The NorthStar Narrative

Cody Johnson's Leadership and Lifelong Learning Journey

NorthStar Academy

Cody Johnson's journey from student at NorthStar Academy to aspiring diplomat is a testament of faith, adaptability, and the importance of lifelong learning. Through personal stories of travel and growth, he emphasizes embracing opportunities, learning from diverse cultures, and the necessity of self-awareness in achieving one's calling. 

• Embracing faith while navigating uncertainty 
• The transformative experience of hitchhiking on a volcano 
• NorthStar Academy's influence on cultural understanding 
• Leadership lessons learned through student governance 
• The significance of adaptability in shaping career goals 

Stephanie:

Hi, this is Stephanie Shafer and you're listening to the NorthStar Narrative, a podcast from NorthStar Academy. I want to thank you for joining us. I hope you're encouraged, challenged and motivated by what you learned today. Enjoy the story. Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode.

Stephanie:

I have an incredible guest today that I super, super love and have gotten to know him during his time at NorthStar. He is an alumnus here of NorthStar Academy and I can't wait for you to get to hear his story and all the little nuggets we're going to get to hear from him. So we have Cody Dietrich Johnson of Danville, Pennsylvania, with us. He is a first generation Australian American student and an alumnus of NorthStar Academy, where he served as our student body president from 2018 to 2020 and discovered God's call to international relations. While he was here, he received his bachelor's degree in political science and leadership development and served as the 23-24 student body president at Houghton University. During his undergraduate career, Cody studied abroad in London, worked with the Christian Missions Organization in Central Europe and interned with the US Congress and Department of State in Washington DC as a Department of State Rangel Fellow. Cody has attended John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies on a full tuition scholarship. After completing his master's degree in international relations, he will join the US Foreign Service as an American diplomat, accompanied by his wife, grace Dietrich Johnson.

Stephanie:

Cody is a classically trained pianist, vocalist and actor and enjoys all forms of outdoor adventure, from hiking to scuba diving. Wow, that was a lot to say, but such a cool, cool, cool bio. I wanted to just read that because, Cody, I'm so proud of you for all the incredible experiences and accomplishments and just the drives and passions God has put in you and how you've lived them out. You live them out here at NorthStar and then, wow, look what God is doing. So I just celebrate that today, celebrate your marriage, your new wife and, yeah, just you and your family. So thank you so so much for coming on and letting me hear a little bit about your journey, Cody.

Cody:

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here and to come here to NSA and share about what God's been doing in all those years since I graduated.

Stephanie:

Yeah, it's been a while, but it seems like yesterday at the same time, and I know you've been able to reconnect with some of our alumni and just reflect on NSA. So I'd love to hear today how NSA prepared you for all the things God has before you and, yeah, just some of the fun adventures you've been on, how you balance that with all your studies and love for international affairs and, yeah, just the exciting career you're going to get to go into. And so first you told me a little bit about a volcano and hitchhiking on one of your adventures. I want to hear more about that.

Cody:

Oh, my goodness, so I love solo travel. It's something that has brought me a lot of fulfillment in just being able to both explore myself and learn about myself and explore God's creation. Um, I've gone on several solo trips to Europe and one spring break I went on a trip to Hawaii. Hawaii maybe isn't the place that you expect someone to travel solo over spring break, but I found a really good deal on flights. It was under $300 from Philadelphia to Hawaii, which is unheard of. It was right as travel was getting kicked right, as it was kicking back up after COVID. So I was in Hawaii solo traveling. Obviously, I'm too young to rent a car or anything, so I was relying on public transit and Uber and Lyft. I ordered a Lyft to take me to a national park. What I didn't realize about going to this national park, hala'akala, is that the entrance is already about six miles up a long, windy road up to the volcano, and then the national park is the top part of the volcano. So I ordered this lift to take me up to the volcano. Um, to the entrance of the national park. I wasn't sure how I was going to get back down. I kind of just assumed that I would order another lift, not thinking that lift drivers might not want to drive all the way back up there. So I spent the day hiking. It was absolutely incredible, so fun to explore a type of landscape that I had never experienced anywhere in the continental US. Absolutely loved it.

