How leaders build culture through better meetings with Jordan DeGree | Episode 99

Jordan DeGree: if all you're doing is focusing on the problems that you have to solve, in some ways that is a deficit mindset, right? That's a that's a glass half empty kind of perspective. And I think

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: that that in some cases is what contributes to this sense of it doesn't matter what we do, there's always another problem. kind of feeling

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and that that can then grow and evolve into this overall sense of burnout and kind of existential dread, right? Like it's all it's all meaningless because there's always another problem.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Parks and Restoration Podcast. I am Chris Lee, your host. Today I am joined by Jordan Degree, and I'm excited to have this conversation. if you've listened to any past episodes, you'll know that I've got a pretty big interest in foundations and the nonprofits that support what we do in parks and conservation. And that's what brought me to this discussion. Jordan Degree is an entrepreneur, social innovator. Artist and comedian. Actually, just kidding about the comedian part. He's not actually a comedian, although I don't know, he's kind of a funny guy. You read some of his some of his content out there. man. He's experimented with several different ventures and enjoys solving problems, creating value, and helping people. He is currently the executive director of the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance, which is why we were going to have this conversation today. And the INA exists to empower nonprofits in the state to help Iowans. Live richer, fuller lives. Now, some additional random stats about Jordan here. He's got three kids, a seven million dollar real estate portfolio. He was awarded the Governor's Volunteer Award, has a four point nine six star host rating on Airbnb, changed his major four times in college. He's helped business owners create more than 100 jobs in rural communities since twenty twenty one alone. He teaches a stained glass art class most Tuesdays and has successfully avoided. joining LinkedIn. Maybe that's an avenue we should explore there a little bit. Jordan is best at helping people think outside the box and finding new opportunities to create value. this is gonna be a fun conversation. Jordan, welcome to the show.

Jordan DeGree: Thanks Chris. If your audience doesn't feel like I'm crazy yet, I'm sure they will by the end of this episode.

Chris Lee: Hang on tight, everybody. Yeah. So so many things I want to dig into, but let's just go ahead and start at the employment side of things, the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance. So what is this?

Jordan DeGree: Great question. Iowa Nonprofit Alliance is Iowa's statewide association for nonprofit entities. And it was founded in late 2022 by a group of forward-thinking nonprofit leaders and resource providers across the state. And when it was founded, Iowa was one of seven states in the country that did not have a state association. So all of the other states had a state association and had some of them for decades. And so what that association does and the purpose of the association is really to help protect the nonprofit sector in the state of Iowa and help ensure that nonprofits have what they need the resources, the training, the expertise, the connections, the the network to do the best work that they can do in order to help the people, the communities, the the things that they try and make better, that they have what they need to do in order to do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. so that's the association. It's it's a pretty cool gig. I get to hear every day about the work that these charitable organizations are doing out across the state, helping kids, helping the environment, helping people who are experiencing life challenges, whether it's physical or mental. People that are having some pretty big fights, right? In terms of battling addiction or battling loneliness or depression. I mean, there's just there's so many people out there that need someone or something. And nonprofits a lot of times are the organizations that are stepping in to fill in the gap between what for-profit businesses can make money doing and what the government to do in order to keep its citizens safe. There's a there's a big range in between those two things and that's where

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: you find nonprofits. So it's a great job, I love it. And we are a membership organization and we're we have members from all across the state in all different we call them subsectors of the nonprofit sector. So it's wonderful.

Chris Lee: Okay. Yeah. So what's the size of your membership base roughly?

Jordan DeGree: Yeah, right now we have about two hundred members participating in the network. we have increased membership between ten and fifteen percent each year since our founding. I took the role that I'm in in November of twenty twenty five and it's July of twenty twenty-six, so just about eight months ago, nine months ago maybe, and it's we revamped a lot of stuff. We revamped our membership website, we revamped programming, our member benefits. And our goal is really, and and thank goodness the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance Board of Directors is a really smart, forward thinking group of people. Our goal is really to help foster connections across the state between nonprofit professionals and help them talk about the issues that are important to them in a faster, more effective way. Because Iowa's is not the biggest state. in the country, but it's a pretty big state. I I just drove across it the other day. I'm from Dubuque. we had an event in Council Bluff, so I was all the way across, river to river. Yeah,

Chris Lee: Okay. No. Man, you bet can't get any farther than that. Yeah, no kidding.

