Latest / Conversations with Cumberland Heights / Emotional Wellness Leadership with Janet McDonald

Transcript

Emotional Wellness Leadership with Janet McDonald · Conversations with Cumberland Heights

0:00
Well, thank you for doing this.
0:02
Thank you for asking me to do this.
0:04
We appreciate it. Wait.
0:05
And I'll just start. Well,
0:08
before you introduce yourself, onsite
0:12
is one of our greatest friends, allies, neighbors.
0:16
That's right.
0:18
In Middle Tennessee.
0:19
We love you guys.
0:21
And just excited to unpack who you are.
0:24
That's what I want to know first.
0:25
Who who are you as a person?
0:27
And what do you do for work?
0:28
So, gosh,
0:31
what I do for work, should I answer that first or who I that's up as a person.
0:36
We feel mutual love and respect to for you guys.
0:41
And your campus is beautiful and your program is fabulous.
0:44
So we love that.
0:45
I am the CEO of On Site,
0:48
and I've been the CEO about a year.
0:52
Prior to that, I was the CEO of for a number of years.
0:55
And who I am as a person.
0:58
I think the honest answer to that is,
1:01
as CEO, you kind of have the illusion of control.
1:05
And as a person,
1:10
I am somebody who over the last five years has been more
1:15
and more interested in curing us
1:20
about what would happen
1:22
if you gave up that illusion.
1:29
That's interesting.
1:31
Now I'm wanting to, like, get into my own work here
1:33
and start talking about like how that's worked out for you.
1:36
Like do you feel
1:38
has that been a positive a net positive for your life.
1:40
I think it's been a net positive.
1:42
I think that, first and probably on the second half of life,
1:48
I don't know if you ever read, Brooks book, Second Mountain.
1:53
But it's all around the fact that
1:54
on the first half of the mountain, first half of your life, you're really one,
1:59
you know, you're really interested in extrinsic rewards.
2:03
I've got to get that house. I've got to get that car.
2:05
I've got to get that job.
2:06
I've got to get that title.
2:07
I've got to get the perfect family.
2:10
And then on the second half of life, you start to really be focused
2:15
on intrinsic rewards things.
2:18
Who am I as a person? What do I care about?
2:21
What matters?
2:22
And I'm definitely on the second half of that.
2:26
But I wonder again, for the last five years, what would have happened
2:31
if I had earlier been worried
2:34
about intrinsic rewards instead of extrinsic?
2:39
And would that have made my life easier?
2:42
Because I think I spend so much of my life
2:46
during that first half gripping onto a steering wheel,
2:51
thinking that that gripping would make a difference to the outcome.
2:58
And it
2:59
consumes so much energy and so much time,
3:03
that if I had released
3:06
my grip, would it have been, more fun?
3:09
Journey?
3:10
And so now, I'm having more fun
3:15
because I am less needing to control it all.
3:23
Your previous tenure at onsite? Yes.
3:25
Were you on the extrinsic mountain then? No.
3:29
I had right before I went on site.
3:32
I had been a partner in a consulting firm, and,
3:36
we had sold that consulting firm to, private equity back firm.
3:41
And we went from 150 team members to 550 team members in 30 days,
3:46
and then 30 days later, to 1500 team members.
3:50
And I'm like, I think I'm out.
3:53
I had worked for very large companies most of my life.
3:58
And, while they have lots of benefits and I enjoyed it,
4:04
I knew in that life that I could not show up at work one day,
4:09
and it probably wouldn't make a difference.
4:11
And in the smaller consulting firm,
4:14
it mattered if I showed up and I loved that.
4:19
And so I had already sort of decided
4:22
that when when we sold the consulting firm
4:26
that I was super interested in doing meaningful work.
4:32
And the this is a really weird story about that full year before
4:35
we sold the consulting firm, I used to do a lot of strategic planning.
4:39
I used to speak a lot.
4:40
I used to facilitate a lot.
4:42
And at the beginning of that year, somebody came up to me and said,
4:45
have you heard of on site? And I said, no.
4:48
And they said, I was just outside of Nashville.
4:51
And I said, that can't be true because I grew up here and I've never heard of it.
4:55
And they're like, no, no, it changed my life.
4:58
Okay.
