The Talent Forge: Shaping Workforce Behaviors with Jay Johnson

Martial Arts Wisdom for Leadership and Learning with Jim Bouchard

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 61

Share episode

The future of work hinges on our ability to keep it human—a powerful message from Jim Bouchard, who joins The Talent Forge to share his extraordinary journey from drug addiction to martial arts mastery and leadership coaching.

Jim's transformation began when he discovered martial arts during his recovery, unaware it would become a 30-year career and life philosophy. His martial arts teachers didn't just show him self-defense techniques; they revealed profound insights about human connection, continuous improvement, and responding to uncertainty.

Drawing fascinating parallels between martial arts training and effective leadership, Jim reframes our understanding of discipline as "the development, cultivation, and practice of meaningful and purposeful habits." This perspective shifts discipline from something restrictive to a positive framework for growth and development. 

For HR professionals and talent developers facing increasingly complex workplace dynamics, Jim offers practical wisdom: ask broad questions, listen without judgment, and follow through on commitments. 

Connect with Jim through thehumancentricleader.org to continue exploring how we can harness technology while honoring our fundamental human need for authentic connection.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, I am joined by special guest Jim Bouchard. Welcome to the show, jim.

Jim Bouchard:

Hey, thanks, jay. It's so good to be here and hey, the future is now right.

Jay Johnson:

Future is now and I want the audience to get to know you, because your message, one of the big messages, and it resonated with me the moment I read it keep it human. Your message, one of the big messages, and it resonated with me the moment I read it keep it human. And I think a lot of us in talent development and HR sometimes forget about that. And I think this is going to be a great conversation, but let's get to know you a little bit. How'd you get into this talent development space Completely by accident, and that's my story too. So please tell me, share your story.

Jim Bouchard:

Well, long story short, or somewhat short anyway. First of all, I was a former drug addict, two-time college dropout How's that? Aren't you glad you invited me now.

Jay Johnson:

Absolutely.

Jim Bouchard:

Right, and part of my recovery was, uh, martial arts. I started to get involved in martial arts so I didn't realize that was an accident too. I didn't realize that was going to turn into a 30 plus year career. Um, and that was. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. First of all, it saved my life, for one thing, but also it taught me about a lot of the. It taught me how, taught me how to make really genuine connections with people on a human level.

Jim Bouchard:

I mean, that's what martial arts is all about sharing information, and I believe leadership is about a lot of things, but, above all, leadership is sharing, and a leader shares. The rest of the conversation is just about what we're willing to share and how we're willing to do it, which is at the heart of HR and talent development, right? So, anyway, people started asking me to speak about the philosophy of martial arts and how it applied to real life and especially life in business, and that one thing led to another, and that put me out on the road speaking and writing books and doing things like that. So here we are today, but that's how it all gets started and you know, at the heart of it, you know people perform at their best when and I'd argue, only when they know their leaders care and their work has meaning, and when they have a chance to learn, to grow and develop. And right, isn't that what you guys are all about?

Jay Johnson:

That's what you're trying to do, and so yeah, so you know, I'm always, I'm always glad to work with, with my friends in hr. You've got one of the toughest jobs on the planet, you're not wrong, jim? There's so much interesting things that you just shared. Okay, let me. Let me get my brain under control as I'm ready. So I, I also studied martial arts. I was a mixed martial artist for nice, several years studied in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, aikido. How'd you stay so? Pretty Well, actually. The irony is I gave it up when I got punched in the mouth, cracked a tooth, and had to give a keynote the next day on dealing with difficult people with a half-whistling tooth. So I decided to stop it at that point.

Jim Bouchard:

Yeah, that is an average day in that trade.

Jay Johnson:

That's right. So here's my question for you. I loved what you said about the connection between martial arts and people and leadership, et cetera. Can you dig into that just a little bit? I don't know that. I've heard somebody bring that to the forefront before.

Jim Bouchard:

Well, I think a lot of it had to do with. I was blessed with some really incredible teachers and in fact, on my podcast, on the Keep it Human podcast, I just had a reunion with Dr Yang Xun Ming, who was he is just one of the teachers that probably in the top three that I admire so much. It had such a profound influence on me and my work and on my life. First of all, it was wonderful to learn martial arts from him, but, more important, I think he's one of the world's greatest living philosophers and we hadn't spoken for almost 30 years and we kind of just picked up where we left off. And another, he was one that always encouraged. You know that martial arts was to enhance your life, not to detract from it, right, and that these lessons, the lessons, were about life, not just about punching people in the head and getting kicked in the face right.

