Miller and Rollnick’s Motivation book * The World Values Index * The whole Focus Mountain concept * Goals and ultimate values * The behavior is in alignment with values * Life’s complexity * Executive functioning * Resistance and sustained talk * Emotional reactions * Delusional happiness and connection * Quality of life and relationships * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host Danielle Cantin. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.
Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi listeners, this is Danielle Canton. We are here with the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert, and we’re here to talk about motivational interviewing. It is has become one of my favorite topics. This approach is being used to transform companies, help so many people in this episode Today, what I wanted to do, Casey and John, is dive in a little bit as you’re experts in motivational interviewing, helping companies.
How do you actually use this approach in your personal life? Is it possible to use motivational interviewing for your personal growth and development? I’m kind of a geek around stuff like that, so I learn about this and I’m like, I wanna use it on myself and everybody I know. So it’s, you know, I would almost differentiate between using it on ourselves and using it for, you know, when you’re communicating with other people.
I what I’ll just kinda launch with my thoughts and John dive in. In terms of, if you break it down to the basic construct of motivational interviewing, it is, is behavior in alignment with values. So if you just take it there, then motivational being itself gets into how do you communicate to orchestrate that, facilitate that.
For long-term sustained behavior change. So when you take the basic components of it, it would just make sense that, well, if we’re just taking those basic components, I want my behavior to align with my values, you know, and I want to have longer term behavior change. So the basics of it is like, yeah, that, that makes sense.
When you get into the communication method, I think that’s where you can have. people probably splinter into different camps of, yes, you can use it on yourself. No, you can’t use it on yourself. How would you know the difference between the resistance talk, the sustained talk, change talk? I think all those components, are viable core constructs within motivational interviewing.
But I can tell you in my personal life, I use it every single day. There’s not a day that goes by that it doesn’t go through my brain. And I can talk more about that, but John, what’s, what’s your take as, as we toss that out there?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s, and that’s my intention is what do you think about using it in, in personal growth for yourself? Yeah.
You know, What struck me, and I’ll walk you through kind of when I was newer as a train, probably within the first three to four years is when I was training, motivational interviewing. When I first thought about, I think it’s what John is differentiating, like when I started to use it with my son versus when I started to use it on myself and.
I’ll take the path when I started to use it with myself, like the construct with myself and I, and I remember exactly what the topic was. This was actually after my, the daughters were born, is when I could really specifically remember this with the twins and, cause I’m a little bit of an older dad and. I was traveling a ton, training, motivational interviewing, just traveling a ton way pre, pre, pre, pre covid.
A lot of time on the road and my just gaining weight from, you know, even though I was standing a lot, but just eating a lot and just not working out and all these things. The cholesterol was just not in a good place at all actually. It was horrible. and, and I remember, I still remember, and this was so specific that I, I just am not a morning person either.
So when I’m not a morning person and then when I train all day, I’m not an evening person as far as going and working out, I just mostly wanna go collapse on a bed in a hotel room and stream chopped for 12 hours and just fall into a coma, . So that’s what I tend to wanna do when I’m on the road, which is not a healthy pattern
So, but what I remember when I was running it through down my lens is I can get so crystal clear what my core values are. , which is about my integrity as a parent, as a father, my desire for health and wellbeing and how so many of my behaviors were in alignment with my values and around my health. My behaviors were not in line with my values.
How I broke it down even further. Because what we know is when you move to helping people get to a plan, you want confidence. , you want importance high and confidence high. So importance was very high for me. I knew I could exercise, but I just didn’t like to do it. And I, to this day, I still don’t like to do it.
But I remember this conversation when I was laying in bed in a hotel room and I used the importance, confidence ruler around myself. And when I got in the habit of doing, of going, if this is this important to you, you don’t have to go to the gym. You don’t have to work out for half an hour. , but do you have five minutes to just physically, literally, and I remember doing this.
I literally rolled outta the bed, outta the sheets, onto the floor and did five pushups because my confidence was really high. I could do that. And then when I did that, I ended up doing another 15 pushups, and then I rolled on my back and I started doing just some sits, which was better than if I, I’d laid there and debated it because I thought, can you just do five?
Can you just roll outta bed, hit the floor, do five pushups, and then get ready for. To go do a training and that is, that’s always my reset button, is I can just roll outta bed, hit the floor and do five pushups, which end up being 20 pushups. Then I end up laying on my back and doing at least 50 sit-ups and it’s better than doing nothing.
And it, it’s just, and that would increase my confidence to just kind of get into it. It’s just, don’t sign up for a gym membership. Don’t do all these things that you are not going to follow through. and, and so the way I would construct in my brain is how important is it to you to be there for your children in the long run and have a quality of health where they’re not taking care of you earlier than they need to?
That’s a 10 for me. How confident are you gonna do it? Well, if I can find something I can do, will you just do this? Yeah, I’ll totally do that. And that’s how you can try to get your behavior to start to line up with your long-term behavior. That’s so awesome. I, I was gonna inter interrupt you a couple times before you were done, but you just resolved it with a nice wrap up on, I haven’t heard you talk about confidence level high.
Yeah. So that’s really, really helpful and so important because like you said, you were you gonna roll outta bed and, you know, strap on all the gear to go to the gym? No. But you were like, yeah, I can totally just flop onto the floor . And then, you know, once you take that initial action, you’re gonna, you’re gonna actually probably do more, we’ll start with.
More than what you, and then I would never expect more than that from myself, especially in the beginning. But what happened is it was just such a routine. Then where I would get set up is because, you know, the, the, the double-edged sword of being such close friends with John is I knew I didn’t have the confidence to be as healthy as John is.
You know, because that’s a, that’s a lifestyle commitment that he has. And so the level of intention he has around working out the level of intention of eating healthy, Seemed insurmountable to me. I mean, I admired it. I wanted to have that dedication to it. I’ve gotten closer from where I was to where I am now, but honestly, that was my conversion.
John and I were, that’s when he and I used to co-train a ton together and, you know, and, and travel a lot and co-train. And I remember when he showed me, One single video on, plant-based eating. And from that day forward, I haven’t eaten meat. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t like, you know, the slaughtering of baby lambs or, you know, those perspectives.
It was just, it was so mathematical around health and disease that it was like, well, Would you put down cigarettes? If you saw all of this and I, I’m somebody that would, cuz I do care enough about my health, so that’s something I would’ve never . My confidence probably would’ve been a zero if somebody said, you’re gonna go plant-based diet and not eat meat anymore.
I probably have said, oh yeah, that’s not gonna happen. But I watched one particular video and it was just like, it was a no-brainer because to continue that, my behavior would not have been in line with my values and goals as far as my health. Like I don’t. To bring the top 15 diseases onto my body by choice.
Like why would I, that’s just , that’s insanity. Like, I would never do that. So then it was like, oh, I don’t, you know, then I talked to John about, well, what was plant-based diet look like? And, and all the, the naive questions about, you know, well, how do you get in it if you’re not eating meat, where’s your protein?
And all this stuff. And it’s like, oh my gosh, this is so much easier than I thought it was gonna be. And so it was just like, but the importance was so. Sky high to think, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna bring disease into my body by the way that I eat. Like, that was just, that just seemed ridiculous to me.
And so something that I would’ve thought I would add zero confidence on was immediate. My behavior changed. And that’s been, shoot, I don’t, you wouldn’t know John, but I, I would say probably eight years now that I’ve been, predominantly a vegetarian or pescatarian diet.
You know, and I would almost take it a step back as you’re, as you were explaining, walking through that, John, I would take it a step back even further, and this is. From, you know, when I was prepping for that conversation with Dr. William Miller, and being able to interview him in reading the whole book on second thought, I think I’d taken him a step back further when we’re thinking about motivational to just the, the amount of ambivalence that any human being has on any given day.
like how many choices do we have on any given day? And I think that takes it even back to a, a broader range because yes, people wanna change behavior. Yes, I want to be more motivated. Yes, I wanna find things that are important. Yes, I want my behavior alignment with my values. But when you think about the construct of motivational interviewing, it’s how do you help people work through their own ambivalence, even prior to even getting to a plan?
And I think that the level of application. Of just realizing that this method of communication looks at the fact that we are given so many different choices on any given day. You know, do I stay in the job? Do I stay in the relationship? Do I leave the relationship? Do I have children? Do I, you know, stay in this friend group?
Do I, you know, continue to post these things online if anybody’s paying attention? Do I need to stay? What, what I believe this political belief is? You know, we just have so much internal debate on any given day. to have some sort of a blueprint or a structure to be able to help reconcile those and not wonderful just spitting in the wind.
You know, like, does this, is this a, is my behavior having a net effect on anything that’s improving the quality of my life? Where I tie this back to what you brought up, John, is whether you go with the cynic side of it or with the focus mountain side of it that you know I worked on. Either way, what you’re looking at is fundamentally am I becoming closer to who I want to be?
or have decades passed, and in some ways I just feel like, have I had any growth whatsoever in my life? Am I just in a different environment feeling and thinking the same thing? Or am I recreating the same relationships over and over and over again? Or am I having a lack of relationships over and over and over again and am I still blaming outside of myself?
You know, and thinking, I just can’t find good quality people to socialize with or to date, you know, I, I just . I think that’s just the nature of the human experience on one hand. And then you superimpose that with a mainstream American culture, which is becoming more of a mainstream global culture about how divisive and how blanketing social media is that people start to lose sight of who they actually are.
And then we’re really in a conundrum. because then you think, how do you get outta this situation where people can’t even think for themselves because they’re deferring to somebody on their phone that they don’t even know to make decisions for how they put on their makeup. Like, it’s like, whoa, that’s, that’s just fascinating that we’ve lost that much side of who we are.
So, so I can go really macro mezzo with this to the, you know, really looking at a, at a, you know, social cultural perspective. And then I can just drop it straight back down to how do I resolve my ambivalence about really, Critical things in my life. How do I make decisions in a way that I feel okay with that decision a year from now, five years, 10 years from now?
Whether it’s sign up for gym, whether it’s having children, whether it’s, you know, what’s school to put them in, whether it’s to, you know, do I continue to hang out with this friend group when I know it’s not good for me? You know, do I continue to drink like that? I mean, just all those things that people deal with on any given day.
It’s like this wonderful, it’s like this wonderful construct that you mentioned. Blueprint. It’s like a blueprint. Yes. For like how do I get through the day? Yes. Really, really deeply rooted in my values. Yes. And who I like what you said, who I want to become, who I want to be. Always striving, growing to be more and more of that person.
So it’s really wonderful. It’s like I’m hearing it’s, it’s a blueprint. Whereas when you think of motivational interviewing, you could think of the communication piece, right? Yes. And how people, yes, yes. Help facilit. You know, people coming into their own thought process, well use the same principles and approach for yourself.
Exactly. And you could either have like a literal conversation, like you may have had that conversation in bed out loud about, yay, get on the floor. Yes, my confidence is high. Yes. Or it could have been inside your head, but either way, you know, John, John explained it as, you know, he reflects a lot, so maybe his isn’t verbal, but everybody’s got their.
Approach to how they would guide themselves through life, through their own ambivalence. That’s exactly it. Yeah. And you know, I, I, when I think of classes that I actually even developed , they, they were, because of what I did in my personal life, the first time that I started doing a parenting class. Was because of the way that I’d adjusted my parenting based on this, when I started doing relationships workshops, it was literally because of how profound it was on my relationship, on my marriage.
So it and, and when specifically, just like with the rolling outta bed and hitting the floor thing. To this day. The reason , the reason why I apply it every single day of my life is because I have twin 13 year olds, and I’m married. So every single day there’s potential for conflict. And there’s every single day there’s potential for growth.
And it’s not about how, this is what John’s point was. It’s not how I use mi on them because that’s not motivational interviewing. It’s ironically, is my behavior in align with my values. It’s not how do I get them to do what I need them to do because that fundamentally is not motivational interviewing.
It’s fundamentally, am I being the spouse that I am re that I see self-respect in myself or how I’m handling this situation. Because on any given day, there’s what I want to do and there’s what’s healthy and usually what I want to do as a parent, sometimes I just want to have a reaction. I wanna say, do your stupid home.
Don’t argue with me. Those are, that’s the first thoughts that go through my brain because that’s the way I was raised. That’s culturally watching a TV show, that’s the way we were raised. So to stop your brain for a second and go, if you watch that, does that align with who you want to be as a father? No, it does not.
Then don’t say it. What would align with it? Well, I want to empower them. So what do you need to do to make sure that you’re embodying that? Not what do they need to do? Right to be compliant with who you want them to be. That that fundamental shift is a very complex shift, especially like in a marriage or in a relationship because it’s like, well, you said you promised, we said this, we agreed to this.
All these things where you’re blaming outside of yourself, which fundamentally is going to create resistance. It’s just math instead of stopping and going. That is not the kind of partner that I want to. I wanna be a partner that I can look at my behavior and go, okay, that behavior is above reproach and you cannot control your partner.
That’s all you have control over. And that is that that blueprint is a. Monolithic shift in thinking. If you think about it, it’s, it’s also in relation to yes, being a father, a husband, but also your career, your business, or whatever it is you’re doing, because that’s what I love. And, and we heard loud and clear, right from, from listeners, viewers, all the people you train in your community, they want this, they want this topic.
Yes. And that’s why you’re gonna do, the new training, be the. Yes. It’s like how do you use motivational interviewing in your, for your personal growth and development? People need this so badly and it will benefit everything that they do, even in business or the workplace. When you kind of put yourself first.
Is that a fair assessment? Oh my gosh, absolutely. Yeah. Every, I know everybody’s kind of going gaga over this, this new training. So I think it’s pretty cool that we’re doing this podcast and, and exploring it more and that you’re, you’re really bringing this approach to people. So, and I’d really like to expand more cuz I had about 5,000 different thoughts of how many different angles of this to take.
If people are interested, I know I could dive into. A lot more, as this is a wide open area, when we get into just the tip of the iceberg of this in personal development that we alluded to a lot of things we could dive into there, that I won’t even mention like a second podcast.
This is Ben, part one of a two part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or.
Send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com Until our next Communication Solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment.

Today we discuss motivational interviewing for personal growth and development.

In this episode we discuss:* Motivational interviewing approach for our own growth * Personalities * Pre-thinking about change * Self-reflection * Behavior change * Resistance or pushback * Blaming and excuses * Dunning Kruger effect * Values and behavior * Reconciliation * Motivational Interviewing and Cultural Constructivism * Stress and pressure * Difference between coping and navigating skills * Peace of mind and fulfillment in life * Context and culture * Blueprint and structure * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

This has been part two of a two-part podcast. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hello, welcome everyone to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert.

I am Danielle Canton, and I’m thrilled to be here. We had another podcast where we dove into how do you use, is it possible to use motivational interviewing for your own personal growth and development? And if you didn’t listen to the previous podcast, yes. The answer is yes. Oh my gosh. It’s gonna be essential, and it’s so.

such an incredible approach, but what that did was really reveal how much more there is to talk about this. Yes. So Casey and John, you’re here. Let’s dig in and what else can we explore around this idea of really using, motivational interviewing to help us in our, our own growth? John, I’m gonna kick it straight to you.

You had 15 different thoughts when we’re wrapping up, so I’ll let you just start unfolding all 15 . Oh, we’ll see how clear I can be. But Casey, you had talked about culture, you had talked about blaming outside of yourself, and what went through my mind too is this thing of certain personalities are gonna be more apt to be.

Open to new experience, certain personalities are gonna be more conscientious than others. So for different people listening to this, they might have a different, level of going into this and being like, yeah. Or a different level of, huh. But I say that because we all bring different personalities.

But if you’re interested in some kind of self-reflection and some kind of that’s the prerequisite I think I just wanted to give voice to that’s happening here. That is, in our trainings we talk about is someone in pre-thinking about change, pre contemplating stage of change. And if you’re there or you don’t, you’re working with someone or thinking about something, you’re inherently thinking about it.

You’re, you’re in a place of thinking about change and the very fact that you’re even considering. Self-reflection is, I just wanted to give voice to that, that that’s like the key to this and that if you think everything is 100% fine and there’s nothing wrong and you’re right all the time and you’re perfect all the time, or whatever that is, this is something that is obviously inherently not going to be helpful.

If that’s your thought. So I just wanted to, to highlight that as a prerequisite going into this is there’s, there’s an implication we’ve been getting at that you care about growth and you’re not just seeking the isness of right now. And I just wanted to first start with that and then there’s a lot of other thoughts, but go ahead Danielle.

Sorry. Yeah, I wonder if it might be helpful too, that of course if you are interested in personal development and growth, that’s gonna be essential. So I appreciate that piece. And I wonder too, cuz some folks may not have heard the previous podcast, so a quick little recap of yes, you can use motivational interviewing, the, at least the principles, the approach, the construc.

To help guide you in your personal life for your growth and development? It is possible, and I think what I heard you guys say in that previous podcast is it’s it’s an approach that really dials in on values. So if it can help you, give you the blueprint, is what you guys had mentioned? Yes. A blueprint for, okay, there’s something in my life I wanna change, or maybe that I’m not happy with it.

Just I have ambivalence. I wanna be healthy. And the example was my cholesterol’s high, yet I’m not really feeling motivated to change my diet or exercise. How can you use these tools to, start getting to the behavior change that you want? So I kind of wanted to just do a little summary for those who may not have heard the previous podcast.

You know, I’ll add a a bit more structure around it as well too. So, the basic components, when you think of just the basic basics of motivational interviewing is, is there resistance or pushback? Which means can we have resistance or pushback within ourselves about. I can say very much so I can have those feelings of pushback, resistance inside of myself towards a change.

I can want to debate that change within myself. Do I wanna do it? Do I not wanna do it? What’s my rationale for wanting to move forward or stay stuck? Do I wanna blame or do I wanna make excuses? All of those are core constructs that you navigate in motivational interviewing. So if you’re having that with an internal dialogue with yourself, then the core constructs of motivational can be implied because it’s gonna come down to.

Why am I blaming everybody else? I can ask myself that question, which means in and of itself, I have at least some insight that I know that I’m blaming people and do I have this willingness to move beyond the Dunning Kruger effect and just think that I’m right about everything and have enough humility to go, maybe I’m not right about everything, even though I feel like I am.

But am I willing to entertain another perspective? That’s that in and of itself. A leap for, for sometimes brains to get through in our own process. But if you do and you get into that, I always think of John going, huh? When John likes to do that, huh thing, as long as there’s a huh in your brain, then it’s like, oh, here’s a point of potential ambivalence.

Then I got reasons why I’m stuck and reasons why I wanna change. And that is the preface, that is the precursor to getting into the values. Simon Senek values piece of it, the focus mountain. Casey Jackson version, like that’s the precursor is we can’t even get into values if you haven’t even gone through the own debate or even willing to have that internal debate within yourself to see is this applicable with the net effect of how do I work to get my behavior to line up with what my values are, who I know I want to be, and who I know I am as a person.

I wanna get my behavior lined up with that. I want to be who I espouse myself to be. I want to be who I envision myself to be. That’s all of those constructs together, encompass elements of motivational interviewing. So I just wanted to kinda lay that out as we’re, as we’re moving into this part too. I don’t wanna interrupt your, your guys’, approach, but one quick question.

You said blame other people. Blame outside yourself, someone else. Yeah. Does that apply to also situations like, I’m gonna blame. My job, or I’m gonna blame my neighbor. And I’m trying not to think of people, but I’m gonna blame the weather. Yes. Okay. Or politics or, yeah. It, the, the complexity of this this’s a whole separate topic, but the complexity is, is that the further we can push it away from us, The less internal to turmoil we have, the more we get to have something to focus on outside of ourself so we can shove that discord external.

And we’re not wrestling with internal dissonance. Like, wait, did I screw up? Does my, you know, am I being the employee that I say I am? If I, you know, , could I really show up on time and not just blame traffic and all these, like, it, it, it just pushes a different thing. But our brain is, so we need to get to reconciliation inside of ourselves quickly.

So the, the quickest way to then do that is to either blame or, or excuse, is the quickest way to get to a reconciliation. If you don’t get to reconciliation, you end up with a lot of internal conflict. So the quickest way to offload those is to blame. The second easiest way is to make excuses, which is why, which is why not everybody is charging galloping forward into self-reflection.

Yeah, it’s uncomfortable. Danielle, this is where I want to, I wanna jump in, that we tend to seek, Comfort and we all do it and we’re just, you know, you hear the saying, we’re creatures of habit and there’s, you know, certain things we could get into with certain kinds of theories that will get out of that comfort for certain, you know, benefits.

There’s also something here to speak about that. We’re not saying it’s inherently right or wrong to focus outside yourself is what I want to just start with that there are, there’s something, there’s even a wonderful article called Motivational Interviewing and Cultural Constructivism. I was talking about this with someone in Chicago, some weeks back when we were at the international conference.

And I forget his name, wonderful trainer. But, I say that because we grow up in these cultures that inform our narratives of our positive negative. Emotional response to things. And from that place, we might feel justified and or have evidence to show that this group or these people have treated me unfairly and there’s a place to have a whole conversation, but about righteous indignation and standing up for what you believe in and creating resistance.

There’s full movements around that, that that’s your choice to do that. It’s. You gotta be clear within yourself. How much am I making a response out of a reaction to something and focused outside myself? And how much am I going inside myself and asking myself? What do I have control over and what is really aligned with my values?

And there’s a difference that I feel we’re getting at here that’s between being more reactive and responsive and focusing and blaming and excuses, quote unquote, the stigma blaming. Versus you can still stick up for what you believe in. And if anything, we’re talking about that, that’s more aligned with mi.

When you self-reflect, you go inside yourself and say, this is what I want to see in the world. This is what I want to be in the world. I think there’s an important distinction between reactivity. and consideration of who you’re wanting to be. It doesn’t mean you can’t focus on changing things outside of yourself, it just means you’re not reacting to them.

You’re responding to them is how they say in the like self-growth world. And I think that’s a really important thing with everything going on these days with talks and politics and gender and issues of race. Just to recognize that how much are you focused on who you wanna be and what you want to.

And that’s the process. I think that’s different there, Danielle, than just focus. on blaming that person that cut you off in traffic. . I love how you just tied those things together because, you know, I think it’s important for people to know they do have a right to express themselves, to share their opinion.

Absolutely. Like said on these huge topics. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Please, yes, continue to speak up for what you believe in, but don’t get caught up in it. Make sure it’s what you believe in. Make sure you’re, you’re looking at your role in all of it and your, your alignment with your values. That was, you know, the, the one thing I wanna add to that, Danielle, as you, as you pull that together, and I was thinking about it as John was talking, it’s been my obsession with the whole trauma, trauma informed stress, covid, post covid trauma, therapeutic trauma, little ty trauma of, you know, all the abuses in the world.

When our brain gets more stressed and pressured, we move further and further away from our prefrontal cortex and away from our executive functioning, which is where our smart brain smartest part of our brain processes from and, that we know of. And when we get more stressed and pressured, we get more reactive.

So all these reactions that, you know, you and John are both acknowledging very human, are very brain human, like, as we get more stressed and overwhelmed, we don’t think as sharply. We don’t, we don’t, we don’t maximize the logical part of our brain. We get more into our emotional part of our brain, then we can get even into our survival part of our brain.

The more stress and pressure we feel, which means what are we gonna do? We’re gonna make even more blaming outside of ourself. We’re gonna pick more fights, we’re gonna make more excuses just based on stress load alone you can see that. So there’s these, the, the dimensionality of what we’re talking about in terms of, it’s not just blaming other people.

It’s not just making excuses. It’s because, because I’m not willing to have insight into my own behavior. And I think that, that there is a category of people that can fall into that situation. Or situations. Not people, but situations we can fall into. Yes, yes. But there’s also this part of it of, to be able to have the awareness that it’s like I am so stressed and overwhelmed.

I know I’m not making the best decisions right now. Even that is an awareness of, it’s like I can feel I’m not on my game How many times we hope you hear people say that, especially covid post covid. I know I’m not on top of my game. I know my mind’s brain’s not firing the way I want it to. And I think this is what I’m obsessed with this structure is if you could even start to get up into that part of your brain and go, I can feel this internal struggle inside of.

All of a sudden you have that blueprint again about, okay, if I wanna be progressive in my development, how might I approach this? So it’s not, it’s not a mantra, it’s not a ritual, it’s not a checkbox thing. It’s just more of a, a, a curiosity. A curiosity and an evolving relationship with yourself about how honest and how transparent do you want to be with yourself.

And if you wanna get really, really honest and really, really transparent, means you’re not gonna be defensive. It just means you’re gonna be vulnerable which is the opposite of defensive. And when you start to feel vulnerable, then you’re not sure your next steps, which can perpetuate ambivalence, which is why.

Then we move from, once the ambivalence is there and is uncovered and revealed, then it’s just that coaxing into who do you want to be? Who do you wanna see yourself? How do you want to be perceived? And what would that look like if you, what would be one thing you would move in that direction to make you.

kind of start to step into that new reality. That’s, that’s just the basis of this model in general, from a global perspective on it. Which, so it’s not a specific technique, it’s not a specific thing per se, but there’s definitely structure and direction to it. It feels like a, an an approach. And something you just brought up for me is the stress piece.

The world is under an incredible amount of stress. Yes. People are under an incredible amount of stress and always, always, yes. But covid, post Covid, a hundred percent. People are dealing with traumas and stress and burnout. It’s for the first time ever, I just heard you like, talk about it in a way that made me.

MI is actually what you train on is actually a tool to decrease stress. Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. . I know we use the language of resistance and all this, but I’m like, yes, if you’re applying it, I’m applying it to my personal life now. And my, my, I’m sorry. Not my personal life, my, my personal growth and development, and I’m under high stress if I apply it.

All I’m doing is like giving myself an approach to say, wait a minute, I’m stressed. First of all, realize what’s happening here, , and that quit judging and adding to that stress and getting aligned with what I really believe so that it can help me start sorting through what stress feels like, which is no control.

You know, Danielle, as soon as you see this, this is really, and the thing I’ll distinguish even further, I mean, when you said that I just, it even clarified it even further in my brain. It’s the difference between developing coping skills. and learning how to navigate to get to a better outcome. You can learn coping skills to get through stress and trauma.

When the stress and trauma resides, it doesn’t mean you’re in the place that you want to be in. It just means you made it through. when you use this approach, it helps you navigate it. So the, you’re gonna have the fi, you’re in the middle of the fire anyway it’s that it helps you go when the fire goes out or if the fire ever goes out and I’m out of this fire, I’m in a better place than when I started , not, I just survived the fire.

So there’s a profound difference between coping skills and navigating skills. Difference between coping. How are we gonna get through this storm versus where are we gonna be at at the end of the storm? that, that there is a, just a fundamental difference in in mindset and skillset between those approaches, and both are value added approaches.

Anything that helps people get through stress and trauma. Great. Their coping skills. Great. But this is specifically how do you navigate them, with a, with a, a specific, you know, idea in mind. I think John was spot on. This is a multi-part podcast. Yeah. Daniel, to that point, it, it goes. Deeper and deeper, and this is part of why it’s been so wonderful with Casey over the years to pull back the onion layers.

Because now we’re even talking about, cuz as you said, what you said, I’m thinking a yes and right. The classic improv here because there’s yes to what you said, they can reach a peace of mind. And there’s also certain people, That’s their key value, say trauma is to reach this place of peace, this raise place of peace at yourself.

And that’s a sense of peace, of freedom. They wanna feel free from these emotions. And it’s not to say there’s not therapy out there that helps with these things. That is, there’s a key place. Am I? Is what we’re saying though is not inherently therapy it’s a framework to work from that tends to be reliable across cultures for most people most of the time.

So we haven’t got into how to use the focus mountain, but I just wanted to give voice to, it’s you going, well, what do I want? I want to feel better. Well, well, why do I wanna feel better? What’s that gonna get me? And what’s that gonna get me? And if you just keep ying it and going deeper for yourself as best you can, again, it can be helpful to do out loud sometimes.

For sure is what the research shows. But I say if you can do that for yourself, you’re gonna get clear what really, really matters. And what I wanted to bring up Danielle, of the yes and is that some people have have their peace of mind. The very lucky in my. Biased, opinion. The lucky, you know, people that have that more peace of mind with the way things are going now, and they’re, they got that peace of mind and they’re seeking fulfillment, right?

So their value is different because they’re burnt out or bored at their job and they’re looking for more fulfillment in their life. And so this is a way for, I just wanted to say there’s a way to use it for, if you have, and seeking out the feelings you seek rather than the stories that have happened.

You know that that Gama, and people talk about this outside of mi, but it can be a guide with trauma, potentially. It can be a guide for being stressed out. It can be a guide for having that much more happier and healthier of a life. Or it can be a guide if you’re just discontent in these ways, and it allows for a framework depending on where you’re at with what you’re talking about.

Work life, personal life. Depending on where you’re at with that, it can be that you use it here with this thing. And you use it off to the, you know, side of beginning thinking about it or the side of like really considering happier, healthier, that is, the other side to it. So I just wanted to give voice to that, that we could keep peeling back the layers.

It depends on the person, it depends on the context they’re in and the culture they grow up in. It depends on their beliefs, but the, is their behavior aligned with their values is something we can consistently bring it back to. And quite honestly, I think we should do a whole thing if. You haven’t heard the Focus Mountain on podcast that we have.

We have multiple. Let’s let, let’s do that, John. Cause I think it’s important and I know be the change, the new training you’re doing, Casey, we’re gonna really dive in and help people, I think even figure out what is, what is my focus mountain? What are those values I have? Yes. Yes. So let’s definitely do another podcast in that.

Thank you guys so much. I know you both have to run to training, so thank you for, for this great episode and I look forward to, the next one. Thanks. Any you guys, listeners, Casey, email, Casey if ioc.com ideas, suggestions, feedback. We love it. Keep it coming. Please love it. Thank you. All right, take care of this.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com Until our next Communication Solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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Today we discuss motivational interviewing for personal growth and development.

In this episode we discuss:* Motivational interviewing approach for personal growth and development * Behavior alignment with values * Viable core constructs within motivational interviewing * The importance, confident ruler * Lifestyle Commitment * Choices and behavior change * Method of communication * Health and wellbeing * Values and goals * Social-cultural perspective * Potential for conflict and growth * Decision making * Creating resistance * Relationships and parenting * Control and alignment * Ambivalence * Blueprint or structure for life * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

This has been part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi listeners, this is Danielle Canton. We are here with the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert, and we’re here to talk about motivational interviewing. It is has become one of my favorite topics. This approach is being used to transform companies, help so many people in this episode Today, what I wanted to do, Casey and John, is dive in a little bit as you’re experts in motivational interviewing, helping companies.

How do you actually use this approach in your personal life? Is it possible to use motivational interviewing for your personal growth and development? I’m kind of a geek around stuff like that, so I learn about this and I’m like, I wanna use it on myself and everybody I know. So it’s, you know, I would almost differentiate between using it on ourselves and using it for, you know, when you’re communicating with other people.

I what I’ll just kinda launch with my thoughts and John dive in. In terms of, if you break it down to the basic construct of motivational interviewing, it is, is behavior in alignment with values. So if you just take it there, then motivational being itself gets into how do you communicate to orchestrate that, facilitate that.

For long-term sustained behavior change. So when you take the basic components of it, it would just make sense that, well, if we’re just taking those basic components, I want my behavior to align with my values, you know, and I want to have longer term behavior change. So the basics of it is like, yeah, that, that makes sense.

