Latest / The Driven Crowd / The Driven Crowd | Episode 3 | Ft. Dan Powers

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The Driven Crowd | Episode 3 | Ft. Dan Powers · The Driven Crowd

• 0:00
  When you're driven the need to accomplish a goal is relentless.
• 0:04
  Hard work and ambition compel you to do whatever's necessary.
• 0:07
  In my work as a personal injury trial lawyer for 18 years, it's common to meet driven people.
• 0:10
  Those with drive can have different personalities, careers or backgrounds, but they possess one common factor. Despite their passions, driven people want to surround and motivate themselves with other driven people. If you want to learn how to overcome obstacles by learning from others, then tune in here, this is The Driven Crowd Podcast.
• 0:34
  Thank you for tuning in to Episode Three of The Driven Crowd Podcast fueled by Snellings Law. I'm your host, Scott Snellings. A few years ago, I was at a gala for the Collin County Children's Advocacy Association. I'm sorry, Center. And they had just finished up the live auction.
• 0:52
  And then there was one more thing that they had to give. And it was a surprise auction item.
• 0:56
  It was a trip to Italy for four.
• 1:00
  And as I sat there, I thought and I had this little voice in my head that said, man, my wife has always wanted to go to Italy. This is for a great organization, I should bid on this. And so I stuck up my paddle. And then this little voice in my head said, hey, you know what, it's a trip for four, you can take your best friend who's also your kidney donor and his wife. And so I raised my paddle yet again. And this little voice just kept going up, you know, there's got to have this, you got to have this. And so I raised my paddle again. And again and again until finally no one else was raising their paddles anymore. And the trip was mine. After I won the trip, I sat back and I looked over to my left and I realized that that little voice in my head wasn't in my head. It was actually our guest today, Dan Powers, who is the Chief Operating Officer of the Children's Advocacy Center.
• 1:46
  Dan, welcome to The Driven Crowd Podcast.
• 1:51
  Yep, that was my voice, Scott.
• 1:51
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:53
  Yeah, absolutely. And it was very profitable voice for the Advocacy Center. No doubt. [It was.] So a whole lot of people have no idea what the Children's Advocacy Center is, so give us some background. What is it?
• 2:03
  What do you do? Why do you exist?
• 2:06
  Well, the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County is a nonprofit organization, we're a charity. What we do is we bring together all of the people who deal with child abuse here in Collin County. So we partner with Child Protective Services, law enforcement, the District Attorney's Office, medical providers, therapists, social workers, all together in one place to minimize trauma that kids experience when they've been abused. Our staff consists of therapists, social workers, we have what we call forensic interviewers who interview kids, we have our family advocacy program that provides support for those families, when abuse happens in that family often causes housing or financial crisis, we've got a top notch clinical team that provides that healing piece, all part of our nonprofit, but like I said, we partner with law enforcement, Child Protective Services, and making sure kids are safe. And importantly, putting bad guys in jail too, who hurt kids too. And we got a great partnership with our district attorney's office too. But our job is the advocacy centers to bring all those folks together, have that one solid goal of providing safety, you know, and healing and justice for kids. And making sure bad guys are accountable for what they do. So in turn, we're making Collin County safer. And kids are not having to have abuse, follow them throughout their life, they get control of their lives, again, because abuse takes all that power away from them. So our goal is that they're happy, healthy, and they're in control of their life again.
• 3:30
  Fantastic. And so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is before a Children's Advocacy Center, the Children's Advocacy Center model was out there, there's a cry for abuse, there's a cry out, and this child is interviewed by the responding officer, and then by some sort of an investigator, and then by who knows how many other people, how does the Children's Advocacy Center change that model?
• 3:52
  Well, you're right. And I was actually, you know, I've been doing this for over 33 years now. I'm close to 35. And I started as a CPS investigator in Dallas. And as you said, what would happen was, if a child was brave enough to make that outcry of abuse and tell somebody someone's hurting them, they may be interviewed by six or seven different people at different places. A police station, a hospital, a scary state building, I worked in a horrible, nasty state building.
• 4:18
  And so what kids were telling us was what happened to me was pretty horrible. But what happened afterwards, was pretty horrible, too. Because these adults, some of them were carrying some of them, kids, interpretive not carrying some beliefs, some didn't believe.
• 4:30
  And so that experience just increased the trauma kids experience. So the idea of bringing the professionals together in one place allows us to have one place to interview that child. As they said, our forensic interviewers are the ones who interview those kids now. They're specially trained to talk to a child at their level in an appropriate kind of therapeutic way. But it'll help them to tell their story and we call the narrative approach. I'm not asking a bunch of questions allowing them to just to tell their story and I call it a sacred story. Because when a child tells about what's happened to them, we're often the first people to get those details. And it's the first step of healing for that child or taking control of their life back. So that forensic interviewer will interview that child, again, specially trained to understand not to lead the child in any way. And actually, at our Advocacy Center, we use what we call blind interviews.