4:59
And then months later, somebody else came up and said,
5:02
have you heard of on site?
5:03
And I said, just last month, I heard of it.
5:06
And they two said, I, it changed my life.
5:08
Like, wow, what a great marketing campaign they have, right?
5:11
Changed their life.
5:13
That's a statement.
5:13
Yeah. Yeah.
5:14
So then I looked it up
5:16
and I thought, oh, I need to go, but I couldn't find the time.
5:19
And almost to the day that we decided to sell the consulting firm,
5:24
a friend of mine was looking for a job and asked me to look at indeed.
5:28
And make some recommendations.
5:30
And onsite was looking for CEO.
5:32
So I said, hey, I don't know anything about this company.
5:36
Everybody says that changes their life. I know you're in recovery.
5:39
Maybe you should try this.
5:40
Apply for it.
5:41
So he applied and that was a Friday.
5:44
And over the weekend I thought, oh, maybe I should apply.
5:47
So I applied, called him and said I'm applying to.
5:50
And he's like, you can't do that.
5:51
We have the same background.
5:53
And I'm like, I think I need to.
5:55
So he does apply. I've never heard anything for months.
5:57
And then Miles called one day.
6:01
Mouse and Amelia and, talk to me
6:05
for about five minutes and then said, would you come out?
6:08
And I said, sure.
6:10
And then, on the whole way out there, I'm like,
6:13
who in their right mind is driving out here all day, every day?
6:17
And then you pull up like you.
6:19
Yeah, you pull up the hill of on site.
6:23
And I said, oh, crap, maybe me.
6:26
And then I met the team and I said, oh, yeah,
6:28
probably me if they'll offer me this job.
6:31
So they did.
6:33
And I started working there in September of 2018.
6:37
And then Covid hit.
6:40
And that was an interesting time.
6:43
And it was a time, though,
6:46
where the entire team came together.
6:49
Yeah.
6:50
There was just no question about working together,
6:55
figuring this out, getting stuff done.
6:58
And, as much as I didn't
7:01
love the pandemic, I love that component of the pandemic.
7:05
So I'm curious how you answer this question.
7:08
How would you describe what onsite does?
7:14
Well, I had the pleasure of going through our living center program.
7:17
Okay.
7:18
And I left that program
7:21
really strongly, knowing deeply three things.
7:25
Number one, everybody has a story.
7:29
And if you knew their story,
7:30
it would be super hard not to fall in love with everybody, right?
7:34
Which I didn't and mentally knew, but I had did not in my gut know about.
7:41
And the second
7:42
thing is that if I have a handful of people who know
7:46
all of my shit and I'm in all of my shit
7:49
and love me anyway, I'm going to be okay.
7:53
And I have the pleasure of having that in my life.
7:56
And then the third thing is that
7:59
I live in expectation of how things could,
8:03
should not be for me and for you and everybody else.
8:08
In, in doing that I am so busy trying to control it
8:12
that I miss living in expectancy of what can happen.
8:19
And so I'm so gripping under that steering wheel
8:23
that I can't enjoy
8:26
the unexpected things that happen.
8:29
There might be, there's a theme coming out of this.
8:34
And it reminds me, you know, I'm a person in recovery,
8:36
and one of the, books that I read, there's a whole chapter in it, and,
8:42
and this particular book, and it's titled just for today.
8:47
And that has been a theme
8:48
for my 15 years of recovery over and over and over again
8:51
about the power of the moment in life happening for you, not to you.
8:56
And, so, in my own way, learning how to let go of the steering wheel.
9:01
Yeah.
9:03
So what do you do on a day to day basis when you hit your spacebar
9:08
in the morning?
9:12
I that's the funny part about being a CEO
9:16
is that you really are, I think, primarily at the service of everybody else.
9:21
Yeah.
9:22
How do I knock down the barriers?
9:25
How do I help you do what you do?
9:28
Again, since I'm on the second half of all of this,
9:34
I kind of feel like I had the opportunity to do the best work of my life.
9:39
And, it's now my job to enable others around me to do the best
9:45
work of their life.
9:47
And that's what I'm trying to do, I think, at on site now.
9:51
So here's what I really want to ask you.
9:53
This is totally selfish and sharing.
