0:21

Hi there, welcome to the Probate

0:21

Podcast my name is Sherri Lund.

0:24

I'm so glad you're here. Today, I'm going to be talking to you...

0:28

going to be talking with a change agent.

0:31

I don't know if Jim Herrington considers

0:31

himself a change agent or not, but in the

0:35

Houston area, he has had a profound impact

0:35

on our community and on the people here.

0:41

I'm excited to introduce

0:41

you to him in a little bit.

0:43

The Probate Podcast is here as part

0:43

of the company that I started a few

0:48

years ago, Willow Wood Solutions. I help families through the end of life

0:50

transition when they're deciding to put

0:54

someone in senior care, walking through

0:54

probate and dealing with property,

0:59

a lot of emotional, overwhelming

0:59

stuff comes up during that time.

1:02

and actually, I think part of this work

1:02

that I do is impacted because of my work

1:07

that I did with you and Tricia years ago. So kind of coming back into that.

1:12

So that's kind of neat. yeah, let me tell you

1:13

a little bit about Jim.

1:16

Jim's had more than 45 years of experience

1:16

as a pastor in nonprofit leadership.

1:22

For more than 20 years, he and

1:22

Tricia Taylor his business partner.

1:26

Have been helping individuals

1:26

and organizations in the U.

1:29

S. and Canada and beyond, right?

1:33

Right. I've been in some of your

1:33

classes and I think there were

1:35

people from Spain on the call. Yeah.

1:39

they offer three key services through

1:39

their business, the leaders journey,

1:43

they coach, they offer leadership

1:43

development, organizational consulting,

1:47

and they also have a podcast. In 2007, they founded Faith

1:49

Walking, which is a spiritual

1:52

formation ministry equipping people

1:52

congregations to live missionally.

1:58

Faith walking is an active ministry

1:58

in the US, Canada and Central America.

2:03

He speaks regularly in conferences

2:03

on the topics of spiritual formation,

2:06

leadership, family systems, missional

2:06

theology, and he lives in Houston with

2:11

his beautiful wife and best friend, Betty. They've been married over 46 years.

2:16

They have 5 children, 6 grandchildren.

2:18

It's closer to 50 years now, isn't it? Actually, it's 51 this past January.

2:22

Okay. Okay. So this is a little outdated.

2:25

Yeah. Yeah. I had to go. I had to go around a couple of different

2:26

sources to piece this together.

2:30

But Jim, thanks so much for being here.

2:33

Tell me about who you are as

2:33

a person, Jim outside of work.

2:38

Well, 1st, let me just say, thanks

2:38

for having me and for all the

2:40

kind things that you have said,

2:40

people talk about stuff like that.

2:44

And I look around to think, who are they talking about? But I'm really grateful for

2:46

the acknowledgement and for

2:48

the opportunity to be here. I probably, I mean, there's 2 ways

2:50

that I would answer that question.

2:54

1 is I'm a, A husband and a father

2:54

and a grandfather a pastor, an author.

2:59

I mean, the roles that I carry, I

2:59

would describe it in that kind of way.

3:03

I think the way that I would

3:03

describe myself is that I was

3:05

a guy, I was a little guy. I'm five feet, eight inches tall.

3:09

I weighed 119 pounds when I married Betty.

3:11

I had the Barney Fife body type and

3:11

I, and my dad was an All American

3:16

College football player, 6'2 240

3:16

pounds in the prime of his life.

3:20

And so there was this from the

3:20

very get go of my formation, the

3:27

sense of not measuring up of not

3:27

being masculine, like my dad was..

3:31

Not being good at the athletic

3:31

stuff like my dad was..

3:35

A really significant part of my journey

3:35

has been the journey of finding healing

3:39

for those wounds and the finding

3:39

of healing for those wounds, then

3:43

becoming an instrument in the hands

3:43

of God for helping other, particularly

3:47

men who have been wounded along the

3:47

way to find healing for themselves.

3:52

I think a third way that I would describe

3:52

myself is I am a real adventurous learner.

3:57

Like I can look back from my earliest

3:57

young adult years, To today, and there

4:02

are about 5 different turning points where

4:02

we weren't getting what we thought we

4:08

ought to be getting in terms of results. And rather than throwing up my hands

4:10

or working harder at what we were

4:13

already doing, I got real curious

4:13

about, so what does the fact that

4:16

we're not getting good results mean? And that curiosity opened up doors

4:18

that led to something that actually

4:23

changed the trajectory of my life. Faith walking that you mentioned

4:25

would be one of those things.

4:28

There was never a moment where I had any

4:28

sense that faith walking was something

4:31

that I was supposed to be doing. We were working with local congregations

4:33

through my work at Union Baptist

4:36

Association, and a vast majority of

4:36

the congregations were not getting

4:40

the results that they wanted. And ultimately, We came to the

4:41

conclusion that the reason they

4:45

weren't getting the results that they

4:45

wanted was because almost all the ways

4:49

that they had done church up until

4:49

that point in time had been formed

4:53

in a context that no longer existed.

4:57

1950s, homogenous world,

4:57

slow pace of change.

5:00

All of a sudden, all of that has changed. And so faith walking is a

5:02

spiritual formation process that

5:05

actually grew out of our saying,

5:05

so churches aren't doing this.

5:08

How do we do this? Yeah. It's a big, exciting, beautiful

5:09

conversation to have about you because.

5:14

you're not someone who just

5:14

says, this is how I did it.