• 5:18
  So the interviewer themselves knows nothing about the case. So there can't be any allegation, we lead that child down a path or anything like that they know nothing about it. Our partners will watch that interview. And if they have questions, they can, they can buzz into the, the interviewer will stop and ask for questions in the middle of the interview and, and come back and take care of that. And then that interview is preserved. Now on digital, it used to be obviously videotape, I'm old, but digitally preserved. So if a number, another member of the team needs to watch that they can watch it and not have to re-interview that child, that starts the healing process. Once that kind of secret is out.
• 5:54
  Everybody gets moving. And what used to happen was you trade calls with people, you may or may not be doing what you need to do, unfortunately, back in the old days, we're accountable to each other, we kind of live together. So if I walk down the hall and say what's going on with this case, I'm gonna know right then, and so there's some great accountability, but also that support from each other.
• 6:15
  We're making sure that case, you know what happens for that child, their safety, their healing, for that family also is top priority for the team.
• 6:25
  And so after the interview process is completed, what is your role moving forward through you mentioned a partnership with the District Attorney's Office and putting the bad guys in jail? What is the advocacy centers role from that initial outcry, the interview and then moving forward.
• 6:42
  So our role is coordinating that case. So from the second that actually report happens, we actually have a staff member who reads every CPS report that comes in to Collin County. So if you as a professional, make a report, or anybody is a mandatory reporter here in Texas, that reports made it goes to a kind of a clearing house in Austin. But after that, it's sent to the jurisdiction where that child lives. So here in Collin County, a member of our staff will be one of the first people who read that and they automatically get the team together, they'll start coordinating that case. So one of our main jobs is coordinating the case, making sure nothing falls through the cracks, making sure everybody's doing what they need to do and has the information they need to do the best they can. So throughout the process, after that forensic interview, we'll have a case staffing within a few weeks, bring all those professionals together in the same room discuss the case, a member of the district attorney's office is there. So law enforcement is already communicating with the district attorney's office. And then making sure any other services that family needs are there, as I mentioned before, it's not uncommon for that to cause a financial crisis in a family. But 96% of kids know their abuser in some way. And often, often, it's a family member. So it causes all sorts of, you know, angst and anxiety and trauma within the family, but also can cause major financial issues too. So we want to make sure that that support is there. The number one reason why kids recant their outcry is lack of caregiver support. And often that's a dynamic of what might be going on in the family and the adult relationships that are going on. So we want to make sure the adults also have as much support as we give to those children too, so they can support the kids. So our job is to coordinate that all through the process from day one all the way through the criminal prosecution, where we'll help get kids ready for court. We provide a we call Collin Kids in Court, which is a wonderful program that we have that myself and one of our district attorneys developed 18 years ago, and we bring the kids to the courthouse. We show them the courthouse, we have a district judge there, we actually have a full jury box, we have a member of the defense bar actually participates to and kids get to understand what court is and most importantly, what it's not.
• 8:50
  It's not Judge Judy, those kinds of things. They get a chance to sit on the witness stand and answer questions about their favorite cookie or their favorite movie, things like that to bring some predictability. So that's one piece of it, that criminal justice piece. And here in Collin County, if you hurt kids, you're going to be held responsible because number one, our law enforcement is amazing.
• 9:12
  The folks that that do it are specially trained detectives that deal with child abuse. The team is doing everything to coordinate that. So supporting the family supporting the child, and then our great partnership with the District Attorney's Office, then we have juries who just are not okay with people hurting kids here in Collin County. And so if you hurt a kid, you're going to go away, and we're going to be safer. So that's one piece, that justice piece, the healing piece is that we'll coordinate a therapeutic intervention for that family too. So we provide therapy, absolutely free to children who've experienced abuse and their non offending family members. So that's important too, because a child is is often hurt in a family system or some kind of system. So we offer services to the adults in that child's life and their siblings too, if they need to. Give you a kind of a scenario, Little Susie who's seven has told us about her dad touching her, well Bobby who thinks his dad is the greatest man in the whole wide world has nothing to do with it, is not understanding why dad has been arrested because something his sister said. So we're going to work with him and help him understand and help him deal with the process too, as well as their mom to help her support her kids. It's not uncommon for parents that we work with to let us know that they've experienced some kind of trauma in their life too. So we're going to provide services to her also, all that kind of systemic way.
• 10:28
  Best thing about our services, we don't take external pay. And so we're not having to call an insurance company asking for more sessions, any of that. We develop our intervention based on assessments we do with the kids and families, and then what caregiver needs in support of that child. So it's absolutely free. Another thing that's real special about our services once you're a client of ours, you're a client for the rest of your life. And so if anybody ever needs to come back and see us, they can do that with just a phone call. Abuse can be cyclical, in a sense of different developmental stages in a child's life can trigger different issues. So if we're working with little Susie, at age seven, we may not be able to work on things related to dating or relationships and things like that. So she needs to come back and see us at 13, let's say, takes a phone call. We've been around long enough to where I get calls from folks that are adults who came to see us as kids. And one of the I think one of those special calls I ever got was a woman called me and said, I've met the man of my dreams. And I just want to make sure my my radar is not broken.
• 11:29
  Can I come see somebody? [Oh, wow.] It was awesome. So a couple things happened there.
