Built to Be, Not Just Seen

What does it mean to lead from the inside out?

In this episode of Meditations on Leadership, Don reflects on the difference between image and character, and on how the deepest mark we leave as leaders is often shaped less by what we try to project than by the quieter qualities that consistently come through us. He is then joined by former Maine State Senator Chris Rector for a thoughtful conversation about public service, personal formation, and the lifelong work of building strength of heart, mind, and will.

A grounding reminder: the most lasting measure of leadership is not how well we are seen, but how deeply others are shaped by the way we lead.

To learn more about Don's work, upcoming offerings, and leadership resources, visit carpentercompanyconsulting.com

 If something in today’s episode spoke to you, I hope you’ll subscribe and continue the journey with me — because leadership begins within. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Meditations on Leadership. I'm Don Carpenter. Let me ask you: what is the act of leading others forming in you right now? Meaning, what inner work might leadership be asking of you so you can serve others more fully, more effectively? Those questions invite us beneath the surface, not to the visible parts of leadership, but to the quieter spaces where your heart is being softened, your mind is being stretched, and your will is being tested. This is the heart of this podcast. Each week begins with a meditation, followed by a brief reflection and conversation, all in the service of the deeper work leadership asks of us. And today I get to explore all of that work with a very special guest, Chris Rector. Chris has spent a lifetime at the intersection of public service, entrepreneurship, and community leadership. A retired Maine State Senator and state representative. He later served for nearly a decade as regional representative for U.S. Senator Angus King, helping address the needs and concerns of communities along Maine's coast. His policy interests have long focused on economic development, microbusiness, the creative economy, workforce development, and education. He currently serves as chair of the Thomaston Select Board and is a member of the University of Maine Board of Visitors. Chris studied at Boston University, earned his BA in economics from the University of Southern Maine, completed Leadership Maine Zeta class, and attended Harvard Kennedy School's program for senior executives in state and local government. But beyond the resume, Chris is someone I've known in a much more personal way. I first came to know him when his son Luke joined the Trekkers program at age 13. From the very beginning, Chris and his wife Betsy were deeply invested in Luke's life. And one of the things that stayed with me was how quickly Chris understood the value of another caring adult from the community walking alongside his son. He did not hold that at a distance. He welcomed it. He trusted it. And over time I came to feel deeply grateful, not only for the relationship I built with Luke, but for the friendship and generosity Chris and Betsy extended to me as they invited me into their lives. And from the very first time I met Chris, one thing stood out the bow tie. In a world where so many leaders seem to follow the same script, Chris always carried himself with a quiet distinctiveness. It was never flashy, it was just simply him. And in some ways, that is what I have always appreciated most about Chris. He never struck me as someone trying to perform leadership. He has simply lived it. I would describe him as a thoughtful public servant, a grounded leader, and a man who has understood that the deepest measure of life is not just in the titles we hold, but in the trust we build in the people we walk alongside. Chris, welcome to Meditations on Leadership.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Don, thank you for that really generous, uh generous uh introduction. If I'd if I'd known you were going to talk about bow ties, I might have worn one today. I now that I'm in retirement, I have the pleasure of not wearing bow ties very often at all. But uh I still enjoy them and I still know how to tie one with my eyes closed, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

So I bet you do. I bet you do. Well, so well deserved that uh that bio. And um looking forward to this conversation. So before we jump in, I want to share meditation 27 from my forthcoming book. It's titled Built to Be, not just seen. Built to be, not just seen. And it's a theme that Chris picked for our conversation today. And I wrote down this quote from Angela Duckworth, who I admire a great deal, and she wrote the following character formation means building up three types of strengths. The first, strengths of the heart, being kind, considerate, and generous. Number two, strengths of the mind, being curious, open-minded, and having good judgment. And three, strengths of the will, having self-control, determination, and courage. There's a well-known quote in business that says, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Well, if that's true, then let me add this. Character eats personal brand for dinner. We live in a world increasingly shaped by image. People curate content, polish profiles, and work hard to shape how they are perceived. We have built entire industries around visibility, influence, and the careful management of appearance. But appearance is not the same thing as substance. As Adam Grant said, don't focus on your brand, focus on your reputation and your character. Because your brand is the impression you try to create. Your character is what people actually experience from you. I grew up at a time when nobody used the phrase personal brand. But even then, we knew the difference between someone who projected strength and someone who embodied it. We knew the difference between polish and presence, between image and integrity. Angela Ducksworth's framing has stayed with me because it names character in a more full way, heart, mind, will. For me, the strengths of the heart came more naturally, kindness, compassion, generosity. Over time, I developed more of the strengths of the mind too, curiosity, discernment, perspective. But the strengths of the will were harder one. Not because I did not value them, but because they demanded something deeper from me, the courage to show up fully, to speak with conviction, to take risks, to lead through resistance, to keep growing instead of shrinking back, to stay aligned when it would have been easier to choose comfort, approval, or safety. That kind of strength is not built all at once. It is formed slowly through choices, through discomfort, through honesty, through the willingness to keep becoming. People started saying, Don, this is what we associate with you. And I realized that without ever trying to manufacture it, I had built a kind of a reputation. Not the kind you create in a strategy session, the kind that has formed over time by staying true to my values, by owning my mistakes, by being generous with my presence, by being willing to grow in public. So yes, I may have a brand now, but it is not curated, it is earned. And at 56, I can say with confidence that it is still forming, still deepening, still becoming. Because character is not something we declare, it is something we practice. And in the end, our leadership will be remembered less for the image we projected and more for the lives we influence through the strengths of the heart, mind, and will. Instead, they spoke about my peacefulness, my steadiness, my thoughtfulness, my calm presence, and the way I did not rush the room, the way people felt more settled around me. Honestly, it surprised me because in that moment I realized that what people remember of us is not often what we're trying hardest to project or what we think we're good at. It is what consistently comes through us, it is the deeper quality of our presence. That experience stayed with me because it reminded me that leadership is not just about the strengths we showcase. Sometimes it is the quieter qualities, the ones that may even overlook, we may overlook in ourselves that leave the deepest mark. And maybe that is the real work of leadership. Not trying so hard to be seen in a certain way, but becoming someone others can genuinely trust and be open around. So, Chris, as you heard the meditation and the reflection, what stayed with you, what stirred something in your own experience?

