Intentional living isn’t just a philosophy; it’s a way to lead with purpose and impact. Host Darrin Tulley welcomes John M. Jaramillo, Founder of Coach It Out, LLC, to discuss how intentional living shapes leadership, self-care, and personal growth. From overcoming anxiety to fostering meaningful connections, John shares insights on balancing family, work, and creativity in today’s demanding world. Tune in to uncover practical tips and heartfelt stories that inspire a more purposeful and fulfilling life.
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Modeling Intentional Living: Beyond The Scripts Of Society With John M. Jaramillo
I wish you knew how excited I am to welcome my friend and colleague, John M. Jaramillo. He is a founder, leadership performance coach, and consultant at Coach It Out LLC. He helps clients from students to seasoned executives bring through and expand to their next level of self-awareness, performance, and effectiveness throughout their career journey. John openly shares his way of being this year and how he taps into his anxiety as a tool for awareness. He models the way with intentionality and embraces joy through serving others in their discoveries. Sit on the edge of your seat and take notice of the profound ideas that John openly shares. Enjoy the show.
Kicking Off The Conversation And Reflecting On New Year’s Traditions
John, how are you doing? It’s great to see you and welcome to the Live Your Possible podcast.
How are you doing? How was your New Year’s?
It was great. It was low-key. It was local. I had fun. I stayed up.
I stayed up not even like I went wild, but the metric of success on New Year’s is I stayed up.
Were you up? Did you stay up?
Yeah. My wife and the younger two kids went to bed probably at 9:00, and then my nine-year-old son and I stayed up. That was his first time staying up to midnight. He thought he conquered the world. We had a good time up until then. He went to bed right after. It was a good time. It was awesome seeing the excitement in his eyes.
That’s pretty cool. I could only imagine that feeling the first time. You see the ball drop and all the excitement that goes with it.
He’s like, “Daddy, what is that?” When they were showing it in the lead-up. I’m like, “This is how it works.” He’s like, “All those people are standing there.” I’m like, “Yeah. They got there in the morning,” and then we started talking about how they managed to go into the bathroom. I loved taking that time was one-on-one with each of the kids. That was a good one. That was a great one.
We’re going to ask a lot of those type of questions right now to seek out what’s going on. Given the new year, what’s new with you? What do you bring into the new year? What are you passionate about? What’s on the top of your mind?
Balancing Family Life And Rediscovering Self-Care
I think I’ve been neglecting the things that I need at work or whatever may be. I’ve been playing dad for nine years now and giving all that I can to my kids. I’m still podcasting, writing, and coaching. I’m still doing all those things but you try to get to a point where you feel unease like something’s not right, something’s not quite right. It’s not a nagging feeling, but it’s there and you talk to yourself, you reassess, you assess. It’s just there’s more that I have to do for myself.
I’ve given everything I can’t to my kids, my family, my wife. I’m still going to carry out my duties as dad and husband but there’s more that I need to do for myself to balance it out and stay healthy. I haven’t felt good for the last year because I have under my roof a spouse, a nine-year-old, a five-year-old, and soon to be three years old. It’s a whole set of dynamics play now.
I realized self-care, taking care of myself, seeing what it is I need, listening to my body, and sticking to working out more than I have in the past. It is about me, but it’s more about me so that I can be the best that I can be for them, for my wife, for my clients, and for my colleagues, such as yourself. It is about me but again, to create that right ripple effect.
I appreciate your sharing. The need for us to slow down, self-care, taking care of ourselves. We could take care of everybody else around us the way we desire and we hope to do. You’re not alone. There’s a lot of people feeling this way. I don’t know what it is. You’ve gone through a lot over the last five years since the pandemic started. There is a lot of hope. There are a lot of things that have already happened this first couple days of the year that you start to question. I appreciate that you’re slowing down enough to reflect and think about what you want to be and how you want to show up.
You get to a point where you don’t have a choice. You’re not feeling good mentally or physically. You have to step back, even if you have a spouse, even if you have three kids, you carry out whatever duties you feel you have to them. Okay, but what do I need? What does that look like? Do I need to coach more? Do I need to write more? Do I dive into my photography more? Do I dive into podcasting more? What does that look like?
Turning Anxiety Into Creative Energy And Growth
For me, it’s not necessarily slowing down. It’s slowing down to take in what it is I need. For me, getting a certain energy out of myself helps me a lot. I’ve talked about it in my podcast where the anxiety I see is this pent-up energy that I have to get out in some creative form, whether it’s relationships, conversations, working out, being creative, whether it’s photography, writing, or whatever it may be. It’s not slowing down in terms of stepping outside and taking a break.