9:55
You already know what I'm going to talk about,
9:56
because almost every time I see Janet, I say something about this.
10:00
But it's true. That doesn't mean it's not.
10:02
Maybe it's just my experience, but I really believe that
10:07
on site in particular, that I've not been to the California campus.
10:11
Okay.
10:12
But the Tennessee campus is the best in the world.
10:20
At everything speaks.
10:23
Oh. Thank you.
10:24
And the care and compassion that the staff and Paula.
10:29
Paula is a wonder.
10:32
And I've told you the story that I had.
10:33
I told Amelia I don't want a business development tour.
10:36
I want the hospitality tour.
10:37
And she she really took me and a few other staff
10:40
behind the scenes and how you turn over the campus and,
10:44
I mean, everything that was on the wall was there with intention
10:49
and the food and even the snack areas.
10:53
I mean, it's so impressive.
10:55
I wonder if you could speak to why the all pay attention
10:59
outside of Miles, his obsession with details.
11:03
But setting that aside, why is that important
11:07
for on site, and how does that impact people's lives when they're there?
11:10
Yeah. That's great.
11:11
Thank you so much. We're honored by that one.
11:14
When people feel that and see that for sure.
11:18
As you said, it starts with Miles.
11:19
For sure.
11:20
He has a vision.
11:21
He, if you were to see his home, you would see this
11:25
same sort of intentionality, if he is to,
11:30
going to throw a birthday party for one of his kids, it's the same.
11:34
There is a lot of thought about a holistic experience.
11:39
At onsite, we call it healing hospitality.
11:43
And Miles thought early on,
11:47
after he had acquired on site that there is. Yes.
11:52
While we have,
11:54
world class clinical expertise in the room
11:58
and that matters that sometimes,
12:02
somebody in culinary smiling at somebody
12:06
or opening a door or somebody
12:09
coming back to their room after a tough day and getting,
12:13
a gift from hospitality
12:17
is the thing that opens a door.
12:22
Actually, being
12:23
seen for people who haven't been seen,
12:26
maybe any of their life or not in the last few years.
12:30
And so the totality of that experience seems to open them up
12:35
in ways that wouldn't just happen in the room.
12:40
And most people perceive it on site as a place,
12:43
as a holistic healing place when you talk to them about it.
12:48
And our team, everybody says
12:51
it's magical that you have this fabulous team.
12:54
I think we're fortunate that we have a fabulous team, people
12:58
drawn to care for others, and it just happens naturally.
13:04
And we're often
13:07
ask, how do we recruit, how do we train.
13:10
And it just naturally happens that we have dedicated
13:15
good people who are there.
13:18
And in a world in which engage ment is, you know,
13:22
employee engagement is less than 25%.
13:26
When we ask our team, it's in the 90 twos
13:29
and 95 of engagement about the work that they do.
13:33
And so I'm glad you feel it because we feel it which is fabulous.
13:39
Yeah.
13:39
It really matters
13:41
and it's a balance, you know, like we've taken some of the ideas,
13:45
you know, or some of the environments that we saw and said, how can we.
13:50
And it's not I'm not minimizing, but like, how can we add, throw blanket,
13:55
you know, or a pillow or a chest that's a little bit more
13:59
and not the same thing over and over again. Yeah.
14:01
But a little bit more intentional here and there.
14:04
Because everything really does speak and it really does matter.
14:07
And I think you
14:09
described it perfectly allowing people in those.
14:12
I mean, look,
14:13
the people that are coming to your workshops are searching for something.
14:17
Yeah. The people themselves.
14:20
Right.
14:21
And through connection of other people.
14:23
And just like when somebody comes to Cumberland Heights,
14:27
with a lot of fear, trepidation, confusion.
14:31
Did I mentioned fear?
14:32
You know, like.
14:34
And that added layer.
14:36
It's not about being bougie, you know, or fancy.
14:39
It's not about that at all.
14:41
It's about
14:44
being seen. Yeah.
14:45
And that transformative impact that those little things that might cost
14:50
the organization a few thousand dollars really can add up to
14:55
maybe that hinge on the door that's right to open.
14:58
That's right.
14:59
So as I just bragged on you,
15:01
I really want to know, Janet, like, tell us what had insight struggles with,
15:05
you know, what are y'all what are y'all worried about today?