5:17

Do it this way. Like, you encourage other people

5:18

to be curious in themselves

5:23

and find their own way. And there's probably some sense

5:24

that you're on this podcast because

5:28

you had the courage to follow that

5:28

description of being curious and

5:31

following, the leadership of God,

5:31

wherever that curiosity would take you.

5:36

Actually, Jim it wasn't curiosity for me

5:36

because I never wanted to have a podcast.

5:41

But I'm here because of the principle

5:41

that I learned from y'all through

5:45

faith walking and that's integrity. And to help the ones that feels

5:47

vulnerable and marginalized and all alone.

5:51

Out of the faith walking work where

5:51

there was a coaching component,

5:55

we just discovered that the people

5:55

who had a coach got much better

5:59

results than those who didn't. Trisha is a licensed counselor

6:01

in the state of Texas.

6:04

I had been doing this coaching

6:04

work for nearly 20 years.

6:07

In 2017, we decided we were going to take

6:07

the risk of starting a new company where

6:12

what we actually, what we thought all

6:12

we would do is, was coaching that out of

6:16

the faith walking mission, Houston, UBA,

6:16

all those communities that there would

6:20

be people who'd want us to be coaches. So we do that.

6:23

The second thing we do

6:23

leadership development.

6:25

There was a day where the world was

6:25

so stable that leaders could read

6:30

the maps that somebody else made,

6:30

but the pace of change that we're

6:33

living in today requires that leaders

6:33

have the capacity to make maps.

6:38

Rather than a choreographer,

6:38

you're a cartographer.

6:41

And even today in seminaries

6:41

and in graduate schools, they're

6:44

not teaching that so much.

6:46

And so over time, we began, we've

6:46

worked with hundreds of congregations

6:51

and some companies across the country

6:51

who are trying to figure out how

6:54

you lead in a pace of really rapid

6:54

change where the context is just

6:58

evolving and evolving and evolving. And then the 3rd thing we do is

7:00

organizational consulting at the

7:03

denominational level, both with

7:03

the Vineyard USA and with the

7:06

reform church in America with some,

7:06

with some Methodist districts and

7:10

conferences across the Southeast.

7:13

We help them ask and answer the question.

7:16

What is our context and then what are

7:16

the, what does it look like for us

7:20

to be on mission in this particular

7:20

context, which when we were in, when

7:24

I was in Montrose was 1 context. I'm in Southwest Houston.

7:27

Now that's another context. And the context you're

7:29

in matters a great deal.

7:31

And so helping them. Figure that out is the 3rd thing we do

7:32

individual coaching leadership development

7:37

and and organizational consulting.

7:40

And as you said, we do that

7:40

all over the country, all over

7:42

the all over North America. Yeah. And so can you explain missional living?

7:47

people have heard about living on

7:47

purpose driven life, things like that.

7:51

So talk about that and missional living.

7:54

And is it the same or is it different? One, one way that some people

7:55

will say it is that we used to

7:58

say that the church has a mission.

8:00

Today they say God has a

8:00

mission, and God has a church

8:03

that joins God on that mission. And so what does it look like

8:06

for you to in your workplace?

8:09

Where is where the broken places? Where is the hurt where the people

8:11

who are marginalized and cast out?

8:15

And what does it look like to

8:15

be in relationship with them?

8:18

The big difference is that becomes the

8:18

church, in that workplace, it becomes the

8:25

body of Christ, and that's just a whole

8:25

different way of thinking about what it

8:29

means to be a faithful follower of Christ. Yeah, demonstrating the church in your

8:31

workplace or in your neighborhood.

8:34

Exactly. So we're on the probate podcast.

8:38

Yeah. And not a lot of

8:38

leadership happening here.

8:41

One would think you usually, I mean,

8:41

people think about probate if they get

8:45

involved at all only, 30 some odd percent

8:45

of us have a will or a plan in place.

8:50

And most people would think that the

8:50

attorney would be the leadership in that

8:54

directing the ship or whatever, but I

8:54

think that there's leaders in every,

8:57

or an opportunity for a leader to rise

8:57

up, whether they're recognized or not,

9:01

every time there's a probate situation

9:01

and the, my podcast Jim has evolved.

9:06

I started out helping people with probate.

9:09

But then I had daughters calling me whose

9:09

mom was getting out of rehab and they

9:13

were like, how do I find help for her?

9:16

I don't know. I thought I could do this and I

9:17

can't and then people that are

9:20

going into hospice and they're

9:20

looking for resources for that.

9:23

And so now I'm also helping

9:23

people find places to go.

9:28

to have the assistance that their

9:28

loved 1 needs, whether it's in their

9:31

home, or whether it's assisted care. So what I think would be interesting

9:33

would be for us to talk about those

9:38

family members who are finding

9:38

themselves in a leadership position.

9:42

They didn't maybe ask to be here.

9:44

They didn't expect to be here. They may not even be the named executor.

9:49

Maybe the executor is

9:49

not doing a stand up job.

9:51

And so a leader needs to

9:51

rise up within the family.

9:55

I know you do a lot of work with

9:55

organizations and churches and

9:58

all of that, but you're also

9:58

really impactful when it comes

10:02

to the individual leader, right? Right.

10:04

Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about

10:04

maybe those reluctant leaders and

10:08

where they're finding themselves? Well, before I do, let me just

10:10

tell you that part of the reason

10:14

I was excited to do the podcast is

10:14

that I wish that I had known you.

10:18

I wish you had been doing

10:18

this a couple of years ago.

10:21

Betty had a cousin. Who uh, was kind of a reclusive

10:23

guy, one of five first cousins.

10:27

And he, he at 71 years of age

10:27

fell and hit his head and died

10:32

in his apartment by himself. They found him about a week later.