Jim Bouchard:

And another influence on me, profound teacher Professor Nick Serio, and he described this beautifully and I'm sure you'll understand this. He defined the attainment of a black belt as the attainment of a good learning attitude. And he said most of all, you're learning how to learn about yourself and now take that and apply that out in the world to take it outside the dojo. You know, because once you learn how to learn about yourself, then you're on the path for continual, you know, personal development right, self-improvement.

Jim Bouchard:

So one of the greatest gifts that I kind of extracted from these wonderful teachers was perfection is not a destination, it's an ever-ending process, and the more we can embrace that process right, then we're going to become better people, we're going to become better leaders, we're going to become better resources to the people around us. And ultimately, I think the most effective leaders have that mindset right Always trying to learn, grow, develop. We call it martial arts, we call it beginner's mind, which is really the true mind of the master Always curious, always seeking, trying to improve. Don't break your arm, trying to patch yourself on the back right.

Jay Johnson:

That's right, you know, and I love that because I've and I will share this. So part of the reason I got into mixed martial arts was my brother who had come back from his deployments as a ranger in the army, had ended up starting a school and was working in Tong Soo Do, Mu Da Kwan, Korean martial art, and he was like, hey, will you come in and do this? And I started doing that and then it kind of blossomed into. I met a bunch of people in Brazilian jujitsu and so on and so on and so forth, and I remember, um, I did not have, I did have in my brother an amazing teacher, but he was not a philosopher, he used the stick.

Jim Bouchard:

So it was, it was uh, but you know, call it brother, these guys could do that from time to time, to definitely tough toughened me up, but I love hearing about this and I remember very clearly it was.

Jay Johnson:

actually I ended up doing Tai Chi for like balance and core strength and a number of other things, not so much an aggressive martial art, but I remember that my instructor in there was just so profound, didn't say all that much, but when it was, it was like think of this as the you know the, the flowing nature of how your emotions are working and things like that, and it really did shift my thought process, not even just from the martial arts perspective, but just like from the world perspective, like the push and pull and the give and take and the ability to remain balanced even when there's adversity or something pushing against us.

Jay Johnson:

I think there's a lot of lessons that can come from martial arts and in thinking of the audience here. So the trainers, the coaches, the HR practitioners out there, what is maybe one or two lessons that you would share in thinking of, that mentality of always being a learner or that mentality of you know the discipline that it takes to do some of these things? How would you help them think through that in terms of being able to design, deliver or even develop some type of learning experience for somebody?

Jim Bouchard:

Well, just in that few seconds, you opened up a whole lot of cans of a whole lot of worms. We could we could probably talk about this for hours. Cans of a whole lot of worms, we could probably talk about this for hours. One of the most profound things I think you just hit on was this idea of the idea of continual learning and discipline. Right, and that was another great gift that I got from my life as a martial artist, and I'll define that for people, discipline to a martial artist is really the development, cultivation and practice of meaningful and purposeful habits, and there's a lot of work done in psychology now about that right, about the benefit of positive habits. That's part of the reason I share my experience as a drug addict, because I had to learn.

Jim Bouchard:

Well, first of all, I used to think that was a really lousy resume for someone dealing with leadership. I came to realize it was a very useful one. Leadership is about transformation, right. Transforming ourselves, transforming our organizations, transforming the people around us. If we're not changing, we're dying in this environment. So it became a useful resume, and that who better to talk about transformation than someone who had to learn it in order to survive and stay out of jail right, had to learn it in order to survive and stay out of jail right. But along the way I learned that part of that transformation process is to take to identify the negative habits that we fall into and we all do right and try to cultivate and develop positive habits that are going to get us further along the road, get us to our goals, whether that's advancing in your own career, helping others as you do through training and development, you know and by discipline I mean you know that's things you check off on a to-do list I mean really embedding these practices in our lives. What are we going to do every day, every week, every month, every year, and stay true to that? So that's a huge lesson there. The other thing is I've been asked lately in fact I'm going out to Arizona next week to work with a group for a couple of days on uncertainty.