Sometimes it is diving into writing. It’s diving into creativity because when you stand up from those things, you feel energized. Even conversations like this. I feel best when I stand up from my own podcast, talk to somebody, and have a great conversation. I know that’s the way I’m going to feel after this conversation. I want to thank you in advance.
Thank you and I appreciate you sharing that component too. It’s not about slowing down, so thanks for that perspective. I don’t know about you. We met with a group called the Kinect Exchange every Thursday. We met at one of those events in what we talked about today was how you enter the year. Do you have a theme, a word, a way of thinking, a way to help focus your year, your day? I’m curious if you have a process and approach, what do you do?
Choosing ‘Live’ As A Guiding Word For The Year
After so many years of resolutions that you don’t keep, you realize that that process is a personal choice, but for me, it doesn’t work. I want to head in the right direction. I want to get in better shape. That’s part of that healing process, that motivation process, like what we talked about a couple of minutes ago. I see everybody posted online about their work, the things they are going to do, and the goals that they have.
Each person has their own system. I don’t want to be too rigid. When it comes to health, you can measure that in metrics whether it’s weight, cholesterol, all that kind of journey. That’s already on the board. Everything else for me, I would pin it to one word and that’s live. I’ve talked to you and others about this whole thing about this dynamic of fatherhood. It can happen to moms. I could speak for fathers and I could speak for myself.
You have to figure out what it is you might need. For me, the word in general is live, and then figure out what that means day-to-day, hour-to-hour, week-to-week, whatever it is that I’m drawn to that I need for myself to live. That’s the parameters I’m putting on myself. It’s just live, whatever that means to me at whatever point throughout the year that I’m in.
Do you see that as something that will put you into a certain space or an action when things get challenging or difficult? Can you expand out a little bit more?
It doesn’t have a form. It hasn’t taken shape, but whatever applies to me, whatever speaks to me, I’m all about saying yes to new experiences, meeting new people, whether it is picking up my camera more, whether it is more writing, freelance writing. The way that I’ve always looked at it, and I’ve mentioned this in my series, is I look at it through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’ve spoken about this on other podcasts as well. For me, that basic layer where it’s about survival and your needs are met and your security is met.
As long as I have the roof over my head, clothes on my and my family’s backs, food on the table, etc., as long as those are safe, as long as the bills are paid, and everything is accounted for and we’re planning as we should and making sure that everything’s covered, everything else is an area to experiment, to play, to live, to do new things. Because those basics are covered and I want to make sure they continue to be covered, I want more space to play.
I’ve talked about it in my series as well, the difference between my dad’s generation and mine. To him, as far as I can see, maybe success was just providing for your family. He was a stoic guy, and never spoke much about his feelings or anything. Maybe for him, it was just having your family safe in a house, and bills paid. Maybe that was it for him.
We’re coming up in different times. We’re hearing about what drives you. What do you want? Self-care. What it is that you want to get out of life? It’s a different place than previous generations. Each generation is making a new track. I want to make sure that I’m doing what feels right. Maybe in previous generations, everything is covered, the family is safe, everything is good. It’s like everything is good, but what else do we need for ourselves to tap into who we are?
You mentioned your series, the podcast called The Book Leads, which I love about not only being a guest. I love following you and everything you’re sharing. It’s quite awesome. What are you learning? What are you getting out of it? What are you seeing and noticing?
It’s such a loaded question, a good one though. Typically, most of us when we start a series, it’s about getting our name out there, sharing our work, our faces out there, whatever may be, being thought leaders, sharing our specialty, and whatnot. As I was having conversations with more and more people, yourself included, everyone shared their background, their stories, and their ups and downs. For anybody who doesn’t know the series, it’s interviewing leaders in my growing network about themselves and a book that they find impactful, whether they’re the author of the book or not.
It was all about getting to those books, and then as I was having more and more conversations, I realized how much I was learning from the people that I was talking to. I realized how important their stories are, and how much in common we have based on our past. In the age of LinkedIn, we’re all guilty of it, but we put up what our specialty is. We don’t get the story of who someone is from a post. It’s getting more and more common for people to put everything about their lives and what they’re going through.
A real conversation about, “Your work, where did that come from? What is it about you that you’ve learned in your experience that you bring to your work? How did that evolve? Explain a book to us that’s impacted you.” It opened up conversations. I’ve talked about stuff I didn’t anticipate talking about. I love hearing the response from them when they say to me, “No one’s ever asked me that question. I’ve never spoken about that before.”
It’s very eye-opening. It taught me what my anxiety is just from hearing different stories. It’s taught me how to address my anxiety, how to live with my anxiety, and where it might come from, and it’s made me a better person overall because now instead of when I’m in public and I see somebody, I am friendly before but there’s something about when you practice getting to know somebody.
