The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

The 86% Solution: Why Accountability Partners Transform Goal Achievement with Aaron Helton

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 40

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What if the leadership development initiatives you're pouring resources into aren't delivering measurable results? In this eye-opening conversation with Aaron Helton, leadership consultant and author, we uncover the science behind truly effective coaching and development programs—and it's all in the numbers.

The statistics are startling: people with accountability partners achieve their goals 86% of the time versus just 16% for those going it alone. That's a 70% difference that directly impacts your organization's bottom line. Aaron breaks down how replacing senior executives can cost up to 400% of their annual salary, transforming a modest investment in coaching into a massive ROI.

Drawing from his background in industrial organizational psychology and his personal experience as a professional on the autism spectrum, Aaron offers fresh perspectives on working with neurodivergent individuals. His approach centers on meeting people exactly where they are—a philosophy that transcends labels and leads to more inclusive, effective leadership.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, I am joined by special guest Aaron Helton. Welcome to the show, Aaron. Hey, Jay, Happy to be here. So, Aaron, you've got a fantastic background and something that I'm really excited to dive into today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this talent development space?

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely so. I have a master's degree in industrial organizational psychology. So some of you may be familiar with that if you're from these backgrounds. For those who are not familiar, industrial organizational psychology at an extremely simplified version Some people consider HR adjacent, but there's some overlap. But there are two separate entities Industrial organizational psychology, industrial is the surveys and statistical side, and organizational is the people side. So I work in both the assessment and kind of logistical adjustments of companies or a little bit of that assessment space. But I mostly work in the organizational space. My official title is a leadership consultant and so I work in executive coaching, leadership development in the form of training and consulting as a whole with executives and up to, I believe, middle management and higher, more or less. So the organizational side being that culture side. So what I do is I transform cultures using those tools and it is a bit of a case-by-case basis which some of you may be familiar with.

Aaron Helton:

As for how I got into the role, honestly I'll be honest, it was a little bit of luck and a little bit of fate, I'll say so. I got my degree with the intention originally to be a statistician, so I was going to work specifically in statistical spaces. My dream when I was younger was actually to be a people metrician. So I was going to work in people metrics, which is the idea of turning things that shouldn't be or couldn't at the time, things that were abstract and couldn't be measured really, and turning them into numbers, so like employee motivation how do you measure that? And I was going to make a bunch of surveys and things like that and I still do that. On the side, our company actually has an engagement survey I just developed myself.

Aaron Helton:

But as I was shotgunning for jobs afterwards as you do after college, saying I just need my first job, somebody give me a chance I came across my current boss, steve Anderson, from Integrated Leadership Systems, and we just hit it off and he said I'm looking for exactly what you've got. And I said well, this is kind of more of the touchy-feely coaching style. And we just had a long conversation and he said take a chance on me, I'll take a chance on you. So I did.

Aaron Helton:

I moved five hours north and now I'm here in Columbus Ohio and that first month I had $200 to my name after getting settled in and it was pretty scary. But three years later I'm doing well and I've really fallen in love with systemizing the idea of the coaching process and the development, and I'm actually I've just finished my manuscript for a book I'll be looking to publish later this year. Thank you very much. It's on the framework of how to create breakthroughs, and so I'm really excited to apply my specific mindset in that original statistical space and apply it to the people side without sacrificing the heart of human development. So it's very exciting.

Jay Johnson:

That is some exciting stuff, Aaron, and, as the audience probably has already figured out, I am excited to have you here because one of the big things that we're focusing on is measurement. How are we measuring whether our training programs are actually leading to behavioral change? How do we know our coaching programs are producing the return on investment that people are putting into them? So this is such a powerful conversation and my background's in behavioral psychology but not from the organizational side and not from the clinical side I kind of danced in between those two. So let's dig into that question first. When you're looking at, say, measuring right In my background, I speak for a living.