Jim Bouchard:

In our current environment, uncertainty is a big issue and again we learned that from martial arts. The practice of martial arts is all about putting you in chaotic situations, isn't it? Particularly when we're working with self-defense? We don't know what's coming, we don't know where it's coming from. That's part of the fun. Over time I came to realize what can you do? I don't want to say reduce uncertainty I've corrected myself from saying that over the last few months, because I came to the realization is that uncertainty is an almost infinite and inevitable commodity. It surrounds us all the time. Right, I'd rather say how do we manage and address the uncertainty? Not reduce it, not try to avoid it, because the uncertainties where all the great stuff happens. You think about it. One of the exercises we do in the workshops I ask people to think about some of their greatest victories, their greatest triumphs, and after they identify this but what were the conditions just before that happened? And more times than not, it was a mess.

Jim Bouchard:

Things were a mess, it was chaotic. I didn't know what was going to happen. It was disaster. And then out of that came the triumph. You wouldn't feel that triumph if you didn't have the challenges to face before. So I know we've got to get this T-shirt back out. I had a T-shirt a while ago. It said Celebrate Adversity. It's your chance to discover the person you might not have ever imagined without it. That's nice. I like that. How do we do that? And, like I said, in martial arts, on a very physical level, we practiced that, didn't we? And how do you address it? How do you address it? How do you manage it better? Try to anticipate as many situations as you possibly can, right. Try to imagine and it's hard for some people Imagine the worst case scenarios, think about them and then design ways to practice for that. You might not know the specific circumstances or conditions, but look what we were joking before the program about the stock market, right, but look what we were joking before the program about the stock market.

Jim Bouchard:

Right Now, we might not know what conditions or circumstances lead to a variation in the stock market at a given time, but we know it's going to happen. We know the stock market's going to go up. We know the stock market's going to go down. We don't know when, we don't know how, we don't know why.

Jay Johnson:

But we know it's going to happen. We're building some empirical evidence that tariffs may have that impact.

Jim Bouchard:

That's one of the things, right? Yeah, Look at what happened with COVID. We've had a lot of discussions about that. I don't think very many of us predicted a global pandemic, but we can all think of situations where our cash flow was interrupted, where our supply chain was interrupted, things like that. So we can prepare for those things. And the more we train and prepare then the more we become flexible and adaptable and comfortable with uncertainty. And we've got to learn to love it. I mean, and again, as martial artists, I'm sure you practice jujitsu. I'm sure you're cool that your brother did this. I'm sure he put you into some situations where you're being turned into a human pretzel and saying, how the hell did I end up here? Oh yeah, and then you have to manage your way out of it. When you reverse it, you get on top. That feels pretty good, doesn't it? It does.

Jay Johnson:

And what you're saying has so much wisdom behind it that I tried to express to any audience that'll listen to. This is the difference between debilitating stress or anxiety and enhancing stress and anxiety. Right, and, and as you said in your, in your workshop, when you ask them what was your state right before this, they were in that state of anxiety or stress because what they were about to do matters and it has an impact and it's being able to kind of take control of that and use it as that motivating fuel. Yeah, when you are, and for those of you that are not in mixed martial arts, um, when you're in a vulnerable position and they call it grounded and pounded, which is what I was getting, uh, where you're on your back and then aggressors on top of you just raining down fire.

Jay Johnson:

That's when a lot of people end up panicking. And when we panic and don't manage it, well, you make a mistake, you throw your arms up and the next thing you know you're a pretzel. Uh, when you don't panic and you do what you've practiced over and over and over again, you might have a chance of getting out of there with your face mostly intact, right, right. So I love how you bring that into this space, because it makes a lot of sense and I learned not to panic under fire. What are a couple of things that you teach? How do you help people grab control of that uncertainty? All that work?

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, I remember some of the things that I was taught that I think that this will be one of those. This is one of those things, because every one of these trainers and HR people that are listening have this moment of panic when somebody is coming into their office that they have to deal with, or when they're standing up there and delivering a new training. So getting a hold of that uncertainty and managing it is essential. I love this conversation, jim. So, please, what are some ways that you would suggest that they kind of take control?

Jim Bouchard:

Well, you just brought up that four-letter word, control, right.