SPEAKER_01 11:21

I think first off, the thing that surprised me was uh was your surprise at the characteristics that uh that you represent to others, because I think uh that doesn't surprise me at all. I a little like you, I think branding myself as a leader or thinking of myself as a leader is not something I do very often. I don't uh I mean, I do in a context like this, we're having a conversation, and you sort of wonder how you got here. I was shocked. I I won an award from the Chamber of Commerce when I had retired from the legislature. And the award was presented to me by two young men who had worked for me in our ice cream stand. And it was really a leadership award. It was a community leadership award, and I was really touched, but I was particularly touched by the fact that they recognized the empowerment that I tried to provide them as leaders within our business and said, this is what needs to be done in a broad way. You guys figure out how to do it. And it seems to me that that's one of the qualities that you have always done through Trekkers and working with young people. You sort of empowered them and then let them take and figure out how they sort of lift the lift the load that's been put on them. And I think that's for me, that's the way I learned my what I developed as leadership. I mean, obviously there was management leadership with our business that Betsy and I owned, and we sort of cooperatively uh managed and had a staff of, I mean, at one point we probably had 30 people who worked for us. So it was a substantial staff, but I never wasn't thinking about leadership there. And other places for me, um, I find myself sort of thrust into places where I'm uncomfortable, where I feel like, oh, this isn't, I'm not sure I know how to do this, but here I am. And I guess I'm gonna have to figure this out. And I also um, like most people, I think I've I've failed often enough and been willing to admit my failures that I uh and have been able to move on, that it becomes a building experience experience, a learning experience. And I think being open to learning is absolutely critical if you're going to be a leader. And you're never, that's a project that's never finished. I mean, best advice I got from when I was first elected to the legislature, one of the one of the caucus leaders came to me and he said, Chris, I have one bit, one word of advice. He said, every opportunity you get to do something as a legislator, to go somewhere, to talk with people, to meet with them, take advantage of it. He said, It's a once you'll never have those chances again. And you'll learn things every place that will help inform your uh uh what you do and how you do it and what you understand. And it's absolutely critical. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Well, I uh I appreciate you um kind of blending uh the entrepreneurship and the uh work and civic uh leadership uh just in your answer right there. Uh can you just share with the audience as a level setting exercise around the different businesses that you've um kind of taken on over the years? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