When you get into the communication method, I think that’s where you can have. people probably splinter into different camps of, yes, you can use it on yourself. No, you can’t use it on yourself. How would you know the difference between the resistance talk, the sustained talk, change talk? I think all those components, are viable core constructs within motivational interviewing.

But I can tell you in my personal life, I use it every single day. There’s not a day that goes by that it doesn’t go through my brain. And I can talk more about that, but John, what’s, what’s your take as, as we toss that out there?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s, and that’s my intention is what do you think about using it in, in personal growth for yourself? Yeah.

You know, What struck me, and I’ll walk you through kind of when I was newer as a train, probably within the first three to four years is when I was training, motivational interviewing. When I first thought about, I think it’s what John is differentiating, like when I started to use it with my son versus when I started to use it on myself and.

I’ll take the path when I started to use it with myself, like the construct with myself and I, and I remember exactly what the topic was. This was actually after my, the daughters were born, is when I could really specifically remember this with the twins and, cause I’m a little bit of an older dad and. I was traveling a ton, training, motivational interviewing, just traveling a ton way pre, pre, pre, pre covid.

A lot of time on the road and my just gaining weight from, you know, even though I was standing a lot, but just eating a lot and just not working out and all these things. The cholesterol was just not in a good place at all actually. It was horrible. and, and I remember, I still remember, and this was so specific that I, I just am not a morning person either.

So when I’m not a morning person and then when I train all day, I’m not an evening person as far as going and working out, I just mostly wanna go collapse on a bed in a hotel room and stream chopped for 12 hours and just fall into a coma, . So that’s what I tend to wanna do when I’m on the road, which is not a healthy pattern

So, but what I remember when I was running it through down my lens is I can get so crystal clear what my core values are. , which is about my integrity as a parent, as a father, my desire for health and wellbeing and how so many of my behaviors were in alignment with my values and around my health. My behaviors were not in line with my values.

How I broke it down even further. Because what we know is when you move to helping people get to a plan, you want confidence. , you want importance high and confidence high. So importance was very high for me. I knew I could exercise, but I just didn’t like to do it. And I, to this day, I still don’t like to do it.

But I remember this conversation when I was laying in bed in a hotel room and I used the importance, confidence ruler around myself. And when I got in the habit of doing, of going, if this is this important to you, you don’t have to go to the gym. You don’t have to work out for half an hour. , but do you have five minutes to just physically, literally, and I remember doing this.

I literally rolled outta the bed, outta the sheets, onto the floor and did five pushups because my confidence was really high. I could do that. And then when I did that, I ended up doing another 15 pushups, and then I rolled on my back and I started doing just some sits, which was better than if I, I’d laid there and debated it because I thought, can you just do five?

Can you just roll outta bed, hit the floor, do five pushups, and then get ready for. To go do a training and that is, that’s always my reset button, is I can just roll outta bed, hit the floor and do five pushups, which end up being 20 pushups. Then I end up laying on my back and doing at least 50 sit-ups and it’s better than doing nothing.

And it, it’s just, and that would increase my confidence to just kind of get into it. It’s just, don’t sign up for a gym membership. Don’t do all these things that you are not going to follow through. and, and so the way I would construct in my brain is how important is it to you to be there for your children in the long run and have a quality of health where they’re not taking care of you earlier than they need to?

That’s a 10 for me. How confident are you gonna do it? Well, if I can find something I can do, will you just do this? Yeah, I’ll totally do that. And that’s how you can try to get your behavior to start to line up with your long-term behavior. That’s so awesome. I, I was gonna inter interrupt you a couple times before you were done, but you just resolved it with a nice wrap up on, I haven’t heard you talk about confidence level high.

Yeah. So that’s really, really helpful and so important because like you said, you were you gonna roll outta bed and, you know, strap on all the gear to go to the gym? No. But you were like, yeah, I can totally just flop onto the floor . And then, you know, once you take that initial action, you’re gonna, you’re gonna actually probably do more, we’ll start with.

More than what you, and then I would never expect more than that from myself, especially in the beginning. But what happened is it was just such a routine. Then where I would get set up is because, you know, the, the, the double-edged sword of being such close friends with John is I knew I didn’t have the confidence to be as healthy as John is.

You know, because that’s a, that’s a lifestyle commitment that he has. And so the level of intention he has around working out the level of intention of eating healthy, Seemed insurmountable to me. I mean, I admired it. I wanted to have that dedication to it. I’ve gotten closer from where I was to where I am now, but honestly, that was my conversion.

John and I were, that’s when he and I used to co-train a ton together and, you know, and, and travel a lot and co-train. And I remember when he showed me, One single video on, plant-based eating. And from that day forward, I haven’t eaten meat. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t like, you know, the slaughtering of baby lambs or, you know, those perspectives.

It was just, it was so mathematical around health and disease that it was like, well, Would you put down cigarettes? If you saw all of this and I, I’m somebody that would, cuz I do care enough about my health, so that’s something I would’ve never . My confidence probably would’ve been a zero if somebody said, you’re gonna go plant-based diet and not eat meat anymore.

I probably have said, oh yeah, that’s not gonna happen. But I watched one particular video and it was just like, it was a no-brainer because to continue that, my behavior would not have been in line with my values and goals as far as my health. Like I don’t. To bring the top 15 diseases onto my body by choice.

Like why would I, that’s just , that’s insanity. Like, I would never do that. So then it was like, oh, I don’t, you know, then I talked to John about, well, what was plant-based diet look like? And, and all the, the naive questions about, you know, well, how do you get in it if you’re not eating meat, where’s your protein?

And all this stuff. And it’s like, oh my gosh, this is so much easier than I thought it was gonna be. And so it was just like, but the importance was so. Sky high to think, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna bring disease into my body by the way that I eat. Like, that was just, that just seemed ridiculous to me.

And so something that I would’ve thought I would add zero confidence on was immediate. My behavior changed. And that’s been, shoot, I don’t, you wouldn’t know John, but I, I would say probably eight years now that I’ve been, predominantly a vegetarian or pescatarian diet.

You know, and I would almost take it a step back as you’re, as you were explaining, walking through that, John, I would take it a step back even further, and this is. From, you know, when I was prepping for that conversation with Dr. William Miller, and being able to interview him in reading the whole book on second thought, I think I’d taken him a step back further when we’re thinking about motivational to just the, the amount of ambivalence that any human being has on any given day.

like how many choices do we have on any given day? And I think that takes it even back to a, a broader range because yes, people wanna change behavior. Yes, I want to be more motivated. Yes, I wanna find things that are important. Yes, I want my behavior alignment with my values. But when you think about the construct of motivational interviewing, it’s how do you help people work through their own ambivalence, even prior to even getting to a plan?

And I think that the level of application. Of just realizing that this method of communication looks at the fact that we are given so many different choices on any given day. You know, do I stay in the job? Do I stay in the relationship? Do I leave the relationship? Do I have children? Do I, you know, stay in this friend group?

Do I, you know, continue to post these things online if anybody’s paying attention? Do I need to stay? What, what I believe this political belief is? You know, we just have so much internal debate on any given day. to have some sort of a blueprint or a structure to be able to help reconcile those and not wonderful just spitting in the wind.

You know, like, does this, is this a, is my behavior having a net effect on anything that’s improving the quality of my life? Where I tie this back to what you brought up, John, is whether you go with the cynic side of it or with the focus mountain side of it that you know I worked on. Either way, what you’re looking at is fundamentally am I becoming closer to who I want to be?

or have decades passed, and in some ways I just feel like, have I had any growth whatsoever in my life? Am I just in a different environment feeling and thinking the same thing? Or am I recreating the same relationships over and over and over again? Or am I having a lack of relationships over and over and over again and am I still blaming outside of myself?

You know, and thinking, I just can’t find good quality people to socialize with or to date, you know, I, I just . I think that’s just the nature of the human experience on one hand. And then you superimpose that with a mainstream American culture, which is becoming more of a mainstream global culture about how divisive and how blanketing social media is that people start to lose sight of who they actually are.

And then we’re really in a conundrum. because then you think, how do you get outta this situation where people can’t even think for themselves because they’re deferring to somebody on their phone that they don’t even know to make decisions for how they put on their makeup. Like, it’s like, whoa, that’s, that’s just fascinating that we’ve lost that much side of who we are.

So, so I can go really macro mezzo with this to the, you know, really looking at a, at a, you know, social cultural perspective. And then I can just drop it straight back down to how do I resolve my ambivalence about really, Critical things in my life. How do I make decisions in a way that I feel okay with that decision a year from now, five years, 10 years from now?

Whether it’s sign up for gym, whether it’s having children, whether it’s, you know, what’s school to put them in, whether it’s to, you know, do I continue to hang out with this friend group when I know it’s not good for me? You know, do I continue to drink like that? I mean, just all those things that people deal with on any given day.

It’s like this wonderful, it’s like this wonderful construct that you mentioned. Blueprint. It’s like a blueprint. Yes. For like how do I get through the day? Yes. Really, really deeply rooted in my values. Yes. And who I like what you said, who I want to become, who I want to be. Always striving, growing to be more and more of that person.

So it’s really wonderful. It’s like I’m hearing it’s, it’s a blueprint. Whereas when you think of motivational interviewing, you could think of the communication piece, right? Yes. And how people, yes, yes. Help facilit. You know, people coming into their own thought process, well use the same principles and approach for yourself.

Exactly. And you could either have like a literal conversation, like you may have had that conversation in bed out loud about, yay, get on the floor. Yes, my confidence is high. Yes. Or it could have been inside your head, but either way, you know, John, John explained it as, you know, he reflects a lot, so maybe his isn’t verbal, but everybody’s got their.

Approach to how they would guide themselves through life, through their own ambivalence. That’s exactly it. Yeah. And you know, I, I, when I think of classes that I actually even developed , they, they were, because of what I did in my personal life, the first time that I started doing a parenting class. Was because of the way that I’d adjusted my parenting based on this, when I started doing relationships workshops, it was literally because of how profound it was on my relationship, on my marriage.

So it and, and when specifically, just like with the rolling outta bed and hitting the floor thing. To this day. The reason , the reason why I apply it every single day of my life is because I have twin 13 year olds, and I’m married. So every single day there’s potential for conflict. And there’s every single day there’s potential for growth.

And it’s not about how, this is what John’s point was. It’s not how I use mi on them because that’s not motivational interviewing. It’s ironically, is my behavior in align with my values. It’s not how do I get them to do what I need them to do because that fundamentally is not motivational interviewing.

It’s fundamentally, am I being the spouse that I am re that I see self-respect in myself or how I’m handling this situation. Because on any given day, there’s what I want to do and there’s what’s healthy and usually what I want to do as a parent, sometimes I just want to have a reaction. I wanna say, do your stupid home.

Don’t argue with me. Those are, that’s the first thoughts that go through my brain because that’s the way I was raised. That’s culturally watching a TV show, that’s the way we were raised. So to stop your brain for a second and go, if you watch that, does that align with who you want to be as a father? No, it does not.

Then don’t say it. What would align with it? Well, I want to empower them. So what do you need to do to make sure that you’re embodying that? Not what do they need to do? Right to be compliant with who you want them to be. That that fundamental shift is a very complex shift, especially like in a marriage or in a relationship because it’s like, well, you said you promised, we said this, we agreed to this.

All these things where you’re blaming outside of yourself, which fundamentally is going to create resistance. It’s just math instead of stopping and going. That is not the kind of partner that I want to. I wanna be a partner that I can look at my behavior and go, okay, that behavior is above reproach and you cannot control your partner.

That’s all you have control over. And that is that that blueprint is a. Monolithic shift in thinking. If you think about it, it’s, it’s also in relation to yes, being a father, a husband, but also your career, your business, or whatever it is you’re doing, because that’s what I love. And, and we heard loud and clear, right from, from listeners, viewers, all the people you train in your community, they want this, they want this topic.

Yes. And that’s why you’re gonna do, the new training, be the. Yes. It’s like how do you use motivational interviewing in your, for your personal growth and development? People need this so badly and it will benefit everything that they do, even in business or the workplace. When you kind of put yourself first.

Is that a fair assessment? Oh my gosh, absolutely. Yeah. Every, I know everybody’s kind of going gaga over this, this new training. So I think it’s pretty cool that we’re doing this podcast and, and exploring it more and that you’re, you’re really bringing this approach to people. So, and I’d really like to expand more cuz I had about 5,000 different thoughts of how many different angles of this to take.

If people are interested, I know I could dive into. A lot more, as this is a wide open area, when we get into just the tip of the iceberg of this in personal development that we alluded to a lot of things we could dive into there, that I won’t even mention like a second podcast.

This is Ben, part one of a two part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or.

Send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. That’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com Until our next Communication Solution podcast, keep changing the world.

Shoot us an email. You can always go to our website as well. I F ioc.com. And we’re here to help you. Whatever you might be facing and looking at. You heard from definitely an organizational perspective, but what I love you talking about too is, is what does that officer feel like? What does that Yes, person in the community feel like?

And you’re also rolling out training, you know, be the change, right? Of Yes. How do we use motivational interviewing to support the individual? Who’s actually out there using motivational interviewing to help others. It’s like, how do we just make this a win-win for everyone? Well, you know, and I think just the, what wraps it up so nicely is, you know, and it’s not, I, I afraid that it comes across as trite, but what you were literally talking about is, you know, as you’re thinking about your own bias, I’d rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.

And that’s truly where the whole construct of the communication solution came. That’s why we call it the communication solution. Is it it we want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And so much communication causes problem. Yeah. And we just wanna be part of that solution. So I appreciate you saying that.

Cause it, first thing that I ha think about is I always wanna be part of the solution. I’m, part of the problem. And that is literally where the, the whole tagline the communication solution came from is right from there. Yeah. And you know, I think, you know, all the listeners out there, they’re probably feeling the same way.

We all wanna be part of the solution, but we don’t know how. Yes, yes. And that’s where people give up apathy, right? It’s like, I don’t know. And here’s this beautiful path. It’s like you’re the Sherpa, the guide that’s gonna be like, Hey, let’s, let’s do this together and figure it out. So thank you. Thank you.

What a beautiful series and I think. I think we will be touching on current events a little more often. We’ll, thanks Casey. Thank you, John. Everybody.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world.

So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. That’s casey@ifioc.com. For more information or to schedule a training visit if ioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

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We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment.

Today we continue to focus on the unfortunate murders in Idaho, at the University of Idaho, through the lens of motivational Interviewing.

In this episode tragedy in Idaho through the lens of Motivational Interviewing, we discuss:* Compassion when living with trauma * The University of Idaho’s situation * Compassion from an MI perspective * Primary trauma and secondary trauma * Compassion distinguished from empathy * Perspective of law enforcement * Law enforcement survival in civilian survival and community safety * The difference between reflective listening and high accurate empathy * Human thought and behavior * Extremely complex, high pressured situations * Strategically responding to language * Evidence-based practices that change data * Vision and mission statements * How to get behavior in line with values * Looking at the human brain from a different perspective * Gratification * Job satisfaction * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

This is part two of a two-part podcast. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit if IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment. Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC we love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

What’s going through my mind is this thread that Casey, to me, you just brought up with a secondary trauma.

It’s like, how do you, regardless of of the work, it could be a officer that’s dealing with this level of stress. It could be a mental health social worker dealing with secondary trauma. How do you have compassion in your work when you’re constantly you know, a sense of feeling the trauma or actually traumatized with a secondary trauma. it’s so different to live it versus talk about it on like a podcast like this. And I want ’em to just bring that up because mi is a way of, of expressing compassion for another human being. You could say, well, I’m expressing compassion by pulling them off of the bridge. Or I’m expressing compassion by tasering this person, cuz it gets the overall good.

So, you know, it’s not that people don’t have compassion, it’s almost like. An expression of compassion we’re talking about here with mi. We’re obviously talking about it more from the, perspective of the officers in, in this recent way, but we could tie it back to even the person you were talking about in the Idaho situation.

How much compassion does this person feel? I don’t know how functional it is to fully unpack this, but I think what you were getting at is like, do my interpretation is that, does this person feel a sense of compassion and ambivalence about that compassion for what they’re doing to these other people?

And I think that’s something of a thread for me in this whole conversation. Can the people that are going through these things have compassion for these other humans involved? If they’re in the mind of a, you know, one of those shows, mind of a Murderer or something like that, do they have compassion? Is there ambivalence in there, like the person with the knife to the neck, or is it the officer that has compassion but is trying to compartmentalize things of how to do this day in and day out?

But how do they have. Compassion for the, the person they’re trying to be helpful for with safety. And then how does the person that’s gone through this horrific event, which I could only imagine the devastation as you were talking about, how do they have compassion? Right? And that’s where, you know, those, those different types of court programs are trying to help heal with things that have happened.

But there seems to be this thread of compassion of like, how do. Pull that thread of compassion from an MI perspective altogether. I don’t think I have the magical answer, but it doesn’t seem like MI is a way of starting to help pull a thread of compassion for everyone, for each other as best we can, which also doesn’t solve the issues of race, gender, all the inequalities dealing with all, all the things we’re talking about.

But I do want to throw that out there and see your thoughts as we’re kind of coming to an end. If you had anything else you wanted to add to that. So there’s a couple things that I want to unpack from this, and one is when we’re talking about kind of primary trauma, secondary trauma for law enforcement, because they have so much primary trauma and secondary trauma, then I wanna take the compassion piece of it too.

So we’re gonna talk about the trauma piece, we’re gonna talk about the compassion piece of it, and then distinguish that from the empathy piece all right. So in MI, our ivory tower version of it is, It’s a way of expressing com of expressing compassion. When you get into the measurement of it, there’s nothing about measuring compassion and motivational interviewing.

So this is what Miller brought into. We need to pay more attention to this, whether or not we can ever measure it. What we can measure is accurate empathy. So I, from my experience so far, there’s no way I could lead in training law enforcement about tapping into their compass. because that just culturally would not work.

That’s just not something that’s going to, because that in some ways is it’s not even a sign of weakness. It’s actually inefficient. It’s ineffective when you’re looking from a pure law enforcement perspective, because when you’re going from that perspective, you’re wasting time. What you feel is detracting from what you can assess.

So there’s no utility in how you feel, which is why you see a lot of times that law enforcement gets a perspective that they’re just cold or aren’t engaged, and they’re not healthy for our communities when they’re from that perspective. But when you look from a different angle, you’re looking at how can you assess 50 or 60 different indicators on a scene that are critical for officer survival in civilian survival and community safety.

and be compassionate at the same time. Yeah, that’s great. Most human beings couldn’t do that. But you’re having people that are expected to do that. So that’s why I wanna parse out the compassion piece from the empathy thing, the empathy con construction of it. You start to look from that angle and you and I know John, we can teach people to express accurate empathy.

The difficulty is for it to be accurate empathy. The person on the receiving end has to feel heard and understood. This is why we need to differentiate the difference between reflective listening and what is a high accurate empathy. Officers can do reflective listening. It is a much taller order for them to express high accurate empathy because they’re having to leave their worldview.

This is where you can parallel compassion and empathy when you’re, when I look from a law enforcement perspective, because both means you’re somewhat other person center. empathy or specifically other person-centered compassion is because you’re radiating the thing that you want everybody to be happier and healthier and mass.

So they’re two different things. So your mindset can have a compassionate mindset, but then there’s also the things that you have to be able to assess on scene at any given moment at time. So they’re not only assessing what’s happening in front of them assessing, they’re assessing every other indicator around the scenario as well too.

It’s just when you’re talking from a brain perspective, is extremely. Take that level of complexity. Now, when you have health and safety issues going on, what does the natural human brain do? Once a health and safety issue, it starts to drop down into the reptilian brain for survival. So you’ve got an officer who’s trying to assess all these things at the same time, trying to express, express, accurate epi empathy.

Well, part of the brain is, oh my God, I hope this guy doesn’t jump, because they’re still human. The officers are still human and they don’t want people to get hurt and they don’t want them to jump off the side of the bridge. But they’ve seen so many people jump. They can’t put a whole lot of stock into, I just don’t know if I wanna clean this one up again.

So, which can seem cold on one hand, but it’s just like, if it’s a chronic reality, it’s a chronic reality. It’s the side effect of war. There’s going to be bodies. And I think that’s the, the complexity of this is how do you maintain that level of if you don’t understand what we’re talking about from a technique perspective and that level of compassion and deal with these things multiple times on any given day, it just becomes extremely complex.

And, and I, this is not to make light of it, but I think of how much I complain about poor customer service at restaurants post covid. I mean, that’s what, and that’s so if you have a server that can barely get the plates out and aren’t particularly good at having good customer service, that’s not quite as complex as what I just articulated for a difficult.

Does that make sense? Not quite . So, but that, I mean, so you can just see we’re talking about just extremely complex layers of human thought and human behavior and having this lens of motivational interviewing I think is amazing because what we can do then is I can train law enforcement. How do you express accurate?

And still assess the entire situation. How can you lean forward and make this person feel heard and understood, and still assess the situation while you’re adding a different level of complexity? I always think if somebody’s juggling, you’re gonna add, you know, a couple more balls and then a knife to the whole situation.

It’s just like, that’s just a lot to juggle, you know? And if you keep adding one more and one more, it just gets more complex. So officers are dealing with extremely complex situations when we’re talking about this. You know, these really high-pressured situations. and what they can do is they can listen to language.

And this is why I train this from, from a tactical perspective in language, which is you can choose what type of language you respond to. That’s no different than how you’re gonna hold the gun or you know what you’re gonna do. You know, all the things they learned tactically when they arrive on scene as well too, which is a skillset as far as tactic skillsets, using language can become a tactical skillset.

it’s just not what they’re used to doing. They don’t track the types of language. And like I tell them, if you’re doing an investigation, your brain is listening to content. If you’re trying to affect behavior change, you have to step back and listen for types of language and how do you respond to the types of language.

So again, Wendy, I love the conversation we had in a podcast with Danielle about the naive brain. So you’re taking naive brains to motivational interview. You’re adding concepts are pretty complex, even for people that are, are pretty good at motivational interviewing and have some skill behind it. What do we know is one of the hardest skills to master is strategically responding to language.

People can express high accurate empathy, but to be able in the moment in real conversation respond to sustained talk. And looking at our decision tree, do we wanna ask a question for change? Wouldn’t reflect change? Do we wanna ask a question around sustained? Do we wanna reflect, sustain, and keep a real dialogue going?

Azure monitoring these extremely complex scenarios that they’re on. It’s just a lot to do and people have the human capacity to do it. So if the desire is there, then there is the capacity to develop that skill to master this as well too. And then again, it’s why we start, and literally, John, you know this, we start with our curriculum.

One of the first three to four slides we show is to help people understand, are you trying to go for compli? or are you trying to affect behavior change? And so when you look from a law enforcement lens, a significant chunk of what they do is gonna be compliance, drop that weapon, pull over, like it’s gonna be compliance driven.

So the fact that law enforcement is even trying to look from a, from a behavior change perspective or a very narrow slice of law enforcement is really deeply looking at how do we affect behavior change more effectively is it’s pretty cutting edge. It’s extremely innovative in terms of looking at this as a promising practice in law.

So, and Danielle, you can jump in at any point. Of course. I’m just, I’m so curious about so many angles of this because this is so, into so much of what’s happened recently. But Casey, I know we’ve, we will be, Robin here at some point, but there’s so much around what you’re talking about around simplicity, like complexity and simplicity, and I just want to bring that into highlighting.

we all as humans are gonna go with likely what is simple and what we know. And it’s just normal. It’s natural. You could call it entropy, you could call it all sorts of things from science to psychology. And some people will be more naturally gravitating towards, what is g are what’s gonna have them grow and learn in something new and complex.

Right? And some people are just trying. get by, in their situation, you know, be it the person that’s struggling with poverty, be it the officer that’s going through primary and secondary trauma. So it where my brain goes and thinking about this, of trying to have empathy for the person going through the, the grief of, in this case a, you know, a murderous situation that they don’t know how they would’ve prevent.

or you’re thinking of it from the officer perspective that’s trying to negotiate with someone live on the scene. As I’m trying to think about this, there’s this place of like, well, you’re making the job more complex for the officers on top of complexity. And what’s simpler is to go with what we know, which is this is how I define deescalation.

And so this is the way it is, right? And we all do this with different but you’re inviting a different way and you even provided feedback with the escalator analogy that maybe there’s a different way of looking at this. And so it’s, it’s interesting just to think about all the perspectives we bring into a situation in our work environment and our realities and how we just tend to perpetuate that kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of this is the way things are done.

And am I in some ways with what you’re doing with the officers and. It can relate to the, the Idaho situation is you’re inviting or introducing a potential other way of thinking about the situation or approaching the situation or somehow, like in acceptance commitment therapy, you’re acting first and then learning from the actions that happen.

Like we’ve seen, like Danielle talked about in the police cam footage videos, you watch how the person. Responds differently, and then the officers respond differently to the person responding differently. And it’s just a lot of taking simplicity and not trying to make it too complex. But it’s this journey you’re talking about that is trying not to overwhelm.

Seemingly the officers to see if there’s ambivalence inside that person, but it takes effort. And I just wanted to highlight that, that sometimes people are just trying to get by. And so I wondered what your thoughts were of the receptivity of like, this takes more work and this is more effort, so how are we supposed to do that type perspective?

And then just any other thoughts you had about ambivalence from that angle? Y years when I first started doing trainings for when I was requested to start training outside of behavioral health, and addiction treatment. First that I got asked to do was healthcare physicians. And everybody said, you’re not gonna wanna train physicians.

They are a difficult group to train. So, of course, and I hyper prep like I normally do for groups that I’m nervous about training. And what I ended up uncovering, which was so helpful for me in teaching and training, is, you know, I stumbled upon, Ignatius Semmelweis, and who’s the, you? Patron saint of, you know, pregnant women delivering women.

And, you know, and, and what I think of it’s such a simple concept is he was the one who was running a maternity ward at a hospital and realized that if they washed their hands before they delivered, the mother would live in, the child would live at much higher rates. And he preached this at conferences and showed the data for 15 years and died Humili.

Basically cast out of the medical field. After 15 years of preaching, if we just wash our hands before we deliver a baby, women will live and babies will live at much higher rates. It will cut our mortality rates down for 15 years. Physicians just blew it off and we’re just ridiculed him. How dare you think that we are not clean human beings and we don’t pay attention to things, but they weren’t washing their hands before they were delivering babies.

That was 15 years. So what I look at is it’s hard for people to want to change data and not look at evidence-based practices that change data. So that’s why I take this, you know, further than a bird’s eye view, kind of an earth view of we know that data can actually change outcomes. If there’s certain data points that we know we can change, why wouldn’t we wanna do that?

That is a very nature of promising practice and evidence-based practice. So I have to hold that focus when I drop down into the reality of what law enforcement has to deal with. Does the human brain have the capacity to monitor all the things that officers have to do when they arrive on scene and strategically respond to language?

The answer is yes. Is it easy? No. Is it achievable? Yes. So I just have to keep it simple for my brain because these things get so complex. And then what I think of is then there has to be the will. To change the data. And I think because of, I think because of where the public is at with law enforcement, some extremely supportive, some extremely against what the defund the police perspective is, how do we get back to what the basic values are?

I mean, I can ask Daniel, and people won’t know this off the top of their head, but as soon as they hear it, they go, well, of course that’s what it is. I mean, what do we know historically was on the side of a police car to serve and to protect? . That’s not what people think of when they think of law enforcement, which means they’ve drifted away from what their vision and their mission is.

When I work with law enforcement, I pull up their vision and mission statements. There are some beautifully written vision and mission statements for law enforcement about inclusive co communities and safety, and building a sense of community. It does not mean their behavior is in alignment with those values.

and people are gonna go, yeah, but look at what they’re dealing with. And it’s like, then I think then change your vision and mission and value statement because your behavior’s aligned with what you think you need to be doing versus what communities are asking for. I’m gonna keep going back to, and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just running this through an MI lens, is how do we get our behavior in line with our values?

How do you help somebody that’s doing anything extremely complex? Ensure that their behaviors align with our values and they can have the intention, but it doesn’t mean that they have the skillset. For me, motivational is a skillset that is learnable and teachable. That does improve outcomes. It helps people reduce resistance In law enforcement, wouldn’t you wanna see reduce resistance reduced?

Wouldn’t you wanna see a less discord and less tension in conversations will be no data reams and reams of data that shows in that motivationally is very effective. and once the the tension is reduced, can you help people work through their ambivalence? I think most people that are in situations with officers have a massive amount of ambivalence.

And I think this is where you get to compare and contrast between most situations. Even with people that are suicidal or homicidal or have got themselves barricaded and have weapons, is different than somebody that pre-planned something like the U of I thing. Does that make sense? And I’m not saying that the individual.

Didn’t have ambivalence throughout the process, but I think that’s the part that we just don’t know. Would that be effective or not? And then you think in hindsight, if the individual is guilty of these crimes, does therapy even work if the crime’s already been committed? So the people want blood. You know, Eye for an eye is what kind of public opinion is, is Eye for an eye.

So who cares if there’s therapy or rehabilitation? He needs to get paid. He needs to be put on death row for this. So it’s such a complex issue. And why, for me, I’m gonna keep saying, the way I simplify it is my curiosity as always. Does ambivalence exist? Is their behavior genuinely in line with their values?

And sometimes we get confused and we say their behavior is their values, which that’s not always true because just because you speed does not make you a criminal, even though it’s does that make sense? So we tend to wanna oversimplify things, but then we don’t wanna oversimplify where it doesn’t apply to us

So, so that’s, so those are the things that makes these just really complex, but absolutely fascinating to kind of arm chart quarterback and, and step back. And I think that’s what Danielle originally kind of tees us up for is, hey, let’s just kind of take this, you know, put our toe in the water and venture out into kind of current events and kind of try to overlay an MI perspective on this and.

Can this help our conversations be more effective instead of more fruitless, or more contentious, or more exhaustive, or just kind of throw our hands up in there air and just say nothing’s ever gonna change. And I think that’s why I think Danielle was kind of thinking, scratch your head saying, you know, this might be worth us kind of venturing into this and talking about how can we look at human brain from a different perspective and will it make other people feel like it’s given me something to put some reference or frame or reference around.

And something that I never, never really had a frame of reference for. So well, and one last thing I’ll throw in case that you can riff off or we can completely end on is, you know, we’re talking about motivational interviewing lens on this event. It’s happened in Idaho. We’re talking about your involvement from thinking about it from, officers in, and policing.

We’re thinking of it on receiving. If you were the person involved in a devastating situation like this, if you’re in the family, we’re thinking of. From different angles, but primarily, from a law officer perspective, we’ve, we’ve really spent a good amount of time thinking, well, that’s where we can apply MI to hopefully avoid situations like this.

That’s what I’ve taken, from this type of a thing. There’s also this place that I wanted to bring up if we’re gonna talk about motivation, what’s kind of been implied that I’ve interpreted, and you could totally correct me if I’m wrong, at Casey. There’s a sense of gratification felt when our behavior is aligned with our values.

And if we’re constantly not feeling gratified and say, from a law officer, potential perspective criticized, and then when we are aligned, we don’t feel the gratification. It’s unlikely to be motivated to keep doing. Harder, more complex behavior. And then I think of gratification from the alleged person that that killed those people.

There’s a certain level of, well, would they do it again? You know? And is there ambivalence there? Is the gratification from that behavior, or is it more that there’s a deeper value? They could get met in a more pro-social way. And where my brain just went with that is what gratifies us, what more deeply motivates us?

And I just wanted to bring that in just to think of like, well, if you’re gonna try something new that’s hard, you better feel some gratification from it, because you’re not gonna keep with it. Hence, lots of behavior change around lifestyle that doesn’t tend to stick for a lot of people. And so I just wanted to bring that into the discussion, be it from.