Jim Bouchard:

I'd rather emphasize power. Philosophically, power is your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively. Right, control, that can be pretty elusive, huh. And like I said, especially I'm glad you brought up HR friends, because, you're right, somebody walks into the office and we don't know what's going on with that person, we don't know the circumstances and conditions. We have to suss that all out. We may have very little control over any of those variables, right, but what can we do? Can we rely on our training in response, especially, like you said, you're a behaviorist, right, can we train ourselves to listen attentively, actively I'm summoning my Carl Rogers now right. But to be able to respond to people in their space, in their time, to be most useful to them, that requires a lot of discipline, that requires a lot of practice. Right To reduce and but not eliminate.

Jim Bouchard:

Again, another four-letter word fear. I think too many people they confuse the panic. It's inevitable. We're going to be in situations sometimes where we panic, and that's a natural response, isn't it? I mean, it's something, it activates a lot in us. We just don't want to get stuck in that moment, not for very long, right, but if, hey, if there was an explosion outside this door right now, I would panic, for it would be my first response. Now, how do I get that under control? Breathe, get your body back where it needs to be in order to respond, and we can train ourselves to do that quickly and effectively. And I'm not talking about in the martial arts ring or boxing ring right now. Right, we could do that in the hr office as well, and these aren't practices that should be a surprise to anybody, right? I mean, these are very popular practices.

Jim Bouchard:

Now, the other part of it is empowering others right and again, and especially in training and development, what are you really doing? You know what do people need to succeed? Are you? Are you helping them get to those resources? That's what we're talking about. We talk about empowering people.

Jim Bouchard:

Remember, I just said power is your, is your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively. And a little while ago, I think, I said something about leadership being sharing right. Yet it's interesting how many people in leadership positions are hesitant to share power, hesitant to share authority. Yet these are the two things. First of all, neither of those things can grow or expand in any other way, but by sharing them right. When I help someone else become more powerful, when I help them get access to the resources they need to perform effectively and I'm doing it for many people, sometimes as a leader or a manager well then I become more powerful. I'm able to do more, and a lot of times through the efforts of the people around it, people that trust in my leadership, right, so that's what we're really talking about there.

Jim Bouchard:

So, rather than power control and fear, you know some people they talk about fearlessness. Jeez, that's kind of dangerous. This is your area, so I would probably ask you. I think there are clinical descriptions for people who lack the capacity to be afraid, and I don't think that's a very healthy condition, is it no? Their?

Jim Bouchard:

life expectancy is not courage. The absence of fear is stupidity.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, their life expectancy is significantly lower. There's actually a couple of different neurological disorders where the amygdala just doesn't trigger, doesn't activate in a way that it does in, say, somebody, where we hear a loud bang and we turn and we cover and we make sure that we're protecting ourselves.

Jim Bouchard:

Exactly, it greatly increases our probability for survival right, correct, correct.

Jay Johnson:

Hey, we evolved that system for a reason. Yeah, yeah.

Jim Bouchard:

But that idea, like I said, absence of fear is not courage. Courage, in fact, is only defined by the fact that we're facing a danger or risk or a challenge. You know, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be a life and death situation. There's, there's different types of courage. I don't know if we have time to get into all that today, but you know, moral courage, artistic courage, um, you know, heroic courage, obviously that's the most obvious one, but still it's. It's only defined because we're facing a challenge. So how we face our fears, how we respond despite our fears, that's really what we define as courage.

Jim Bouchard:

So, in fact, we just did a session where a few of the people brought that up. They thought that they hadn't served the younger generations very well because they shield them from the risk. Right, and I said no, exactly right, you have to expose If you want people to grow and develop, and if they didn't do it at home, you're going to have to do it in the office, right, but you've got to provide opportunities where there is a chance of failure, where there is some risk. Of course you want to manage that risk if you're responsibly running a company, but it needs to be there. You need to put people in positions where not setting them up for failure, that's a different thing, but where there's equal chance for failure and success.

Jim Bouchard:

Hey, I didn't want to open that can of worms. I've got a hair across it about this whole idea of failure lately too, know, we've become so afraid of that. Um, we were just arguing about scientific hypotheses like right now, if, if they come up with something, a scientific like, so let's just say they're testing a vaccine and they test and it doesn't work, that's not a failure. You see, that's part of the process of learning, and I didn't fail to.

Jay Johnson:

I didn't fail to invent the light bulb 10 000 times. I had 10 000 learning experiences that got me to the exactly, exactly.

Jim Bouchard:

And if we're not willing to do those experiments, then we're stagnant. And I don't know plenty of the elders said it, um, you know, lao tzu said it how many different ways. The only constant life is change. If we're not willing to respond to that, we're in a whole lot of trouble, right?