My my wife was an artist and I, uh she's also a terrific manager and uh and partner, but we um we were in the art and uh framing, picture framing business. We owned two art galleries and did picture framing. We were had a number of people in that. We were probably the largest picture framer in the state of Maine and really enjoyed the art end of things as well as the uh as the craft of uh of picture framing. We started an ice cream business uh because there was a sort of a void. Uh, an ice cream business had closed down the street from us because the building was being torn down, and we uh took advantage of the opportunity and built ourselves a little ice cream stand. It was a takeout seasonal stand. Didn't know anything about it, but we knew we liked ice cream. We used to treat our staff to fraps on Friday afternoons, so that was a uh a chance to continue that tradition. We started an art publishing company because we'd gotten to know a lot of artists and they were looking for ways to get their images out and get their reputations built. And it seemed like a natural fit for what we were doing with the gallery. So we started this publishing company, and I spent the last few years I was working in the wholesale business, going to trade shows and selling our cards to bookstores and gift shops and places like that. So those were those were the primary uh enterprises. We also owned a little bit of real estate that we acquired along the way for rental property. And then I um I jumped into uh I was on the comp uh a planning committee for the town of that I live in, Thomaston, where the main street state prison was located. And they were going to be torn down. They were tearing down the prison, or they were going to uh move the prison, and they talked about tearing it down. And then they decided, well, maybe there wasn't enough money to tear it down, they'd just leave it there. And a group of citizens, uh, myself included, decided that was a terrible idea. We didn't want a prison with, you know, broken windows and abandon at the entrance to our property, our uh our town. And so we lobbied the legislature and ended up going up there to make sure the appropriations committee set money aside to tear down the prison. And our local legislator wasn't helpful in that effort. And so it made uh and sort of struck us that there was an opportunity for someone to run against him. And I said, it's the right time in my life, I think, to uh to give this a try. And I I've never thought about politics before, but I'd like to, I'd like to try. And I think I'll campaign hard and we'll see what happens. I said to Betsy at my wife at the time, if I win, it's only two years if I hate it, you know, and I'm done. And if I don't win, then I've had the experience of running and uh there it is, and we move on. And it turns out that I did win and I did love it. I campaigning and politics, small p politics that there's a lot of in the world today doesn't appeal to me at all. I'm a I'm a policy guy more than a politics guy, but I really loved the experience. I loved the people, I loved the dedication of the people that I encountered in the legislature. I was there at a good time. I was there very early in the 2000s. And so I got to see an evolution that frankly troubles me more than I can uh say from civility and accomplishment to uh moving distinctly on a pace toward incivility and partisanship and uh defining oneself in the most extreme ways to try and build a small base of support. Hopefully, I guess for some it's large enough to get elected. But uh that was never the path that I took. I was I was a little bit of an outsider that way.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, well, thanks for giving uh me. I I learned some things in that, but also the audience a kind of uh an arc throughout your long history of running business and what caused you to get into politics. When you think about your own arc of life in the essence of what I would define as your leadership growth, what do you hope people have truly experienced from you beyond titles you've held? It's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

You know, I think integrity is one of the most crucial factors in this. I I was I was thinking about the, you know, before we were knowing I was going to have this conversation, I was thinking about uh leadership and what's happened. And and for me, supportive family, community, friendships, relationships, all of those are at the very heart of uh where you come from and how you define yourself, I think. So that's that's where you begin. But beyond that, the way you build trust is to have integrity, to uh be authentic, to recognize when you make mistakes, to be willing to admit those. I mean, politics, given that it was a significant part of my life for over 20 years, well, I guess it still is, as uh as select board chair, you you have to recognize that you don't have all the answers, that you never will have all the answers, and that the answers are evolving all the time. And so for you to think you're gonna stake out a position, I always find that a funny expression, but stake out a position and then hold to that position constantly is probably a fool's errand because the truth is those positions will modify. And thankfully, politics is uh and policy is incremental. You have to be willing to accept incremental change, and you have to understand that that is progress, and that's that's what you're there for. You're there to move the ball along in a positive direction or to prevent the ball from being moved in a very negative direction, I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's uh well it it reminds me, uh, so I just did an um interview with Neil Young, who you may uh remember. Yep. He is currently a social study teacher in central Maine. And I was asking him about how he formed his classroom around uh because his his main goal was to uh help young people begin to understand their responsibility to towards civic life. And um, he said when he first started out, he he he he would share with them these strong positions he had, you know, and then he realized a year or two in that he didn't hold those positions anymore. He thought they were stupid, and then he realized it's really not my role to share anything with them on that. It's me to build the container for them to discover what they believe. Precisely. And uh, so your your answer to that made me think about that. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

I think that's that's very true. Uh, patience is one of the most important characteristics, I think, for leadership. You need to be patient with yourself and with others. And I think we tend to be a culture that doesn't value patience very much. We like instant action, we like uh a solution that's simple and uh and solves a problem in the way that we think it should be solved. And that generally isn't the way it works. I I wrote something down, just I was making notes, and I'm not even sure this might have come from one of the one of the uh programs of yours. Civic patience makes self governance possible, and I think that's a very True statement. I think we need civic patience. Civic patience makes self-governance possible. It's not something I thought up, it's something I read somewhere. So I can't take it. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I'm just writing it down. Yeah. Well, so my entire contention for this podcast is the idea that leadership gets built from the inside out. And looking back on your own life, which has taken the most work in your life to develop of the three strengths? The strength of the heart, the strength of the mind, or the strength of the will?

