How to Create Meaning in Every Season of Life with Dr. Trisha Welstad

In this conversation, Dr. Trisha Welstad shares her philosophy on leadership, highlighting the importance of healthy leaders who can heal the world, demonstrating how personal pain can shape a person's purpose, and highlighting the value of reflection in leadership.

Dr. Trisha Welstad explores how purpose emerges from our deepest wounds and why healthy leaders can heal the world through their wholeness.  She shares her belief that purpose isn't a luxury, but a necessity for our identity, one that develops throughout all stages of life.

Dr. Welstad also addresses the challenges leaders face in nonprofit and faith-based sectors and shares insights on finding vocation in the second half of life.  Ultimately, Chris and Trisha emphasize the importance of personal responsibility in discovering one's purpose and making a positive impact in the world.  Join us—this is a great listen. 

Show Highlights

•  Everyone has a purpose—it's not just for the self-actualized but necessary for our identity foundation
•  Our pain shapes our calling when we're willing to examine and heal from it
•  Healthy leaders heal the world by living from their center and creating ripple effects
•  Many leaders suffer from isolation, burnout, and mission drift due to blurred boundaries
•  Purpose comes at all stages of life, requiring a new vision in transitions like retirement
•  Integration over information—people don't just want knowledge, but transformation
•  Healing-centered leadership begins with emotional and spiritual health
•  We create our worlds through the language we use—shifting from "have to" to "get to"
•  We're experiencing a crisis of purpose accelerated by AI and consumption culture
•  The journey toward wholeness involves acknowledging we're not the center of everything
•. Purpose comes at all stages of life.  

The Anatomy of Leadership podcast explores the art and science of leadership through candid, insightful conversations with thought leaders, innovators, and change-makers from a variety of industries. Hosted by Chris Comeaux, each episode dives into the mindsets, habits, and strategies that empower leaders to thrive in complex, fast-changing environments. With topics ranging from organizational culture and emotional intelligence to navigating disruption and inspiring teams, the show blends real-world stories with practical takeaways. The goal is simple yet ambitious: to equip leaders at every level with the tools, perspectives, and inspiration they need to lead with vision, empathy, and impact.

https://www.teleioscn.org/anatomy-of-leadership

Chapters

• 0:00 Everyone Has Purpose
• 8:26 Pain Shapes Our Calling
• 20:36 Leadership That Heals the World
• 31:55 Vocation for the Second Half of Life
• 42:23 Integration Over Information
• 50:04 Living From Wholeness

Transcript

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 0:00

Everyone has purpose. It's not a luxury and it's not for the self-actualized. It's necessary for the foundation of our identity. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. We're not called to heal everyone in the world and all the things. We're called to heal from the space where we dwell, from the pain that we're finding redemption through.

Chris Comeaux: 0:26

Forrest Gump. Like I was in tears in Forrest Gump, that is not a tear jerker movie, but that movie was a fascinating way for me to turn the mirror in my own life and in some respects I do feel like I'm Forrest Gump. I find myself in conversations and things get influenced that were kind of beyond me and just being maybe right place, right time and just in a humble way of just trying to help people,

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 0:52

When you watch something and brings you to tears. There's something that's being spoken. Your life is speaking to you. A lot of people have a lack in a lot of our assessments of leadership, confidence and impact. Purpose comes at all stages of life. We must start seeking out. It does evolve over time.

Chris Comeaux: 1:12

You can't think your way into a new way of acting, but you could very much act your way into a new way of thinking.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 1:18

There's so much we can consume, that we forget who we are and what we're made for. People are not just looking for more knowledge, they want transformation, and so how do we help support them in that?

Jeff Haffner: 1:30

And now our host, Chris Comeaux.

Chris Comeaux: 1:34

Hello and welcome to the Anatomy of Leadership. I'm excited today we have Dr Trisha Welstad with us. I'm going to read from her bio. She was founded at the Leadership Center in 2012 and brings over 25 years of leadership experience to her work as a coach, a consultant and an ordained minister. She holds a doctorate in leadership from George Fox University and she's an ICF certified coach. Her leadership background includes serving as an executive, a founding multiple non-profit and for-profit organizations and guiding leadership development initiatives for students, pastors and business leaders from across the US. She has a passion for leadership development. She's taught at the collegiate, graduate and doctorate levels. She's also co-created which I love that word and facilitated grant-funded programs designed to help leaders and organizations thrive facilitated grant-funded programs designed to help leaders and organizations thrive. Her work is driven by the belief that healthy leaders heal the world, and she is dedicated to helping leaders realize their full potential. It's so good to have you, Trisha, welcome.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 2:34

Thank you, it's really good to be here.

Chris Comeaux: 2:37

This has been a long time in coming. You had a team member, hannah, who reached out and she said I think that Trisha would be awesome for the anatomy of leadership, and so you and I met. Virtually we had never met before. In fact, you were the true first guest that I didn't have some type of prior relationship or just connection with. So, I think that says a lot about you and it's so interesting. I've bumped into several leaders in the hospice and palliative care space that I work with that have asked me like do you know anyone who's doing work in kind of the faith-based organizational realm? I said do you want to listen to a podcast we have coming out this summer. So here you are and I'm looking forward to our discussion. But before we jump in I always want to ask our guest, Trisha what's your superpower?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 3:23

Well, I love people.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 3:26

And that might sound really basic in some ways, but it's really true. I'm really curious about people. I love listening to people's stories. I feel like every person. I try like when I think about when I'm driving in the car because I live in Los Angeles and there's a lot of cars try to remember that in every car is a human and try to hold that yeah, and so it drives my love for all of the work we do, because in every human is a soul and emotions and all sorts of really beautiful things.