The more you do it, the more you want to do it. I call it my master class in humanity because I always went back to school but now this is my new form of learning from my fellow humans. We need more life. What I’ve learned and how I’ve evolved is the humanity that’s out there, what we can learn from each other, and trying to be a good human myself. I know that sounds cliche and woo-woo, but I think we need more of that now.
We absolutely need more of that. I applaud you for it. Why not? Why are we shying away from what’s innate in all of us? We’re shy because it’s squishy. I don’t know. It’s not soft. It’s pretty hard and it allows us to cut out. I don’t want to get to details about what you mentioned regarding your anxiety and the elements of that. Is there some thread maybe in the conversations that you were able to see and be able to address to set the conditions so you can handle your anxiety or overcome it? Was there something that was a common occurrence or something maybe that you noticed?
The Power Of Personal Growth: Embracing New Experiences And Living With Intention
Any realization I’ve had is a culmination of all these different conversations. Some of the people that I have spoken to that specialized in anxiety and talk about burnout and all that, then there’s my reading that I’ve read about anxiety. It’s a combination of my reading, my talks with people in general, and my conversations with specialists in that area. I see it as I don’t want to extinguish the anxiety. It serves a purpose.
I look at it as living with it. It’s a tool that I can use when I start feeling a certain way. It’s like, “What do I need? Do I need something physical? Do I need something mental? Do I need something emotional? What is it that this energy would best serve me with if I tap into it? Do I need to workout? Do I need to write something? Do I need to call somebody up and have a conversation?” It has reminded me of what we hear about self-care. Listen to yourself.
When I start feeling a certain way, I tap into myself, see what I need, and pop on it. What’s great about the series is I’ve realized that when you speak out your fears, your anxieties, or whatever they may be, you’re talking about it with somebody that you trust. Talking about it to me is almost 90% of the problem. I don’t think we talked enough about what we’re going through. When we get it off our chest and you hear somebody’s gone through something similar, that’s 90% of the hurdles.
I’ve lived with anxiety for a long time. That’s why I told you before we started this, to ask me anything. I’m an open book. I’ve learned to handle the day, and tackle it however that I can. It wasn’t one conversation, but a culmination of different things. Listen to your body. What do you feel anxiety? What is it you need? You need to get up and move, exercise, whatever it may be. Whatever what we’re talking about is, I think everybody should tap into what their needs are and listen to themselves.
I’m appreciative that it’s opened up my eyes and allowed me to talk about that. In moments like this, when you ask me where that might come from and what it looks like, it’s that curiosity between people. I found when you open up, people open up, and you’re like, “I’m not the only one that feels that.” The worst part is feeling like you’re the only one who feels certain sensations or feelings or emotions.
We’re not allowing like how you opened up about thinking at the end of last year, how you’re feeling. There’s more than we know. Probably a large percentage of people have these questions, and they wonder about certain things. I want to go back to your point about using anxiety as almost like a whisper to listen to.
It’s pretty powerful what you shared. I don’t know if you recognize this, but for anybody listening, we all have a level of anxiety. How do we use it? How do we use it as a tool to put ourselves on the right track or to not let ourselves fall all the way down? It’s a tool to be resilient. What you shared is very profound, so thank you for that.
One of the things that stood out was from a book like The Upside of Stress or it might have been The Power of Habit. One of those books went into what stress is. You think about how we’re not too far from not being civilized. We spent millennia and millennia fearing real things, monsters that are out there, tribes that are out there, enemies that are out there. Now society has evolved, our technology has evolved more than our brains have. We still live in that primitive mind, fear, fight or flight, that kind of thing.
When you read about it, you’re like, “That’s what it is.” Our bodies need to move. Our bodies need to fight something. Stress stands out when there isn’t. I talked about Maslow’s hierarchy because I have that stuff sorted out and I don’t have an eminent something like fear coming at me, it’s like your mind starts saying, “We need something to fight against. What’s that next fight about?” Not everybody is the same, but that’s the way that I interpret it in my mind.
If everything is good with my family and I’m not tapping into the right energy, my body’s like, “What’s going on?” That’s when I have to go find those certain challenges to burn off that energy. Way back when might have been defending something, hunting, fighting off, fighting for shelter. We’re programmed that way. Civilization has evolved so much more quickly than our minds have. We don’t know when we feel anxiety about what that is. That’s the way I interpret it, so it helps me prescribe that to myself. Let go and do something because you have all this energy. It’s pent-up. If you let it just burn, you’re going to burn out. That’s what I do through my writing and all that creative stuff. It’s getting that energy out of myself.
