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About this Episode

Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve. This episode provides a rich and insightful journey into the realms of communication and behavioral change, guided by the deep knowledge and experiences of John Gilbert. This episode, in particular, highlights the transformative power of empathetic and informed communication, showcasing how it can significantly impact personal growth and drive positive societal change. John’s unique blend of intellectual rigor and emotional empathy elevates the discussion, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the nuances and complexities of effective communication. The podcast stands as a testament to the pivotal role that thoughtful dialogue plays in our collective pursuit of a more connected and understanding world.

In this podcast, we discuss:

• Introduction to John Gilbert: Casey Jackson introduces his co-host, John Gilbert, and sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of John’s perspectives on behavior change and communication.
• John’s Academic Journey: John shares his academic background, focusing on his fascination with behavior change and how motivational interviewing became a crucial part of his professional growth.
• Self Determination Theory: John discusses the significance of self-determination theory adjacent to motivational interviewing and its influence on his approach to human behavior.
• Evolution of Professional Development: John reflects on the profound moments in his professional life, particularly how motivational interviewing reshaped his understanding of communication and behavior change.
• Lifestyle Medicine and Health Outcomes: The conversation shifts to the impact of lifestyle choices on health, emphasizing the potential of reversing or preventing major diseases through behavioral changes.
• Importance of Respecting Autonomy: A critical discussion on the importance of not taking away an individual’s autonomy, focusing on the respect and dignity in treatment and communication.
• Cultural and Environmental Influences: The hosts discuss how cultural and environmental factors shape behavior and the importance of understanding these influences in communication.
• The Role of Motivational Interviewing: Casey and John delve into the role of motivational interviewing in engaging individuals meaningfully, beyond the superficial layers of modern communication.
• Challenges in a Capitalistic Society: The podcast touches upon the difficulties of implementing these communication strategies in a heavily capitalistic society where everything, including human interactions, can be monetized.
• Fusing Empathy with Intellectualism: John concludes by expressing his aim to blend his intellectual knowledge with emotional empathy to make a more profound impact on people’s lives and society.

You don’t want to miss this one! Make sure to rate us or share this podcast. It would mean so much to us!

Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com. 

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Transcribe

 Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome. To the communication solution that will change your world. 

Hey everyone. This is Casey Jackson and this is the communication solution. We’re missing our trusty sidekick Danielle today.  But it gives John and I a chance to kind of dive a little bit deeper.  So I was thinking about this.

There’s so many guests that I’ve had on.  You know, I get to talk about my perspective as well too, but I thought it’d be fun to.  Have a chance for people to get to know John a little bit better. So I’m going to dive in and, and,  start to pick his little brain apart and, and let you experience that wild, wacky, wonderful world that happens inside of John Gilbert’s brain.

And, um. I’m going to interrupt to say, as an out loud processor, I’m a little afraid of what’s about to happen since I didn’t know you were going to ask me about this, so I’m a little afraid of what’s going to be processed out loud and how long and how many words that’s going to take. But,  I am going to be conscientious of that and try to have some level of empathy for.

Anyone that actually cares to listen to this. Well, you know, the, the biggest thing for me, you know, John and I have known each other for well over 10 years now. And,  you know, he was a grad student, you know, In his master’s program, looking at, you know, healthcare and nutrition and all the things that he’s obsessed with.

And we crossed paths and there was kind of an immediate connection in terms of our desire to work with people,  and help to kind of help the world a better place. And I was coming from the mental health and emotional health side of the world. And John was coming from more of the healthcare side of the world.

So John, what. When you saw, you know, you saw the, the, the poster for me doing an MI training, you know, you kind of wandered down there, you and I connected, what was your fascination with behavior change at that point in your kind of academic side of your career? I mean, what, what, what triggered you that you became that obsessed?

You actually followed it into a training room to find out what’s going on,  seemingly logic, but it’s probably not that simple. That’s what I’ve learned from human behavior change and, and,  psychology.  But I want to give some credit where it’s due leading up to that, where,  Judy, Judith Knuth, who is an exercise clinical exercise physiologist,  and she with American College of Sports Medicine, she was one of my professors that introduced me to,  or instructors that introduced me to motivational interviewing in a course because the evidence was showing it seemed to be more effective, or at least As effective as other things,  as an approach.