Chris Comeaux: 3:58

You remind me, one of my favorite quotes is that every human being is an unread book, and I love books, so that to me is another beautiful way to kind of like frame. I want to learn their story. Well, again, you were such a great guest to have, and so I've been using my book, the Anatomy of Leadership, which is really a meta framework. My offering to the world is hey, if you Google the word leadership, you'll get 6 billion hits. So, where do you start with such a vast body of knowledge, language, and quite often the same words will mean different things depending upon the consultant who you're working with. So, my offering was to kind of create a table of contents, if you will. I'm an accountant, right, accountants’ kind of bring organization to things. So, I'm trying to bring some organization.

Chris Comeaux: 4:41

And then it was really my wife who said maybe you should do a podcast where you're then bringing thought leaders, because the framework is kind of 20 miles wide, 12 inches deep. Now we could go basically 20 feet deep, if you will, or 20 miles deep with these wonderful guests, and so that's exactly why I was looking forward to talking to you. I feel like we're going to hit upon cause and purpose with the work that you do, but the beauty of leadership principles. I always describe it this way it's like taking a diamond, and if you take a diamond and roll it around your hand, you get these different vantage points of this vast body of wisdom and knowledge. So, cause and purpose, but I think you're going to touch on a lot of different areas. So, you ready to jump in? Yeah, I am. So, you ready to jump in?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 5:21

Yeah, I am.

Chris Comeaux: 5:23

So, your leadership philosophy emphasizes that healthy leaders heal the world. I love that. Can you elaborate on how this belief just shapes the work that you do at the Leadership Center?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 5:35

Yeah, sure, Well, we wrote that line as we were talking about who it is we serve and why we care so much about the work we do. Because we could tell people oh, we do coaching, we do business coaching or career coaching, we do consulting. But really, it's not just about the skills that we develop in people. We really care about people being whole and we're looking at the end goal of where is it that we want people to go? We want them to be whole because when they live from the center of who they're made to be and the center of their sense of purpose, which means that they're going to be more whole, then that will impact, it will be a ripple effect into the world and so then the goodness that's coming through their life will move into our lives and to everyone's lives. So, we believe that healthy leaders heal the world because it's based in practices, reflection, coaching, offering assessments, all these different things we offer that we're doing to support leaders as they move into spaces of health.

Chris Comeaux: 6:36

I love that for so many different reasons. Trisha, one of the things at the end of each year we do a “One Word” podcast, so we challenge all of our teams, the organizations we work with, to do a one word, which I find. The one word is a theme for your year to better live, your cause and purpose. Well, guess what my one word is this year? It's actually whole, yeah. And so, it reminded me. And so, my wife has homeschooled our kids and I'm a bit of a geek and we're a huge book family. You walk into our house. We've got books everywhere.

Chris Comeaux: 7:09

One of my coolest Christmas gifts she gave me several Christmases ago is a first edition Daniel Webster dictionary. So, it goes back to the very inception of the United States. Something led me to go look up the word integrity, and do you know? The original meaning of integrity was whole, exactly, yeah, exactly, and that, to me, has just been very profound. I have a lot of folks, friends, that are of the Jewish faith. The word shalom as well has a deeper meaning around, like wholeness, like living a whole life. So, does that?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 7:43

I was a seminary student twice over, so all of that, I'm like, yep, it's the wholeness. I actually my hometown is Salem, Oregon that's where I'm from originally which is Salem, is Shalom, and so it's like the place of peace that's Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Shalom, and so I did not know that yeah.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 8:05

So that's the thing. Part of it is, we realized that people can't be whole when they're about ego. They can't be whole when it's like they're always trying to present. You have to start with something that's more true, more authentic, and then you move forward from that.

Chris Comeaux: 8:22

Well, that's kind of a great segue. So, in your speaking, which you do quite a bit of, you explore how pain shapes one's calling, or, as I would call it, like their cause and purpose. Yeah, I'd love for you to share how personal challenges maybe influence your own leadership journey and then how you've seen that at work with some of the people that you coach. In fact, I just gave a keynote, that's why my voice is a little bit weak today, and when I talk about cause and purpose I almost put like a disclaimer. There is a risk to what I'm telling you, because in this American society you go through the drive-through. You could get your drugs through the drive-through, your food. We think cause and purpose comes on down from on high, easy peasy, like some heavenly mission impossible. Hey, Trisha, here's your cause and it doesn't work that way, does it?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 9:11

No, no, and I even saw I was reading your chapter on it and it's like this is a daunting topic, like it's a daunting thing to start to just say, well, what's your purpose in life? People don't that's a heavy question. People like to say what do you do? That's an easy approach because you can say what your job is, and then most people tend to identify their purpose with what they do. And so, I say that because that's part of my own unwinding of, or maybe winding of, my purpose and understanding that and getting that clear.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 9:47

That happened through a few different experiences. For me, one and with regard to pain, one was when I was really young. I well, you know, grade school, middle school age I'd had a few different relationships that left me feeling really rejected and they were painful. I'd gone to therapy about some of them and I really saw a lot of love from those people. And then, when they couldn't be present for me, I felt abandoned and I needed to find that my value, my sense of, maybe, purpose. But I wouldn't have thought of it that way. But the love that I saw in the world was not primarily based on me just being loved by others, Like I needed to care about who I was, despite of what other people thought of me. And then I experienced that again when I was in my career.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 10:43

I was leaving a role voluntarily about 15 years ago, and when I did, even though I was, I knew what we were going into. We were taking some risks, my husband and I moving. I was going to start a new well, I was going to start the leadership center, but I wasn't planning to do it in the same sphere as what I was working in before and I didn't know how it was going to go because I hadn't started yet. And so then I really questioned my sense of identity, Like, if I am not this position, who am I? And so I was asking really hard questions because I was leaving and I felt lonely.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 11:23

So again, you have kind of that abandonment, feeling of like who am I? And so our pain. We teach this in all of our Live, your Purpose course and our vocation for the second half of life, all these different places. We talk about this because our pain has an opportunity to shape our sense of purpose. It's the healing from it. That's why we talk about healing so much, because through our healing we help support the healing of other people, and so it always matters. But if you're not willing to examine your own pain in your life, then it's really hard to see anyone else and to be able to love or care for anyone else toward their sense of wholeness or purpose.

