Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Welcome everyone. Today, we’re excited. See, there we go. I already did it. Okay, we’ll get that out of the way.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Love it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): All right. Welcome everyone to today’s episode on the Culture Profit Podcast. Workplaces don’t need more buzzwords. They need more courage. In this episode, we’re unpacking how emotional well-being, resilience, and a little bravery can transform not just how we work, but how we lead. And joining us today is Justine Frolker. Thanks for joining us today.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’re excited, too. And she has some really cool background and work experience.
 
  
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, I’m going to share a little bit about that. Um Justine was a licensed professional counselor and still is licensed with 25 plus years of experience. She equips individuals and teams to live and lead with courage, authenticity, and resilience through her courage is built here. An accomplished author of 12 books and two-time TEDex speaker, she inspires global audiences with keynotes, retreats, and training. Rooted in faith, Justine lives in St. Louis with her husband, two dogs, and hundreds of butterflies she raises each season. That is so cool. I’m way into butterflies, too.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Are you?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, yes.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Oh my gosh, I love it. I know. Well, my social media post of the day was like all my wildflower gardens. I was like, you may think she’s dead and ugly and this is everything she’s doing. Like, she’s still doing a whole lot and giving you pretty flowers, right? Like, but yeah, I’m on the tail end of butterfly season, so I think I probably have like 20 monarch crystals and like probably 50 swallow tails right now.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’m so jealous.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I’m so jealous.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We I don’t know in at least in the Logan area, I’m not sure if it’s Utah or not, but we have not had as many monarchs this year.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): No, I’m down.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): I So, this I think it’s our ninth year doing this and for probably seven years, I would release 200 to 300 healthy monarchs a season. And last year I only had about 20 and this year I’ll be lucky if I hit 50. And so like and I don’t know because technically the monarch numbers are up. They are up this I mean nowhere near where we need them because we’ve lost so many in the last 25 years.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Huh? Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): But so I’m thinking that maybe their pathway shifted just a little bit. Like I even had somebody message me on Instagram.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): She’s like my mom’s on the Illinois side and she has 200 this year.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh.
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): And I was like okay maybe they just shifted a little bit.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, they’re just their migration patterns a little different.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. So yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But well, that’s that’s fine if somebody else just I want to be the one.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yep. I know. As long as we’re still here. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I want to be the one to raise them and release them, but whatever.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): It is the weirdest and coolest hobby ever. Like it’s It never gets old.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s an incredible transformation and we’re going to be talking a little bit about changes in workplaces, so this is perfect.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): But maybe you can give us a little bit more about your background and what led you to be where you are now.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. So I am a licensed professional counselor by trade and I have been in some semblance of mental health, traditional mental health work or professional development for over 25 years.

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): I was that person that like I’ve always been the psych major and um and and it’s because of my life. And so in high school I had um two back surgeries in high school that uh I was in a body cast for a year total between the two surgeries.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Whoa.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And I’m talking like chin to knees, body cast.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Hey, what did you do? Is this a car accident or what?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. So I was a dancer growing up and I was there back then.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Uhhuh.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): So this is 909 94 was the first surgery, right? And so like we know a lot more now than we did then. But um they said it was a common injury with football players and dancers except I was misdiagnosed for a year and a half until they found the broken back on a year old X-ray.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh no. Oh my goodness.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so by the time they found it, surgery was the only option.
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And back then, like we didn’t, you know, we didn’t have titanium that we put in people’s backs and then get them up and moving literally the day after surgery. Back then, we put you in a body cast. And so, um, my first surgery was the summer before my freshman year of high school. And then my senior year when I tried to go back out for track and field, I was like, I went back to the doctor. I said, “You all said that I would be stronger and better.” and this still hurts. And that’s when we discovered that I was like the 10% that the bone graft didn’t take and so they had to repeat it my senior year. And so in that process in one of the misdiagnoses um they actually it was the first one they said that I had conversion hysteria which is another way of saying that it was all psychosomatic and my brain was