10:35

And when they found him when we found

10:35

him, we also found a will that made

10:40

Betty the executor of his estate.

10:42

We had no idea. Oh, my God..

10:44

We had no idea we had any

10:44

conversations with him about that.

10:48

And it was like what does this mean?

10:51

Who do we talk to? We know nothing. The service that you're providing is

10:53

invaluable because I can just imagine

10:58

that there are a ton of people out

10:58

there Who have never done any of this,

11:02

didn't know they were going to be

11:02

called on to do this, find themselves

11:05

in a place where, as you say, where

11:05

they have to step up in ways that

11:08

they didn't ask for and didn't expect.

11:11

So, Where were you 2 years ago? When I needed you?

11:14

Right here! Right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

11:18

I think the place that I would start and

11:18

trying to answer your question is that,

11:22

that every person has the capacity to

11:22

lead and in the world of power dynamics,

11:27

they talk about people having power

11:27

over me about me being under power.

11:31

They have to talk about having

11:31

power with and then they talk

11:34

about having power within. And so if you think about your

11:37

inner life, like a set of muscles.

11:41

Right? Like it, my, my external life is like

11:41

a set of muscles and I can lift a

11:45

certain amount of weight and I can

11:45

do a certain amount of manual labor

11:48

and I can, all of that stuff is true. And if I want that to be stronger,

11:50

then I know how to make that stronger.

11:54

I know how to, you know, go for walks. I know how to lift weights.

11:57

I know how to run. I know how to do all those things.

11:59

Well, I think about internal leadership

11:59

as you have internal muscles and whatever

12:05

level of like, whatever weights you

12:05

can live with your internal muscles.

12:09

You have the capacity to increase that.

12:12

And what most of us want is we

12:12

want to have a new challenge and

12:18

I need some stronger muscles. And let me get the stronger muscles

12:20

and then I'll meet that challenge.

12:24

Actually, I think the way the

12:24

internal muscles are built is

12:27

you take on that challenge. You take on the challenge and you begin

12:29

to realize, oh, this is like, some days it

12:33

feels like you've worked out at the gym. And the next day you're really

12:35

sore and you think, gosh, this

12:37

can't possibly be good for me. When actually, the pain that you're

12:39

experiencing is a reflection of your,

12:43

Of your progress, and so not just

12:43

with probate and all the things that

12:46

go with end of life stuff, but just

12:46

any challenge that we face in life.

12:51

When we internally make the

12:51

decision, I'm going to step into

12:54

this challenge, learn, grow, develop.

12:57

That's where those muscles get grown. Yeah.

13:00

And what do you do jim? When you are just overwhelmed, you

13:01

know, you come with that in the

13:04

executive part of your brain is gone. Yeah.

13:08

And you've got to come to grips

13:08

with finding your footing again.

13:12

Yeah, well, that's why I

13:12

collaborate and all of my life.

13:15

That's why I collaborate. I mean, the 1st thing I say about

13:17

that is that you get overwhelmed.

13:20

There's no shame in that. Right? I mean, that's just what

13:22

it means to be human. Anytime we human, right?

13:25

Anytime we face a new challenge that we've

13:25

never faced before the way your body and

13:30

your brain react is that it just floods

13:30

you with a lot of, I can't do this with

13:34

a lot of Hormones and chemicals that

13:34

go flooding through your bloodstream

13:39

that really what they're designed to do

13:39

is to pull you back and make you safe.

13:42

And so it's the reason we do coaching. It's the reason you do what you do

13:44

is that when you find yourself in

13:48

that overwhelmed position, using

13:48

whatever energy you can muster to

13:53

say, I've got to find a colleague. I've got to find a mentor.

13:56

I've got to find a coach. I've just got to find a good friend.

13:58

Sometimes it's just an older family

13:58

member who's been through this and

14:01

knows what you're going through

14:01

but making the decision, I don't

14:04

have to do this alone, I'm going

14:04

to find somebody to do it with me.

14:07

Well, actually there's some brain

14:07

science that says that'll turn the

14:10

volume down on your overwhelmed. If I say, Oh, I feel really

14:12

overwhelmed right now, but Sherri's

14:15

with me in this and I can call her

14:15

that just turns the volume down.

14:18

So then if we can deescalate, find

14:18

our footing again, then we can

14:23

create that space so that we've got a

14:23

little more margin to know, or maybe

14:28

know what our next step should be. And maybe it is to call that person.

14:32

Yeah. Let's back up 1 more step.

14:34

I mean, there's a whole

14:34

world of work out there.

14:36

If I don't have the wherewithal to

14:36

think I need to call for some help,

14:41

there's a whole world of work out there

14:41

around meditation around deep breathing.

14:46

There, there's some brain science

14:46

that says that if you can just like,

14:49

in the moment you feel overwhelmed,

14:49

if you can take 4 deep breaths.

14:54

On count of fours breathe

14:54

in for a hole for 4.

14:57

I breathe out 4, I hold for 4.

15:00

I repeat that 4 times that the volume

15:00

on your anxiety will go down 20

15:03

to 25 percent scientific research.

15:05

It says that. So if you find yourself being

15:06

overwhelmed, taking on some

15:10

practices now, it helps a lot.

15:13

If people listening to this podcast

15:13

and aren't yet at a place where they're

15:16

going to need help if they'll practice

15:16

that now uh, then when the, when the

15:21

overwhelm comes, your brain will say, oh,

15:21

here's a way that we can calm ourselves.

15:26

Yes, and that's how .. You can do that. You can do that in the post office.

