118: The Identity Crisis Destroying Leaders w/ Jeremy Stalnecker

Some leaders break under pressure. Others find purpose in it.

In this episode, Sean sits down with Marine Corps veteran, author, and Mighty Oaks Foundation co-founder Jeremy Stalnecker for a powerful conversation on identity, leadership, and what it really means to serve others. From leading in combat to navigating ministry and nonprofit work, Jeremy shares how his definition of leadership was completely transformed—and why most leaders struggle when their environment changes.

This episode dives deep into identity, purpose, and resilience, challenging the idea that leadership is about authority or performance. Instead, Jeremy reframes leadership as service—using everything you have for the benefit of others—and explains why mastering yourself is the foundation for leading anyone else.

If you've ever felt lost in transition, struggled with purpose, or questioned your identity outside of your role… this conversation will hit home.

⏱️ Key Timestamps

• 00:00 – Why pressure reveals purpose 
• 01:40 – From combat leadership to identity crisis 
• 04:50 – The difference between doing leadership vs. being a leader 
• 08:45 – Why leading yourself is the starting point 
• 12:00 – Faith, leadership, and the danger of manipulation 
• 17:00 – The importance of a non-changing identity 
• 19:30 – Practical exercises to discover who you really are 
• 23:00 – How to tune into what gives vs. drains your energy 
• 26:00 – The real root of hopelessness (and how to fix it) 
• 30:00 – How great leaders develop people, not just manage them 
• 33:00 – Parenting, leadership, and letting people become who they’re meant to be 
• 36:00 – The legacy every leader should aim for 

🔑 Key Takeaways

•  Leadership is not about control—it’s about service. 
•  If your identity is tied to a role, you will struggle when that role changes. 
•  True leadership is using your resources, abilities, and influence for the benefit of others. 
•  You must master yourself before you can lead anyone else. 
•  Purpose is the antidote to hopelessness. 
•  Great leaders don’t treat people like assets—they develop them into who they’re meant to be. 
•  Your success should be measured by how much better others are because of you. 

🔗 Connect with Jeremy Stalnecker

•  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-stalnecker-63a2a17/
  
  
•  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremystalnecker/
  
  

🔗 Learn More

•  Mighty Oaks Foundation (supporting veterans & first responders): https://www.mightyoaksprograms.org/

“If you don’t know who you are, you

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
Some people break under pressure, others find purpose in it. Today's guest has spent his life helping people rebuild when everything is on the line. And this conversation will change how you think about leadership.

Sean Patton (00:29)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership Podcast. am your host, Sean Patton. Today I am joined by Jeremy Stalnecker. He's a Marine Corps veteran, author, speaker, and co-founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping military service members and their families recover from the unseen wounds of combat, including PTSD. Through Mighty Oaks, Jeremy has helped thousands of voyeurs rediscover purpose, identity, and hope through intensive peer-based programs and ongoing support. He's also the author of multiple books on leadership, resilience, trauma, and faith.

and regularly speaks to military units, first responders, and organizations on topics of leadership, identity, and spiritual resilience. That is a lot. Jeremy, what is up, dude?

Jeremy Stalnecker (01:06)
⁓

Hey Sean, good to see you man, thank you. yeah, ⁓ I just told you need a copy of that bio, because man, that makes me sound a lot better than I actually am, but I appreciate it.

Sean Patton (01:16)
You know what, you know, am proud of my, my bio writing because I've had a couple of people tell me that and they come on. I'm like, all right, all right. Maybe my op put in my MBA to use somewhere, I guess.

Jeremy Stalnecker (01:25)
That's why I'm here, because of that bio that you wrote.

now it makes sense.

Sean Patton (01:29)
man. ⁓ well, hey, look, you've led in military and the ministry and now in the nonprofit world. And I'm just wondering how have those different environments shaped your understanding of leadership.

Jeremy Stalnecker (01:40)
Yeah, man, my understanding of leadership, think has been so transformed because I've worked through those different areas of leadership and really helped me to settle where I am now. So I served in the Marine Corps as a combat leader. In fact, as we record, I don't know when this will go out, but as we record today is 23 years since the invasion into Iraq. I was a part of that with first battalion, fifth Marines.

A lot of that's on my mind and my heart today, obviously, but I understood leadership in that specific context. I came from a family of strong people. I played sports and had strong coaches. The Marine Corps made sense. I learned in that environment that if you do your job well, you know your tactics, techniques, and procedures. So you know how things are supposed to work and you're loud and aggressive. You're the guy who's always confident, pointing the way that that makes you a leader.