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): making up the pain and nothing was physically wrong. And so they made me go see a sports psychologist.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And I remember I remember it vividly being in that room um at a world-renowned hospital and like the the sports psychologist kind of being like they don’t know what’s wrong and so I’m going to teach you how to be as okay as possible in the pain that you’re in. And so she taught me how to visualize the pain outside of my body, right? She didn’t know I had a broken back. Um and I remember thinking like what you do is pretty cool. And then and there there’s nothing like that experience of being a teenager stuck in a body cast to make you really interested in what makes people click and what makes some people more resilient than others and can it be taught and things like that. And so when I left my small town back home in Iowa and went to college like I was a psych major right away. I started my career right away in undergrad. I worked in the substance abuse clinic that was local there. um and really just kind of worked with lots of different clients throughout the years and settled in private practice for 11 years until I left my private practice seven years ago to focus on how we bring these skill sets to the workplace.
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): I knew that I wanted to reach more people and so I I knew I wanted to speak and teach and train on the bigger level and what better place to do that than in the workplace where we spend more time awake at work than we do at home with the people who love us the most. How come we’re not bringing these human essential skills there and caring well for people?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow, that that is crazy. And to think the uh therapist had your back more than the uh doctors.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. It has been, you know, there’s been so much recovery since then and like it is one of those spaces of um when you do the true healing work to have your eyes open to the people that were placed there for a reason and also to really like make sure that the hard parts of your story don’t become your whole story. Um that’s a really big part of this courage work and it’s because of where I’ve come from.
 

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s amazing. Yeah, you must be a tough cookie. Like, I’m guessing you’re pretty good at handling pain. Or maybe you’re not handling it at all.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): It’s just outside your body or Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. You know, I used to say things like, oh, like my patience was spent in two body casts in high school, right? Or like I have no tolerance for pain. And then I like the more I’ve done this work myself and done the healing work, the more I’ve shifted that like that was a training ground that was to train me up, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And that was like, so you can take those moments and those seasons of your life to build resilient skills. Um, or you can allow them to destroy you. And I like I’ve been through too many really hard things to um I used to my husband and I went through an infertility journey. And at the end of that, I said like I was like I refused to believe that I was supposed to be left as this bitter empty shell of who I used to be.
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): Uh, and so like we we get to choose whether or not we do get better after something even though it sucks, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Like you rather it was different. You just choose to rewrite the story.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And that’s a difficult thing for a lot of people, learning how to reframe and change your perspective.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I think that’s where therapy can be so helpful because you’re equipped with those tools and those skills to help teach that to other people who maybe weren’t equipped with it.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And so I think we can all agree that it’s a pretty important part of our lives and that extends to the workplace of course.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah, it does. It really, really does.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): I know. I always like it because obviously I walk into some rooms that are not super happy to see me, especially once they learn, like, “Oh my god, you’re a therapist.” like and like and I always say like in my keynotes like so when you heard that I was a therapist there was at least one of you that was like oh my gosh we’re going to talk about feelings aren’t we like right and you wanted to leave but then there’s at least one of you that was like yes free therapy paid for by my boss like that’s awesome right so like wherever you fall on that spectrum
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): like take what you need and leave the rest and at the same time when you start to feel yourself wanting to crack a joke, go to the bathroom, check your phone because you’re a little bit uncomfortable. Perhaps that is the place where you need to lean in just a little bit because growth and healing and change only take place in discomfort and in connection. So, what if you leaned into that space to see if you could take a nugget home?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I think everybody has moments where they feel uncomfortable and that’s part of growth is having, you know, you have to go beyond your typical barriers to find that and and I totally agree.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yep.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): You know, you mentioned that you’re at work more awake hours than you are at home with your loved ones, which is a really big why of why, you know, therapy and coping methods and um wellness needs to be