15:29

You can do it anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

15:31

Love it. Yeah. You mentioned principles..

15:34

Can you talk a little bit about

15:34

principles and practices as it pertains

15:39

to caregivers and executors of estates?

15:42

Well, I mean, you know this because

15:42

we've known each other for quite a

15:46

while, but I see the world through the

15:46

lens of what we call family systems.

15:52

When you're not in the world of

15:52

family systems, what you tend to

15:55

do is you tend to think of problems

15:55

to be solved as cause and effect.

16:00

And so there's this problem out here and

16:00

cause and effect thinking leads me to

16:04

say, so let me locate the problem out

16:04

there and then let me go fix that problem.

16:09

And so then we start trying to

16:09

change somebody or some circumstance

16:13

often that's beyond our control. And so then we're spending a lot of

16:15

energy that's not getting any result.

16:20

And what cause and effect thinking

16:20

does is if it doesn't get any

16:22

result, then we work harder at that. I have a friend, I have a friend who

16:25

says cause and effect thinking has

16:28

you doing what you've always done

16:28

and then working harder to get to a

16:33

result faster that you don't want. I think that's brilliant.

16:37

I think that's brilliant. In family systems, what we would

16:38

recognize is that that it's not

16:42

the individual that's the molecule

16:42

and the problem is not out there.

16:45

The problem or the challenge is in here. And so any problem that exists, I'm

16:47

contributing to it: what I do or

16:51

don't do, by what I say or don't say

16:51

by how I say what I say or don't say.

16:56

Even a two person system. And when I first started learning

16:57

this Betty and I were young adults

17:00

and neither one of us had learned

17:00

how to manage money very well.

17:04

And so every time a money management

17:04

problem would come up, she would

17:07

say some version of, if you would do

17:07

different, I would, we would be better.

17:11

And I would say to her, no, if you

17:11

would be different, we would be better.

17:15

and through some family systems.

17:18

Coaching, we both began to look at what

17:18

I was contributing was, waving my arms

17:23

and talking about how terrible it was and

17:23

how quickly we needed to get this fixed.

17:26

And what she was doing was saying,

17:26

oh, gosh, this is all my fault.

17:29

I'm so sorry. Let me go fix this. And it's a long story, but both

17:31

of us began to learn to 1st of

17:35

all, see our behavior and then

17:35

to work on changing our behavior.

17:40

Well, that's a principle. The principle of no matter what

17:41

the problem is, I'm contributing

17:44

to the problem and I love the

17:44

phrase by what I do or don't do.

17:49

And so for me, it was by what I was doing,

17:49

waving my hands and talking real loud for

17:52

Betty, what she wasn't doing, what she

17:52

wasn't doing was coming in and saying,

17:56

let's work together to solve this problem.

17:58

She was just saying, I'll take

17:58

care of this and you go keep

18:02

doing what you've been doing. And as we both began to see what

18:03

our part was, then it it gave

18:07

us access to some things that we

18:07

didn't have access to otherwise.

18:11

And in the probate process, in the end

18:11

of life process there are going to be all

18:15

kinds of issues that you're going to face. And when you can when they're not,

18:17

things aren't going the way you want

18:20

them to go, then you have to ask the

18:20

question, what am I contributing?

18:25

Let me tell you, let me tell

18:25

you, just a quick illustration.

18:28

We got connected to an

18:28

attorney with Betty's.

18:31

We didn't know what we were doing. And so we called an attorney

18:32

and said, could you help us?

18:35

And they said, yes. And and what happened with the,

18:37

so Jim had a biological dad

18:42

who he had lost contact with. And he was about three, but he had,

18:44

he didn't know this, but he had seven,

18:48

he had three siblings and seven. Grand siblings, and all of those

18:50

people had to be contacted and

18:53

we didn't know where they were. And so the attorney, we hired this

18:55

attorney who's working on all that, by

18:58

the way, all of that, that I just told

18:58

you, I didn't know when we started we

19:02

didn't know where these people were, how

19:02

to find them and and 1 day we were kind

19:07

of coming up on a deadline and the person

19:07

at the attorney's office who was working

19:10

on this was had reached out to me to say.

19:13

Okay. We're not getting there as fast as we

19:14

want to get there and I just, I was just

19:20

at my wit's end and I called and got

19:20

him on the phone and I mean, I'm not

19:24

proud of this, but I raised my voice. I talked real fast.

19:27

I told him some version. I didn't use the word incompetent,

19:28

but some version of your incompetent and, he was very.

19:33

Professional and ended

19:33

the conversation with me.

19:35

And when I got off the 1st thing that I

19:35

thought, what I got was physician healed

19:39

myself, but you teach me all the time. And the 2nd thing that I thought

19:41

was, did you really think by calling

19:45

and, raising your voice and becoming

19:45

real judgmental with this guy, you

19:48

were going to get a better outcome. Well, the answer and what I'm thinking

19:50

calmly and sanely with the answer was

19:53

clearly no, but in the moment, I'm all

19:53

stirred up and and I'm saying this is

20:00

your fault and you need to fix this. And yeah, I mean, that's just an

20:02

illustration of the principle is I'm

20:06

contributing and that's just a practical

20:06

illustration of how that gets worked out.

20:10

And so then what I did was

20:10

call back and apologize.

20:13

So look, I was just real stirred up. I'm really sorry. I know you're doing the best you can.

20:16

I know this is a really

20:16

complicated kind of deal.

20:19

What do you need from me? How can I help? And that changed the outcome.

20:24

It does. Yeah. So you became a contributor then

20:25

instead of someone that was stirred up

20:30

and those things are naturally human

20:30

conditions that come up all the time.