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, jim, you'll find this funny.

Jay Johnson:

In regards to failure, Something put me down the pathway and I my brain sometimes is my kind of primary areas. I got pushed down the road of ethology, which is studying animal behavior in its actual environment, in its actual language. And hearing some of the tried experiments, like, for example, trying to figure out how bees are able to, um, do a dance when they come back to the hive to tell their fellow bees how far something is, what direction it is, how large the food source is, and hearing about one of the studies where they put a beehive on a turntable and the bees would return and then, when it returned, they would turn the turntable just a little bit to see if that threw off the direction and what aspect of the dance that ended up shifting. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself like how many times do you have to fail in that experiment before you come to the conclusion that this one small aspect is? And so I love what you're saying. It's almost just this insatiable appetite of curiosity to get us forward right, like the.

Jim Bouchard:

Right, the right, right, okay, what's no? And failure, failure is part of the data set. And I'm not talking about negligent failure, failure either. You know, you don't. You don't want to promote people just making foolish mistakes or careless mistakes. That's not what we're talking about we're not going to learn responsibly right, testing ideas and moving them forward.

Jim Bouchard:

And unfortunately too, you know not not to get into the politics of the day too much, but I think that's part of our challenge right now with our whole political environment is that we expect our political leaders to be infallible and any mistake that they make is instantly judged. I think the whole cancel culture kind of arose around that intolerance for failure. Culture kind of arose around that intolerance for failure. And yet none of us can escape it. Even if we try, we're not infallible. Right Again we're back into your world. But I don't think any psychological data supports the idea of an ideal, infallible human being.

Jay Johnson:

Well and if you think about how we ourselves want to look at ourselves as an adaptable and evolving, a growing human being, but a lot of times we don't extend that courtesy to people that are outside of our skin.

Jim Bouchard:

Well, that's because I'm right and you're wrong.

Jay Johnson:

That's right, so you know I want to dig into this, though, too, because I think it's important that we spend some time on the concepts of keeping it human, which you know you started off by sharing a vulnerable. You know a vulnerable peek into your background and to how you got from being a drug addict to being in the martial arts, to being a leadership coach and what that journey looked like, and I think that's really powerful right? We know that vulnerability and vulnerability loops are what create connections with people. At some point in time you had mentioned, you know, whether it's that which created the conditions for a powerful transformative story, or it's. You know it could be anything else too. It could be an injury that created that condition. It could be a life event that created that condition. Um, what is it that in that story? How do you keep that human? What is that human aspect that you are essentially creating the conditions for somebody to find themselves in? What does that look like for you?

Jim Bouchard:

Well, that's a really powerful question. I think a lot of it has to do with our need, our desire for connection. Right, you face a challenge like that, and a lot of times I I'm going to speak personally from the drug experience uh, and I know I'm not alone in this a lot of people that deal with addictions can feel very isolated. Right, you can feel like I'm the only one that has the problems that led to my addiction, because that's it too. You know, people look at the addiction as the problem. But again, you, you know I'm stepping into your world. Most of the time there are circumstances and conditions that make us susceptible to the addiction. Right, it's not just that the drugs are the problem. The drugs are my way of medicating myself and feeling a little safer and a little more comfortable from the problems that I didn't want to cope with or couldn't cope with at the time. So you know, when we're isolated like that, cope with or couldn't cope with at the time. So you know, when we're isolated like that, if we survive it at some point we realize we can't do that alone. We have to reach out for help. We have to be willing to accept the help from others. Right, and there's this desire for connection. Now, that's a pretty extreme example of it, but I believe we all need that connection and you know, in studying a little bit in your world, I think that's pretty well documented. We're a social creature, we evolved to be a social creature. So, for whatever reason, we need one another and we need to develop healthy interdependencies. Right, not codependence, but healthy interdependencies. And so that's really what it is. That's what happens in a leadership relationship, right, relationship. Right. We cultivate in fact, I kind of define a leader as this someone with the ability to attract willing followers, which means you do. You know there's.

Jim Bouchard:

If you go on our website, you'll see the three key words that were emphasized all the time. In fact, the title of my last book, ieg, inspire, empower Guide. I think you get the impression already. I'm not lollipops and puppy dogs here, right? Okay, these aren't just pretty words.