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Mhm.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): in the workplace. Tell us a little bit about um your framework courage is built here and how that fits in for our listeners, our people leaders, HR leaders, you know, what do they need to know about this?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Uh it is for me it’s really about coming back to people first. And I know that there’s a lot of organizations that say like well we never left that. And it’s like are you sure? Are you sure your people actually feel that? Especially in a year like we’re having right now. I just um we’re asking a lot of people and um there’s a lot of budget cuts. There’s um a lot of change and um and I I do people are sicker and um more burned out than they’ve ever been and more disconnected than they’ve ever been. And so what would it be like to care well for our teams and our cultures at work where they spend a whole lot of time? And so courage is built here is um my curriculum that it is fairly new. I mean it’s not really for me because it’s been 25 years since I was a man in the making, but it’s where I finally put it down into an 80page workbook and the whole training is a three-day training.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): Um I you always do it on Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays, three exhausting days in a row because like momentum really matters in this work. and I do it in community with a bunch of different organizations at once or um sometimes organizations will just put on their own training and I’ll do it for them and then but really what I get to do for the most part is then I I kind of design programs out of that curriculum whether or not it’s the keynote or the workshop or the training or the retreat but courage is built here is uh five pathways of courage and uh it really is that holistic human person uh and So it starts with pathway one which is feel it all. How to feel our feelings and not be them. And so that’s where we begin with values clarity because if you don’t have your clarity of values um you got nothing to be honest. And that includes your values of the organization but also the people in the organization. And then we also talk about there in pathway one is that’s where all the emotional well-being piece comes in. Like how do we emotionally regulate ourselves?
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): How do we not be owned and defined by our emotions? Because most of us were never taught that growing up or saw a healthy example of it. And so we’ve got a bunch of people emotionally deregulated, also really burnt out, maybe even sick, and they’re coming to work and you’re asking them to get a to-do list done. That’s simply not possible because to-do lists aren’t getting done anymore. And so what’s it look like to feel those feelings? Well, um, and then pathway two, I brought in a huge piece of this because when I was working in the corporate space for so long, I really recognized that very few people know how to feel their feelings well and very few people were actually taking care of themselves. And so pathway two is called embody again. It’s how to take good care of yourself. Like what’s it look like to have a morning routine, a night nighttime routine? What are the foundations of health? How do I calm my central nervous system?
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): Like I I teach all these different things that like Vegas nerve, awe, wonder, delight, because people just don’t they don’t know. And what they don’t know um and if they can learn it in a workshop with me, they’re just like seriously that little sticky note that you taught me about self-care changed everything for me. Yep. It doesn’t have to be an hour long. It can be five minutes, but you’d be surprised what happens when you actually show up and follow through for yourself first because you can’t give from an empty well. So that’s pathway two. Then pathway three is full of you. So that’s the whole authenticity, vulnerability. How do you show up as your full self in all the spaces that you exist in? Um even when those spaces may not be brave or safe enough for you, which that’s for some for some of us more than others, those spaces are not safe. Um and at the same time, how can you learn the boundaries that you need to learn to still be authentic?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): because it is in that authenticity that when you show yourself to other people, they will show you who they are. Um, and now we’re in connection and that’s what we were meant to do and how we’re how that’s the only way that we’re going to get through all of this. Um, and then pathway four is I call it’s called love others well and I always give a caveat because in the corporate space I say like now if the word love is too squishy that’s totally fine just shift it to care, dignity and respect. For me, it’s love, but also one of my values is love. Like I freaking love people. Um, and so like if love is too squishy at work, it’s fine. Like just just shift it. But it’s really just about how we relate to people. How do we live with them? And how do we lead well? And so in that pathway, we talk about empathy and accountability, how they’re not mutually exclusive skills. Uh we talk about how we operationalize trust and how it’s just rupture and repair over and over and over.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And then we also practice curious language and we actually practice hard conversations because that’s probably the number one issue that comes up in all of my events is like I need help knowing how to have a hard conversation. Uh so we talk about that curious language, how to really manage our own emotional response when we’re having those hard conversations and giving feedback. Um and then pathway five is to do the work. And so most days I usually call it freaking work. Um and it’s just all of it together. But that’s really the big place where we start to reclaim and rewrite stories. And so we know like when someone is really up in their feelings, their thinking rational brain literally goes offline. It’s really hard to choose courage when you’re all up in your feelings. And so when that happens to the brain, the brain just makes stories up. And so those stories are not usually accurate. They’re not generous. They always have good guys and bad guys. They always blame and fingerpointing and always and never.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And so if I can get those story if I I teach people how to get those stories out of their head so that they stop living from them so that they stop reacting from their emotions and instead respond