Chris Comeaux: 12:04

I find this fascinating. Just listen to you, Trisha. And we didn't talk about we would be talking about this together. I've done a lot of interesting.

Chris Comeaux: 12:11

I will call it like men's ministry, kind of separate from my day job, but then all the coaching that I do I find it fascinating that your pain and you push back if you don't like this screaming but like your wound was actually the clue to your calling when I asked your superpower loving people, but yet the wound would almost be well, Trisha, abandon people because they've abandoned you. And so, it's interesting in a faith language there's good and there's evil. Evil would not want you to live your cause and purpose because that would make the world a better place. So then evil might take a situation and try to give you a lie that you might buy, and then some of us will live then our whole life, because we usually won't make an agreement. I will never let people hurt me, and if that would have been your agreement, you never would live the superpower that you described. So, I don't know if you would push back or clean any of that up, but I use a lot of that thought process in my own coaching.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 13:13

Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right on. We talk about it as a first wound or a original wound or pain theme that comes through people's life, and if you don't choose to sit with it or redeem it there's another faith language word then you have a hard time moving through it. And we actually use what one of our team members has written a book on this Deborah Lloyd is her name called your Vocational Credo, and she uses what she calls the vocational triangle and she starts with the wound and then we move into values like lived values, and you can see the inverse come through the lived values and oftentimes we take a book, a movie, a quote of some sort. That's just really an anchor for us. So mine is the Lyle the Crocodile. My grandma used to read that to me when I was a kid. They just had a movie out about it. It's like such an old book.

Chris Comeaux: 14:08

Oh, I didn't know that we would read that to our kids all the time. Yeah, so I love that book.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 14:11

And it was the one where there was a little girl who sent him hate letters and I mean he's a crocodile living among humans, it's odd, but he welcomed everyone. But he welcomed everyone. He made everyone feel like they were part of the community. And until her mother allowed her to be part of the community, she was just living in the wound space of that, like the hate, the anger, because it was what she was missing out on. And then he saves her and so then she's welcome and her mom's fine. But the thing is is that the themes of hospitality, welcome, being an outsider, helping others to feel welcome, those things. That speaks to the opposite of my own pain story, and I love that. And it's an innocent place for me to look at that book because it's just something I love, and I wanted to read all the time.

Chris Comeaux: 15:00

That is so good. I would usually ask and say is there a movie that just resonated with you Like Forrest Gump? I was in tears in Forrest Gump. That is not a tearjerker movie, but that movie was a fascinating way for me to turn the mirror in my own life and in some respects I do feel like I'm Forrest Gump. I find myself in conversations and things get influenced that were kind of beyond me and just being maybe right place, right time and just in a humble way of just trying to help people. Cool things come out of it. But quite often I ask people that question. It always fascinates me that there's something about that character they're drawn to that is a clue as to their cause and purpose.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 15:48

It's right. That's right, because the thing is, children, when you're young or innocent, or even just if you're honest as you're older with yourself? When you watch something and it brings you to tears, then there's something that's being spoken. Your life is speaking to you and telling you the truth. Your emotions tell you the truth about what you feel in a moment, and so, when your child or when I think about that book, it's that it was something I longed for, it was something I wanted. Well, why? Because there were these experiences that maybe were not whole in my life, and so there's things that we long for the good. Why do we want a happy ending? Because we want that for people, we want that for everything.

Chris Comeaux: 16:34

Well, and I'll get a little faith on you for a second. It's because that message of eternity is written upon our hearts. Yeah, and so we're, and we see it like always. The movie Titanic, right, there is a message of eternity in that movie.

Chris Comeaux: 16:52

Like the end of that movie, when all the great story, the great characters of the story come together, that is a little bit of a picture of the promise beyond the veil. And so I think that when those things happen and the other thing that just occurs to me listening to you those wounds, if you will, are a backhanded compliment, like if you will look at almost the flip side of that wound, therein lies the cause and purpose, and sometimes this is where I'd love for you to push back. The greater the wound, the greater the potential for the cause and purpose the potential impact on the world for good.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 17:33

Yeah, yeah, I think that's possible. I think my only pushback would be it's your willingness to reflect and to heal, because if you're not willing to do the work, you can be a really bitter person. And some people have had just some people have had a lot of a lot of hardship and healed much, and some people have had very little and healed very little.

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Chris Comeaux: 18:38

My cause and purpose is to help people find their cause and purpose and live it, so I see what is possible. You have a much more pragmatic is not quite the right word, but a realistic view of that. My visionary would never become the true vision if it wasn't wonderful folks like you doing the work that you're doing with people. So I love that.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 18:56

Thanks. Well, just to state mine. Mine is that God put me on earth to nurture women and men, to activate their purpose, so they thrive in all they are and do.

Chris Comeaux: 19:07

Wow, and I'd say usually mine is to help them identify it and to capacitate them with tools to potentially live it. Hence the word potential. Yeah, potentially. So, I love that. So I love this.

