The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Lead with Love: A Journey of Discovery by Jack Russell

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Lead with Love: A Journey of Discovery by Jack Russell Amazon.com Selfsustainingleadership.com Have you always known love?” a dear friend asked Jack as they were driving home on a dark, bitterly cold winter night. It took a mile or so before he responded, “Yes.” He felt the prevalent darkness deep in his being. It was an emotionally turbulent moment in his life. His wife had recently died after a short illness. But he also experienced Love in the deepest moments of his despair bringing rays of light and hope to the darkness. Yes, he could truly say that he had experienced Love’s comfort, guidance, healing, and protection in many, many ways throughout his life. His friend continued, “What is this Love that you’ve known?” Her question was the beginning of a focused journey of exploration and discovery lasting well over a decade. In 1997, Jack created a cutting edge, quantum leadership model for the 21st century—Self-Sustaining Leadership. At its core, it says we are all connected, entangled together in a web-of-life. Leadership is about relationships; how we connect with others and ourselves in ways that contribute to our collective well-being, productivity, health, and peace. It is Love, a universal principle that sustains this connection; that connects us heart-to-heart. But how do we live this connection with ourselves and others in our daily lives? How does Love guide us to know what is the morally right thing to do in different situations? How do we practice loving ourselves so we can love others more deeply? How does fear and love motivate us in everything we do? What does Love have to do with leadership? Jack takes us on a journey of discovery in answering these questions and more. In doing so, he shows us how to lead with Love! As I read Jack’s work,” one reader offers, “it feels like he’s sharing with me, like we’re having a conversation. He speaks to my heart.” This book is about connecting heart-to-heart.About the author Jack is a proven leader, author, executive coach-mentor, organization trainer-instructor, and entrepreneur. He is a leadership visionary who, in 1997, created a cutting-edge Self-Sustaining Leadership model based on the principles of quantum mechanics. It was the fulfillment of a life-long quest to discover a 21st-century model to meet the universal need for holistic, multi-dimensional, skillful, and morally courageous leaders in real-world settings. Describing his work, people comment on Jack’s visionary insights along with his integrity, trustworthiness, engagement, deep listening, and selfless heart character traits. He has a diverse coaching, teaching and training background ranging from the U.S. Army to early child care, secondary and higher education to businesses and non-profits. Having lived and served in several countries, he brings a global perspective and a deep respect for diverse cultures to his work. He lives among the Green Mountains of Vermont with his wife, Glenda, who partners with him in the leadership work.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, as soon as that makes official, welcome to the big show. As always, we're 16 years and over 23 and our episodes, we bring you the Chris Voss show and just the most amazing gauntlet of authors, writers, people sharing their stories, their lessons of life, their journeys, all to help you live a better life.

And if you're not living a better life, listen to the Chris Voss Show, damn it, go listen to all 23 and episodes again. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or The Chris Voss Show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show. We're talking to Jack Russell. He has the newest book out August 26 2024 called the lead with love a Discover I'm sorry. Let me cut that lead with love a journey of Discovery and we're gonna get into some of his insights experiences some of things he's gonna share with you

To prove the quality of your life. Jack is a proven leader, author, executive, coach, mentor, organizational trainer, instructor, and entrepreneur. He is a leadership visionary who in 1997 created a cutting-edge self-sustaining leadership model. It was a fulfillment of lifelong quests to discover a 21st century model to meet the universal need for holistic, multi-dimensional, skillful, and morally courageous leaders in real-world settings. Describing his work, people comment on Jack's visionary insights along with his integrity, trustworthiness, engagement, deep listening, and selfless heart character traits. He's a diverse coaching, teaching and training background, ranges from the

US Army to early childcare, secondary and higher education to business and nonprofits. He's lived in several countries. He brings a global perspective and deep research for diverse cultures to his work. Welcome to the show, Jack. How are you? Hey great good to be with you Chris. Good to have you as well Give us any dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? There are two places one can be self-sustaining leadership.com The other one would be Jack Russell books

VT as in Vermont.com. So give us the 30,000 overview of what's in your new book. Chris, it's been a journey here of discovering really what is it that, what motivates people to do what they do, to behave in the way they do. The other is I had my own, I came up with my own leadership model, and as you said in 1997, after decades of looking at existing models that really don't work very well.