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Glorious.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): to their life. But then it was like the last seven years of being in the corporate space. It wasn’t just these stories that were really really holding cultures back from being healthy. It was a lot of the old narratives that people had. So, like the really the old narratives that were born of some of the toughest seasons of your life, like like the childhood wounds or like your super toxic boss that you had five years ago, except that’s not your boss anymore, but you’re treating your amazing new boss like that boss because you haven’t healed any of that and rewritten any of those stories. And so, like that’s that’s really kind of we take all of the work and then really identify what are those stories and how do you rewrite them?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s Amazing. So, I like you on pathway five.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): I had kind of a follow-up question.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Um, so do the work. Do you have any kind of followup with people with organizations afterward?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s really interesting like I. I always tell us how we can build this, how you think best supports your people and at the same time I’m going to let you know like I have found out what works and what doesn’t work, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Like sometimes I’ll hear from orgs like there’s no way we can do three days in a row. And I was like that we can talk about other formats for sure. And what I also know is that if you’re going to come to me and you want me to give them this whole curriculum in four-hour chunks like once a month, it’s not going to embed.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. No effect.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): It doesn’t take deep root.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Like you think that they’re going to go back into the world and practice what they just learned except you only gave them a nugget.
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): You didn’t give them all of it and they’re going back to their lives that are way too full. and stressful and they’re going to want to come back and process and I’m going to need to move them on to the next lesson and so there’s things like that but one of the things that like I in

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): a perfect world I would begin with suite right like it would be sweety sweet leaders they get the entire curriculum um and then maybe we like do workshops for the next level if we can’t scale it in the whole curriculum right and we kind of work our way through um and then it’s got to be maintenance Right? Except usually that’s not the phone call I get to have. Usually our managers really need you. Will you please work with them? Right. And I get it because they are all they have. When I talk to anybody in HR or talent development, it’s not their job that’s hard. It’s all people ‘s issues.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): They feel like they’re having to be a therapist and they’re not qualified to be a therapist and they know that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so it’s all those things. And so but then I’m having to have conversations with a suite like okay I of course I will start where we need to start like we we put out a fire that we need to put out a fire except now you’re going to ask your management to report to leaders who don’t have the same language as them they don’t have the same skill set as them and so deep depending on cultures like I always tell people like

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): if they’re going to put on their own training like I have so I can take up to 40 people in that training and that’s really just to serve the work. And so I always tell them, fill the room. Get butts in those seats. Fill the room. If our culture is okay enough to put a C suite in there with everybody else, let’s go for it because you’ll have access to me for three days and we can really talk through your stuff.

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): But some I’ve had organizations that are like we’re nowhere close to that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): You’ve got to do a suit by yourself and there’s only like 13 of them and then we can talk about the next level because they’ve had so much hurt and trauma happen that we need to start there. Um and but the the organizations that have really been able to embed the work, they make sure that all levels get some introduction to the work.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): different

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): So, even if someone doesn’t have access to the whole three-day training, they brought me in for a keynote and they still like to meet me, they heard the language or they get to do the online course, right? So, we can still scale it. But then the people who have gone through that full training, my recommendation is that we do regular what I call accountability check-ins and we literally just gather with those people that have been through the full training and we usually do like the same format. It’s like we do uh courageous check-in, we do permission slips, we do rumbles.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): Sometimes I’ll even give them a Google form and say, “What’s the biggest thing that’s frustrating you right now? And then I build scenarios out for them and we practice them in the session together.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Well, nice.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): We also do celebrations because I have found that very few teams actually celebrate each other. So I will put it into the agenda. All right, what are we celebrating? When have you walked out of work and it went well? When have you witnessed somebody walking out of work and it went well? Let’s celebrate because they’re not that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah, I love that. I think that’s super important. I mean, if we’re not re-recognition is a big piece, but if we’re not looking back and seeing what we’ve accomplished, if we’re just spinning our wheels constantly, yeah, we’re gonna we’re just gonna spin our wheels and not go anywhere. So

