Rabbi Tarfon said: The day is short, and the work is plentiful…It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.
(Pirkei Avot 2:15-16)
My conversation today with Jerry Colonna closes with him paraphrasing this powerful notion - and the work we are discussing is the work on yourself and the work to create a better world - one where everyone feels like they truly belong. In a world where many organizations are retreating from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging initiatives, I’m grateful that Jerry is leaning into this conversation. I see the work of antiracism as firmly in the realm of what my peoples call Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.
It’s absolutely essential that men in positions of power and especially men who present as White, do not neglect this work.
Jerry is a graduate of Queens College and a Brooklyn native.
Jerry helps people lead with humanity and equanimity. His unique blend of Buddhism, Jungian therapy, and entrepreneurial know-how has made him a sought-after coach and leader, working with some of the largest firms in the country.
In his work as a coach, he draws on his experience in Venture Capital as Co-founder of Flatiron Partners, one of the most successful early-stage investment programs. Later, he was a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase.
As a partner with J.P. Morgan Chase, Jerry launched the Financial Recovery Fund with The Partnership for the City of New York, a $10 million-plus program aimed at creating grants for small businesses impacted by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Along with a strong commitment to the nonprofit sector, Jerry is the author of two books: REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (2019) and REUNION: Leadership and the Longing to Belong. (2023)
Reboot was met with critical acclaim, stirring up a big question in the hearts and minds of people: “How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?” Jerry’s second book builds on this question, asking us what benefit we get from the conditions we say we don’t want - the systems of oppression that those who have eyes to see, can see.
Reunion is a highly personal book that asks us all to examine our history of longing to belong - and the ways in which we have been excluded or excluded others.
Key Threads in the Conversation
We discuss Jerry’s Journaling practice and how it is an essential conversation he has with himself, each morning.
We explore what it means to be a “good man” - and how in his first book, REBOOT, he questioned whether he was a good man, while in REUNION, he built upon the assumption that he is a good man and explored (and expanded) what it means to be a good man in a world where there is division and polarization.
And I get Jerry to coach me on one of my favorite questions: understanding the disowned parts of ourselves, exploring the reasons behind disconnecting from them, and the importance of integrating them back without denying them - very much in line with the process of REUNION. All while working to authentically grow in ways that matter, without self-abuse or denial.
Those parts of ourselves we wrestle with wrestle back at us. Many leaders I coach want to be feel or been seen as more or less of some quality or another - they, like so many of us, feel they must be other than they are in order to belong.
In my experience, fighting against our parts without understanding and loving them is a losing battle. Jerry asks us to understand the stories behind our self doubt, and to honor the ways that part of us has sought to care for and protect us in the past.
I find great empathy and lovingkindness in spending time nurturing my denied parts and my clients do, too. I’m so grateful to absorb Jerry’s approach to self-integration, and to expand our inner work towards creating not just a life we love, but a world we want to live in.
Links, Quotes, Notes, and Resources
Some other solid interviews with Jerry:
On Being with Kista Tippett: Can you really bring your whole self to work?
Noah Kagan, from AppSumo, interviewing Jerry on being a better human and a better leader
More About Jerry
A graduate of Queens College, Jerry helps people lead with humanity and equanimity. His unique blend of Buddhism, Jungian therapy, and entrepreneurial know-how has made him a sought-after coach and leader, working with some of the largest firms in the country.
In his work as a coach, he draws on his experience in Venture Capital (VC) as Co-founder of Flatiron Partners, one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs. Later, he was a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan Chase.
As a partner with J.P. Morgan Chase, Jerry launched the Financial Recovery Fund with The Partnership for the City of New York, a $10 million-plus program aimed at creating grants for small businesses impacted by the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Along with a strong commitment to the nonprofit sector, Jerry is the author of two books: REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up (2019) and REUNION: Leadership and the Longing to Belong. (2023)
Reboot was met with critical acclaim, stirring up a big question in the hearts and minds of people: “How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?” Jerry’s second book builds on this question, asking us what benefit we get from the conditions we say we don’t want.
Jerry is astounded by the fact that he lives on a farm outside of Boulder, CO near the foothills of the Rockies, and far from the streets of Brooklyn where he was born and raised. He is the father of three amazing humans, each of whom cares deeply about the love, safety, and belonging of others.