Jordan DeGree: it was it was a beautiful drive and what it made me think about was the idea that it can take a long time sometimes for ideas to travel across the state, especially if organizations are working on things that are new or innovative or they're experimenting with things that all of a sudden they are creating a ton of value for their organization. We wanna be the conduit through which those stories and those ideas can make their way across the state and impact more people fast.

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah. Okay. So is the focus on the nonprofit professional or is it on the volunteer? Because I I understand that, you know, in the the nonprofits that that I'm involved with, the couple different wildlife organizations and a local foundation and different things, you've you've got you've got the professional staff, the the people that are actually hired by the entity, they're on a payroll, and and they're they're paid daily to do the work of the nonprofit. And then you have the other end, the unpaid people that are oftentimes the lifeblood of some of these nonprofits, where where does I and A step in you know, where what's I guess maybe the better question is like what's your bread and butter? Are you focused kind of on the professionals or on volunteers or both to some degree and how?

Jordan DeGree: That's a question. I would say both, just because as you look at the nonprofit landscape in the state of Iowa, which, by the way, nonprofits in the state employ one in nine Iowans. So if you're in a room of people

Chris Lee: What?

Jordan DeGree: and there's 18 people in that room, statistically, probably two of them are employed in the nonprofit sector. And so

Chris Lee: Wow.

Jordan DeGree: in terms of economic impact, it's one of the largest. private sector, I think it's the third largest private sector employer in the entire

Chris Lee: Smokes.

Jordan DeGree: state. And and so a lot of people are directly engaged in being a nonprofit professional, a paid employee

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: of a nonprofit organization. However, in order for an organization to be successful, it can't only have high quality paid staff. It also has to have high quality board of directors, which are volunteers. It has to have

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: In a lot of cases, a volunteer program. You may not even have any paid staff in the case of several tens of thousands of organizations in the state of Iowa. They don't have a paid

Chris Lee: Yep.

Jordan DeGree: staff. It's a volunteer-led, volunteer-driven effort. And so, you know, if as an association, if we want to speak to, help, and protect nonprofits in the state of Iowa, we have to be looking at both sides of that coin because not only can we have training and professional development that's geared toward helping those paid staff members do what they need to do better. But we also need to have tools that help volunteer-driven organizations or individuals who volunteer in the sector to be more informed and to be better advocates for the work that they're doing and to be able to help spread the good news about the impact

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: that they're creating, whether it's you know, creating really high quality places for people to go enjoy the outdoors or helping to fill a child care gap in their community or put food on the table for families that are struggling to get the correct

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: nutrition.

Chris Lee: Yep. Yeah. And and that so that that gets me to thinking in in my experience with with nonprofits and both as a a volunteer in in various capacities, and then in working with with nonprofits and working with paid staff in those nonprofits and stuff, one of the things that I often see is is rampant burnout. Like like we we we go into these things and we're we're mission driven, right? Like we're going in there, we're trying to make a big difference in in whatever it is. and I get just last year I I I gave a talk at the it was the Iowa Community Action Association. And that was one of the big things that came up I saw on the agenda was, you know, burnout and and this this you know, just the I can't I can't think of the term of it, but it's that it's that wearing down of compassion, that compassion fatigue. You know, you're you're helping people, these these underserved people every day and oftentimes it's it's a thankless role. And, you know, whether it's community action or whether it's it's environmental or it's conservation, you know, you're you're a member of a of a a friends group for a parks department. And you're you're doing these volunteer projects and you're putting new roofs on shelter houses and stuff and and you know the the department administrator, you know, says, Hey, thanks. And then like the budget time rolls around for that department and they take a budget cut and it's just like, God, now you know, now we're gonna have more projects to do because they can't afford to do and and it just it it's it's an erosion. of of that that compassion and that that desire. How do you combat that? That's one of the biggest things I've been struggling with lately is I see it like I'm I'm I'm I lead my local Pheasants Forever chapter and we have it. Like like we are we are burned out. We've been we've been putting on this this amazing banquet for years and years and years and years. But it seems like the reward isn't there so much anymore. And it feels like a second job. How do you how do you combat that? What what success stories have you seen or what best practices or whatever it is? I mean, what what recommendations would you have for folks, you know, whether they're a conservation a chapter of a, you know, conservation nonprofit organization or an employee of a big, you know, statewide or national nonprofit?