20:35

And when you have a family system that's

20:35

stirred up, everybody's lost someone, and

20:41

the dynamics of the family are changing.

20:43

Sometimes that relationship was good.

20:46

Sometimes it was non existent. Sometimes it was downright hostile.

20:50

And so people are are adjusting to

20:50

all of that and stuff gets stirred up.

20:55

Yep. You said something a

20:56

while ago about shame.

20:59

Part of the challenge when we're stirred

20:59

up like that is coming to grips with

21:04

ourselves and recognizing where we are.

21:07

What are some things that you that

21:07

could help us for people that are

21:11

not familiar with your work like,

21:11

you are like, for those of us

21:15

that are just absolutely green. What are some places or some things that

21:16

we could become aware of and begin to

21:20

notice be curious about within ourselves?

21:24

That's a terrific question. And uh, and I want to say in

21:26

answering it that you have

21:29

to answer it developmentally. Uh, In other words, I'm not going

21:31

to answer this and you say, oh,

21:34

okay, I'll start doing that. Right?

21:37

The primary resource that

21:37

you have is your body.

21:41

Like, when you get stirred up, your

21:41

body, your brain begins, before

21:44

you're even aware that it's happening,

21:44

your brain gets into action.

21:48

It's asking the question, have

21:48

we dealt with this in the past?

21:50

What did we do? And they begin to pour chemicals and

21:51

hormones and all that stuff, cortisol

21:55

and adrenaline and all that stuff into

21:55

your body to get you ready for action.

21:58

And you may be a person who's so shut off

21:58

from your body that you can't notice that.

22:05

But if you can grow your capacity

22:05

to notice that, then over time, your

22:09

body is the best signal that you have. Now, let me tell you how

22:11

you grow your capacity. I'm coaching this guy, a

22:13

business guy up in Chicago, and

22:15

I'm asking him the question. So when you get anxious, what where

22:16

do you notice that in your body?

22:19

And he thought, I mean, he said. I don't think I feel anything in my body.

22:23

I said, okay, no problem. That's fine. I said, here's what I want you to

22:25

do between now and the next call.

22:28

Anytime you find yourself having a

22:28

conflict or you're working with a group

22:32

of people and you're not achieving what

22:32

you want to achieve, or something doesn't

22:36

go the way you want it to as soon after

22:36

that experience, as you can reasonably

22:42

do this, just reflect on what happened.

22:44

And to the degree you can pay attention

22:44

to what's going on in your body.

22:48

About three weeks later. We had a call scheduled, and before

22:50

I could say hello, he said Jim,

22:53

I grind my teeth all the time. Great.

22:56

Now you see that. I mean, people grind their teeth.

22:59

They clench their fist. They'll notice that their pits or

23:02

their palms are sweating, their

23:05

thoughts are racing their cheeks get

23:05

flushed, their shoulders get tightened.

23:08

And if you've lived your whole

23:08

life without any awareness of that,

23:12

then you have to do some work. Get present to it, but with just a

23:13

little bit of practice, usually after

23:18

the fact, usually you can't notice it. If you've not noticed it before,

23:19

you can't notice it in the moment,

23:22

but with a little bit of practice

23:22

reflecting after the fact, you can

23:27

say, ah, I mean, what happens to me?

23:29

I can even tell you what the

23:29

feeling is when I'm scared.

23:32

My chest is burning. I mean, when I'm angry, my chest

23:34

is burning when I'm scared.

23:37

I've got this knot in the pit

23:37

of my stomach when I'm sad.

23:40

Yeah. I've got this thing in my throat and

23:40

I feel like I'm just about to cry

23:43

and I'm doing everything I can to

23:43

just keep that thing from coming up.

23:46

And so not only does my body tell me

23:46

that you're experiencing some stirred

23:51

upness, but like if I know I'm sad.

23:55

Does this distinguish sadness from

23:55

anger, from fear helps me to know.

23:59

So then now, what do I need to

23:59

do in light of what this feeling

24:01

is trying to convey to me? Does that answer

24:03

your question? Yeah, it did. So thinking about people that

24:05

are in the situation of..

24:10

Well, before we even get to the

24:10

leadership part, just the finance,

24:14

the family systems part of it, right?

24:16

You've got all these different

24:16

personalities in whatever dimension

24:21

shallow, deep, however, they related

24:21

to the person who needs care or

24:25

who has recently passed away. And all of these changes are happening

24:28

and giving us an opportunity to respond

24:34

instead of being present and incapacity

24:34

to pause and think about what we

24:40

want to do, how we want to be impact.

24:42

So it's a mess. I mean, it's such a messy time.

24:45

So I like what you said a while ago

24:45

about practicing now so that you can get

24:49

more familiar and more acquainted, more

24:49

aware with these principles and practices

24:55

before you just drop in the middle of it.

24:58

but when there are, when you are faced

24:58

with with a strong personality and the

25:04

executor is someone who has the authority

25:04

to carry this out and they're tasked

25:09

with carrying out the instructions

25:09

according to the will, and then you've

25:14

got a strong personality that's trying

25:14

to influence your role in that, is

25:19

there something that you could suggest

25:19

to that person who's trying to step up

25:24

and be the leader in that situation?

25:27

Yeah, yes, well, it's so complex and

25:27

particularly when it's emotionally

25:31

charged, the way your brain works is the

25:31

more emotionally charged you get, the

25:34

more you quit thinking and start reacting.

25:37

Yeah. I mean, that's just the,

25:38

that's the way God made us.