Chris Comeaux: 19:20

That pain is the doorway, but it also could be the prohibitor, the chains. There's a great Randy Alcorn book years ago that I couldn't tell you what the whole book was about, but there was this one scene in the book where this person was walking in two worlds the spiritual world and the real world, and they were walking up this road into the city and they saw what looked like palaces and people sitting in their palaces. Rode into the city and they saw what looked like palaces and people sitting in their palaces, but through telescopic vision he saw closer, and they all had chains bound through these big balls like they were in a prison that they did not realize even though they were sitting in their palaces. And that framing always just kind of stuck with me. I don't know if that resonates with you, but as I listened to like the potential but also the reality where many people are stuck, that's the visual that comes to me.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 20:09

Yeah, that reminds me of the golden handcuffs. We talk about that with friends who they want the really, really nice things but they're living so outside of their purpose that they have a handcuff.

Chris Comeaux: 20:20

That's really good. Well, you were. And what I love about the work you're doing you work extensively with leaders in both nonprofit and faith-based sectors. Again, that's why I was so excited about today, because I find more and more people asking me hey, do you know someone working in the faith sector? What common challenges do these leaders face and how do you guide them through the obstacles? If you will, Sure, sure.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 20:43

So, so many leaders are just exhausted. I mean, many of them are really isolated. They're doing hard work, they're doing good work, they're doing meaningful work, but sometimes it's hard to measure well, like the impact. We find that a lot of people have a lack in a lot of our assessments of leadership, confidence and impact have a lack in a lot of our assessments of leadership, confidence and impact which is odd, that's always the lowest to me and then sometimes, with all of that can be mission drift.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 21:14

So, there's these different experiences that we see in the individual and then the organization as a whole, and they're so deeply invested in their work which makes their boundaries sometimes blurry and then it makes burnout really common. So, what we have been doing is working really hard to support people with their why and then their how, like why is it that we are doing this? We don't often ask just that question. We ask a lot of questions that are not the word why, because people have a hard time getting the why. It gets too philosophical, yeah, but we want to help support them in clarifying their purpose and values.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 21:51

We have even done our um, our live, your purpose type course, some of that content with the pain and the values and the healing that they want to bring to the world, with boards to help them clarify their board mission statement, because we realize there's these pain points, there's these values you have. Maybe you're not looking at those things, maybe you're just trying to look at all these objectives or current crises and numbers and whatnot, and, and so we are trying to help support them in starting more whole and then doing the work, and we're doing it even beyond faith-based and nonprofit spaces, although that is where we have anchored to begin with. But we're doing it. We've done it in some government spaces, we've done it with a CPA group, we've done that with a few others and they've just been like, okay, this is super helpful, this is really anchoring, because they need orientation too.

Chris Comeaux: 22:46

What's your percentage of client mix Trisha? Is it a little bit more on the faith-based side, or is it a pretty even mix?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 22:54

I would say we're on the nonprofit side. We're probably about 80% faith-based and nonprofit. And then we have, I mean, we do some coaching for UCLA MBA students, we do some coaching with just all sorts of different individuals, and we have a lot of client contracts. So those are the larger portion.

Chris Comeaux: 23:13

That's so great and leadership is leadership in every organization. That's right. In fact, my mentor was Stephen Covey's mentor. It was a guy named Dr Lee Thayer, and he would always talk about the Jethro lesson, which was Jethro taught Moses the original kind of leadership lesson. But one time I actually asked him I'm like because sometimes he'd say the Moses leadership lesson and he had a very interesting sense of humor. He would use humor and perversiveness to push your thinking. So that's a good framing for what I'm about to say.

Chris Comeaux: 23:46

And finally I asked him I'm like, what's the real Moses leadership lesson? He says it's actually very encouraging for you. I said, really, tell me more. He said yeah, God was supposedly speaking on behalf of Moses, and the people still didn't listen. It was like it was a way of kind of going if you're frustrated by this thing, that is leadership. Here was Moses that had God himself kind of speaking for him, but yet there were still leadership challenges. So, it was a really perverse way of kind of encouraging you. You think you got it bad compared to like what Moses journeyed.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 24:18

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, he didn't have it easy. I mean, 40 years wandering with the people who were pretty obstinate was not a joy, I'm sure.

Chris Comeaux: 24:26

Exactly, which might be a weird segue. This is another reason why I was looking forward to talking to you, but you are for a course on vocation for the second half of life. That inspires the heck out of me because a couple of different reasons. We just dropped a podcast several weeks back about the. I used to frame it as the silver tsunami and through this podcast with the John A Hartford Foundation, they were very instrumental in bringing about age-friendly healthcare systems and what's called the four M's as a framework, because the baby boomers are going to be a much different customer in healthcare. And he coached me like quit calling it the silver tsunami, because a silver tsunami, you just stand on the shore, there's nothing you can do about it, it just crashes upon you and they're trying to inspire. How do we do a better job with the baby boomers? So that's opened my thinking to, instead of the challenge, but more is what is possible and the opportunity, the fact that you're giving people this idea of a vocation in the second half of life.

