Life on Life's Terms

What if you could lead with greater clarity, stronger empathy, and an unmistakable touch of radical candor? This episode of Monday State of Mind, featuring Dan Henley, the Chief Operating Officer of Red Rock Recovery, is a masterclass on this subject. Here, Dan shares his journey of personal recovery and how it has profoundly shaped his leadership style, particularly in the behavioral health sector. Tune in as we unravel the concept of radical candor – a fine balance between caring personally and challenging directly and how it can help sidestep resentment and sustain peace.

We also delve into the nitty-gritty of managing expectations in our day-to-day lives and how removing preferences and attachments to outcomes can foster serenity and contentment. With Dan's insightful reflections on the importance of vulnerability, teamwork, and transparency in leading a people-centric business like healthcare, you'll leave this session with a renewed perspective on leadership. You'll also hear Dan discuss the art of finding one's voice, building self-esteem through action, and seeking mentorship to navigate challenges. Get ready to have your notions of leadership broadened and deepened in this thought-provoking conversation. Don't miss Dan's final call to action – one that emphasizes making recovery accessible and appealing for all.

Dan suggests these books!
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

Want to Connect with Red Rock Recovery Center?
Facebook: Red Rock Recovery Center
Instagram: @redrockrecoverycenter
Website: Drug rehab Lakewood Colorado | Red Rock Recovery Center

For over 50 years, Harmony Foundation has worked as a nonprofit to serve those seeking recovery from substance addictions. Our residential and intensive outpatient programs are in a collaborative and respectful treatment environment with multiple specialty tracks offering additional support. Our main campus is nestled on a 43-acre campus in the Rocky Mountains just outside of Estes Park, Colorado, that promotes physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. With one of the most robust alumni programs in the county, clients remain connected and empowered for a lifelong journey of recovery.

For more information about Harmony Foundation, please visit:
www.harmonyfoundationinc.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome to season two, episode 26 of Monday State of Mind, brought to you by Harmony Foundation. My name is Michael Mausel and I am your host. What is good in the world today is, I could say, just like any other person in the world any other day on Monday State of Mind, but I don't think so. So I kicked off this theme talking about managing expectations. There is so much that happens for all of us, whether you're in recovery or not. The idea of managing expectations so that you don't get resentment, so that you don't end up not liking people or things just go away in your life because you're trying to control something that you have no business controlling. So, with that being said, I really want to bring somebody on here that is a leader in the field of behavioral health, that is also somebody who is a person in recovery, somebody that I also believe has a shit ton of humility, and I want a leader's perspective.

Speaker 1: 1:15

I want this person to come on because, as much as we're always like, oh my gosh, this person's a leader, oh my gosh, like they have this title of CEO, what I also know to be true is that leaders are just like me and you. We're all humans here doing the best that we can. I also believe too, like I said, it's not always just about a title, it's also how you carry yourself, just as a human being. So this gentleman, he's pretty rad. I think he's the bee's knees. He is the CEO of Red Rock Recovery here in Lakewood, colorado. I am so excited to have Dan Henley with us today and we are going to jam. So, dan Henley, what is going on?

Speaker 2: 1:57

Not much. Not much glad to be here, and I actually have to correct you. I humbly gave the CEO title to my brother, who's my partner. So, as a leader, I just want to make sure that that was clear. We pretty much co-manage this whole company. I mean, it's not like we do it alone, though We've hired and surrounded ourselves with people who are better at what we do, definitely the high level stuff. We both are very involved. But I just want to make that quick correction not to get off track.

Speaker 1: 2:30

No, I love that. So if you're not CEO Dan Henley, like what is your title, then?

Speaker 2: 2:35

Yeah, I'm the chief operating officer, coo, and that means a lot of things, but I just try to be helpful wherever I can. That's kind of like the position I take every day.

Speaker 1: 2:48

I love that, so I kind of prepped you, dan, before I brought you on here. There's this idea of expectations, and that is expansive, especially in the workplace, especially from a leadership perspective of being able to keep the peace amongst everybody, and I would love to hear whether it's from a personal perspective or a professional perspective. What does that look like for you on a daily basis?

Speaker 2: 3:12

Yeah, so I've been thinking about this topic and I want to try to speak to it from both perspectives. I think one is way more relatable than the other. Right, like, not a lot of people who maybe are listening have the perspective of managing a company with 70 employees and what the expectations of that is at like an executive level, and how to manage your expectations for teams and operations and day-to-day life. Right, because outside of this, I am a husband, a father, a person in recovery, like you mentioned, and the perspective I take there and I'll start here because actually the way we run our company is very much principled, like it is when your person in recovery is like spiritual principles and all that good stuff. As I thought about the topic here, have you ever read the book the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer?