Jordan DeGree: Thanks for laying that up.

Chris Lee: I know, right? Yeah, it's the billion dollar question. Cause if you have the answer to it, like like you you you know, we're gonna we're all gonna vote for Jordan Degree for the next whatever you want to run for.

Jordan DeGree: Yeah, I'm gonna run for the non-elected office because that's a thankless job. I think

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: it is a big question, and all I can I don't have the silver bullet, I don't think. but

Chris Lee: Yeah, nobody does.

Jordan DeGree: but I had an interesting experience just last week. We hosted a half day nonprofit event in Council Bluffs. As I said, I drove river to river and The way that we started out that event was we asked folks at their tables. There were about fifty five people there. so at their table of six to eight folks. What organization you're from and what brought you to this work? What was the what's the change that you're trying to create in the world by showing up every day? And I think that this is gonna sound really simplistic and and I know it's not this simple, but I think this is a good starting point to thinking about burnout or compassion fatigue and how to keep ourselves a little bit maybe insulated from it. is if all you're doing is solving problems, and I love, I mean, if you go to my website, right, JordanDegree.com, right right away says, I love solving problems. That's like, yeah, and I love

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. yeah. And we're gonna talk more about that here in a bit.

Jordan DeGree: it. I do. But if all you're focused on all the time is what the problems are. And nonprofits tend to get into that mindset because you're

Chris Lee: yeah.

Jordan DeGree: your front line, you're right there, right? The problem is in front of you. And it's it's you know.

Chris Lee: Yeah. You exist to s to to deal with it, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: Yeah. And so if all you're doing is focusing on the problems that you have to solve, in some ways that is a deficit mindset, right? That's a that's a glass half empty kind of perspective. And I think

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: that that in some cases is what contributes to this sense of it doesn't matter what we do, there's always another problem. kind of feeling

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and that that can then grow and evolve into this overall sense of burnout and kind of existential dread, right? Like it's all it's all meaningless because there's always another problem. But

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: when people talk about why they come to the work, what about their personality and their their outlook on life and the world drives them to want to be in a in a profession or in a volunteer role where they're giving back, where they're helping people that need help, where they're helping places that need help. And then by focusing one step beyond that into and what's the potential for change that you're creating through these efforts? If you can kind of look, you know, the the problem's right in front of you, but if you can look a little bit further down the road, Or, you know, it you're an outdoors guy. When you're climbing a mountain in Colorado and you're up in the high atmosphere at the high altitude, and it's hard to have the energy for that step, for that step, for that step. A lot of times you're just looking right in front of you at the trail and you're taking that next step

Chris Lee: yeah, for sure.

Jordan DeGree: and it's hard and it's and you're getting tired and it you have to stop and take breathers all the time. But when you get to the summit, And you're no longer having to walk and you can kind of look out and realize what all of those little steps brought you to, which is this amazing vantage point, this amazing opportunity for this big picture perspective, that's the same thing that I think nonprofit professionals and volunteers can do is realize that yeah, you have to watch the trail in front of you and you have to take those little steps and solve those problems. But if you're never getting to the point where you're looking out and seeing the change that you're creating. Or the change that you're trying to create and keeping that front and center, the reason why you're climbing that mountain, right? What is the summit? Then

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: I think that's where the burnout happens. But if you can think about, I do this because I want to invest in people, not profits, right? When you work for a corporation, a lot of times your effort is investing and creating value at the bottom line of the company. But when

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yep.