Chris Comeaux: 25:26

One of my mentors said something at a young age that's always stuck I don't ever plan on retiring. And he would always say the Hebrew language has no derivation or word that is synonymous with retirement. There's just different stages of your life and different roles that you play, so I don't know if that kind of resonates with you, but the fact that you're doing vocation, the second half of life, what inspired you? What is the work that you're doing? What kind of insights did people gain?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 25:55

Yes, oh, I really like talking about this, actually Partially because I'm like tipped into the second half of life, but that's not why. Really, it's mostly that we had been coaching. We started Leadership Center. I started Leadership Center in 2012. And it was an internship program for college students is where we began. So, I was coaching college students on helping them find internships, and then I was coaching their supervisors at their locations, and so then I'm helping them discover where it is that they feel a sense of calling. Like I kept telling college students you need to have these taste and see experiences, you have to really anchor down, and so then I'm talking with them, and then we start doing some of these different grants funded by the Lilly Foundation.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 26:46

Some of the work we were doing, which gave us a lot of good research and data, but it was based on ministers in transition, and so we were looking toward how do you thrive in change and transition? And again, this vocational question kept coming up. And so, then this is this whole piece where we're like, well, I was noticing, I was paying attention to it, because I love talk on identity and purpose all the time and I realized, oh, this is the word midlife crisis. That's what this is People in change, and sometimes it was change into a new role. But a lot of times we were gathering people, cohorts of leaders, for three or four days at the noons together and having them share their stories but not really talk about their workplace at all. And so, we're creating these dynamic, safe spaces for them to be known and to get to know one another and to have colleagues. Well, what we realize in those two spaces, both when I was working with the college students and then we're working with people in midlife, we're seeing, oh, this is a theme people are looking towards, like what is it? Like that I am called to, what is it that I am supposed to get to? They're asking those deep purpose questions.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 28:09

And in all of these I thought well, what about those who are retiring, like the, the grandmas who are retiring, and they're are retiring and they want to spend their time with their kids, or the couple who just wants to travel, or the people who never want to retire why, why don't they want to retire? And then I was also looking at some of those pastors, ministry leaders, nonprofit leaders, who they just have a really hard time stepping off the stage, and so from that I thought this is not good because you're not making room for those who are behind you. And then, when you do, what are you doing? Are you all becoming realtors? Like there was a whole swath of folks that were becoming realtors because they needed purpose, they needed to be with people. Still, there were all of these things I was observing as I was in different roles of leadership and I thought, you know, purpose comes at all stages of life. We must start seeking out.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 29:10

It does evolve over time I agree with you on that. I think you talk about that in your book and yet it may shift in some ways to where it unearths. New parts, kind of that diamond aspect of like new pieces come into reality. And so, when we do this course, we help people think about their legacy statement, which is essentially their credo, the statement that I was giving you of me. But what do they think of it in this next season?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 29:33

We help them with a vision and value statement that connects with what truly matters for them. In that, this next season, we help them with a vision and value statement that connects with what truly matters for them in that season of life, we help them do a work line reflection. It helps them to see their themes throughout their life's work. We do peer feedback and support because they need peers in the journey. A lot of people have lost friends. Their relationship circle shrinks. If we don't continue to initiate new relationships throughout our life, our relationships and our circles will shrink and then we will sense that we don't have a lot of meaning or purpose because we don't have a lot of people to engage with and so we help people to connect and give feedback, support and then finally, renewed direction and inspiration to live purposefully for the next years.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 30:22

Their life matters. They do have purpose. That matters.

Chris Comeaux: 30:27

Trisha, do you see this is fascinating. There's so many different directions I could think of going in. But just thinking about do they discover almost a cornucopia of different applications of that. I don't see one or two pathways, I just see this huge multiplicity of pathways almost like an entrepreneurial buffet of different things they could do. Some of them may just be being there for your grandkids, that might be but there also might be interesting ways for them to give back. So do you kind of walk alongside them, almost like an entrepreneurial incubator is not quite right, but in that realm.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 31:03

Sure, I like to do this with people at any age and stage. I want them to think of things that they could do, at least three. What could you do with this life purpose statement? Three different things. I was in an anatomy class two weeks ago talking to students that were like pre-med majors, and their professor and I met at a coffee shop, and she was like please come to my class, I want you to talk to them. She was fascinated by what we do.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 31:32

It was very cool, it was really fun. I'm there with you know, there was a cadaver lab behind me, I think, Anyways, but I was telling them. I said I want you to think of three different things, not just what your parents told you you have to do, not what you think you're going to do based on the classes you're taking. And I would tell the same thing to my nearly 70-year-old mother-in-law, Like I would say think about what are three different things you could do that would fit with this in your scope of purpose.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 32:05

Because people, again, we tend to anchor down well, I'm a grandma, or I am a preacher, or I am an executive. So, we tend to continue to identify with what we do instead of, maybe, the healing we want to bring. And that can come. I mean, I hope that the healing that I bring to people comes to my very own children. I don't want it to just come to the people I coach. That would be, I would be duplicitous in some ways. I'd be doing two different things, so that would not be integrity.

Chris Comeaux: 32:39

That is very well said. What is that? John Maxwell quote those who know you the best love you the least. You don't want that to be the outcome. You want those who do know you the best love you the most because they've seen the most authentic, real version of you. That's right. So, the other interesting thing, just kind of listening so Dr Thayer was Stephen Covey's mentor. So, think about the seven habits. So, he had the headwaters where Covey went more of like a recipe approach. But what Thayer would teach people is first off, find your cause and purpose. But you have a role, description, descriptions and you're playing multiple roles in life. So, I want to kind of say and I want you to push in life.