• 11:35
  One is she had the insight. So she learned how to take care of herself and control, you know, everything in her life, but that we're still her safe place. And so she came back, two sessions, she was out of there. And that's all she needed. And so you know, sometimes we'll get adults who will call us and come back and I'm real proud that they're able to do that.
• 11:52
  Absolutely. That's just a testament to the services that you provide. That's, that's amazing. Tell me this is it just in Collin County? I know there's there's some others around our immediate area. But is this a nationwide deal?
• 12:02
  It is a nationwide, there are 700 and so advocacy centers nationwide. In Texas, it's about 70. Every kind of major metropolitan area has when there's a Dallas Children's Advocacy Center, Denton County, Grayson County, Rockwall County, all local counties. There are some counties, Texas is kind of big. And so there are like an Amarillo, they they cover seven counties, I believe that that advocacy center because there's more cows than children up there. So, so what's we're independent, so we're an independent nonprofit. So we're able to meet our community's needs. So every Advocacy Center can kind of meet their own community's needs. But we do have a state organization that we belong to and a national organization. So we're accredited, we do have standards that we have to make sure that we follow to call ourselves a Children's Advocacy Center. And part of that is our our protocols and how we work with our partners, Texas is unique, because the Children's Advocacy centers are actually written in the Texas Family Code, which give us some mandates of what we need to do, but also allows us to share information with law enforcement and Child Protective Services openly in working our cases. So it makes things a lot easier that the law says we can do it. But it also gives us a mandates of things that we have to do to make sure that that we're meeting those standards, and we're protecting kids.
• 13:17
  So Young Dan graduated from high school, I doubt saw himself ending up in a career helping abused children. So how do we make the leap? How do we graduate high school, go off to college, and then what happens?
• 13:28
  It is quite an interesting leap, actually. Alright, so I finished high school, and I was going to be a Catholic priest. And that was that was my plan. And so I learned through the process that they very limited the bachelor's degrees you could get if you're gonna go to the seminary, I think it was like philosophy and English. They seem dumb to me, right. So I was my goal was I wanted to do kind of inner city work, I was already thinking of service and what I wanted to do with my life. So I went to North Texas to get a social work degree. And I was looking for a helping profession. I wasn't too sure which one I was going to pick. So I'm looking through the catalog and social work had no math in the degree plan at the time. So I felt I felt that was God speaking to me. Alright, you're going to be a social worker. So I went to North Texas, with every intent to go there, get my social social work degree and go to the graduate Theological Seminary and finish that what my plan was. There was another plan for me because I was one of two guys in the whole social work program. And I met my wife there, Maria, and we've been married 33 years. And so she's also a social worker. And it was another plan for me. So we met [She helped pull you off the path of preisthood.] She did and actually it was it was a discussion after we started dating because I was honest with her, and she hit me, not in a violent way. But she's like, well, what're you doing dating me then what's going on here? I said well I kind of like you.
• 14:47
  And so there was another path and so we had a great wedding.
• 14:49
  So that changed directions and as my dad once said it was the closest I could come to being in the preisthood without being celibate, [Right.] social work.
• 15:02
  And so I started my career as a child protective service investigator in Dallas. And while I did that I was going to graduate school to finish up my master's in social work. And kind of stayed in this, I had a professor who said, You got to try child welfare work as a social worker, it'll teach you more about life than anything.
• 15:18
  And I did that. And I'm not smart enough to switch. I've stayed doing this for 35 years.
• 15:26
  And so to that point, you'll learn more about life doing this type of work than anything else what'd you learn? What were your takeaways?
• 15:34
  My takeaway is I was a, I was a, you know, white kind of privileged guy from North Dallas. And so I need to learn about life. And I learned about humans and human need. And I learned about empathy, I learned about life is really different in a lot of different places.
• 15:49
  And people have a lot of needs.
• 15:52
  And you know, there's people who hurt kids, but there's people who are really trying hard too and just need some help. And so I learned that and that really was my drive, I wanted to help people. And so I was lucky enough to have a position when I was at CPS in what we call the family preservation unit. So it's the first kind of unit of its kind in the state of Texas as a federal grant. And I was able to get just all I had was eight cases. And I was able to work with families intensively go to their homes, help them solve the problems, they needed to be healthy, happy families, to get through issues related to mental illness, issues related to poverty, issues related to substance abuse, and help them get to a point where they could be protective, you know, positive parents for their kids.
• 16:35
  And again, taught me more than, I just learned about people and learn this is what I want to do.
• 16:38
  And it made sense because I got to be part of the solution. And and it was important one because it involved kids.
• 16:46
  And so I think a lot of people associate social work with kind of a softer personality. And that ain't you, my friend. [No, no, I'm not so soft.] So tell me, did that have any factor in kind of coming through? Did you have to change the way that you are? Did other people change kind of views around you, in terms of you going into the social work field?
• 17:10
  It really didn't change me, this is who I am. And this is who I've been. And I think that's the drive that's got me here is that I think it's important. And I, I've worked with lots of students through years. And one of the things I tell them is, you've got to have a little bit of arrogance in doing this work and know you're doing great stuff. Because there's so many things coming at you. You can't be soft and be a good social worker, because you've got all these systems that that are coming at you. There's bad press, for social workers, again they think their tree huggers.