And part of it is, it's about moral courage. And so I found the two began to, what is morality? What's courage? What is it that motivates people to do the way what they do and how they do it? And I found the two converged on this topic of really what is fear and what is love? Now, what does lead with love mean in your mind, the title of your book? Yeah. There's a lot out there about leadership. And it's usually tied in with an organization.

It's usually tied in with positions of power and authority. And recently, over the past few decades, it's about, we hear such terms as authenticity, awareness. I have found that that's very limited, very two-dimensional, old school stuff, old paradigm stuff. And so it's really leadership is about relationships, is how we engage other people, regardless of where we are. And that it's really about an inside job.

Leadership is an inside job that radiates out. And so it comes down also, it's based on quantum mechanics. And one of the principles of quantum mechanics is entanglement, which means we're all connected. So it's in working through it, and I spent years looking at this and testing it and working at that. Love, you know, we usually think of love in a romantic, emotional way, you know, we fall in love, we fall out of love, you know, there are countless songs about it, plays, books, the whole thing, or it can be a psychological or physiological

urge. Those don't work very well. I mean, you know, I, we've all been there, done that, you know, probably have the scars a few times. But when we look at love as a universal principle, a law, then it begins to change. It's a law that connects us all, you know, in the web of life. Yeah, that the new sciences, you know, the ecology of the world, it's about about it's shown that we're all connected. But our traditionally what we're taught is we're separate from each other. That, you know, we're like pool balls, if you will, that come together bounce off of each other, right? And occasionally, we sort of stick together for a while, then we separate. That's not the way the world or the universe really operates. So I think

that's where it came from. Pete Oh, leading with love. And you're not, of course, referring to romantic love in a business sense when you're, when you're trying to be a leader. How do we lead for love with love, and I suppose some empathy is part of that as a leader in a business format? Because we can't go around hugging and kissing at the office anymore. The HR isn't... That's why that's so wrong. Jim Collins You're right. Oh, darn. Pete Slauson You can not't do that folks. That's a no go.

I started out my career as an infantry officer and I served with the 82nd Airborne Division and then served in Vietnam as an advisor. All along, like in the military, when I started out, it was what I was told was, take names and kick butt. And the former is optional. You know, you got to be directive, tell them what to do and expect them to do it. I never led that way, except in rare moments where I needed immediate obedience, you know, to we were in dangerous situations. I took care of my men. My first job was to know and take care of my people. And I connected with each one of them. I knew who they were. I knew about their families. I knew as we as I worked with them, I got to see what motivated them, I got to know their skills,

and they redeveloped a trust relationship, deep trust. So when I was in Vietnam, I was an advisor. I remember the first week there, my boss told me, he said, you're going to be out there with no other Americans. And by the way, there's no 911 if you get into trouble, you know, that you're out on your own. And I developed a close trusting relationship with the people to the point where they kept me safe. I had to trust.

And so it was a heart to heart connection. Management is about the head. Management is about systems, the efficient use of resources. Leadership is about the heart. It's about connecting heart to heart. It doesn't mean we can't, you know, in the infantry, you're not going to go around hugging people. That just doesn't go over. You can try but yeah, it doesn't work real well. But it doesn't mean you can't connect. So that connection is really about the power of love. And then that's that entanglement that is, forget the romantic stuff and the

hugs and that stuff. It's about connecting with the heart. Pete Slauson Connecting with the heart. What an important thing that they can do. And I like your your thing where you talk about, you know, understanding people, getting to know them and all that stuff. That's really important in being able to achieve what you want to take and do, right? Dr. David Smoot Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, but it begins with me. You know, it's the, the first is to know and take care of myself. So it's a journey. Like I said, leadership is an inside job.