Cody:

It's about 5 pm probably, so this is March, so it's getting dark and I'm leaving. I'm first of all trying to find cell service, because I'm on the top of a volcano, and once I have the service, trying to order a lift and nobody is picking up this ride. So I figure it's getting dark, I need to just start walking. And I just start walking down the road all the while trying to order a lift or something. It's getting darker and darker and I'm calling my then-girlfriend now my wife and saying this is starting to feel a little bit sketchy. There are people driving past, I'm all alone here in the dark on a volcano. That's when I decide I need to just suck it up and hitchhike, something that my mom has always told me I should never do but at this point it's about the only way I'm going to get down. I either walk six miles down this volcano in the dark, which is going to take me no less than two hours, or I just pray that somebody is going to come along who can help me get to the bottom of this volcano so I can get a bus back to my hostel on the other side of the island.

Cody:

Um, several people pass by and then finally this really nice guy stops. Um, he had actually gone past me before and then came back. Turns out he was a maintenance worker from the park. He was a local on the island. He had lived there his whole life. Um, he picked me up and we had a great conversation and I got to learn a lot more about what life is like on maui. Um, especially from the perspective of a local, someone who's lived there um his full life. Um, obviously, being with someone who works in the park, that was probably best case scenario as far as safety um and he was able to take me back down.

Cody:

Um, so that was how I hitchhiked on a volcano and got maybe the most authentic hawaiian experience I could have asked for.

Stephanie:

Um yeah yeah, so glad it turned out good. Stranger danger don't get in the car with strangers. You know all that stuff.

Cody:

Yeah, I don't condone hitchh, but it worked out great in that situation, by God's grace.

Stephanie:

Yeah, wow, that's cool, cool experience. Okay, so you've visited so many places, so many countries. If you could pick one that you would want to live in long-term, where would it be?

Cody:

Out of the countries that I've been to, I would have to say Austria. I lived there for a summer during the missions internship and it's just a beautiful country, such an interesting combination of having a christian heritage but also now existing in a post-christian context and having a lot of immigrants from muslim backgrounds coming into the country, and it just objectively has a great standard of living, um. But if I'm looking outside, of all those countries that I visited right now, I'm especially interested in latin america, um. So I might say probably brazil is highest on my list right now, just because to me, as being someone who will be working in international affairs, brazil has a really interesting role on the world stage and I think it has a really unique culture as a result of its colonial legacies and stuff, and it would just be exciting. So I'm hoping to visit and possibly live in Brazil one day.

Stephanie:

Yeah, wow, cool. Okay, you said culture. How has NorthStar prepared you for all the different cultures you've?

Cody:

been able to experience. And then what's?

Stephanie:

coming.

Cody:

Yeah, I think, first and foremost, during my time at NSA I met so many people from all around the world. Going into college, I had a way better knowledge of geography than any of my peers, just because I knew people from dozens of countries, ones that people can create from and especially for third culture kids, who are trying to not only process these other cultures but also exist in between them in a lot of different ways. So I can see very clearly how NSA gave me an appreciation for all the different cultures we have in the world and being able to recognize the beauty and the diversity in all of them.

Stephanie:

Yeah, so cool Two of my favorite things and you're doing them, you're living them out. Two of my favorite things about NorthStar is the lifelong learning. Just to be learning, you took that moment of fear and uncertainty with the maintenance man that picked you up and turned it into a learning experience. You got to have, yeah, authentic, like one-on-one with the local, and so love that. And then all the learning you're continuing to do. And then the global perspective Wow, you lived it out here at NSA. You got to experience and learn so many different cultures, especially being on student council, with talking with other leaders and students all over the world. And then now look where God's taking you. So, yeah, just so much to celebrate when I think about Cody Johnson, and so so glad to have you as a student at NorthStar getting to lead out students. And then we had that opportunity where I was able to mentor some and help the student counselor during that time. And then, yeah, think about your piano. You got to play the piano at graduation and come and so many cool things no-transcript.