Jay Johnson:

So the probability statistics, all those things were a little scary to me when I walked into them in the industrial and systems engineering department, but I recognized how important it is to measure different aspects. What are some of the things that you think about as you start to navigate some of these measurement aspects? Whether that's employee motivation, whether that is behavioral change or shifts or functions, what do you look at and how can we maybe, as trainers, think about that and look at that in our own programs?

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely so. First and foremost, when I think of measurements, you know we think of the organization as a whole, but the process really comes down to the individual, one-on-one coaching. So we have conversations like you and I are having where you know, our process is based in cognitive behavioral psychology. So for those unfamiliar with the ABCD model, a is an activating event. B is your belief system. Around that event. We use the example of a snake. So if the A an activating event is a snake, you might fight or flight with your B your belief system. Your belief system says, hey, a snake is dangerous, it can kill me. I have to run away or fight it. So your C consequent emotion will be something that's fear-based, which leads to that fight or flight. Your D is your dependent behavior. So how do you act in accordance? So what we do with coaching is we dig into that belief system, that B, and say well, what if you were a gardener or if you had knowledge of snakes and it was a garden snake? You're out in your garden and you just saw a harmless snake and you had knowledge of snakes and it was a garden snake. You're out in your garden and you just saw a harmless snake and you had knowledge of it and so when you reframe your belief system around it, a lot of executives are finding this a very helpful process and I will say, as far as cognitive behavioral psychology goes, I know it's 50-50, especially with neurodiverse individuals. So I just want to give a little caveat of we apply that in more cognitively interested spaces like business, but we do have the flexibility of seeing the whole person.

Aaron Helton:

I'm not going to throw a cognitive behavioral framework on somebody that very obviously resonates more with somatic work, for instance, but anyway, circled out all the way back around with those one-on-one conversations, there was a study. I'm not recalling it off the top of my head, I just remember the numbers, but it was with some college students. It might've been a Gallup, I'm not sure. It was about 10 years back, but they looked at accountability and goal achievement within a year For the students that had said, hey, I want to reach this goal and nothing else. They just stated their intent. A year later, 16% of them had reached that goal. However, those that had an accountability partner, somebody that continuously checked in with them which we do with coaching once a month they achieved their goals 86% of the time. So that's already a 70% increase with hey, if you have an employee that you're wanting to work with, just having a coach one-on-one for one year makes them 70% more likely to reach their goals. That in and of itself for a culture, go ahead.

Jay Johnson:

That's actually also supported by the ICF, the International Coaching Foundation which ends up demonstrating like training by itself will get somebody maybe 23% of the way, but training coupled with individual accountability-based coaching can get us up to that 85, 86% mark. So that's very, very consistent, aaron.

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely. And then when you pull that information, that's just from the coaching side. Then you look at the training as a whole. So how we've measured it in the past is just and honestly anecdotal in some cases, because of the nature of human development. Sometimes you just feel it when you can communicate faster, you know, you think of the speed of trust by Stephen Covey and you look at, you know, warren Buffett making a handshake deal. I believe the example they had in the book was with the, I think, the CEO of Walmart at the time, something like that. But they gave a handshake deal of like $4 billion because they knew each other. So well.

Jay Johnson:

They trusted each other.

Aaron Helton:

They trusted each other exactly. And so you can see it in the speed of work, you can see it in your capacity as you gain stress management techniques and the ability to regulate yourself better. And then, additionally, you'll see it just in general growth. You see, year to year. We've had hospitals, we've worked with that. You know, because of the nature of hospitals, a lot of times they're sitting in the red because that's the nature of how it's funded. But some of them are making profit from our training and the way that we've worked with them and the culture that we've created in them. And then, finally, a lot of people don't think about the scarcity in the sense of not what you're gaining in return on investment, but what you're not losing, and what I mean by that is Talent.