It begins with me and it's about self discovery. What is it that is influencing my behavior? What's, what is influencing my behavior? What's motivating my behavior? And I came up with eight different vital signs. But like for instance, what are my needs? We all have the need to be seen, heard and valued for emotional and physical safety? How often do we have that, really have that anyplace, you know, in our workplace?

We may feel seen and heard, but do we feel valued, appreciated? It's our belief system, you know, our, what beliefs empower me, you know, but what are my limiting beliefs that hold me back? I work a lot with women. I mean, just, and a lot of women, you know, have shared with me that they feel like imposters, they don't feel like they're smart enough, attractive enough, they don't deserve what they have, and they feel overwhelmed. Those are limiting beliefs. So, we can show, these are all skills that we can learn how to move through. And so it's self-discovery comes first.

And with self-discovery we realize that we have more choices. And that goes into when I'm with this person, whomever it is, am I in reaction? When we are, that's fear. There's separation. But when I'm responding, that's a whole different ball game. Then we're connecting heart to heart. And we can do it with, we can set boundaries. You know, no means no and yes means yes. So.

That's a good one. Yep. What we're going to do is tell us about your upbringing. What was your experience in life? It sounds like you did some things. And how did that shape you and lead you to the point you were at today? Good question. My dad was in the US Foreign Service. So I grew up mostly in developing countries. And

some of those countries, you know, we would call it terrorism was around. And those days it was called communist insurgencies. And it was very real. And my family actually got targeted at one point for assassination. I saw extreme poverty. I saw people get machine gunned. I saw things that a young child should hopefully never see. My parents did the best they could to protect me and help me. But that made a lasting imprint. I looked at this poverty and I remember seeing young children that I knew intuitively were going to die soon. It was just at the same time, I had wonderful experiences.

I met wonderful people throughout the world that were very caring and very loving and very supportive of me. I decided that I wanted to serve. Service, my parents raised me, service to others is the rent we pay for being alive. You know, it's service to others. And I decided that I couldn't, you know, I didn't feel I could follow in my father's footsteps. I met some military people early on, and I decided I wanted to be a professional army officer. And so I went through seven years of military schooling, commissioned in the army, infantry and airborne, and did that.

So that was sort of my early life. After Vietnam, you know, did that. So that was sort of my early life. After Vietnam, I decided, and I think this is what I experienced early on in my professional career. And that was, and I'll put it, there were individuals that were, society would say were losers. But in the military, I would follow them anywhere. They were leaders, but yet society said they weren't. But in certain situations, they were pretty awesome. And yet I had senior officers.

I wanted to follow across the street and broad daylight with the cops holding the traffic back and the CNI dog leading the way. Wow. And they would, I saw situations where, uh, you know, and, you know, we were ordered into dangerous situations for the sole purpose of that senior officer getting, you know, check marks for his promotion. When I worked in Washington, DC, and I got to see how Washington really works, I saw the same thing.

I saw senior, very, very powerful people who are awesome. Others that were dangerous. Yeah. You know, I couldn't, I would never trust it at all. So my question, my question was, if you have two people with exactly the same background and the same position and so on. Why does one you don't trust at all and the other one you would follow anywhere?

We've all experienced it. We've all experienced the office bully, the tyrant. We've all have, right? And we follow others that were awesome So that's that was sort of my That's been the journey I've been on of what and I've studied all the leadership models out there And practice some of them and just found that they weren't working very well and just found that they weren't working very well. So that's my background.