That’s the world you’re living in. You’re living consciously too. It seems like you’re stepping into what’s available, what’s present, what’s current. Back to The Power of Habit, I too love that book. One of the elements of the steps that he talks about in the book is about what you’re saying. It’s about being aware, being able to notice something, and then to do something from that and then to feel a positive outcome or reward, so then you’re going to want to do it again. You’re going to want to take notice of it, and then you’re going to repeat it. You’re going to start to form another habit. It doesn’t mean your other habit goes away. It allows this habit to come alive, which I feel is your world. This is what you’re doing.
Exactly. If I feel a certain sensation, what is it that I feel that I need? What is it that I can look for? Who do I reach out to? Instead of sleeping it off or eating it off or drinking it, whatever it may be, what can I do? What am I feeling? Instead of allowing it to trigger something that pushes me back, what can I seek out? What can I do that moves me forward or at least recenters me again?
I laugh when you talk about going back and doing it again because what I’ve stuck to is biking in the morning, and stationary bike indoors, but I’ve realized how good I feel after just 40 minutes on the bike every morning. I’ve dropped 7 pounds in a month and I’m sticking to my 540, so five days a week, 40 minutes. That’s it. All I have to do is 40 minutes on the bike.
Some days are easier than others. That’s all I have to do to reach that goal that I want to. I feel amazing when I get off. I don’t have to go 45. I don’t have to go for an hour. That 40 minutes is that sweet spot, but like you said, you have to go back to it. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It creates a ripple effect of energy. I have a different energy to have this conversation with you if I hadn’t been on that bike this morning. It’s funny how you talk about making sure that those steps if you see something do something, and that leads to this habit or if you don’t, it sets you back.
I’m curious about speaking from your podcast. I have to ask you, what is a book that has impacted you? Has there been something that’s impacted your way of leading, being, loving, living, whatever that might be? Is there a book that comes to mind for you? What is that about?
The Leadership Challenge: Lessons Learned From A Transformative Book
To do the podcast, I said, “If I’m going to interview people on a book that they found important, I have to do one myself.” I forget if it was episode zero or one. It was me talking about the leadership challenge. I wanted to bring that up while we were on here. This is my copy. This is from grad school, the fifth edition. I think it’s up to the seventh edition. This is the book that got me into leadership. This is the book that when I was reading every sentence, goes through research and cases. They had been doing research for 30 years before this book came out in 2012.
Just the way that they were writing about it, I was like, “This is what I want to be into. This is where I want to work. This is where I want to share, whatever I can and learn whatever I can.” That one and regardless of how many books I’ve read, whether specifically about leadership or in that same vein, there’s been no other book that touches upon leadership the way that this book does. I haven’t found one. For me, pound for pound, this is the best leadership book out there.
I don’t know what’s in the seventh edition, but regardless, this one is a foundation. It says 25th anniversary. There were additions before that, but me, pound for pound. I’ve gifted it to clients to start off the engagement just because they don’t have to think about it the way I do. They don’t have to read into it the way I do. I want them to have that broad exposure to what the book shares with them about what they can practice, what they can get from leadership, and the power that they have.
I’m going to order mine after we get off the call here. Maybe we could do a debriefing on your next series down the road. That could be interesting and I’ll let you know if anything stands out that they talked about with the seventh edition. I imagine it’s got to be fundamentally the same.
For me, it talks about all the areas. Everything that we talked about in leadership today can be traced back to this book. It’s powerful. It’s all-encompassing. I can’t wait to hear what you think about it. The invitation is always there for you to come back on the show.
Is there a practice that stands out when you think about this book quickly? You said there are practices in there. There’s something like, “This one hit me.”
Challenging The Process: The Importance Of Asking Questions And Seeking Innovation
I say practices because it’s broken up into sections of five practices, and then it goes into each. They’re pretty self-explanatory. The first one is to model the way. It’s like showing people what it is you want. Inspire a shared vision, self-explanatory. Challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart. Challenge the process, I love it because I always ask questions. I always say what no one else wants to say. It was not out of notoriety or anything like that, but I think we spend too much time being extra safe instead of getting to the heart of the matter of what we might need.
I like that particular practice of challenging the process and reinventing and innovating where you can, when you can, and however you can. If somebody reads the book and doesn’t enjoy it, please let me know. Be honest, please let me know. I will reimburse you. For me, pound for pound, if you’re thinking leadership or going to school for leadership, whatever it may be if you’re going into a leadership position, buy that book. Maybe the seventh edition as well.
I like it when you talk about the challenge process. You’re not saying that what you’re thinking or your way is right. Just challenging what’s there, and what else can we learn through inquiry, asking each other some open questions, and being open-minded to it.