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It’s that it’s the accountability.
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): I do. I have an organization right now that they’re like so like some of the leadership just like they want to be done like we’ve done we’ve done it we’ve done enough of it we need to move on. Um and the other one the other half is like this is like we’ve invested a lot of money and time and resources to just say we’re done when we haven’t even gotten it to a majority of the organization

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): this

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): in any capacity. And so one of the things I like trying to help them see is that I’m a big root cause person. What’s the root cause? And one of the reasons I know that the ones that feel like they want to just be done with it is because they’re those they they’re just like, when are we going to move on? And because there are people who are stuck, right? Like there’s a very fine line between stuck and moving forward with what we have now and continuing the healing. But there’s also a difference between plowing through it and just denying what’s still hard, right?

 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so like that’s a fine line between all of those things.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so, um, it’s one of those pieces of I don’t want an organization to move on to the next training before they’ve actually scaled it well. And that will look different for every organization based on how big they are, for sure. Um, but also, um, how much trauma they’ve had because there’s quite a bit of trauma in a lot of orgs right now.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And that makes sense. I mean, we’re people. Businesses are made up of humans. You know, we use computers, we use technology, we have all these different things that we can program.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Right.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We have AI where we can just write something and it does it for us. People aren’t like that. We can’t just stay here, be well, and then boop. You know, it doesn’t work like that, right? Like we have feelings, we have emotions, and there’s, as you mentioned, it takes time to build those relationships.

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): Exactly. I thought

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I think your approach where you’re not just talking about here are patterns that employees can put into their lives to um cope with emotions, to feel feelings in a more healthy, productive way. But it’s also thinking about how those things fit into an organization for long-term change where you have leadership who they’re the um instigators of change. you know, if they don’t care, then why should anybody else care? And thinking about those shared experiences that team members can call back to that they had together. And that can be, you know, something that connects relationships more deeply.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, I think not just the content, but the way you’re approaching it makes a lot of sense for helping people in this community, this culture of a company moving forward together.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It is that piece of because obviously like what’s our return on investment? Well, healthier, happier employees and right and healthier, happier employees are more productive and will make less mistakes and produce more.
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): more productive. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so I and it is like it’s one of those pieces of you you don’t have to go back to people first if you don’t want to. And like I do think that there’s a cap to that like um it’ll end somehow or you won’t succeed as much as you want to. But more than that, you’ll just keep running through people like and you’re I guess yeah, sure.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Mhm. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): You’re always going to be able to find a new person to replace the one that you’ve burnt out or run off except like is that really the place that you want? Is that the culture you want? And I don’t. No, I wouldn’t. Most leaders don’t.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): They’re just not quite sure how to wrap your brain around it.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. And I mean there are companies that do that.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): For sure. For sure.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So, one thing Matt and I have seen in in some of these c company cultures that kind of struggle and there’s clearly some trauma is that some individuals have a hard time overcoming like their persona or or something,
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): right? and it’s hard for them to change because they’re known as that person and then they therefore get treated that way and everything. But I feel like this is a negative persona. Yeah. I feel like this is enough of a disruption that it’s an excuse for change for the organization, especially where you’re talking about the importance of community training.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Uhhuh. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Everyone’s in it together. they’re seeing these things that everybody’s being taught and and then it’s therefore okay to make changes within yourself and see those in other people too.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. For sure. I’ve had so many of my teams like they’ll they’ll they’ll email the check-in and they’ll be so we were like we were stuck. totally stuck and then like someone has to get the courage and someone always does and someone’s like in light of what we’ve learned with with Justine perhaps we need to like like take a timeout or do a two-word check-in or you know like these skills that they have learned because like and that’s what I always tell them like this is this is not a courage lobotomy like you don’t walk out of an event with me and

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): like you’re just done I live and breathe this work I have done for a long a lot of my life and I still screw it up. Like because we are humans and life is hard and beautiful. But like when you screw it up, that’s the work too. you own it and and you make it right and you move forward and you hope that you have someone with you that’s willing to walk that out because I I do think one of the things that can be really hard in leadership but just in our cultures in general at work is that you’re allowed to change your mind like and and you’re allowed to say I like dang I screwed I screwed it up I screwed that

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): up or I don’t know and like and when when we do these when we do those parts of this courage work like you actually grow more trust with people than if you were to just pretend like you know what you’re doing all of the time or that you don’t ever have a regret or make a mistake.
 