AI Summary
• Jerry discusses his journaling practice, which he does every morning, and how it's a conversation he has with himself (4:58)
• Jerry discusses the continuity and progression between his past works and future plans, emphasizing the importance of living authentically and working through meaningful issues publicly. (10:22)
• Jerry explains that in Reboot he questioned whether he was a good man, while in Reunion he built upon the assumption that he is a good man and explored what it means to be a good man in a world where there is division and polarization (12:17)
• Jerry articulates his desire for transformation through openness to dialogue and self-reflection, aiming for individuals, especially those in positions of power, to recognize complicity and actively work towards positive change. (16:30)
• Daniel asks who Jerry wishes would read his book and go through the workshop, and Jerry responds that he hopes it will open hearts and minds to dialogue and radical self-inquiry (19:40)
• Jerry discusses the role of a coach in guiding clients, emphasizing the importance of telling clients what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. (29:17)
• Daniel Stillman asks Jerry about his approach to coaching clients on difficult topics like equality and antiracism, and Jerry describes his imagery of being side by side with clients and offering guidance without letting ego get in the way (30:41)
• Jerry explains how he approaches pointing out instruction to clients and shares an example of helping a client confront accusations of exploiting unpaid or low-paid labor (34:20)
• Jerry Colonna delves into the process of reuniting with disowned parts of oneself, exploring the reasons behind disconnecting from certain aspects and the importance of integrating them back without denying them. (37:40)
• Daniel and Jerry touch upon the transformation of internal struggles into strengths, referencing the shift from ghosts to ancestors. (45:33)
• Jerry Colonna asks about the benefit of self-doubt and discusses how it can serve as a safety mechanism, potentially passed down through lineage (46:45)
• Jerry and Daniel discuss the danger of participating in the diminishment of oneself while emulating others, and emphasizes the importance of honoring and metabolizing teachings from elders (51:59)
Full AI Generated Transcript
Daniel Stillman 00:00
And I can welcome you officially to the conversation factory. Jerry, I actually really am grateful that you made the time for these open space conversations.
Jerry Colonna 00:08
Well, thank you for inviting me. It's really a joy and delight. I think you were kind enough to ask about what the experience has been about talking with folks, and I have to confess that I just enjoy it. So I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Daniel Stillman 00:29
Thanks, Jerry. There's so many places we could begin, but as a fellow native New Yorker, and there are plenty of us, whenever. This is a sidebar, I wasn't intending to go here, but I feel like whenever somebody's like, wow, you're really a native New Yorker. I've never met one. I'm like, I don't know. You talk to your bartenders. There's lots of us.
Daniel Stillman 00:50
There's a million kids in the New York City public school system, and you were one of them. So I loved the story of you journaling on the subway and discovering your voice and the power of connecting to your own voice. And I just was curious about what your journaling practice is like today. And if you continue to, if you recommend journaling in general to leaders as.
Jerry Colonna 01:17
A practice, well, here's my journal.
Jerry Colonna 01:24
Would I continue to recommend it? Well, what my journaling practice is is exactly what it was when I started at 13 years old. When I was 13, it was a different time of the day that I would do it more often than not. As YOu noted, I had this Long subway ride from Midwood, Brooklyn, to Ozone Park, Queens, and the train would take me into Fulton street, downtown Manhattan, where I'd switch to the a train, and then. So I would Take the entry.
Daniel Stillman 02:05
You're misusing your subway pass, if I recall.
Jerry Colonna 02:08
Do you recall well? You recall well. And I would pass the hours doing homework because it was about a 90 minutes, two hour ride each way, reading and journalIng. And the original journal was always a, you know, three ring binder that I was writing in loose leaf. Eventually, I graduated to bound volumes, probably in my twenties, and I continue to journal to this day. I will confess that my handwriting is so bad, I have dysgraphia, and I cannot go back in time and reread my own handwriting, which is an interesting experience. So it just keeps me very much in the present. And the experience of journaling is just something that, it's a conversation I have with myself.
Daniel Stillman 03:12
Yeah, I mean, I'm really glad you frame it that way. I think that is part of the beauty of it. But do you have a specific prescribed dose or cadence? Because you know, there's the artist's way method of coaching where it's like, you know, it's first thing in the day, three pages long hand, or do you just go to it when you're called to it? Is it a specific.
Jerry Colonna 03:36
Oh, I go to it every morning. Yeah. Every morning. My routine is, you know, I wake, I shower, I get myself awake, I have a cup of coffee, and I journal.
Speaker 3 03:52
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 03:53
And I do that fairly religiously every day, and then I follow that with sitting meditation. And so from where I. From my experience, the totality of the experience, it takes an hour or so to do all that. It's just a lovely way to start my day.
Speaker 3 04:18
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 04:21
Do you recommend it to folks, to leaders that you work with who aren't doing it?
Jerry Colonna 04:28
I do. I'm not hard and fast about it. As with almost anything that I recommend, it comes with the same spirit as the Buddha once offered in a teaching, which was, try it. If it works for you, great. And if it doesn't work, that's fine.
Speaker 3 04:54
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 04:56
When I read the equivalent of that in the buddhist teachings, I felt so relieved from the lack of dharma, lack of dogma. Dogma to the dharma that it felt very resonant to me. So that's the kind of attitude I try to take.
Speaker 3 05:14
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Stillman 05:16
It has value, but it's not. We're not restrictive or dogmatic about it. I'm really curious. I'm going to follow the thread of having conversations with ourself. One of the. It's one thing that came up in your first book and in your second book was this idea of being a good man. And that's. And it seemed like sometimes that was something you were saying to yourself, like, where I'm not and I want to be. And other times, in the beginning of reunion, it's almost like you're telling yourself, like, I am a good man, and I claim it. And, you know, the state of masculinity in today's culture is, you know, an interesting. That's like a whole other conversation.