So then that led me to doing a deep dive on it and writing this big long paper of how, wow, look at this evidence.  If this was a intervention for a pill or something like that, we would all be using it. And,  we would be using it at the dose that it has been shown to be used. And so it was very.

Logical to me that this is something that would be implemented if it’s efficient and effective at helping people. And we would lean into this. And so that’s what the paper essentially was about and integrating it into the program more and integrating it into health care more. And that is essentially what introduced me.

And then I saw signs literally on the campus that led. To you, and then there seemed to be a good vibe with you and we were getting along and whatever my name dropping conversation acting like I knew what I was talking about and my own credibility issues. I worked through and then from that,  you invited me to shadow you and so then I started to learn more and I started to realize how applicable and how much this can go deeper And be even more effective and how logical it can be.

And again, that flow of, of the diagram that you and I were talking about assessment intervention, when someone’s with this, there can be here. So all of it just stirred up a bunch of stuff in me of just how this could be so helpful in so many different situations to help people with long term change, which then to finally cap, this answer is that that is what’s at the heart.

If I wanted to answer this succinctly, I would have done that at the beginning. That’s at the heart of what this is all about in healthcare is addressing the underlying cause with lifestyle medicine factors where we could prevent up to, you know, 66 or so percent of cancers. We could prevent nearly all heart disease, nearly all diabetes of type two.

If we just did what we knew was healthy for us, and that’s the underlying cause. And that is behavior and behavior change and sustained behavior change. You know, as we, as we kind of almost retrace your decision tree to what’s put you right now, right here in this podcast with your personal and professional, let’s just stick with professional development,  personal development,  which is adding you here.

 If we trace some of that back. What do you think were some of the most profound shifts or evolutions in your thinking more purely based around motivational interviewing? I know there’s all sorts of supporting theories that you dove into and, you know, that I dive into and, but just from that motivation being path or your understanding of human behavior.

And communication and behavior change. What are a couple of probably the most profound moments in your professional development where it’s like, Whoa, whoa, like something unlocked and you have this whole cascade or flood of thoughts that are like, wow, this just takes motivation to another dimension.

What were a couple of those moments for you? Can, if you can recall? Gosh, yeah. It’s been like 15 years since we’ve known each other. So there’s a long amount of time. Well,  yeah, I, well, first and foremost, I know you mentioned to mostly stick to MI, but adjacent to MI is something called self determination theory, and it’s not the underlying theory for MI, MI isn’t a theoretical basis, all that stuff that if you listen to this podcast, probably you’ve been introduced to that, but it’s a separate theory on human behavior change, I was introduced to that before I was introduced to MI and I was just like blown away by the evidence on that and how much that resonated with me and went to a conference.

They talked about it. I was ambitious and reached out to try to get an excuse me, internship in New York around this. And like, it was so like blew me away how cool and how effective this could be and how it was so honoring and respectful. And there’s something about like the, the way of treating people that really resonated.

And that’s why I wanted to bring that up. It was, The effectiveness and the way of treating and being with people. And I didn’t realize until now, looking back, like that’s a big thing that resonates with me. And, and, you know, motivated reasoning confirmation bias aside, I look back on my life and I just see how treating others.

It’s important in a lot of ways, and it relates to you,  with your path, but mine is a different path, but I’m simply bringing all this up to say that it was a big aha for me is how I treat people. And self determination theory was a way of introducing that then smart goals came in and those are really interesting, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound goals.

But that wasn’t really as as profound. It was more about effectiveness. It was in the depth of, of things that like we’ve talked about with that,  social work podcast hosts on here about empathy and these ways of treating other people that that profoundness has continued to sink deeper in a lot of ways.

And one of those ways,  has been,  values based thinking that you brought up. Yeah. Looking at core values that cross cultures using the focus mountain that’s been huge in recent, you know, evolution in the beginning. It was really getting into what the difference is between empathy and reflective listening and kind of evolution.