Cody:

A really interesting series of events right after NSA, as I was starting college at Houghton and figuring out what I wanted to major in. One of the things that I really loved at NSA was leadership, and through our conversations about all kinds of leadership theory and how we could support leadership on the student council, we got to dive really deep into what christian leadership means and what it looks like in this, and that was something that I knew I wanted to continue studying. Okay, so that was one of the things, um, but I also needed a way to make that into a career, because usually you don't start a career in any kind of leadership consulting or anything until 20 or 25 years down the line. So I started looking more at human resources just because that was something that my parents were pushing me to. It felt like a very cool way to apply those leadership skills and the knowledge that I had gained at NSA and it just wasn't really scratching the itch for me. I don't have a better way to explain that, but human resources just wasn't my call.

Cody:

So I took some other classes. I took an elective in political science and I found that I really loved it. It took me back to the AP US history class and the AP government class that I took at NSA and some of those really hard questions about what does justice look like for people in our world from a Christian perspective, how can we welcome people from other cultures while advancing the vision that Christ has set out for us in the Bible? And I found that I really love political science and that scratched the itch for me.

Cody:

So through NSA both preparing me to study leadership and to be a leader, and also thinking about other cultures and other societies around the world I combined those interests in majoring in both leadership development and political science. It was a bit of an unconventional combination, I think, but it really allowed me to bridge those things that I had begun learning at NSA by thinking about what it means to be a leader in political context and to work with people from all different backgrounds. So I can see how NSA really prepared me holistically, both in the classes that I took, things like AP government and AP US history, even a career class that I took. That just made me think a little bit more flexibly about my future. And in addition to that, my extracurricular experience at NSA on the student council and just talking to all these other students made me think more broadly about the world than human resources. So that was what sent me on this path towards international relations, really from the time I started NSA in seventh grade.

Stephanie:

Oh yeah, so incredible to hear. I love the holistic really stuck out to me because that is one of our goals is to provide an environment where students are going to come and learn all about themselves, all about the world, you know, be challenged and to be critical thinkers.

Cody:

And you definitely I think one of the most important things that I've noticed as I'm preparing for this career as a diplomat is just the importance of self-awareness. This career as a diplomat is just the importance of self-awareness, and I think that was something that nsa really equipped me for. Um. Part of that, I think, is just the demands of an online school. You have to be really attuned to what works for you and what doesn't, so that you don't get behind on your classes and that you can still engage with people socially and not just sit behind your computer for 10 hours a day. But even apart from that, the way that NSA's curriculum and our culture and the conversations that I had with mentors like you were so important in helping me learn more about myself and about the person that I'm supposed to become in God's image.

Stephanie:

Yeah, and you were super teachable, no matter what type of conversation we were having. I just remember, yeah, you were like wanting to learn and grow, and so that's so important. That's why one of the reasons you've gone so far, I think, because, yeah, you're just open. What's next? God?

Cody:

You have to be open for whatever Christ is going to throw your way.

Stephanie:

Yeah. So what would you say to a NorthStar student listening now that maybe is uncertain, like they're trying to figure out what their passions are, what the next step is, what the direction is? What advice would you give them? Maybe something you wish you had known when you were back at NorthStar? Give them.

Cody:

Maybe something you wish you had known when you were back at NorthStar. As much as I did value being teachable and being adaptable, I don't think I was flexible enough. I spent so much time trying to plan out my life and be really intentional about figuring out what my passions were, when I think, a lot of times it just came down to what doors God was opening for me. So I would say to those students just allow yourself to sit back, take it all in, be able to process what's happening and pray about what the next step is for you. I think one of the best examples of this in my life was the summer of 2022. I was really desperate to get out of the country. This was partway through COVID, so I was definitely feeling a little bit constricted in not having traveled that much, and I really wanted to find an internship for that summer that would let me go abroad in some city. I applied for a lot of things with the federal government, since at that point, I knew I was interested in that kind of path, but none of that really seemed to be working out. To be working out. And then, at church one Sunday in November, our prayer focus was a missionary who runs what is called the Next Internship Program through Global Partners, the missions organization. So I just started looking more into this internship.