Chris Comeaux: 33:19

Yeah, that's right. So, another way. So, I want to kind of say, and I want you to push back, that's good. So, all of life is a stage. So, as Shakespeare said, so when I walk at home, I am playing a different role as dad, a different role as husband Get to work. I'm playing the role of CEO, playing a role as a podcaster. The performance of those roles look different, but the thread line through all of them is my cause and purpose.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 33:41

Does that resonate it does. I would say, I could think of it in roles, or I could also think of it in parts.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 33:49

Like well, part of me is a mother, but not all of me is a mother. Part of me is a spouse, and I think of that a little bit in psychological terms, like part of me is still my 10-year-old self sitting on those stairs feeling that thing, and how do I respond to her. And part of me is a runner, with an injury. So, I don't run, you know, but but I have run. I mean, I ran the la marathon a long time ago now and I think of myself as that's part of who I am. These are pieces of me. They're not all together. They make up all the pieces of who I am, but I do so. They are roles, but they are also pieces, some of them dormant, some of them active.

Chris Comeaux: 34:37

That's well. I love that framing and you know you think about habits that Covey talked about. So, Thayer was maybe one of the first people. He was a student of William James, I'm sure you know William James was really kind of the anti-hero of Freud. Freud was deficit based. James was much more appreciative in his approach and so Thayer was very much about that. So, he would basically say you can't think your way into a new way of acting, but you could very much act your way into a new way of thinking. So, when you're performing that role there may be a gap between your vision of how that role needs to be performed, but you're always closing that gap and therefore you're very much living into your cause and purpose, but you're always a work in progress. There's never a destination within that. Does that resonate again, or would you clean that up or say that differently?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 35:27

No, I think that's good. I think we're always a work in progress. I think of it as a journey of like. I am on this path, and I am here to live the most of it, to be as present as I can possibly be to each of these spaces, while knowing the hope that's before me, the vision, the purpose that's before me. For me. I have a hope that is way before me and that lives inside of me.

Chris Comeaux: 35:56

That's really good. So, it does. It maybe weighs upon me. I'm thinking of this work that you're doing. It feels very important during the time that we live, and I hope I don't feel like that's hyperbole. I feel like that feels profound. Does that feel profound to you?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 36:10

It does. I read an article this morning and I thought of this question you're about to ask me, so yeah, yeah, tell me more, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 36:19

Well, I was reading an article this morning about AI, and I don't mind AI. I use chat, gpt to help, like be a thought partner on some things, um, and it doesn't know everything. It knows the compilation of what we all know, so, um, so I use that. But I just I was reading an article, an article about there's a new organization out there that's interested in just helping to eliminate all the jobs of lawyers and healthcare and all these different places in the future, and they think that they want to do that as fast as they can, but that might take 10, 20, or 30 years. And there's that. But I also think the phrase that came to mind for me when I was reading that, as I was like, oh, we are in a crisis of purpose.

Chris Comeaux: 37:06

That's well said.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 37:08

And I think of that for many reasons. I think of that it because we have so many people who, we have so much social media and I'm not against the media, but we have so much that we can I'll say it differently we have so much we can consume that we forget who we are and what we're made for. And then if we have nothing to do in the world, it makes it even more like well, why exist? What's the purpose that I bring into the world? And so I feel like there's this deep, deep need for people to connect to what I would call a God-given purpose. Like, every person has it.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 37:53

It's not just for the privileged, and I think of Viktor Frankl when I think about that, because he talks about every person has purpose and so, and that's the way we make it through the hardest things. But it's really easy in this era to deflect and to just be mad or bitter or point fingers, or do our job and try to just make our money, to try to escape. There's a lot of things that we could do to just try to pacify ourselves right now.

Chris Comeaux: 38:34

Yeah, that is so well said. Several things occur to me. I just heard the other day that the way to think about AI right now, most of us were raised in the traditional school method. Maybe, if you're a blast, you went to Montessori. You'd be the exception. But typically the paradigm of school is memorize a bunch of stuff, regurgitate it on a test. You get the. AI is really good at that because that's what it's actually doing. Two things Dr Thayer, his last blog that he wrote the title was the Robots Are Coming, oh my.

Chris Comeaux: 39:07

And here was his punchline If your job can be replaced by a robot, it should, because you should perform your role with mastery, and he would use the term virtuosity. So in other words, it is living, that cause and purpose that you almost look at that and go that is art, that is beautiful. Ai can't replicate that. The other I don't know if you had a chance to listen, trisha, but we had Daniel Pink on our podcast. I love his book, a Whole New Mind.

Chris Comeaux: 39:34

I did not know until the podcast that he wrote that in the Bush administration. I thought he had just wrote it because I'm like, I recommend it probably three or four times a month, and what he predicted is the left-brain activities accountants, attorneys, things like that. That's what AI will do well, but he puts a framework. That's the future. He calls it the right brain. You and I would probably say right brain and heart, actually wholehearted leadership, where empathy, storytelling, compassion, he said those are the superpowers of the future and I actually think that is right, dead on.

Chris Comeaux: 40:09

But people hear these things like all the jobs will be eliminated. You think of you, the most brilliant physician or attorney in the world, or, let's say, tax accountant. I grew up as an accountant. There's guys that could recite like well, that's this code, blah, blah, blah. Subtext whatever. When AI could do that like that, invariably you're going to go oh, what am I? Why do I even exist? If that thing can do that? That's right. Maybe they've only been a fraction of what they could be because it was more about what they knew as opposed to who they are.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 40:41

That's right. That is my favorite part of coaching, because we are helping people to be more themselves. I'm coaching all of these MBA fully employed students from UCLA and in other places as well, but they're there from all different backgrounds and walks of life and work they do, and at high levels. And it's so fun because I can help somebody who's like a bioengineer with their soft skills, because there's so much more. Oh, they didn't think about that in the way of time management or strategy. Well, they didn't think about that. The way of time management or strategy well, they didn't think about that.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 41:21

But those are the things when you support people in helping them be more well-rounded. Well, which is the whole piece um, you get to help see them flourish like oh yeah, I'm not just smart, I'm not just, you know, good at numbers. I'm not like they don't necessarily say that, but that's kind of what, the aha, the light bulb that comes on when we're working with different people. It's helping them see, you're more than just a preacher, you're more than just whatever their role is. I've said that to mothers and I don't know how well they always took it. I'm glad I am one. I could speak to the group. I said look, your calling is not to be a mother. That's a part of who you are and it's important, but that's not always. It's not always been who you are. It's not everything for your future. It's a part of the way maybe you nurture.