Aaron Helton:

T-l-n-t actually came out with a study a few years back and it showed rough estimates of when you have to replace an entry-level employee. It costs roughly 30% of their salary, and then mid-level, I believe, was 150%, and then the senior level it was 400%. So if you pay me, let's just pull some basic numbers out. Let's say it's $100. Well, with businesses, let's make it 1,000, right, you pay $1,000 over 12 months. That's $12,000 to protect, essentially to invest in an executive, for instance, who makes $100,000. Well, that $12,000 investment in the year just saved you potentially $400,000, because we discovered their motivations, giving them protection from burnout, things like that, in addition to the training, the coaching and all those aspects, and so that's a level of measurement as well.

Jay Johnson:

And that's so important because actually the Society for Human Resource Management also kind of quantifies. You can frame it anywhere from one to 3.5 times the salary to actually replace, and that's everything from the acquisition of talent to the onboarding of talent, to the loss of knowledge management, to anything else. So I always, I always laugh when I love that you're throwing these statistics, these numbers out, because this is exactly what I really try to push trainers and coaches to better understand of. Hey, if they're not willing to pay for your training program, there's two things that are happening and you have to take ownership Either, a, you have not communicated the potential impact of your training and how it is going to lead to those types of numbers, or, b, you've not been able to quantifiably educate them in a way that they understand what risks they are currently at, especially with the economic markets. Even just the general workforce culture and belief systems that people are walking into the workspace are that that investment of $1,000 a month for coaching is minimal compared to the potential risk of that person leaving that person staying and not being engaged, creating behaviors that ultimately collapse your culture, etc. So I love that you brought that up collapse your culture, et cetera. So I love that you brought that up, aaron, I'm going to ask a question that is kind of related to okay, so we've got these individuals that are coaching.

Jay Johnson:

How much do you allow those individuals to essentially set their own goals or set their own metrics, versus how much do you kind of provide them some insight or guidance on what type of metrics they should be looking at? Right, because I can think about it and I as an individual, I like to think that I'm fairly introspective. I evaluate or reflect. I get 360 reviews from my team so that way I know where I'm at. But there are some managers leaders that may not. They may feel I feel like my team trusts me, and then you talk to the team and you find out no, sir or ma'am, you are not trusted by your team. In fact, they think you're terrible. So how do you navigate some of that space where maybe one of the people that you're coaching is not as introspective as they should be? How do you guide them in setting those goals or their parameters of the KPIs?

Aaron Helton:

So it depends a little bit case by case. First off, is there's a responsibility of the coach to be the safe space for this individual to be challenged in. The coaching space is ideally a psychologically safe space. To then challenge your coachee and say, hey, that's not consistent with other things I've been hearing. Second, we have the 360 assessment. We use the leadership circle profile in ours, and so we see reactive behaviors such as controlling, complying or protecting, which is the fight, flight or flee, essentially. And so when we look at those aspects, we can say, hey, here's 20 people. This is the general information that they gave you relative to your self-perception.

Aaron Helton:

And then, lastly, depending on what level and at what space we're in in the organization, if I started a coaching agreement with somebody that's on a PIP, for example, they may have given me goals that led that person towards the PIP and what they need to work on. Alternatively, I will check in with their supervisor about every three months, about every quarter, and say here's how this person is doing. Or, during our training, we'll give updates to the management team or whoever's in charge of the training, and then the executive team as well, to say here's how things are going individually. Are you seeing the changes that we're being told are happening in coaching, and so really it's a lot of communication at all levels to make sure that those goals are being met. And then, finally, every intake session, even if I've been given goals, I will make sure that the coachee sets their own goals. I may be able to a couple sessions in talk about hey, here's some things that are going on that your boss has asked me to work on.

Aaron Helton:

And generally I don't get into a three to six month fast-paced coaching situation.

Aaron Helton:

In those instances I would say, hey, here are the things we have to be working on.