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Well, that's a great question, too. I I think the strength of the will might be the one that I needed to do to develop the most. I'm an introvert, unlike you. Uh and I people say all the time, because I'm uh because of the work I was in and so on, well, you have to give speeches. You are meeting people, you know, I mean, all that sort of thing. And I said, yeah, but none of it comes naturally to me. And when I go home at night at the end of the day, when I've been in a meeting or uh involved in a discussion or whatever, I'm usually exhausted. And I'm exhausted because I've had to sort of uh uh uh build it up in myself to be able to uh conduct what I had to. So I think that aspect of will is the it was the most difficult for me. I'm fortunate. I was raised by two very compassionate parents. I was raised in uh in a uh family that was a church-going family, and this is back in the 50s and early 60s when in the suburbs of Greater Boston, the churches were a were a major institution. And so I was very, very involved. So I think that sort of spiritual heart is uh is a big part of my life now and always has been and and came kind of naturally. Uh I am a curious person and I love learning. I've continued to love learning, and I think that's the part uh legislating, for instance, that I love the most. I got to see so many things, visit factories and go places and see how things are made and how and talk to people about how they do their work and uh that kind of thing. So the um that curiosity piece has been uh with me for all my life as well. I was wasn't a great student, but I was always a uh a curious person. I wasn't uh, you know, academically it wasn't a strong thing, but uh but outside of academics, I really like uh like to learn.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Well, if if someone who knows you well were answering this question, you know, I'm just thinking about myself in that fishbowl and kind of having that like aha moment, you know. And um, which strength do you think of those three, do you think that they would define you most? Like strengths, will or mine? Probably depends a little on the audience, I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Uh you know, uh not not to dwell on politics, but uh I was a uh I was a moderate Republican when I first ran for office. And I was running for office in what is not really a Republican district. Uh used to be uh years ago, but it's not any longer. And uh and so I think uh for the people that I was uh at when I was running for office, I was a bit of an anomaly because my heart rules a lot of what I do, and that isn't exactly what um the principles of those that I was running with uh would have embraced. I'm not sure what they what they would say. For me, the other element of uh of my civic life and my business life, actually, that is critically important is having developed a lot of relationships along the way, having a chance to meet uh a myriad of people, sort of in a in many, many different circumstances, public policy, all sorts of things. It's given me a chance to help make connections for others along the way. Uh I love to mentor people. I love to, I love to see someone who's starting a business who's been through uh who's doing uh sort of struggling with some of the same things that I struggled with in the past and be able to say, hey, this is one path that I took that seemed to work, you might want to give it a try, or let me connect you with so-and-so because I know they've had experience with that kind of circumstance. And I could give you uh a variety of examples, but I it's it's the most fun for me, especially as I get older, to recognize that making connections for others with individuals who might be able to provide them some help or guidance is its own form of leadership and also is an incredibly rewarding experience. I mean, Betsy always says, I'm if you asked her what I do best, she would say, Oh, he's a connector. He connects people. And that really is uh is a lot of what that's what a lot of what for me uh leadership is, is um is connecting.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Well, you mentioned the mentoring piece, and um I can only imagine uh how great you're at it, uh, just from the many coffees we've had over the years. And I'm wondering about if you were mentoring a younger leader today, which of those three strengths would you tell them to focus in on, to make sure they did not neglect?

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I don't know. They're also critical. It's uh I know, I know they are. It's it's it's hard to say. I I think you have to be true to yourself, and I think that means your heart comes first, I would say. You uh best advice, another bit of great advice I got from a former congressman uh who's a friend and neighbor uh actually lives down in Tents Harbor. He told me, Chris, just remember, if you get elected, you got to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. Be sure whatever it is you're doing, you feel meets your your uh your needs, your personal needs, your inner self, your that you're feeding your soul, that you're taking care of your heart, and that you uh are doing it mindfully uh and wisely uh along the way. And I've frankly never never forgotten that and uh and took it very much to heart. So uh there were some decisions that uh I made uh politically that probably weren't the wisest, and they were absolutely true to me, and they were wise in that sense. So they were uh where I where I should be in terms of advancing my political career, they probably weren't the wisest, is what I mean. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Well, was there just looking again at the arc of your life? Was there a season in your life when you realized that you had you've already said that you didn't really see yourself as a leader, but there you were. And wondering whether you realized that leadership was less about like proving yourself and more about becoming someone others could trust.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Was there like a moment that kind of actually I think it was when I was first campaigning that it came to me that people I'd been very involved with the business community up in Camden where we had our first business, and and was, you know, I helped form a downtown business group because we that was important to us and some things related to the business. So I had a base of people who understood me and trusted me, I think, and felt that I had uh characteristics that were trustworthy. And then when I was running for office, I found that that had sort of expanded more broadly because I did a lot of door-to-door knocking to get elected that first time. And as I went along and talked to people, many of them had heard of me or knew of me, and it surprised me that they did. And so I think there was a basic trust to begin with in that way. Honesty, integrity, I think those uh people feeling like what you say is what you will do, what you have done is what you will continue to do, unless your thinking evolves and you make some uh some uh course adjustment. I think those things are really at the center of how you uh build the trust that you need from a community to uh be able to lead.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