 And also the, the importance of,  in later times,  with the webinar, you were attending effective psychotherapy book. Yes. On genuineness and how that’s really important. That sense of genuineness that people talk about a lot, not am I in each other and all that stuff,  that seems to be really important.

So I’ll just keep it capped at that, but it’s that foundational way of being and treating each other.  That then I’ve had personal growth on over the years and still I’m trying to, to wrangle that with my over intellectualizing of everything and how, how to bring those worlds together.  I would say that series of things has been a few examples.

You know, I, I want to dive a little bit deeper into connecting a couple of these dots, maybe not as much now, well, I still think to an extent you are. The word I want to use is singularly, and I think that’s not completely accurate, but somewhat accurate,  in terms of focused on, but what does the research say?

 You know, your brain just naturally wants to find the root.  And what does the research say? And one of the things that have been so impactful in our relationship, and it’s helped me learn and grow with my own physical health, is when you look at the evidence around health outcomes. Mental health, emotional health, physical health, when you’re talking about heart disease and cancer and all these things that are actually reversible or preventable,  depending on what stage you grab it based on the evidence.

If we, if we followed what the evidence showed and operate in line with that. That is a mantra of yours in the healthcare world. I mean, that’s, that’s what got you into lifestyle medicine. And, and as you were following those threads, talk more about that for people that, that don’t know what is dimensionally, as you know, like when you look at the, of all the things that kill us, you know, disease,  What’s your, give people some context for that.

Like what is, what is the, what does this science and research show us about our choices and our behaviors and lifestyle that affect our outcomes? Okay. Yeah, this is like a huge, huge question. So let me start with a foundation of. What you taught me that I didn’t include in the last answer, that is probably even more profound than anything.

I can’t believe it didn’t come to mind at that time and bring that into this answer as the foundation to this answer, because. It’s going to matter more than all the what’s and how’s, as you say on the focus, it’s that you, when we were on the plane, I don’t know, a few months ago or whatever, we were talking about what it means to take someone’s autonomy from them and who are you to do that?

And I was just like, Ooh, even after all these years of training. It’s like, we’re going to be talking about curricul revamping and getting out of the lyrics versus, you know, the melody and trying to balance those things. As Dr William Miller talked about, and am I, it’s that genuineness that we’re talking about.

I was talking about earlier. It’s that not acting like you’re above and taking someone’s autonomy that I wanted to highlight as like, whoa, that’s big. That’s huge for how I treat you. Now I can know all this stuff. Yeah. I just want to highlight how important that is leading into all this stuff, because just because I know some of the things I could answer here,

does it really matter to you? There’s a slim slice of the population in a certain age group, tending to be male, tending to be of a certain age group that watches YouTube. People 18 or under that watch, you know, tick tock and, and all these people that are exposed to all this information of different kinds that want to just feel good and be happier and healthier.

That there’s people trying to make money off of them to do that and attention and all this stuff. And so I just am getting at like. I’m not the person to try to take that person’s autonomy from them at a certain point, though, there’s a certain level of what is our environment influencing us with our autonomy and how much is our sovereignty being taken from us to think that we’re actually finding truth when we’re finding a way to give someone attention that makes money off of us or vice versa or all sorts of things.

So I just want to highlight how important that is. To then get into, if you trust someone like you’re asking me, then I can treat you in a way that’s respectful to not take your autonomy away. And then mention things like how you can reduce your risk of stroke by a massive degree, reduce your risk of heart attack by a massive degree, reverse your type two diabetes that we now know is the cause with liver fat that we can do in a relatively short period of time.

We can do a lot for your health. And now there’s even more coming out on slowing aging with things like low dose rapamycin and things that will be coming on in the next few years. So all of those things can be interesting, but I have found that the things you and I talk about here seem to be intriguing to a lot more people unless you’re super into health.

And then it becomes, as you taught me, Charlie Brown teacher, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. So I can see, I can see more into that if you want to get into that. But I think I’m just trying to think of this podcast and anyone that wants to listen, if they, they want, we can, we can dive into research on that and totally geek out.