Cody:

I never had any intention of going into missions.

Cody:

I knew that that wasn't the kind of ministry that God was calling me to, but it was a way that I would be able to go abroad.

Cody:

It seemed like a good application of my interests and my skills and would allow for a lot of growth. So I applied to a missions internship. Of all things Did not clearly fit into my path as a political science major, but that summer ended up being so transformative in preparing me for a career where I can both be abroad and impact this world of international affairs and politics, but also exist in that world as a Christian and be confident in what I can do as a Christian in these other cultures, no matter what my actual nine to five job is. So I've really learned, through the course of not being very adaptable during my time at NSA and then letting myself be more adaptable in undergrad, how important it is to just let God do his thing and see what happens, what tickles your fancy. Some things won't, and that's okay. There's always something new you can try and truly you aren't losing the time that you think you are by letting God do it for you.

Stephanie:

That's so good. Such great wisdom. Yeah, what an incredible lesson to learn. I just think of being present in the moment, looking around where God's working, acknowledging it and jumping in. That's what you did you jumped in.

Cody:

It's all about jumping through whatever open door or open window God has put in your path.

Stephanie:

Yeah, not being so rigid to have this unflexible schedule and path for your life yeah.

Cody:

I think in some ways, a five-year plan can be really good, but especially when you're young and you're in high school or undergrad and you're still figuring out what God has made for you, I think it's really important that you hold that five-year plan really loosely so that you can become more fully who you're meant to be.

Stephanie:

Yeah, many are the plans of a man's heart, but only God's plans will stand. That's paraphrasing a verse, but I think that yeah, oh gosh, yeah, really good, really good wisdom. Thanks for sharing that. All right, you're preparing to join the US Foreign Service after completing your degree. What's one thing that most people don't know about being a diplomat that you think is crucial to understand, especially for young people thinking about entering the field?

Cody:

Wow. I think something that I really value about it that I wish more people knew is that it is the ideal field for a lifelong learner, like we've already talked about a little bit, just because in the course of my career, I'm going to be changing jobs every two to three years. I'm going to get to experience potentially dozens of different countries, both living and traveling to them different countries both living and traveling to them, and it's going to give me an opportunity to try so many different things. I am somebody who values achievement, but it makes me think about achievement differently, so I really wish that more people understood the kind of personal fulfillment that can come from that lifestyle and career of being a lifelong learner and satisfying your curiosity through a career like but I think there's also a lot of satisfaction that could come from kind of lifestyle that I'm really looking forward to, and I wish more people knew about the US Catered Service.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's good. Just thinking about a lifelong learner for those that maybe have not developed that mentality. What do we miss out on when we don't have that mindset?

Cody:

I think we miss out on understanding the complexity of the world that we live in.

Cody:

As Christians, we've been put in this world to be able to impact it. We aren't here just so that we can take all the right steps and follow some linear path just to get to heaven, but we're here to make a difference and to enjoy the world that God has given us now. And that world is so complex and there are so many different ways to experience it. Yeah, and that's why I think it's so important to have that mentality of a lifelong learner and be somebody who wants to learn more about it and is curious about all the different ways that human society can be organized, all the different ecosystems that exist in the rainforests of Costa Rica or the Alps in Europe, to be able to appreciate the cultures that have developed in every part of the world. The world as God has made it cannot get old for us, and I think until you have the mindset of a lifelong learner, you can sometimes get bored with where God has put you, but there is always more to learn, that's so good, all right.

Stephanie:

What advice do you have for me as a leader right now of NSA? How can I be inspirational and inspire students to be lifelong learners? Not tell them, teach them, grab them and bring them along, but how do I inspire them?