Jerry Colonna 06:05
Right.
Daniel Stillman 06:06
But I'm curious what it. What's important to you? And, boy, that, you know, my chest is a swirl with these feelings because, you know, being a good man, it's important to me. I want to feel like I'm a good man. What's important to you about being a good man? What does it mean to you to be a good man?
Jerry Colonna 06:27
Well, I can't help but acknowledge your feelings, which are what's behind the question. I mean, this movement that you noticed, if you will, from one book to the other, from reboot to reunion, includes this movement towards
Jerry Colonna 06:51
accepting, if you will, who I am. So let's give it a little bit of context, and then we'll circle back to the larger question.
Jerry Colonna 07:05
In reboot, you're referring to what I call the good man chapter, chapter nine, in which it essentially opens with me yet again debating the question, am I a good man? And the woman who is now my wife, Allie, saying to me, in effect, in an exasperated way, enough already. You're a good man. Stop it. Right, but. And then as that story progresses, and I share the story of encountering this toppled over oak tree in which I project all of those feelings into the tree and imagine the tree as a good man. And I begin a process of working through the notion that I may have done something wrong in my life. I may not have always lived up to my aspirations, I may continue to not always live up to my aspirations, but nevertheless, I am a good man. You're right. In reunion, I work from the assumption, because reunion was written
Jerry Colonna 08:28
simultaneous with the process that I was going to, whereas reboot was written retrospectively. With me looking backwards. In reunion, I again tackle the question of, what does it mean to be a good adult? What does it mean to be a good human? But I build upon the assumption that I am a good man and then ask the question, a deeper question, which is, what is the relationship to a good man in a world where our dividedness and polarization can lead to children being killed? And how can one define oneself as being good if one is not putting one's shoulder to the wheel to make the world safe for all, to feel loved, safe, and that they belong. So, you know, the way I've internalized that is I am a good man, and there is still work to be done.
Daniel Stillman 09:42
Yeah, I see, you know, in the introduction to reunion, which is a lovely book.
Jerry Colonna 09:50
Thank you.
Daniel Stillman 09:51
There's this idea of redoing our first works over and the Baldwin quote and Parker's perspective of, like, looking at our past works and finding them wanting. And I'm hearing you say, and I had thought myself, there's a thread between them. It's a broadening definition of what it means to be a good leader and to be a good man. So I'm wondering, do you see it? I'm hearing now it's a thread less than. It's a reboot or a reimagining.
Jerry Colonna 10:22
I think that that's right. I think that while I wasn't cognizant of it at the time. And while Parker and I had numerous conversations while I was writing reunion, he very much was my mentor during that process, as he's been for 20 years. There is a. I can look backwards and see the through line, the thread from the work that I was trying to do with reboot to the work that I'm trying to do with reunion. And while I'm not ready to talk about it yet, the work that I'm planning to do in the next book. And if you want to step back far enough and say, okay, so what is actually happening here? I would argue that what I'm doing is living out loud. Living. Working through issues that matter to me in a public space, because I think that that's of service to people.
Speaker 3 11:41
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 11:42
You know, I'll make an addendum to all that. I'm working my way through the latest Wendell Berry book, and I'm blanking on the name of it. I would have to look it up for a second. I'll pause on that. And in this book, he is yet again re-examining race in America, but through the lens that is really important to him, which is what he would describe as a discrimination against farmers, a discrimination, if you will, against rural America. And he talks about the divide between urban and rural. And I see him working through the same themes, expanding on the themes of his past works, the same themes that he wrote about in The Hidden Womb, which he published in 1970. And so I would expand the definition of what does it mean to be a good man? To include being willing to do our first works over being willing to. To look back and say, there's more to be said here.
Speaker 3 13:03
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 13:06
It feels like, in a way, being a good man is a horizon.
Speaker 3 13:11
Right?
Daniel Stillman 13:11
It's not a.
Speaker 3 13:12
It's.
Daniel Stillman 13:12
I mean, in one sense, I hear the, like, the power of owning, I'm a good man, and I can relax and I don't have to doubt myself. But on the other hand, there's an aspect of being a good man that is like, continuous process of exploration, a continuous process of revisiting your assumptions, a continuous process of looking around and saying, what kind of world am I creating? What kind of a man blanks.
Jerry Colonna 13:39
You know, I think that. That. I think that's true. And because I'm feeling uncomfortable with it, I'll say that we're having a gendered conversation and an angle here. And I think there is a lot. There are some aspects of this that are reflective of the experience of many folks who identify as men. And there are some aspects of this that are more universal. And that's important because from the subtitle of reboot, as you know, is leadership in the art of growing up.