Jim Bouchard:

It took a long time to reduce all this mishmash to what were the three most powerful disciplines that a leader can embrace, and I don't think we have time for this, but I'd argue that everybody's a leader, and why? Because you inspire somebody, you touch their heart, not just their heads, right, you empower people around you, whether you realize it or not, you get them things they need in order to fulfill their needs, their goals. And we all guide somebody. I work with incarcerated kids and it's funny because I joke with them a lot, I share that philosophy. With them. I say, you know, some of those kids are really good at inspiring, empowering and guiding their peers. We've got to channel it in the right direction, sure, but yeah, these things can be used for evil as well as for good. But the important thing is that that's what we're doing. And most important there, I think, is the idea of touching people's hearts, not just their heads, inspiring people. And that speaks really to our need for human connection, connection, because that's what it's all about.

Jim Bouchard:

So now we've got a lot of challenges and, right, we've got all kinds of divides. I mean, we've got we've always had generational divides and racial divides and ethnic divides, and now the political divide is I wouldn't say it's the worst it's ever been, but we're in one of those deep cycles of deep, yeah, right, um, ai is freaking everybody out, right, embracing these new technologies, um, all these things that can really reduce our humanity or reduce our capacity to see another person as as deeply human. And I'd argue again this is one of those ages where, hey, people, great people, are going to rise out of this, because the more I think, more people pay attention to the importance of the human connection. Because what's the point of all this stuff? Especially technology is an easy one to wrap around right. What's the point of all this technology if it's not to bring us together?

Jim Bouchard:

We're already, I think we're moving through if not, I'm hoping out of a phase where it separated us a lot, even though it shouldn't have. But now can we use these tools to at least to bring us together and give us the time to connect with each other on a more, on a deeper level? I mean, I use AI. I use AI all the time to help me with my writing and correspondence and things like that research, and it does give me time. But how am I going to use that time? Am I going to talk with Chad? Do you name your chat GPT guy?

Jay Johnson:

I actually asked it to name itself, and its name is Vex, which. I was like I don't. I don't know how I feel about that, but all right, my wife did that with hers.

Jim Bouchard:

She asked him to, but yeah, I don't know, I just started calling mine chat, but anyway, it does give me more time to think and to connect with other people, and that's what's important.

Jim Bouchard:

And if you doubt what I'm saying, well, call any customer service line at a major company in these days. Right, I just got held up flying which happens a lot these days, and, yeah, I'll say it, united Airlines because they've been one of the roughest ones lately trying to find a human being to talk to, and I finally found a wonderful human being. It is a good outcome to the story, but it took me a while to get to a human being, right? So people need to realize I think I'm going to do a lot of work in customer service coming up, but I don't know if I'm the only one, but I'm sick of being in that endless feedback loop of automation. When I have an issue, right, it's fine, it streamlines. When things are going good, we can go in there, go online, do our stuff right, but, boy, when you have a problem, don't you want to talk?

Jay Johnson:

to a person A lot of times.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and it's interesting that you bring this up, jim, because I think we could spend another hour talking about sort of the interactions and even some of the interesting research that's happening right now about how people are creating connections with AI because they feel disconnected with others. But I'm really appreciative that you shared your story and your experience in there, and so I've done some work with some different addiction agencies and supported them and coached them in some of the behavioral practices and what you're saying is exactly right. Right, it's not something, it's not a disease that's all of a sudden caught. It's usually the result of some kind of shame, blame, unrequited shame, blame, guilt, trauma, et cetera. That has created a condition for we take one step, we take a second step, and it's not something that happens overnight. It's a linear progression. So, um, number one is I'm incredibly impressed and always uh, just uh, congratulations on being able to navigate that out and for using such positive tools to be able to do so. So that that's a challenge and I recognize that challenge.

Jim Bouchard:

So you know, I appreciate that. But you know one thing I want to emphasize too I try very hard not to glamorize that. You know some people right, it's the least I could have done for the people around me. You know that's so, that's important to point out. But no, no, but I I hope I didn't diminish. I do appreciate what you're saying and no, no, no no.

Jim Bouchard:

Because there's the connection that HR world we know we were just talking about that, I mean how important there's a lot of automation and whatnot and isolation happening. People are seeking out ways to streamline the HR process and the training process and again, all that's good. I like I access a lot of training online. It's more or less on demand and automated, but again, at some point you need that connection. There's no stronger connection than teacher and student right. Again, you know from martial arts, right, that's a very special relationship and all of us can be the teacher.