Aaron Helton:

But generally, since the early stages of coaching are also about building trust, I'm not going to come out the gate personally there are definitely coaches that do but I won't come out of the gate saying here are the things we have to work on. It's who are you and who do you want to become. And when I coach, my personal philosophy is and I tell everyone, my clients, at the end of every session we have I have one goal I want you to feel heard, I want you to feel empowered, that's it. So I will ask at the end of our sessions do you feel heard in all the things you told me and do you feel empowered to make change? Because one of the strengths of coaching is compared to therapy, because a lot of people make that comparison is that therapy can focus a lot more on the past and coaching can focus a lot more on the future. And again, case by case, there's variation, but in general that's a bit of a binary separation from them.

Jay Johnson:

And I like that distinction because, to be perfectly honest with you, I really don't do much one-on-one coaching anymore. I do groups, I do teams, I do a lot of training et cetera, facilitation. But I got out of the one-to-one coaching space in big part because there seemed to be a sort of connection um, that people would utilize coaching in order to replace therapy and it's just like, okay, this isn't, we're digging into some stuff that's probably better suited for a clinical therapist than it would be for me and I would draw that boundary. But I really love the distinction that you created. There is whether it's focusing on the past or focusing on future efforts, solutions, growth, mindset, et cetera. That's definitely a really powerful frame that you offered there, aaron. So I want to thank you for that really powerful frame that you offered there, aaron. So I want to thank you for that. You know it's interesting to me in terms of the goals and the goal setting, because, as a trainer, as a coach or even as an HR person that's trying to manage different sets of behaviors, being able to really dig in on that aspect of what are we measuring here, what are we looking at and what does success look like for that practitioner. It's going to be very, very different across people, across organizations.

Jay Johnson:

I want to ask one other question in this, and then I'm going to kind of shift our gears just a little bit here, aaron. But one of the things that I have found whether it's from coaching or whether it's from engagements is having a sort of cool down period. So what I like to do, and what I liked to do when I was doing individual coaching, is I would have essentially a time block, whether that was four months, whether that was three months, and then I would have a little bit of a cool down time, and it didn't have to be commensurate, it wasn't like 90 on 90 off or anything. It usually could be something like 90 on 30 days off, 90 on 30 days off. Do you find that there's any sort of sweet spot for the cadence of coaching, giving a cool off period, or do you go, you know, essentially 365, all the way through, meeting once a week? What does that look like for you and what is some of the things that maybe you've taken away from that sort of intensity of the programs?

Aaron Helton:

That's a great question, jay, honestly. So our process is the standard coaching is twice a month, every two weeks, and then naturally, life happens, you know, if we need to reschedule. Actually, earlier today I rescheduled a client. I wasn't able to see them two weeks out, so we scheduled three weeks out, simple enough. And for those that are in the training program, because we have once a month workshops, then we have once a month coaching as well, and so when we have those different cadences, either of those really work For the twice a month, those individuals tend to be more enthused, from what I've seen, because we meet more often, they're getting more insight, they're asking more questions and our relationship is building a little faster.

Aaron Helton:

For those that meet monthly, however, the advantage is there is advantage to not being as quickly close to a person. Not every coaching relationship has to be extremely close and trusting. Ideally they will be and there will always, hopefully for any sort of good relationship, be a level of trust. Do not disregard or warp my words. In that way, however, when you see them once a month, it's a lot easier to say, hey, how have things been? Okay, that's great, let's get to work, essentially. And then for those that you see twice a month, the conversation can be a lot more relaxed, the insights could be less formal and for some individuals that works a lot better. So it really does depend case by case.

Aaron Helton:

And also I check in with my clients often and I say what am I doing that I could be doing more of, or what am I not doing that you'd like to see me do? Should I challenge you more? You know I share a lot of personal stories because that helps to frame things in perspective. But also it helps to create that relationship building. It feels a lot more conversational, a lot more natural and it feels less preachy when it's a parable.

Aaron Helton:

You know, when it's a story, some clients don't resonate with that. They say can you make me a bullet point list of what I need to just start doing? I said okay, but we're going to make it together. You know I'll want to say my story. But if they say I would like to hear less stories, okay.