That's well, I yeah, I'm kinda I'm really curious. And I when I think about I wasn't in politics, but I guess you were in a small way, in the small P of politics, I was, yeah. But in terms of you know, if I'm honest, one of the things that I recognized was that it would take me in showing up to a small rural community, like I did, you know, Jack, my uncle, you know, that you you know very well, it shared with me that it would take about seven years basically to build your reputation here and to be trusted. I think that's true. And you really have to be all in if you're gonna do kind of a community, be a presence in the community that can move the needle on any given thing. And my thing was working with young people, and then I always knew well, if it took me seven years to build my reputation, it would only take one particular situation that could erase all that minutes um in terms of kind of an unconscious decision or uh unintentional harm or whatever it might have been. Right. So I had a healthy fear of not wanting to let people down, and I'm wondering, how did you handle that? Uh because you know, in terms of things that you were ran on, or things that that you promised people who were working for you that you know you'd keep the payroll going, whatever it might be. Like, how did you handle the pressure of not wanting to let people down?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Hmm. I think business and politics are slightly different in those, uh, in in a sense, when I when I think about that, having people who are dependent on you for a paycheck is um a pretty huge level of responsibility. I think I had no idea when I was when I was starting out and we were growing our business. I mean, my dad and Betsy and I worked together, just the three of us, before we had any other employees. And part of the reason my dad was working for us is because frankly, he had a lot of knowledge to share, but he also was in a position where he really needed a steady paycheck. And we were able to provide a steady paycheck to him. And it was a wonderful relationship. We worked together side by side for uh 20 plus years, and then we sold the business, and the folks who bought the business kept my dad on, as uh who was quite senior, older than I am now, uh, but he worked for them until he retired. I think he was 80 something before he retired. And it was really so that was the start of realizing you had an obligation to someone, uh and it's pretty close when it's your dad. And then we ended up bringing on employees and growing the business. We never, I was a little bit of a ready-fire aim guy. I like to uh I like to make decisions that look like they were going to work out and then figure that we wouldn't fall off the cliff if they didn't. And we were very, very fortunate that didn't make a lot of money, but we had a good time and we were able to develop things the way we wanted and have relationships with artists. I mean, the art business is an interesting business because it's a lot about the relationships that you have with the artists who are supplying you with uh the things that you uh that you're selling. And you being able to express what they're about to clients who are going to buy the artwork. I mean, the way you buy artwork is uh a lot of people think they'd love to buy a painting and make a lot of money that does, you know, that it uh that they'd have it and it would be worth a lot of money. And I always used to say to people, don't ever buy something for that reason, always buy something because you really love it. And the way they come to love it often is to know a little something about the artist. So that was a sort of fascinating thing to me, is um sort of a community building that occurs. In politics, I you never wanted to let people down. So you wanted to have a um a sense of where you stood on different issues and having a feeling that you both understood the problems uh or the you know the policy uh matter that you're trying to address, but also trying to be as uh well-informed and true to yourself as you possibly can be. And then you can move forward and not ever take a chance that you're gonna say something that you wish you hadn't said or that isn't quite true, or that isn't really what you believe. You've you've got to believe it in your heart.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Well, I can't think of a profession where I'm sure there's one, but I can't think of a profession where the ability, the thing that gets you elected is the conviction somebody has about a particular topic. And yet the natural evolution of human formation, if one is open-minded, one is curious, is that perspectives change. And yet you got elected on a particular it goes back to the Neil thing, but like we we believe in something, and then things shift in the in life, in circumstances, in the economy, and whatever it might be in our community, and our thinking might change. And I'm sure that had to happen to you uh over the time. How are you able to communicate that with the people who supported you when your mind changed? You know, I don't know if you have specific examples, but I'd be curious just uh hear a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Let me just touch on something that is uh a little bit of the uh of the curiosity of being an elected official, and especially at the at the state level uh or national level or whatever. And that is people elect you some in some cases because they are sure you feel exactly the same way they do about something. You may or may not, but uh, but they're they're convinced that the that you do. And uh so they elect you because they say, well, Chris will always support abortion, or Chris will never support abortion, whatever it is. You know, pick one of those hot button issues and uh and they support you on the basis of that. There are a host of other things that you represent them in that are topics where you are elected as their representative, and they think that means you are reflecting their views exactly. And the truth is you are their uh you're you're their representative, not because you are reflecting those things exactly, but because you are interpreting your thinking about those issues on the basis of what you know and have learned as a legislator. And so uh I used to have people who would call me and say, why did you vote that way on that bill? And you'd say, Well, did you know that that bill was going to do this, this, this, and this? And no, they hadn't heard those things. They'd only heard uh part A, which was something that they and and so it's uh it's hard to know whether you're a representative or if you're a ref and a direct reflection of what they uh think you should be. And you have to resolve those two. And again, that's one of those places where you have to uh steal your heart and uh and feel confident that you're making the best decision and they get a chance to vote again in another year or two years or whatever it is. And uh if you didn't do what they what they wanted in a way that satisfied them, they'll they'll let you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