I just want to say that that, that whole. Foundation to all that seems to be really important to be aware of that as someone that tries to help someone else, you know, I, I’m going to go a little bit down this,  rabbit hole because of the, just the stream of thoughts that I’ve had around it as you were talking, what I think what is so.

Understandable, but so painful at the same time with where our, at least our mainstream American culture is. I see it. I see it with the difference between wanting to help people and wanting to monetize people. And the information, like you’re saying, people want to feel good. They want to be part of something that makes them feel good.

Even if it’s literally killing them, because the information that even my daughters talk about who are 14 on Tik TOK, as if it’s fact, because somebody that has no education or information. But it’s just espousing opinions if it’s a, if it’s fact, but then there’s new stations that do that as well, too. So it’s like, it’s not just a youth thing.

There’s just so much misguided because people want to hear what they want to hear, which is where you and I’ve talked about confirmation bias and they only want the sources are going to reinforce the things that make them feel good and make them feel better than. Even though literally it is killing them and anesthetizing them from what’s going to help them feel truly healthier and happier.

And I have to get this out because then my anxiety comes up in terms of like, Oh my God, are we becoming the matrix? Which makes me nervous because are we just going to be batteries plugged into our phones that. You know, don’t think for ourselves, our bodies are and our brains are going to atrophy,  because we’re not using our bodies and our brains to their maximum capacity.

And it’s like, then why are we alive? Why are we physical and human? If we’re not going to maximize our, our growth and our health and our healing that we. That we have. And I think that’s, what’s so fascinating with what you’re talking about on a health side of it, because, you know, I, this was so fascinating to me about the amount of research that’s been put into research, the amount of money, let me say that the amount of money that’s been put into disinformation intentionally.

So people are easier to control and I think this gets into things we were talking about earlier about sovereignty and autonomy and self determination that motivational interviewing it is not motivational interviewing if it is not That,  so how do we engage the personhood of another human being so they can be everything that they want to be in a way that’s going to advance their outcomes as they define them and as they define themselves?

I mean, that’s just really complex. So that whole part that you’re talking about of. I know the amount of data you have in your brain. I know that I know as Casey, if I listened and followed all the data that you have in your brain, I know I’d be healthier and I follow maybe 40 percent of it, of all the things you share, which I know is better than many people.

You know, but then it’s like, why don’t I follow a hundred percent of the things that I know that John knows? Like those things fascinate me. And I think, and I’m ahead of the game for so many people because health is so important to me and other people just want to be plugged in. It’s just like, just tell me what I want to hear and make me feel good.

Even if it’s killing me. Like I just, that whole stream of thought as you’re talking, it’s just like, wow, that’s just how, how do you get off that, that merry go round or that carousel? It’s just like, wow, that’s, that’s a rough. Oh, I love it. Yes. So this is part of, this is one of the big reasons why you and I connect is because we love this stuff.

This is the stuff that is listening to this right now. They probably want to geek out on this stuff too, because first foremost, I got to highlight that there’s a book called the age of misinformation that I highly suggest that is really helpful about. And there’s, there’s other people I can point to because I just listened to, you know, to books all over these years of training, traveling and all this stuff.

And that’s 1 big 1, the age of misinformation I would throw out there that addresses what you’re talking about in a lot of ways, but what you’re bringing up Casey is just. Okay. So we’re in this place of, whew, I can know a lot or be exposed to a lot. And then there’s my life and there’s what I want, which is I want Maslow’s hierarchy of feeling safe.

Feeling like, well, I’m getting a little bit, okay. I was getting a little bit of echo. Okay.  I was feeling into,  In Basel’s hierarchy, if we all want these core things as humans, that seems to be true from a humanistic perspective of psychology. And then as you start to look at different cultures around the world, including ours, you start to see how much our environments shape us.

And there’s a book called Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman and modern day legend in psychology. And just to show how emotional we are versus rational and how our, we’d like to believe our character would go against certain things, but how our environment shapes us. And I don’t, it’s not meaning to turn into resistance talk and start to blame outside ourselves, but really to recognize things outside ourselves really influence our thinking.