Aaron Helton:

So if there's a coach that's finding trouble in that cadence, if you are a listener that's having trouble finding that cadence or you want something like that, first and foremost go at your own pace and set it from there and then adjust for the clients. There will be natural days of hey, it's summer's coming up, I can't do this month or I'll be on vacation. Can we push it back another week and a half? And then when they come back from vacation that's when they're stressed out because they just came back from vacation you say perfect, this is exactly when you need a coach, right, right. But ultimately it comes down to my favorite phrase, and the wonderful catchphrase of any mental health or corporate practitioner, I believe, is it depends, it's our catchphrase, really individual that we're working with.

Jay Johnson:

It's got to be comfortable, it's got to be something that makes you know logistical sense, and so I think that's a. I think that's great guidance. Thank you, aaron. So let me switch gears here real quick. You had brought something up earlier in our conversation and I want to create a little space for you to maybe share your experience and your thoughts on working with neurodiverse populations, and I'm just going to leave that a little bit open and share with us any of your insights and your experiences that you feel comfortable with. How might we be able to think about this in a more effective and inclusive way as we deliver our coaching or training and our HR programs? What might we be able to do to be more inclusive to a neurodivergent population?

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely Well. First and foremost, using any of my own examples is, I would say, a little unfair, right, because I am one individual who is autistic. I am autistic, but I'm also what is previously known as high functioning, but I call it high masking, because using the language of high or low functioning can be disparaging for certain groups, and I don't think they've came up with quite new language yet, so I believe it's level one.

Jay Johnson:

I like high masking, yeah, yeah.

Aaron Helton:

So I spend a lot of social energy to show up as I am now, but of course, we all have our gremlin mode or our goblin outfit we put on at home, put on our pajamas, grab our jar of peanut butter and just watch our shows, right, or, to some degree, something like that. You have a little, you know. I have colored lights and things that I turn off the large light in the room and, just, you know, have a nice calmer, dimmer environment. So we all have the tools that we need when it comes to accommodating individuals. That's what it comes down to. That's it Accommodate the individual. We spend a lot of energy on how can we create more of a blank or blank or blank around accommodation. It's how can we empower this specific group. And, at the end of the day, one of the most powerful tools we have is when we're with another human being. Just be with another human being. As I mentioned, my whole goal when I'm with a client is I want you to feel heard and I want you to feel empowered. And I'll ask somebody whether they're neurodivergent or not. Do you feel heard? And I'll ask somebody whether they're neurodivergent or not. Do you feel heard? And there'll be some individuals with.

Aaron Helton:

You know, I had a client and they were so trying to think of how to say it in kind of a considerate way to make sure everything's, you know, anonymous, et cetera. But I had this client and they were dealing with imposter syndrome and so they could talk about oh, you know, it's tough to deal with this, this, this. I'm also younger, I'm also this. And I sat there and I just looked at them and I said you're also a black female doctor, you understand that right? And she just starts crying on the spot. She says I feel so seen, like yeah, because that's your whole person. You are a whole person. It's not just I'm young, or it's not just I just started my job, or it's not just because I'm a minority, it's your multiple, different things that all culminate into your identity. And at the end of that session, did you feel heard? Absolutely. Do you feel empowered to make some change together? Absolutely. And so with a neurodivergent individual, I'll hear them. I've talked with clients or people that come up after speeches and all sorts of people, and they'll come up and say well, here's my neurodivergent experience. I say that's interesting, it's different from mine. Tell me about how you grew up with blank blank, blank, because this was my experience and we'll just connect as people.

Aaron Helton:

There's no framework or system that can simplify the complexity of being a human being. So, at the end of the day, the very first thing that you should do when you sit down with another human being, and the very core of what you do, should be sit with that human being. So, if they prefer, hey, I'm just going to be cameras off and I just need to do a phone call, or I'll have my camera off, but it means a lot to see you reacting. It's like, okay, a little weird, a little awkward, but that's okay, because it's what will make you feel safer here. And then one day I might say, hey, would you be able to turn your camera on, but maybe keep the lights off? Does that feel good? It's like, yeah, because I want to be able to see you too.