• 17:37
  If you work in the child protective service things, all you hear is the bad press. You don't hear about the lives they save every single day. And so you get a lot of negative input at you. Not everybody's really excited to be involved with us, because there's been a pretty big crisis in their family. And some of them don't realize what that crisis is and how it may affect them. So you've got to be driven, you've got to have an attitude a little bit, because you're doing great stuff. And know you're doing that because the burnout rate is really high in this profession. And if you don't develop those mechanisms early in your career, you're going to leave. And I've seen a lot of folks leave, unfortunately.
• 18:15
  Well, and let's dig a little bit deeper there in terms of what mechanisms you've had to develop. Because I mean, you deal with the heaviest of the heavy. [Yeah.] You deal with little kids who suffer abuse from the people that they trust the most in this world. It's hard to think of getting a lot heavier than that. So when you approach these situations, especially as young Dan, right, you've been at this, I think you said 33 years now? [Almost 35 years now, yeah.] Almost 35 years. So as you first come into this profession, you start seeing these things for the first time. How did you focus your mindset? Or what type of mechanisms did you rely upon to get past that initial barrier where most people do burnout?
• 18:55
  I learned early on, and it was part of this was insight, part of it was my training. So so as I as I've kind of worked through my, my graduate degree has actually trained as a clinical social worker. So as a therapist, and so part of that training part was just insight, I just developed balance, as I call it, I had, you know, I worked really hard throughout my career and still do, making sure I have enough positive things in my life to combat the negative things. I always say I could I, things you think happened to kids, it's 10 times worse than that. And again, I've seen some horrible, horrible things in my career. But I make sure I have enough to balance that. And one of the reasons we have the Children's Advocacy Center is that we're all in one place. We support each other. So not just for the clients, but the staff there. So being able to sit down with somebody that day and discuss things. My wife Maria and I can she's also a clinical social worker, we've had a deal my whole career that I don't talk about the cases because she's a mom, she does different stuff. She runs a food pantry, and she can't hear those stories. And so I can tell her it's been a horrible day and she's supportive. She's wonderful, and I can tell her that, she knows when it's bad.
• 19:57
  But the folks I work with we can talk about the cases. We can talk about what's going on and get the support. So making sure those mechanisms are there. But my whole career, I've made sure I have other things in my life.
• 20:05
  To make sure there's balance there, and it was a little harder before I had kids actually it was easier when I had kids. People say, gosh, this would be harder when you have kids, it actually was positive in the sense of I had this great joy that I could go home to also to combat the negative that I had. But also just making sure I put myself first my family first, to balance that out, too many people get, I think, too involved in their career and get lost. And when you get lost, it's really hard to find your And you see this all the time, you mentioned the burnout rate way back.
• 20:41
  is so high. What are those warning signs? What do you see in younger social workers that are in your field, that you say, hey, we're, I got lights flashing here, alarms are going off, they're headed down the wrong path. I need to pull them back. What do you see?
• 20:55
  First thing I see is their priorities change. And often they spend too much time at work, or think they've got to do the next case got into that I can't go away, I don't have that balance is what you see. But often you see anxiety, depression, they have their eating habits change, their sleep patterns, change, things like that. They lose their sense of humor, that's probably the worst one, when you lose your sense of humor, you're heading down the path of what we call vicarious trauma. And on the path to burnout, when you start losing the good things and forget, there's a lot of negativity. And I think one of the things and I think lawyers have a hard time with this, too, sometimes is that we see so much darkness, that we forget about the light, we forget, there's good stuff. And I think that's when people start getting that thing in front of their face where they don't see the good stuff that's going on. You know, one of the things that I did, I coached both my kids soccer teams for, from from kindergarten through into high school. And for me, that was such a balance for me, because I got to have fun with kids who weren't coming to me with their hair on fire. In a crisis, we were just having fun. And I got to be with my own my own sons too, which was fun, we had a great time. And so for me, it helped me see the light piece of that. The positivity of being a parent being an adult in this world, that not everybody is evil, because you get kind of warped to the world. And I still do sometimes you think that gosh, everybody's out to hurt somebody. But if you have that balance, you can you can hopefully combat that.
• 22:20
  And so do you have a daily routine or ritual? You know, we hear a lot, especially these days about gratitude and gratitude journals and things like that, do you have some sort of a practice to help keep that front of mind? Because there's always times where you're gonna go, maybe it's a bigger case, it's about to go to trial that you're deep in prep on, I deal with this to where my normal routine gets skewed, because I'm pushed into, hey, I have to focus on all this for this this season, if you will. And then you know, sometimes it's kind of hard to get back. So what do you do to combat that?
• 22:55
  Well, my daily routine, it consists of just making sure I have time for myself. Some things that naturally have happened is I make sure I get enough sleep. I mean, it's as simple as that, make sure I'm eating right. Something Maria and I do every morning is we wake up 30 minutes early, and we get a cup of coffee to sit in bed. And we might have the TV on but we just have some time for each other. So just I'm starting the day, on a positive note on when you start the day, going to how your blood pressure's up, your heart rates already up, you're not coming down from that. So I work really hard to start my day in a positive way.