So that's the leader, right? It's type A, super aggressive, don't get run over because someone's coming up behind you, right? That's the leader. And then I transitioned out of that, literally left a combat environment in Iraq. 30 days later, I was out of the Marine Corps, off active duty, working in a church environment. And I was completely lost because that style of leadership didn't work in the ministry. And I tried for a little while.

I didn't make a whole lot of friends. In fact, I created quite a bit of chaos trying to be that super aggressive type A guy. And it sent me down this road to really discover what is leadership. Not how was leadership done, but what is it fundamentally. And I looked at ministry leaders and I read books on ministry leadership and things that we call servant leadership and came to the conclusion that a lot of what was being done in ministry was

It was kind of the same as what we were doing in the Marine Corps, but it was a little more manipulative because you can attach God to it. It was still getting people to do what I want them to do to accomplish my goals and my mission. But now there's a spiritual component, so I can kind of compel people to do what I want them to do. I really had this feeling that neither one of those is leadership. That's kind how you do it, maybe, but that's not what it is. I came to the conclusion on the other side of that that

A leader is someone who uses the resources, the opportunities, the abilities, the connections, whatever they have available to them for the benefit of those that they lead. It really is about serving. It's not about getting something out of people. It's about equipping them to be fully what they need to be. And so then you look at how leadership is done. That's very important in the right environment to know how to do leadership, but that doesn't make one a leader.

And the last thing I'll say on that is if you mistake those two, knowing how to do leadership from being a leader, then when you transition out of one role and into another, you're always going to struggle because you associate what you did over there with being a leader and that may not work where you are now.

Sean Patton (04:25)
Hmm. Yeah. So I'm hearing is that, I mean, that, that's such a great, ⁓ you know, arc of experience, right? From these two kinds of extremes to sort of like causing you to settle for, or settle on, this idea that there's, there's something in the middle here. Like there's some, there's some value in both these experiences, but coming back to, identifying it for yourself and

Jeremy Stalnecker (04:32)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Patton (04:46)
What I'd love to hear is you go in a little more depth and you type when you, if you mistake doing the things that a leader does versus actually being a leader or creating that identity for yourself that you'll struggle between roles. Can you kind of elaborate on that for me?

Jeremy Stalnecker (04:54)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. So my personal experience was leading in a combat environment, as a Marine infantry officer, you know, again, when the war in Iraq started, one five first battalion, fifth Marines was the Marine infantry battalion that went into the country as part of the first Marine division. The first KIA of the war, Lieutenant Shane Childress was, was one of our Marines. you know, this is the 23rd anniversary of his death as we think back on that. So.

So leading there in this very complex environment, but understanding those roles because we had trained and I had gone through the schools and I knew how to do that, even in the middle of chaos. you understand what I'm talking about. Combat leaders understand this. in the middle of chaos, you can find incredible peace because you know what to do. And it makes sense and it works. We made our way to Baghdad. The Battle of Baghdad on April 10th was also our battalion.

12 hour firefight to get to our objective, 100 casualties that day. It was, it was this crazy environment that I understood how to lead in. And I took that same leadership style into a different environment and thought, because I led there, I can lead here. And so, I mean, I remember the first staff meeting I sat in as a, as a church staff member, someone said something I thought was stupid. So I told him, I thought it was stupid. Then I got into an argument with him and then I got thrown out of the meeting.

And that happened a lot. Things I didn't like, I tried to correct on the spot, right? And I had no influence or authority to do that, but I was that guy. And eventually people not responding to that type of leadership in this different environment created great frustration because I didn't know what to do. If that doesn't work here, I don't know what to do. And then that frustration led to anger and that led to outbursts and a lot of other problems in my work life and in my home life.

But I think people who've transitioned out of those hyper-aggressive leadership environments into different environments understand exactly what that is, or they understand how to be a leader in that aggressive environment, and then they go home and have no idea how to lead their kids and how to lead their family and how to be a leader in this different environment because screaming at them or setting this rigid set of rules for them to function under, it doesn't work the same way it does in a different environment.

And yet we'll also see people who transition from one role to another, from one place to another, from very high capacity business leaders to some other role later on in their lives. And they just seem to move fluidly through those. Well, what's the difference? They understand that how I did it over there was important over there, but that didn't make me more or less a leader. It meant I had a business acumen or a high leadership IQ. I could figure it out. Emotionally, I understood how to function there.