Aaron Helton:

Is that something we could work on together? Absolutely. Or they might say I'm just really not comfortable with it. Okay, there's no, like that's not a positive or negative interaction, that's just deepening our relationship. Because if they say no, I get to respect their boundaries and if they say yes, we get to move into that discomfort together and grow. If that's one of their goals is I want to be more present online when I have team meetings then that's something that I would push them to do, but if it's not, then it's not. So it would really just come down to that case by case what are you working on, who are you and who do you want to be, and how can I help you get there?

Jay Johnson:

by seeing the entire person that you are. Well. Thank you for sharing that, aaron, and for sharing your perspective on that. I think it's really important to understand that and I really liked the frame that you said, and I don't want to, I don't want to paraphrase it this, you know four seconds after, but it was basically there is no system that will manage the complexity of human beings, and that's so true in so many levels is.

Jay Johnson:

You mentioned identity and there's some really incredible studies of you know one of the studies, I believe what it did was it took women and were actually testing their efficacy in mathematics, and you know, there's a stereotype, or there's this downplay of women in mathematics or women in technical sciences, et cetera, and one of the things that this study actually did was to challenge the identity concept, and how they did that was they took three different groups of women, putting them into a standardized test against three different groups of men to see, you know, did men actually outperform them? And in the group where there was no intervention, the men did end up outperforming them. However, with the two interventions, the gap closed and actually it was pretty much equal and those interventions were as simple as they asked the women before they took the assessment or before they took the standardized test. You know, okay, well, you identify as a female. What else do you identify as? And they said well, I identify as a big sister. I identify as a college student. And they really worked on this concept of identity and drew out all of these other identities that these people were holding. And those groups that went through those interventions that were really kind of like broadening their concepts of identity ended up performing at the exact same levels, if not outperforming, the men that were taking that same standardized test.

Jay Johnson:

And I thought that was such an interesting study because it really does have an impact. So I'm going to frame this into a little bit of a conversation around the neurodivergence concept, the identification of feeling neurodivergent or having a neurodivergent, you know, frame, does that limit, does that become a, you know, the sole marker? How have you navigated those questions of identity in that space? And I think this could be really powerful for both the trainers and coaches and HR people out there, but even other people that are listening that may frame their identity as a single source, like I am a trainer, okay, but what else are you right? So, even taking this to that larger context. I guess the question is is how do you manage that question of identity in this space?

Aaron Helton:

Ready for the catchphrase it depends. But that's an excellent question, because when you think of identity, we really do tend to identify ourselves as one thing, especially those like our job. You've seen in the rates of suicide in men when they lose their job. You know the rates of suicide in like men when they lose their job. You know when they lose their identity as well. I'm not masculine because I don't have a job, or I'm not the protector, or even in this like male loneliness epidemic that's being talked about, which you know, that's a whole separate thing I'll talk about. But you know, it's kind of self-created in the sense of that need for connection, for intimacy to be seen right and when it comes to looking at all these different aspects of your identity, it empowers you. That's it. When you feel seen, you are empowered.

Aaron Helton:

And I used that word a moment ago intimacy, and I forgot where I heard it. It was either a podcast or there's a quote somewhere. I'm sure it's been said a couple of different ways, but I heard this said as intimacy is into me, you see, or into you, I see, you know. Intimacy into me, you see, and I loved that and it stuck with me in the sense of how can I see you more? You know people confuse intimacy and this is a slight tangent but people confuse intimacy with physical or sexual gratification. It's like no intimacy. Is you and I right now having a conversation about things we connect with? That is intimate in a way, and so when you are able to prop yourself up with different identities and give yourself space in all those aspects like I talk a lot when I do speeches, I love the Renaissance fair when I stand up.