Jordan DeGree: you're in a nonprofit, your time and your energy and your Capacity and your expertise, you're investing in the bottom line of people or the experiences

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: that people can have in a place. And that's a much different thing. And when you can keep that in your your purview, I think that it's easier to enjoy the problem solving and not let it have that compassion fatigue because yeah, the budget got. And yeah, we just did this project, or yeah, we're doing this fundraiser and we do it every year. Okay, but what's the what's the outcome? What's the change that you're creating, or what's the what's the backslide that you're preventing from happening? Right. Sometimes the status quo is seen as like

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: no progress, but especially in an environment like we have now where every little thing in the nonprofit world is is a struggle and is a hard fought thing.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: Maintaining the status quo can be a victory versus

Chris Lee: For sure, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: like falling back and not getting as much done. So keeping

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: that keeping that outcome, that that positive change that you're creating, for me at least, is part of helping to prevent the burnout. And then the other part is like if you're solving problems so that someday there's no problems to solve, it's never gonna happen. So you you might as well change that idea right now that

Chris Lee: Right, yeah. There is no endgame. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: you solve problems because you like the challenge of it and because you like coming up with ideas and solutions and testing them and seeing what happens and evolving them. You don't solve problems so that someday there's no more problems because sorry friends, that's not life in anywhere. That's

Chris Lee: That's yeah, that's that's how it works. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: not I mean, you die. That's when you stop solving problems.

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah. And I I I see that theme come up re regularly and I I talk about that in in my programs is that you know that's we're playing an infinite game here. It's just like in ecology. You go out and you manage a habitat and say, Okay, I'm done. Well, it's it's instantly changing. Like it's it's you know, it's it's a successional process. You go and you burn off a prairie, the next year that vegetation is gonna be different, it's gonna be thicker, and then the next year it's gonna be even different, and the habitat is going to change whether you're doing anything to it or not. And so It's not like there's ever an end state. It's everything is always in a state of flux and and sometimes even just maintaining the status quo requires inputs. You know, you're trying to maintain an early successional habitat, say in a in a prairie, you have to apply disturbance. You have to apply effort and and energy and resources to that to maintain that. And that's kind of along your line of what you're saying to maintaining the status quo sometimes is a win. So my question is, what does that look like in practice? You know, we talk about celebrating the wins or or you know, stopping at the top of the mountain and looking out and and seeing the accomplishments. You know, let's say it's a it's a it's a friends group for a parks agency. And they do volunteer work and they they roof a shelter house or they sell firewood or or whatever it is. What does the mountaintop and and pausing to look at the mountaintop like, what does that look like in practice? And who should be tasked with making sure that when you get to the mountaintop, you're not just immediately spinning around and heading back down the trail?

Jordan DeGree: You you

Chris Lee: yeah.

Jordan DeGree: you come fully loaded. I don't yeah, yeah.

Chris Lee: Yeah, you like ideas, so I'm gonna bring

Jordan DeGree: And you're rocking it. I would say that it's gonna vary, you know, but I think that unfortunately one of the challenges that every individual and every organization is facing is that we live in such an increasingly fast-paced world that the the time to reflect And the idea that we should reflect and that we can take a moment to take a breath, look back, look at where we are, and then pause before we maybe chart the next couple steps forward, is becoming a lost art. And it it just seems like more and more there's not that time for people to do that, both in their personal lives, whether it's journaling or Taking a walk or I mean, you know, there's just it's like go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And

Chris Lee: Right. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: I think that lot of little things that you can do. And as an individual, there's a lot of little things you can do to help change that narrative or that path. And you know even just little things like every morning send an email of gratitude to someone. Right? It takes

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: and don't spend more than two minutes on it. It's not a novel. It's Five sentences, hey, last week this happened and I saw you do this, or last week I was experiencing this and you helped me out by and just want to drop a note of thanks. Appreciate it.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: Right? Little practices like that, even though it's not a lot of time, even though it's not a big comprehensive thing, it's not a it's not a strategic plan that, you know, in this strategic plan we need to focus on reflection and and you know positivity.

Chris Lee: Mm. You're right, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: Little things across an organization can all snowball and add up into pretty big culture changes where

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: without even having a culture change signified in your strategic plan, your organization

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: is all of a sudden a place that does take time to congratulate and reflect and you know that's

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: really important. And ultimately, I think one of the best ways to prevent burnout and keep people engaged, especially in volunteer organizations, is you have to find opportunities and you have to create a culture that celebrates the relationships between people. And so yeah,

Chris Lee: Hmm. Amen.