Jerry Colonna 14:23
The final line of the main body of text in reboot is. And with that, I mastered the art of growing up. And the reason I bring that back in is that what we're both talking about is a practice. What we're both talking about is the. The commitment to the art of growing up. And that's a really important but subtle point, because we can get too wrapped around the axle thinking that there is a point, as you point out, that it's a horizon. It's not a point in the landscape that you arrive at. And then you rest.
Speaker 3 15:11
Yeah, now.
Jerry Colonna 15:13
But there is. There is something liberating in being able to say, as my psychoanalysts used to say to me all the time, not bad, considering. Which is a very liberating thought. You're not bad, considering everything. Yeah, you're okay, you know? So I offer that.
Daniel Stillman 15:37
I appreciate that, you know, so many layers and threads to pull on, but in some sense, you refer to the second book as a workshop, and a workshop has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and there should be some sort of transformative experience that people feel, and we're changed at the end. That's the power of the workshop. And I'm wondering, like, who do you. Who do you wish would read the book and go through the workshop and feel transformed at the end? Like, what's your dream for the transformative power of this. This workshop in a. In a book?
Jerry Colonna 16:17
Well, I think with reunion, the one person I know was changed was me.
Speaker 3 16:26
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 16:30
And you're right. The implication of using the framing of a workshop is that one is changed by the end. And before I can say who I would wish to be changed, let me talk a little bit about the change that I would want to see. The change that I would want to see is an openness to dialogue. It's really important to me that reunion. Reunion. Leadership and the longing to belong not be presented as a conversation-ender, read this, and then you're done. Far from it. My hope is that the transformation would be an opening of hearts and an opening of minds to consider the possibility that that which we. Those of us who hold power. Right. I identify as white, cisgender, straight male, and as such, I hold a certain amount of power that those of us who hold power in whatever situation we're coming from would recognize the possibility that there's a lot more work we need to do. And that the work is not about looking outward and explaining to somebody else how they're wrong, which we spend far too much time doing, exacerbating the divisions. But the work is to look back, and you'll recognize this word. To look back or this question and ask, how have I been complicit in creating the conditions? I say I don't want to look back and say, how have I been complicit in and benefited from the conditions in the world? I say I don't want to see. And most importantly, what am I willing to change? What am I willing to give up, do that I love in order to see the world that I really want to see exist?
Speaker 3 18:49
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 18:51
So long. Statement made short. The workshop transformation that I hope to see is that people end with that question and start doing that form of the radical self inquiry.
Speaker 3 19:07
Hmm. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 19:10
I think of the questions that are. There's this list of questions that I've been absorbing from you. What am I not saying that needs to be said, which I know is from your psychoanalyst. What am I saying that's not being heard? What am I saying that I'm not. What's being said that I'm not hearing? And then there are these other questions, like, how have I benefited from the suffering of others? What don't I want to find out about my ancestors? Have I seen no strangers? There's, like, there's. There's layers of questions that people can be asking themselves, but the. The question that's in me, I don't know if you've ever been, I'm guessing at some point in your life you've been to a Passover Seder. In my.
Jerry Colonna 19:50
I have, yeah.
Daniel Stillman 19:51
In my, in my. My tradition, there's these. These questions. There's a story of. Of the sons, the son. There's a son who says, like, well, you know, this happened to you. Like, this has nothing to do with me.
Jerry Colonna 20:08
Right.
Daniel Stillman 20:09
And there's a son that sort of separates himself from the question. Then there's the son who doesn't even know how to frame the question about, like, why is this night different from all other nights? I'm butchering the haggadah. I really didn't prepare to have this angle, but this is. I'm trying to find a pathway into asking you the question about what? About all the people who, who will not read this book, who aren't ready to ask these questions. I feel like there's. There's. I feel like everybody could benefit from reading this book, and many people, bless you, will not won't.
Jerry Colonna 20:41
And many people will stop reading after the first line. Right.
Daniel Stillman 20:45
And many people are with. Are retreating from diversity, equity, belonging, ESG, you mentioned. I'm grateful as well in the conversation. Like, there's a huge retreat from woke capitalism and all of these things, and it's people who don't want to ask these questions at all because they're uncomfortable questions.
Jerry Colonna 21:09
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 21:11
And I appreciate you leaning into those questions and doing your work in that.
Jerry Colonna 21:17
Well, let's even add to the question. One of the women who wrote the essays in the afterward, Virginia, asks a very, very powerful question of her. After describing her family's joy and maintaining a family tree that goes all the way back to Switzerland, she asked the question, what happened to the queer folk in my family? Because they existed.
Jerry Colonna 21:48
Okay, so, yeah, let's unpack your question for a moment. You started off by asking what happens to the folks who don't read this book? And you also make the observation, which I completely agree with, that we have moved away, if you will, even in the time in which I started writing the book to where we are today,
Jerry Colonna 22:22
I did not imagine as divided as we were starting in, say, the summer of 2020, that we would actually get worse. And it is worse. It is worse. And, you know, it's a challenge. I asked before of the world at large, what am I willing to give up that I love in order to see the world that I know needs to be to come into fruition? So, Daniel, a lot of people loved REBOOT. A lot of people loved it.