I’m not going to lie, it got me in trouble in the past, and even personally with friends, some tough love, where people didn’t want to step on or cause any problems. I felt like if I didn’t ask certain questions, I thought it was a responsibility to ask certain questions about how they can evaluate things, whatever the situation may be. We need it. I would also recommend Radical Candor and it speaks to that, where you can speak your concerns but in such a fashion that you don’t fall into certain areas where it might seem like you’re an egomaniac or a narcissist, but that you’re concerned about what might be going on. We need more of that honesty but from the right place.
I’m curious about your journey. You and I’ve talked about journey, your journey, our separate journeys where there have been challenges. There are probably childhood memories, good and bad, and ones with questions, or maybe even things that have lit us up. It has been an epiphany or a-ha moment or whatever that is. I would invite you to share. What are some of those moments along your journey that stand out to you, that have shaped you today, that are serving you, and that you’re bringing forth into 2025?
The Power Of Modeling: Learning From Parents And Leading By Example
For me, it’s my parents. Just seeing how they were with people, how open they were with people, how helpful they were with people. In writing whatever theme for whatever book I was working on at the time, I was like, “Where does this coaching stuff come from? Where is it that this comes from a need that when somebody has an a-ha moment and they feel helped, it warms my heart?” I’m like, “That’s what life is all about.” It is somebody realizing what they have, and it’s my parents.
Life is all about realizing what you have. Share on XIt’s the way they treated other people, the way they helped other people. They’re immigrants from a different country. My dad was always helping people. He would never say no. He always volunteered however he could. That set the example for me of being a servant, helping other people, and not fearing that it’s a zero-sum game, but that there’s plenty to go around.
Whatever you do for other people, it isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s something you create from who you are. Anytime I think about the good that I do in life or what makes me happy, whether it’s my dad’s laughter, his helping other people, or my mom’s life lessons, it all goes back to them. I’m very grateful to them for where I am now for their lessons. They never sat down and gave me lessons. It was through their actions and stuff that I watched that has impacted me. That lights me up. It’s those lessons and how I can pass them on to my kids.
They modeled the way. Going back to the book a bit, the practice, and you’re doing the same with your kids. Tell me more about your role as a father and how it is impacting you. I’m thinking about your nine-year-old son looking at the midnight with bright eyes. We talked about that a little bit. How can you be a great father and model the way, see life through their eyes? How does that all come together for you?
There’s so much in there. This society now is so much different than when we grew up. I grew up in the ‘80s and now with all the technology we have now, we’re losing that face-to-face conversation. It’s more digital. Social media is all over the place. It goes back to that word living, what feels right in a moment. I can’t prescribe what the right way is to do anything, or the right way to react to anything. I’m building that bridge as I cross it with each one.
It’s awesome because I have the mindset of this book. I have the mindset of learning about yourself. My dad maybe didn’t have the tools to share with me because he was an immigrant. He was working a blue-collar job, working multiple jobs. His availability, his flexibility were restricted because he had other duties he had to get to provide and set that security foundation.
I have more flexibility. I grew up in this society. It’s interesting to have conversations with my kids. I’ve already given them more lessons than I ever got from my dad. My dad never gave me a lesson. They disciplined us, but the biggest lesson was probably “Don’t talk back, that’s not how you talk.” There weren’t long conversations about lessons, what happens if this, and what happens in that.
I was talking to my father-in-law in Florida. His family were immigrants too. When you’re an immigrant, there’s more on the line. You’ve put more on the line when you come to this country. You gave up everything you had to come here. The stakes are higher. Now, it’s more relaxed from his generation to mine. It’s great having conversations because I understand what my son is going through in this culture. At the same time, I still got to learn a whole digital thing.
What is that like raising a kid in that world where I was gone all day on my bike wherever, and his world is a little different? Live. You do what is called for in the moment and you do the best that you can. There’s no wrong answer. You just have to have the right intention. It’s interesting because he’s a curious kid. He asked a lot of questions. He loves to laugh. The best part about the kids is you feel like you’re you’re looking at your inner self or an extension of yourself. Things are going well. I haven’t nailed it perfectly but again, live. The best that I can do in any given situation is all that I can do.
Modeling Intentional Living: Beyond The Scripts Of Society With John M. Jaramillo Share on XNobody’s doing it perfectly yet. Some of those elements allow us to grow. How do you expand if we think we have it all right, or if we’re not trying to help each other, give our best or be our best, or get our best, whatever that might be? I love how you’re modeling that. You don’t have all the answers. You’re seeking them out as you go.
You mentioned it before in terms of my parents modeling the way. For my kids, I try to model the way. I inspire a shared vision. “What do we want? What do you want? How do we help each other.” Challenge the process. I always tell them, “If you think I’m wrong, tell me. Believe me, they are opinionated, but I don’t shut them down. They’ll say, “Okay, but that’s not what you said yesterday, Dad,” and then I’ll go back. I’ll be humble. I’ll apologize and course correct.