That was important there, but I'm a leader if I serve there using those rules and then go home and I serve using a different set of rules, leadership is the same, I'm serving, I'm just doing it in a different way. Or I find myself in a consulting role, a lot of people outside of business end up in a consulting role. What's my job? My job is to serve the people that I'm working with. Or I find myself in a different role somewhere else. And so for me, I really struggled.

And when we talk about the problems of military transition, that to me is the issue. It's an identity that says, am a leader because I can do those things. Instead of, I am a leader because I've dedicated my life to using what I have for the benefit of those that I lead.

Sean Patton (08:19)
I love that.

definition or grounding or, ⁓ I'm trying to find the right word, but like the, the space that you're creating there, you're defining around leadership, right? I'm using my resources to serve others. And then how can I apply that in different areas? I'm curious, you know, one of my beliefs, right. And it sounds like yours is that we first part of getting to that place, the getting to what you're talking about is recognizing that

You have to lead yourself first. And so obviously you went through your own leadership journey in this and you work with a lot of leaders. like, is, what does that take?

Jeremy Stalnecker (08:45)
Mm, yep.

Yeah. Well, I think it takes, first of all, clarity around why I'm here. Right? So this goes back to my identity. It's an understanding of who I am. you know, and coming from a faith context, I look at that in a very specific way, but it's, it's grounding who I am. That's not tied to a job, a role, a uniform, a title or anything else. It's tied to something that isn't immutable, something that's unchangeable. Right? So it starts there.

And then, you know, the Marine Corps has a lot of phrases, right? But one is you need to master yourself, right? And that's it, it's leading yourself. But that needs to be done, again, with a goal. What is the goal? If I want to be in a position where I can serve other people, there's a definition of leadership that I use and that I've written about. Leadership is taking people from where they are to where they need to be. Leadership is moving people, the people that I have the opportunity to influence.

from where they are right now to where they need to be. And so I'll pour everything I have into them so they can get to where they really need to be. And I, as a leader, will also benefit from that. But it begins with mastering myself, with being someone who leads myself well. And what does that mean? It means I'm learning everything that I can learn. I'm trying to understand the new environment or the different environments that I might currently find myself in.

I am putting myself in a position physically and emotionally and spiritually where I can function well and at a high level wherever I find myself. But it's all with the goal of I want to be the very best version of myself in all of these areas, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, financially. I want to be the best in all of these environments. Why? So that I'm in the very best position I can be to live out my created purpose.

of serving the people that I have the benefit of leading.

Sean Patton (10:38)
That's a great answer. And you brought up the faith background and then also some of maybe the issues you mentioned, you the word manipulation around the faith part, right? Like you can basically say, well, you know, you can attach the God thing to it and it gets you to do something. So this is like a very interesting fact for me, because I see different people in the, and I see people approach this differently in the faith space. So I'm interested in your opinion on this because what

Jeremy Stalnecker (10:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (11:06)
I see, I guess two camps of this a bit. And maybe you can tell me how you see this too, or if you see it differently, I see people who will approach whatever faith background or holy book where that's a, Bible or that's Torah or the Quran, whatever that might be. and say, this is this book Here's what God means, or this is what God says. And they come from like, they're, they're the translator for that. And then they come from a.

Jeremy Stalnecker (11:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (11:29)
I also see other people say, look, I've read these things. Other people say these things. This is what I think it means. What do you think? And for me personally, that ladder version resonates with me much more than the person who claims to have the true definition of, whatever is holy. But I see that I'll be honest when I see, I see more of the former, at least in my circle, than I see of the ladder. And I see personally a bit of a problem there when it comes to your point.

Jeremy Stalnecker (11:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (11:57)
potentially manipulating by claiming some sort of extra knowledge or being the gatekeeper to that. does it, first of all, guess, before we get to like, how does that apply to leadership? Like, do you, does that environment sound, does this sound the same environment you're, you're, you've encountered or no.

Jeremy Stalnecker (12:01)
Right.

Yeah, I mean, ⁓ that's a pretty deep question and theologically broad, right? So where do you land on this? Again, there's a lot of nuance. So I don't think it's one or the other. I think there's a lot of nuance in this. I would come from a position where I believe the Bible is authoritative in that it was given to us by God. And we should then view the world from the lens, we call it a biblical worldview, from the lens of Scripture.