Speaker 3 23:07
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 23:08
Like, a surprising number of people loved that book. And still to this day, people, I was at a book event these last couple of days, and this woman comes up to me shaking with her worn copy of reboot, and she wants me to sign it. And I love that. I love it at a non ego based way, and I love it at an ego from my ego based way. And so what am I willing to give to up that I love? And what I'm willing to give up that I love is being the object of these wonderful and grandiose projections that somehow I have all the answers. But here's a larger truth, and it's implicit, if you will, in the quote from the Talmud in which I start chapter seven. I think it is in reunion. It is not yours. It is not mine to complete the work, but neither are we at liberty to neglect the work.
Speaker 3 24:18
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 24:19
Right. So that look on your Face. Okay. We are not allowed to ignore the suffering.
Speaker 3 24:29
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 24:31
Okay. We started off by talking about the good man. Okay? Our task from the divine. And I don't care which of the 84,000 doorways point you to the dharma, whether it's Judaism or Buddhism or Christianity or any other of the world's great wisdom traditions. They all point to the moral obligation to lift those who are oppressed, to welcome the other, to welcome the other, to see no stranger, and to welcome the wretched, to make space. You know, the other night, a woman came up to me because, you know, in reunion, I talk about being motivated by my daughter's participation in the protests over the murder of George Floyd. And she says to me in a kind of almost conspiratorial way, well, you know, black lives matter is anti semitic. And I looked at her and I said, there is anti semitism on the left. There is no question about that. But here's a news flash. There's anti semitism on the right. There is antisemitism everywhere, and there have been for millennia. This is not a phenomena of current times. And I don't know any other way to push up against systemic othering such as antisemitism, other than those of us who are not subject to the burdens of those things standing up and speaking out because it's wrong.
Speaker 3 26:31
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 26:35
We know this.
Daniel Stillman 26:36
We know this. So one question I'd been sitting with was, as an executive coach myself, in my training, in my mentorship, my coaching mentor, Robert Ellis, said, like, I'm always a step behind you, and if you stop, I'll bump into you, but I don't know where you need to go. And I really appreciated the conversation you were having with one of your founders who was underpaying her employees and her interns, and you pushed back pretty hard on her and then pushed even further to, say, look into her heritage in tobacco farming and the long history of unsustainable economic models involving sharecropping and slavery and onward. And I feel like, in a way, as a coach, I want to be a step behind. And there's the asking telling spectrum. Like, I'm here just to ask questions, but there's a line where an ask becomes a tell, and you're like. And you're confronting them with a question that they don't really want to be asked. And I saw that as a real strong position to take as a coach to bring equality and anti racism and creating a positive world. Like, would you want your children to work at this company? What are the real externalities of your business model? And what kind of a world are you creating for future generations? These are hard questions. And that's not being a step behind. That is sometimes being a step or two ahead. And I don't know. My question is there. It seems like you do it with a lot of delicacy and respect, but also firmness and a little bit of force. So I'm just wondering how we manage this question of people who are not in the conversation, who are not thinking this way with themselves already there is an element of helping them get into the mode of these thoughts.
Jerry Colonna 29:06
I really love this question because it goes to the heart of how one can hold oneself as a coach in these spaces. So I want to recognize and honor what Robert said to you or says to you. And I think what he's saying in that is that the coach does not set the direction. And I would agree with that. The imagery that I feel more comfortable with than being behind is actually being side by side. And the imagery that I hold on to is I imagine myself oftentimes as in the passenger seat of a car being driven by the client. And my job might be to say, there's a pothole up ahead. I know that you can't see it, but I can see that pothole. You might want to make a left turn here.
Jerry Colonna 30:10
I think back to what my first coach supervisor once said to me, which I think is a really fundamental belief system and can be problematic. What she said to me is we tell our clients what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Now, the problem with that is that we have to be careful of our own ego and our own narcissistic needs to be right.
Daniel Stillman 30:40
I don't know what you're talking about. I have no. That is an alien concept to me. I don't know.
Jerry Colonna 30:51
But there's something fierce about that. And then in the circumstance that you described in the example that I gave in the book, if you recall, the setup was really important. This client came to me not understanding why there was so much turmoil in her organization and what the accusations were against her. The accusations were that she was exploiting labor. Okay. The reason her entire staff quit was because they were exploiting labor. So my, in Buddhism, we call them pointing out instruction. My pointing out instruction didnt come, I think, from some deep place within me that said, let me set you straight. It came from an exploration that said, well, lets put the pieces together here. Youve been accused of exploiting unpaid or low paid labor such to the point that your company has now failed.
Speaker 3 32:06
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 32:09
And by the way, the accusation was that there was a direct exploitation of non white folks and so the echoes were really worth looking at in that regard.