Person in Idaho that allegedly killed those people to the officers, to then the families that are going through it, what’s gratifying? Yeah. I, and I think the way that I’ll wrap this up is I think physicians feel gratified when they fix somebody. I think an addiction counselor feels somebody, when somebody feels better, when somebody gets, you know, is no longer using substances.

I think an officer feels better if the situation’s resolved in a, in a healthy. I think that, you know, then you can get into the complexities of, you know, for the, the person who you know, has committed a heinous crime. Do they feel gratified by the crime or do they feel. Gratified by the, you know, taking responsibility for it and finally just owning up to it.

You know, because some people feel that, that just, I need to apologize to the victim’s families, like I need to for that reconciliation. So you can see that ambivalence exists inside their brain in those situations. So I think what’s so fascinating about it is human beings want to help resolve their ambivalence.

I think then we get into social construct in terms of what’s okay and what’s not okay. What I can bring it back to an end of one. is after this last consult that I did in in-person consult. There’s an officer whose videos I use, the one with the suicidal individual on the bridge that particular officer does more, to walk outta the building with him after that consult, and for him to say how much it’s affected his life in such a positive way that he’s less stressed and he feels more skilled when he shows up on scene in terms of when do I need to use force and when can I use my communication more effectively?

There’s something about him that just looks. and he’s effective at what he does. And ironically, in some ways he looks softer to some other officers. But his outcomes are getting better and better. So it is to be able to stand up and draw that kind of attention for any of us, for a doctor who’s not going to immediately diagnose and say, this is the fix versus a behavior change approach, which is, what do you wanna see happen from here and how can I support you in that process?

That doesn’t sound normal to a lot of physic. So it’s, are you willing to step up because you wanna see improvement in outcomes, and part of the improvement in outcome is it’s helping heal and make you feel like you’re more effective in the role that you chose to do for a profession. Do you wanna feel more effective?

Do you wanna feel, at the end of the day, you’re less troubled about decisions you’ve had to make versus you feel more. Satisfied that you engaged somebody’s brain in their own change process and they had informed choice that they gotta choose what the outcome was and they feel good about their choice, irrespective of if it agreed with what your choice was or not and that you created that.

I seem greater job satisfaction from professionals are learning to master that and it’s what they have control over rather than focusing on all the things they don’t. Just like the grieving family, just like the officer. And cuz we didn’t talk about how, you know, there are things outside of mi like single fa or single mother families and other things that, that are related to adverse childhood experiences and all these other things that play in that aren’t motivational interviewing to committing certain kinds of, of behaviors.

But at the end of the day, what do we have control over? And I think what you just articulated is a very powerful thing to be like, well I have control over so I appreciate that. And, and how we think about it, which we’re gonna get into in another podcast on mi and personal development and personal communication.

But really appreciate your perspective, Casey and Danielle, you, really, asking about current events in this particular current event. I appreciate you both bringing it up because it really spurred a lot of interesting thoughts, so, . Yeah. Thank you so much, Casey. Thank you, John. I think, I know I’m walking away from this conversation thinking differently and thinking about, you know, I think I hear you guys talk about bias and I’m definitely biased.

And. Have my different opinions about different things, but what this invites me to do is really look at everything from so many different perspectives so that it takes that charge out of it. Yeah. And it really becomes solution oriented. Yes. It becomes, how do you help whoever it might be, take their next step that’s in alignment with their values, and like you said, very slim, slim part of the population has values that.

Don’t resonate with, with people on our planet. Yes. And so they feel good about horrific things they do, but in general, ambivalence is there for everyone and, and to, you know, I’m, I don’t wanna get too emotional about this, but the fact that there is law enforcement out there and you said it’s definitely cutting edge and it’s a small piece of it.

I’m like, oh, here’s to that growing. Yes. Here’s that growing. Those folks who are going out on a. On the cutting edge saying, let’s do this. And the, and the officers who are taking on that challenge and having the will to say, I will incorporate this new yes, this new way of being. Also, you’re brilliant, Casey, at just laying out, I, I could actually see through the eyes of an, a law enforcement officer.

I have 50, 60 points of assessment I’m doing to keep me safe, the people safe, the community. and then, you know, interlaying compassion and all of these different things. It’s like we ask so much of so many different individuals and we don’t stop to think about it. And that’s what I love being around you guys, cuz I, I’m like, oh wow.

I can, I can see what life might be like, a little glimpse into it. So kudos to you. Thank God people are are stepping up and saying, let’s, let’s learn this. Here’s to more and more of them doing that. If you’re interested, you’re listening to this, you wanna learn more about it, please reach out casey i f ioc.com.

What a beautiful series and I think. I think we will be touching on current events a little more often. We’ll, thanks Casey. Thank you, John. Everybody.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert, and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing and improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today we are talking about a tragedy in Idaho, current events focusing on the unfortunate murders in Idaho, at the University of Idaho, through the lens of motivational Interviewing.

In this episode tragedy in Idaho through the lens of Motivational Interviewing, we discuss:* Casey’s consulting with the hostage negotiations team on a monthly basis * The scenario of what happened at the University of Idaho * The phenomenal podcast with Lieutenant Steve Wall from the Spokane Police Department * Difficulties of finding a jury in those situations * Stress, frustration, exhaustion, and anger * The human brain and the choices that it makes * Casey’s work doing substance use treatment in state and federal prisons * Difference between behavior and intention * Ambivalence and remorse * Social conscience * Premeditation * How to get better outcomes * Law enforcement, MI and de-escalation * Individual mindsets * Grief and empathy * Stress and trauma * Emotions and control * And so much more!

This is part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keeps changing the world.

Hi, and welcome to the Communications Solutions Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host Danielle, and we actually wanna take a look at motivational interviewing through. Through a lens of current events. So often as a newbie to motivational interviewing, I find myself applying it to everything in business, in mental health, in every area of life. And of course, what comes to mind is current events, things that are in the news, things that are top of mind, creating conversations out there in the world and, and concern. So I recently heard, in terms of a current event about, Someone reaching out to you, Casey, and you’ve been hired to consult with the hostage negotiation team and I was wondering if you’d be willing to dive in and talk a bit through, talk a bit about the unfortunate murders in Idaho, at the University of Idaho and what’s happening there, and kind of talk to us about that situation through the lens of motivational Interviewing.

It’s, I mean, it’s just such a complex concept. So yeah, I think it’s fairly fresh in my mind for multiple reasons. You know, I just was asked to join this monthly, you know, be consulting with,hostage negotiations team on a monthly basis. So my brain has been very oriented to that as I immerse my myself in there further and further into that reality.

and they bring me to look at situations from a motivational perspective. So like for any of you that listened to the podcast, which I think was a phenomenal podcast, we ended up doing a two-parter with, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Steve Wall, from the Spokane Police Department. And I, there’s so much substance there in that conversation that gives me so many thoughts when I, when I look at the scenario of tragedy in Idaho and you.

I was talking about this. So many people were just saying that are, are really immersed in that story and really following it, you know, day by day following it, saying how they’re gonna have a really hard time finding a jury. Because anytime something hits national news, then opinions just are pouring out.

And it’s really hard to find a jury in those situations. And when I’m looking from a motivational perspective, like just human brain perspective, you know, so my brain is so immersed in mi, is so immersed in looking at human behavior. I always look at is, is there ambivalence in the situation for people that are involved?

I think this is part of it as well too, that there’s a confirmation bias that John loves to talk about, confirmation bias, that when we hear about these horrific. Horrific situations that cause communities, not just community in Idaho, not just in Moscow, Idaho, but all over the country, people are locking their doors again and and have more fear when they’re walking their dogs because of these incidences.

And so when you look at is the chronic stress that we’re under normally, That I, I, I just keep thinking post covid stress, covid stress, post covid. Stress pandemic is our brains are just very taxed, and as they’re very taxed with stress, we tend to get more reactive and less logical in the way we produce things.

We just get very, we just get exhausted, and the more exhausted we get, the more primal we get. So we just get angry really quick. We get emotional really quick. We get frustrated really quick, and I think I have such an acknowledgement of my humanness around that, but I think my fascination about where the human brain is, about choices that it makes and behaviors that happen is equally as fascinating to me.

And I think that’s the way that I’ve tracked aspects of, the, tragedy in Idaho. And so just with the little pieces that have come out about, you know, the, about the individual who allegedly committed these murders. The thing I always think of is, does ambivalence exist within the brain?

Did they feel two ways about the decisions as they were planning as they’re moving through this? And I equated to an extent with the years that I worked in the prison system, you know, I, I was worked in state prison and federal prison doing substance use treatment, you know, chemical dependency work and mental health work with, people who, who were incarcerated.

And so I, I really started to learn the difference between the behavior and the intention behind the behavior. And for me, you know, kind of teeing this up, what I look at is the difference between people that have no remorse and have remorse. And I can tell you, having worked in state and federal prison, I would say over 80% of the people have remorse for their crime.

If you get past the defensiveness and getting past the defensiveness is what? , what are the core constructs in motivational interviewing is how do you get past that resistance in that discord? The blaming outside the self, because everybody that gets in these complex situations, whether by, you know, what seems like choice, and has definitely a level to do with choice or feels like it’s more reactive, are knee jerk reactions, is to blame outside of ourself where it gets a little spookier for me.

is when you talk to individuals that have zero remorse, and when there’s zero remorse, that means there’s zero ambivalence. And when there’s zero ambivalence, it means motivationally doesn’t work. And when behavior change doesn’t work, we always tell people, then you kind of revert back to a compliance based model.

So it’s the same thing that I look at because I think there’s, so, there’s not massive amounts of information out, and I know there’s new information kind of being released daily, about, kind of the investigation and what they know. . But when you’re thinking about things that are premeditated, it doesn’t necessarily mean that ambivalence points didn’t exist at points during the, you know, the planning process.

And so this was something that was not a reaction because there was a fight in a bar and somebody pulls a knife or a gun, you know, this was something that was planned. There was a, a premeditation to how this unfolded. And I think what’s so fascinating to me is looking at how the brain. Worked through the ambivalence in ways that, is it really aligning with its core values or is it not aligning with its core values?

And for me, this is also, you know, having so many, you know, decades working in behavioral health and mental health. Is, is there an absence of conscience? Which is where you get into sociopathy, where people that are, you know, we see a psychopathic or sociopathic in old school terms versus somebody that just doesn’t have a social conscience, which is kinda the same construct within the person.

They don’t feel two ways about the decision. They’re, their way, they’re looking at is how to not get caught, but it’s more that the system is wrong and the individuals are wrong. And if you peel back all the layers, they genuinely don’t feel like what they’re doing is wrong. There are people. , that’s the way that they think, but that’s the way that their, their brains operate from.

I think that’s an extremely slim slice of the population. I think of when you look at some of the mass shootings and when I’ve looked at some of the mindset behind people in the mass shootings, the irony is they actually have quite a bit of ambivalence. They have a lot of righteousness, they have a lot of confirmation bias, but they believe they’re doing the right thing based on their values.

But if you peeled back and held a mirror up to it, you’re gonna get a lot of internal conflict. You’re gonna get a lot of, yeah. But yeah. But yeah. But yeah, but which means that ambivalence exists within the brain. And this is really hard to talk about because we’re talking about heinous crimes. . So it’s not about justifying, it’s not about right or wrong from my perspective.

Cause I can get into all that stuff with my own biases. But when I look through that motivational lens, what I’m looking at is when I look at the human brain, does ambivalence exist somewhere in the brain based on that behavior and based on that individual’s values. So with the U of I thing, I think the thing, the preliminary information that that gives you, that unsettling feeling in your stomach is when something’s so premeditate.

if it was that premeditated and so calculated, how do they overcome those moments of ambivalence to make those decisions? This, this is what’s interesting for me because one of the last, situations I consulted on was with an individual woman who had a, a knife to her own throat and didn’t want people to come closer.

And those are situations where I just feel like, oh wow. This is why I wanna help people get more skilled at motivational interviewing because ambivalence still exists within that. . So for an individual who has a knife to their own throat or a gun to their own head or in their own mouth, I’m always thinking there is some modicum ambivalence that still exists because they’re still alive at this moment in time.

So there has to be ambivalence somewhere in their brain. And then I think with the situation in Idaho is, you know, with that, with those murders, Could there have been things that diverted the behavior or would’ve just stalled that behavior to another population at a different point in time from the same individual.

So it’s more that the interventions would’ve diverted the timing or the targets, but it wouldn’t have diverted the behavior because the behavior is going to happen one way or the other. And I think those are the things that just, again, from a. Human brain understanding perspective that fascinate me the most.

So I’ll just stop here and just cuz these are, these are all my kind of thought process and when I’m looking at some of these really extremely emotional, social complex issues and then trying to use any form of an MI filter to, to overlay that and your effort when you’re looking at that, Casey is, and obviously the teams that are looking at it, is really to understand.

in a way go back in time and say, for the benefit of the future and future individuals, is there something that motivational interviewing could have done to help, create a different outcome? Yes, exactly. And for me, I mean, part of the reason that, you know, it’s so intriguing for me to be on the, you know, consulting with these teams is.

Can we use communication more effectively to get to a better outcome? Can we, can we be so focused and skilled in our communication that we can deescalate situations more effectively than what traditionally has been used for hostage negotiations and, and those types of trained approaches? , and I think that’s where I just, you know, have such a, a deep appreciation for law enforcement who try to, to try to edge their way into evidence-based practices because it is a complete cultural departure from the mindset and the skillset they’ve historically been trained in.

I think that those are some of the most memorable moments of training that I’ve been through where you’ve actually shared. Footage,police camera footage, of how officers implementing motivational interviewing are able to deescalate, are able to get, I believe it was a, a suicide, A jumper off of the bridge.

Yes. In, was it eight minutes? Yeah, eight minutes. Under eight minutes. It’s just remark. That’s, you know, and a lot of the, you know, partially as people are trying to get more skilled, especially in law enforcement as they, you know, those that choose to get more skilled at this, it is such a departure, like I said, from what their normal skillset is.

But you can see the ones that submit the audio, the, that body cam footage to me to get coded and coaching on. , as they get measurably skilled at it, their interventions become so much more efficient and so much more effective in a shorter period of time. And, and the cultural shift I think that’s so complex is so often what I hear from law enforcement is, yeah, this is a great skill.

We’ll use it after we’ve diffused the situation. So when they’re in the back of our car, that’s when we’ll use motivational interviewing. And at first glance, it makes sense why a brain would think that way. But what I continue to try to, to expand the thinking around is, can you use your language to deescalate a situation traditional?

And this was, this triggers my writing, reflect, so I was asked to be on this one, this subcommittee that was working on, looking at training around deescalation techniques and it. Mind boggling to me on as a, as a social worker, was mind boggling to me that the concept of deescalation in law enforcement historically is, I’m gonna use a taser and not a gun.

That’s how I’m gonna deescalate the situation. And I think when you look from a civilian perspective, That’s better, but that’s not deescalation, that’s still use of force. That still seems violent. And is there something you do that’s less use of force to do that? And I think from a public perspective, it’s well deescalation.

When I was in this when this one officer was saying, well, yeah, deescalation is that we’re not gonna shoot him in the face with a gun. We’re gonna shoot him with taser instead. That’s deescalation. And I said, oh, that’s not public perspective on deescalation. He goes, well, what do you think deescalation is?

I said, My brain’s pretty simple. So I go straight to an elevator and I think to deescalate is to bring from up to down, you know, and to do that in a smooth transition to deescalate that from being I charged to low charge situation, not how do I use a different form of violence to get this situation resolved.

That doesn’t, from, I think from a public perspective, deescalation is to bring it down, not to use a less aggressive means of force, but that’s my bias as a biased civilian. There’s other civilians that think, shoot. , you know, depending on what the situation is. So I think there is just different perspectives on different aspects of that.

What I’ve been really leaning into in situations like this, again, based on what we know about data, is you can actually use your language to bring the situation down and you may not need to use force. If you can use language to reduce that resistance and disc. and explore the ambivalence efficiently and effectively.

So some of those best videos we show in trainings that are law enforcement based in real time are the ones that, the ones that are most effective. The longest one we have is 11 minutes. We’ve got two at eight and a half minutes, one at 11 minutes where it’s deescalated and, and the, even the one that was 11 minutes long, that was just how long the interaction took, the deescalation happened.

and the ambivalence was, you know, revealed or there, he was able to explore the ambivalence within, you know, five to six minutes. With a 14 year old, you know, female who’s suicidal. So it just, it, what for me is, is when you understand the evidence-based side of it and you understand the measurable technique behind it and the mindset behind it, and we can teach that, and we can measure that and give feedback, you’re gonna see better.

Where it gets complex is when we don’t know the whole situation. One of the things I remember with Steve Wallen, so this is what I think of when I look at the, the university, the murders in Uni, university of Idaho, is that I remember when, Lieutenant Wall and I were talking about this, he was talking about his, the hardest part for him when he was heading, the SWAT team is there are people that wake up in the morning.

Knowing they’re having their last cup of coffee and their last cigarette as they’re picking up the gun to head outta the house. He said, that’s not a situation where you’re gonna be using motivational ring. He said, I can’t imagine that, that the outcome is predetermined in their brain and there’s, it’s so locked in By the time they’re had their last cigarette and last coffee and they’re going out there with their gun.

He goes, I just can’t imagine how motivational we work in those situations. That’s not where my brain. . But short of that, when somebody has a gun in their mouth or a gun in somebody else’s mouth and they’re screaming and yelling, helping u you know, law enforcement understand ambivalence exists in those situations, and we can use linguistics to potentially have a better outcome From that perspective, it, it ties into everything we talk about with the fixing reflex of the writing reflex is everything.

I don’t care if you’re law enforcement, I don’t care if you’re, you know, a public watching it happened. Your writing reflexes. We just want this situation taken care of. We just want everybody safe. We want everybody secure. How, how do you argue? , how do you argue with that writing reflex? It’s hard to argue past that writing reflex of just get ’em off the bridge.

I don’t care what it takes, just get ’em off the bridge. And this is why we distinguish so much in our trainings, the difference between compliance methods and behavior change methods. So you can use compliance methods, you can tase somebody and, and try to get them off the bridge. You can somebody, you can shoot somebody, you can, you can, you know, you can stop the situation that way.

And, and I don’t, I don’t argue against those ways. What I try to introduce instead is, do you wanna take a behavior change approach or a compliance approach? Those are just completely different mindsets and completely different skill sets. This is what I wrap it back around then to the, you know, in hindsight on the, on the univer, the murders at University of Idaho, in terms of not knowing of enough about the individual’s mindset other than even with deterrence along the way, it was something that he still executed, allegedly.

So those are the parts of it that is just fascinating to me in terms of does ambivalence exist within that brain and how does that behavior align with their deeper values? And so I think there’s just so many theories out there right now about why he may have done it if he did it. And I think that’s what’s gonna be fascinating is more information’s uncovered.

My brain is always gonna be looking at it from, did ambivalence exist in his brain At any point in. , where was that coming from and what is he trying to generate, you know, and how does this align with who he perceives himself to be? So is it, is it potentially another podcast to talk now about the families of the victims?

The, in a lens of motivational interviewing is, as you look at the grief and. Just the horror of it all. Like is there anything listeners can walk away with that might help them from that perspective? It’s interesting because the first reaction I have when you say that is , when I’m so far in the law enforcement brain and in that level of empathy for that reality, and my brain’s so far there, it’s almost like I have this.

Like I start to feel emotional in working with the families because, and that’s ironically my, that would be my wheelhouse, is working with the families because, you know, with, you know, just understanding the behavioral health and mental health side of things and emotional health so well, it is fascinating when you go to deep empathy on both sides of equations, how it pulls you into neutrality differently, which makes it almost feel different for people that you’re not as sympathetic or compass.

when that’s not what’s going on necessarily. So what I do think is that when these tragedies occur, people are gonna go through a normal grieving process. Grieving has nothing to do with behavior change. So in some ways, am I motivational interviewing as a skillset? This is one of the times that you know, you’re gonna keep your Swiss Army knife in your pocket, potentially.

You can still be high in empathy and engagement, but the net effect is not to help them resolve ambivalence in that moment in time. That net effect in the moment is how do we help people? For horrific, significant loss of life. So, and if it was at a place where I wanna work past this, then I think that’s where things like motivationally can be extremely effective.

As well as other techniques, as far as that are, that are therapeutic and healing techniques. My orientation of working with so many different theories and techniques is I just looked at the EF efficacy of how can people resolve all the stress and trauma within themselves. in a way that a year down the road, five years down the road, 10, 20 years down the road, they look back and they feel like it was healed in a healthy way that aligned with who they are.

And that’s, that’s where my obsession leans into the motivation being way of, of operating with people. But really distinguishing between is this a behavior change based conversation or is this a different form of conversation? So the a grieving piece of it, I think of just the nature of motivation with high empathy, accurate empathy can be effective, but mi as a technique is really designed more for behavior change and working through ambivalence.

There’s so much that Casey, you’re, you’re bringing up from the, you know, perspective that Danielle just brought up of like what it would be like to go through losing someone that you’re really close with in your life. A child, a partner. From that. I mean, that’s just so emotional. Yes. That so devastating.

I could on, yeah. I mean, I could only imagine the level of, of devastation. And then you, on the flip side, think of the perspective of the officers that you’ve worked with significantly more than I have, but the little bit I’ve, I’ve got to. It’s just to put yourself in an environment that. So, traditionally high stress and lots of constant, extreme situations, and then a culture that’s trying to.

Cope with that through various kinds of humor or whatever it’s gonna be that tries to get through that, and then the person on the other receiving and is trying to cope through grief or something. And it would just be so hard to have empathy for each other’s perspective when there’s so much emotion built up.

Right. I think there is something to be said about whoever is. Paid professional in this case. In this case, it happens to be the, the officers that there’s something to be said for them being the more mindful people with how they’re using their mi, hence why they are hiring you to come on their team. I do think, Danielle, there are certain components in personal life to be mindful of like, how much am I, you know, allowing my emotions to control me and how much.

Being choice driven with this being what I really want. And I could only imagine how difficult that would be if you lost someone. But I do feel there is a place for potentially helping people with MI in their own personal development, like we’ll talk about in a, in a upcoming podcast. But in relation to what happened, Casey, there’s so much around the people that have been affected on one side and the other side.

I’m wondering for you, , when you’re thinking about this perspective of mi, where’s the, where do you go with this from here? Is it to prevent future things? You know, how do we digest what has happened from multiple perspectives in a way that brings us, you know, more compassionately towards pro-social behaviors and pro-social?

Yeah, I think there’s multiple, you know, I think what I, where my mindset is going into it is there’s two things, is what I was directly asked for, which is, you know, can you consult on some of these To the point in this last meeting that we just had, that they’re going to start to dial me in, like they’re gonna hit a button, I’ll pick up my phone and I’m gonna be listening to some of these hostile negotiations situations in real.

And, and, and, and like I’m being extremely clear about what I can listen for is where’s the empathy? Where’s the sustained talk? Where’s the potential for change talk? Where are the deeper values to draw from, and how might you frame it? Because I’m not an expert in hostage negotiations, I’m an expert in communication around behavior change or to assess where, where ambivalence resides.

I think the secondary thing that I’m looking at is just such a hyperawareness of how do you help people develop this skillset who are going through their own secondary trauma because of dealing with this every day. You know, I think of how many people are obsessed watching CSI and all the true crime.

You know, it’s just such a, it’s just pervasive. People are obsessed with watching those kind of things. Special Victims Unit and all these different shows out there. They’re just high adrenaline, high pressure murders, you know? and, and it stresses people out when they’re watching ’em, and sometimes they dwell on ’em at night and and can’t sleep After watching some of those episodes, it is wildly different to hear the gunshot next to your head and watch somebody drop dead next to you, especially if it’s your partner or somebody in your community and you’re cleaning up the body and trying to get things taken care of and get the paperwork done.

to do that chronically in real time is incomprehensible for most people. So, and in, in having some awareness around trauma and stress, that’s kinda my secondary of how do you help people learn something that will ultimately help on some levels with their skillset. But on the flip side, it’s almost antithetical to what they’re trained to do, which is to be emotionally detached because the amount of trauma that, that you see and hear and witness on a day-to-day basis is.

The human body is not set up and the human brain is not set up to have that much over time without it doing damage. So there’s just a lot of secondary trauma. So I think the, the two things I think of John, actually in my role is what I’m hired for is to be able to listen to conversation and continue to coach, these very skilled officers and to listen for language differently.

And they’re already seen even after the first few times, they’re already starting. Hear differently. They’re looking, looking at situations differently and they realize their skill is not where they like it to be in relationship to motivationally, not into handling the situations. But then that secondary that, what I always think of in teaching people motivational interviewing is that as a professional, I hope the secondary benefit is they’re gonna feel healthier and happier as human beings.

in the way that they’re handling some of these situations. Just like whether it’s, you know, a CPS worker or a mental health worker or a dietician. You know, it’s just like, they just feel like I did my job with a level of skill that I’m increasing informed choice on the receiving end of this communication.

And I think when you look from a law enforcement perspective, if when indicated you can increase informed choice and keep resistance to a minimum and hopefully get to the best possible outcome that keeps that individual, the community and the officers safe. I, I think that’s what people are looking for, kind of a best case scenario.

So I think this is, it’s just a new horizon in,law enforcement with motivational. I mean, I’ve been doing it for, you know, five or six years now, but it still is such a new construct in law enforcement, to do it on this level in real time as just it, I, it is cutting edge. I mean, it just, it’s not the norm by any stretch of the imagination. It’s extremely rare actually.

This is been, part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keeps changing the world.

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About this EpisodeWe hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment.

Today we continue to focus on the unfortunate murders in Idaho, at the University of Idaho, through the lens of motivational Interviewing.

In this podcast we discuss:

Compassion when living with trauma
The University of Idaho's situation
Compassion from an MI perspective
Primary trauma and secondary trauma
Compassion distinguished from empathy
Perspective of law enforcement
Law enforcement survival in civilian survival and community safety
The difference between reflective listening and high accurate empathy
Human thought and behavior
Extremely complex, high pressured situations
Strategically responding to language
Evidence-based practices that change data
Vision and mission statements
How to get behavior in line with values
Looking at the human brain from a different perspective
Gratification
Job satisfaction
And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

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About this EpisodeWelcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert, and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

Today we are talking about current events focusing on the unfortunate murders in Idaho, at the University of Idaho, through the lens of motivational Interviewing.

In this podcast we discuss:

Casey’s consulting with the hostage negotiations team on a monthly basis
The scenario of what happened at the University of Idaho
The phenomenal podcast with Lieutenant Steve Wall from the Spokane Police Department
Difficulties of finding a jury in those situations
Stress, frustration, exhaustion, and anger
The human brain and the choices that it makes
Casey’s work doing substance use treatment in state and federal prisons
Difference between behavior and intention
Ambivalence and remorse
Social conscience
Premeditation
How to get better outcomes
Law enforcement, MI and de-escalation
Individual mindsets
Grief and empathy
Stress and trauma
Emotions and control
And so much more!

This is part one of a two-part podcast. We hope you’ll join us for the second portion. Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at casey@ifioc.com, that’s CASEY@IFIOC.COM. For more information or to schedule a training visit if IFIOC.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

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Today we are talking about the differences between the MI Geek and the Naive Brain in Motivational Interviewing.

About This Episode* Reviewing the differences between MI Geek and the Native Brain * Developing MI curriculum * Core components and basic skills for a naive brain * Research and the constant state of learning * Active listening and perspectives * Training in different situations * Different skill levels * Approaching different situations * Empathy and listening without judgment * Dr. William Miller and his books * The Dunning-Kruger effect * Stages of learning * Human dynamics and effective communication * Emotional intelligence * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Want to see the video podcast? Join MI PLUS+

Welcome everyone to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. They’re both experts in motivational interviewing and we are so excited to have this episode today where we’re gonna dig in a little bit. Casey, I’m curious you help break down the difference between motivational interviewing the MI geek versus the naive brain? Of course I’m raising my hand. I’m the naive brain here, , and you are definitely, you know, the ultimate expert. So well, yeah, and then I can point to John, who’s the MI geek. So it’s just like, it’s perfect. The same room’s, perfect I think the thing that’s fascinating, you know, we’ve touched on this on other podcasts lately.

I’ve been looking at kind of when we continue to evolve curriculum and, and when John and I have done curriculum development, we run into this all the time because the more we learn and the more obsessed we get with it, the more you want to teach people what you’re obsessed with. But there’s something that innately disrespects a naive brain that hasn’t been on the same learning curve that we’ve been on.

So it’s difficult when you develop curriculum because what you want is people to get the same experience. You got that got you intrigued in the first place. You know, the things got me intrigued in my first MI trainings or got John intrigued in his first I trainings was very basic motivational interviewing, just the nuts and bolts of motivational interviewing.

And I think that’s critical for a naive brain that really doesn’t understand what motivational is and what are the core components, what are the basic skills, what’s kind of your strategies involved in that. And what you find is, you know, John has talked about this on PAD podcasts before. When you, when you find that tribe of people within motivational thing that are obsessed with it, it really does take it to a whole different level.

And then, you know, I’m defer to John often. His natural tendency is just to do so much research and his, his curious brain is always drawing from other theories and seeing how they support, and augment motivational interviewing. So when you’re in a constant state of learning with motivational interviewing, because it’s an obsession, because it is, you know, like we’ve talked about a way of being with people, it changes who you are.

It changes how you are in your own life and how you are with other people. . It just becomes this obsession that you can never master and know everything about it because you’re talking about human dynamic. You’re talking about human behavior, and then when you start to add in gender differences and cultural differences and all these aspects that were not intended for motivational interviewing, but as you learn more about it, it’s like how can you ignore those things?

When you’re talking about human interaction, it’s what starts to take that naive brain into this kind of MI geek. , of just being kind of obsessed with how do I change as a human being? How do I help others change? How can I facilitate that process as efficiently and as effectively as possible? And when you’ve been immersed in it for, you know, like I’ve been over it 20 years and, you know, John getting close to that, you know, it’s just like your brain just becomes, it’s what you do, it’s what you love.

It’s you’re obsessed with changing the world, and how can I be more effective at helping my fellow man at being able to do. You get all these complexities when you go back to the naive brain. It’s fascinating because in some ways there’s like for you coming outta the business world, Danielle, There’s, there’s just basic communication skills that you learn in counseling that you do here in business, but you just learn ’em differently, like reflective listening or active listening, or asking good questions or open-ended questions.

So when I’m training people in the business world, it’s kind of reviewing them, but starting to look from a different angle at basic communication technique. And that for me is a naive. . But then when we go to train, maybe a bachelor’s level psychology student, they feel like they already know motivationally because they know how to do reflective listening and open-ended questions, which isn’t motivational, it’s entirety.

So there’s this naive brain that thinks that it already does it naturally because there’s core components in motivational, like empathy, and everybody thinks they’re empathetic. Everybody thinks that they’re good listeners. But when you actually measure, people don’t listen well to listen to the other person.

Even in a training I did today, one of the activities we did is how do you keep your bias outta conversation? And one of the participants said, it was so interesting to listen to my brain not shut up because it has so many opinions as I’m trying to listen. Like I could just feel my brain has so many opinions and it just wants to jump into conversation.

And so people think that they’re good listeners, but they’re not, not in the level that is expressing high empathy. And most people think they’re expressing high. , when you look at what accurate empathy is, the majority of people are not highly accurate in their empathy. They’re sympathetic. There are all sorts of things.