They’re doing that. I’ll challenge them if I need to and enable others to act. I love empowering them. If they fall, whatever it may be, I would be there to support them. Encourage the heart. I do that all the time. They’re amazing kids. I don’t want society and education to get their hooks into my kids. You and I have talked about that. You’ve written about that. You coach on that wonder that we have as kids. I don’t want that to dissipate. That terrifies me.
If there’s anything that terrifies me the most in the world, it is seeing that wonder in my kids’ eyes, all of them, that love for life that they have been extinguished because of things on the outside. It’s going to be a process. It’s going to happen. I’m not going to say that I can block it completely. All that to say this book has helped shape the way that I look at certain things and leadership lessons go between the workplace and coaching, and your kids and your family. It’s an experiment. I try not to be careless about it but it is, as you say. I try to keep an open mind so I can keep learning as I go.
Your point about bridging too. You’re thinking on the fly. You’re working through it. You’re navigating. With our kids, it’s so important for us to arm them with how to navigate situations where they’re told how to be, how to think in a certain way, or what’s right and wrong. Is there something in between? We are helping our kids navigate that so they don’t feel wrong.
As I grew up, I was always told I had to act a certain way or be a certain way. I was told by certain people who were in authority. They said some pretty awful things. You start to ask yourself. Am I supposed to do that? Am I supposed to follow what they’re telling me to do? The reality is we have to help our kids navigate what the right way is. I love what you’re saying about loving life and about living it in the present and being conscious of what’s there so we can navigate because if we’re unconscious or subconsciously not looking at what could be or what we’re imagining, then we’re just going through the motions.
Exactly. That’s a major word that comes up a lot online, a lot in the conversations I’ve had, the series, my series. It’s intentionality. What are your intentions? I like how you say we can’t give them the answers but it’s their thinking. We have to get them in that mindset to question things, how they look at things, and what their intention is. It’s going to come down to how are you going to maintain your integrity. If all these other kids or all these other people want certain things or look a certain way or say certain things, where do you stand?
We’ll see, that’s our intention. That’s the way that we worded it. We’re malleable but we’ll see what happens. It’s going to be interesting the next couple of years, but I think if you have the right intentions, you have a lot of love for your kids, it’s not cookie cutter. It doesn’t apply to all people in different circumstances. Just live and love. When it comes to your kids, it is letting them know that you’re there because we’re going to be going through very different times when I grew up, I don’t know what to expect. As long as they know they have us as a foundation, I’ll do the best I can.
I love how you put that together, live in love. It’s amazing.
I don’t know if we’re new-age hippies or what, but it’s not that hard. It’s like live, have a good time, and look out for other people. It may be because of somebody’s circumstances that they don’t see it that way or they can’t see it that way. Wherever there may be people who don’t see it the way you and I do, we try to do our best and create that ripple effect through our families and our communities.
I agree. Sometimes it’s setting a different condition for ourselves. You use the word intentionality. What do we intend? Are we just saying that or are we following through on it? Sometimes, when we’re not following through on it, we own it like you did with your kids saying one thing, the day before. The next day, not following me through on that and owning that. That’s owning your intentions of being forgiven for bad execution.
That’s what we need more of. It’s forgiveness and our ability to seek out what’s there. Did you intend that, how did that go, or how can we learn from that together and not judge? We said this on your podcast. I think you said something that was like don’t let judgment have too much power or don’t put power in judgment. If you think about that, I’ve forgotten that. It’s so important. Why give energy to judgment?
You realize that as you get older. It goes back to our primitive minds. We want to be part of a tribe. It’s programmed in us. If you think about it, you can feel that need or that tribe. Where do I stand? Am I alone? Where do I belong? We’re not where we were before. We don’t have the urgency that we did in those days to remain alive. We had to be with a group or a collective that was larger than us. What do you stand for?
That maturity through life is like you get to a point where it’s like, “What does judgment do?” You do the best you can and then seek out people who will allow you to work off each other. Not people who will tell you what you want to hear, treat you the way you want to be treated, and just that, but people where you can push each other to move forward. I’ve already tried to have that conversation with my son. He’s feeling a certain way about this other kid and what he said.
It’s gotten to the point where he was bullied on the bus by a kid. Maybe where we are in society, even my wife and I were talking about it. In the past, we would fight against that. How can we fix it? We’re like, “What is this kid going through at home? What does he have or doesn’t have that he’s acting this way? Just being aware of what’s out there, what you can put out there. We’ll see what happens. There’s so much going on in the world. We can only control through our example and set in place with our example what we can in our communities. We have instant access to everything around us, but we forget what we can do in the day-to-day with the people around us.