• 23:26
  Now, it's unpredictable as the day goes. But again, if there's big cases and things like that, making sure I have that balance.
• 23:33
  And I've got a lot of great people in my life to tell me when they see something's going on. That's the other thing I suggest to people a lot is have trusted people in your life to let you know, because we often don't see it first, right. But the people I work with the people I love, they see it pretty quickly. And I have folks who aren't afraid to come into my office and say Dan somethings off today you're not yourself or you're not being your happy self or I've noticed your your heads down as opposed to up. So having those mechanisms, they're not necessarily a daily routine, but making sure those things are there in my life. To offset again, the thing because sometimes when we're in the forest, you can't see you can't see those trees, and to have wonderful people in your life to let you know, hey, you're not doing so good right now.
• 24:17
  And to that point too, it's amazing how we kind of developed this mentality of man I've just gotta clear this next hurdle and then I'll get back to doing what I'm doing or and then I'll and then things will get better. And then right after you clear that hurdle, guess what, there's 2, 3, 4 more ahead of you. And so keeping that kind of daily rhythm of starting off on a positive note, I love that.
• 24:38
  I mean, there's hundreds of books written out there, you know, on getting up early or having a morning routine. For that very reason. You start off you know, making your bed right, Admiral McRaven make your bed that's your first win of the day. Yeah, you have coffee with your wife. I have a morning routine where I get my quiet time and kind of time to refresh me. But then I think also having that thing that you're looking forward to? Yes. Right. I was just listening to I think it was maybe a Tim Ferriss podcast and one of his guests said, you know, one of the things that I do with my kids every night is, what are you excited about? What are you looking forward to. And I thought that was such a fantastic idea. Because it's not only, you know, okay, I'm preparing for this day, I'm preparing for this thing that I'm really looking forward to whether it's vacation, or you know, whatever it is, for kids, it can be anything, I'm looking to recess today. But I think that's just a really positive thing that all because when it comes down to it, you can control your morning, and control what time you get up and control what's going on. But then once you step out that front door, or once you take the kids to school, or once you walk into the office, kind of all bets are off a little bit, you don't necessarily know what's going to be coming at you. And so getting that stuff, getting that good, solid start is definitely a trend that I see among people.
• 25:53
  I see it as having a foundation.
• 25:53
  So if you if you've got a solid foundation, it's going to take a lot to knock you off that if you start off with a rocky foundation, it's much easier to knock you off. And that's kind of my philosophy is I make sure everything's solid there, does it always work? No, it doesn't always work, there's some pretty tough days. And that, again, that's when I have that support.
• 26:11
  There's been plenty of days in my career where I have driven home crying, just because of what I've dealt with, and being a leader, sometimes pretty difficult, because you got to keep it together. And I gotta be there for the folks. So second, I get in that car. That's that's my time. And I've been vulnerable, very vulnerable with my staff in the in the past too.
• 26:30
  But, you know, that drive time sometimes is real positive for me also, just listening to some music, having some calming time.
• 26:36
  And then just again, enjoying my family and knowing I have kind of a refuge that that I look forward to going to.
• 26:44
  And leading an organization like this where you know, not only you're having to go through all this, but everybody in your building is. The police officers, the counselors, the admins, I mean, everybody in your buildings having to go through this. How do you lead that team? What are some things that you do you think effectively helps keep them on task, keep them with their heads where they need to be and support them?
• 27:08
  Sure. One is I walked the walk.
• 27:08
  So they see it for me, I put my family first. And there's kind of a joking, little saying that I've had for years. But I said if if your family doesn't come first, you suck. It's as simple as that. [And it's pretty straightforward!] And people get it. So I've walked that walk, I go to my kids stuff, I've been to the, they're older now, but I didn't miss an assembly, I didn't miss a game. And I expect everybody there to do the same thing also. So doing that I actively take care of myself, they see that. But also, you know, as a leader, that open door that I'm vulnerable to, and they see that and they understand it. But that allows them the ability to come to me when they need to also, and and we give a lot of grace, because of what we do. Somebody needs a day off is not uncommon for me to say split, go home, you get it, I call it a day and day so, it's not on the books, just go, go take care of yourself, go take care of your kid, whatever you need to do, go. My philosophy is, you know, the folks that I work with, and I lead will give many more hours of time to the kids and our agency than we'll ever give to them. So that flexibility and understanding that this is difficult work. So on the other side of that, we've got to be flexible and supportive too. And so doing everything we can to provide that, that support. So they feel like I'm in a safe place I can I can be vulnerable, but I can do this job and put my heart into it. Working with these kids and doing these things, it's much more than a job as you know, it takes your heart and soul. And on the other part, it hurts your heart and soul. And realizing that and going through it myself and learning from that helps me be better a much better leader.
• 28:52
  From the leadership standpoint, somebody comes into your office, we got problems, hands you this problem. How do you approach it?
• 29:02
  Let's all sit down. Let's talk about it. And so we'll sit down and we'll bring in anybody else who needs to, and we'll solve it together. You know, when you solve a problem together, the solution is number one, I'm not the smartest guy there. So I need other people to help me.