So again, this is this, I think what the, the naive brain thinks. And then as you get into it, you start to understand the different level of skill. The, the last thing I’ll say and then just kind of pop it over to both of you is I, I think why, for me, what’s helped me distinguish naive brain. Am I geek brainer, or kind of that, that level of mastery is why I always revert back to kind of grandma’s recipe as a model of fidelity.

Like I always say, most people in the field of helping have natural skills around, they know how, what flour is. They know what sugar is, they know what butter is, they know how to whip butter and add sugar, you know, and cream that together. But it doesn’t make grandma’s recipe dessert that she makes for Thanksgiving that everybody love.

you know, it’s so, you got the basics, but that doesn’t make it this very specific thing that requires a very specific love and a very specific attention to it. So yeah, we can make chocolate chip cookies, but I always tell people there’s a big difference between biting into a Chipsa hok, that always tastes stale to me, out of a bag or a Mrs.

Fields chocolate chip cookie that just came outta the, you know, outta the oven in the mall. Those, they’re both chocolate chip cookies, but boy, they sure taste different. Even though the majority of the ingredients are exactly the same. So those are the things you start to look at between the naive brain and the kinda the more advanced or just obsessed brain that we can get into with motivational interviewing.

John, what are, what are your thoughts when you listen to that ? Well, there’s so much around w what does it mean to listen to that? Right. Am I listening from the perspective of the listener that’s listening to this? Am I listening to all my thoughts and things I want to jump in with? Am I listening to your reality as your, the best guess at, you know, I could have of your reality as am I listening to Danielles from her angle?

Right. And I think that’s the, the kind of getting to the heart of this even deeper is we tend to. People listening from our perspective about our perspective and what is known as egocentrism, not egotistical, not being, I’m thinking I’m better. It is just we tend to see it or hear it from our perspective, and I think that’s just really important to recognize that that’s normal and natural.

and it’s not inherently wrong, and sometimes that’s what people want. And sometimes it’s more empathic to express that than it is to do a reflective statement that annoys the person. There’s all sorts of components. We had a whole podcast that talked deep about empathy, with, that one wonderful individual from the Social Work podcast, and that was a wonderful episode.

If, if anyone’s listening to any, listen to that one that. Oh, beautiful one. But I just say that Casey, because the thoughts are, what perspective are you listening from and just asking yourself that and, and trying to, be more mindful of that. And it brings in concepts like emotional intelligence, that a lot of people also like to believe, they know a lot about or, or have within them, but there are just components of.

Perspective, are you listening for? How are you conveying when you express yourself? How are you conveying it? Are you conveying it from your mind like I’m doing right now, very my perspective? Or are you trying to convey it in a way that the other person can easily digest it? You know, there’s so many ways of listening and there’s so many ways of thinking about, am I listening this from a naive or newbie per.

Or am I expressing myself? I’m just making a made up spectrum here On one end, is that, or am I expressing myself on the other end of this spectrum from a place of just full on egocentric, MI geek mode. And I feel much more comfortable at that end of the spectrbut different people feel different levels of comfort.

But a lot of the times we got to, if we’re going to be facilitators, teachers, educators, that I continually learn with you, KC. , shift that down, not dumb it down, but shift that spectrum towards being simpler and more effective with what you’re conveying. Like I believe Einstein would talk about the better you understand something, the simpler, essentially you can make it sound.

I believe there was some sort of quote like that. So that’s, those are some thoughts I have, Casey, to what you’re saying that try to give voice to what’s underly. MI geek versus, newbie, you know, perspectives of mi. I think it’s just how much are you focused on your perspective versus someone else’s d Danielle, I, I’m just gonna bounce the ball back to you because I think, you know, what’s your take from the, the, the newer brain to motivational interviewing and coming from a completely.

Different professional world. I mean, your foray into motivational interviewing, what has that been like for you from kind of the understanding of it and then from kind of the basic techniques of it? I’m just curious what, what does your naive brain think of when you’re looking at motivational interviewing?

Well, it’s, I find it really interesting. What I’m gravitating to in, in both of your conversations is, the awareness that the naive brain actually thinks it’s not naive. Hmm. So I’m like, Ooh, that’s good. Because my history, I’ve been in the business world for, for many years, but I had really deep experience in school with psychology.

I went to graduate school. . So I learned of God only knows what I learned, , right? And I, I lodged it in there and I, I got some great ideas about what I think I, you know, reflective listening and, you know, open-ended questions and, and things like that where I’ve tricked myself into thinking, oh, I’m empathetic.

I’m a good listener. I, you know, I’m. , I’m all of these things. And so I think the biggest awareness for me is the humility in it of, oh, I don’t necessarily know everything. I think I know. Wow, and there’s a better way and I can do better. So my naive brain, the newbie approach for me is actually a total joy because I’m a learner by nature.

So I’m like, oh my God, I get to be a student again of. , this brand new thing, this brand new approach of how to help somebody to be there for somebody in a way that just is not public knowledge. Yeah. Of how to interact with somebody and support them. John, you’re brilliant about the perspective. All the different perspectives we approach any situation with, and most often there’s an agenda, even if I’m listening to it from your perspective or my perspective.

I can’t remember all the other options. You said , but I can guarantee you there’s a little bit of an agenda and everything. Yes. And what I learned as a newbie that, attracted me the most was everybody’s dealing with ambivalence. We all do it, which means, oh my God, this is a solution for that. Yes. And also that.

There’s an opportunity to take an agenda out of everything and just help someone find their own way. And to me that’s like a life calling, but I’ve never had the, the tools in the path to actually implement that life mission. Yeah. Yes. So, and I’m so new. I mean, I’m not implementing it. I’d be very dangerous if I did , but what I can tell you is I, what I absorbed from you guys and your trainings.

Is the principles. So for me, the way I would differentiate is, ah, newbie naive brain is embracing and getting excited about the ideas and the principles and the, the core messages. And not necessarily getting into the tactical of I’m not out there actually. , doing sessions or having conversations.

You know, I, it’s so helpful to hear you say that, Danielle, because I think that , even the way you frame that is such a good articulation about the difference between the m the m, the kinda the naive brain and the MI geek brain. Because as a somebody who teaches this and is obsessed with. , you should be having those conversations.

I think when you’re the naive brain, there’s, I think there’s different fa like any learning curve. I think there’re sayings on a learning curve. One, the first part is so many people think they do it naturally. Then they go through a training and understand like components of it, and they’re like, wow, there’s more to this than I thought there was.

Then there’s like, I don’t know if I’m ever gonna get good at this and I probably shouldn’t be using it until I get good at it. So that’s where you’re at on the learning curve, and that’s where John and I look at it and think, oh my gosh, you should be using it because what you’ve. . If, if people wait to be an expert at it before they use it, they won’t use it.

Oh, and the beauty and motivational interviewing, and this is, and when you hear this out loud, Danielle, you’re gonna go, ah, I know that worst case scenario is you’re just highly empathetic with somebody, even if you don’t know truth, the language from there, how, how are you gonna do damage to anyone? By listening to them without judgment.

You, you can’t do damage to somebody by listening to them without judgment and to make sure they feel heard and. , even if you don’t know all the techniques from there. That is, that is one of the most basic things that any intro training to motivational should help people understand is what is high accurate empathy and how do we express it in a way that people feel deeply heard and understood?

You are extremely good at that. . So it’s bringing out those things in you that are such a core component in motivational interviewing. But then there’s a, where you’re out on learning curve is, yeah, I’m not as good as you guys are, so I don’t use it regularly. And it’s like, that’s just not true. You do use it because you, you become more aware of pain.

You’ve talked to me about this in personal conversations with friends of yours. You know how your different, your presence is different around them and how thankful they are in the way that you’re present around them. And you’ve always been that. But now that you see, there’s so much growth potential there, it’s almost like you shy away from it a bit because you feel like, yeah, but I don’t know.

I I’m not good at that. Yeah. It’s like you can’t, I I was not expecting to get called out on this podcast. You are so right. You just nailed it. I am actually holding back cuz I’m like, I can’t be as good as John or Right. Like, how on earth where do I even begin? And I love that message to any newbie out there.

Anyone? Yes. Been totally excited like me. The possibility of the, of this approach. It’s like, just get in there and, and get messy. Do it. Yes. I mean, what’s I love? What’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m not gonna create, you’re highly empathetic. Somebody. What are they gonna start? Because you’re highly empathetic.

It’s not, you’re gonna have to damage to them for that. They’re just gonna feel heard and understood, which is such a gift as you were talking, cuz you know, people know my brain just works in pictures. What I was thinking about that’s so fascinating is. On one hand, on one hand, we’re not talking brain surgery, and on one hand we’re talking about something that’s almost more complex than brain surgery.

So I think that’s the part about the difference between the naive brain and the complex brain around motivational interviewing is it’s not brain surgery. You’re not gonna hurt somebody. Then what struck me is you’re doing, you’re doing human life interaction from this place of kind of good magic. So you’re not gonna do damage with good magic.

So except there’s technique behind it and strategy behind it, but the intention and the embodiment of motivational ring is so human-centered. It’s so when you, if your intention is there, it comes from such a heart of wanting to help, but in a way that the data shows as the most effective way to operate from the heart of wanting to help.

I think that when you step back and watch the master is what? Wizardry and their proficiency around it. That’s where people talk about, you know, the MI mind trick or the MI Jedi mind tricks. And it’s like, and that’s, that’s even missing it. It looks so amazing when you see people highly skilled at it because it’s like, did you see what just happened in that interaction?

Now, this person’s world has shifted forever because of this conversation. But this is where I’m on this mantra lately with people is there is a Chas. Between being manipulative and being mindful and strategic. You don’t manipulate anyone in motivational interviewing. The intention is not to get someone to do something.

That’s what John’s always talking about, that fix it or the broke, like that’s not what MI is about as fixing something that’s broken or looking at people as fundamentally flawed. It starts from a place of, like we’ve said before, every human being on any given day struggles with a massive amount of ambivalence about multiple things in.

And if you can keep them focused on who they are and who they wanna be when they grow up, all you’re doing is what would you do that would align up with who you wanna be when you grow up? If you could be the best version of yourself, what would that look like? And now look at this situation you’re struggling with in this relationship or this job.

What would align with that? So it’s just bringing out the best in people, which is not I, I think what’s what I love about training mi, when people hear me say it, it sounds so. , it sounds so like I’ve heard this a hundred times. Why does it just sound different this time? And then this is where John and I geek out is because then you can deconstruct all the metrics and technique and skill around that and know, wow, to make the very specific Mrs.

Fields cookie or to make this phenomenal French chocolate souffle, it takes a lot of technique. Even if the one that fell tastes great because there’s lots of chocolate and go in. It doesn’t taste the same as the one that fully rises and you crack into that, and that’s just like, wow, that’s just otherworldly.

So they’re both good. It’s just, I think that’s the obsession. I love listening to you talk about it because you’re as obsessed with motivation from naive brain perspective, like I don’t have enough time to learn it all. As I am from somebody who’s been in it for 20 years, like I feel like such a newbie because it’s like there’s so much to study that I’ve not even, there’s so many articles I haven’t even read.

There’s so many supporting theories that I haven’t read. That’s why I’m friends with John, because John has read every single theory and book and article and . That’s definitely not true. So then I can just talk to John about it. This is John where , where I do wanna jump in is, related to that is just.

absolute amount of like learning that can be involved and continually be involved. And then also Casey, to what you just brought up, like one of those research articles that I know you’ve read, is with the eight stages of learning, motivational interviewing, and the eighth stage being when not to utilize it.

And we have a podcast that will be getting into that and personal life and other things. But the reason I say that is, There’s a certain, almost like. That Dr. Bill Miller talked about in his plenary note, at one of the recent motivational interviewing Network of trainers conferences, where on one end of the arc is the simplicity of something and just these lovely Mrs.

Field cookie recipe and all these incredible metaphors you use that help make it. Digestible and simple and accessible. And then even talking with other MI geeks like, Sue ecmo, who, is a wonderful coach and I look up to another me member of mit, she’ll, as she’s coached many various people in organizations.

The reason I bring her up is in this learning curve. As Dr. Miller talks about it in his books, it can be seen that it’s so simple. You think that you do it already, like you were talking about Casey. This is something that happens where we’re unconscious of our unconscious and it’s, you could call it a blind spot, is a simpler way to put it.

Right? But the idea is we think we know. And another fancy term for that is the Dunning Krueger effect. We think we know and then, and I have. Danielle, you have it, Casey, you have it listener. You probably almost certainly have it. And we all think once we learn a little bit about something, we know more than we do, and then we are good people, we mean well.

We all believe that. And so Danielle, of course you believe you’re empathic. Of course you believe you can do reflective listening because that’s how we see ourselves to be healthy humans, right? And so it’s a natural part of being human, this early simple part of learning. So, But then it’s like mind blowing.

This is so deep. And then Casey, to your point, it gets to a point, you might not ever master it, but it becomes this thing that you can continually learn. But there are certain tenets that you just keep paying attention to, and that’s where it starts to become simple again. But how do you know when you’re there?

I don’t know. Other than measuring someone’s communication like you were getting. But there is this arc that I wanted to point to of staying humbled to growing and learning in your mi, and also staying humble that MI is not always the best thing and that it’s not a panacea to fix everything and that it’s this lovely thing that was designed as a pre-treatment and way of being with someone.

And there are times that you do other things and use, use other stuff. And I wanted to end with that cuz as in my geeks, it can. Potentially a religion or something like that. . And to also recognize it’s the tenets of care and compassion we care about and MI helps us access that. And it’s not about mi, it’s that MI embodies all these things we value and believe in.

I just thought I would add that for. , adding to that arc of humility that you were talking about, Danielle, or that was pretty you, you know, and John the, another, you know, so many analogies I use, but another analogy I use with this that I think help, that really adds illustration to what you just brought up is what I always want people to understand is, yes, after over 30 years, 35 years in social work, it’s the most effective skill I’ve ever learned in my entire.

and I’ve said this and I know people don’t, they probably don’t believe it in real time, but it’s true for me. If somebody laid down a million dollar check with my name on it and said, you can cash this check for million dollars, but you need to surrender everything in your life that’s MI related and all your knowledge about mi, I wouldn’t take the miche, I wouldn’t take the million dollar check.

It’s not my, the quality of my life, I just wouldn’t take the, I just wouldn’t take them. It’s not worth losing everything that I’ve. that having this perspective is brought to my life. That money couldn’t, there’s no, there’s no price tag for it, honestly. And with that being said, what I also tell people is I cannot build a house with a Swiss Army knife.

So you, everything you need to do to help people in their world, all the things we do to help people, you can’t build an entire house with motivational. . But I equate it to a Swiss Army knife because I use it more than anything else. When I’m building a house during the day, I’m cutting string. I’m, you know, using it as a screwdriver.

I’m using it for different things. But then there’s other tools that are more effective if I’m building an entire house. But that Swiss Army knife never leaves my pocket because I use it more than anything else throughout the day because it’s so useful in so many situations. So that’s kinda that eight stages of learning of, to, you know, moti motivational learning.

You know, you’re gonna use electric drills sometimes cuz it’s way more effective than the. Screwdriver, you know, on the end of a, a Philip or on the end of a, Swiss Army knife. So I think that’s what you start to realize that it is. So, and people see that. It’s like, it’s, why wouldn’t you use it for everything?

I mean, this is just, it’s, it’s, it’s magical, it’s mysterious, it’s effective, it’s efficient, it’s, we can measure it and it’s a spirit and it’s a way, and it’s all these things. And, and so I think, yeah, that’s what makes it a Swiss army knife, like the best Swiss army knife there. and I’m not gonna build an entire house with a Swiss Army knife.

Like that would be exhausting. And it’s not the most efficient and effective thing to do. So I think that helps put it in perspective as well too, that yeah, it’s this amazing skillset because what are we talking about? We’re talking about human communication. We’re talking about human dynamic and human brain.

So who wouldn’t wanna learn how to com communicate more effectively with their kids, or with their spouse or their partner, their friends, or their family? It’s like who wouldn’t wanna com communicate more effectively? in a way, measurably that we can have a profound impact on outcomes for people that are trying to change behavior.

And I think that’s where it takes kinda this larger funnel and funnels into, okay, what is the point of motivational interviewing? And I think that’s where I think as the learning brain, like the naive brain looks at motivational interviewing, I think it looks at it as beyond a Swiss army. It’s like, oh my, like this is.

this could solve all world problems. Like this could, like this could solve divorce, it’ll solve all parenting issues. It’ll solve everything. Because if we’re just this way with each other, it would solve the political issues in the world it would solve. And it’s just like, and when your brain starts to get, it’s like, oh my gosh, it really could.

And so I think that’s where it gets into the way of being that spirit behind it and then bringing it back down to, and it’s a Swiss Army knife, and so it can’t solve everything, but it’s just, it’s something you wanna have in your pocket at all. God, what a great analogy. I love that Swiss Army knife.

And now I’m, I’m extra humble with my naive brain cuz I’m like, oh yeah, I’m one of those. I believe this can like completely change the world and fix everything. And yet is, is geeks and experts. You guys are like, Yes. And . Yes, and glad you said Cause I believe yes. And I believe yes and absolutely yes. And absolutely there’s this reality of what you guys do and, and see and it, what I admire most watching you, you guys, is how you’re out there training people and organizations every day on how to use this to improve the outcomes.

In their company, whatever they’re looking to achieve. It’s just filled with so much respect and it’s like my naive brain is like, woo, change the world. Whereas I see you guys going, let’s, let’s help this one person. Yeah. In this one group. And that’s what I’ve seen you guys do is I don’t care if it’s 25 people in a training or 50, it’s like you’re speak, every individual feels like you’re speaking to.

and so you’re able to dial in and go, oh, this one’s a little bit more naive of a brain. This one’s a little more advanced so that everybody feels like fed during a training or connected or whatever word I’m, I’m searching for here. But it’s, it’s really incredible and a very, very humbling. . Well, and you can see why we’re obsessed doing it.

Because how is that not fulfilling? I mean, who, that’s a career. It’s a career of helping people help people. It’s like what? That’s, that’s where my brain goes into a pure, naive brain. Well, and and to that too, there’s this just sense of what’s your intention, just like we talk about with the motivational and incompetency assessment, what’s your intention with an MI geek?

Do you want to geek out? . That’s one. One intention, and that’s part of what this podcast is about. Another part of it is speaking in a way and digesting things in a way that if you’re new to this whole motivational and viewing stuff, more so than like at it for years, how do we. Frame and listen from that perspective.

And depending on the group, on the person, it’s just that awareness, that emotional intelligence, the empathy that I continually learn, how to have more of from Casey, but just to recognize that there is, with new learning, there’s a different perspective. being immersed and just starting there. That’s why when teaching, guitar lessons, there’s even research to show, turning your guitar around and trying to use a left-handed guitar if you’re right-handed to be a teacher with it, brings you back to a naive perspective when you are teaching and it, it’s that humility and empathy and awareness that seems to be at the heart of what we’re talking about.

And how do you do that when you have, a mind? That I go through that might not work like other people’s minds. It, it is a certain level of work and investment I’m finding on how to go about that. Versus being more in the comfort zone of how your mind works and speaking more egocentrically versus speaking more empathically.

And I think there’s a crossover, Casey, that you are wonderful at for new. thinking that I think everyone could agree to that’s listening to this. You’re illustrative with metaphors. It’s illustrative. It illustrates with with sort of pictures, almost like storytelling is like that. I’m sure we could improve our messaging around.

It’s just very engaging and it helps. And I tend to be more descriptive and analytically speaking that that’s illustrative, right? I can add a label to it, but I can’t necessarily come up with a metaphor. But the whole idea is when and where do you use these strengths or the business strengths that you have, Danielle, and it’s just.

There’s a certain level of awareness and recognition of a newbie brain to whatever it is we’re talking about, versus a more immersed brain. And I think that’s just important no matter it being MI but especially it being MI if you’re here listening to this . Well, and what I love is, you know, it’s irrespective where you’re out on the spectrum.

It is a journey and it, it’s a wonderful, wonderful, growthful experience for naive or for an expert. It’s just, I’ve never met somebody. fell into the MI trap and just didn’t love every minute of being caught in it and, and wanting to wind their way through it and, and see what comes out the other side.

It’s just a wonderful experience wherever you’re at. The metaphor of the visual I see with that is regardless of where you are on that continuum of learning, we’re all climbing that focus mountain. Oh yeah. It’s very much true. Yeah. Awesome. Very true. Thanks so much, John and Case. Awesome. Thank you.

Pleasure listeners. Thank you so much. Any ideas Future podcast, don’t hesitate to reach out casey if ioc.com and of course you can check us out@ifioc.com. We’ll catch you on the next episode. Thank you. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, Send them to CASEY@IFIOC.com. For more information or to schedule a training visit if ioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keeps changing the world.

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Are you a MI Geek or Newbie?

Today we are talking about the differences between the MI Geek and the Naive Brain in Motivational Interviewing.

In this podcast we discuss:

Reviewing the differences between MI Geek and the Native Brain
Developing MI curriculum
Core components and basic skills for a naive brain
Research and the constant state of learning
Active listening and perspectives
Training in different situations
Different skill levels
Approaching different situations
Empathy and listening without judgment
Dr. William Miller and his books
The Dunning-Kruger effect
Stages of learning
Human dynamics and effective communication
Emotional intelligence
And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Want to see the video podcast? Join MI PLUS+

Want a transcript? See below!

Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I'm your host Danielle Cantin. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results. For individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve, welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Welcome everyone to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. They're both experts in motivational interviewing and we are so excited to have this episode today where we're gonna dig in a little bit. Casey, I'm curious you help break down the difference between motivational interviewing the MI geek versus the naive brain? Of course I'm raising my hand. I'm the naive brain here, , and you are definitely, you know, the ultimate expert. So well, yeah, and then I can point to John, who's the MI geek. So it's just like, it's perfect. The same room's, perfect I think the thing that's fascinating, you know, we've touched on this on other podcasts lately.

I've been looking at kind of when we continue to evolve curriculum and, and when John and I have done curriculum development, we run into this all the time because the more we learn and the more obsessed we get with it, the more you want to teach people what you're obsessed with. But there's something that innately disrespects a naive brain that hasn't been on the same learning curve that we've been on.

So it's difficult when you develop curriculum because what you want is people to get the same experience. You got that got you intrigued in the first place. You know, the things got me intrigued in my first MI trainings or got John intrigued in his first I trainings was very basic motivational interviewing, just the nuts and bolts of motivational interviewing.

And I think that's critical for a naive brain that really doesn't understand what motivational is and what are the core components, what are the basic skills, what's kind of your strategies involved in that. And what you find is, you know, John has talked about this on PAD podcasts before. When you, when you find that tribe of people within motivational thing that are obsessed with it, it really does take it to a whole different level.

And then, you know, I'm defer to John often. His natural tendency is just to do so much research and his, his curious brain is always drawing from other theories and seeing how they support, and augment motivational interviewing. So when you're in a constant state of learning with motivational interviewing, because it's an obsession, because it is, you know, like we've talked about a way of being with people, it changes who you are.

It changes how you are in your own life and how you are with other people. . It just becomes this obsession that you can never master and know everything about it because you're talking about human dynamic. You're talking about human behavior, and then when you start to add in gender differences and cultural differences and all these aspects that were not intended for motivational interviewing, but as you learn more about it, it's like how can you ignore those things?

When you're talking about human interaction, it's what starts to take that naive brain into this kind of MI geek. , of just being kind of obsessed with how do I change as a human being? How do I help others change? How can I facilitate that process as efficiently and as effectively as possible? And when you've been immersed in it for, you know, like I've been over it 20 years and, you know, John getting close to that, you know, it's just like your brain just becomes, it's what you do, it's what you love.

It's you're obsessed with changing the world, and how can I be more effective at helping my fellow man at being able to do. You get all these complexities when you go back to the naive brain. It's fascinating because in some ways there's like for you coming outta the business world, Danielle, There's, there's just basic communication skills that you learn in counseling that you do here in business, but you just learn 'em differently, like reflective listening or active listening, or asking good questions or open-ended questions.

So when I'm training people in the business world, it's kind of reviewing them, but starting to look from a different angle at basic communication technique. And that for me is a naive. . But then when we go to train, maybe a bachelor's level psychology student, they feel like they already know motivationally because they know how to do reflective listening and open-ended questions, which isn't motivational, it's entirety.

So there's this naive brain that thinks that it already does it naturally because there's core components in motivational, like empathy, and everybody thinks they're empathetic. Everybody thinks that they're good listeners. But when you actually measure, people don't listen well to listen to the other person.

Even in a training I did today, one of the activities we did is how do you keep your bias outta conversation? And one of the participants said, it was so interesting to listen to my brain not shut up because it has so many opinions as I'm trying to listen. Like I could just feel my brain has so many opinions and it just wants to jump into conversation.

And so people think that they're good listeners, but they're not, not in the level that is expressing high empathy. And most people think they're expressing high. , when you look at what accurate empathy is, the majority of people are not highly accurate in their empathy. They're sympathetic. There are all sorts of things.

So again, this is this, I think what the, the naive brain thinks. And then as you get into it, you start to understand the different level of skill. The, the last thing I'll say and then just kind of pop it over to both of you is I, I think why, for me, what's helped me distinguish naive brain. Am I geek brainer, or kind of that, that level of mastery is why I always revert back to kind of grandma's recipe as a model of fidelity.

Like I always say, most people in the field of helping have natural skills around, they know how, what flour is. They know what sugar is, they know what butter is, they know how to whip butter and add sugar, you know, and cream that together. But it doesn't make grandma's recipe dessert that she makes for Thanksgiving that everybody love.

you know, it's so, you got the basics, but that doesn't make it this very specific thing that requires a very specific love and a very specific attention to it. So yeah, we can make chocolate chip cookies, but I always tell people there's a big difference between biting into a Chipsa hok, that always tastes stale to me, out of a bag or a Mrs.

Fields chocolate chip cookie that just came outta the, you know, outta the oven in the mall. Those, they're both chocolate chip cookies, but boy, they sure taste different. Even though the majority of the ingredients are exactly the same. So those are the things you start to look at between the naive brain and the kinda the more advanced or just obsessed brain that we can get into with motivational interviewing.

John, what are, what are your thoughts when you listen to that ? Well, there's so much around w what does it mean to listen to that? Right. Am I listening from the perspective of the listener that's listening to this? Am I listening to all my thoughts and things I want to jump in with? Am I listening to your reality as your, the best guess at, you know, I could have of your reality as am I listening to Danielles from her angle?

Right. And I think that's the, the kind of getting to the heart of this even deeper is we tend to. People listening from our perspective about our perspective and what is known as egocentrism, not egotistical, not being, I'm thinking I'm better. It is just we tend to see it or hear it from our perspective, and I think that's just really important to recognize that that's normal and natural.

and it's not inherently wrong, and sometimes that's what people want. And sometimes it's more empathic to express that than it is to do a reflective statement that annoys the person. There's all sorts of components. We had a whole podcast that talked deep about empathy, with, that one wonderful individual from the Social Work podcast, and that was a wonderful episode.

If, if anyone's listening to any, listen to that one that. Oh, beautiful one. But I just say that Casey, because the thoughts are, what perspective are you listening from and just asking yourself that and, and trying to, be more mindful of that. And it brings in concepts like emotional intelligence, that a lot of people also like to believe, they know a lot about or, or have within them, but there are just components of.

Perspective, are you listening for? How are you conveying when you express yourself? How are you conveying it? Are you conveying it from your mind like I'm doing right now, very my perspective? Or are you trying to convey it in a way that the other person can easily digest it? You know, there's so many ways of listening and there's so many ways of thinking about, am I listening this from a naive or newbie per.

Or am I expressing myself? I'm just making a made up spectrum here On one end, is that, or am I expressing myself on the other end of this spectrum from a place of just full on egocentric, MI geek mode. And I feel much more comfortable at that end of the spectrbut different people feel different levels of comfort.

But a lot of the times we got to, if we're going to be facilitators, teachers, educators, that I continually learn with you, KC. , shift that down, not dumb it down, but shift that spectrum towards being simpler and more effective with what you're conveying. Like I believe Einstein would talk about the better you understand something, the simpler, essentially you can make it sound.

I believe there was some sort of quote like that. So that's, those are some thoughts I have, Casey, to what you're saying that try to give voice to what's underly. MI geek versus, newbie, you know, perspectives of mi. I think it's just how much are you focused on your perspective versus someone else's d Danielle, I, I'm just gonna bounce the ball back to you because I think, you know, what's your take from the, the, the newer brain to motivational interviewing and coming from a completely.

Different professional world. I mean, your foray into motivational interviewing, what has that been like for you from kind of the understanding of it and then from kind of the basic techniques of it? I'm just curious what, what does your naive brain think of when you're looking at motivational interviewing?

Well, it's, I find it really interesting. What I'm gravitating to in, in both of your conversations is, the awareness that the naive brain actually thinks it's not naive. Hmm. So I'm like, Ooh, that's good. Because my history, I've been in the business world for, for many years, but I had really deep experience in school with psychology.

I went to graduate school. . So I learned of God only knows what I learned, , right? And I, I lodged it in there and I, I got some great ideas about what I think I, you know, reflective listening and, you know, open-ended questions and, and things like that where I've tricked myself into thinking, oh, I'm empathetic.

I'm a good listener. I, you know, I'm. , I'm all of these things. And so I think the biggest awareness for me is the humility in it of, oh, I don't necessarily know everything. I think I know. Wow, and there's a better way and I can do better. So my naive brain, the newbie approach for me is actually a total joy because I'm a learner by nature.

So I'm like, oh my God, I get to be a student again of. , this brand new thing, this brand new approach of how to help somebody to be there for somebody in a way that just is not public knowledge. Yeah. Of how to interact with somebody and support them. John, you're brilliant about the perspective. All the different perspectives we approach any situation with, and most often there's an agenda, even if I'm listening to it from your perspective or my perspective.

I can't remember all the other options. You said , but I can guarantee you there's a little bit of an agenda and everything. Yes. And what I learned as a newbie that, attracted me the most was everybody's dealing with ambivalence. We all do it, which means, oh my God, this is a solution for that. Yes. And also that.

There's an opportunity to take an agenda out of everything and just help someone find their own way. And to me that's like a life calling, but I've never had the, the tools in the path to actually implement that life mission. Yeah. Yes. So, and I'm so new. I mean, I'm not implementing it. I'd be very dangerous if I did , but what I can tell you is I, what I absorbed from you guys and your trainings.

Is the principles. So for me, the way I would differentiate is, ah, newbie naive brain is embracing and getting excited about the ideas and the principles and the, the core messages. And not necessarily getting into the tactical of I'm not out there actually. , doing sessions or having conversations.

You know, I, it's so helpful to hear you say that, Danielle, because I think that , even the way you frame that is such a good articulation about the difference between the m the m, the kinda the naive brain and the MI geek brain. Because as a somebody who teaches this and is obsessed with. , you should be having those conversations.

I think when you're the naive brain, there's, I think there's different fa like any learning curve. I think there're sayings on a learning curve. One, the first part is so many people think they do it naturally. Then they go through a training and understand like components of it, and they're like, wow, there's more to this than I thought there was.

Then there's like, I don't know if I'm ever gonna get good at this and I probably shouldn't be using it until I get good at it. So that's where you're at on the learning curve, and that's where John and I look at it and think, oh my gosh, you should be using it because what you've. . If, if people wait to be an expert at it before they use it, they won't use it.