Chris Comeaux: 42:13

And it's interesting, I find you use the word just several times, which is very limiting.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 42:17

It is, it's not.

Chris Comeaux: 42:18

That role that you get to play as mother is a stage that you get to walk on, but the essence of what you bring into that and how well you perform it, there may be those moments. A friend of mine always said one time he was with his wife on this trip and he said I looked over and I saw her in her glory. There was that version that maybe we only get little glimpses of this side of eternity but will fully be realized the other side of eternity. But I do believe the journey of leadership is to try to bring those as close as possible. Here I've come, so you have life to the full, life to the abundant.

Chris Comeaux: 42:52

Yeah, that's right I think that's kind of what that was poking on.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 42:55

Yeah, that's right. The abundant piece I think matters that was my word of the year a couple years ago was abundance Because I wanted to live that way, I didn't want to live in scarcity. One of my first coaches said to me my career business coaches said Trisha, the amount of times you say I can't, I should, I have to, I must, I need to. Those kinds of words were so much a part of my language. And you know, later my husband said to me after I'd been coaching with that person for a while. They said he said Trisha, you have changed more through this coaching experience than you have through your master's, your doctoral program, all the different work that you have done, because I'm changing my mind and I'm changing my actions.

Chris Comeaux: 43:47

But isn't it interesting? So Dr Thayer won a Lifetime Achievement Award in Communication, and this was one of his core principles. We create the worlds we exist in based upon the words that we use. You shifted your words, and your world opened up. I find that just so profound.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 44:08

It is true. I noticed the difference Because, instead of saying I have to go to the store right now, I say I get to or I choose to go to the store right now. Yeah, I say I get to, I get to, or I choose to go to the store right now. That's a choice I'm making. That's a language. I say a lot to my kids. Like you know, this is a choice you're making right now, so I'm giving them a sense of agency.

Chris Comeaux: 44:32

Yes, that's really good. My other mentor in my life is a guy named Quint Studer. He's kind of like the John Maxwell of healthcare leaders and on my whiteboard in my office I got this from my podcast with him be a get-to person, not a got-to person. And then the other interesting thing I never heard this frame before because I would use that term soft skills. And he said Chris, don't ever call that again. Those are essential skills, and I've reframed that because it is essential. That's true, because when we call them soft skills, it's almost like we're downplaying them, because the hard skills are you quantitative, are you smart? But those skills, those other skills, are essential skills, especially going forward in the future, because if the AI is going to do those other things we used to call hard skills much better, then those are going to become the superpowers of the future.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 45:23

Yeah, that's I. You know, I will adopt your language there. The essential skills is good.

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Chris Comeaux: 46:16

Well, as we look ahead, what trends, or just maybe shifts, that you foresee, I almost feel like can we sprinkle a whole bunch of Trisha and her team on the world? It would be awesome. But in leadership development and how is maybe your center preparing to address these shifts, challenges, as we go forward?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 46:34

We have felt like what we really want to do is we want to make our work accessible, because we feel like this is needed work. But the trends that we've seen is that the word integration is actually one of those things. So, we're looking at how do we have integration over information? Like, people are not just looking for more knowledge, they want transformation, and so how do we help support them in that? And then also, how do we help second half leaders? There's a book by Richard Rohr that I think of a lot and his book let's see, I always have it over here. It is do you, have it?

Chris Comeaux: 47:20

I have a couple of Roar's books. I don't know. I love the one that was about what we've lost and like there was a lot of initiation ceremonies and other cultures and we've lost that, and so I've adopted I adopted some of his principles as my kids we have five kids as they were.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 47:34

And.

Chris Comeaux: 47:35

I can't remember the name of that one either.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 47:37

Yeah, it's the word, though it came to me it's falling upward and it's all about what we've based a lot of our work on the second half of life, that through some of his work, because it's like the way up is down, and so there's a lot of that that we've done and so, but, looking towards the second half of life, and how do we support boomers and Gen X leaders as their roles shift?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 48:02

We're creating tools and trainings for legacy, for transition, helping to support people as they navigate. So that's one of the other trends that we're seeing Like, okay, it's that transition, there's a lot of change happening there. And then healing-centered leadership, and we've talked about this a bit already. Healing-centered leadership and we've talked about this a bit already, but, like with the rising awareness of trauma, with DEI fatigue, with post-pandemic burnout still, and the rapid development of AI technology, like there's this need for leadership that begins with emotional and I would even say spiritual health, even whatever level people, wherever they're coming from, because we support a lot of people who are not faith based, and so we want them to hold what is true for them, that is more than them, that they're not the center of it all. So, yeah, so those are things we found.

Chris Comeaux: 49:01

Interesting. Tricia, I always find it fascinating that this path of me being in hospice and healthcare. I grew up in corporate America, one of the top consulting firms, and then I fell into hospice nonprofit, which this was in 95. So now this is kind of a pathway that people go, but I was an early trailblazer, but it wasn't like I was being a thoughtful trailblazer. Quite often people will say I fell into hospice like you're walking down a road and there's this hole and you fell into it.