• 29:16
  And so bringing the folks in there to you know, to solve that problem together. But then you get buy in from everybody too.
• 29:21
  And then at the end, everybody feels like they were part of it.
• 29:25
  And so the victory is also a charge for people when you solve a problem. And you come out of it in a positive way, then everybody did. It wasn't just oh, Dan told us to do this. So we did it. And that's the problem. Well, everybody accomplished it. And then you work off that I think that's what people grow is they get an opinion. And so we use a very collaborative approach. And that's my approach as a leader is is to sit down and process things and come up with that together. There may be times I've got to throw out I mean, it's coming to me so I may have to say this is the way way we're doing it, [Right.] but we're going to we're going to kind of talk it out and figure out the best the best option. So when they're part of the option and part of the solution, they're very motivated to solve the problem.
• 30:05
  What about outside of that context, say, a family issue or just a personal issue a problem arises, what's your mindset going into that?
• 30:12
  One thing I have learned in doing this work is my problems aren't so bad. And I tell myself and my wife and I tell ourselves, we have this discussion, actually, quite often, when we're, you know, deal with what we might call a crisis. If I step back for a second and go, my problems are not bad. If I look at the work, I do the work she does, the things we see in society. We're making way more of this than I need to. And, you know, we've had some tough times, like everybody has, and but to step back for a second and go, you know, we've got a lot of great stuff. So looking at the positive piece of that, and that doesn't happen right away. No, it does happen right away, it may take some insight a little bit. But again, you know, for us to challenge each other, to stop for a second. Yeah, this sucks today. But look at all this great stuff, you know, that that's going on in your life and all the positive peace, it could be way, way worse than it is.
• 31:06
  So, you know, let's, let's take joy in the positive and keep moving forward. That's what keeps us moving forward, every time.
• 31:14
  And so when it comes to kind of inner monologue, right, you talking to yourself? How does that go for you? Are you pretty easy on yourself? Are you super hard on yourself? Has there been a change over time?
• 31:26
  Well you get crotchety as you get old. So just letting you know, there. I rely a lot more on my spirituality than I may have in my earlier days. And so some of that inner monologue is processing through that. And, and what I've had to learn is give myself grace, like I do other people. And one challenge I have for myself is that treating myself like I'm gonna treat others in the opposite.
• 31:48
  I'm a big believer in the golden rule. And I've taught that to my boys. But sometimes we don't do that for ourselves. So I treat people, I want to think I'm supportive as a leader, and, and positive. But I got to do that for me too. And sometimes I'm much more harder than myself, and judgmental than I give to other people. And I have people who will challenge me on that, especially my wonderful wife.
• 32:14
  Why do you know, if someone walked into your office and gave you this problem, what would you tell them? And it would be the opposite of what I'm telling myself.
• 32:22
  I think that's a pretty wide ranging problem for people who are driven towards something right. Yeah. We're hard on ourselves. Sure. And I know for me, it is, it has taken a lot of time, and I'm still what I feel like at the beginning of the process of being kind to myself.
• 32:38
  [Sure.] Right. And a lot of it has to do to do with, you know, what are you hearing around you?
• 32:45
  What kind of environment are you in? Are you in an environment of people that encourage you? Are you in an environment of people who are, you know, lukewarm? Are you in an environment of people who actively discourage you, right? And I think when you're when you're working on treating yourself with more respect, with more kindness with more grace, then the people who surround you make a big difference too.
• 33:06
  [Absolutely.] And so what do you do in terms of how do you go about surrounding yourself with those people who push you forward, instead of pull you back?
• 33:17
  Well, it's easier than you think, to get rid of toxic people in your life. And that's the first step is if someone's negative, I'm not gonna have anything to do with them.
• 33:24
  You just tell them, hey, you suck?, Yeah, basically. I'm gonna try my best not to be around them.
• 33:28
  And, what I have found is that again, then people who are positive gravitate to you, because they want to be positive, too. And you're going to have negative people. And you can fall in that trap really easy. It's, you know, it's always great to start talking negative about something or, you know, you know, moaning and groaning, but not to fall in that trap. And that's a challenge. And that's something I always work on too. So surrounding with, with positive people, again, having that balance, I've got enough negativity, I don't need any more. And so, you know, if that's, you know, you know, put on top of what I deal with every day, I don't think I can function. I'd be an angry guy, and I don't want to be an angry guy.
• 34:04
  And so how do you how have you gotten through that process?
• 34:09
  Kind of along the same lines of what I'm trying to get through right now as of treating yourself more kindly? Do you? Do you catch yourself with these negative thoughts of Dan, you screwed that up? I can't believe you did that. And then catch yourself doing that and then try to stop and then reframe it, do you just stop kind of walk me through what goes on in Dan's brain.
• 34:27
  Kind of exactly what you're talking about is sometimes I have to stop and reframe it, or again, talking to somebody I trust about it. Here's, here's kind of how I'm thinking about something. Here's how I'm processing it. Tell me tell me where I'm going with this.
• 34:38
  What's what, you know, what, what am I distorting in this?