It's not a truth, it is truth. That's where I would settle. Now, that doesn't mean that I, because I believe that, have some kind of access to extra biblical, that's outside of the Bible, knowledge from God. And when I talk about manipulation in the faith space, we see this a lot, right? I mean, get on social media or whatever, right? We see this a lot.

It is people literally claiming to have an extra revelation or an extra biblical knowledge, something that's not available to you. We could go back in church history and we could go back several hundred years and this was the church holding the Bible in a language that people couldn't understand. Why? Because they believed they had special knowledge and only those who were part of the priesthood or part of the clergy or part of the whatever had access to that. I don't believe that at all.

I believe that everyone has access to the Bible or should have access to it, and that what's written is what is true. Now, we may differ on how we apply what the Bible says in our cultural context, our family context, or whatever. That's something we could discuss. But it's not using the Bible as a hammer to get people to do what you want them to do.

It's allowing the Bible to provide a worldview. Here's why this is important to me. Because I believe, based on the creation account in Scripture, that I was created, we were created in the image of God. That we were created with purpose and design. And so, believing that, I now need to live out a life of purpose and design. My identity needs to be found in what I believe is my created purpose.

And when people say, have no purpose, I don't know who I am, I've lost hope, all those things that people struggle with, and certainly they do. Christian people do as well, Bible-believing people do as well. It's a belief about self that's not grounded in what I would call truth, what I believe is truth, that we were created in the image of God for a purpose.

And so I can live however I want to without purpose, without design, without hope, without influence, without impacting the world around me. And I don't think that's how we were created. And so, again, that was kind of a roundabout of your actual question. But there's a lot of nuance. I don't think it falls on one or the other. The Bible should never be used as a bludgeon to get people to do what you want them to do. Nor is it something that is only held for a few select people.

that God has chosen who get to read the Bible and interpret it for others. In fact, the Bible says of itself, it is, Scripture is, of no private interpretation. That's right in there, and the people who hold it as private look over that verse. And so, I think there's a lot to that.

Sean Patton (15:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a lot to it because then you, I appreciate you expanding on that. Because then it gets to interpretation, right? Like if you and I both read the same set of scripture, it that how we interpret that. And so I guess it would be then how

Jeremy Stalnecker (15:26)
Sure. Sure.

Sean Patton (15:39)
my interpret, am I conveying this as my interpretation of the ultimate truth or am I conveying that my interpretation is now the ultimate truth? Interesting like nuance.

Jeremy Stalnecker (15:47)
Yeah, right, right. Well, and I

think that's where you have to ground yourself somewhere, right? And people would say, you know, how do you have the truth? I don't have, whatever. Again, that's a big argument. But if we don't find a place to ground ourselves, to more ourselves to, to tie ourselves to, and I won't say pick one because I do believe it's important which one you pick, but at the very most basic level.

Sean Patton (15:54)
Yeah.

Jeremy Stalnecker (16:12)
I think all of us understand the thing that makes us uniquely who we are. We can't touch it. We can't smell it. We can't, you know, put our finger on it. There's something more going on than what we can see and what we can experience with our senses. think most of us could step back and look at the world around us and go, man, there's something else going on. Look at creation. Look at these things and go, there's something else going on. So tying my identity and my purpose to that something else.

really touches who we actually are instead of what we're being told we are, what we're being, you know, this mold we're being pushed into culturally or socially. And so it does become very, very important. The interpretation issue, very important. Again, we could do a whole podcast on how we arrive at the interpretation of, of, you know, texts. And that is a wonderful conversation. I think it's outside of the scope of what we're talking about here, but we do have to, well, we do.

Sean Patton (17:02)
⁓ I'm qualified to talk about, you that.

Jeremy Stalnecker (17:06)
But we do, and

I think this is for everyone, as a leader, as a leader, you have to be tied to something transcendent, right? What does transcendent mean? It means it doesn't change. It doesn't change. Your relationships may change, your financial status may change, your level of importance among your peers or coworkers, colleagues may change. And so you need to find your identity in something that doesn't change. Or when those things do change,

You no longer know who you are. And if you don't know who you are, then you don't know why you're here. And that leads down a very dark, man, very difficult hole that I've been in and that a lot of other people find themselves in.

Sean Patton (17:42)
I love how accurate you're on identity and purpose and we'll get more into these because I think when I talk also with transitioning military folks or people interacting with military folks and military just being, you know, background I come from and you're coming from, but what I've seen in my life, I'm sure you have too, is working with different groups is that this is not just a military problem. This is, I mean, I see it with,

Jeremy Stalnecker (18:02)
That's right. That's right.