 Justine Froelker (Guest): Like I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard in and in events that like oh no when you like admitted that to us like that’s when I trusted you the most I’ve ever trusted you. I mean, I once had I once had a CEO saying an event like I’ve never because I talk about apologizing in my training like when we talk about trust and he’s like, “I’ve always been t goes I’ve never

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): said “I’m sorry as a boss.” He goes, “I was taught not to. That’s admitting mistakes. That’s admitting to wrongdoing. I could be sued for that.” And I was like, “Okay.” And he and his HR were in the room. And she raised her hand.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Happy birthday.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): She goes, “We know that. And it’s also why we don’t trust you.” And

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Wow.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): it was this huge like, all right, do you want to talk about it? Do you want to rumble it out? Do you want to talk about how actually admitting your humanity grows trust?
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And the other one serves it. And when you sever that trust, you sever connection, which means your team’s not going to grow and change. And so it was one of the one of the bravest moments I’ve ever had in an event. But it was what matters.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): That’s Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): That authenticity really matters.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And I love that direct approach and going back to what we were talking about at the beginning. Humans are not butterflies. Our transformation is not coming out of this cocoon and we’re done. You know, unfortunately that would be beautiful.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. We don’t have moments like this, right?

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Like I mean it is I’ve so many times I have said that like is this ever done? No, it’s not. Like it’s never done. It’s what you’re always gonna learn.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. continual ongoing process transformation and yeah um so I I guess I for for those who are listening what advice can you give them both to the employees how can they advocate for their own well-being and then to leaders

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. It’s so true.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): how can they start incorporating emotional well-being into the workplace

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting like on the employer side because I I’ll hear from a lot of team members like they say they want us to take care of ourselves but it’s not built in to our day right and so like one of the I I for me is the easiest simplest way to start to build in courage all of your meetings I don’t care if it’s a 10-minute meeting at the front end of a meeting you make the time to check in with your people and so We I my I have a I have a few favorite like check-ins that I teach people. So, one is like you can do a two-word check-in. Everyone goes around and says two words, two feeling words.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): What kind of

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): They can be feeling words. I’m literally like I’m part of the EO accelerator program. And so we do this practice. We do a one-word check-in in that one because then we also do my courage deck, which is another one that I do.
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): But um one day I was just like I was like my one word and they were all like, “Oh, that’s so good.” And my coach was like, “Okay, let’s just do sounds like we’re just gonna do like a sound check.” And so everyone went around. It was like it made us laugh. It calmed the room, right? And like we, you’re not alone, right? And so that’s an easy one. It’s a quick one. One of my other favorite ones is um what everyone goes around the room. What are you excited about? What are you worried about? Another version of that is actually from the Gottmans.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Okay.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): They’re like famous marriage counselors and researchers. Um, what’s on your mind? I love this one. What’s on your mind? Because that helps people like you get a pulse point of like what’s on their to-do list for the day, right? What’s their worry? But then the second question is what’s on their heart?
 