15:09
We struggle
15:11
with the same things everybody else does.
15:13
First off, we are, you know, an hour outside of Nashville.
15:17
And not everybody wants to drive that beautiful hour outside of Nashville
15:22
every day. Yeah.
15:23
So getting you getting staff who you want to come out
15:27
or staff who want to live in that area is always a challenge.
15:32
We like every other business plan.
15:34
I am going to talk about this tomorrow.
15:36
Is that this industry has been around a long time.
15:42
And yes,
15:42
while other new people have come into it and private equity has come into it,
15:48
we haven't changed fundamentally some things
15:50
about how we run our organizations.
15:53
And yet the world is telling us that we need to do that.
15:56
And so what is what is onsite going to do next,
16:01
and how are we going to transform where we are today into something new?
16:05
I think it's one of our ongoing challenges.
16:09
Is thinking about that.
16:11
And then I think
16:13
just we have a desire and,
16:17
Myles has personal experience with this, but that our food
16:22
become more of our healing process than it currently is.
16:26
It's a great experience for people, but it is not,
16:29
necessarily all healthy for you.
16:35
And so how do we start growing our own food?
16:38
How do we it is our goal at some point for all the food
16:41
we serve at onsite to come from our property.
16:45
And so how do we get there?
16:46
So we struggle with, a lot of the same things everybody else does.
16:51
And should we start taking insurance and how do we serve
16:55
underserved populations in a way that makes sense for them?
16:58
And how do we increase the diversity of our team?
17:03
So really small projects.
17:07
I yeah, that's really huge, right?
17:09
There were massive questions. That's right.
17:12
How to create a sustainable business that continue to serve as community.
17:17
You know, how to expand access, how to diversify, how to,
17:21
how to grow into better versions of ourselves.
17:23
I mean, that is, but you know what?
17:27
I think that
17:29
because I automatically want to grip the steering wheel harder when you start
17:33
mentioning that and I'm like, okay, then let's, let's go, let's let's turn it.
17:37
You know what I mean?
17:38
Like like and,
17:44
Maybe, a higher power
17:45
is going to have more to do with that than we'd like to, you know,
17:51
identify and,
17:53
God's going to take care of on site.
17:55
That's right.
17:55
And Cumberland Heights and many other providers, you know.
17:59
So it's when I went to the, living center program,
18:03
I, I did say, and I've had, you know, various
18:07
faith journeys for a lot of different reasons through my life.
18:11
I did say if
18:12
church were like this, I would go all the time.
18:15
That sense of community, that sense of acceptance, that sense of
18:19
we're all in this together, true sense of we're more alike than different.
18:25
You know what I like to think,
18:27
but this is just Nick's opinion. But,
18:31
I think what happens in those rooms with the scarves.
18:36
Yeah.
18:37
Or the other totems or at Cumberland Heights,
18:41
in a very real sense, you know, that is a place of, spirituality.
18:46
That's right. And a place of worship.
18:49
I mean, you look at the spiritual principles that are happening there
18:52
and the grace and the humility and the service and, honor
18:57
that was and in some ways, those are some of the more,
19:04
godly places, you know what I mean?
19:06
That's right. So that's right.
19:09
It's a
19:10
it really is a pleasure and and honor, to be a part of the same community
19:14
with you all.
19:14
And I keep saying this, and I'm just going to manifest it is like,
19:17
you know, Lizzie and Jim now that Amelia, you and Paula
19:22
all, want to find out?
19:27
I want to I want to just explore, more ways for us,
19:32
to work together.
19:35
You know, I don't know what that means.
19:37
I don't either, but I think we would be just as interested.
19:40
I mean, we are we are.
19:42
We are neighbors.
19:42
You know, literally
19:43
every now and again, there's a football that flies over our fence and there's.
19:47
And vice versa, you know, and we're borrowing a cup of sugar, you know.
19:51
So again our, our some of our favorite people and the work you do is amazing.
19:57
And your own facility is gorgeous.
20:00
Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. Well, we appreciate it.
20:03
I told you this would be painless.
20:04
Thank you. You did good.
20:06
And shout out to Steve.
20:09
I know he asked you, Steve Lee, you know, so.
20:12
Thank you so much for doing this. We appreciate you.