Sean Patton (18:04)
I see, I saw when my, when my mom retired, my mother retired and she was an educator in special education for decades. And that was her whole identity and that was gone. was like, Oh no. Or you see it from someone who maybe, uh, it was like stayed home, raised the kids homeschooled, did all of those things. And then they, they kids leave and they're like,

Jeremy Stalnecker (18:06)
Yep, yep, yep.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (18:21)
My whole identity was tied to like these, these P these beans needing me. That's where my value came from. Right. And to your point, that becomes a very fragile foundation. You know, I I'm interested in your take on this. went through a, uh, there's so many ways to look at identity. So I remember one exercise I did when I was struggling with my transition, uh, out of the military and this identity thing was, I thought, well, I need to come up with a few, I just like, I need to come a few words, like descriptive words.

Jeremy Stalnecker (18:22)
Yeah.

Mm.

Sean Patton (18:49)
for

my identity that if I, you you talk about everything moves in sort of that. If I'm just like on an island by myself, like there's not, you know, not even husband, father, CEO, whatever, you're on an island. no one's around. who you're still you. So who are you now? And, and it's funny, the words I came up with were a warrior, rebel and leader.

Jeremy Stalnecker (18:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. They're so closely aligned, those three words. Yeah.

Sean Patton (19:16)
But

it's like, so I don't know, but that was an exercise that I thought through. So when you think through, you know, this transcendent identity that's not reliant on an external situation or position or relationship to define itself, what kind of exercises or thought process do you help people go through?

Jeremy Stalnecker (19:31)
Yeah,

it's funny you talk through that because I tried to settle on that and work through who am I, what do want my kind of legacy to be, know, whatever that looks like. And again, a little bit of a different perspective, but I came up with this sentence, not a word, but this sentence. I want organizations and individuals to be better off for me having been a part of their lives. I want organizations to be better if I have an interaction with them.

I want individuals to be better because I was there. And I want them to be able look back and say, we're better off than we would have been without him. And I can do that anywhere. It doesn't matter. That's not tied to a job. It's not tied to even a relationship. It's not. As I move through life, what's my goal? I want the people that I come into contact with, the organizations that I have the opportunity to serve with or to consult with, to be better off because I was a part of their...

organizational or personal lives. And then, you you mentioned your mom. I talk about my mom all the time. She worked for the same company for 35 years. And when she retired, we were just talking about this the other day, actually. And because we're talking about transitioning military, she's like, you know, we've had this conversation a lot. But when she transitioned, she was, I won't say lost, but it's like, who am I now? If I'm not that person getting the phone calls and dealing with the fires I've got to put out and all the things, then who am I?

And so, yeah, this certainly is not a military thing. I've been in a role for a long time and now I'm not thing. So one of the exercises I try to walk people through when we're talking about this, and again, I would talk about identity from an explicitly maybe faith perspective, but you still have to break it down. Like, okay, well, what does that mean? Because we're not all the same. Even if you believe in creation and the rest of it, you're not created exactly like everyone else, nor should you.

try to be like everyone else. So you're still an individual. So it begins with understanding, I'm who I am because of the intangible. I'm not who I am because of what the world tells me I am or a job that I do necessarily, but it's intangible. There's something in me that makes me unique. So I need to start asking questions. Questions like, what would I do if I had the opportunity to do it even if it didn't create income? What's something that I would be willing to invest my life in?

If paying the bills and feeding myself, if that wasn't something that I was worried about, what would I want to do? That should be unique to you. And I'm not talking about recreation or whatever, right? Again, it goes back to, I'm here to serve. What would I want to do? What's a gift or a talent? Maybe it's not fully even developed in my life, but a gift or a talent that I had that's unique to me. Something that...

I enjoy doing something that I've been able to do throughout the course of my life that's unique to me. That speaks to who I am. What do people who know me well and are honest with me say about me? If I went to five people who know me pretty well, maybe not family members, they don't have an emotional stake in this, but they know me pretty well and said, how would you define me? What would you say is a gift that I have? Or what would you say is something unique about me compared to the rest of the people that you know? What would they say?