25:41

And there's some circumstances in

25:41

which that's exactly what you need.

25:44

Right. Your house is on fire. You don't want to have to pick

25:45

up the phone and call and say, Hey, Sherri, my house is on fire.

25:49

Have you ever had that happen? What do you do? I mean, there's some places in which

25:51

that's a really valuable kind of deal.

25:55

But in, in the kind of human relationships

25:55

where you're talking about, it's so

26:00

complex and so emotionally charged.

26:03

And When an executor is acting in a way

26:03

that a strong willed person thinks is

26:07

inappropriate or not fair, or they don't

26:07

want them to act in that kind of way,

26:12

that's going to be a highly intense and

26:12

emotionally charged kind of circumstance.

26:17

Again, you can talk about principles, but

26:17

you have to keep talking about practices.

26:21

I mean, the principle is is that when

26:21

you see it differently than the executor

26:26

does, you say, I see that differently.

26:29

Now, you don't say you're wrong. If you say you're wrong,

26:31

that automatically makes the other person defensive.

26:34

Right. Instead, what you do is you say, I see

26:35

that differently, or you make a request.

26:39

Would you do that differently? Your brain experiences that

26:41

different than you're wrong,

26:43

and I don't want you to do that. And learning to, to talk in a way that

26:45

turns the volume down on the anxiety

26:50

Using eye language, describing what you

26:50

want, what you need, what you see, what

26:54

you think and to the degree that you

26:54

can, doing that in a calm tone of voice.

27:00

Part of what the family system

27:00

stuff does is that executor

27:04

is attuned to all the anxiety.

27:06

And if you come in and say, you're a

27:06

stupid idiot and why are you doing that?

27:11

Their anxiety is going to go out the roof. They may still get anxious when you say, I

27:13

want to ask that you do that differently.

27:17

I want to ask that you talk to

27:17

me in a different tone of voice.

27:19

I want to ask that you

27:19

consider this rather than that.

27:23

If you can turn the volume down, your

27:23

brain registers that differently than

27:27

it registers somebody screaming at

27:27

them or raising their voice at them.

27:30

If you could just do that, like flipping

27:30

a light switch, then I could just give a

27:34

little advice and you could go do that. But the truth is that's a practice

27:36

that has to be developed over time.

27:39

It's like building muscles. I just want to keep emphasizing if I can

27:41

see, that my wife has Alzheimer's and that

27:46

we're we know that's going on and 1 of the

27:46

things that I can see is that my practice

27:52

of this work over the last 10 years is

27:52

just a world of difference where I'm in

27:59

a support group with a group of people

27:59

whose loved ones are have dementia and

28:05

it's amazing to me how much we spend in

28:05

the support group with them talking about

28:09

this person asked me the same question

28:09

20 times and it just infuriates me.

28:13

Well, I get asked the same question

28:13

20 times, and it doesn't infuriate me,

28:17

and it doesn't infuriate me because I'm

28:17

some, amazing human being, and it doesn't

28:21

infuriate me because I've practiced for 10

28:21

or 15 years and even now, with my kids, as

28:26

this is coming, we're having conversations

28:26

about, so how do you manage yourself

28:30

in a moment when mom does something

28:30

that's irritating or that's frustrating?

28:33

The practice in being a calm presence

28:33

and learning to define yourself is

28:38

the language we would use learning

28:38

to ask for what you want, to say

28:41

what you think, to do use I language

28:41

rather than you language, and

28:46

to do that as calmly as you can.

28:48

Here's an interesting thing. Anxiety is contagious.

28:52

Calm is also contagious. I remember hearing that at 1 of my

28:53

1st faith walking events and it was

28:58

profound and I've used it a lot. When I find myself in a tense

29:00

moment, I'll remind myself

29:04

that calm makes a difference.

29:06

You know, What you said a while ago

29:06

about first becoming aware and then

29:10

you're like, Oh, I did it again. Oh, I did it again.

29:13

But sooner or later you're like, Oh, I

29:13

almost did it again, but I caught myself!

29:18

Right. Yeah. Well, and my story about, the talking

29:19

to the attorneys the person who worked

29:23

in the attorney's office of the reason

29:23

I tell that story is I don't think you

29:26

ever as a human being ever get to a place

29:26

where you're not going to get reactive.

29:30

What you're going for is just

29:30

being less reactive more often.

29:34

Yeah! Right! If I can, if that can be my goal,

29:35

then when I mess up, like I didn't

29:39

shame myself for what I did. I recognize what I had done and

29:40

what I didn't do is inject that

29:44

anxiety into the family system. I didn't start.

29:46

Call him Betty and call him

29:46

with our kids and say, you won't

29:48

believe what this attorney did. I pretty quickly realized what I'd done.

29:51

I did the practices that I do to

29:51

calm myself and within probably an

29:55

hour, I called back and apologize.

29:58

And so the goal is not perfection.

30:01

The goal is just growing your capacity

30:01

to be as calm as you can in the

30:06

anxious moments where you can ask

30:06

for what you want, say what you need,

30:10

define yourself and to do that in as

30:10

calm a manner as you possibly can.

30:15

That's I think that's. That's as good as anybody gets, or if

30:16

anybody gets better than if anybody gets

30:20

better than that, I've not met them yet. Well, and I think that is self leadership.

30:25

Yeah, you're not looking to anybody else.

30:27

It's all about you and managing

30:27

and leading yourself 1st, and then

30:32

you can take the leadership in that

30:32

situation and yeah, clean up your mess.