Oh, and the beauty and motivational interviewing, and this is, and when you hear this out loud, Danielle, you're gonna go, ah, I know that worst case scenario is you're just highly empathetic with somebody, even if you don't know truth, the language from there, how, how are you gonna do damage to anyone? By listening to them without judgment.

You, you can't do damage to somebody by listening to them without judgment and to make sure they feel heard and. , even if you don't know all the techniques from there. That is, that is one of the most basic things that any intro training to motivational should help people understand is what is high accurate empathy and how do we express it in a way that people feel deeply heard and understood?

You are extremely good at that. . So it's bringing out those things in you that are such a core component in motivational interviewing. But then there's a, where you're out on learning curve is, yeah, I'm not as good as you guys are, so I don't use it regularly. And it's like, that's just not true. You do use it because you, you become more aware of pain.

You've talked to me about this in personal conversations with friends of yours. You know how your different, your presence is different around them and how thankful they are in the way that you're present around them. And you've always been that. But now that you see, there's so much growth potential there, it's almost like you shy away from it a bit because you feel like, yeah, but I don't know.

I I'm not good at that. Yeah. It's like you can't, I I was not expecting to get called out on this podcast. You are so right. You just nailed it. I am actually holding back cuz I'm like, I can't be as good as John or Right. Like, how on earth where do I even begin? And I love that message to any newbie out there.

Anyone? Yes. Been totally excited like me. The possibility of the, of this approach. It's like, just get in there and, and get messy. Do it. Yes. I mean, what's I love? What's the worst thing that can happen? I'm not gonna create, you're highly empathetic. Somebody. What are they gonna start? Because you're highly empathetic.

It's not, you're gonna have to damage to them for that. They're just gonna feel heard and understood, which is such a gift as you were talking, cuz you know, people know my brain just works in pictures. What I was thinking about that's so fascinating is. On one hand, on one hand, we're not talking brain surgery, and on one hand we're talking about something that's almost more complex than brain surgery.

So I think that's the part about the difference between the naive brain and the complex brain around motivational interviewing is it's not brain surgery. You're not gonna hurt somebody. Then what struck me is you're doing, you're doing human life interaction from this place of kind of good magic. So you're not gonna do damage with good magic.

So except there's technique behind it and strategy behind it, but the intention and the embodiment of motivational ring is so human-centered. It's so when you, if your intention is there, it comes from such a heart of wanting to help, but in a way that the data shows as the most effective way to operate from the heart of wanting to help.

I think that when you step back and watch the master is what? Wizardry and their proficiency around it. That's where people talk about, you know, the MI mind trick or the MI Jedi mind tricks. And it's like, and that's, that's even missing it. It looks so amazing when you see people highly skilled at it because it's like, did you see what just happened in that interaction?

Now, this person's world has shifted forever because of this conversation. But this is where I'm on this mantra lately with people is there is a Chas. Between being manipulative and being mindful and strategic. You don't manipulate anyone in motivational interviewing. The intention is not to get someone to do something.

That's what John's always talking about, that fix it or the broke, like that's not what MI is about as fixing something that's broken or looking at people as fundamentally flawed. It starts from a place of, like we've said before, every human being on any given day struggles with a massive amount of ambivalence about multiple things in.

And if you can keep them focused on who they are and who they wanna be when they grow up, all you're doing is what would you do that would align up with who you wanna be when you grow up? If you could be the best version of yourself, what would that look like? And now look at this situation you're struggling with in this relationship or this job.

What would align with that? So it's just bringing out the best in people, which is not I, I think what's what I love about training mi, when people hear me say it, it sounds so. , it sounds so like I've heard this a hundred times. Why does it just sound different this time? And then this is where John and I geek out is because then you can deconstruct all the metrics and technique and skill around that and know, wow, to make the very specific Mrs.

Fields cookie or to make this phenomenal French chocolate souffle, it takes a lot of technique. Even if the one that fell tastes great because there's lots of chocolate and go in. It doesn't taste the same as the one that fully rises and you crack into that, and that's just like, wow, that's just otherworldly.

So they're both good. It's just, I think that's the obsession. I love listening to you talk about it because you're as obsessed with motivation from naive brain perspective, like I don't have enough time to learn it all. As I am from somebody who's been in it for 20 years, like I feel like such a newbie because it's like there's so much to study that I've not even, there's so many articles I haven't even read.

There's so many supporting theories that I haven't read. That's why I'm friends with John, because John has read every single theory and book and article and . That's definitely not true. So then I can just talk to John about it. This is John where , where I do wanna jump in is, related to that is just.

absolute amount of like learning that can be involved and continually be involved. And then also Casey, to what you just brought up, like one of those research articles that I know you've read, is with the eight stages of learning, motivational interviewing, and the eighth stage being when not to utilize it.

And we have a podcast that will be getting into that and personal life and other things. But the reason I say that is, There's a certain, almost like. That Dr. Bill Miller talked about in his plenary note, at one of the recent motivational interviewing Network of trainers conferences, where on one end of the arc is the simplicity of something and just these lovely Mrs.

Field cookie recipe and all these incredible metaphors you use that help make it. Digestible and simple and accessible. And then even talking with other MI geeks like, Sue ecmo, who, is a wonderful coach and I look up to another me member of mit, she'll, as she's coached many various people in organizations.

The reason I bring her up is in this learning curve. As Dr. Miller talks about it in his books, it can be seen that it's so simple. You think that you do it already, like you were talking about Casey. This is something that happens where we're unconscious of our unconscious and it's, you could call it a blind spot, is a simpler way to put it.

We all believe that. And so Danielle, of course you believe you're empathic. Of course you believe you can do reflective listening because that's how we see ourselves to be healthy humans, right? And so it's a natural part of being human, this early simple part of learning. So, But then it's like mind blowing.

This is so deep. And then Casey, to your point, it gets to a point, you might not ever master it, but it becomes this thing that you can continually learn. But there are certain tenets that you just keep paying attention to, and that's where it starts to become simple again. But how do you know when you're there?

I don't know. Other than measuring someone's communication like you were getting. But there is this arc that I wanted to point to of staying humbled to growing and learning in your mi, and also staying humble that MI is not always the best thing and that it's not a panacea to fix everything and that it's this lovely thing that was designed as a pre-treatment and way of being with someone.

And there are times that you do other things and use, use other stuff. And I wanted to end with that cuz as in my geeks, it can. Potentially a religion or something like that. . And to also recognize it's the tenets of care and compassion we care about and MI helps us access that. And it's not about mi, it's that MI embodies all these things we value and believe in.

I just thought I would add that for. , adding to that arc of humility that you were talking about, Danielle, or that was pretty you, you know, and John the, another, you know, so many analogies I use, but another analogy I use with this that I think help, that really adds illustration to what you just brought up is what I always want people to understand is, yes, after over 30 years, 35 years in social work, it's the most effective skill I've ever learned in my entire.

and I've said this and I know people don't, they probably don't believe it in real time, but it's true for me. If somebody laid down a million dollar check with my name on it and said, you can cash this check for million dollars, but you need to surrender everything in your life that's MI related and all your knowledge about mi, I wouldn't take the miche, I wouldn't take the million dollar check.

It's not my, the quality of my life, I just wouldn't take the, I just wouldn't take them. It's not worth losing everything that I've. that having this perspective is brought to my life. That money couldn't, there's no, there's no price tag for it, honestly. And with that being said, what I also tell people is I cannot build a house with a Swiss Army knife.

So you, everything you need to do to help people in their world, all the things we do to help people, you can't build an entire house with motivational. . But I equate it to a Swiss Army knife because I use it more than anything else. When I'm building a house during the day, I'm cutting string. I'm, you know, using it as a screwdriver.

I'm using it for different things. But then there's other tools that are more effective if I'm building an entire house. But that Swiss Army knife never leaves my pocket because I use it more than anything else throughout the day because it's so useful in so many situations. So that's kinda that eight stages of learning of, to, you know, moti motivational learning.

You know, you're gonna use electric drills sometimes cuz it's way more effective than the. Screwdriver, you know, on the end of a, a Philip or on the end of a, Swiss Army knife. So I think that's what you start to realize that it is. So, and people see that. It's like, it's, why wouldn't you use it for everything?

I mean, this is just, it's, it's, it's magical, it's mysterious, it's effective, it's efficient, it's, we can measure it and it's a spirit and it's a way, and it's all these things. And, and so I think, yeah, that's what makes it a Swiss army knife, like the best Swiss army knife there. and I'm not gonna build an entire house with a Swiss Army knife.

Like that would be exhausting. And it's not the most efficient and effective thing to do. So I think that helps put it in perspective as well too, that yeah, it's this amazing skillset because what are we talking about? We're talking about human communication. We're talking about human dynamic and human brain.

So who wouldn't wanna learn how to com communicate more effectively with their kids, or with their spouse or their partner, their friends, or their family? It's like who wouldn't wanna com communicate more effectively? in a way, measurably that we can have a profound impact on outcomes for people that are trying to change behavior.

And I think that's where it takes kinda this larger funnel and funnels into, okay, what is the point of motivational interviewing? And I think that's where I think as the learning brain, like the naive brain looks at motivational interviewing, I think it looks at it as beyond a Swiss army. It's like, oh my, like this is.

this could solve all world problems. Like this could, like this could solve divorce, it'll solve all parenting issues. It'll solve everything. Because if we're just this way with each other, it would solve the political issues in the world it would solve. And it's just like, and when your brain starts to get, it's like, oh my gosh, it really could.

And so I think that's where it gets into the way of being that spirit behind it and then bringing it back down to, and it's a Swiss Army knife, and so it can't solve everything, but it's just, it's something you wanna have in your pocket at all. God, what a great analogy. I love that Swiss Army knife.

And now I'm, I'm extra humble with my naive brain cuz I'm like, oh yeah, I'm one of those. I believe this can like completely change the world and fix everything. And yet is, is geeks and experts. You guys are like, Yes. And . Yes, and glad you said Cause I believe yes. And I believe yes and absolutely yes. And absolutely there's this reality of what you guys do and, and see and it, what I admire most watching you, you guys, is how you're out there training people and organizations every day on how to use this to improve the outcomes.

In their company, whatever they're looking to achieve. It's just filled with so much respect and it's like my naive brain is like, woo, change the world. Whereas I see you guys going, let's, let's help this one person. Yeah. In this one group. And that's what I've seen you guys do is I don't care if it's 25 people in a training or 50, it's like you're speak, every individual feels like you're speaking to.

and so you're able to dial in and go, oh, this one's a little bit more naive of a brain. This one's a little more advanced so that everybody feels like fed during a training or connected or whatever word I'm, I'm searching for here. But it's, it's really incredible and a very, very humbling. . Well, and you can see why we're obsessed doing it.

Because how is that not fulfilling? I mean, who, that's a career. It's a career of helping people help people. It's like what? That's, that's where my brain goes into a pure, naive brain. Well, and and to that too, there's this just sense of what's your intention, just like we talk about with the motivational and incompetency assessment, what's your intention with an MI geek?

Do you want to geek out? . That's one. One intention, and that's part of what this podcast is about. Another part of it is speaking in a way and digesting things in a way that if you're new to this whole motivational and viewing stuff, more so than like at it for years, how do we. Frame and listen from that perspective.

And depending on the group, on the person, it's just that awareness, that emotional intelligence, the empathy that I continually learn, how to have more of from Casey, but just to recognize that there is, with new learning, there's a different perspective. being immersed and just starting there. That's why when teaching, guitar lessons, there's even research to show, turning your guitar around and trying to use a left-handed guitar if you're right-handed to be a teacher with it, brings you back to a naive perspective when you are teaching and it, it's that humility and empathy and awareness that seems to be at the heart of what we're talking about.

And how do you do that when you have, a mind? That I go through that might not work like other people's minds. It, it is a certain level of work and investment I'm finding on how to go about that. Versus being more in the comfort zone of how your mind works and speaking more egocentrically versus speaking more empathically.

And I think there's a crossover, Casey, that you are wonderful at for new. thinking that I think everyone could agree to that's listening to this. You're illustrative with metaphors. It's illustrative. It illustrates with with sort of pictures, almost like storytelling is like that. I'm sure we could improve our messaging around.

It's just very engaging and it helps. And I tend to be more descriptive and analytically speaking that that's illustrative, right? I can add a label to it, but I can't necessarily come up with a metaphor. But the whole idea is when and where do you use these strengths or the business strengths that you have, Danielle, and it's just.

There's a certain level of awareness and recognition of a newbie brain to whatever it is we're talking about, versus a more immersed brain. And I think that's just important no matter it being MI but especially it being MI if you're here listening to this . Well, and what I love is, you know, it's irrespective where you're out on the spectrum.

It is a journey and it, it's a wonderful, wonderful, growthful experience for naive or for an expert. It's just, I've never met somebody. fell into the MI trap and just didn't love every minute of being caught in it and, and wanting to wind their way through it and, and see what comes out the other side.

It's just a wonderful experience wherever you're at. The metaphor of the visual I see with that is regardless of where you are on that continuum of learning, we're all climbing that focus mountain. Oh yeah. It's very much true. Yeah. Awesome. Very true. Thanks so much, John and Case. Awesome. Thank you.

Pleasure listeners. Thank you so much. Any ideas Future podcast, don't hesitate to reach out casey if ioc.com and of course you can check us out@ifioc.com. We'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, Send them our way@caseyiioc.com. That's C A S E Y@ I F I O c.com. For more information or to schedule a training visit if ioc.com until our next Communication Solution podcast keep changing the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

Today we are talking about Motivational Interviewing. We revisited the point of MI, dialed back, and started from the beginning. Where did it come from? What does it even mean?

About This Episode* What is MI? * Casey and John explain their history and experiences with MI * Not a common language or a common way of thinking about things * A method of communication that affects behavior change * Impact on behavior change in the most effective and efficient way possible. * The thought processes, research and experiences of Dr. William Miller and Stephen Rollnick * Identifying motivations, thoughts and behaviors * MI and healthcare perspectives * Addiction and substance use world * Acceptance and Compassion * A different Mindset * Ambivalence and finding peace * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

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Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!Hello and welcome to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host Danielle Canton. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi. Welcome to this episode of The Communication Solution with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m Danielle Canton, your host, and we are so excited today to jump into a topic. It’s like, guys, tell me what is it like? What is the point of MI?

Let’s just start from the basics. I’m so curious to kind of dial back and kind of start from the. You know, Danielle, I think what’s what’s helpful about this conversation is, you know, I’ve been training on motivational w for around 20 years now, and I was just doing a train the trainer this week, and one of the things we got into, and John and I have talked about this quite a bit in curriculum development.

You know, John and I have been working together for, you know, over 10 years now, 11, 12 years now. The hardest part for curriculum development is really understanding how do you teach to a naive brain when your brain’s been immersed in the research and the practice of MI for over 20 years. And I think, and I’m gonna jump in and just kinda laugh cuz I just kind of opened it with like, tell me again what’s the point of MI because it’s like, we literally call it MI Yes.

And there’s some people out there. What’s, what is ? It’s Michigan. I’m from Michigan. Or you know, originally I’m like, if you’re in the healthcare field, it’s my, the basically, there you go. Yeah. So lots of different people use different acronyms, motivational interviewing, and I, I, I think. I think that’s how we get so used to just talking about these things.

So second nature, and especially because it is, it literally is our full-time job is teaching and training people on motivational interviewing. So I think the more you get so oriented to it and used to it. , you think it is a common language like any other industry, and then you realize it’s not a common language and it’s not a common way of thinking about things.

So I mean, the simple way of when we say, you know, what is the point of motivational interviewing, it’s if you’re trying to affect behavior change, it’s a method of communication. And then you can keep it simple from there, or you can get extremely complex from there. And that’s, I think this kind of revisiting what is the point?

And the point is, I think originally, if I’m gonna break it down, I always think it’s effective communication, but that’s, that’s not what MI really is. It’s not what motivation really is. It really is effective communication, but specifically the intention of it is to have an impact on behavior change in the most effective and efficient way possible.

That’s why I think people get confused even with the term motivational interviewing, like where did it come from? What does that even mean? And it basically, if you look at where Dr. William Miller kind of constructed the thought from is that people have a lot going on in their lives. They struggle with a lot of decision making, with ambivalence, with stuckness.

And if you get them the chance to get some of their thoughts outta their head, it, it can help people get unstuck. Especially if you bring in. What their values are, which is what John and I have really leaned into more. But specifically around a target behavior. So, you know, this came out of the addiction world.

So people were thinking about, you know, quitting their alcohol use, cutting down their alcohol use or their substance use, smoking. And when you think about just behavior change, you can see how quickly that’s going to spread into mental health and behavioral health and. Because of diabetes, heart disease, and all these behavior changes.

And so that’s kind of where the, the construct came from is how can we be more effective in working with people. And, and part of what Miller, I think when he kind of titled it motivational interviewing, I know part of his intention was to break away from doing things to people. So he wanted to get away from it being a therapy or a technique.

And he was really just looking at the research, his own experiences anecdotally, and then researching it about when you interview people, when you just listen to them like a Barbara Walters or a Diane Sawyer, like the old school interviews, people were not defensive because you had somebody leaning in Oprah Winfrey.

They just lean in and listen. And if people are gonna lean in and listen, people are gonna talk and, but if you’re gonna shake your finger at them and tell them all the things they’re gonna do wrong, then they’re gonna get. . So instead let’s just, let’s talk to people and find out what, why would they wanna change in their life?

What would be their motive to change in their life? That’s so interesting cuz that was one of my biggest questions coming in not knowing anything about MI or motivational interviewing and just taking the name alone. I was like, motivational interviewing. So you wanna motivate somebody to do something you want.

Exactly. That’s that’s not what it is at all. It’s helping identify their motivations. Right, exactly. It. . And that’s part of the confusion too, because it’s why, you know, one of John’s lines that he started using that really helped me just get even clear about the terminology is we’re really listening for people as far as what is their motive.

So we’re not trying to motivate them. It’s listening more deeply into what is their motive for change and, and not listening to what they wanna change per se, but what is their motive for. Yeah, that’s really interesting and I think it helps to know. Dr. William Miller was the co-founder of this approach, this communication approach.

How many years ago? Oh, a, well, the first publication, or the first research was in 80, I think it’s kind of attributed to early eighties. 84 was the first original, research project, and he, you know, he, he’s attributed being the co-founder. The reality is, is it was kind of his brainchild. . And when Stephen Rollnick , Dr.

Miller said, the only person that read the journal article was Stephen Rollnick. And so they started talking when they ran at each other to conference. And that’s where the, that’s where it became the co-founder perspective. But the original construct of it was just with Dr. Miller and his own practice as an addiction specialist and as a lecturer and as a, you know, an on faculty.

It just, these ponderings and musings that he started writing down in terms of, you know, what we do in the addiction world doesn’t. But it seems like when I do these things, it does work better. And as you started kind of noting those things and drafting some stuff up, other people are going, wow, that really makes sense.

And that’s when Steven Rok dove in and, and they just started teasing it out together. It makes sense too as a social worker. You, you as a social worker. The more I meet people, now, today, the more I’m seeing, oh, social workers are familiar with this. It’s actually built into their curriculum. Yes. Where they’re all aware of motivational interviewing, which I think is, is fascinating.

It’s like this whole language, you all. What you know, and what’s interesting about it is I tend to find that in John’s field, like in the healthcare field, in the dietician field, it’s almost more common to use that type of language out loud as a coach or as health coaches, than I even see it in social work.

So social workers think of it still as a technique. But I think there’s other industries that came on later onboard later with motivational interview. That are more into what the intention of it is from a coaching perspective and not as much from this therapy medical intervention technique. That’s still, so we use that language in social work quite a bit.

But it’s ironic that the field that was born from the addiction world, substance use world, it’s, they’re not as skilled at it across the nation as you would think, since it was the field that it was born. Because it’s still seen as more of a technique and they’ll put it on their website. You know? Yes, we use motivation as one of our primary methodologies, but when you go to measure it, they’re actually not particularly skilled in it.

Per Fidelity. It’s a, it’s a fascinating concept, how many people want to be associated with it, but then don’t, don’t actually know the technique from a Fidelity perspective. I am curious, John, how did you kind of fall in love with MI in, you know, as a nutrition expert? Can you talk a little bit about your history and introduction into it?

Yeah, I’ll definitely give a sense of how I got into it. I would like to get out of my head all the strings of thought that have been going on, that answer the question you originally started with, and then I can end with that to take that in whatever direction. But the first part of that is Dr.

William Miller would talk about, it’s a conversation about change now. Then Casey was getting at, well, what’s the intent behind having the conversation? And it’s likely going to affect some kind of change in their life. And that’s where in recent years, it was moving from it having to be necessarily a behavior change.

To a change more generally could be a shift of mindset or something like that. Could, you know, it’s always been involved relatively for a long time with mental health, but I say that just because a conversation about change is a really simple way to start thinking about it. Casey, you had mentioned you’re sitting down and you’re interviewing someone.

Maybe you’re not sitting down, but you’re interviewing someone about their motivations. And the reason I wanna bring that up is talking with Dr. Miller and where this all comes from. . There’s also a place that you were picking up Danielle, which is that we’re there to accept the whole person and that they’re a whole person with, as we’re treating them, some sort of self-determination and that they can do whatever they want to do, and you’re there to interview them about their motives and not get them to change, but be curious about change in their life, and ideally as Casey, you are alluding.

Operate from their worldview as you do that, which sometimes we think we’re doing, and we’re not including myself a lot of the time . So, that is just one way to start framing is a conversation about change. You’re interviewing someone about your motives. You’re not trying to get them to change.

You’re seeing, if you’re curious about. Motives and thoughts and ideas and so that’s a lot of like the basics. And then there’s also something about helping them, case you were saying, values align their behaviors with their top priorities, with their values, their things that really matter to that person, that would be happier and healthier for them.

And we tend to blame outside ourself when our behaviors aren’t doing that versus. . If you’re having a conversation with someone and you’re not defensive, it’s that Barbara Walters feel, as Casey was saying, then you are gonna be more open to talk about change and then potentially consider changing your behavior to align with your version of happier, healthier, and your values.

And so I just wanted to lay that out. That it can be simpler, it can get more and more complex. We can talk about it. We got lots of other podcasts, but I got into this through the research of the efficacy. Casey was using that word of being effective, and that’s how I got into it, is a simple aspect of it.

Danielle, I have fallen in love with the compassion and the acceptance and what that means in the world of how we treat each other. That’s what I’ve fallen in love with and that this is a way. Embody a lot of people’s beliefs in the world, that aren’t just talking about it, but it’s being about it.

And, and so that’s what I’ve fallen in love with. But what got me interested was the healthcare perspective of this is just the best practice and it’s the best thing we got. So let’s dive into it then. And that’s what led me to meeting Casey and all sorts of stuff from there that I think we’ve talked about in other podcasts.

But yeah, so Casey, I don’t know, there’s a lot of different layers to that if you wanted to riff or if that answered your question, Danielle. But those are just a few thoughts I had while I was listening. Yeah. I wanna highlight one thing real quick. Casey is not just talking about it, but being about it.

Yes. I love that. I love that. Sorry, go ahead. Well, you know, and, and that’s when we get into that and there’s so many things we can talk about it that the way of being about it. What’s so fascinating about the ongoing evolution of motivation, because it is so research driven. , like it’s so data driven and so it keeps evolving based on new research.

What so much of it has to do with as well is what we even measure, like the tool that we worked on, the motivation being competency assessment or the other, you know, extremely well known coaching tool for professionals is the motivation being treatment integrity, scale, all these scales. Part of what we look at, aside from basic technique is almost this like for ours, the mindset or the intention.

And for others it’s like kind of your global. Like how are you showing up and how do you measure that in people and professionals and give them feedback of are they showing up in the way that, that being with people, what do we know is the most effective way to be with people and how can you get feedback on that?

So I think that’s the thing that’s the, so fascinating about it when we break down to some of the basic concepts as well. You know, John, as you were talking about, What I was thinking about in reading, Dr. Miller’s one of his books, you know, on second thought, it’s just when you, when you break it down to what is motivational interviewing, it’s, it’s just approaching something that’s existed for, since the Dawn of Man, which is ambivalence on any given day, just think how many choices do you make on any given day, like how many, and especially in this day and age, I mean, as a, you know, as a prehistoric man. You know, there wasn’t tons of choices. , there we’re mostly based off survival mode. You know, your choice is to eat or be eaten. So they’re pretty basic choices on any given day. And now in this technology world, we have so much ambivalence and you know, people tend not to be long-term satisfied in relationships the way they used to be because there’s just so many choice and the more choices people. The more ambivalence they wrestle with. And that, for me is amazing. So those are the pieces of it that I think are, are amazing is you’re just breaking down the very basics of human behavior to the fact that we all have choices to make every day. And we can feel two ways about the choices, or we can get stuck in the choices and we can have multiple choices we can make and motivational interviewing is how do you help people make choices that are gonna get them to where they want to go and not get. in all the narratives that can keep people stuck in their lives, or stagnant. Or rotting in ways that they don’t want to be stuck or stagnant or rotting. How do, how do you get people unstuck from that?

Which means we’re not jumping in to fix it, which is what we want to do, which is our fixing reflex or our writing reflex, which we do podcasts about. It’s more a matter of how do you help people work through their, their stuckness or their choices in a way that align with who they are, not who everybody else wants them.

So those are, that’s like when you’re peeling back all the nuances in minutia and motivational interviewing, it really is coming down to these basic concepts that John’s talking about with, you know, how do, how do we accept people for where they’re at, which helps them relax and then look at their, where their ambivalence is, and, and where the choices come from within that.

So, and what we know is with the more complex behaviors, especially if you stick to a target behavior, Motivational being has a very specific structure to it. If you want to quit smoking, if you wanna manage your heart disease more effectively, if you want to get to the gym more often, if you wanna lose that last five pounds, those are very specific target behaviors that depending on how you make choices in your life and how you resolve ambivalence can be done very efficiently and effectively, or you can dwell on it and perseverate on it for days or weeks or months or years.

So motivation kind of cuts through all that in a very efficient and effective. And add additionally to it related to that, there is this level of are we walking in to learn something, to get this person to do something different? And I would just want to bring it back to that, that so many people can learn so many components of MI, but then their intention, when you ask them, say, coaching with the Micah or something, you ask, so what was your intent when you were, you know, going about this part of the session? And they say, well, I was just trying to get them to get them to see, get them to say, get them to do. And it’s just normal to use language like that.

It’s normal to think how do I get buy-in, and how do I kind of sell ’em on this idea? It’s just, it’s missing this underlying point that people likely have ambivalent somewhere inside of them. Like you were talking about, Casey, about some kind of change related to the environment you are in with them, a healthcare practitioner, social work, maybe addiction or mental health.

They likely care about something happier and healthier and if you have acceptance, which does not mean you agree with them, and it can be harder to. Then look away as we went through that activity at the conference, the Mint Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers Conference in Chicago. Casey, you and I, we accept the situation.

We accept the person and we know that this is their life, their choice, and treat them from that place and from why are we there? Then, while we’re there, because we’re in some sort of professional. To help and, and provide. Well, how do we do that? We could do that through unsolicited advice and fixing and treating them as broken and lacking, or we could try to do it, and by it I mean express compassion and be helpful and contribute to this person’s life.

How could we do that in a way that is been shown to be helpful for the long run with something like MI and that you could measure different component. And that you still get to express compassion and do it in an ethically influential way. There’s nothing else I’m aware of that can bring all those things together that can even measure the difference between being problem centered, person-centered, or this way of being centered, motivational interviewing, and it’s just, there’s nothing else I’m aware in the world that can really embody all of this all at.

Which is why I think the other books that Dr. Bill Miller has written are amazing too, like Loving Kindness, that book, how to Listen Well, I think if I’m getting that one right. And then the on second thought, Casey, that one’s a mindblower that will probably have a whole other podcast on, but there’s just so much richness to it, but it’s so basic in its tenets of how it’s trying to treat other human beings well, and I, I think part of the profound aspect of motivational learning is, It is in some ways, I don’t wanna say an antidote to a Western medical model, but the Western medical model is so prevalent across all of these different fields because what we get credibility for is being an expert.

You know, and so when I, in trainings, what I tell people often is that I want a medical professional if I broken my arm, I don’t care if they’re skilled in motivational interviewing. Where it gets complicated is if I’m dealing with heart disease. The outcomes around heart disease and people change a behavior are very poor when you take a healthcare approach, when you take a Western medical model approach.

So you’ve got this way of being with people and communicating that’s very measurable. It’s very specific in how you use motivational. I. That improves outcomes, but it’s almost the antithesis of the way you’re trained in a Western medical model and behavioral health, mental health addiction, substance use.

All aspects of healthcare, John, that you work within, those are all driven by Western Medical model. We are the experts. We’ve studied this. We have degrees after our name, and if you do what we tell you to do, you’re gonna get better. And if you don’t, then we’re gonna add another diagnosis to you. So when you’re talking about that broken, Mindset.

It’s just a completely different, truly a different mindset than a how do I start from their own struggle and help engage their brain. This is why I do the whole training on motivational and trauma informed. It’s like with a stressed and pressured brain, how do we, how do we mindfully as a professional?

Engage their executive functioning and that prefrontal cortex so that we’re strengthening their sense of personal agencies, that they’re solving their own problems without us. That’s when we get into another podcast around empowerment and what does that really mean? So. Then this is where I think it gets into the whole MI geek thing versus the naive brain thing.

Because then we start getting complex, even talking these concepts. Because what you break it down to is if somebody’s wanting to change a behavior, we can communicate with them in a way that their behavior will change in a way that aligns with their values. Well, and I wanna jump in there, Casey, cuz there’s so many concepts.

As we’re, we’re nearing the end here that we could go off on so many levels. But one of those deals with us walking in with a. , whether we’re conscious of it or not, it is gonna be multiple bias. You know, those that are listening MIght have heard of implicit biases. There’s also conscious biases. You know, Daniel Kahneman is kind of a living legend in that world of bias.

And so we all have it. So how do we walk in and try to as best we can, get that out of the way and try to be helpful for this person? MI is one way to do that. And you know, that also means. Bias. They’re gonna have bias. And how, how biased are we against their bias? And the reason, I’m not trying to make it heady, but I’m trying to say we’re not there to change people’s belief systems.

We have our own belief systems coming in and EMI is a way of treating this person. And then as you practice it more at least, what some of the anthropological sort of perspective they’ve done on MI so far. There’s a, a few people that are working. They’re finding that people feel different. The more you use this as a way of treating people, of seeing people, and the more you go into the motivational interviewing network of trainers, people anecdotally talk about how MI changes you.

It changes them. It changes us, and it, I don’t know how much that is becoming a belief system or not. I’m, I’m, I don’t know, but there’s something to be said about allowing. Through you and change you and somehow be this way that just treating people of how I see you. and I’m, I’m with you in a different way.

Okay. So you were saying, mindset and Bill Miller would also talk about mindset, a heart, if I’m not mistaken, he, we have a quote in our tool talking about having the music with just the lyrics or just the harmony or a clash of harmony, , where there’s resistance or discord or just the technique with the, the words.

And so many people in all the years of training with. . We fundamentally believe we have this heart, and then some people fundamentally believe they have the mindset and bringing it all together. It’s just when you bring it all together, there’s particular things to seek feedback on that. Unless you’ve really immersed yourself in MI, it’s unlikely you’re doing all these things at once, even if you have a huge big heart and a really good mindset.