So, in some ways, the ability to effectively clearly explain and educate whoever elected you to better understand the circumstances or the different layers that you were having to deal with uh really was one of the ways you did that.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

It was. It is, it uh always had to be. And I I think maybe the most interesting uh marriage equality was voted on when I was in the Senate for the first time, and then it was repealed, if you remember, by uh uh or reinforced by uh by the public. But I I was the only member of my caucus that supported the marriage equality bill. I felt strongly about it. I it's it's a core belief for me that uh you know we're all made in God's image and uh and we're all uh doing the best we can with the tools we have. And I voted for that, and I had many, many, many people who were absolutely furious with me for having voted for the marriage equality bill. And yet when I explained to them my position, I wasn't going to change their mind, but we were able to agree to disagree. And I think uh that's that's something that often is lacking nowadays in the current political environment. Either you are a hundred percent with me, or you're a hundred percent my enemy. And that uh zero sum game is frankly what's at the heart of uh the distrust destruction I think we see going on in the country today.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Uh just curious, in your after you voted on that, how much did you get re-elected?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Oddly enough, I got re-elected and had no opposition the uh the next election. The following election, I uh was not re-elected, and there was no significant issue except that uh the Republicans had taken over the Blaine House, and I was associated with that uh with that administration, with the LePage administration. And so that was the uh the folks who had voted for me. I I campaigned, that was my uh, what was it, my sixth campaign. Uh, and I was going door to door, and everybody would say, Chris, you know, we always trusted you. And I'm not a Republican, but I always voted for you because I knew you were a guy with some integrity and that you, I believed that you would make the right decisions. But I can't do it this time because it's reflecting, it's a little like um if you voted as a Republican today or a Democrat today, uh, it's reflective uh on a national scale of the guy in the big the guy or gal in the big seat, the uh the governor or the president. And people sort of associate you with that even if you're not representative of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Well, in a world that often rewards you know, visibility and polish and performance. I'm wondering for you how you've straight, how you've tried to stay grounded in substance, authenticity, and character. Like what grounds you in that? You talked about a spiritual life, but what would how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah, I actually I think spiritual life is an important component of that. I'm uh uh as it happens, I'm you know, I'm committed to uh the Christian upbringing that I had and uh and have tried to live as well as I can, and I'm a regular churchgoer. And the church community is very important to me, actually. I I I take a great deal of uh sort of uh comfort and strength from uh from knowing that we have a strong church community. Uh the community itself that I live in, I'm lucky I live in a small uh small rural town, and uh people know each other and uh and look after one another, I think, in many, many of the best possible ways. So um, and I never, again, one of the other lessons I learned from someone who was a former legislator, and he said, Chris, be sure you don't take yourself too seriously. He said it's sort of uh his expression was it's heady wine to be a uh to be the honorable so-and-so, you know, to be a state representative or to be a senator. He said, Don't, don't let it go to your head. Don't don't take it too seriously. Uh it it was a good piece of advice. I don't think I would have anyway, because it's not my, you know, people who want to refer to you as uh senator or this or that, I always say, I'm I'm just Chris. It's a little bit, it's why I was a good fit to be a staffer for Angus King, because Angus, when he was governor or even when he was uh as senator and when he was running for senate, what was his campaign? Uh his campaign bumper sticker was Angus. It wasn't Senator King or whatever. It was it was Angus. It's uh it's uh there's nothing I have different than anyone else. I'm uh I'm just another uh another caring human being who's uh doing the best he can to make his community strong and uh and resilient.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah. Well, let me uh let me add one more layer to this question. So what would you say are your top three practices that you have embodied for when over the years you have felt completely overwhelmed, felt upset, or burnt out, or you know, just that you know, being in the trenches of doing this work, of serving others, being a servant leader. Like what are the what are the three practices that you've kind of embodied as a way to kind of just get your perspective again flowing in the right direction?