Speaker 1: 4:04

Yes.

Speaker 2: 4:06

So that book has been life-changing for me the past probably six years in that he talks a lot about being free from preferences right, and if somehow I can remove those from my life then I will never be disappointed. And that is a huge generalization of this topic in that book. But like the way that I see that is, he says to start practicing it in little things, where if I'm driving down the street and someone cuts me off and like my preference right there internally is that like I didn't get cut off, or something as simple as I prefer warm weather over rain, so when it rains, what then? Like I'm just internally disturbed and so on a larger scale, if I can bring that, it's kind of like expectations. So if I can really remove myself and have no expectations or at least not be attached to the result of people, things acting the way that I want them to, then I'm much more serene and content and less disturbed. And that's really what I'm striving for is to be in a place of I don't want to say Zen, but with everything going on in my life, juggling like a million balls at any given time between family and all the BS of whether it's treatment and substance use, mental treatment.

Speaker 2: 5:24

In a lot of ways, what I refer to is like organized chaos. It's the same at home and the best that I can do is take things as they come and not be attached or preference around what things will look like day to day. Like, obviously I have goals and I could do things to try to keep them on track. And there's this new concept that I'm integrating into my company here and into my life, and it's called radical candor, where I can try to confront things as they arise but at the same time, the thought process behind radical candor is you care personally but you challenge directly, and it's a huge tool. Is actually written by Kim Scott.

Speaker 1: 6:08

She does a lot of podcasts and Ted talks to who when we'll put all this in the show notes, you guys don't worry. I love how you took the idea of radical acceptance and looking at your expectations and being more zen, and I love that because what I also know to be true is it's also like about attraction versus promotion and how you show up and so being somebody that is in the position that you're at with Red Rock and you have all of your direct reports and you want to be able to lead by example. When you are working with humans in your organization, they get bent out of shape, because we all know that happens and they want to force their will on an expectation or they beat themselves up. How do you help guide people that directly report to you if you start to see that they're having unrealistic expectations and being able to? From your personal journey of recovery, what does that look like for you from a mentoring standpoint with the people that you work with?

Speaker 2: 7:05

Well, there's probably two ways that I'd approach that and, like I had said initially, my first response would be around radical candor. I would show them that I care personally before I'd challenge their thought process directly. And, being a person in recovery anytime I talk to patients or anytime I talk hopefully my staff understand this too, as life of recovery is really about maturing spiritually. The best definition of maturity I've ever heard is the ability to withstand discomfort, Because when you get sober, you have zero ability to do that and you're always wanting to seek that comfort or avoidance or whatever it is and just oblivion. But the same goes for just the human experience where people inherently, I believe, are like avoiding any discomfort. It's really apparent these days. So, like when you challenge directly, I think that I'd like to remind people that they do have that ability to withstand discomfort and that's how we grow where getting out of your comfort zone, and so when it comes to teams and staff, I just try to preface every experience.

Speaker 2: 8:06

But recovery and professional life is not always linear. There's going to be ups and downs and it's how you handle those downs and knowing that it's temporary and you have the capacity to get through it, and that way when you have difficult conversations, you want to be solution focused and not just hammering on the things that are wrong or that need to be improved. Then like being able to actually give feedback. I mean, my experience these days is that not only patients but staff alike you have to be tactful when given feedback. You don't want to be that guy who is just abrasive and all that. So it's walking that line of trying to inspire but also making it known, like I said, on the front end, where you're going to challenge people and help them grow.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Oh, I love that, and I love that you even just mentioned difficult conversations, because I will say, sometimes I find myself, before I really got into acceptance, of, hey, all I have control over is how I show up.

Speaker 1: 9:04

I can't go into a difficult conversation trying to plan I expect this person to receive me this way, I expect that they're going to do this and I expect that the outcome is going to be this and this is what they're going to do to get into action. That totally derailed me, even as a leader and just as a person with relationships and friendships, just wanting to go in just knowing that I know what the outcome is going to be. And now, with managing expectations, when it comes to difficult conversations, there's a level of acceptance that, as long as I show up and I say what I need to say, clear as kind, like you said, with spirituality, you leave the outcome up to big man upstairs and you get to decide how are you going to receive it? The difficult conversation part is huge, and so I would love to hear from you when have there been moments where you're like I'm going into this and I'm trying to manage it, and then how do you get out of that, so that you don't spin.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Yeah well, I'll just preface this part by saying that I could get into a long story about why I am this way. But I come from early in my recovery and still today, being I don't want to say a victim, but I'm a people pleaser. So, to step into leadership, over the years I've constantly sought growth and tools and I'm like a self-help guy. I read all these books on leadership. I'm a spiritual seeker too. I'm constantly reading these books.