And so, it really is digging down and trying to find the uniqueness of who you are and the thing that causes you some level of excitement in your life. This is the thing I'd rather be doing than what I'm doing right now. And if it also connects to what I would say is a God-given purpose of serving others, then man, I think you've stumbled upon your identity. I can do this thing that I have a talent for, that I would do without taking money for.

that serves other people. That's who you are. And I think you need to lean into that.

Sean Patton (22:58)
I think that's super powerful and it resonates with me and my own life and then with clients I work with on sometimes if I see someone kind of struggle with this or like what do do next or with the professional personally. And I think that in those big moments but also in sort of micro moments in life that tuning into yourself of like.

Is this giving me energy or is this taking away energy? Right? Is this bringing my like vibe, spiritual, am I, is this bringing me up or is this a burden? And, and I think so often in modern society and American everywhere else.

Jeremy Stalnecker (23:19)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, right.

Sean Patton (23:35)
We're so used to using, at least for me, like I'm so used to using in the past, my intellect to logic around something when something doesn't feel right. And I'm just like, but you know, but if I do this and that, then it's like, I can kind of convince myself and ignore these internal, this natural intangible intuition that we have our body telling us. And if you fine tune into that, like I just think of

Jeremy Stalnecker (23:42)
Right,

Sean Patton (23:57)
in the big moments, going through these exercises starts to fine tune this thing, but when you get it down, like what a powerful tool in the moment when you're making micro decisions even throughout your day.

Jeremy Stalnecker (24:07)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think some people would look at this as, well then you're saying that business leadership, executive leadership, that thing is opposed to what you're talking about, right? Because it sounds real soft skilly. talk about the micro moments, right? It kind conjures up this image of like sitting somewhere barefoot and cross-legged and like, Well, no, I think what it does is it puts the right perspective on executive leadership and business leadership and making money and doing those things.

Sean Patton (24:23)
Yeah.

Jeremy Stalnecker (24:33)
You do those now not to give you purpose, but so that you can be equipped to fulfill your purpose. I need to be a great business leader. I need to make money. I need to do well in whatever venture I'm in. I need to learn. This goes back to leading yourself, right? I need to do that. Why? Because it puts me in a position where I can fulfill the purpose for which I was created. I can live out my identity and my purpose. And I think it

It puts the right perspective then on all of that. How am I spending my time on the weekend when I'm not in the office? How am I spending time with my kids? What am I thinking about? What am I reading? What am I engaged in? Yeah, it touches everything. When you've settled on this is who I am, this is why I'm here, this is what I'm excited about, well then everything else in your life now becomes about equipping you and others to fulfill that purpose.

Sean Patton (25:24)
You know, there's a story, it's an old story that stuck with me from Jordan Peterson that's coming from me. And he talks about, and he was a clinical psychologist. He had, he was working with his drug addict, right? He was addicted to cocaine. And he's like, I would know when he got his...

basically like his welfare check or like social security check because I wouldn't see him for like a week. Cause he's like, just take it and immediately use, it for his, as habit. Right. And then he said, you know, one day there was like a backlog where he didn't get paid for a few months. And then he got like three months at once and they found him like two days later, dead in a gutter. And so his point was that like, he, we don't have

Jeremy Stalnecker (25:44)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Sean Patton (26:04)
We don't have, people don't have a money problem. They have a purpose problem. He had no purpose. And so that's like such a extreme example of it, man, it sticks with you.

Jeremy Stalnecker (26:06)
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

I talk about this a lot when we're talking about topics like veteran suicide and some of these other issues, because so much of the attention of the VA and others is on intervention. So what are the signs of someone who's about to harm themselves? What are the things we can do to prevent someone from harming themselves? Do we need to take their firearms away? Do we need to lock up their medications? Do we need to put them in an observed environment? What do we need to do?

to intervene, to prevent someone who's already made the decision to hurt themselves, what do we need to do to keep that from happening? And that's important. I'm not against that. It is important. But we're looking at it wrong, I think. Because if a person is clear on who they are, they've addressed the identity issue. And even if they struggle with that sometimes, they need to be brought back, and they need a good group of people around them and coaching to get back to that,

They've at least dealt with it and they get it. This is who I am. Sometimes I drift. I've got the right people to push me back there. But this is who I am. If you know who you are, then you should know why you're here. This is who I am. Then this is my purpose. My identity leads to my purpose. Well, if I know who I am and I know why I'm here, then I have hope because I'm living out the reason I was put on this planet.