• 34:41
  And so getting some feedback and not being afraid to get feedback. I think as a leader, sometimes it's really difficult because I got to be the strong one or whatever. And so being vulnerable and asking for some feedback is hard. But it's something I've tried to do more and more and to allow somebody to kind of give me that feedback. Again, I got a wonderful relationship with Maria. But I've got great folks at work too, that I can go to and say here's where I am with this help me, what am I seeing wrong? Or where am I going? So identifying that as best I can sometimes I'm good at it, sometimes not so good at it.
• 35:17
  And I think that's one of the the worst stereotypes out there about leaders is you have to carry everything on your shoulders. Yeah. Right. None of us can do that. We're just humans. Some people are better at it than others, at least on the outside. But without having that feedback loop. One, you're carrying it all, right? And so you're not getting the buy in from your team. [Exactly.] Yeah, they're not learning what happens if you know, you walk out and you get hit by the proverbial bus. I mean, everybody in my office has been hit by the bus multiple times, you know, the proverbial bus.
• 35:49
  What happens if you go out there and you don't know, or if I go out there, I get hit by a bus.
• 35:52
  Nobody knows what I do, because I never talked about it, never get feedback. And obviously, the effect of that is you're not getting solid feedback from good people that can make things even better. [Right.] And people aren't growing. I always say, you know, the best leader can take a vacation, because they got it. And because you've taught them that.
• 36:12
  [Right.] I've got a lot of folks who I've mentored or they were my student at one time that are doing amazing things. And nothing makes you more proud as a leader to see some that you've you've been with and been a mentor for just succeed and blossom and do that. That's one of the biggest charges I'm ever having. That just tells me I was successful. And it makes you really proud.
• 36:36
  One of the things that I love about you, Dan, is that you're you're always growing, you're always learning and working towards improving, right? What are some of the things that you do to improve in any aspect of your life, whether it be spiritually physically, as a boss, as a leader, what are some things that you focus on?
• 36:55
  Slowing down is important, and you know, you can call it praying, meditating, whatever you want, I think that for me, just stopping, I'm in my head a lot. I'm a very cerebral guy. So that process time to do that helps me kind of get to where I need to be I can, you know, work through those things in my head.
• 37:14
  So that quiet time again, however you want to frame it is is one way I am constantly kind of looking at how's this? Is it positive, is it negative, but also again, I rely on my, my, my relationship with Maria to grow, and to make sure that I'm in a good place. She's a much better therapist than I've ever been.
• 37:33
  So she'll tell me and she's my wife. So she'll let me know. You know, there's just so much going on in the world is these have been the toughest two years of my life during the pandemic, Maria lost her mom and I lost both my parents on top of I was in charge of keeping employees and kids safe at the at the Advocacy Center during that time. So there was a lot of time for reflection, and a lot of time of stress and things like that. But through all that, what I did, and I purposely did was made sure I had time for myself.
• 38:03
  That, you know, again, called Quiet time would ever sit out in the backyard, or just driving or just shutting the door, my office just lots of different things that I would just, you know, I just needed some time to reflect, to pray, to acknowledge, you know, I'm not the greatest because sometimes I get that you get that attitude that I'm vulnerable to, and it's okay. And once I think once why I admitted that to myself, and allowed people to help me it made life a lot easier.
• 38:35
  Going through those toughest two years of your life. What are some takeaways would you learn?
• 38:40
  I'm a lot stronger than I thought I was. Yeah, I thought I was pretty tough and I'm pretty calloused guy and doing this work and not in a negative way but in all the things that are that that you know that the people around me loved me a lot.
• 38:54
  And were there every every step of the way. And so that was the that was pretty cool. My wife my kids surprised me during it. My boys did I remember texting them that just basically I just said Grandpa is dying. It was and both of them were on the way that was no questions asked.
• 39:10
  They were there and they just were there it was pretty cool.
• 39:13
  People at work, all the sudden food shows up, didn't ask all this awesome food showed up. And it's just I mean, you find out you know how lucky you are. And you know, kind of going back to you know, that wonderful life of finding out how lucky really I am in. The more you give the more you get back and allowing people to give back to you.
• 39:34
  Sometimes it's hard, but when you need them. All that comes back to you and it's pretty cool. And I've really learned that.
• 39:40
  Wow.
• 39:42
  Really passionate about a lot of stuff. Used to be the Cowboys but, then I'm passionate about my work. You know, this work that I do. Yeah, I mean, this is what I'm supposed to. I truly believe this is what I'm supposed to and this is what I was born to do. Um, it's, you know, it's what I'm, I mean, it's, it's a vocation, not just an occupation for me. So I'm passionate about that. And being a good husband is super important to me, you know that and, and being a good man.
• 40:15
  There's none of good men out there, I've noticed that through my travels, and then being a great dad has been, I mean, that's, those are my priorities in life is making sure my sons grew up and have empathy. And they're not social workers. So one's gonna be an engineer once into computers, they're not social workers, but for them to understand giving back. And both of them have volunteered countless hours of work at my center and my wife's work.