Daniel Stillman 32:26
Yeah. I mean, she had a central question, and she was looking here. And you're saying there's a bigger. That's circle that you're not looking here for this?
Jerry Colonna 32:38
That's right.
Daniel Stillman 32:39
The answer. The question you're looking for.
Jerry Colonna 32:41
There was a.
Daniel Stillman 32:41
It's true. She was. She was asking the question, why is this happening to me? And.
Jerry Colonna 32:47
Right.
Daniel Stillman 32:48
You're saying, hey, look, look a little.
Jerry Colonna 32:53
Well, it is what we should do as coaches. Right. When. So when a client says, why is this happening to me? And we are seeing a pattern, I don't think it is pushing. I don't think it's necessarily leading to be able to notice a potential pattern that's going on. I remember I used to have a client who used to complain about her boss named John, and I finally pointed out to her that her last two bosses were also named John and that her father's name was John and that the same complaint about all four men was occurring and so was I leading. Yeah, a little bit. But it's also like, you know, you've got a nail stuck out of you, stuck in your head.
Daniel Stillman 33:49
Right. I don't know if you've seen that video. It's a. It's a classic.
Jerry Colonna 33:52
I have.
Daniel Stillman 33:53
Yeah. It's like, I don't know if there's this throbbing. And this is the question of fixing versus not fixing, and also the question of, like, until we make the unconscious conscious.
Jerry Colonna 34:05
Right.
Daniel Stillman 34:05
It's gonna rule our lives, and we're gonna. We're gonna call it fate. And you're just pointing out patterns and seeing if they agree or disagree. We hold them lightly.
Jerry Colonna 34:15
That's right. Or if they resonate.
Speaker 3 34:16
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 34:17
Or if they're. Or if they generate curiosity. Absolutely right.
Daniel Stillman 34:21
And if she had rejected it, then she would have rejected it. So there's another young quote I want to explore and a question that's been gnawing at me. It's a very ill formed, long winded tangle of a question, but I have an intuition that you will grok it and have an interesting perspective on it. And so this is just me getting some free coaching from you, if I can.
Jerry Colonna 34:47
Okay. Who said it was free? I'm sending you a bill at the end.
Daniel Stillman 34:52
Please do. So the other young quote you mentioned in your book is, we're not what happened to us, but what we choose to be.
Jerry Colonna 35:02
Actually, if I may, because I think the pronouns matter here.
Daniel Stillman 35:06
Oh, yes.
Jerry Colonna 35:07
He said, I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to be. Okay, yes, but keep going.
Daniel Stillman 35:15
Fair. No, no, because it's. It's. He's owning it.
Jerry Colonna 35:17
Right.
Daniel Stillman 35:17
And that. That's the difference. He's not proclaiming it for someone else. It's a choice that we make for ourselves.
Jerry Colonna 35:22
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 35:22
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 35:23
So, I, um. I was listening to your interview with Krista Tippett because I'm a huge Krista Tippett fan. I was re listening to it, and there was this phrase she used that didn't actually get picked up later in the conversation. What do we do with our own messiness? What do we do with the parts of ourselves we don't want to choose to be anymore? And something that comes up in my coaching work is the sense where there's parts of ourselves that we don't want to bring into a conversation. There's parts of ourselves that are. That we kind of want to other. That are ghosts to us, but they're still there. And I feel like there's a context. For example, one of my coaching clients feels the need to project a certain amount of confidence in fundraising conversations. And, of course, everyone has feelings of lack of confidence internally. And so there's this idea of showing up on purpose, of wanting to be. Be a certain way to shape the conversation in a way that we want to shape it. And not all our parts are safe in the conversation. And I guess I'm wondering, it's this idea of, like, self leadership and self management. How do we be these other ways without denying or othering these parts of ourselves? Because we don't want it to be a cognitive, performative act of playing.
Jerry Colonna 37:02
We don't want to fake it till we make it. Yes.
Daniel Stillman 37:05
That's in my notes. Right. And that's. That's like the classic, you know, Polonius, bad advice. Bad advice.
Jerry Colonna 37:12
Right.
Daniel Stillman 37:12
You know, Polonius, a terrible father, gives terrible advice to his okay, son. And so it's. To me, it feels like they're, you know, I want to befriend those parts of myself, but there's. And then we ask them to stay outside, but it still feels like there's this tension to other. These parts of ourselves and to make them unwelcome in these conversations.