Our cultural constructivism,  the issues with equal opportunity or not like in our country with race or gender or other issues that all of this is so much bigger than just M. I. but M. I. gives us a. A sort of telescope lens into treating others in certain ways that has more of an objective truth to it than anything else.

We know to treat people in these ways. That seems to help. That is ideally not being used to try to. Make money off of a bunch of people by making people more efficient and effective to just make money For the agency or whatever it is, but trying to treat people in these ways So that there can be this sense of happier and healthier that you were alluding to to not turn into an AI matrix of the future of the world because We could know all this stuff and there’s a whole hour long thing I did,  for, for EWU class that we were, we were working with for who to trust and how to trust, why to trust, who to trust, how to trust.

And it’s a whole long thing that basically gets into, it’s difficult. And our environment makes us want the incredible, immediate, delightful. Dopamine seeking and then awesome hits of constant stimulation and something new all the time. But, you know, as, as a wonderful coach once said one time, it’s, it was something like the dentist can find that cavity behind your teeth and be like the, the oh crap or aha and therapy as you, you would find, but it’s the brushing of the teeth.

That’s the hard part. Day in and day out. And I just want to point to that is the hard part. And that’s the part where am I comes in. And that’s the part to bring this full circle where culture and your environment come in. So we need policy. We need environmental policy and things that help create a container of a different culture.

We also need motivational interviewing or things like it, not just the feel good philosophy, But the combination of how it dignifies, how you treat others, and then how it helps them with change and can help with a larger change for which if you care about loving kindness or any of these concepts,  there’s a book that William Miller wrote on it.

You would care about what we’re talking about here for how the evolution of humanity happens. Well, you know, I think that’s what’s so fascinating. I think that’s partially where we get attention for the training that we do. And the feedback I know for myself, my evolution in even training and my obsession with motivational interviewing and the, and the theoretical constructs that parallel motivational interviewing as a, as a method is I’ve evolved so much away from teaching.

And so much into trying to evoke from people. What do you want to learn? And I think that’s, you know, now having had way more than 10, 000 hours of training, I’m probably 000 hours of training. Am I my comfort level so high with the dimensionality of it that I just don’t want to teach anybody. I just want to find out what do they want to learn.

And how it applies to their own life. And I think it’s discombobulating and a little startling for people when I just keep trying to evoke from them. But what do you want to learn? And they’re like, well, what are we supposed to learn? What are you supposed to teach us? And it’s like, what do you want to learn?

Like, how do you want to apply this to your own life personally or professionally to have a profound impact? I mean, it’s literally the communication solution. Our podcast is a communication solution, something that will change your world. And you and I know this intimately, how much it’s changed our worlds,  personally and professionally.

Thank you. And how much feedback we get anecdotally from other people and then how the research supports that. And we could point to books that people in the MI world and then my professionals, it’s five to 10 years. And then also, and it’s like this deep, profound thing. Yeah. It’s not just us. And so many people, it’s it.

And I think this is where it’s the same thing. Like how as professionals do we engage the brain sitting across from us in a way that’s not a tick tock or an Instagram, that it really is a human evocation and introduction to who are you. You know, do you know who you are? Do you know who you want to be?

Aside from all the things that you think you want to be because you see what other people are doing or getting from being this way, which is that whole environmental influence you’re talking about, and it’s like, how do we, how do we stunt that process? To help people engage in something from a self determination perspective.

I mean, this is, these are why you and I can get into, you know, day long, hour long conversations about these things, because it’s just, it does get to the root of why are we here and what are we trying to accomplish? And, and as professionals, you know, quote unquote, whatever that word means,  like when we interact with other people, either as trainers or as practitioners, we really genuinely want the best for people.

And it’s, it’s not about the monetization of it. It’s about the, the human connection to human kindness and that growth. Potential that gives purpose, you know, beyond monetization. I think this is why it’s so wildly difficult to do in something that’s such a heavily capitalistic society. And it’s not pro capitalism, con capitalism, it’s just incredibly hard to do within that environment.