I just wanted to wrap that in relation to what you were saying, Casey. This is a way of treating people, but it’s also a measurable thing. That’s not a script that’s very dynamic, but that most people don’t seek feedback on with fidelity because they believe in what we’re talking about. But Danielle, you were saying the difference between being about it versus talking about it.

I feel like we could talk about it all day, but it’s not until any one of us that try it out and seek. That’s the vulnerable stuff, but that’s also where the rubber hits the road to really see are we doing this? And I just wanted to end with that, for a place to guide people if you do want to embody this stuff, that seek feedback from your colleagues or however, and and practice.

Yeah. And I think what I wanna do is bring it down from that high up in the clouds and also bring it down to the concrete is that you don’t have to be that level of embody in it to be effective with it. And I think that’s when I go back to the question of what is motivational interviewing? It’s a way of communicating to be effective and you don’t, we, I think that’s the balance we talk about.

And we’re, you know, another podcast I know that’s coming up for us is just the difference between what’s MIand what’s the difference between a naive brain and a geek brain. John just shared the Geek Brain . And the, the naive brain is that, well, can I learn this? Like, that’s a whole life study. And with motivational, it doesn’t have to be a life study.

You can go through really, really good solid training and motivational and be able to influence outcomes after a really good, solid training and motivational with some practice, that you’ll notice a difference. So that’s what I love about this is what is motivational. It’s a way of communicating with people to affect change.

It’s a very mindful way of communicating with. That most human beings don’t know how to do and have it practiced. That’s the other thing that research is really clear about is there’s components of it that people are good at. But like John was saying, when you’re looking at the the wholeness of motivational interviewing, it’s way more complex if you wanna get really highly skilled at it than people think it is.

And then on the flip side, it’s learnable, it’s teachable, and people can see changes in conversation even after an initial training as well too. I mean, we, again, we could go on forever, but this is, I think that’s just a great kind of synopsis of, you know, at least from my perspective and John’s perspective, what MI is.

That’s so awesome. And I think, you know, from a, from a naive brain for sure, coming into MI. and just being introduced at a very high level at a keynote that you had given at a conference. Casey, I walked away. A changed person. So, you know, from the naive brain perspective, I can say, wow, this can really dramatically, influence your life.

Change your life for the better and open up your world to, something really beautiful. when you guys are talking and, and you do come from a very professional, you know, mental health, arena. And I come from the business world where I’m like, oh my God, every human on this planet needs to at least some level.

At some level. The point of MI my God, is how can we treat each other better? How can we live each other up? Yes. And it’s. , every single person on the planet, the person who’s making the New Year’s resolution that I wanna go to the gym and my God, why can’t I? What is it? Yes. It’s like the ambivalence we face every day.

This is the solution. Yes, this is the solution for the individual struggling with quitting smoking, going to the gym, whatever it is, the 20 million. I’m gonna look up that data point. How many decisions does the average person make in a day? It’s exhausting Exhaust. And to have a guide, an expert guide, which is you guys, you’re experts at this, an expert guide to teach you how do you walk through that ambivalence so that you can find peace?

Cuz at the end of the day, I’m like, the point of MI. Yeah, it’s change. But I’ll take it even a step further and say, my God, it’s peace. It’s the peace you get when you, you’re like, oh my God, I’ve, I’ve made my choice. Found my day. I can feel my, I can feel my brain is working and it’s, it’s helping me be who I want to be instead of my brain working to make me feel more stuck and struggled and depressed and stressed.

You know, using your brain in an effective way is exactly what it’s about for me. So when you say that, it’s just like, wow, that’s, that’s MI It’s helping people resolve around ambivalence. So the behavior lines with their values, and they just feel like my brain’s working again. After all this stress and pressure of covid, my brain is actually starting to work on my behalf instead of against me.

Yeah. So, I mean, I know we’re wrapping up. I just wanna thank you guys cuz you are experts in this field. You’re out there, thank training. Training, thank organizations, training individuals every day on this. Yes. Beautiful, beautiful form of communication. So I’m grateful to be in your world. So excited for future podcasts. Let’s keep going. This is awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you. Nice job.

Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey@ifioc.com. That’s C A S E Y I F I O C.com. For more information or to schedule a training visit i f ioc.com Until our next Communication Solution podcast, keep changing the world.

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, Danielle Cantin and our guest today, Matt Fleming, Chief Operating Officer of Sun Sunshine Health Facilities in Spokane Valley, Washington. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

Today we are talking about Motivational Interviewing in Healthcare. Matt shares his incredible career path that has led him to where he is today. He provides us with the background of his journey, his passion for the elderly and how Motivational Interviewing has enhanced his career.

About This Episode* Motivational Interviewing in the Healthcare Industry * Leading people and conflict * Being compassionate and empathetic without being emotional * Development of leaders and investing in staff * Training outcomes * MI culture shift * Team challenges * Compliance issues * Training executive leadership * Stress and workforce burdens * Ambivalence * Motivation and retention * Behavior and Values * COVID and the healthcare culture * And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

For those who are new to this podcast, the MICA is the Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment. For more information or to schedule a training visit https://www.ifioc.com/.

Thank you for listening to The Communication Solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Join MI PLUS+Want a transcript? See below!Welcome, everyone. We’re so glad you’re here to join us today for this episode of the Communications Solution Podcast. I am Danielle Canton, your facilitator. I’m here with our amazing host, Casey Jackson, the Executive Director of the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, and we are thrilled to have a guest today.

Yes. We have Matt Fleming here. He is the Chief Operating Officer of Sun Sunshine Health, facilities in Spokane Valley, Washington. He’s got an incredible, career path that has led him to where he is today and Casey, we’re thrilled to have Matt join us today. Absolutely. So, Matt, thank you Danielle, and thank you, Casey for inviting me.

I’m, I’m happy to be here and. You know, talk about, share my journey in healthcare, because it really started as a passion work for me. So just to give you guys a little background, I think it’s, it’s really helpful to start from the very beginning. I didn’t, I didn’t fall into healthcare. It was intentional.

It was a decision I made when I was a young kid. I was raised in a small farm, in a community right outside of Spokane. And I did not. Farming. I did not like to be dirty. I didn’t like anything about it so, you know, that’s not great for a farm kid not to like to get dirty. So my dad said, you know what, Matt?

You don’t have to work on the farm, but you have to work. I was about 16 and he said, what do you love to and I said, well, I love old people. I’ve always, and I’ve always loved old people. Like I just was drawn to the elderly population as a young kid. Just always wanted to sit next to the little old ladies at church or whatever.

So I said, well, I, I love old people and he goes, okay, well let’s check out how to get you working in a nursing home and so just to, as soon as I, as soon as I turned 16, I drove into Spokane, and went to work at a nursing home. As got my c. In high school, I went to work at a nursing home, cna, right away.

And I knew that that was where I meant was meant to be and that’s weird for me now to look back and think, how did I know that as a young kid at 16? At 16, knowing that I wanted to land in this profession? I think that’s really rare now looking back on it. But at the time, It wasn’t, it’s just what I knew.

I, where I belonged. I loved that population. I loved taking care of them and, but I thought, you know what? I think I could do it better than it’s being done. I think if I went to school and became a nursing home administrator, I could, make a difference. In the staff, which would make a difference in the, in the elderly lives.

So that’s exactly what I did. I went to school, Eastern Washington University, graduated with a degree in healthcare administration, and you know, doors opened as they did and I landed as the first time administrator at 22 years old in Lewiston, Idaho, running a nursing home and a retirement center assisted living facility.

So it was a campus, I couldn’t believe it. I look back on that now as a COO and think, what was he thinking? Hiring this young kid as, an administrator over his, his business and. I think the Lord, I had a strong director of nurses that I think felt sorry for me, took me under her wing, and she taught me really how to be a leader and how to be a boss and how to be a manager of people.

So, you know, my career stayed kind of in that nursing home administrator profession. Roughly 20 years. I, well, maybe 15. I, I ran that building for about five and then I came back to Spokane and ran their largest nursing home. It was 164 bed nursing home here in Spokane for the next 10 years. And I, and I loved it.

I loved it. I loved leading people. I felt like I was good at it, but I’m one that doesn’t like conflict and so that was always tough for. to have those, what I would call a courageous conversation with folks. You know, I, I just, it was really tough and I, I, I remember my very first time I had to fire someone in that, in that facility down in Lewis.

And I cried. I cried with her and looking back on that now, I think, boy, I was really way too sensitive to be a leader or a boss. I just didn’t have the tools at that time in my life. I was too young. So, you know, now I’ve learned more and I’ve grown and had more experience and of course discovered mi, which gives.

The tools to, you know, have those conversations a whole lot better. You know, Matt, I’m just curious, how many, how many staff did you have with 165 bed skilled nursing? How many employees did you have? I believe it was around 220 at that time. Just around the 200 mark. Okay. So I, I was there for that period of time.

And I decided that it was time for me to do more. So I went to work for a larger regional company that owns about 30, maybe 60 nursing homes, and I ran 13 of ’em. So I was the regional vice president in Washington State running 13 skilled facilities, and that was a real wake up call to me, you know?

Being the boss of administrators, trying to have those conversations taking and it was hard on me because it took me away from the patient care, which I was, my passion, I learned to have kind of that new passion of, of growing leaders and inspiring leadership. So, so, but that was a real growth time for me, you know, when I was, you know, almost 20 years into my career.

Shifting gears like that was. After about four years with that company doing that job, I was approached and invited to apply at United Healthcare. A division of United Healthcare is called Opt and it’s a Medicare Advantage plan, specifically in nursing homes to be there. Vice president for WA from WA for Washington State, running that Medicare Advantage plan.

Well, of course I had. No background in Medicare Advantage plans, but I knew so many of the players in Washington State just based on my, my long term career. So I took it and I did that for the next four years. While I was there, I was promoted to the VP of that product line across the country. So I was the vice president of institutional special needs products, which has to do with that plan across all states.

So my plan was in, we had 60,000 skilled nursing members on my plan nd, it was a, a really important role for me to have a, my, my growth in my career because I learned how to think strategically. I learned how to. Have conversations with really high level CEOs and COOs of, of healthcare companies because I was selling this plan to them so they would allow us to sell it in their nursing homes.

It was not my bliss. I was too far away from healthcare, and as luck would have it two years ago, the owner of Sunshine Health Facilities. Called me and invited me. He said, you know, I’m looking for a new COO and I would love you to consider coming and running our company here in Spokane. Where is my home?

You know, so I thought, I have young kids. It’d be so great to get home with them and not on the road all the time and I took that opportunity and came back home and am running a very diverse healthcare company with roughly 320 employees. So more than I had, of course, at that one facility, but it’s because I have about five business lines here.

I have a home health company where we take care of people in their homes, basically skilled nursing in their homes. I have a skilled nursing facility. I have a memory. I have a behavioral health division where we have an adult residential treatment facility on campus. We have, adult family homes, four of those.

We have assisted living, enhanced assisted living, which is a step down from skilled nursing. So, you know, managing, all those business lines and all those leaders. It was my career that brought me here to be ready to take on this challenge of my life. As I settled into my role, I had known about MI of course, and motivational interviewing and, and what it could do and, the owner is very much a supporter of the development of our leaders and investing in our staff and we were having challenges with a number of things across campus from our behavioral health folks to our home health people, to our patients, to our skilled nursing patients and I, throughout the suggestion, why don’t we bring Casey in and start training our leaders?

You know, we could train our case managers at the behavioral health company. We can train our home health nurses, we can train our leadership and, and so that started our relationship with I F I O C probably. Maybe a year and a half ago, Casey, I think you’ve done. Yeah, I think that’s about it. Yeah. So it’s been really fun to watch the mi, I don’t know if it’s a, if I should call it a way, but the MI culture shift here and that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to bring MI into it. What, oh, sorry, Casey. Go ahead, Danielle. Matt, what was the, what were you thinking when you were looking at the situation with your team and seeing the challenges? What was the trigger in your mind that said motivational interviewing might be able to help them?

Yeah, it was probably two things. At the same time, so at home, at my home health business, the administrator, so when you go into home, when you go into people’s homes as a clinician, in order to get paid for the the 30 day, you know, time frame that you get paid by Medicare, you have to see them so many times.

Compliance in the home according to health. Like if a nurse goes into a home and the person doesn’t want it, just cause the doctor ordered it, they’re gonna say, get outta here. I don’t want you and then the nurse has to leave and we get penalized. We get a massive reduction in penalty and that person in their home doesn’t get the care and the support they need to get better. So that was going on and I was hearing noise about that and my administrator actually had, had heard a MI previously and she had talked about that actually. So it was weird that I had had it in my brain. She brought it up and I always think that’s, you know, the universe telling me or you know, listen to that information that’s coming in.

At the same time, at my behavioral health company, I’m pointing over here, that’s where it is. Sorry, the behavioral health company. Is, we were having, a challenge with our case managers, our social workers. They, they, these folks live in our here on site. It’s a, And we manage their care. So these are folks with schizophrenia, with personality disorders, challenging, challenging patients and trying to convince them to take their medications or to follow their treatment plan.

It wasn’t working. We were, we were, it was failing people that the social workers were burning out. We were losing them and case managers and nurses are really hard to find, right. So I was wanting to invest into that population, that group of employees, give them a tool that would help them do their job and I thought MI might be perfect for that and I brought it up to the leader over there and he said, that’s a great idea. So that’s kind of where it started. It was twofold. Where it went was interesting, you know, like where it’s gone has been interesting. But that’s where it started. Yeah and you know, Matt, when you and I first had conversations about, you know, doing some work at Sunshine, You know, when, when we’re talking strategically, one of the things that I recommended is, you know, have a cohort of, you know, direct line service staff, you know, maybe some supervisors who go through the training and then have them give you feedback whether or not it’s actually worth their time or not, because it, you know, one of the things we always think of at if IOC is I just wanna maximize people’s resources and not take resources that can be applied to their places and so, you know, one of the things that I’d recommend is, hey, Have some frontline staff go through the training, have them assess it, give you feedback. Don’t go for the whole full meal deal until you get some feedback and find out is this relevant. And if it is relevant, then you really do need to have your executive leadership go through second.

Otherwise, you have your workforce disconnected from your executive leadership and, and they want to charge forward. An executive leadership kind of supports it, but doesn’t really understand the dimensionality of how you can apply motivation. To an organization. So, so that’s what happened. We, we launched with, you know, the clinical workforce first and then what, what was the feedback and kind of how did that play out for you as you were thinking strategically?

Oh, you know what, thank you for reminding me about that. I kind of forgot about that. The eruption of excitement that happened after that first cohort and that’s exactly what it was. Casey. It was this incredible. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Thank you. It was so. He helped us so much. He gave us the tools we need and, and I was able to have this conversation or that conversation.

Well, that went all the way up to the owner and he said, you have got to bring him back in and train the leaders and you have, and I want to be there and our owner, who is phenomenal, but he is busy. I’ve never seen him sit through a training, so I thought, well, we’ll see. You know, it’s just not, that’s not his thing, right?

So I, I, I was so interested that he was like, planted around my schedule. I wanna be there. I want to hear, I’m hearing too many good things about it. I wanna sit through this and find out what all this noise is about. So, you know, and then hearing the stories of the case managers and the Yes. You know, the home health folks and at that time I did have a social worker in my nursing home go through it too. Yes and starting to hear the like, oh, I used MI on this, or I used MI on this and it worked, or, You know, having that conversation was so exciting for me and so validating that, you know, it was worth the investment for me to bring you into my, my on campus and have you train those cohorts, that first cohort for sure and that noise around that made the demand for the second one that much stronger. I think that, you know, Go, Danielle. I was just gonna say, I think that’s one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever heard, is starting because I have experience in senior living as well as branding and marketing and so I’ve worked with a lot of different companies in Casey. Most of them are, start from the top down. Yeah. Is the philosophy and when I heard this story, I was like, we need to share this because the, I feel like the dignity and respect. At the core of that choice, yes, is huge. Of what you just did for your team, Matt, with, with, giving the frontline workers exposure first?

Danielle, I don’t know if I would’ve done that without Casey saying that. Like, I remember thinking, oh, that’s a good idea, but I would’ve started at the top because that’s what we do. You know, we train our leaders and then we expect them to push it down. So when he said that, I thought, oh, well that makes sense.

You know, give our, because that was where I was hearing the issue. I was really grateful for that and it really did pay off in spades. You know, the thing that when I’ve worked with so many organizations and, and hearing that, what tends to play out, because Logic would say, get leadership involved. If leadership support say, you know, they’ll support staff.

In reality, what my experience has been is when it becomes from administration, it literally becomes one more thing on their. We’ve got one more initiative. We’ve got one more training we have to go through. When are we gonna do this? Oh my God, we can’t. How are we gonna get people off the floor? How are we gonna get people, you know, where’s coverage gonna come in? And people just start to stress, and then it’s, it’s workforce burden, which generates resistance and it’s just, and then they feel like administration is disconnected and administration is doing it with the best of intention. To support the workforce, and usually the workforce has been asking for training around things like communication, and then when administration approves it, then they just end up stressed and frustrated that, oh, we’re just getting another initiative thrown at us and I think what’s always intriguing to me, the vast majority of the time, When live level staff go through it and start to apply it, they do want administration to understand itand I think it is this kind of, this meld between, you know, the workforce going, wow, this is a phenomenal skill set. Then administration understanding truly contextually, not just, yeah, our staff went through MI training, they went through Motivate, they got into evidence based practice that it’s like, this actually can be transformative.

I’ll tell you, this is fascinating for people listening. You know, Danielle hasn’t been with if I o c particularly too long, but that was the first in person experience Danielle got, was actually with, with Matt’s team at Sunshine. To be able to observe some of that, which was just an interesting dynamic.

I think the thing that was so fascinating as well is, We can talk theory, we can talk motivation, we can get into role playing. But honestly, one of the most profound moments, and Danielle, you’d missed this, and I knew you were really bummed, bummed about it cause it was so impromptu, is when your administrator of home health, with struggles with retention, Brought in an email, you know, with permission, you know, she chose to bring it in and we reconstructed it in an mi inherent way, and it was so fascinating to watch the staff.

Just to see their brains shift because it was so concrete. Like, here’s an email that I sent desperate to keep nurses, you know, holding them by the ankle, begging them, please stay. Please stay. Please stay. Which is just the state of retention right now in the country. Reten, especially like you’re saying, Madden Healthcare.

Behavioral health, it’s just so difficult to get those positions filled and then how do we keep them and not feel like we’re caught over a barrel? You know, because now that you begged them to come on, then all of a sudden becomes more difficult to manage. I mean, these are all the things that, you know, as a, as a senior administrator.

So I think that was so fascinating that we gotta go so concrete and drill down to a specific email, reconstruct that, and just to watch people. Oh my gosh, I understand the model better. Mm-hmm. , not, not just because of this email, but it’s like, this makes sense. We’re working really hard and it doesn’t mean we’re actually engaging people more effectively.

It’s this, we surrender some things because it’s almost an act of desperation and now we’re trying to tap into values and really get values driven people and I’ll tell you, that’s the thing for me as a trainer, that was so. Evident that it just radiates that Sunshine is a values driven organization and those are my favorite organizations to work with because it is a matter of, is our behavior aligned with our values? And I know that the owner, Nathan It, he preaches that he, you know, shouts out from the rooftops. We’re a values driven organization. We’re values driven organization and so I think that was so fascinating to go and this is a, an evidence-based practice.

This is a tool, this is a learnable skill. With communication that can bring that desire to have your behavior in line with your values to fruition throughout an organization. I mean, that, that, that’s why I think for me, this was such a, a, you know, just a, a fun project to work on. Just a passionate pro project to work on.

I know it was really inspiring for me to be there because as I mentioned, I’ve just worked with so many different organizations and many are, say they’re value driven, and I’m not saying that they don’t believe that. Right, exactly. It’s a whole different ballgame to, to really have the courage to stand up and say, oh, is is my behavior really aligned with what I’m saying?

I mean, as a leader, Hats off. Hats off to you guys for doing that because it is, it is incredible. The result I would imagine on retention when your entire leadership team and your frontline employees see the courage and the willingness. Thank you. To do that is, is really inspiring. I appreciate that, and it’s been, you know, I, I do think that this is passion work for me, right?

So it’s a calling and I feel that, and I think my staff know that. So it is important to me that we live the values of this company, very important and that’s why MI was a really good fit for us. Yeah, I knew enough about it to know that it’s a model in which we communicate that aligns the values and the person and I just knew enough to not to know that it was good, but not know how to do it.

So when Casey came to do this second cohort, right? We did the first one was. Frontline staff, those that really, you know, and then they created this uproar of excitement that all the leadership then, I mean, it filled right up like that next cohort Casey’s like I can do about, you know, I think we said the perfect number, I don’t know, 25 or something. And so it just filled up immediately and it was super cool to see that shift in culture and I will tell you right now in healthcare, Coming out of the, the, you know, the fire of Covid culture is king. If you don’t have a strong culture right now in healthcare, you’re not gonna survive.

Right? You will not get the staff, the nurses, to take care of the patients in order to admit, in order to cash flow and all that. So when, We know that here at Sunshine and I knew that MI could help with that. So to see that culture shift after Casey presented his, you know, he did a two day and then he came back two more days, did, you know, spaced out and to see how.

I didn’t realize how important all four of those days were until we went through all four of those days, because that’s when it really kind of shifted is that it glued it and I call that hardwiring, right? We, you know, that we hardwired it a little bit more and then we started using the vocabulary of mi, which really does, when you have a shared vocabulary in a, in a workplace that drives the culture and the leadership started talking about, you know, equipoise and you know, the MI words that were really important that you know, and started seeing and I started thinking MI conversations when I was having employee. Issues, which takes the emotion out of it. Yeah. I can be a really compassionate, empathetic leader, you know, and I, and I know that those are two different things, but I can, I can be without being emotional and without putting my stuff on the conversation, and just have a two-way conversation and find their ambivalence and then work through.

And that’s the thing you, you learn in mi. It’s not about me and the person. It’s not this, it’s about this. That’s what Casey does in his trainings, right? It’s not a, you wanna get away from this and you want to go to here because it’s about the employee and their actions usuallyand are they in line with the values?

There’s probably some ambivalence there. Let’s talk it through because. At the end of the day, I wanna retain every employee. Yesand employees are humans and humans make mistakes and so this is gonna happen. Yesand the worst thing you wanna do as a leader is get into a, a fight with ’em and, you know, start doing this compliance thing.

The best thing you can do is have a behavior change conversation is, which MI talks to you about and teaches you how to do. It’s such a science, it’s so overwhelming, but it’s so valuable when you are having these conversations on a, on a daily basis. I, I just had one actually. Case Aman, I just had one, yesterday, you know, today, Saturday, so Friday I, I had a situation where, a director, one of my direct reports, a nurse and she was frustrated. It wasn’t, it was IT, right. So it was technology, right? It’s my IT director and a floor nurse who kept screwing up her password. She screwed it up like five times and. So he, he got frustrated as any of us would and you know, it will be the one thing that people just lose their mind over.

So, there was a complaint lodged and my IT director and I needed to address it and I know that’s not how he wants to be. That’s not where his heart is. That’s not his values. I know what a wonderful, hard working employee he is and cares about our company. But that in that moment, that was not an example of, values of our company.

So I was able to, to sit down and have just honestly what could have been a really awful conversation without MI tools, a very values based conversation with him and it wasn’t about me and him, it was about how he was feeling, what was going on in his body and his head and at the end of that conversation, he said, you know what?

I need to go, apologize. I need to go make it and it was just effortless for me. But that, that’s just one example of something really recent that happened, but these things are happening all the time. You know, Matt, I, I think when you brought up the thing about how culture is key right now in healthcare, I mean, I think in any, in any.

You know, field or profession right now, but so profound in healthcare. One of the things that I’ve been talking quite a bit about is just what the nature of a Western medical model is, and it that is the culture of a Western medical model is things need to get done. There is a hierarchy there. You do follow a treatment plan.

You do need to show up, you need to get this done and it’s so a culture of compliance fundamentally because you’re talking about human life. I think that at first blush it’s like, yeah, this, this is a behavior change thing. Why would that work In healthcare, we, we’ve got, we’ve got people that are, you know, not doing well that we need to manage, and we, we have liability.

We have moral responsibility tooand I think that’s what’s so fascinating for me when organizations, like Danielle had said, when they genuinely want their behavior to be in line with their values and, and to have an evidence based practice that helps you navigate it and get on that balance and figure out how to balance on a very tight balance beam where there are compliance capa, you know, issues, but you really are fundamentally trying to transform lives.

It, we say that in theory, but it’s so hard to actualize that and I think this is what’s been so fascinating watching it at Sunshine in terms of, you know, that that desire to be values driven and the, the proof is in the pudding. I mean, I hear, you know, the, some of your staff, the more they use it or when they say, yeah, we used MI that people are less stressed about those things and it doesn’t negate that there’s times for compliance. Correct. You know, but it does change a fundamental, just like the example with it, it does change the fundamental energy around when there’s conflict. Because we’re reducing resistance. You’re helping just human beings who are trying to do the right thing work through their own ambulance professionally, which is exactly what you wanna do with your client population as well, too.

You know, when you go into home health, you know, and, and somebody is just angry and upset and you know, they’ve decompensated and they don’t wanna feel like they’re sick and they don’t want somebody in their house, a stranger, but they don’t, they don’t want things to get worse either. How do you work through that ambivalence?

I mean, I, I think this is what’s so fascinating to me. Taking theory and putting it into reality and, and this is why I was so excited about having this conversation, which I just genuinely appreciating you taking time to, to kinda illuminate some of these things for people. Oh, for sure. Case yand I want to tell you, that was probably the, my biggest takeaway.

Every conversation I approach now as a COO in my brain, there’s a little reel that goes real quick. Is this a behavior change conversation or a compliance conversation? Because. How I’m gonna approach the conversation. If it’s behavior change, it’s mi, if it’s compliance, then it’s compliance and it’s, you know, an action plan and you’re going down that road.

So as a leader, you, you have to know that, and you do know that. It’s really easy to know thatand I knew in Friday it’s a behavior change conversation that wasn. That wasn’t a compliance conversation. There’s other times it is. So no, thank you for letting me share the story. I makes me excited to hear you say that because that’s usually, it’s one of the first, it’s one of the first things in the first intro training is just professionally.

It’s not whether or not motivationally is right or wrong. It’s not. Should you have used it? Should you have used it? It’s exactly what I wanted people to think about. Do I want compliance or do I want behavior change? So the fact that that’s your default is like, whoa, every time That’s my, that’s case scenario case.

Cause that’s professional, that’s professional discernment and that just, it just thrills me to hear that, oh well, we’ll give you the credit for sure. We appreciate if I c coming in and, and we intend and plan on having a third. It’s definitely the desire of the ownership here and, and me as the COO to continue that investment in my staff and truly it, at the end of the day, it affects quality and that’s what we’re all about, you know, so not only the quality of a place to work for my employees, but a quality of care for my, my patients, clients and residents. Excellent. Thank you so much, Matt. Anything else Dan? No, thank you so much for being here.

I think this could potentially be the longest podcast ever cuz I just wanna keep going, , talk to you guys about it. Would you be willing to come back at a later date and update progress? Okay, great. Of course, of course. Wonderful. Any advice to our listeners about, there’s so many people out there, I think, beautiful human.

That are leading companies and teams looking for solutions, similar to you? Any advice for them on their journey? Boy, that’s, you know, so many things, right? I think about when you, when you ask me that question, I just think every single person matters. So every person I come into contact with, from a housekeeper, to a laundry employee, to the IT director, to the ceo, They all matter and they all have a voice and they’re all part of it.

So I just, I think treating everyone with respect, kindness, dignity, and always assuming that they are there, there to make a difference and start from there before you assume the worst. I think that’s just the biggest thing. You know, it starts with the person, right? The leader, and every single person’s important.

So that’s just, you know, one little thing I would. One big little thing.

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Matt. Thank you, Casey. It’s just a pleasure spending time with you. Excellent. Thank you. Take care everyone. Bye-Bye.

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About This Episode

Today we are talking about Motivational Interviewing in the business world with a financial perspective. We talk about the evolution of Motivational Interviewing and how to share The Communication Solution that will change your world.

About This Episode

Ethics behind motivational interviewing being in the business world

The Empath Conference at which Casey is a keynote speaker, interviewing the founder of Motivational Interviewing, Dr. William Miller

Dr. Miller and Motivational Interviewing’s role in for profit business

The evolution of Motivational Interviewing

Developing a leadership structure and a management structure and a workforce structure that is driven by vision, mission, and values

Metrics and measurable results

Productivity rates

Bias against the corporate world

Training outcomes

Industry differences

Being mindful and aware of how communication impacts the people around you

Informed choices

And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

For those who are new to this podcast, the MICA is the Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment. For more information or to schedule a training visit https://www.ifioc.com/.

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Want a transcript? See below!

Welcome back everyone. And do we have a podcast for you today? It is going to be an interesting, provocative one, especially for those of you, that are interested in MI in the world of potentially business. I know I said it, so I'm not the one to introduce this out.

Casey, you are our lovely director and you will have a lot of perspectives on this. And Danielle, you come from a background with perspectives on this, so if you wouldn't mind giving us, Danielle, a sense of where you're coming from with your curiosity. Thanks John. I'm excited. I was re-listening to the podcast that we did about quiet quitting and the insights that you and Casey shared, and that really spurred another conversation I thought we could touch on here.

I come from the corporate world. The business world and from a branding and marketing perspective. And so what I do is I help organizations dig in to who they really are and bring it to life in a brand campaign in, in their brand. And the biggest struggle I've had in my life is getting that alignment with, we can say who you are all day long, but are you really walking the talk?

So as I was listening to that, that awesome podcast about quiet, quit. And maybe think about what you are doing with your training, with the communication solution. Yes. How you are out there working with for profit companies, and businesses who typically have a financial perspective. They're like, they wanna grow, they wanna produce, and it's like, You're bringing this training, you're bringing motivational interviewing and your expertise with this communication solution to organizations, to leadership teams, to founders.

These innovative companies are saying, We need this. And they're kind of stepping in. And I'd love to have a conversation around what you're seeing, how that's contributing to quiet, quitting or, or just the growth of a business and that role. Cause I like John, your reaction was like motivational interviewing and business, you know, so there's, there's a lot of thoughts there.

So I don't know if that's a good kickoff, but that's what I would love to discuss today. Great. It,

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About This Episode

Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today we are talking about the trend of Quiet Quitting. We are looking at it through a Motivational Interviewing lens and distinguishing what the ethics and generational differences are in the workforce today. And, how the pandemic and other issues contribute to Quiet Quitting.

About This Episode

Quiet Quitting from the employee’s and employer’s standpoint

Our perspective of Quiet Quitting and what is going on

Work ethic and differences across different generations

Looking at Quiet Quitting from the context of the pandemic

How Family issues, social issues, community issues and political issues contribute

Productivity and how workers spend their time

Value, behavior and skill sets

Loving what you do and feeling supported

How is Motivational Interviewing supportive?

Mindset, passion, fulfillment and a path forward

Hiring, retention and burnout

Autonomy vs. financial rewards

And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

For those who are new to this podcast, the MICA is the Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment. For more information or to schedule a training visit https://www.ifioc.com/.

Want to see the video podcast? - Join MI PLUS

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Want a transcript? See below!

October Podcast #1

Hello everyone. Welcome back. We have our team here with our very helpful and guiding leading director, Casey Jackson. Welcome Casey, myself, John Gilbert as usual. And we have Danielle, Canton, who, Danielle, if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself real quick, just as you are joining the.