30:38

well, that's the other thing

30:38

that I would say is because

30:41

you can't do this perfectly.. . I grew up in a home where my mother

30:43

would say, apologize to your brother.

30:46

Sorry. But learn, but learning to do a

30:47

heartfelt kind of apology that says,

30:50

I, I didn't do that conversation very

30:50

well, and I want you to know that

30:53

I, here's what I wish I had said. Here's what I wish I had done.

30:56

Here's what I wish I hadn't said. Clean that mess up.

30:59

Then that not only turns the volume

30:59

down for you, but because we, when we

31:03

talk about family systems, it turns

31:03

the volume down for the whole family.

31:06

Right. And that's just invaluable.

31:09

Right. If we're not so confrontational, if we

31:10

can come alongside someone and begin

31:16

to ask those questions, then we're

31:16

moving forward in the same direction.

31:21

And if I want you to change your mind,

31:21

if you're the executor that I don't

31:25

agree with, if I want you to hear what

31:25

I have to say because I really think

31:29

my ideas has value to it, then I need

31:29

to consider you and how you're going

31:35

to hear me so that I can phrase it in

31:35

a way that you will best receive it.

31:39

Yeah. Yeah, it's not manipulation, but

31:42

...

31:42

no, it's I'm 100 percent

31:45

And if my communication isn't getting

31:45

through, what most of us do is we

31:49

say it harder and louder or we go

31:49

away and quit saying it, Right?

31:52

Learning to do that. Well, so I'd repeat something we've

31:54

said several times now, and that is the

31:59

first thing is to get calm yourself. If you're all stirred up, and I don't

32:01

mean you have to be on a scale of 1

32:05

to 100, you don't have to be at 0,

32:05

but you have to calm yourself down to

32:08

where you can get to your thinking. And I think the second thing is that

32:10

you want to express compassion to

32:15

the person who's the, the executor

32:15

who's got you kind of stirred up, the

32:21

things like I, I know this is a really

32:21

challenging assignment that you have and

32:25

I can't imagine how, tough it must be.

32:28

And, and, And I realize maybe that I'm

32:28

contributing to making it challenging and.

32:33

And, I don't want to do that. I don't want to, I don't

32:34

want to add to your load.

32:37

The, The kind of things that just express

32:37

compassion can help turn the volume down.

32:43

The next thing I would say is

32:43

I want to really understand why

32:47

they see it the way they do. The question why never ever helps.

32:52

Human beings are just geniuses

32:52

at making up excuses and reasons

32:59

for why they do what they do. When you can get calm and get into

33:01

a conversation, questions like tell

33:06

me how you came to this thinking.

33:08

The questions are who and where and what

33:08

and when and how did you come to this?

33:13

What is it that's influencing

33:13

your thinking about this?

33:16

When did you come to this conclusion? I'm actually, I'm a brain science

33:18

nerd is really what you've called me.

33:20

I'm not, I don't have any

33:20

brain science education.

33:23

I just read it all the time. And in the brain science, what it says is.

33:27

That your brain basically has

33:27

two kinds of systems, a thinking

33:31

system and a feeling system. And the more the feeling system

33:33

is stirred up, the more the

33:35

thinking system is pushed down. And so when I'm talking to you and I'm

33:37

asking questions, what I'm doing is I'm

33:40

getting this to happen because I'm getting

33:40

you back over into your thinking and you,

33:44

you can't have both of them stirred up. And then I'm doing the deep listing.

33:47

I'm trying to say back. So here, let me make sure I understand.

33:51

Here's what I think I hear you say. Let me see if I got that that, that

33:53

kind of stuff, or boy, that sounds

33:57

like a really complex set of stuff. I had a friend that I saw on a weekly

33:59

basis for lunch and one still do and

34:03

one day I got an email from him the

34:03

day before lunch where he said I am so

34:08

mad at you right now, I can't hardly

34:08

speak, and I am not having lunch with

34:11

you tomorrow, and then he said in the

34:11

email, I'm going to tell you as soon as

34:15

I can calm down what's going on, and he

34:15

finally wrote me a two page email that

34:19

was just scathing, and it was like,

34:19

A magical learning experience for me.

34:24

And I, like I had been growing my muscles

34:24

around this rather than defending myself

34:30

and getting reactive, what I did was I

34:30

just wrote back to him and said, let me

34:34

see if I understand what you're saying. And I just said back to him

34:36

paragraph at a time in the email.

34:40

And two things happened. One was I could tell by his next response

34:41

that the volume had been turned down.

34:45

He said, you got about 90 percent of it.

34:47

There's this one thing that

34:47

I want to make sure you got.

34:49

I wrote back about that. And then we ended up having a conversation

34:51

on the deck at my house down in

34:54

Montrose when we lived down there. That was one of the most fruitful

34:56

conversations that I'd ever had.

35:00

And it was just a powerful

35:00

learning experience that when

35:02

another person is all stirred up,

35:02

all of us want to be understood.

35:06

And if they actually think I

35:06

understand them, they're going to

35:09

be much more likely to hear me. And so then if you can, it's Stephen

35:11

Covey's language of seek 1st to

35:15

understand and then be understood.

35:18

And after I've done that, I've calmed myself. I'm talking in a tone of

35:20

voice and using body language.

35:22

It turns the volume down. I'm asking good questions and then.

35:27

Could I tell you how I'm thinking about that? Not, so let me tell you how you're

35:29

wrong, or let me, not let me tell you

35:33

how I see it differently, but could I

35:33

tell you how I'm thinking about that?

35:36

And generally, if you've actually

35:36

listened, people will do that.