Jerry Colonna 37:40
Well, I think I'm teasing through what the question is, so let me respond to that, because I'm seeing it not only Daniel as one coach to another, giving a perspective, but it's also for you, as well. So we'll hold both perspectives, and in a way, both of my books reboot, which is the book with which I was talking to Krista about, which I was talking to Krista about. And reunion. Address the need that's implicit behind your question in reunion, I think it's chapter four. It's the end of part one. So if we take a step back and we say that the basic theme of reunion is that in order to lay the ground work for what David White would call the house of belonging, one must reunite with a series of things, reunite with the truth of our ancestors, and not merely the myth. Reunite with those of our past, those of our ancestors who have been othered, and importantly, the parts of ourselves that we have dismembered from our own experience of us. And this is what's relevant. That's chapter four of the book, and in it, I quote extensively from an essay that Parker Palmer wrote about reuniting with the parts of ourselves. And again, that was a big theme in reboot. Okay, so if we go back to your example for a moment, this may feel like a subtle difference, but it's a little bit how I approach this question differently than, say, perhaps other coaches or perhaps other therapists or perhaps others. The making friends with parts of ourselves that we have dismembered. Okay. The process of reuniting with the parts of ourselves isn't, I think I'm thinking now of the parts work that Dick Schwartz teaches. I think that that is useful and important, but ultimately limited because it misses a very, very important element, which is behind the question of, how have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? And that is the exploration behind why was this part of me dismembered? Because more often than not, I disconnect in order to feel loved, in order to feel safe, or in order to feel that I belong. Now, once. The first step is to recognize that there are parts of you that you have dismembered. The second step is to understand what was the cause of that dismembering. And the third step in the welcoming in is to understand that your wish for love, safety, and belonging is because you're human, not because you're broken. And so how do we transform the act of dismembering a part of ourselves, shoving it into the long black bag behind us, of the shadow that Robert Bly would call? How do we bring it back in and integrate it? Not simply by allowing ourselves to live out actions from our shadow, but, in effect, to eliminate the need to put things in the shadow in the first place.
Speaker 3 42:05
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 42:08
That'S true. Reunion. That's not just living side by side in the same house that's actually bringing it back into relationship and welcoming it in.
Daniel Stillman 42:24
Yeah, it's a really interesting. And I appreciate that. I'm thinking of the. There's this Ts Eliot quote. The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place.
Jerry Colonna 42:36
I almost used that quote. Almost used that quote in the book. I know the quote well.
Daniel Stillman 42:42
And in a way, what's tough is that there's still. We want to leave the feelings of self doubt outside the conversation, and we want to project confidence. And there's parts of us that feel a need to be seen as powerful, strong, lovable.
Jerry Colonna 43:05
But let me interject for a moment, please. How does the feeling of self doubt serve you?
Jerry Colonna 43:18
What is the benefit of the self doubt? You see what I'm doing there? You said, we want to leave the feelings of self doubt behind. And I'm actually asking a different question, which is, what is the benefit of doubting of oneself?
Daniel Stillman 43:41
It's safety.
Jerry Colonna 43:42
It's safety.
Daniel Stillman 43:44
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 43:45
And if we look at the child that is in us, who was five years old, who, in order to feel safe, took on the responsibility of doubting one's own capability, because to be too confident was too risky. And that may be not only my interpretation of what I see all around me, but in fact, that might even be a lineage gift.
Speaker 3 44:15
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 44:16
That might be something that grandparents felt and great grandparents felt. Because if I grew up, for example, in an environment of pogroms,
Jerry Colonna 44:32
did I just hit a nerve?
Daniel Stillman 44:34
Oh, yeah, sure.
Jerry Colonna 44:36
Then it's better to not stand out. It's safer to not stand out. And when I say safe, I don't just mean existential safety. I mean physically safe.
Speaker 3 44:52
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 44:53
And so if that's the move, then what is needed is to be able to turn around and say, no matter how unsafe I feel, I am, in fact, safe.
Speaker 3 45:07
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 45:09
Right. They are not coming with a knock on the door to take the whole family away. They did do that.
Jerry Colonna 45:20
But we are safe.
Speaker 3 45:22
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 45:24
And so I can allow myself to feel the confidence of a fully grown, good man.
Daniel Stillman 45:33
Yeah. And that's the transformation of ghosts into ancestors.
Jerry Colonna 45:37
That's it. That's it. You got it.
Daniel Stillman 45:40
So what's really helpful about this, and I really appreciate you pulling it apart, is, you know, several years ago, I tried to write a. A second book and was blocked because, you know, my mother's gonna listen to this. So I. I don't want to say.
Jerry Colonna 45:59
God bless you, mom. We love you.
Daniel Stillman 46:01
I know that you had, you know, there was we controlled ourselves and parented ourselves in the family context because our houses were chaotic. Right. And so learning how to be things and to feel things and to be more mature than we are, to project what we don't feel internally and to create a shield of being a different way, there's a part of it that's numbing, and it's a kind of self murder. But in the flip side, I have, in my own experience scene when I was a 13 year old kid, I followed around this origami expert, Michael Schaller, on New York City. And I was an origami nerd. And this man was a short, loud, big personality, jewish man who could just own a whole room. And I was like, I learned how to be like Michael. I was like, look at him. And I think there is a beauty and a power. I wouldn't say faking it to till you make it, but seeing what someone else is and channeling them. So I think there's a beauty to that, but behind it is these feelings of self abnegation and numbing and denial and disunion. And I think this is where all of those are present and all of them are possible and true. And I think this is the sort of the question that's been. I appreciate you pulling away some threads at this with me.