Jordan DeGree: and so j because that's part of the value of being there is that you are

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: being becoming a part of something bigger with people that are aligned around values that you share and it creates a sense of community and people are happier in a sense of community.

Chris Lee: Yep.

Jordan DeGree: So you know, as an example, the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance Board of Directors, we just re-sh revamped our our board meeting strat agenda format. And one of the little things that we're doing because in in an innovation session that we did about a month ago, we realized one of the things that we're uniquely positioned to do is to help foster meaningful relationships within the sector across the state of Iowa. So we said, well, but what does that look like for us in practice? Small things. And we said,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: well, let's revamp the board agenda so that the first 10 minutes of every meeting our board members sharing a personal or professional highlight, something that's significant in their life. And we've done it twice now. It sets a totally different tone for the meeting. It sets

Chris Lee: Yep. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: a totally different sense of togetherness for that group. It helps this is gonna sound weird. It helps break down some of like the professionalism and it helps us all remember that we are people experiencing life in different ways. Who are coming together to try and create some positive change. And

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: it's and that's a big deal because at the end of the day, that's what we actually want when we volunteer or when we're engaged with a group, is we want recognition that we're people experiencing life in different ways, but that we're bringing our own unique s self to the table to try and create some good in the world. And so It has been awesome. And even that just that little thing, right? It ends up to ten minutes a month, 120 minutes a year, two hours is all. And I guarantee

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: a year from now, the board and the staff is gonna have such a closer bond and feel such a stronger relationship. And because of that, that's also gonna then spread throughout the organization and and it's gonna impact how the members feel and how the members

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: form relationships and the value that they get from their membership and I mean it's gonna have and

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: but it's hard to predict exactly what it'll be, but it's such a small change. But it's already two

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: meetings in, it's created a huge difference.

Chris Lee: Yeah, with hu with huge ROI. And that's the thing I you know, I I I like tying things back to to ecological concepts. Oftentimes as say natural resource manager or ecologist, we will apply some sort of management to the landscape, but we won't ever get to see the the results. You just you you have to kind of take a little bit of a leap of faith and and know that it's there. Yeah, I started my career as as a a Bob White quail biologist. And so I would work with these landowners and I'd prescribe these land management strategies and I would know they would get done, but I I never actually got to see the quail that that were resulted for that. And so this the same thing here is that sometimes this this two hour investment over the course of a year, the ROI on that isn't directly measurable. This has always been one of the biggest thorns on my side when it comes to talking about culture, is that the oftentimes the question that comes up is, well, what's the ROI? How do I measure it? And I haven't come up with a good metric. I mean, I I there's there's surveys and things you can do to measure culture, but that doesn't negate the need to focus on it. And so what I'm hearing you say here is if if we want to connect people to that which is energizing and and try to combat burnout. It's it's it's kind of a focus on culture and and every organization, whether it's a you know, whether you're a Pheasants Forever chapter and it's just, you know, six people getting together for chapter meetings and they host a banquet every year, or you're a big, you know, multimillion dollar foundation like the Great Outdoors Foundation, I talked to Hannah Inman a while back on one of these episodes and talked about how the Great Outdoors Foundation grew from a a friends group at Polk County conservation all the way to this, you know, multi million dollar statewide agency and stuff with fifteen staff. And like it doesn't matter where you are, everything has a culture. And if you if you focus on that and you're intentional about it, you can you can have some some pretty big impact. And I'd so I like hearing that. We're definitely aligned in that respect for sure.

Jordan DeGree: going to help insulate

Chris Lee: So

Jordan DeGree: you against burnout as well, right? Because you're showing up to this group that you might not always get along and you might not always agree on the best path forward, but you know that you're all just there because you want to see positive outcomes and you're going to work through, you know, the mud that occurs sometimes when you're trying to get there. And you're going to do it in a way that is helps build up. the culture of the group versus splinter it apart because you've invested some time and energy into fostering those relationships and helping people get to know each other. And that's, I think,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: you know, that's, geez, talk about for the rest of our lives and the country in general, continuing to build relationships and get to know each other so that when you have disagreement, it doesn't It's not us versus them. It's it's us. It's the we and we are gonna talk this out and we're gonna find a path where it's it involves compromise. And because of that, we're probably gonna end up with a better result anyway. Because if it we just

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: did it my way, which like you s in in your intro, right, I have a bunch of different ventures. I'm usually the boss.