• 40:40
  Understanding that piece, and just again, just being a good person is my passion. There's not enough just good people that want to be kind. And that's something I've definitely noticed through, you know, through working with kids through working with my sons and different things. People forgot how to be kind. And that's something I'm passionate about.
• 41:02
  I try every day and my great edit, that I'm working at it.
• 41:04
  And that's, that's a challenge.
• 41:08
  And so one of the things that I often reach out to you for is parenting advice. [Yeah]. Dan.
• 41:13
  Olivia is doing XYZ or Jacob is doing this. Talk to me, talk me off the ledge. [Yeah.] What are some? What are some tips? You can give us a dad specifically?
• 41:27
  Well, number one, the dads have a very important role in kids[Sure.] And yeah, I think the last time I called you it was my middle lives. I think a lot of dads traditionally don't see themselves as a co parent, they they see almost an antecedent, you know, mom's in charge. And that's just not true. Kids need dads a lot. I've. The other part is it's not that bad. Again, taking things into perspective.
• 41:43
  And I remember when my boys were little and yeah, when it's in your face, it's bad. But to step back and go, yeah, you know what, this is part of life. And it's actually a learning thing for my kids, and they're gonna kiddo was acting out at home, is acting out at home. And you told figure it out. That, you know, it's hard to screw kids up. It really is, you got to try and unfortunately people do try. But if, [You see the result of that.] yes, I do. But if you're consistent. You're loving, you're present. It's the other part about parenting is not just being there, but being present.
• 42:13
  Kids are going to do, okay, they're going to, they're going to be great, because they're going to see you and you know, kids, they model their parents, that's just what they do. And they're going to test things out, they're going to screw up.
• 42:26
  That's why they have good parents, for us to come, you know, to come to us and bail them out. Whether that's financially, the principal's office, or teach them how to hit a ball differently, because they're missing the, you know, the, they can't hit a curve. You know, those are the things that we can, especially, you know, as parents and as dads to you know, to be there.
• 42:56
  me, you walked me back from the ledge on that one. And what'd you tell me?
• 43:01
  It's not that bad? It's good.
• 43:03
  Yeah. But that's actually a good thing. [Yeah.] Why is it why is that a good thing?
• 43:06
  It's a good thing, because they trust you. And as parents, our kids, they act the worst with us. And there's a reason for that, because they trust us, they love us. And they know we're not gonna let them down.
• 43:17
  And we're gonna see in the old joke of, you know, you send your kid to to a friend's house and their parents say, your child's the most wonderful, they put their dishes away. And they said, Yes, ma'am. You're like, Who are you sure that you thought about my child? When they come to our house, you know, again, we're getting we're getting the stuff as I say. But that's because they're supposed to test it out on us. They love us the most they know we're not going to let them down. And so they're going to try it out.
• 43:43
  That's what they should be doing as kids. That's what we should be teaching them as parents is let them fall. Let them do that.
• 43:49
  They're waiting on our reaction.
• 43:49
  And fortunately, a lot of parents don't pass that test.
• 43:53
  And hurt their kids other parents who are loving and wonderful, their kids thrive.
• 44:00
  That's what I'm going for.
• 44:02
  Awesome. Dan, thank you so much.
• 44:02
  Anything else? Any last words for our audience before we wrap up?
• 44:09
  There's a lot of a lot of good stuff out there. I know we we've talked about child abuse and some negative I think it's our it's our moral obligation to help kids again, that's my passion. I support folks to just watch out for kids that it definitely is our job to take care of them, whether they're ours or somebody else's, but be always watching and just be kind and be good.
• 44:32
  Alright. Thank you so much, Dan.
• 44:32
  Where can people find you on social media or the Children's Advocacy Center?
• 44:37
  Well, they're our website at the Children's Advocacy centers, best place, there's all sorts of great information. I've got some information on there too.
• 44:42
  [Okay.] It's CACCollinCounty.org. Pretty simple to, it's long, but it's pretty simple to find. We've got lots of great opportunities. One of the things we haven't talked about is we have a lot of community education that we do.
• 44:52
  We will come to we've got folks so me or somebody else will come to an organization and talk about different things. Internet safety, how to keep kids safe, different things like that protective parenting. So we'll come to your organization, we'll come to your PTA meeting, things like that. We want to get the word out and make sure people know that. But also to support us. We are a charity. We're a nonprofit organization. And when you're supporting us, we're very good stewards of that support.
• 45:18
  [And you don't have to buy a trip to Italy.] No you don't have to buy, I support, if you want to buy a trip to Italy, that that's great. But, you know, again, that's our communities, keeping our kids safe that and we've got a wonderful community here in Collin County that has supported us for years. And, you know, we're building a second facility right now. And because there's more kids in Collin County, and we want to make sure that no child waits for any of our services. So soon, in August of this year, we're gonna have two facilities, one in McKinney and one in Plano. And those are gonna be full facilities to take care of children, both from the healing, the justice piece of that, and to make sure again, this is a great place to raise your kids and you know, they're going to be safe.
• 46:04
  All right. Thank you so much, Dan. Appreciate you being on The Driven Crowd Podcast.
• 46:07
  So happy to be here.
• 46:08
  Alright. Thank you.