Jay Johnson:

All of us can be the student at any given time. I want to draw what you said there and it relates to everything that you've just said and it's impressive to me. This is the key piece and it goes back to exactly what you're saying. You said it was the least I could do for the people around me and it is about that connection and there's such a power in you know I could go into the science of our you know, evolutionary, biological imperative for our drive to bond. It's part of our behavioral elements program. We measure that we try to better understand. Some people have a much stronger need for connection and bond than other people and we're looking at part of the reasons why. But with that in that oxytocin circuit that's just built into the brain, where we feel good when we do something good for somebody that's within our network.

Jay Johnson:

I hear that being reflected in a lot of what you say, whether it's the leadership side of things, whether it is the coming out of addiction and doing it. As for the greater good, whether it is coaching, mentoring or et cetera, that connection piece seems to be at the core of all that you're doing. So my question for you, and maybe this is something what are some of the ways where, okay, I'm a trainer, I'm brought in, I'm standing in front of a room?

Jay Johnson:

I have to create a connection with this audience if they're going to trust me, if they're going to listen to me and if they're going to retain anything, if I don't have that connection, whether that's through telling a story, whether that's through, you know, identifying some of the pain points that they have or sharing some of that, empathizing with some of that pain points, or being able to connect on that vulnerability level, what are some ways that we can really and I don't want to say that we can demonstrate our humanity, I don't want to say that we can come off more human, because that sounds like almost robotic, but the ways that we can really demonstrate our humanity and create the conditions right. We can't just I can't just go Jim. We're going to connect and you're going to love it right.

Jim Bouchard:

That's not exactly how it works.

Jay Johnson:

Well, I'll kick you in the head right, yeah right, but how are we, how can we better facilitate space for connections, whether we're in leadership or whether we're in a training room? What are your thoughts on that?

Jim Bouchard:

That's a really neat thing to explore and you know it's it's. This is a point of differentiation, although I can't say I originated because the teachers who influenced me the most were people who taught this way. Right, first of all, it's teaching with questions and it's listening. I think too often and I get it and I was guilty of it for a long time I get paid to speak and I know a lot of times people want to hear something, they want to hear the story, they want to hear some of that stuff at first, and that's okay, that's cool, but as quickly as possible and in workshops I usually start right off with this is asking some questions and listening to them. Right, and I think sometimes the broadest questions are the most powerful. Sometimes people design questions that are very focused. But a focus question again, we're back into your world, right? Sometimes, when we're asking focus questions, it's because we're trying to elicit a certain response or we're trying to narrow that response to something that we're trying to research, right, or find out about.

Jim Bouchard:

When we ask broad questions sometimes and let people talk first of all, that's the best way to connect with somebody, right? I'm not going to connect with you if I walk in the room, say we're at a social event and I walk in the room and I start bragging all about me and what I do, what's your response going to be? It's not likely going to be. Oh geez, I like Jim, he's a good guy. It's likely to be. Who's that? Moron who just wants to talk about himself. And it's no different in any of the relationships that we have, especially as leaders and as managers, as HR people.

Jim Bouchard:

If I can sit and listen, listen actively, hey, if you don't care, don't bother. We should qualify that right. There's plenty of people who try to fake it and this is one place where you can't fake it till you make it, because people feel it right away. But if you listen attentively and you ask people you know, good, strong, broad, open questions about their situation and their life and let them talk. Let them talk for a while without judging them and I know that's something that's now. It's kind of de rigueur with therapeutic practice, right, you don't want to jump in and start judging them and start solving their problems. The more they talk, the more those problems will be revealed, and nine times out of 10, the person discovers some solutions on their own and then they own them right and by doing that and I found this, like I said, particularly in a workshop format the less I talk, the more I provide an environment and facilitate an environment where they're talking and sharing, the more they think I'm the genius, isn't?

Jay Johnson:

that funny, how that works. I didn't say anything, you guys figured it out right, and the more we learn, the less we talk, the more we learn, but you do.

Jim Bouchard:

I'm going to caution this, because in a leadership position, when you have a, let's differentiate when you're a good leader in a position of authority, because those are two different things. Leadership has nothing to do with rank, title or position of authority, but let's talk about that. You know that you are an HR director. You're an HR, you're a training director. You do have responsibility in the hierarchy of your organization. All right, then you have to be particularly sensitive to the fact that, yeah, providing that environment support has to be authentic. You have to care, you have to show people that you do Part of that too.