Cody:

Even after my years as student body president, I never thought I would be asked to give you advice. Why not? I guess the best thing I could say is to demonstrate that curiosity about the world. I think, especially in an academic institution like NSA or my undergraduate college, that can come pretty naturally through the curriculum and things. But you also have to be really intentional in the things that you're sharing and the topics that speakers, special speakers and events are highlighting. Um, and just the way that the curriculum is designed, that it's highlighting everything that you can potentially learn about, and there's a really hard balance there between depth and breadth. But at the same, I think it's just important to show that curiosity, that something that is foreign to me can be made familiar just by being curious about.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's good. No, of course, I can learn so much from you and yeah, you're so super wise and so much experience, and yeah, so I think for me asking questions like we just continually ask questions.

Cody:

Yeah.

Stephanie:

Never be satisfied, but moving on, cause there's so much. I've been at North shore for a long time but I'm nowhere near finished learning, like I need to keep learning. What's it mean to be a good leader? How do you inspire, how do you get creative and have things before the students that they're going to jump on and want to know more? So yeah, just learning and embracing what you've learned.

Cody:

I think asking questions is a bit of a lost art, and I've noticed this especially with my generation just because we spend so much time online and I can sound like a bit of a broken record as I say this but I think we have lost some of the art of asking questions. In my communication classes in undergrad, my professor would often talk about just the value of talking to strangers and asking open-ended questions, and that's something that I don't think we do enough and my generation needs to learn how to do that, because it's how we learn from each other and how we can grow as a community.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's good. We just came up with a way. We just set the example and keep asking questions, so good. Okay, student body president you've been one at both NSA and Houghton. What's one leadership lesson that you've learned in these roles that you carry with you today?

Cody:

something that I especially learned at Coden and I think my experience at NSA kind of primed me for is learning when to challenge the status quo. As a leader, you have a lot of power to be able to just upend things if you want. We're seeing that right now with Trump, for better or for worse. But I think part of the art of leadership is learning when it's your place to do that and when you need to encourage others to do that, and when you can work through change at a more gradual level and try to enact change on a cultural level rather than a big policy level. In some way.

Cody:

I have been in several situations where I've disagreed starkly with the people that I'm interfacing with um, even the university president at hoden, even the university president at Houghton and I haven't always done this well, but it's made me think about when I should and shouldn't be challenging the people above me or the policies and taking it all in stride so that I can be the best example as a Christian leader that I can be. I'm not sure if that makes sense or it's coherent, because it's kind of integrating some of the difficult situations that I've been in and I think about things from both the perspective of organizational culture and organization policy. So it's about being able to balance change in those two areas, I guess.

Stephanie:

Yeah, no, that's really good. Tell me more, because I'm sure, as you're talking, maybe some experiences, past moments, pop up in your mind. What's one that you think maybe, oh, I didn't handle that as well and you've learned from what's a specific example.

Cody:

One that was particularly evident at Houghton was an ongoing debate about the role of the LGBTQ plus community at our school.

Cody:

Regardless of your theological position, school, regardless of your theological position, our school was non-affirming of the LGBTQ plus community and lifestyle.

Cody:

But those people still exist and it is still incumbent on us as Christians to love them.

Cody:

So we had extensive conversations both within the student council and with the university administration about what policy should look like, what student organizations should look like, to allow these students to feel loved and included but also maintain our own convictions as Christians.

Cody:

I think that's a case where I feel a little bit more confident in what I was able to do in turning to more of the grassroots change at the level of organizational culture, in just being a friend to those students and letting them know that I am not going to be a threat to you, even though I do uphold the school's policy, whereas other people in the school's administration, for example, took a much harder stance, that some of the LGBTQ plus students found repressive of their identities, like they didn't have a place to speak and to have meaningful conversations about their identities, whatever that meant. That was an ongoing saga during my time at Houghton, but I feel confident in what I was able to do as a leader to welcome those students into our community and hold those, hold our different beliefs in tension while creating a school that was safe for everybody.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's good. So you were able to make everybody feel sane.

Cody:

I hope so. It's hard as a leader to know how much your own leadership can impact other people, especially when there are other leaders who might be antagonistic to your own goals other leaders who might be antagonistic to your own goals and sometimes you might never know what your impact actually is. But I can have faith that I was able to make friends and have good conversations and exemplify what Christlike leadership looked like in that situation, regardless of what else was happening at our school.