Speaker 2: 10:18

So a lot of the tools that I pull from are just like a melting pot of different things and this idea that going into a difficult conversation like for me, I'll just tell you like early on there was a lot of pitfalls and I see it in young managers of wanting to be liked and trying to gain people's friendship and if they like me enough, then they're going to work hard or meet my expectations and do their jobs.

Speaker 2: 10:43

And now I've kind of pivoted and I take this approach now where I do have the expectation that if you're going to work here, we want you at your best. So what's blocking you at your best? So I'm trying to get down to causes and conditions. Like, say, there is a difficult conversation. I want to come in a little bit more curious, instead of accusatory or making any assumptions. That's gotten me in some trouble before, so I would rather just kind of come in and ask questions and learn so I could really understand the root cause of what's going on and then that way I can more effectively remove barriers and either the staff or the client alike feel like it's not just coming in with pointing the finger, it's more of a collaborative approach to improvement. I hope that answered your question.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Oh yeah, thank you for your personal examples because, again, just how I prefaced having you on here is that, even though you have the title, you are in the C-suite, you are a leader.

Speaker 1: 11:41

You are, first and foremost, a human, and I think it's also important for people that, even in an organization, even with your title, to know that Dan Henley is not perfect and so it's being able to allow the rest of the people that report to you of managing their expectations for you is, even though you are a leader, you are a human. I would love to hear from you as a leader, dan, how do you manage that for you personally when you know that, yeah, you show up with this title and there are expectations of how you show up and you perform, and you are there for Red Rock recovery. What does that look like for you? Because, again, if we have all these what I will even say burdens, sometimes it puts people in a space where it's kind of like analysis, bi-paralysis we don't act, we just sit. How do you manage that? And even come from a place, I'll even say a place of gratitude for being gifted expectations and being able to walk through them.

Speaker 2: 12:34

So the way that I show up again, I pulled from and I found like different tools over the years I'm sure you've heard of this person, brene Brown right when I show up and I'm rumbling with vulnerability, as she calls it, and dare to lead, like immediately.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Not only am I humanizing myself, like you just talked about, but I'm not using it and extorting it to a sense of rudeness, empathy, where I want people to feel so sorry for me because I have feelings, but I just want them to know, going into it, that yes, I am there and I am charged with this responsibility to keep the company moving forward and holding people accountable, but at any given time, this is also hard for me and in that way I think it makes the feedback we've been talking about a little bit more easy to swallow and in that vulnerability I make space for like this gratitude you're talking about where it's like listen, I appreciate everything you've done and even in a lot of our meetings that we hold this idea that you mentioned earlier about us being humans.

Speaker 2: 13:35

We work in a people business. Not only are we treating people, but healthcare, and especially the sector of healthcare being mental health and substance abuse treatment. It's really important to keep that on the forefront because we're trying to combat burnout, we're trying to retain staff. I really do my best to praise publicly in like a team format. We have our quarterly town hall meetings where we're very transparent. People at any given time know what upper leadership is working on. When things are good, we're all celebrating together. When we're having down months or down times, we all kind of rally together and it makes it definitely more conducive to a team environment. It's really easy to get off so many tangents here, but I think that that's how I try to show up.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Yeah, oh, I'm like just keep going. I'm just kidding, damn. What is it about recovery that you feel has allowed you to show up the way you show up as a leader, when it comes to not only managing expectations, managing resentment so that you don't get them? What can you attest to your journey of recovery, with how you've been able to walk through all of this?

Speaker 2: 14:44

It's a great question. There's a lot of things I can attribute to my recovery. I could not do what I do alone, even in the position I hold ask for help, and there's a difference between asking for help and allowing yourself to be helped. That's a simple principle I learned early on and I allow myself to be helped. I think it's like a sign of humility, and anyone who says that they're humble, it goes right out the window. That's one of the principles I truly try to be mindful of. Another thing that I attributed to is more and more over the past six years since I've had children and since the success of Red Rock hasn't been linear. You know we've been able to grow but at the same time, I'm sure anybody who listens to this, who's in the field, knows like the pain points of growth and sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back, or two steps forward and one step back, but we're still moving forward.