Awesome. Thanks John. I'm excited to be here. Just joining you and the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change has been an incredible experience. The communication solution, this podcast is amazing. I'm excited about the different topics we're gonna be jumping in on. And thank you for letting me be a curious mind here to kind of play off of you and Casey.

Ask some questions and, introduce these. To folks out there that when they learn this communication solution, it really will change their world. Yeah. Well to that point, you came up with a topic today, but Casey, like you were gonna say something. No, that, that's exactly it. I just wanna dive into this.

It's fascinating as we're, you know, as we're always kind of digging through different topics, but this whole trend about quiet, quitting and then, you know, as we as a team, were just walking through that and looking from an MI lens., you know, distinguishing between quiet, quitting and what are the generational differences?

You know, is it quiet, quitting across all generations who are in the workforce right now? Is it different than what, you know, kind of Gen X look at, at the millennials and have kind of a bias from an ethical work ethic perspective? I so excited to dive into this, mostly because we have that cross-generational representation here on the podcast, to be able to talk about too.

I'm excited to dive into this. On the same page. And I know this is something that you both are more familiar with than I am, just the whole movement of it. So defining our terms, maybe of what is quiet, quitting, what's going on with it. And, and from that perspective, we can then riff off of it with an MI lens.

So if either of you wouldn't mind kind of giving your perspective on quiet,

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About This Episode

Welcome to today’s communication solution podcast. We love talking about motivational interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. We have an interesting topic to talk about today: Open Ended Questions and the quality and complexity of what's being talked about.

About This Episode

Open ended questions vs close ended questionsHow do you ask open-ended questions?Reflective listening and empathyMotivations and the quality of curiosityLearning curvesMindsetPerspectivesConnections and valuesReal life examples of differences in questionsSkill buildingAnd so much more!

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Transcript of Show - View Below

The Communication Solution - Open Ended Question

Tammy: Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast today. We've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy here at IFIOC. We love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

Welcome to the conversation.

John: All right. Welcome back everyone. We have interesting topic to talk about today. At least for me, maybe not for everyone, but we'll see how it goes. I know that Tammy, you had particularly wanted to talk about this topic and subject because you were thinking of a situation that just starting at the basics we can talk about. But then I was like, well, we can go deep into this with multiple layers. So, I'm looking to hopefully do that with you Casey and Daniel. Today and just see how far we can get in a shorter podcast we have today. So, Tammy, what was the original kind of thinking you had for this topic? What is it, you were thinking?

Tammy: The original topic was open ended questions, 101. And the reason why is because I think some people get stuck into. A lack of curiosity sometimes because we don't really know what to talk about. And then there's a difference between open ended questions versus close ended questions. You closed ended questions are. Yes, no, you expect a certain specific answer. Open questions, allow for the person to openly share their thoughts and ideas. Opinions could go so many different ways. The more that we can create open ended questions, the more we can hear people's thoughts, ideas, beliefs, all that type of stuff. So that's kind of where my mind was at when I was like, let's do open ended questions.

Casey: Well, what's so funny to me is. I feel myself having a natural bias and a natural writing reflex this topic which I shouldn't it's so weird. And I think because so many people I've heard so much more lately that people are talking about, well, yeah, I went to a motivational interviewing training and it's like, how you ask open ended questions? It's like, oh my gosh, we're drifting so far away from empathy and accurate, reflective listening, but. I know it's my bias because I know I over correct on leaning so heavy into teaching people. What is high, accurate empathy? And the reality is that smart, strategic, evocative eliciting open ended questions are critical.

Skill set to master in motivational interviewing. And I know I overcorrect towards teaching reflective listen. And so, so I'm getting over my bias and listening to that, cause it's just like, oh, I don't want people to think that it's open-ended questions, you can't do motivational without really smart, strategic open-ended questions.

Tammy: Yes. It's part of the equation. And I think that's a really good point, Casey, because reflective listening is critical to motivational interviewing, but there are those times where you need to elicit and draw out from people. Their thoughts, ideas or beliefs too.

Casey: Well, it, just, when you say that, I even think of the MICA, you know, the motivation incompetency assessment.

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About This Episode

Welcome to today’s communication solution podcast. We love talking about motivational interviewing, and improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today we are talking about the larger picture of the landscape of motivational interviewing, some of the things that are going on in its world, and the future landscape of motivational interviewing. We will also be transitioning some team members.

For those who are new to this podcast, the MICA is the motivational interviewing competency assessment.

In this podcast we discuss:

The larger picture and landscape of motivational interviewingThe field of motivational interviewing has grown or spilled intoMotivational interviewing is a method of communicatingCultural BiasDr. William Miller and his book, “Lovingkindness: Realizing And Practicing Your True Self”Measurement and motivational interviewingThe components of how language worksMindset Responsibility and choiceThe Western medical perspectiveDr. Theresa Moyers and her new book, “Effective Psychotherapy”And so much more!

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

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Transcript of Show - View Below

John: Hello everyone. And welcome back. We have some special podcasts here as we're going to be talking about this larger picture here of the landscape of motivational interviewing and some of the things that are going on in the world of motivational interviewing. If you're interested in that more generally, we also are going to be having a transition of some team members that you might be seeing if you're seeing this, but you'll be hearing here soon. So, I know Casey, you were going to give some words to that with Tammy and.

Casey: Well, mostly I'm crying internally cause I'm losing Tammy. She, and I've been buddies for years and years and years. Actually, Tammy was. Integral to me transitioning and doing some work in senior living which wouldn't have happened with her role touch mark and just now makes me a little emotional, because there's this chip little face who would run around high, high energy, usually that a little bag of M&Ms with peanuts in it. And I could get people to do almost anything. Like she was the biggest. Cheerleader not only for training but just for motivational interviewing, just so it's actually a little hard for me to see her kill a little face right there. To know that we're going to be transitioning and she's going on to wonderful things with her family as it continues to grow, in her belly right now. Yeah. And the good news is we're bringing on Danielle Cantin. Who's just a. A force to be reckoned with. So just, it it's an exciting transition. And so, we're going to hear some of that transition over the next few podcasts as, as Tammy's, you know moving on to, to other things. And Danielle's jumping onto the I team. So, it's exciting, exciting times and a little bit of grieving going on at the same time. so, anything either of you would like to jump in and say, Tammy

Tammy: no. Except I do want to make sure that we cover the actual topic of

Danielle: the podcast at some point

Tammy: I'd like, sorry, the name. So, people know what the name, what we're focused

Danielle: on today.

John: Yeah. The landscape of motivational interviewing, for sure. Yeah. Yes.

Casey: Sounds good. And Danielle, any thoughts as you're jumping on?

Danielle: Yes. I'm just so thrilled to be here. And what I think is really interesting is how you and Tammy connected is how we connected is in the senior living space. So,

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Navigating Resistance

About this episode

In this podcast we discuss:

What is your roleInformed choiceEmpowerment vs. PowerFight, Flight or FreezeCultureRighting reflexAnd so much more!

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Tami Calais: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at IFIOC we love to talk communication, we love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert.

And I'm Tammy. Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Hello and welcome everyone. You are listening to another conversation with us at the team here. Today we have, uh, a topic. I was surprised we haven't talked about fully yet, but it is gonna be navigating resistance. And so you might have this in a variety of different situations, personal professional, all sorts of different things.

And so we talk a lot about this in our intro to motivational interviewing course that will reference throughout. And there's some other, uh, resources like MI minutes setting Casey [00:01:00] can speak to, that will point you towards afterwards, but for now, that's what we're gonna be kind of setting the tone with.

In terms of resistance, one thing that came to mind for me, Casey, is something that years ago you brought up of the whole rubber band analogy and kind of the physics 1 0 1 thing. So I think that could be a place to start if you are both open to that. But at some point I think that would be helpful just to get a sense of defining our terms a little bit, or what are we talking about instead of the maybe stigma that happens when you think.

Making the label that someone is being resistant. So I don't know if you'd mind starting there.

Casey Jackson: Well, I, I think it's interesting because if we kind of unwind the history a bit of this in the beginning, when I first was learning motivational interviewing and, and getting trained on it and then training on it, resistance was a term we used literally rolling with resistance and then it started falling out of favor.

And the big shift was towards discord. And I understood the thinking behind it. Because what they were saying is [00:02:00] we don't wanna label the individual as being resistant. We don't wanna label the individuals being resistant. You know, what do we contribute to that? You know, so there's discord, there's tension between people.

And it was interesting because I had been training resistance as the energy between two things, because I I'm so a little freakish about semantics. Like I, I, I need to, my brain needs to know what it means. And so I'd researched and, and looked up, you know, the source of it had to. Physics, you know, when you're looking at human physics or when you're looking at, you know, just physics and science, that resistance is the energy between two things.

So that's when I started using that analogy. Like if you pick up the rubber band, there's no resistance in the rubber band, you know, it's when we pull on it and it's, and then I started talking about, you know, if I pump my fist together and smash my fist together, that's resistance. What I'd say is that it takes two things.

So there is no such thing as a resistant individual, by definition, it is the energy between two things. And for me, that really helped my brain start to evolve of [00:03:00] understanding what causes resistance and what reduces resistance, which makes it easier to navigate resistance in dialogue. I think the thing that's so interesting with different populations that I've worked with.

Is that there's so many things we do to try to manipulate or control people to bring down their resista...

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About our guest

Lieutenant Steve Wohl

25 years with the Spokane Police DepartmentTraining Director at the Spokane Police AcademyBA from Eastern Washington University in Interdisciplinary Studies, minor in Communication and Psychology.Previously supervised the Major Crime (Robbery/Homicide/OIS) unit, Special Victims Unit, Internal Affairs, and Tactical Operations unit.Commander of the Spokane Independent Investigations Regional Response team (SIIR) investigating all critical incidents involving regional law enforcement officers.SWAT and Hostage Negotiation team Commander 2014-2019.

About this episode

We loved having Steve on as a guest so much that we just had to schedule to have him back again to discuss even more about law enforcement and Motivational Interviewing.

In this podcast we discuss:

Compliance vs. Behavior ChangeLewis and Clark school shootingNew Era of law enforcementFight, flight or freezeAnd so much more!

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Want a transcript? See below!

Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at I F I O C we love to talk communication, we love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line.

John Gilbert and I'm Tammy. Welcome to the conversation.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the MI guys here. We have our team as usual. And this time again, we have our very special guest, Steve Wohl. I'm saying that right? I know sometimes I mess that up. Um, but anyhow, Steve, welcome back and thank you for coming back.

Steve Wohl: Oh, my, my pleasure. Glad to, join you guys again and, and, love the, the opportunity. So appreciate you guys having me on the team.

Casey Jackson: Yeah. You know, Steve, what I wanna dive in with this is, [00:01:00] you know, after we wrap last time, the first thing you said is, gosh, we didn't even get into the active shooter side of this.

And, I think that is so predominant right now, unfortunately, um, you know, I just know you've had multiple experiences and I think even launching this, what I want to really look at and, and kind of lay the foundation for is walking down that path between compliance and behavior change. Because even as we tee this up and we talked about it quite a bit last time, but I just think, I think from my mind, it helps me from a social worker.

Really bridge that gap that we talked about last time between, you know, that the behavioral side of it, law enforcement side of it, community safety, you know, civilian safety, officer safety, like just, I think it's just such a complex issue that people try to oversimplify. And if we're gonna start from a simple place, I just wanna start from that place of kind of compliance versus behavior change and why law enforcement has to put on the paths that they have to just.

For, [00:02:00] for reasons that most of us don't even comprehend. Um, and then the way that your brain continues to keep trying to expand, how do we make this as effective as possible with the best possible outcomes for everyone? So I just wanna start from there as we walk down this path, but I just wanna kinda set that tone for, for people listening as well, too, that this is just so wildly complex, and I don't want to feel like it gets oversimplified.

So, but, so, so what were some of your thoughts as we were wrapping up and they, the things you were thinking, like, I just wish we could have had a chance to touch on this a bit.

Steve Wohl: Yeah. You know, I think with Motivational Interviewing Casey, you're always looking for behavioral change and, looking for the way to get into people who are in crisis. With, active shooters, a lot of times we are called when, the violence is, is going on. And we have got to stop or neutralize that threat, and we don't always get the opportunity to sit and talkwit...

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Ethical influence and behavior change with guest Josh from Valuegraphics

About our guest

Josh is the VP of The Valuegraphics Research Company. Helping global brands like PayPal, lululemon, and Genesys to increase their ROI, reduce their risk and improve ESG by using a research-backed values approach.

By conducting custom research, The Valuegraphics Research Company is able to provide a unique experience for each of its clients, that uses data to remove the guesswork from their marketing and messaging.

The demographic models that marketers have used for centuries are no longer effective because people don’t fit the demographic stereotypes of days gone by. Around the world, companies are looking for an alternative that helps them find the intersection between profit and purpose and Valuegraphics is that answer.

About this episode

This podcast episode is a must listen! Josh joins us from Value graphics to share his experience on values and the core values found in the U.S. and Canada and around the world, as well as discuss ethical influence.

In this podcast we discuss:

Pre-frontal cortex and how it relates to our valuesExplaining demographics, psychographics and valuegraphicsValues theoryCompeting valuesSales, manipulation and connecting people's valuesRecruitment, culture change and employee retentionTop 10 values in the whole world

If you loved this episode, please rate it on apple podcasts and subscribe to our podcast for more great podcasts!

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Join MI PLUS!

Want a transcript? See below!

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at I F I O C we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve today. We've got Casey Jackson on the line. John Gilbert and I'm Tammy.

John Gilbert: Welcome to the conversation. Hello again, everyone. We have a guest today that is going to get into something that if anyone has listened to our podcast on values, focus, mountain, all that good stuff. This will be familiar, but. You will also expand your mind in some really cool ways. I've got to hear our guest on various podcasts out there.

I suggest listening to his work. He has a book as well. He can tell us all about himself. It's Joshua Dittmar and he, is [00:01:00] gonna tell us about value graphics and what that all means and how we can relate Motivational Interviewing to that and how he's doing a lot of massive change at a large level. He's the VP of value graphics research company, and he's helping global brands be it PayPal, Lulu Laman Genesis their he's using these value graphics to help with increasing.

ROI, reducing their risk and improve some of their outcomes with a researched, backed values based approach. So we're gonna talk about that, how to do that with values and get into some aspects of how do we think about ethics in relation to discovering people's values, how we're influencing them.

And just some of the, some of the things around that from an Motivational Interviewing perspective, as well as Josh. Your perspective as well, more generally from everything you've learned. So anyhow, welcome Josh. And if you wouldn't mind, I know you have some information you were thinking of sharing about what does this even mean with value graphics and how could people get attuned to [00:02:00] it?

Josh Dittmar: Amazing, good day guys. Thanks for having me on. And yeah, really looking forward to having a chat about values and a values driven approach with people who are already living and breathing this stuff. It's always exciting to talk to like-minded folks. Yeah, this this amazing database that has originally been created by our founder, David Allison, and a team of researchers out of New Zealand has really given us some powerful tools to not just change businesses, but also, you know,

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This is part 1 of a 2 part podcast with guest Lieutenant Steve Wohl from the Spokane Police Department.

About our guest

Lieutenant Steve Wohl

About this episode

We loved having Steve on as a guest so much that we just had to schedule to have him back again to discuss even more about law enforcement and Motivational Interviewing.

In this podcast we discuss:

Real life situations of law enforcement, behavior change, engagement and Motivational InterviewingThe law enforcement brain in microsecondsHostage NegotiationsWhen does Motivational Interviewing work and not workCompliance vs. behavior changeAnd so much more!

You don't want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us on apple podcasts or share this podcast, it would mean so much to us!

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Want a transcript? See below!

Guns, violence and MI with Steve PDFDownload

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In this podcast we have 2 guests join us to ask their questions about infusing Motivational Interviewing and self disclosure. Guests Diana and Michelle join us from Canada as we navigate culture norms, Motivational Interviewing and the impact of self disclosure.

Diana and Michelle are from our public Facebook group “Motivational Interviewing Everyday” where we share tips, create discussions and talk about Motivational Interviewing in the real world.

In this Podcast we discuss:

How self disclosure impacts communication from a Motivational Interviewing lensCultural normsRelating and self disclosureAnd so much more!

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Question from one of you! Motivational Interviewing and Group communication

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Wow this podcast is full of great information about using Motivational Interviewing with groups or in a group setting. This question came from one of you, our listeners! Kati works in a school setting and was curious how Motivational Interviewing could be used in groups.

In this Podcast we discuss:

How to use Motivational Interviewing in groupsTips: don't fall into the expert trap, get engagement first, EPE (Elicit, Provide, Elicit)The spirit of Motivational Interviewing and whats your intentionRefocusing groupsAnd so much more!

Want a transcript? Read below!

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at IFIOC, we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals organizations and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy.

Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Hello everyone. And welcome to another conversation with us here at the communication solution. You know, each one of us from our intro and we today have a really interesting topic that is going to come from a listener that we really appreciate Katie.

If you wouldn't mind, Tammy just orienting us to what Katie had asked us, and then we can go from there with what, to a respond to.

Tami Calais: Yes. Sounds good. So Katie actually wrote [00:01:00] in the question she was asking about, can you use Motivational Interviewing as a tool for group communication?

She said that her background is in behavior interventions in a public school setting, and she would often end up working with students in small groups. She's done some reading on synergistic change, talk in a group setting, but I'd love to know if IFIOC has any more information on it. So that is our conversation today, Motivational Interviewing in group settings.

Casey Jackson: So I can tell you for me, this is a question that has kind of percolated at times from the beginning. Ever since I started training it, not a common question, but it, it will surface fairly often. And kind of the two names the forefront of Motivational Interviewing and groups is Chris Wagner and Karen Ingersoll who wrote a book on Motivational Interviewing and groups.

And John was talking about, there's a coding tool that [00:02:00] Johnny can reference as well to talk about a bit too, but prior to even knowing the things that had been written about Motivational Interviewing in groups is I was thinking about how, how I was using motivational interviewing in group therapy sessions in family therapy.

What I realized in explaining to people is that first of all, you need to really be pretty skilled at Motivational Interviewing individually, because there is a complete different level of complexity that I found in using it in a group setting. The way I started to look at this was like, I remember getting called in asking to work with this group of Youth that were justice involved.

And they said, we know we wanted to learn how to use Motivational Interviewing can use Motivational Interviewing with these guys in the group and all these concepts. And so what I was talking to them about is the way that I think of a way to look at Motivational Interviewing, in groups is if you treat the group as a brain with all these little brain cells in it, and there's going to be ambivalence inside that brain.

And so it's not like you're talking to them [00:03:00] in mass. I mean, there's still this level of engagement, but you have a sense of how the majority of them are feeling and that the majority, and probably have mixed feelings about being in that group, especially if it's a BI classroom or that, you know, a small group from a behavioral classroom.

You can think there's part of it. That's just like,

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Motivational Interviewing and Healthcare with Amy Burns

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Wow this podcast is full of great information about operationalizing Motivational Interviewing in a healthcare setting. Whether you work in healthcare, are in leadership in the Healthcare industry or just love Motivational Interviewing, you will love this podcast! Guest Amy shares all about her experience helping her organization and culture shift to Motivational Interviewing.

In this Podcast we discuss:

Operationalizing Motivational InterviewingChanging CultureFidelity of Motivational InterviewingChampions of change and Motivational InterviewingCoding training (Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment-MICA)Train the trainer programAnd so much more!

Want a transcript? See below!

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at IFIOC, we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson. John Gilbert and I'm Tammy.

Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Welcome back everyone. We are back here for another podcast. Then we have another very special guest. That's also a director here, uh, and in my eyes quite a big wig. Her name is Dr. Amy Burns. And Amy, if you wouldn't mind for getting us started, just give us a little bit of sense of your role and anything else you'd like to share of course, but particularly your role.

And then [00:01:00] from there, we can get into how you've applied, Motivational Interviewing, your thoughts on it and how you've applied it in your world.

Amy Burns: Yeah, sure. Well, first off, I'm really, um, happy to be here this morning, talking about one of my favorite topics It's very exciting, with the "MI" Motivational Interviewing guys. Um, so, um, I am an associate program director for a psychiatry residency in Spokane Washington.

And, um, I, and my other role that I kind of created for myself, because I felt like it was important and is as the lead for motivational interviewing training for graduate medical education for all of the residency's Spokane wide. Um, yeah, so, the basically, I first got into motivational interviewing, um, teaching Medical students that were, on a [00:02:00] psych clerkship.

And, then it kind of grew from there. In part, because of all the training that I got at IFIOC, that kind of helped me give me the confidence to be able to, to expand what I learned and teach it to other physicians.

Casey Jackson: Well, and I've got to dive in because just give Tammy and John context as well too, when Amy and I connected, I mean, there was multiple things that, that kind of grew from that one was just fascinating.

Because I'd done training for physicians before. And it really was a lot of looking at it at the time, actually looking at pagers and, and waiting to get out of the training and being respectful. But Amy was just questions, questions, questions, questions, questions, because she had such a phenomenal foundation of motivational interviewing.

And since we were teaching at less from kind of the acronym side and more of the fidelity. Kind of measurement side. It just, it was just like this kind of perfect meeting of the minds. And, [00:03:00] and for me, the thing that just was, just overwhelming was when, um, she had reached out and wanted to look at training, having actually having her instructors, physician instructors go through Motivational Interviewing training to think about how to train Motivational Interviewing in their classes, not just an Motivational Interviewing class, because that's pretty traditional..

Like they have them go through a section on motivational interviewing. And that was kind of about where they were at. And Amy was lead in that, but in us and you know what, we need to infuse this in every,

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Insecurity and building Confidence with guest Matthias J. Barker.

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Join us as we really plunge into a deep discussion about insecurity and building confidence! Guest Matthias J. Barker joins us sharing his expertise in trauma. This rich conversation is well worth a listen as our conversation navigates the challenges with insecurity as well as how can we restore confidence?

In this podcast we discuss:

Labels and false summitsAnxietyFight or FlightValuesBlameDepressionShame, guilt and personal responsibilityControl

About our guest Matthias: Matthias Barker has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and has been formally trained for treating complex trauma, anxiety, and marital issues. He treats a large variety of mental disorders and difficult life circumstances in his clinical practice based in Spokane, Washington. Matthias is the author of two e-books, On Grief and On Avoiding Burnout. In addition, he has released three public workshops focusing on Anxiety, Trauma, and a Couples Workshop.

Want a transcript? See below!

Tami: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at IFIOC, we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve today. We’ve got Casey Jackson on the line.

John Gilbert and I’m Tammy. Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Hello. Again, everyone. We have yet another guest on our IFIOC podcast today. This is a wonderful human being that I’ve just met. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation because he has some particular questions in mind. Um, his name is Mathias Barker and he will share his contact info and he is quite the.

Instagrammer, among many other things out there with his own podcasts that Casey was on. And so, [00:01:00] we will make sure you get some sort of direction or link to that in our notes. We just want to, as you said, play around with some thoughts today, uh, particularly with your expertise in, trauma and some different projects you’re working on.

So first I just want to say welcome. And, uh, what would you like to talk about today?

Matthias Barker: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. Yeah, I, I encounter Casey at one of his workshops back when I was in my masters program. And so I’ve kind of been, um, continually gleaning wisdom from afar. And so anytime I get to be in a room with Casey, I just, I just try to get him talking and steal all the secrets.

So that’s all I’ve tried to do, but I’m happy to be here. It’s a generous, yeah. Title of the. Trauma expert title. I, I think I’m learning just the same as everyone else. It’s uh, most of my clientele is in complex trauma and in working particularly with sexual trauma, that’s where I’ve done most of my training.

And so that’s where a lot of. Um, yeah, a lot of my reading, a lot of my supervision, a lot of my mentorship has been in that [00:02:00] world. So yeah. It’s, it’s an honor to get to hang out. Yeah. I, you know, right before we started recording, I just kinda threw out the idea. I’m like, you know, it would be interesting to discuss, cause I have some thoughts front of mind, but I’d love to get both of your views on it is, is just the dynamic of insecurity as it relates to trauma.

And, um, you know, so I’m on social media. I, I make a lot of like Instagram and Tik TOK videos. I have a popular podcast. And so I’m kind of like almost in this like pop psychology field, even though maybe I spend most of my time reading. I don’t know. The academic journals and the literature on different interventions.

So it’s confusing. Cause people are like, well, what psychology books would you recommend? And I’m like, you wouldn’t like any of this stuff, I’m reading it. Like, I don’t know. All the stuff I’ve read is like out a way in the weeds. And um, but,

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This fantastic podcast is brought to you by one of your fellow listeners! Sarah joins us because she sent in a question about Compassion Fatigue and Motivational Interviewing. We dive deep into answering this question for her and all of you!

We discuss:

Where Compassion Fatigue comes fromBeing “other” centeredAccurate EmpathyHealthy BoundariesSympathy, Empathy and Compassion-what’s the differenceand much more!

Want a full Transcript? See below!

Tami Calais: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Communication Solution podcast. Here at IFIOC, we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy.

Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Hello everyone. Welcome to another podcast with the IFIOC team and we have a guest today. Sarah Cameron, if I'm saying it correctly, oh gosh, I thought when I, I thought that was what it would be, but then when I read it up top, I was like, I'm going to try it. Anyhow. Last year you spent in Spain, John.

Literally. He has Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us here today. Um, [00:01:00] really be curious what you have to bring to the table because you, I know you have at least one question, but you've been sending questions, uh, over time to Casey since you kind of came across us. And so we thought we'd have the on to, uh, just geek out with us on Motivational Interviewing and you recently have, um, uh, become a national certified health and wellness coach, which has.

Motivational Interviewing I, sounds like as a, as a backdrop in there quite a bit. So you've been even more immersed in it. So it's interesting to hear that perspective too, if you want to bring that in, um, whatever you would like to explore, it is completely, your field to do so with Casey and I.

So with that in mind, Sarah, what, would you like to say, what are you curious about and what would you like to explore?

Sarah Cameron: Well, first off, thank you so much for having me. I have become quite the Motivational Interviewing geek, and I look up to you all very highly. So, uh, this is like meeting with celebrities to me. Um, so I'm very [00:02:00] excited.

Um, well, I come to you with questions that kind of come from a different webinar that I was watching actually two different webinars. And they had someone on who was talking about Motivational Interviewing, um, and they were talking about, Motivational Interviewing in the health coaching world? And someone brought up compassion, fatigue, And it really got me thinking, I wonder where compassion, fatigue actually fits in to Motivational Iinterviewing, um, and I kind of wondered if you're truly, honoring autonomy and if you're truly empathizing, how does compassion fatigue build?

So that's kind of my first question.

Casey Jackson: Well, there's at least an hour and a half conversation. That's brilliant. [00:03:00] I just, This is why Sarah. I love when, you know, when you connect with me on email and we've chatted before I'm already have a, a hundred different thoughts going through my brain and partly is off of kind of a new web and looking at empathy as well too.

The first thing I always say is that there's so many good, smart, Motivational Interviewing trainers out there and, you know, and all of us have kind of our own take on. And some of the, some of the kind of similar takes in different takes on things. One of the things that I had to a chance to talk to bill Miller about, I actually had a, um, I always say this, this is a social worker.

I was so excited when he and Steven Rolnick were writing about compassion. And as a trainer, I'm going, why the heck are you writing about compassion? Like, it is hard enough for me to get people to really understand accurate empathy. And now we have metrics around that.

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Join us as we really plunge into the topic of Empathy! Guest Jonathan B. Singer joins us sharing his expertise in social work and how empathy is best utilized in the field. We also dive into the types of empathy, when to use, or NOT use empathy and even share some tips at the end!

In this podcast we discuss:

EmpathySocial WorkWhen to use or not use empathyTypes of empathyTips

About our guest Jonathan: Jonathan B. Singer, Ph.D., LCSW is associate professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago, founder and host of the award-winning Social Work Podcast, past-president of the American Association of Suicidology and coauthor of the 2015 Routledge text, Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention.

Want a transcript? Read below!

Tami Calais: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast. Here at IFIOC we love to talk communication. We love to talk Motivational Interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line.

John Gilbert and I'm Tammy. Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: All right. Hello everyone. Welcome back to another podcast with the IFIOC team and we have a very special guest today. Jonathan B singer that through a participant suggestion. Tammy reached out to, and Jonathan graciously agreed to do this, who has an amazing podcast, highly suggests listening to it.

Lots of incredible information that I hope to dive into and ask about today. And so, Jonathan you are an LCSW so, Casey as well, so licensed in social work. And [00:01:00] you're an associate professor of social work at Loyola university Chicago. So that's pretty, pretty big as far as I understand, pretty high up, founder and host of the award-winning social work podcast.

So if you're looking to hear some. Something about social work, social work podcast. Look that up straightforward. And it's a great podcast. You're the past president of the American association of suicide-ology and co-author of the 2015 rutlidge text, which you can expand on that. Someone like me doesn't know what that is.

And your, Dealing with suicide in schools, a practitioner's guide to multilevel prevention. So I'm sure that's had a big impact in the world. Assessment, intervention, and postvention. So you've done a lot in the social work field and we're just really happy to have you. So thank you so much for agreeing to do this and just add your, your thought on empathy today as the main focus of what you've learned and all the people you've interviewed.

That's the focus as I understand it for today, but before we dive in. Tammy. Casey, do you everything to [00:02:00] add before we ask Jonathan and get going?

Casey Jackson: I just want, I just wanna hear Jonathan respond to that intro. (laughing) that, that for me, I'm just waiting to hear...

Jonathan B. Singer: Thanks for that intro! . You know, the thing about all of those things is that, you know, I, I started out you know, after my MSW program, like everybody, I was looking for a job and like lots of folks, I found a job in community mental health and on the crisis unit.

And I started doing outpatient mobile crisis response with suicide kids. And I quickly realized that doing suicide risk assessment was, fully consistent with everything I learned in social work. Right. And speaking of empathy, right? You have these kids and their families that are going through really, really intense times.

And one of the most powerful things that you can do when you're working with somebody that's in that kind of crisis, is to let them know that you get where they are, right. That you, [00:03:00] want to hear their story and that when they tell you their story, you don't say something Insulting like, oh yeah, man, I've been there too.

Right.

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Join us for this amazing 2 part podcast!

This is a 2 part podcast, if you have not experienced the 1st part, please do!

We have guest Kurtis Robinson on to discuss:

Motivational Interviewing and changeSystemic changeSystems of abuseSocial justiceEmpowerment

This podcast is deeply riveting and full of great, authentic and real conversations! Join us for part 1 and 2!

About Kurtis:

Kurtis S. Robinson is the current Spokane NAACP 1st Vice President and the Political Action Chair For NAACP AOWSAC, He serves as a Smart Justice Spokane Executive Committee member, Better Health Together Board Member, and on the board for Just Lead Washington. He was a Wildland Fire Fighter for over 11 years and has served with WA DNR and Spokane

County Fire District 10. Mr. Robinson is a Certified Peer Support, Recovery Coach, Veterans Recovery Coach and Reentry Specialist. He Identifies as a Formally Incarcerated BIPOC male with over 16 years concurrent abstinence from drugs and alcohol and is the first openly Justice Involved individual to serve as a Governor appointed Commissioner to the Criminal Justice Training Commission for Washington State.

Transcript below!

Hello, and welcome to the Communication Solution podcast. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy. Here at IFIOC. We love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

If you haven't already checked out part one of this podcast, make sure to listen to that first. Welcome to the conversation.