  
Justine Froelker (Guest): And like that’s where you remember that they’re a human being with a life outside of the job title and what they do for you. And so like and truly like I. I do what’s on your mind and what’s on your heart as like one my three-day training. We do it for one of our check-ins and I have last time my last training was 26 people. It took us 15 minutes. Like it’s not a long long monologue. It’s a quick check-in and you move people along pretty quickly.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): But in 15 minutes we were able to get through 26 people all who answered those two questions. And it creates intentional connections in the room. I do. I am also gonna plug it in because it’s amazing. I have a courage deck. So it’s 60 deck cards with 60 of my teachers on it and so I have teams that use this in their daily huddles. Like they shuffle the deck, they pull a card, they read it out loud and everyone goes around the room and they say what it brings up for them.
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): Um my accountability coach and EEO, he uses it in every single meeting that he has. Like I always tell I’m like every time you pull that deck out I’m just like I can’t believe he goes Justine it’s literally led to some of the best conversations I’ve ever had with some of my people.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): So cool.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Like it’s if you want your people to feel cared for and know that you give a crap about them because when people feel cared for they’re actually going to work harder for you. They’ll create and innovate and actually you’ll probably keep good talent. You have to create the time to actually care about them, which means you have to connect with them.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): If you haven’t Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): And so you have to make the time to do it. And so that intentional check-in and every meeting I think changes the game for people because it helps people feel valued. And so when it comes to the team member side of things like it is I I think a lot of times I’ll hear from people like they have a good relationship with their leader but they don’t necessarily trust leadership like the whole suite right and so so then what could it look like to the the person that is your leader or the person in leadership that you do trust to have some of those tough conversations about
 
 
Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): what do you need and want and what would help with your stress levels. or your workloads and things like that. And you might ask for it and you might not get it. Except you definitely don’t get it if you don’t ask. And it takes vulnerability to do that.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): At least you know though. And so I do think team members, we have to begin to advocate more for ourselves. And it doesn’t mean that we just ask for stuff taken off of our plate because especially right now for a lot of organizations that simply may not be possible. Um, but I cannot have one of the biggest conversations I have in organizations, I just got an email about it today with somebody who’s coming to my September training. Like I say, the conversation will come up a lot in our training, but one of the big things that we talk about is how do you be as okay as possible within this system where there’s a lot of things that are not in your control.
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And so, but what is in your control is like what can you do to be as okay as possible? And that probably means a lot of emotional boundaries and it might mean some physical boundaries also.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s some management from the individual side outward in an organization where you can’t control everything.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): For sure.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Um, you do have some amount of influence even if it’s mostly limited to yourself. Um, we all have those choices. But yeah, I love that. I love some of those ideas for instigating some, you know, relationship connection conversation. Like Krista and I with our kids at dinner, we do cherry and pit. Uh you know what you like and don’t like. And they mix it up.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): That’s good.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): They say Perry and Tit. Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): I haven’t ever heard it but I love that version. That’s so good. I know. I had a guy that’s done my full training with me and he does my courage deck.
 

 
Justine Froelker (Guest): um he’s a single dad with his 14 and 16 year old daughter at dinner every night and he was like he had messaged me on LinkedIn once and he goes so we were doing our courage deck like we do every night at dinner and he he goes I pulled one of my favorite sayings of yours the unspoken is never benign and he goes of course like the girls were like what’s benign mean because they didn’t like they didn’t know he goes but that’s one of the reasons I love the courage deck because we have we get to have those conversations they’re learning new things through it and um so then he explained it and I guess his 16-year-old year-old said to him, “Go she goes, “Dad, do you know Justine?” And he was like, “Yeah.” And she goes, “No, like do you really know him like or know her? Would she respond to your DM if you messaged her?” And he was like, “Yes, I’ve done her training with her.” And she goes, “Will you ask her to think about making a kid deck for us?”
 
 
Justine Froelker (Guest): And I was like, and I was like, “So I mean I h I have started it because I’ve had such mixed reactions. I’ve

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): Oh, hey, that’s a good idea. So, is there going to be a good one?

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): had a lot of parents say like, “Oh, no. I love having conversations with them about what the words mean.” Um, but they’re like, “But then it would be cool for them to have their own deck to take to school and stuff like that.” So, it’s in the works. It has been a big year of creation and launching for me. And so, like, it’s there, but it’s not there yet. So, it’s on the list.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): We’ll have to stay tuned then. Yeah. And thank you so much, Justine, for joining us. This has been a great Yeah.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

 

Matt & Crista Vance (Hosts): And for everyone listening, we’ll make sure to include Justine’s LinkedIn um in the highlight article and some more resources where you can learn about everything that she’s offering. So, thank you for joining us today. They really appreciate it.

 

Justine Froelker (Guest): Thank you.