I think a little bit about my own kids and the bullying that’s going on, how to help what happens, how to work through it, how to navigate, and how to persevere and be resilient, knowing that it’s not a personal thing for our kids or for any child, or for anybody that gets bullied. I see bullying in the workplace. I see bullying all around us. It’s about levels of judgment that people are putting on us that they think they are entitled or empowered.
There’s no room in my mind for that. I don’t think it’s acceptable yet I am curious. I try to dive into it with care and love to understand what is going on. I appreciate your words there. I’m going to go in a different direction here to lighten up a little bit. I’m curious about what brings you joy. I have a sense based on what you shared. What brings you joy and how do you feed that?
Discovering Joy Through Connection And Helping Others
These days it’s like exploring with my kids. Joy comes from internally when you can use your best energy when you can use your skills, your ability, your passion, your love, and manifest that and create something with it, or see that from someone else or experience it together. I love watching my kids explore. I love getting their questions. I love looking at life through their eyes again, nine, five, going on three, the questions that they ask.
Modeling Intentional Living: Beyond The Scripts Of Society With John M. Jaramillo Share on XJoy with family, and kids especially, but just coaching and serving others. In all honesty, there’s that squishy stuff again. It’s amazing when I can help somebody figure out or think about things in a certain way where they can see themselves. It’s creating myself whether it’s playing guitar or any instrument, watching my kids play, or helping somebody else.
I try to have real moments of joy on the regular. It can look different from day to day, but I want a good laugh. I want a good hearty laugh. I want somebody to realize what they’re worth, how valuable they are. I want to experience that. That’s one thing I want to see and create or witness on a daily basis. It’s those great moments of joy. Always working. We’re stressed out. Life is coming at us, but I try to find those moments with my kids, whether it’s teasing them or getting them to laugh.
I love getting people to laugh to lighten up. I get that from my Dad, even if it’s self-deprecating, I’m fine with that. I learned that from him, but just living life. You spoke to something like that a couple of minutes ago. It’s like, “You’re saying this. You’re using the word intentionality but what are you doing? How are you living life?” I want to be certain that I am living my best life, whatever that looks like day-to-day, big or small. It doesn’t have to be monumental and share those moments of joy with my kids when I take them to a museum or hiking or they see a certain landscape or they’d see a picture that I took.
Just little things like that. It’s conversations like this. You understand and see the humanity in somebody else that you have so much more in common than we would be led to believe otherwise, but we have to have these conversations. We have to open up to each other and be transparent. I appreciate you for having me on here, sharing what you have with me, and seeing in my work and my life certain things that you’ve pointed out. You’ve used certain words with it, so I’m appreciative that you see those things. When you hear that from somebody else, it stands out and it’s another little moment that makes it all worth it.
I’m smiling here because as you’re talking through joy and happiness and all those elements, everything you’re talking about is these experiences. These moments with other people, levels of connection, the things that you’re doing, you’re living. The way you’re living, you’re finding joy along that path. That’s 90% of where joy comes from. It’s not about the outcome. It’s not about the job titles. It’s not about the actual guitar. It’s the music that comes from playing the guitar and the joy of it and the love of it. What you’re saying is so harmonious to what joy is innately in all of us.
Living Intentionally And Creating Positive Energy
You have to step up to it. There are some occasions and instances but it’s not only going to come to you. Most of the joy that you feel in your life, even if it’s in moments with other people, it’s because you’ve stepped into that moment. It’s because you were there. It’s because you contributed to that. It’s like these conversations at all in my series. It’s an alchemy. You take your experience who you are, mine and who I am, and let’s see what we can develop together.
Aside from intentional as a word, you have to be proactive. You have to go out there and help create that. A lot of my anxiety in the past was sitting back and waiting for things to happen, waiting for people to come to me, waiting for them to create those moments. I started feeling real joy when I was proactive and not just waiting for that to come to me but to step forward and help create it with enforce someone else. It comes down to energy. What do you want to put out there? It’s cliche you get what you put out there and I think it is true. That’s a little experiment in life. When we didn’t do that, we weren’t getting as much as when we did it intentionally, proactively, authentically, genuinely put that out there.
I’m laughing because I’m so energized as soon as you say energy. I’m like this is hilarious. That’s the point. The level of connectedness is powerful.
That’s the best thing I love about conversations. When you are in that symbiotic state of flow when you realize you have the same values, you’ve had the same ups and downs, successive falls. Not the same identically but in the emotion of it. There’s nothing like having a great conversation. I always stand up high and feeling high from a great conversation from that energy from my fellow humans. It sounds squishy but I have experienced it. It’s amazing and that’s what keeps me doing my podcast. It is finding those great conversations. All that were were sharing here, other people can hear and maybe think of things in a certain way that they haven’t before.