And so instead of looking at how can we prevent someone who's lost hope from hurting themselves, we go back three steps and say, let's help them understand who they are, understand why they're here and understand why it is that they should have hope based on who they are and why they're here. And so I absolutely agree with you. think it's, it's, it's that when you have a purpose, so many other things come into, into focus and you're able to walk that out and live that out and

You're not thrown back and forth by what's happening at this exact moment in your life. You're focused on something way down the road.

Sean Patton (27:56)
which sounds to me like the exact definition of resilience. So, yeah, right. These, the life throws you life changes because, you know, it's not all going to be butterflies and rainbows for everybody all of your day, you know? So I like that. And it's such a, a call out, right. Of to your point, important work, but sort of this.

Jeremy Stalnecker (27:58)
Right, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, that's what it is to be resilient, yeah.

Right, that's right.

Sean Patton (28:18)
very like Western medicine, science backed approach of like, did this intervention and like, have to show this one, one variable thing. It changes this thing instead of, you know, almost from like a, so here's the pill to stop this symptom from popping up. Here's a symptom pop your, your blood pressure or your whatever. It's like, instead of going all the way back to like, what is these root cause, right? It's a, it's this root cause that causes the cascade. And sometimes we lose track of it.

Jeremy Stalnecker (28:21)
Yeah, right. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's crazy, Yeah,

it's crazy. The work that we do with veterans, we'll have people come to our programs who are currently on 20 plus medications every single day. It's like, did you go from being a combat leader to being on 20 medications a day? So they start breaking it down and they have...

medication to help them wake up, medication to help them sleep, medication that's anti-anxiety, and then because that causes suicidal ideation, they've got a medication for that. And it's all of these medications managing emotions. And exactly to your point, instead of saying, what's the actual problem? Let's address that. It's let's just numb you out enough or manage your symptoms enough that you won't make the ultimate decision to hurt yourself.

And that is, it's how we've chosen to deal with so many of these issues. And what a terrible way to live. Yeah.

Sean Patton (29:30)
Man, this is... I agree.

And I think the world and a lot of the great work you're doing and other veterans are coming to, know, enough, enough of us post 9 11 veterans, think out there doing, you know, great work around this and kind of spreading the word about other options that are so powerful. And hopefully to your point, this isn't just a military veteran thing. And so hopefully we can spread this, you know, in a, in a wider, wider breadth. ⁓

Jeremy Stalnecker (29:50)
Right. That's right. That's right.

That's good. That's good.

Sean Patton (29:59)
So as you talk about leaders, like moving people from where they are, from where they need, where they are now to where they need to be. So now it's like, all right, we've got this identity and purpose of ourselves, but how do we now move into an organization and help others start to even identify where they are and where they need to go.

Jeremy Stalnecker (30:01)
Yep.

Yeah. and again, that's a big question. if you're clear on why you're here though, so you become, let's say, you know, you're the manager of a department. Most managers look at their employees as assets to be managed. It's kind of in the, in the name, right? So we're given a goal we need to reach. We need to accomplish something. You know, there's a task that, that hire has handed down to us.

And so now I need to manage these assets to get that done, to make that happen. And what this does with that definition is it begins to look at people, first of all, not as assets, but as people who have jobs and families and they're trying to accomplish things and they're here because they need to make money, because they necessarily love what they're doing, right? Maybe they do, but that's not always the case. So I'm not gonna look at them as assets to be used to accomplish my goal.

Instead, I'm going to ask the question, what are they good at? Are they in the very best position they should be in in this company? Do I have an opportunity or an ability to help them get more education or to cross train somewhere else or to put them up for a promotion? Because this isn't about me. And so as I interact with the people that work for me, it's not about keeping them close or keeping them restricted. So they'll only do what I want them to do. I'll never send them off.

somewhere else, I'll never let them learn anything else. It's always about understanding the individuals that you have working for you, having enough of a relationship with them to know what they are good at, maybe what their hopes and dreams are, what they'd like to accomplish with their lives. And then looking at yourself, inventorying what you have available to you to help them accomplish that. The strange thing about that is it sounds like you're going to lose as a manager doing it that way.

But you always win when you're helping the people that you lead become really who they were called and created to be. Moving from where they are right now, and maybe they're great where they are right now, but you can see in them, they should be over here.

Maybe they don't even see it in themselves, but you begin to help them get there. Your department grows if you're a department manager. Your company grows if you're leading a company. Your family grows and flourishes if you're leading children. This principle allows people to be fully who they're supposed to be, which makes everyone around them better.