Speaker 2: 15:33

Is this idea of life on life's terms?

Speaker 2: 15:35

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and it ties back to the expectations. Talk is like literally nothing since I've had kids and since this company's been around, has gone how I want it to go, like my simple little plans and designs. They're well and good and I can have them, but more and more I'm like, not attached to those results, or at least in the time frame that my head says that they can happen. And I want to sit down on Sunday and watch football and my kids would rather go to the park, and I try to find the presence of mind to be attuned to that and make these sacrifices. And if the same goes for work, where I would love to have two other facilities, or I'd love for our mental health IOP to be moving on a little bit quicker. But it all happens on. You know who's time right, and in that, in between, time is when I'm looking for opportunities to continue to be helpful, put myself in a position of service and just trust that it's going to be what it's going to be.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Thank you for that, thank you for saying all the things, and I love that you mentioned life on life's terms. If there is one thing that you could say to any leader that is trying to manage it all, whether they are a dad, a person in recovery, trying to move up the ladder or just show up as a better leader, what is the one thing out of all the things? Or you can even say to okay, I'll give you two out of all the things you've said that has really helped you to continue to elevate and to grow when it comes to the business of expectations and resentments.

Speaker 2: 17:08

That's a great question, and the thing about podcasts is I don't have time to gather my thoughts. So what I would tell any young leader or anyone who's interested in that mobility and then is it a secondary question like that what I would also tell them about learning to manage their expectations. I guess, just yeah, I'll answer both.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Thanks, man, appreciate it. You can show it to everybody else.

Speaker 2: 17:34

I'm trying to reflect the question a little bit.

Speaker 2: 17:37

So I would tell any young leaders find your voice at least, if you're anything like me. Even coming into this podcast, I don't really think that anybody cares what I have to say. You know what I mean, and it's just about gaining that confidence. And the thing that you learn early on in recovery too, is like the way you build self-esteem is by doing a steamable axe. Right, this is a program of action and you just kind of have to put one step in front of the other and get outside of your comfort zone, right?

Speaker 2: 18:03

The number one fear behind in the human race is what public speaking and so a lot of the things that I do is like addressing teams publicly and all that. And once I kind of conquered that fear, it's like then what's next? Fear to me is like an invisible barrier where it seems very real, but as soon as you step through it, the worst-case scenario very rarely or never happens. So learning to walk through that fear may get uncomfortable. And then, when it comes to expectations, I would definitely recommend a process by which you learn to sit with things. Over the course of the years, I've really become a lot less reactionary as a leader. When something didn't go right, I wanted to respond to it immediately, but I've learned to pause and maybe take 24 and contemplate how I want to address something with someone or something when I feel like it could improve or something's not going right, so to speak. So just pause when agitated or doubtful and then maybe bounce it off. Somebody Find a mentor, all those good things.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Ooh, dan Henley. You guys, there is a reason he is on this podcast. And also, I'll just say this will not be the last time that Dan's here. Sorry, not sorry, dan.

Speaker 2: 19:17

I'll come back.

Speaker 1: 19:18

He's like I'll come back.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:21

I will make sure you guys that we put the books he talked about in the show notes to all of you guys. If you want, go to Amazon right away. You click that button and prime that to your house in 24 hours. And I just want to say, Dan Henley, thank you for offering so many opportunities and considerations for people here today for growth. You are a gift. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Thank you, it was fun.

Speaker 1: 19:47

This is how we do. We have fun. We provide tools. We help people kick ass and slay their day. Ha, another episode of Monday State of Mind in the books. Dan Henley, is there any email social media that you would like to tell the listeners about for them to be able to find you or even get to know Red Rock Recovery better?

Speaker 2: 20:09

We have an Instagram, we have Facebook, snapchat. I think we even have a TikTok now I would love for people to stay surprised to what's going on with us Any fun events. I know we love to partner with Harmony and other people for awesome things, and really what we're all about, too, is making recovery accessible, making it appealing and attractive and just wanting to remove any barriers or stigma to people exploring it right.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah, awesome. Well, we will put all of those below for all of you to check out Before we part ways. I want to remind all of you that help is available. If you or someone you know is in need of assistance, please reach out to Harmony Foundation at 970-586-4491. Just remember that together we build better humans. All right, you guys, we'll see you next week. Path definitely.