What a shaping of a journey too, is that it's interesting the things that make an impact over our life help take us on different journeys and everything else. So tell us about some of the services you offer on your website. What are the services there that you have? For since when after I came up with my own leadership model, which is to grow our capacity and moral courage to do the right thing for the right people at the right time, I realized I needed to test it. But what I and so I've spent 20 years doing that. And it's about skills. We're never taught. You know, I we teach the skills that we were never taught in our family. And that you know, how to how to relate with each other how to relate with ourselves.

And it's all skills driven. So on our, we do workshops, we do classes, we help people become coaches with the skills. I do one-on-one coaching. Our group does one-on-one coaching. We help organizations develop their, how to, how to help people, their people develop and come along, how to coach them, how to mentor them. I've worked with senior executive teams on it. So the website really is a way to get ahold of us. And there's some videos on there to begin to show some fundamental skills. Pete And what else have we covered that we want to promote for you and talk about whatever

you're doing there? Dr. Craig Larson The book really, there are two parts of it here. And there's what is morality, what is courage, what's moral courage. The other is what's motivating a person. And in a meeting, a typical meeting where you have competing voices and so on, I suddenly realized that what I was watching was fear and love in action. When people had hidden agendas, when they attacked another person and so on, that was fear. When there was true collaboration, that was love. But what was this love and what was this fear

that I was looking at? That's the journey that I had to go on. And like for instance, courage. You know, I've jumped out of perfectly good aircraft in the middle of the night. I know what physical courage is. Okay, I've been shot at. I know what it's about, you know, but that's, that's not what we're talking about here. And I came up with my own definition of courage and it's when fear collides with love and love wins. I've also with morality, I've asked people how did you learn what's right wrong, good and bad. It was sort of a hit and miss coming up growing up in their families and their culture. And you know, when we are going down

this, you know, when you're driving and someone cuts you off, you know, and there's that impulse, you know, that was wrong. And there's, you know, usually an emotional outburst that certain words, you know, that's the type of morality that we were taught. But I also have a graduate degree in world religions and philosophy. And I looked at them all to what is, how do you determine what's right and wrong? And they came, you know, pretty much, it was really quite simple. The two parts, one, it's put in the collective well-being, health, productivity, before my ego centered wants. before my ego centered once. And then we all know the golden rule, love your neighbor as yourself, right?

We all know that one. What we were taught was, yeah, you gotta love your neighbor. No one taught us how to love ourselves. Yeah, that's true. But the two go hand in hand. It doesn't say, love your neighbor, then forget yourself. I've turned it around to say, I treat myself with the same compassion, respect, dignity

as I treat others. And the two work hand in hand. So that's the basis of morality and moral courage. I then developed with help, a fear to love spectrum for motivation. And you know, all we have to do is look around and see, okay, you know, when we think of individuals that are out for their own personal gain, that's fear talking. That's me-ism. I call it me-ism. It's all of, I may play nice, but when push comes to shove, it's about me, not you. No, I'm not. And the other end is heart connection and how we can connect heart to heart. So what is it that's motivating you in the moment?

Is it fear or is it love? So that's what the book is in a nutshell is about. And it's a lot of examples, real life examples and skill building. I think the some people have read it. An entrepreneur has been multi, you know, has many businesses and so on. I read it and he said, you know, this is easy to read. He said, but it's profound. It's one of these you speak, like I'm speaking with you. You know, I'm hearing your voice. So it's not an academic book. But he said, but there's moments where it's

profound, as elegant as deep. it's elegant, it's deep. That's in a nutshell. As we go out, give people a final pitch out to order up on board with you, find out more about you, reach out to you, order the book, etc. Go to the website. They can get hold of me right there. If they like, I'll be glad to even chat with them. Love to. Pete Slauson Give them a chat. And they can do that through the website, right?

John F. Citty Correct. Pete Slauson Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, man. John F. Citty Thank you. It's been fun. Pete Slauson Thanks, John. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Forch says Chrisuss, LinkedIn.com for Chess Chris Fuss, YouTube.com for Chess Chris Fuss, and all those crazy places. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you next time.