Jim Bouchard:

And here we're back to that connection question again. If you make a promise, if in the process of this interaction and you're listening, and you say to somebody, hey, look, I think I can empower you in a certain way, I'm using a little, you wouldn't say it that way, but I can provide this resource where I can spend some time that I can guide you, well then you better damn well do it. If you don't follow up on that or be honest with people and say, hey, you know what, I don't know that the organization's needs and your needs are in alignment right now, maybe there's a different way we have to go, maybe it's even that you're part ways, okay, but that authenticity will be. Even if it's not for that person, it'll be admired and respected, and appreciated by the other people around it.

Jim Bouchard:

Right, if you just consent to all demands now, that doesn't work very well either, does it? So it's complicated. I mean you asked some cool questions and we could dig in for hours on these things, but that's it in a nutshell. So, building those connections, let's reduce it. Martial artists tend to be reductionist, don't we? That's right face. Try not to let things get in the way. Our ability to connect is more natural than I think a lot of people will let on. Let them talk about themselves more than you talk about yourself. Right, let them talk. And what I mean by this ability is more natural. I think we can impede it in a lot of ways, maybe not intentionally, if we're open to the process and we let things happen organically. We keep it focused in a business sense, right. Don't let it go off the rails too much. But remember too that what's happening in a person's personal life is part of what they're, what's happening with them at work, right, so you don't want to?

Jay Johnson:

so glad you I'm so glad you said that, because I hear this work-life balance or you know, separation and and and and it is, it's. It's like okay, well, I'm going to take this part of my brain and I'm going to shut this part of my brain down for eight hours of the day and then I'll just pick that back up and shut the rest of it down, Like this is not how we're hardwired, that doesn't work.

Jim Bouchard:

You keep using these four letter words.

Jim Bouchard:

That's what work-life balance is a four letter word yeah, I agree with that, and I think a lot of it is because, um and again you'll appreciate this because your exposure to the eastern thinking in the western mind, balance is a static position. But it's not. And as fighters we understand that balance is not a static position. It's a dynamic process, right. So, in work-life balance sometimes. Sometimes work becomes more important, sometimes other aspects of your life become more important. It's a matter of constant adjustment. Right To always be trying to bring things to some sort of equilibrium, but understanding that they're never going to stay that way. How dull would that be anyway?

Jay Johnson:

A big difference between equilibrium and harmonization and being able to say, hey, you know what, this week I really do need to put in a significant more amount of effort into family, friends, self-care, whatever that is. And this week, you know what I really do need to focus on my tests, my certifications, my work, my reporting, et cetera. Yeah, no, it's so smart, jim. Jim, this has been an incredible conversation and I know that we could go on and I definitely I've gotten so many takeaways from this. I know our audience has benefited. Question for you how would the audience get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out, learn more about your journey and your approach to keeping it human?

Jim Bouchard:

Well, first of all, thanks, and let's make this the first, not the last conversation, and I want to have you on Keep it Human because I'd like to hear more about your perspectives, especially, you know, in human behavior and whatnot. One thing we just launched was really cool and, I'm telling you, just launched there's only a handful of people on it. I've dreamed about this for years. I'm telling you, it just launched, there's only a handful of people on it. I've dreamed about this for years. Keep it human All one word keep it human dot network, and that's a platform. It's on a platform called Mighty Networks, where we're able to get people to share with each other all over the world, across industries, and we're starting to populate it with a lot of cool resources. So there's a free section engage Just get on there. Right now, you get everything in the Engage section because we're just starting out, and then, if you're interested in having me come and speak or do workshops, thehumancentricleaderorg is a good place thehumancentricleaderorg, but I'm easy to find on LinkedIn and all that stuff too.

Jay Johnson:

Excellent. We'll make sure that's in the show notes. And little props to Mighty Networks. I do actually very, very, very much like that system. I do a lot of my coaching on there, so yeah she came up with a really cool platform.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, yep yep so well. Thank you, jim. I really appreciate your time um, your vulnerability and sharing your story, your journey, and also for so many great takeaways that I honestly think they can take from this podcast put directly into their HR function and into their L&D to help keep it human. So thank you for being here with us today, thanks for doing what you're doing. I appreciate it All right, and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

Host