Aaron Helton:

I love it Awesome we might have to talk after this, and when I stand up I love it Awesome. We might have to talk after this, but I say you know I'm not going to put on a suit of armor or my. There was a misconception I had for a long time which was to be my whole self. To be authentic means I have to be my whole self all the time, and that was my misconception. I believe that authenticity is having space in your whole life for all of your parts. You don't have to be the goofball in a serious meeting to still know that you are a goofy, funny person outside of it. And so having space for all those different zones Like, if I want to be a Renaissance Fair theater kid, I go do that in those spaces. I don't need to bring that into the meetings, however. I might have a funky shirt on that I like and that's an aspect of it, and so that's where I find my balance and my authenticity.

Aaron Helton:

So when taking that all the way back to that question of identity and I'll actually reference that male loneliness epidemic in the sense of men need to create more community with each other, you know because you see the studies from back in the day of you know again, using just the traditional model because that was what was studied but a husband and a wife. Statistically, if the husband passes away first, the wife is not going to pass away very quickly after, because generally the social constructs of women and femme presenting individuals is community. They have community, they have hobbies, they have identities outside of husband, whereas the individuals that were you know, the husbands if they had lost their spouse, they lose that idea of like. Well, who's like taking care of me? You know they're my, for lack of a better term and you'll very clearly see my thoughts on things.

Aaron Helton:

But you know your emotional support animal, essentially, in some past marriages and again some extremes I know there's a lot more healthy individuals now, but that's how it was propped up was a woman, was basically a man's emotional support animal. So when a wife passed away, the man shortly followed. And so when you look at that idea of identity, cultivating more than just one thing is not only necessary for evolution in the sense of like fulfillment, it's also necessary just to survive. If you put all your eggs in one basket emotionally, then you're putting all your eggs in one basket emotionally. So when it comes to your identity, make sure that you give yourself the grace to be everything that you are and, as a coach, make sure that you are seeing the whole person. Just something I do talk about in my book towards the end as well.

Jay Johnson:

It's such a powerful insight and very accurate along the science. We are social animals and that social connection that we have is often based on different frames of our identity. You know I have a social group of former debaters when I was on the debate team and hockey players and this and that and the other thing, and you know, leaning into those different social networks it is. It's a construction of different aspects of our internal states, our internal beings and how we perceive ourselves. And I think it was Kierkegaard that said if you label me, you negate me. And I really do kind of I love that frame because we are more than just one thing. We are complex, complex, sentient, conscious beings and there is more than just the one aspect that we might be looking at or might be feeling about ourselves. So exploring that and digging into that is a really powerful exercise.

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely. And if I may apply that also to emotions, that's something I talk about all the time is people sit there and say, well, I am angry. It's like, well, no, you're feeling anger right now, you know. Separating that whole identity because that happens often too is people paint themselves as a singular thing, moment to moment as well. Or well, I'm just the boss, I have to be the hammer here. It's like, no, you don't. Your perception, your belief system, going back to that, is that, as a manager, you have to be the tough guy. No, you don't. And so those are the type of things that we can challenge. So, ultimately, coaching is just leading and guiding individuals towards seeing more of themselves and the context around them. It's just more.

Jay Johnson:

Helping them to challenge those belief systems. Exactly Beautiful, Aaron. This has been an incredible conversation. If the audience wanted to get in touch with you to learn more, how might they be able to do so?

Aaron Helton:

Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn, aaron Helton. You can also find the website for Integrated Leadership System. I believe in the description, both of those links should be there. The Integrated Leadership System's website is integratedleadercom. And then you can find me on LinkedIn, aaron Helton. And then, additionally, depending on when this comes out and the timeline for publishing, you should be able to find my book the Path to Permission Channeling Energy into Life-Changing Breakthroughs by Aaron Helton.

Jay Johnson:

I like that title you got to let us know when that's out. We'll put out a message for you, because that'll be one that I'm reading, aaron. So thank you for joining us today on the show.

Aaron Helton:

Thanks, for having me. I appreciate it and this was an amazing discussion. Thank you, Jay.

Jay Johnson:

Yep and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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