SPEAKER_01 44:14

I would say prayer is at the center of that for me. I'm I I'm not a I'm not a terribly reflective person. I really am uh it's just not it I don't meditate. Uh I wish I could. I've tried I I don't I I'm not a meditator. I'm not a I'm not a slow down uh I'm a kind of on the go guy and I'm I tend to be physical. I like to work in the garden and those sorts of things. So the actually gardening I would put is one of those things that I find a centering it's a centering activity for me. Prayer is a centering activity for me and it's very important. I I do my best to get to church every week. And the reason I go to church every week is partly to to feel a part of a different community than the uh than the everyday community that I'm dealing with uh outside of church, but also for affirmation and for taking a little bit of time to just sit and reflect and be in a reflective environment with things to and the opportunity to sing is also pretty nice. So those those two practices family actually is a big part of uh of this as well. For me, I'm lucky I actually Betsy and I uh in uh next month we'll celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. So uh we've been married a long time. I I depend on her. She's my best friend and really important in my life. But I've got brothers and brothers-in-law and uh other family members that are really supportive and wonderful sounding boards when I get into one of those functions and I've had a few of them uh along the way but I've been been lucky I've got uh and great friends I've got a great little network of friends uh local friends around here you know many of them and they're so important yeah we it it's funny we've got a backdoor we've got a neighborhood where there's several uh there are four houses here that all sort of back up to one another and we have plenaire uh dinners uh often through the summer I mean it's uh one of the things we can't wait till the weather warms up because we all want to get together again and and bring in others so I I have a nurturing environment that is there for me whenever I need it I think and it's uh it's really clear to me and I I think I think everyone in the group feels that way everyone in the in the neighborhood feels that way and I think they are nurturers and they are nurtured as well in other words we look out for one another in a in a meaningful way.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

It's something I had never experienced uh really in my life until I ended up living where I live yeah I I the way I would describe uh that part of your answer is that um I always think about rural communities as being a bi-directional relationship you know you're giving and and you're receiving at the same time and it it's such a beautiful it's just such a beautiful rhythm.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Yeah and it sounds like that's where real synchronicity and it's uh and and it's almost uh it's it's so smooth it's almost like you don't even know it's happening.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

I mean I think yeah well I um I have just a couple questions left for you Chris but let me just flip the script for a minute is there a question around this topic that you have for me do you find yourself still in situations where you feel uh maybe unprepared for what you're called upon to do and how do you uh how do you address that yeah you know it's so interesting strange maybe to say but one of the themes that uh in interviewing this is my 33rd interview of incredible people like yourself and one of the things probably one of the main themes that has come out in fact you heard it in Carrie's uh interview is the imposter syndrome uh that comes up you know what at some point along someone's journey they find themselves in a situation and as you said here I am and I've got to figure it out but I also feel like am I supposed to be here or why am I here or how did I find myself here I I think that this has been an evolution of sorts between something that I between a job and what I would consider a calling. And I feel incredibly I I always felt incredibly called through various um experiences in my life to the the work of young people. And I never envisioned at the time it would lead to you know starting different organizations to do that and what it would take to learn how to you know scale organizations and take care of the fundraising and all that kind of stuff when my heart was really in the area of working with youth. And I think in those times I recognized that in order for youth to thrive in the community like in order for youth to thrive in a way that we all want youth to thrive I had to make a huge commitment to making sure that the organization itself was thriving so that and that the people working there and myself were thriving in life because I wanted to model what that was not only for the community but for the youth that we were serving. And so when I think about that from the perspective of this particular podcast I think about the idea that for times where I wasn't thriving as a leader usually meant that I wasn't thriving as a person. And therefore I had to figure out why I wasn't thriving as a person as a way to make sure I was thriving as a person. I also think that you know my definition of leadership really centers on the idea that leaders are people who are holding themselves accountable for seeing the potential in others and making a commitment to put them on a platform to go after that potential. So it means that you're seeing the strengths in others despite whatever circumstances they might be in but you're looking for it. What I realized was that in order to see a strength in another person means that you have to have a perspective or understanding of what your own strengths are. Yourself in your own self is all the areas that you're not strong at and you're focused on that it means that you're going to see that same perspective with the people or the community that you serve of all the the gaps.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