Sean Patton (32:21)
I love the call out here on the consistency, right? Like the, when you approach life this way, then you you may not, not saying you're going to treat your, your five year old the same, you treat your VP of sales, but

Jeremy Stalnecker (32:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sean Patton (32:37)
your general approach to life and how you show up for people and why you're there, pouring into people, you know, and seeing those people first and helping them find themselves and where they're going to go. Like the nice part about that is now that's just in my mind, that's a, a skill, and a way of being even that

doesn't have to as so many people feel like, you know, take one mask off and put another mask on and have to like master two or three or four ways of being. When you find your center on that, you get to just get really good at that one way of being regardless of the situation because you're practicing one way of being.

Jeremy Stalnecker (32:58)
That's right. That's right.

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's the challenge with people who do really well, particularly in high octane environments like the military or as police officers or whatever. That works great over there, but it doesn't work great over here. so, yeah, I I think of my kids this way, and this is to me an easy thing to picture that represents this. I have four children.

And I believe that my goal as a parent is to equip them to be productive citizens and adults, you know, so they can go off without me and make good decisions and contribute to the world. But they're all different. I have a 26 year old daughter who's an accountant. She's doing great. I have a 24 year old son who's a police officer. He's doing great. I've got a 17 year old daughter who wants to be a hairdresser. She's doing great. And then I have a 16 year old son who loves football and loves sports, but wants to be a paramedic.

So if I as a parent try to imprint on them as they're coming up, so they're much younger now and I try to imprint on them, I'm trying to get them to do what I want them to do. I'm trying to get them to go to schools and pursue careers that will make me look good. Whatever the case, it's all about me and I lead them that way. Maybe I manipulate them that way. Then they may do what I want them to do, but I think I failed as a parent.

Parenting in this context that we're talking about is looking at each one of your kids as individuals, understanding that, you in the beginning you're just trying to get them to walk and brush their teeth and do the other things, but at some point you start to recognize, well, they have a skill for this, or they have, you know, an adeptness at this, or an interest in that, and as a parent, instead of saying, I want them to accomplish X, I look at them and say, well, this is where they are.

Boy, I see this in them. I see this opportunity, this talent, this ability, this thing. So let me get them in the right environments and around the right people so they can develop that so they can fully be.

what they're supposed to be. So I'm going to move them as a kid from where they are to an adult where they need to be and they can go off and live the life that they were created to live. I see that clearly in that context, but you're right. You take that to a business context. It's not that much different. Obviously the goals are different and the roles are different, but it's looking at people as individuals and saying, man, you're an awesome, you know, whatever, IT professional.

because you're smart and you like that, but you'd be really good in this other role. So let me help you get to where you really need to be and where your personality would fit best. And I think you'd make the biggest impact. And it's just working with people that way, helping them to go from where they are to where they need to be. But that requires, A, understanding leadership's not about you.

B, being willing to step back and learn. You have to understand where people are coming from and listen to them and see in them what maybe they don't even see themselves. And then number three, utilizing your resources to help them grow and get there.

Sean Patton (35:56)
And journey you're doing such great work through your books and through the mighty Oaks foundation. What, know, if you look back 2030 years from now, like what is the legacy you want to leave?

Jeremy Stalnecker (36:05)
Yeah, I think it's what I mentioned a little while ago. I want people to say, we're better off because he was a part of our lives. And if I can do that, you know, to a greater or lesser degree, and I hope that some will feel more that way than others perhaps, but I want that to be the legacy. I don't want it to be a platform. I don't want it to be, you know, a masked wealth or influence or whatever.

I'm not against those things and go ahead and amass those if you can. But when you're dead, no one's going to care about that. want people to say, we're better off as an organization, the organization that I lead now. We're better off because he was a part of what we did. I want veterans because of what I do to say, we're better off in our homes and our personal lives because he was involved. I want my kids to say, we're the adults that we are because our dad invested in us and helped us get to where we needed to be. I want my wife to say, I'm a better person.

because he was a part of my life. And so, you know, when I look at what I'm involved in, the role, the title, it doesn't matter to me as much as can I be in a place personally where I can influence others for good. And if that happens, then I'll be happy.

Sean Patton (37:07)
Beautiful. Man, thank you so much for your time, Jeremy, and the work you're doing. It's been fun,

Jeremy Stalnecker (37:08)
Yeah. Yeah, thank you,

Sean. Really appreciate it. That's great.