35:39

They'll say, yeah. And then I think one other thing that

35:41

I would say maybe a really powerful

35:44

lesson that I've learned along

35:44

the way is I want instant results.

35:49

And when I say, here's how I see

35:49

it, if the person doesn't change,

35:53

then I go away making the meaning,

35:53

well, that was not successful.

35:58

So much of the really deep change in my

35:58

life and my relationships has happened

36:03

when I've done what I've just described

36:03

to you, and then they go away, and I

36:08

call this the work of the spirit, and

36:08

the spirit keeps that conversation alive,

36:12

and a day or a week later, they come back

36:12

and say, I've been thinking about that.

36:17

And they don't say, I see that differently

36:17

today, but they're at a different place.

36:21

And so, if I, if I do what I've

36:21

been describing, seek first to

36:24

understand and then be understood,

36:24

and then I don't get what I want,

36:28

and then I get ramped back up, I'm

36:28

actually undermining my own process.

36:33

Now, you may still not get what you

36:33

want but the likelihood increases

36:38

if you can give space and time for

36:38

that other person to consider what

36:42

they've heard and what you're thinking. And ..

36:44

For sure. Yeah. And it's totally possible that what

36:45

you want is not the best outcome either

36:49

that in, the two of you chatting it

36:49

out, you can come up with a third way.

36:53

I have had so many occasions in

36:53

coaching where I will say, let me

36:57

tell you what I hear you saying. And I'll do that.

36:59

And then the person will say, hearing

36:59

you say what I think, what I've been

37:02

saying, I don't think I agree with myself. I think that's hysterical.

37:05

I don't think that's true. It's like, it's all in our head going

37:06

round and round and we get it out here

37:10

and it, it improves the communication. That's true.

37:13

That's true. And the other thing you said was our

37:14

tone of voice and our body language.

37:19

I don't remember what the ratios are,

37:19

how much we actually say, and our

37:23

body language and all of that, but

37:25

..

37:25

About 80 percent about is

37:30

Only 20 percent is the word you use.

37:33

Right. Zoom has been really helpful.

37:35

Like, like, we don't,

37:35

we can't see our face.

37:38

And just being able to watch yourself

37:38

every now and then I look at, I think,

37:41

oh, gosh you're really frowning. Well, Jim, or just at least get

37:44

a pleasant look on your face.

37:48

Right? Yeah. Um, So building trust in family

37:50

members that might be stirred up

37:56

around a particular who's going

37:56

to get mom's ring or whatever.

38:00

So what I'm hearing you say. Is that if we can find a way to calm

38:02

ourselves using practices, meditation

38:09

or deep breathing or whatever it is

38:09

going for a walk, doing something

38:13

to, I think stirring, moving our

38:13

body helps to move those emotions

38:17

through and I would agree with you

38:17

the work that I've done on emotional

38:22

health, mental health, all of that.. Our emotions are important.

38:25

They're, they're not speed bumps that

38:25

we're supposed to get over in a hurry.

38:28

They're there to communicate things. And so if we can acknowledge what

38:30

we're feeling, and then manage our

38:34

own anxieties, figure out what's ours

38:34

and what's theirs, and then manage our

38:39

tone of voice and our body language

38:39

so that we can bridge the gap of

38:43

communication and really move forward.

38:47

I think Jim that people can come out

38:47

families can come out better when

38:51

they go through something as sad as

38:51

probate can be the loss of someone.

38:55

I think it can bring a family closer

38:55

together when people are intentionally

39:00

trying to do those kinds of things. So, Jim, as we're wrapping things

39:03

up, if there's a listener out there

39:07

that feels reluctant to be in. They're saying, I didn't ask for this.

39:12

This is beyond me. And they don't know that they have the

39:14

capacity for this just taking off your

39:18

theology hat and all those other hats

39:18

just from 1 person to another person.

39:22

If you were having coffee with her

39:22

right now, what would you say to her to

39:25

encourage her with just 1 thing you can

39:28

do this? You can do this.

39:31

Like, I know this is hard let's don't

39:31

pretend that this is not hard, but

39:36

you've done other hard things in your

39:36

life and that's going to serve the,

39:40

which the lessons you learn there

39:40

are going to serve you well here.

39:43

You've got people around you who love

39:43

you and care for you and you can do this.

39:47

I think is the thing I'd say. Yeah, I agree with you.

39:51

Okay, Jim, how can people reach you? So our website is the

39:53

leaders journey dot U.

39:55

S. and my email is Jim at

39:56

the leaders journey dot U.

40:00

S. and those are the 2 primary ways and we'd

40:01

love if folks are looking for a coach or

40:05

need some help with leadership development

40:05

or those are the places they can find us.

40:10

Great. And I did wanna say, I do

40:11

wanna say, if I could, we have

40:13

a podcast that's on the Yes. At the Leader Journey.

40:16

Us. You can find you can find our podcast.

40:18

We just did our hundredth

40:18

episode about two months ago.

40:21

And and all of what we're doing

40:21

is about growing those internal

40:25

muscles, growing, emotional spiritual

40:25

health, becoming a better leader.

40:29

All of all of them are. That's what we're all about. Yes, it would be really

40:32

important for listeners to

40:34

take a listen over there, too. I think it'd be really helpful.

40:37

Thank you. Good to be so

40:40

...

40:40

yes, so so glad that you

40:43

Jim, thank you so much for tuning

40:43

in to the Probate Podcast today.

40:47

Jim and I are both glad that you're

40:47

here and we hope that you take some

40:50

things away that will encourage you as

40:50

an individual and as a leader within

40:55

your family system until next time.

40:57

Take care.