Chris Comeaux: 49:25

But the thing that keeps coming to me is that hospice was the first model of healthcare that believed that human beings were body, soul, spirit and mental, emotional. So the model of care believes, and I think that was the right belief. I think about the rest of healthcare. I always ask nurses when we're in a training and say okay, how many of you worked in the hospital? Many will raise their hands, and I said I'm going to make a bet with you. I've never met you before today. I bet you would at least one time referred to the heart, patient room 304.

Chris Comeaux: 49:52

And then we go oh my God, how'd you know that? Because the paradigm is they're an organ, not a whole human being. And so this model, starting with the belief that that is the. If you broke down this complex system into categories that would help you understand, and then a great model that works across the system and, interestingly, you get really good results in hospice. So, I don't know if that resonates with you, but spiritual is one of those components that are part of the human essence, if you will, because we aren't the center of the universe, and that's where social media is dangerous, because of just the selfies and all that sort of stuff. I think I heard Jordan Peterson say that now, statistically maybe it's 20% of our society and only throughout history 4% or 5% suffer from narcissism. So it is doing something that's not healthy.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 50:44

Yeah, yeah. It makes us very egocentric, and we put ourselves in the middle. And I just know that when I'm in the middle, when I am like God in my life, it's too much for me. I can't, I can't, I can't live that way because I fail my own expectations to be that perfect. And that's not even saying anything about my faith system. I know it doesn't work; I know that that's not what God calls me to. But then also, when I'm trying to be in control, I think of sometimes that phrase if it is to be, it is up to me.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 51:19

I don't like that phrase Because that's not true, it's not wholly true. Like I can participate but I'm a partner and I do not provide everything for myself. And sometimes that's the like. The very elemental thing that I remind my kids, or I talk about with people I think about myself is like almost everything that I'm surrounded with physically, in the space I'm in, I did not make, I did not grow my food, I did not do all of the things. It's like the no man is an island.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 51:50

No, one is an island.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 51:51

I can't do it all myself. I am not God, but I am in need of more than what I see and experience, and all people are.

Chris Comeaux: 52:02

Dr Thayer said something in my early years of working with him and I have to admit that I didn't agree with it when he said it. But recently I read the Rocking Chair Prophet. Have you read that book? Oh my gosh, I highly recommend that book. We're leaving today going family vacation. I'm actually going to reread it for the second time but for some reason, the way it was in that book, it affirmed what Thayer said, and this is what it said in Rock and Cheer Prophet. The original sin was actually man and woman not living up to their full potential. Therein lies the actual journey of this life Trying to get to live into that journey of being on the journey towards your full potential, realizing you probably won't ever achieve it, this side of eternity. Therein lies the original sin and I'd never heard Dr Thayer said it. I'm like, eh, I don't think that's actually scripturally, but actually I went back and I'm like I think there's something to this.

Chris Comeaux: 52:58

And it's another way of framing what you just said. Therefore, that's why you can't be the center of it all, because we're not living it into that full potential. But that's not, then. Okay, well, then throw your hands up at it. No, that's actually the joy of life is being on that journey, getting closer to looking back through the rear-view mirror and going am I a better version today than I was 10 years ago? So, then I'm on the journey. Does?

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 53:21

that resonate with you. Yeah, yeah, that's, it does. Yeah, I was just thinking I was reading that scripture to my son. We were talking about it the other night and we were talking about why didn't they just eat from the tree of life, they had another tree. But yeah, it does, it does there's. There's so much. There's so much good and possible. It's a matter of what you pay attention to and also how much scarcity you live in, you kind of have to put yourself in the center when you feel a bit scarce.

Chris Comeaux: 53:55

What final thoughts do you have, Trisha? You're a wealth of wisdom and I just love your presence. I just feel a sense of peace over me throughout this conversation. Final thoughts.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 54:07

Everyone has a purpose. It's not a luxury and it's not for the self-actualized, it's necessary for the foundation of our identity, and this is the Viktor Frankl quote. I pulled it up. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life. Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. So that's our responsibility. Think of it and is I have the ability to respond and to create or to unearth probably is a better way to unearth the God given purpose that is in my life, and in doing so we have an opportunity to make our world more whole, and that feels like a world peace thing. It does. It feels a little bit beyond, but we're not called to heal everyone in the world and all the things we're called to heal from the space where we dwell, from the pain that we're finding redemption through.

Chris Comeaux: 55:10

That is so well said, and I usually close our show about the Gandhi quote be the change we wish to see in the world, and I feel like that's a good way to put an exclamation point. Well, Trisha, thank you for who you are, thank you for the work that you and your team are doing. Definitely, you and I need to stay in touch. I'd love to just brainstorm ways we could collaborate.

Dr. Trisha Welstad: 55:29

That would be so fun. I enjoy it.

Chris Comeaux: 55:31

Well to our listeners. At the end of each episode, we always share a quote, a visual that'll create a Brain Bookmark, a thought prodder about our podcast, subject to further your learning and growth and thereby your leadership. We're hoping that it sticks, almost like a brain tattoo. So be sure to subscribe to our channel, the Anatomy of Leadership, don't want you to miss an episode. Check out the book the Anatomy of Leadership on Amazon. Also, we're going to have a link to Trisha's organization in case you wanted to get in touch with her and her contact information as well. And, as I said earlier, it's easy for us to rail against the world and be frustrated by things. Let's be the change we wish to see in the world. So, thanks for listening to the Anatomy of Leadership, and here's our Brain Bookmark to close today's show.

Jeff Haffner / Brain Bookmark: 56:14

Purpose comes at all stages of life. It evolves over time.