Stephanie:

I love that. You're super intentional and wise, sounds like you were slow in your thinking and, yeah, making the right choices for the moment. And that's what. A lot of times we can only make the choice with the information we have at the moment and what we've learned with that, and sometimes we do look back and go, oh, but we can learn from that and yeah, and we see sometimes we've made really good choices and how we continue on in that. So again, an example of your just teachability and awareness of able to discern situations. Such a good example. All right, so as we're wrapping up, we could keep you forever talking about all kinds of cool things, but as we're wrapping up, is there anything that you really want to share with everything you've been able to experience? It could be something about marriage, just anything in your travels and all of your school time at NSA that you really want to share, that you've learned and you want to just instill in others and encourage others.

Cody:

I've only been married for five months, so I'm not going to go anywhere close to marriage advice yet. I think something that I would want people to learn from my life is just the importance of being invested in your faith to identify your calling that God has set upon your life. I never expected to end up as a Department of State Rangel Fellow. I did not think that I had the right internships for that. In undergrad I went to a very small Christian school, coming from a Christian school background, which is itself kind of unfamiliar and strange for the Foreign Service.

Cody:

But God has blessed me beyond any measure just for being invested in my relationship with him and taking those steps of faith.

Cody:

I'm so grateful that now I'm on this path where I can see a million different ways that I get to use my strengths and my gifts and serve God in really unique ways and unique places in the next 20 years of my career and that is the ultimate kind of personal fulfillment Just by taking those steps of faith one after another, not really knowing where that was going to lead, but submitting the application, saying yes to the internship, being engaged in leadership and being teachable. All of that just culminates in God's blessings in your life in a way that I could have never expected, and I think through that, I have found what God has made me for, at least for right now. That can always change and I think that's the beauty of it, but I found the person that God has made me to be, the career that he has set out for me, and I'm really excited to see the ways that I can continue to serve him and grow as a leader and all these things as a result of saying yes to almost random opportunities.

Stephanie:

Yeah, so glad you did and God's hand is all over, so evident in your life and just that heart he's given you to see people around you, like we just talked about, and to be known by God, for you to be known by others. And yeah, just yes. I see you probably heard me say many times palms open, not closed. I don't know if you remember that. But one thing I like to say, because when you tighten your fists, oh, it's miserable, it's like I'm hanging on to this, it's my way.

Stephanie:

But when you open your hands and say, god, here's my life, you made me, you created me, whatever path Like, it's so fun when he connects those dots and the people and the places and you just see the doors opening. So you are an inspiration to open the hands and I pray that you'll have those opportunities to share your story with everybody around you and, yeah, that you'll continue to inspire people to just let go, like you said, and here I am God, whatever you have next, so so thankful for you. And, yeah, just know that God's using you to inspire me, to inspire others, everyone that listens to this podcast, and he's going to be with you in each thing that comes. Hard stuff, awesome stuff, good stuff, marriage all the things.

Stephanie:

Yeah, it is, it really is, so yeah, I know you're going to do incredible things.

Cody:

I also do think that more students from NSA should consider a career in diplomacy and I'm just going to throw that out there for any students that might be interested in this life of foreign service, which I think is ideally suited to the Christian lifelong learners among us.

Stephanie:

Yes, definitely so we got to get you for some NSA Connects that you can talk about it.

Stephanie:

They can ask you questions. Yeah, who knows, you might write a course for NorthStar Share. Just dream anything that you can do to get that out there for students to give them. Yeah, just hope they can do it and here's how it can happen. So yeah, super, super proud of you. Cody, couldn't say it enough. I'm so thankful that you would join us for a few minutes now. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening today. If you have any questions for our guests or would like information about NorthStar, please email us. At podcast at NSA dotschool, we love having guests on our show and getting to hear their stories. If you have anyone in mind that you think would be a great guest to feature, please email us and let us know. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on upcoming stories.