I’ve found the greatest gift you can give anyone is listening, how they are listening, and how we build on that. Not the top it. Not to say, “This is what I did.” It’s more about how it could be expansive and helping people realize that what you said is that they have the joy, they have the light, they have the capabilities, they have the potential. I share that with you about bringing that out in people. That’s the joy that I get on a regular basis.
When we talk about this podcast, Live Your Possible, I’m curious, John. How do you define it? When you think about the name, Live Your Possible, what does that mean to you? I feel like we’ve covered a bit. We’ve used the word live a little bit. Is there one more idea or one more tool to remind someone to step in with us in this space?
In order to live your possible, to step into your possible, whatever that may be, people do need to start with themselves first and figure out what they want. Not for anybody else, not for social media, not for their family and friends, and nothing like that. It’s like what I’m going through right now and it’s an experimentation. What is it that I need so that I can feel better and show up better for others? People need to understand what showing up for themselves means. Going back to what I said about waiting for those moments of joy to find me as opposed to stepping out. The greatest thing that I’ve found with coaching is the power of listening to others and that is true.
Modeling Intentional Living: Beyond The Scripts Of Society With John M. Jaramillo Share on XAlso, listen to yourself. I think it’s that example of the airplane mask. Don’t put it on the next person, put it on yourself first so you can be there for the other person. People do need to understand what they’re capable of. We get locked into the scripts of society, whether it’s college, whether it’s work, whether it’s family. There are certain things you have to do in your life, duties you have to carry out, but what do you want? What do you need? What fires you up? What are you passionate about? What might be missing?
People need to ask themselves those questions, and then look at their list and work towards the areas that they can to find real joy. There is joy in the script of having the family in the house in the suburbs and the white picket fence, and the dogs, whatever your version may be. You might check off all those boxes and something still might be missing.
It’s not a reflection of my family or wife or any of that. There’s something that you may be missing for yourself, even though you love and take care of everybody else. What do you need? I don’t want people to get caught in the trap of the script. I want them to consider what it is they might need for themselves. Look at yourself, listen to yourself, and don’t forgo what it is that you may need.
I am curious about what’s next for Coach It Out, your consulting, and coaching practice. Also, what’s the best way to reach out to you that you prefer?
I’m on LinkedIn all the time. Look me up under John M. Jaramillo on LinkedIn. In terms of what’s next, with each phase of independence of the kid, like the smallest one. Now she’s getting more self-sufficient. Now I can tap back into my work. I stepped back from a lot of my work with each kid that we had. Now I want to step back more to coaching. I want to do more freelance writing which allows me to work at oddball times and still be there for my family.
The podcast is amazing. It’s at 120 episodes. We just wrapped up the third season. We’ll keep going with that. The energy I get from it helps me sustain that, but I’m always looking for collaborations and great conversations, whether it’s in writing or podcasts, whatever it may be. Anything that I can do to help people tap into the conversations and topics that we’ve talked about today, I’m all game for that.
Congratulations on everything. I admire how you’re serving the world, and how you put yourself out there, and I appreciate your work. I am truly thankful for being a colleague, and being there for each other. I love you, man. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I love you too. I love the work you’re doing. When you find certain people who share those values delivered in similar or different ways, tap into that because that unleashes stuff in you that is valuable. We talked about how we need more of that in today’s society. I appreciate your time in having me on.
Thanks for everything today. I look forward to our next chat.
Thanks, buddy.
Important Links
- Coach It Out – website
- John M. Jaramillo on LinkedIn
- Last Week’s Leadership Lessons on LinkedIn
- Got A Lead On A Great Book That’s Impacted Your Work, Life, or Leadership? Tell Me About It! on LinkedIn
- Radical Candor on Amazon
- Radical Candor – website
- Leadership Challenge – website
About John M. Jaramillo
John M. Jaramillo is Founder and Leadership Performance Coach and Consultant at Coach It Out, LLC. He helps clients, from students to seasoned executives, throughout their career journey and organizational hierarchy break through to their next level of leadership self-awareness, performance, and effectiveness. In addition to coaching, he enjoys writing (both blogging and contributing to various books), presenting, and speaking on leadership.
His signature talks include Design Your Leadership! Nine Ways to Sharpen Your Leadership Brand In The Everyday and Platinum Networking: Designing A Unique Experience For Others In A World Of Disconnection. John also hosts the podcast, The Book Leads: Impactful Books For Life & Leadership, in which leaders in his network share the books that have impacted them the most, or share the books they have authored.