Everything, our society is just evolved that everything can be monetized. Every single thing, every part of your body can be monetized, everything in your. Around you can be monetized. It’s just like, Whoa, it just can’t even be back to the nostalgia of, you know, a neighbor more than one next to another neighbor.

It’s just like those things. How do we monetize that? Even sad, but it’s so true. Well, yeah, I mean, what’s, what’s coming to mind and flowing through for this, that, that there’s a,  one of my all time favorite books. Just it’s called the more beautiful world of hearts. No, it’s possible by Charles Eisenstein and he’s evoking and, and bringing up ideas to contemplate and doesn’t try to add credibility of social credibility or anything.

And the reason it relates to what you’re talking about, Casey is it’s this place of what is this more beautiful. This that we’re seeking, what beauty are we seeking and how do we evolve into this?  And what you’re bringing about is something that he talks about, which is the story of separation or the story of connection.

And you could get into, well, is that a core value and you could start to define it. Like I tend to break it down intellectually and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you just get into what it’s getting at, it’s getting into like what I’d mentioned before with Dr. William Miller’s book on loving kindness,  these more.

 Ways of looking at from these past wisdom traditions, you could look at Hinduism and other other things as well, but that bring together. How am I treating you? How am I seeing you? How am I treating you? Am I being not what am I having or how am I looking? How am I being, and this is where we get into things that other researchers with the flow state talk about and all these things is whether we’re talking about sports, a conversation like this, sex or whatever it’s going to be, it tends to be when we’re focused with the other person in this, this state and this sense of no thing, nothing, this, this timelessness, this sense of that.

And so we don’t need to open up the whole can on it, but it is to say, if. That there seems to be a there there by either anecdotal reports over history and recent research with the book effective psychotherapy that treating each other. This way seems to matter beyond all the information. And if we can treat people this way and have more likelihoods, which is what science is better nuanced, and I should say better, more grounded, nuanced, nuanced.

Information just like happened with the covid pandemic and treating people as people, giving them likelihoods and nuance, but doing it in a way that treats them this way. That is essentially where I’ve kind of come full circle, as I know we’re coming to a close here, but of, of trying to bring these worlds together of recognizing I’m my own person.

I’m not for a lot of people. I’ve realized I’m for certain kinds of people. Hopefully,  you know, I continue to find those people. But that I can try to bring these worlds of your level of like empathy and compassion and things that I’m, I’m more emotionally integrating in my life with this intellectualism and this groundedness and nuance to try to bring these worlds together so that like that age of misinformation book somehow help with mainstream.

And culture and helping people more and not going where I was going to go to bring this back to your original question, which is into sports psychology and sports performance with professional soccer teams and reaching out and volunteering for the Sounders before they were him. And then recognizing I’d be helping the slim slice of the population get that much better.

Slim slice, slim little bits versus like helping people, even if it’s at some, you know, other cost some, you know, sense of. Whatever for me that it matters more. And I think that’s the key. And so I’ll shut up with that, but that ultimately, hopefully that resonates for a sense of my background and a sense of agreeing with you that this is really important to do this work.

You know, this John is exactly why,  it didn’t matter what question I asked you, we were going to get to why John got involved in motivation. So it didn’t matter what rabbit hole we went down. People are going to get a little taste of how John’s brain works,  and, and his obsession. So I really didn’t care which question I asked.

All of you are going to get a little exposure to that wild and wonderful brain of John Gilbert. So it didn’t really matter. And this was absolutely perfect. It was a perfect slice.  I hope people continue to listen. This is one of my favorite things to do is to have, you know, not only being able to talk to one of my best friends in the world, John, but to have other people that just love talking about these things,  you know, all within the realm of healthy communication, but how do we do this really effectively and efficiently?

In a way that helps the world around us. And that’s, that’s our obsession with finding a communication solution and talking about that. So really appreciate your time. Really appreciate people who choose to tune in. And I hope this has value added your life.  Everybody take care. Thank you. Bye everyone.

Bye everyone. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions. Suggestions or ideas, send them our way at Casey@ IFIOC.Com that’s Casey@ IFIOC.com for more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.Com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.