That's a terrific observation. I I hadn't thought about that but I think that's a terrific observation Don and I I would agree and I think that is one of your I think that's one of your remarkable strengths actually is that ability to see in everyone and I know you've worked with a lot of kids with uh uh a lot of young people along the way and and nurtured them in ways that have brought their very best out and I think that's uh that's one of your major strengths one of the maybe maybe your your significant uh greatest strength yeah well it took a long time to cultivate uh sure but I I deeply appreciate you saying that well I've got two final questions for you okay when you think about the leaders who shaped you most and from what any walk of life from the business side or even the family side or the politics side what was it about their presence or character that stayed with you well when I think about the leaders that shaped me most it's funny it it begins with my uh with my father who I uh really greatly admired we had a wonderful relationship uh he lived to be 98 years old and uh he was uh just an exceptional uh exceptional man he went through a variety of challenges he had a business failure when I was in college so it was at a time when uh it was difficult for him he he showed me that personal strength of uh faith and perseverance that got him through that time in a way that I'm not sure I would even be able to do it myself at the at the age that he was and so on just demonstrated incredible character. I would say he was uh he was a tremendous influence on my life so my my brother also actually is uh my older brother is uh we're very very close and have been I mean we shared a bedroom for 18 years so we we know each other pretty well for bet for better and worse and and he also is someone who's been uh sort of a steady leader in uh in his work in uh some nonprofit work that he does and uh he continues to uh I hold him up as one of those people that when I need I need a little guidance uh it's where I turn because he he seems to be able to uh straighten me out and uh to be honest with you uh Senator King was really an influence on me and and one of the one of the great privileges I had was working for him for almost 10 years uh was driving him around places because we had a lot of time to talk and a lot of time to talk about issues but also about what was happening in the world. And so I think he helped guide me and direct me. So those are three three individuals that I can point to as really uh strong and and of course Betsy is the uh is the ultimate rock yeah well thank you for sharing that um well here's my final question for you Chris at this stage of your life I I did notice that when you sent me your bio you said here is my retired bio so at this stage of your life how would you describe the kind of person and leader you are still becoming you know that's a good question Don and I I it's a work in progress and I I'm not sure I know how to answer it partly because I'm not running for re-election for the select board I've I've discovered the joys of travel in the last uh six or seven years. Betsy and I were always so busy and when I was in the legislature I was so busy and that I we didn't get to go places that a lot of other people get to go. We didn't take vacations on a regular basis and that sort of thing. And I've discovered the joys of travel we are both aging but we're healthy and aging. And while we're healthy and aging we're going to explore travel. So I don't know when I think of leadership for me it tends to be locally based. It tends to be what I'm going to do in the community and my church community and uh you know so I have a few volunteer opportunities that I'm uh that I'm pursuing and I look forward to uh continuing to have an impact but I'm not looking to make long-term commitments or to have too too many meetings that I need to go to so I can spend time with grandchildren and uh children and and family and friends and uh and see the world that I haven't seen yet.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Well as you um described your father was one of your greatest examples of uh leadership and therefore you have a lot of opportunities to lead grandchildren and your own uh kids still so anyway uh this has been a pleasure thank you for finding time please give my best to Betsy want to make sure that we honor her uh in this conversation as well she is um as you said a true rock so thanks Chris I appreciate you being on thank you Don very much for the opportunity and I look forward to seeing you this summer yes yes well if you can just stay on for a few minutes and then uh we can say goodbye. So I just wanted to offer a couple takeaways uh from my interview with Chris real quickly I I think that what I loved about some of the things that Chris said had to do first with the idea that he he never got into leadership intentionally in fact he said that he didn't feel like he he was a leader but he found himself in situations saying here I am here's the opportunity and I never saw maybe this come for myself but it's found me and I had to figure out how to do it. And that curiosity I just love that it's the reason I started this podcast was just to hear about how other people have figured it out. And so I I just love that he said I found myself saying to myself here I am and so that was awesome I'm glad that he brought up the following because it's something that I have been writing personally in my own journal and thinking a lot about uh as of late which is this idea and a characteristic of leadership which is patience. We live in a world as he said that lacks patience the patience to watch someone grow the patience to see something evolve the patience to test out an idea patience to see failure as an opportunity for growth and his quote around civic patience makes self-governance possible and that's all about this idea of uh patience for ourselves patience with the our own ability to approach any given thing as opposed to immediately seeing the results of something and then the way I look at that because I'm such a huge believer in the process versus the destination or versus the the outcome that the process itself if you're open to it can take a long time to unfold but if you get the process right the outcome will follow and um so I really love that. And I like that he named I asked him what were the things that grounded him and the way he rephrased it which I wrote down and underlined twice was he has what he called centering activities when he felt ungrounded due to whatever circumstances there were things that recentered him in his own personhood. Part of that was prayer part of that was being outside part of that was in the garden part of that was singing in the choir with the with his church community some of that was uh finding his sounding boards like his brother and others to just bounce things off of that recentered him. And I think it's a great way to think about this that we all need to think about what are our centering activities? What where do what's our go-to to get us regrounded? So I appreciate that so much about what Chris shared there's so much fruit in that conversation I'm grateful he he joined us as always I want to leave you the listener with two questions for your own reflection and the first is this which of the three strengths heart mind or will are you most actively cultivating right now? Which of the three strengths heart mind or will are you actively cultivating right now the second question is are you focused more on how you appear to others or how you show up when no one's watching are you focused more on how you appear to others or how you show up when no one's watching so as we close once again I just want to thank Chris for his incredible journey and wisdom and just being so awesome guest today. So thanks Chris thanks so much it's been my pleasure yeah it's what a beautiful conversation as always many thanks to Omar for producing this episode um he is a real gift for bringing it all together. If you have found something meaningful here today and would consider sharing this episode with someone else I would truly appreciate it. That simple act really does help grow this community one listener at a time and if you have a reflection or thought you'd like to share with me please reach me at Don at carpentercompany consulting dot com. Thanks for listening and please remember that the journey of leadership begins with that