John Gilbert: Hello. Hello. Again, we have a super special guest today and not that other guests aren't special, but we just really love this individual that we have today. His name is Kurtis Robinson and welcome.

And we will be diving in, into possibly a lot of different areas today, as we were just talking about, um, Casey was helping us put up some [00:01:00] guard rails, but we are open to going into lots of places. Lots of possibilities with you today.

Casey Jackson: I I've got, I've got Kurtis. I got to jump in here for a second because there's something that got really clarified for me as you were talking as well. And again, this is from, you know, uh, uh, privileged, Caucasian male perspective. So I know that there's aspects of ignorance to it. What I, the thing that I'm am so aware of in your presence in the way that you show up that I know. Resonates for me wanting to learn more.

And it's some of the core constructs in Motivational Interviewing that I just get obsessed with. And you brought up is equipoise. There is nothing that you do that generates one ounce of defense in me and everything you say is profoundly provocative. And to me, that is that's the level of mastery of Motivational Interviewing that I, you know, when people want to get good or better or proficient or exceptional or mastery of [00:02:00] motivational interviewing.

Most of the time we'll get into kind of Socratic method or we'll get into, um, how can you be provocative and not have, um, and you have mastered in your presence and the work you've done, whatever work you've done. And I don't know the work you've done for yourself. You have mastered it in a way that nearly everything that comes out of your mouth when you're in front of a group is provocative and not one single thing is confrontive.

Like it is it's disarming. It is thought provoking. I just had this, my brain always works in pictures. It's like this invitation into this cave of crystals that is incredibly treacherous. Um, so it's like, well, God, of course, I want to go into, look at all these, these crystals inside of here, and you can do damage to yourself and others.

If you're not paying attention. Well, I can't stand at the cave entrance and go, I don't want to come in. Kurtis just stands there and says, Hey,

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Join us for this amazing 2 part podcast!

We have guest Kurtis Robinson on to discuss:

Motivational Interviewing and changeSystemic changeSystems of abuse Social justice

This podcast is deeply riveting and full of great, authentic and real conversations! Join us for part 1 and 2!

About Kurtis:

Want a Transcript? See below!

Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast . Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy. Here at IFIOC we love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing and we love talking about improving outcomes for. Organizations and the communities that they serve.

Welcome to the conversation you are listening to a two-part podcast. Hello hello. Again, we have a super special guest today and not that other guests aren't special, but we just really love this individual that we have today. His name is Kurtis Robinson and welcome Kurt.

(clapping) And we will be diving in, into possibly a lot of different areas today, as we were just talking about Casey was helping us put up some guard rails, but we are open to going into [00:01:00] lots of places, lots of possibilities with you today. And I know that it might be helpful to just start for us to be oriented Kurt ..

John: What's your background? Where do you come from? You can, you know, talk about as much or as little as you want, but just your background and how Motivational Interviewing has come to fit into that. And just how you have come to be into what you do and what it is that you do. And some, some background would just be really helpful, whatever you feel you you'd like to share.

Kurtis: Okay, well, good morning, everyone. Great to see you all again, and great to see the great to be in the virtual space that we're in right now. So greetings to everyone that's checking this out today. You know, when, when you talk about keeping the car rails up, I, you know, just my story in itself is just you know, a whole thing.

Tami: I know nothing, no nothing.

Kurtis: So I I saw, well, first off, let me self identify. So Kurtis Robinson identify his [00:02:00] Bipoc, he him, his as so black indigenous person of color with male pronouns. And. Currently, I mean, the, the, the short thing is, is I'm. I have dedicated my life to being a cultural change agent.

Right.

Tami: I love that... A cultural change agent. I love that.

Kurtis: That just came out this morning, but you know what I mean? But, you know, and, and it really is. It's about, you know, really taking a very serious look at where our human family is at, where our American system is at and doing everything I can to dedicate my, my current human experience to.

Shifting that to where every part of my consciousness and every part of my conscience tells me it needs to be. And just so you know, I have a training pillar right here for my two hour limit. A brother was telling me the other day he was saying, [00:03:00] yeah, that's your dog said? Yeah, that's right. Curtis "tell them".

So I come from a very traumatic human experience as an individual. And I've done a lot of different things in life as far as work. So just so you know,

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This is a 2 part podcast, if you have not experienced the 1st part, please do!

Wow this podcast is full of great insight and conversation as we have guest Jole Monroe on to discuss Juvenile systems and behavior change! You don’t want to miss this 2 part podcast!

We discuss so many great things including:

Values and Behavior changeChanging the Juvenile Systems industry approach to changeEmpathyMotivational InterviewingEmpowermentHow Juvenile systems have changed over the years

Great that you mentioned that Casey about hitting them a harder doesn’t have as much of an impact. It’s not as effective. I was in a training a couple of weeks ago and what they were talking about was [00:01:00] how. There are better outcomes when you’re consistent. So the amount of 30 days versus a couple of days, or, you know, maybe our, our staff are creative.

They have them write papers. They have them watch videos. They have a. You know working on school projects as part of a sanction, instead of just locking kids up. If we have a consistent response to the behaviors that are negatively impacting the youth that has better outcomes than just throwing the hammer out of them every time.

And then it aligns with what the intention of, of. Juvenile rehabilitation. I mean, that’s, that’s what’s so I, I remember I talked about this before, when I was training doc. You know, I I’m literally out at one of the, one of the facilities. I remember making the comment, you all get to choose. Do you want to be department of corrections or do you want to be the department of punishment?[00:02:00]

If you want to be department of punishment, then change your. And it’s the same thing with juvenile real rehabilitation. I mean, it really is focused on rehabilitate. How do we really, the number we look at is reducing recidivism, but we looking at is, which is what these kids to just be go to school, being a normal family, you know, the goods and bads, you know, function, dysfunction and just don’t hurt other people or hurt yourself, you know?

And if we can help that happen a little bit more, I mean, that’s, that’s what rehabilitation should be is that they’re back on track. And, and not as many incidences of where they’re, you know, kind of crossing lines into interfering in other people’s lives in a negative way. So it just that, and now what you’re listening to with even the probation counselor perspective is that’s really what their focus is so much on when you’re hearing about the bus passes and school projects and different ways of looking at sanctions.

It’s just an integrative way of thinking. Yeah, Julie too, with the mention of consistency. It’s so interesting how transcendent that can be, but you’re talking to some degree, I’m [00:03:00] interpreting that you’re alluding to this change in culture that’s happening and being more consistent of the response to what happens.

And so that’s, it sounds like that’s a really, really important shift to the counselor. Like you were talking about Casey from the officer name and that that will create a different culture. And a different organizational system of, you know, who you hire, who you onboard, and then who’s being effective as well with their skillset.

And I really want to just highlight and affirm what you embodied earlier was such a wonderfully in my spirited approach of talking with the parent. And I’m curious to know we don’t have a lot more time, but how you. Also approach these conversations with the youth that might feel like they’re, they have to do things or they’re being forced to do certain things or that they don’t have choices.

And just how you navigate that because you, you obviously, with the parent really came at it from a, strength-based seeing the positive intent behind them, even calling and talking with you and [00:04:00] having empathy for even up to an hour, which is so hard for. Administrators to see the value in for a variety of reasons,

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Wow this podcast is full of great insight and conversation as we have guest Jole Monroe on to discuss Juvenile systems and behavior change! You don’t want to miss this 2 part podcast!

We discuss so many great things including:

Values and Behavior changeChanging the Juvenile Systems industry approach to changeEmpathyMotivational InterviewingEmpowermentHow Juvenile systems have changed over the years

Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast here at IFIOC. We love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy.

Welcome to the conversation. You are listening to a two-part podcast. Hello everyone. And welcome back to the communication solution. We have our usual team of the IFIOC team and a very special. Today, we have a special guest, Jole Monroe.. And we will just be having a conversation here withJole, about all sorts of different things that we can dive into related to being a probation, counselor, and what that means.

And how would you use MI in a compliance. [00:01:00] Possibly perceived environment and all sorts of different angles of this. But before we do, I know Casey, you had some particular questions or things to maybe introduce us about or introduce Jole about. So if you wouldn't mind kind of starting with.

Sure. Well, Jole and I have known each other personally, professionally for years. And I've watched Jole kind of move through the, through the juvenile system not from a child, but from just ongoing connections that I've had with different juvenile probation. You know, systems around the country.

But probably the most, because I live in Spokane as well, just such a connection and partnership, strong partnership with Spokane juvenile, and you know, where there was originally kind of some training at Motivational Interviewing and they wouldn't hear about it for years. And then like a couple other trainings and then probably within the last 18 months to two years, Just it's been more of an ongoing relationship, even on a statewide level at the JRA level that they've asked us to do trainings for all the, the [00:02:00] PCs around the state as well.

Just looking at a fidelity based integration and, and Jolie has really spearheaded that, and Spokane just always has a finger in theMotivational Interviewing side of things just going, how do we keep incorporating that? And how do we make it real? The, the thing that I want to tee up with with Jole as well too, and I think people will be interested in.

Is because from a supervisory level and an expectation on performance, what I know in the world that, that she works within is that they're just legislatively. They're just taking away. So many of the compliance tools, you know, always considered more of the hammers for compliance to keep juveniles, following conditions of probation, which are mandated.

Definitely, definitely accountability, Casey, like. Yeah, well, that's, that's what gets handed down to them to the, to the PC or the you know, the PC is that it's the juveniles a broken. And there's accountability for [00:03:00] that. So it's beyond accountability. There is like, it's not that yeah. You need to clean your room.

It's like, there's a whole different level of legal accountability. And historically there's always been able to kind of rattle this, you know, kind of rattled the sheath of you know, you, you know, if you don't do this, you're going to go to detention or I'm going to put you in front of the judge. And so there's always those kinds of threats that have had some.

At least it felt like there was some motor come of accountability that, that probation counselors could use. And more and more of those compliance methods have been taken away. Those tools have been taken away. And,

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This jam packed podcast is full of great stuff!

Have you heard of the Righting Reflex? The righting reflex in communication is a concept IFIOC teaches in our Introduction to Motivational Interviewing classes, as it's our natural instinct to keep ourselves in balance or with a compassionate heart, help others stay in balance. (We dive deeper into the Righting reflex in the podcast).

The righting reflex in communication is a tool that can help your conversations be more effective and efficient when discussing change or reducing resistance.

We cover so many great things including:

The history of the Righting ReflexThe Righting Reflex comes from a desire to helpCuriosity vs JudgementUnderstanding our own biasAnd so much more!

Check out the Transcript! Righting Reflex and Relationships

00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast today. We've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy here atIFIOC. We love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.

Welcome to the conversation today. And we'll be addressing the righting reflex and communication, particularly in relationships and maybe that's friendships. Maybe that's romantic relationships. We can talk about this a little bit more, but in relation to. Uh, seems to be a little more personal than professional is what I'm gathering from this.

So, uh, for anyone that would like to start us off, what are your initial thoughts? We could define our terms. Casey, you had looked at some stuff to see if you knew the history of this or how it was created. We could start there, or I [00:01:00] don't know if there's another place you want. I'd be curious to start with more of the history of how, where did this come from?

We talk about it in IFIOCs trainings, but yeah, I, you know, one of the things that, the vast majority of things, I just, as a trainer, or just as somebody whose knowledge, I just want to know what I'm talking about. So it's something I looked up quite a while ago and I think. When I was first learning, am I in training?

You know, getting trained on Motivational Interviewing and training. And my, I just thought Righting Reflex was something that was an Motivational Interviewing term. Um, and, but then when I was looking about teaching that I wanted to look up some pictures and that which led me down a whole rabbit hole and, and it, it is a reflex. It is a, it's a human reflex.

Um, the righting reflex, it is a combination of things with our sensory input that helps us to stand up straight, um, to not fall over. Yeah. So there is a, how do we, how do we stay centered? And so between our, our vision between our hearing, between [00:02:00] our vestibular system, there's multiple systems that help us.

Literally, we're such an awkward tall thing that, that we don't fall over as we're putting one foot in front of the other has to do with this whole complex thing about writing reflex it, the one that, and that wasn't even where I originally started when I was doing kind of my, I want to understand what this means.

It was the most popular things that came up were around cats. Um, That a cat will physiologically write itself in the air. If it gets tossed up in the air or it falls out of a tree, that little body and all the muscles in it will wiggle every way it can to make sure that it lands on all fours. Um, and so literally it will write itself in the air and land on its feet.

Um, so that's, that's the source of it. And so when you think about that in relationship with motivational interviewing, it's when we start to fall out of our own orientation, It's how do we get back oriented to where our center is? Um, so it's usually when something is triggering us and the way we teach it [00:03:00] at IFIOC, is that when something is triggering your values,

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What an honor it was to have guest John Whitson-Russell on our Podcast! John is from the UK and knows Casey and John from training. He loves Motivational Interviewing and just started a new role within his company using his expert skills.

In this podcast we discuss:

LeadershipConfidenceCompetenceMotivational InterviewingAnd much more!

You don't want to miss out!

Hello, and welcome to the communications solution podcast here at IFI IOC. We love to talk communication. We love to talk motivational interviewing, and we love talking about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.. Today, we've got Casey Jackson on the line, John Gilbert, and I'm Tammy.

Welcome to the conversation. We have John Whitson Russell today with us who is?

Yes, we will. Yes all the way from across the pond. So we want to hear more about John as a fellow MINTEE here, and I'm a very funny person and all sorts of things to explore with you today. So I know you have some ideas of what to get into and Casey, you have some questions for him, so, [00:01:00] uh, I'll let you guys get into it, but I just wanted to say, thank you, John, for being here.

And, uh, we got a lot to dig into. So, uh, if you wouldn't mind, Casey or John, start us off with. Uh, you would like to get into,

well, I'm just going to start off with just welcoming John, Harry, just, uh, such, uh, we haven't spent tons of time together, but the time we've spent together, it just feels like a dear friend to me. Um, he hosted me when I was over, uh, in the UK, um, doing training on the Mica after I developed a MICA (Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment). John and a couple other mentees from, um, from Ireland and Scotland and England had reached out part of the UK mentees and said, Hey, tell us about this Mica thing.

And so we did kind of a Skype conversation around it and they're like, Hey, do you want to come over here? Do a training. And so I did a little tour over there and [00:02:00] John was my, uh, shepherd, uh, to keep me from wandering off and getting lost in the English countryside. So, and of course we had to imbibe and a couple of, uh, Uh, I had to understand what really pub life was like.

So, uh, and he was so, so accommodating. That's all I can say is he was very accommodating to show me what pub life was like and scotch eggs, which I'd had before once. And so, uh, I went off my vegetarian bent and, uh, dove in face first into a handful of. It was worth every single bite. I've got to say that as well, too.

So, so just, I, I just want people to know what I think there's, we all get obsessed with motivational interviewing. I, you know, we're all kind of what, what brought you into the, into motivational interviewing? I mean, to give people a bit about your background, but what, what got you into, into motivational.

Okay, so thank you. And, uh, I want to thank you, John and Casey and [00:03:00] Tammy for such a really nice introduction. And for welcoming me to your podcast, I'm so grateful to be here and in amongst amazing company. And, uh, just to echo what you said, you know, when you came over to, um, you know, the UK to deliver your micro training, I really, not only did I enjoy the training by enjoyed, uh, not only the company, but I enjoyed being here.

It's like a combination of like a taxi driver, a personal chef, a personal, like we went through a lot together and you know, it, it, it was fun. And the shared love of, of EMI and everything. And, you know, I I'm, I feel very lucky. I came into M I early on in, um, in my career and I started learning about Motivational Interviewing whilst I was at university, uh, training to be a, so I did.

Uh, a bachelor's in sports and exercise science and psychology. And really my goal at the time was to be the best personal trainer I could possibly be to [00:04:00] gain some knowledge. And I, I went into the course.

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Let's chat! Jordan joins us from the healthcare industry to chat with the MI guys about all things Motivational Interviewing!

Listen up as we discuss:

Motivational Interviewing in a compliance worldParenting and MIEmpathy and how it can change the world

And much more!

Want a transcript?

podcast-with-JordanDownload

Want to be a part of the conversation?

Want to be a part of our podcast? Ask your questions, or provide topic suggestions to us by e-mailing casey@ifioc.com. Thanks for listening to the Communication Solution.

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Let's talk Affirmations in Motivational Interviewing!

You don't want to miss this one! In this podcast we explore affirmations in Motivational Interviewing.

Listen up as we discuss:

The different type of AffirmationsReflections vs. AffirmationsPraise vs. Affirmations

and much more!

Want a Transcript?

Affirmation-transcriptDownload

All right. Hello everyone. And welcome to the communication solution with us here, the MIguys, and we are here to help you empower the individuals, organizations, and communities that you serve as always. And to do that today, we have. That's some of you might know about cold affirmations and we're going to dig into affirmations today from a variety of angles and for a variety of reasons.

So that's, as far as I understand, but anything else, Tammy, for adding. Well, before we get started, I wanted to make sure everyone knows who's on the line here. We've got John Gilbert who is hosting this party today. We've got Casey Jackson and I'm leading the party today. And I have Tami Calais who was also also participating.

But yes, today we are talking about affirmations in Motivational Interviewing. So affirmations are, it's kind of a big topic. I know we talk about it in our trainings but I [00:01:00] wanted to dive a little bit deeper into affirmations and maybe like, you know, where did they first come from? You know, what's the difference between affirmation and praise?

I think that's a common one that's gets kind of mixed up, but we can go also a lot of different directions too. So. Does anyone have a place that we want to start this conversation? Yeah. Tammy, just from what you said, you know, even from the part, I think it's great for us to look at the difference between a affirmations and praise.

I think there's parts that we can get lost in semantics. And I think there's parts where it is very helpful to kind of split things out. So we are using what we're talking about accurately and effectively, you know, the way we traditionally train it at IFIOC. The difference fundamentally between, do you want compliance or do you want behavior change?

And even though they sound nice, praise is nice. It's not mean it's not, it's not [00:02:00] with a whip and a chair that you're praising people. It's, there's nice and there's reinforcement to it. But one of the things that we look at is the praise kind of agreeing, approving of people, praising them. It tends to be that we're reinforcing that their behavior is something that we liked.

Or that somebody else needs to see or the system wants them to do. And we tend to praise people for that. It doesn't mean we couldn't praise them for doing what they want to do, but praise really is that. I'm grant, I'm granting you. I'm approving I'm I'm I'm my status gives more credence to your status.

You know that I can see it, that I'm witnessing it and I'm going to praise you for that. And then I'm going to keep saying it's not bad. It's not bad. It's structurally different in the way the brain processes that then the way an affirmation does, the reason why we look so much at affirmations is because the whole.

In motivational interviewing is we're trying to facilitate and foster longer-term sustained behavior change. So when you get into [00:03:00] praising people, you can reinforce a pattern. Where, when they feel praise from you that they want to seek that from you more often, that approval are they, do you see that I'm good at doing a good job and you know, which we see even, even with, you know, kids on the dance, little kids on a dance floor, a little kids in a softball game or something like that.

It's like as soon as they do something, the first thing they do is look in the stands to make sure mom dad's side and good job, good job. And, and, and again, that's not bad. It reinforces behavior. But does it create longterm sustained change? And affirmation is how do you build that structure from within,

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What is an Evidence Based Practice?

You don't want to miss this one! In this podcast we explore what exactly IS an Evidence Based Practice. We of course also discuss Motivational Interviewing as an Evidence Based practice.

Listen up as we discuss:

Grandma's Recipe for MI or any Evidence Based practiceGetting the best outcomesData behind Evidence Based practicesSoft skills vs. Hard skillsPractice and Feedback

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Podcast-evidence-based-practiceDownload

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What is Commitment talk?

You don't want to miss this one! This question comes from understanding what commitment talk sounds like and why it's important in the Motivational Interviewing process.

We discuss:

Change talk vs. Commitment talkConverting Change talk to commitment talkDifferent types of Communication methods

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Can I use "We" instead of "I"?

You don't want to miss this one! This real life question came up in one of our trainings! As we were discussing trying to take "I" out of our language when having a Motivational Interviewing based conversation, someone in the healthcare field wondered if they could use "we" instead of "I". For example: "We know in the healthcare field that smoking is bad for you." Rather than, "I know that smoking is bad for you."

Listen up as we discuss:

Discord or resistancePartnership in Motivational InterviewingStages of changeAmbivalenceSharing information

Want to be a part of the conversation?

Comment below what you thought of the podcastSubmit a question and JOIN us on the podcast! E-mail casey@ifioc.comShare our podcast on your social media channels using #themiguys

Would you like a Transcript of this podcast? Click here!

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Motivational Interviewing and School Administration.

You don't want to miss this one!

We discuss:

EmpathyCounseling vs. 3-5 minute conversationsTraumaReflective listening And so much more!

Want to be a part of the conversation?

Comment below what you thought of the podcastSubmit a question and JOIN us on the podcast! E-mail casey@ifioc.comShare our podcast on your social media channels using #themiguys

Want a transcript of this podcast? Click here!

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How do you reduce resistance in text/email using Motivational Interviewing?

Empathy/compassionTypes of talkCatchphrases for e-mailYou statements

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Trauma Informed Practice and Motivational Interviewing

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Redirect using "MI"

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! You don’t want to miss this one!!

In this podcast we discuss:

Focus MountainMotivational InterviewingChange talkAnd much more!

Want to be a part of the conversation?

Comment below what you thought of the podcastSubmit a question and JOIN us on the podcast! E-mail casey@ifioc.comShare our podcast on your social media channels using #themiguys

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How to find Core Operating Values

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Motivational Interviewing & Manipulation-part 2.

This critical conversation dives into Motivational Interviewing and how some people have viewed it as manipulation. We discuss how training can impact that viewpoint and the importance of training Motivational Interviewing as an evidence based practice, to fidelity.

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Q&A Uninformed resistance

Where should I start when working with someone who is ego based and has uninformed resistance?

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! This shorter podcast is discussing one of YOUR questions, trying to navigate uninformed resistance. You don’t want to miss this one!

Want to be a part of our podcast? Ask your questions, or provide topic suggestions to us by e-mailing casey@ifioc.com

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Can you use Motivational Interviewing to “get” people to do something?

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! This shorter podcast is discussing can you use Motivational Interviewing to “get” people to do something? We dive into the intention of Motivational Interviewing and the concept of “Equipoise”. You don’t want to miss this one!

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Motivational Interviewing & Manipulation-part 1.

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What to do when your client says, "no"

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! This shorter podcast is discussing what to do (from a Motivational Interviewing lens) when your client says, "no" when you ask if you can share ideas with them.

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How do we navigate negativity using Motivational Interviewing?

Join us as we dive into this great question from one of YOU our listeners, on how to navigate working with someone being negative and whether we can tell them they are being negative. This podcast is full of great stuff you won't want to miss out!

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My client won't talk, what should I do?

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! This shorter podcast is discussing what to do (from a Motivational Interviewing lens) when your client won't talk.

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Ambivalence Part 2

The IFIOC team dives deep into Ambivalence. A topic we often discuss during our trainings on Motivational Interviewing and effective communication. This is part 2 of this podcast, to listen to part 1 click HERE.

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Motivational Interviewing & Law Enforcement

Listen in as we answer this question from one of you! This shorter podcast is discussing how IFIOC got started with working with Law Enforcement as well as discussing the incredible outcomes that transpired from the training.

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Ambivalence

The IFIOC team dives deep into Ambivalence. A topic we often discuss during our trainings on Motivational Interviewing and effective communication.

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Leadership and Motivational Interviewing Dive deep into the topic of Leadership with the IFIOC team as we explore how beneficial Motivational Interviewing is as a leader and for organizations.

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How as a leader can I help my team improve their outcomes? This question is from one of our members! They are curious how Motivational Interviewing can help improve their teams outcomes.

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Creating a Plan Some people learning Motivational Interviewing get stuck in empathy, and don't create a plan to move forward. This podcast is answering the question, "How do you create a plan in Motivational Interviewing". So check out this shorter 10-20 minute podcast!

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The why's and ways to sharing information in an empowering way part 2! This is a part 2 of a podcast (first one released November 2020) of a deep dive into how to share information in a helpful way. Based of of Motivational Interviewing, we discuss the importance of partnering with people to share valuable insights and ideas-at the right stage of change and in a way that helps to create empowerment.

Want more?

Check out our skill building worksheets on Sharing information!

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Sharing Information in an empowering way. This AMAZING podcast goes over how you can share information in Motivational Interviewing. As most of you know if you’ve taken one of our courses, sharing information can create resistance, so this podcast is a deep dive into how to best share information!

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Can you use Motivational Interviewing with kids? Check out this short podcast asking the question-can you use Motivational Interviewing with kids? Have a question you'd like The Communication Solution to answer via our podcast? Send to tami.calais@ifioc.com

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This podcast goes in depth over the types of talk that you often hear in conversations allowing a practitioner to focus more on the language heard, rather than the content of the conversation.

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Can Performance Evaluations be done in an Motivational Interviewing Adherent way? Check out this short podcast with a question from one of YOU!

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Check out this FANTASTIC podcast about the POWER of reflective listening. A guide to understanding what it is and how effective of a tool it can be! If you have any questions or topic suggestions please e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com

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What to do if you make a plan with someone and they don't follow through! Check out this short podcast and question from one of YOU! What to do when you make a plan with someone and they don't follow through?

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Narcicisst. Can Motivational Interviewing be used with a Narcisisst? Check out this short podcast which question came from one of YOU!

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Stages of Change Forbidden in MI. This thought provoking podcast is about whether including the stages of change in learning the process of Motivational Interviewing is a relevant process. We discuss the stages of change, as well as the typical learning process of Motivational Interviewing.

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Motivational Interviewing and Cultural Differences. This in depth podcast is a fantastic listen as we discuss Motivational Interviewing and cultural differences.

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OT situation. Check out this podcast that is a question from one of YOU! How can we get someone to stop talking or have more efficient and productive conversations without going down a rabbit hole?

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This Podcast is a two part series on Equipoise and the Righting Reflex. Did you know that in communication we have a reflex that naturally happens? Listen to this podcast to learn more about that reflex that in Motivational Interviewing we learn to suppress, as well as learn about equipoise-the ability to be neutral or unbiased.

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Check out this podcast on Covid-19 and a question from one of you! About how do we discuss Covid 19 with those that might not believe in it.

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Equipoise and the Righting Reflex

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Depression

This short podcast answers one of YOUR questions-Can Motivational Interviewing be helpful for those with depression?

If you have any questions or topic suggestions please e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com

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Focus Mountain

This podcast is about a way that IFIOC teaches Motivational Interviewing to include values as an option in addition to a target behavior. We learn about how this process evolved and how it's helpful when using Motivational Interviewing.

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Check out this short Podcast from a question from one of YOU!

How to guide a conversation when it's emotional?

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Resistance & Discord

Have you heard of Discord? Most probably know what Resistance is, but why is discord sometimes used in our trainings and in Motivational Interviewing?

Check out this Podcast on it!

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I thought MI wasn't relationship based?

This podcast is a follow up to another IFIOC podcast about IFIOC teaching Relationship based classes.

If you have any questions or topic suggestions please e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com

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Values & Behavior Change

This is a FANTASTIC podcast about Motivational Interviewing, Values and behavior change.

Listen up if you want to understand how to create sustained behavior change and the why behind behavior change.

Send questions or topic suggestions to tami@calais@ifioc.com

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If Motivational Interviewing is used professionally, why teach relationship based classes?

Join us for this question from one of YOU discussing how MI can be used both professionally and personally.

Please e-mail any questions, topic suggestions to tami.calais@ifioc.com

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What is Motivational Interviewing?

Join us in this 30ish minute podcast as we discuss what Motivational Interviewing is!

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Preventing Miscommunication

Question from the audience: How do you prevent miscommunication in conversations?

To submit questions e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com

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5 minutes after I’m dead.

Join Casey, John and Tami as we discuss one of Casey’s favorite questions to help someone go from being “stuck” to unstuck!

This riveting question, is all about helping people think about their legacy and how their decisions today can impact that legacy, check it out!

If you have any questions or topic suggestions, please e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com.

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Executive Functioning

What is it? Why do we want to know more about it? In this approximately 15 minute discussion Casey shares his insights on executive functioning and how it plays a pivotal role in empowering others to make decisions and use critical thinking skills.

This podcast is also a GREAT one for parents, because as parents we want to engage our kid's executive functioning capabilities-to help facilitate independent kids that know how to problem solve and critically think about things.

Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

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Checking in using MI? A question from one of YOU!

Rachel notes in her industry she is often "checking in" with folks and is curious how to do that in an MI adherent way.

To ask questions, make topic suggestions or comments e-mail tami.calais@ifioc.com

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Physics of Communication.

Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

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Join us for answering one of your questions! In this shorter 10+ minute podcast we answer the question, "Can you make suggestions in Motivational Interviewing?"

Subscribe to the Communication Solution today! And send us YOUR questions to answer! Send to tami.calais@ifioc.com

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Join us for this 30+ minute podcast as we discuss what the MICA is, and why it was created!

Discover some of the ways we can listen from a fidelity based brain to Motivational Interviewing.

Subscribe to the Communication Solution today! And send us any topics you want us to discuss! Send to tami.calais@ifioc.com

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Join us for another 10+ minute listener question! What is supporting Autonomy and Activation or SAA?

Casey answer this listener question about what supporting autonomy and activation is, and how to embody that. A great skill to add to any conversation, whether your using Motivational Interviewing to effect behavior change, or just listening and talking with a friend.

Subscribe today and send us YOUR questions to answer on the show! Send to: tami.calais@ifioc.com

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In real life, how do I help or respond when someone says to me, "I want to make a change, but down the road, not now." Where do I go from there to help them get to where they want to go? Clearly there seems to be some ambivalence.

Casey discuss's the answer to this listener question. So check it out and send any questions our way and we will answer them on the Communication Solution! Send to: tami.calais@ifioc.com

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What are the 5 intentions in the MICA (Motivational Interviewing Competency Assessment)?

Join us for this 30+ minute podcast on the 5 MI Intentions. Where the MICA focus's more on the intention or reasoning behind the communication and language. This is a riveting conversation that helps all of us be more mindful of our intentions when entering into conversations.

Subscribe today to the communication solution! Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

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The Institute for Individual and Organizational Change (IFIOC) teaches Motivational Interviewing in a unique way. We go beyond just teaching Motivational Interviewing, weaving in communication concepts and psychology concepts.

Join us for this short 10+ minute podcast on what the rule of 3 is, and how to use it!

This is a concept that is used within our teaching of Motivational Interviewing, but can be used in every day communication too, to help others know and recognize their own values.

Subscribe to The Communication Solution today! Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

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Mindful communication, what does that mean?

Join us as we explore mindful communication, recognizing and being aware of what comes out of our mouths, and how that effects communication. It becomes a mind shift when you recognize the power of communication and how it alters interactions with people.

Check out the podcast to learn more, and start becoming more mindful of your communication today!

Subscribe to The Communication Solution today! Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

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What impact do you think communication has on our world? How do you think the world would change if we all worked on our listening skills more? If we swallowed our judgement to step inside someone else's reality? If we slowed down to really BE with people, rather than zooming by, busy, busy, busy.

This podcast is all about how this evidence based communication method has changed our life and how we think it can help others. Whether your a parent trying to connect with your teenager, a boss trying to be a leader or a friend trying to help a friend, you will find tips all throughout this series to help you communicate more effectively.

Subscribe to The Communication Solution today! Contact: tami.calais@ifioc.com with any questions, topic suggestions or comments!

The Communication Solution: Recent Episodes

The IFIOC-Casey Jackson