Jerry Colonna 47:40
Well, you know, I really appreciate the story you share, Daniel. And I guess the question is, as you were talking about modeling yourself in some ways after Michael, I think of myself as modeling myself after, say, doctor Sayers, my first psychoanalyst, or Parker Palmer. And I think that there's something brilliant and beautiful about that. But it's not necessary to participate in the annihilation of your true self in order to internalize the lessons from others who come, who are mentors.
Speaker 3 48:18
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 48:20
You know, Parker once wrote, there is nothing so tragic as to be complicit in the diminishment of our own self.
Speaker 3 48:27
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 48:29
Right.
Speaker 3 48:29
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 48:30
So, you know, but too often, I think, in the faking it till you make it, in the emulation of those we admire, we participate in the diminishment of our own self, seeing that as a necessary part of the emulation.
Speaker 3 48:56
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 48:57
And it's. And it's just not true.
Speaker 3 49:01
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 49:02
So what I'm getting from this, what I'm learning is, and it's really great to hear in the ways that you've emulated and tried to project. You know, it's like, I want to be more blank, like blank is. And it's okay to do that if we use the other hand, to say, how can I nourish and care for and love the parts of me that don't. That don't feel that way.
Jerry Colonna 49:29
That's right. It's, you know, in a very practical way, I might be in the middle of a coaching conversation, and, you know, just as I just did with you, I might look away and stare off and say to myself, how would doctor Sayers respond?
Speaker 3 49:50
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 49:51
Or how would Parker respond? Or how would Sharon Salzburg, my buddhist teacher, respond? And what I'm doing in that act to reference what I do in reunion. Sorry, we're getting. Our snow plows are here. What I'm doing in that act is taking. Is really referencing and taking in my elders who have come before me, and it's a. It's an act of honoring them.
Speaker 3 50:26
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 50:27
To. To emulate what they have taught me. You know? I mean, Parker is 85. He's emulated Thomas Merton.
Speaker 3 50:38
Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 50:40
Right.
Jerry Colonna 50:48
You just don't have to participate in wiping out yourself in order to internalize your teachers.
Daniel Stillman 50:57
I think that's beautiful. It's a really beautiful way to put it. It's a really beautiful way of putting it. Sometimes I remind you, Daniel, you don't.
Jerry Colonna 51:07
Have to wipe yourself out to internalize anything. That feels like a teaching for me.
Speaker 3 51:14
Yeah. Yeah.
Jerry Colonna 51:16
In fact, the best way to honor whatever it is that you may have gotten from me is to metastasize it, is to metabolize it, is to take it in and make it your own.
Speaker 3 51:29
Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 51:30
Well, the thing that's coming up for me is the Mary Oliver poem, wild geese, which, you know, you do not have to be good, which is, like, such a relief for you do not.
Jerry Colonna 51:43
Have to walk for miles on your knees.
Daniel Stillman 51:46
You just have to love what the soft animal of your body loves.
Jerry Colonna 51:50
Amen.
Daniel Stillman 51:51
Amen. Well, it seems like we're very close to time, and that is probably a great place to stop. But I'll ask you, what haven't I asked you? Or what's unsaid that's worth saying with the few minutes we. We do have left. And I really appreciate all this time and consideration for these questions so far.
Jerry Colonna 52:11
What I would say is this, and here's a trigger warning. It's going to be about you. What a delightful conversation you've given me. What a gift you've given me with your questions, with your explorations, with your authentic whole self.
Jerry Colonna 52:37
Would that every conversation I have touch this level of depth. That would be a real joy.
Daniel Stillman 52:50
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Jerry Colonna 52:57
I want you to know that I can feel how much my work has meant to you, and that is an honor to me.
Daniel Stillman 53:07
Thank you.
Jerry Colonna 53:07
So at the end of this, you're going to send me your address so I can send you a couple of signed copies of my books.
Daniel Stillman 53:14
Thank you very much. Well, as it turns out, you can also make coaches cry, not just CEO's.
Daniel Stillman 53:27
I really appreciate the time, Jerry. It's really been delightful. We'll include links to all the places where people can find all the things so that people can continue to do this work because it's really important work.
Jerry Colonna 53:39
And amen.
Daniel Stillman 53:40
That work is not the world.
Jerry Colonna 53:42
The world needs us to do our work. We are not at liberty to neglect the work, period.
Speaker 3 53:55
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 53:57
And the real work is internal work.
Jerry Colonna 54:01
Is inner work, always.
Speaker 3 54:03
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Stillman 54:08
Thank you so much, Jerry. It's really been. It's been a delight. It really, really has been. Have nothing else to add.
Jerry Colonna 54:16
That's a good note to end on.
Daniel Stillman 54:19
Beautiful. Well, I'll call scene then.