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: And if I wanted to, I could have it my way all the time, every time. But I learned very early on in my career that if I did that, the outcome wouldn't be as good as if I invited other people to participate and let go of some of the things that I thought were non negotiable in order to help shift

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: my perspective, see things from other point of views, and ultimately create a richer strategy going forward. that

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: included things that I couldn't see from where I was standing, right? Perspective is what you see based on where you're standing. And if

Chris Lee: Yep.

Jordan DeGree: you want to shift your perspective or see more, sometimes you have to stand in different places. And sometimes that's literal, right? You actually have to, if

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: you're talking ecology, right, you have to move through the landscape in order to observe different things happening. but sometimes it involves putting yourself in somebody else's shoes.

Chris Lee: Yep.

Jordan DeGree: And looking through the world through their eyes. And you can only do that if you've built a relationship that allows you to actually, you know, take in what they're saying and feel like they have value enough that you can then think about it from their perspective. Because if you don't respect

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: someone, you're never gonna really be able to see things from their perspective. And you can't respect someone until you have a relationship with them. And so All these little things add up to big outcomes, big return on investment, and more importantly, better strategies, better services, better outcomes for you know as a nonprofit for the people you're serving. But when you start to see that happening, not only do you feel like you have more value as a person coming to the organization, and you can see that the organization's having more impact out in the world, creating more good. All of a sudden people in your organization start to feel really good about being a part of that and showing up to do the work. And and that's how again, coming back to this idea of how do you prevent burnout, that's gonna do it. Or at least go a long way

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: toward delaying or reducing the amount of burnout that people feel. I mean I love everything I do, but I'll tell you The end of the month and the beginning of the month when I'm doing all my reconciliations and I'm doing all my reporting and I'm submitting all my sales tax re you know, like I mean, there's a bunch of stuff that happens, right? It's

Chris Lee: yeah, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: not always my favorite, but I also see that none of the other stuff that I really, really like doing hands on, creating impact, all that kind of stuff, that can't happen without some of those I's being dotted and the T's crossed as well. But

Chris Lee: Sure, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: being connected to the more fun stuff and the richer stuff gives me the momentum I need to get through kind of the dreary stuff or the stuff that I maybe wouldn't do in an ideal world or would prefer not to do but need to.

Chris Lee: So the the one thing that's really jumping out at me right now though is this is this idea of of just having better meetings. and and that could be a whole episode in itself. Maybe it will be. Maybe I'll do a right. Well college Yeah, I know, right? Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: my gosh, that could be a whole like that could be a whole graduate degree. How how to have better, how to have good meetings. Because not even better, right? Like most of the meetings out there are terrible. and but they're

Chris Lee: Yeah. Right. Yeah. 'Cause most meetings suck. Absolutely. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: like the go-to. They're the default when people are like, we need to get something done. What should we do? Let's meet. Right? and

Chris Lee: It's the default, yeah, exactly. Uhhuh, right. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and that's good because it's a desire, it's an innate desire for us to like. solve problems in community. But the problem is

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah. Tab that yeah, to come together.

Jordan DeGree: you come together and then it's like, okay, what are we gonna do? And nobody has a plan. Nobody has

Chris Lee: Right. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: a strategy for how that meeting is actually going to create results.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: yeah, it could be a whole thing. And and we've experimented a lot around how do you set up meetings so that several things happen, right? Because to be a good meeting or I'm gonna go out on limb here. Even a great meeting, there has to be some elements in place, right? You have to have

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: people coming to the table with a sense of I think a s at least some sense of optimism that the

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: meeting is gonna create a result that is worthwhile. Cause if you

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: don't if you don't believe that right from the get go, you're dead weight on that meeting. You know?

Chris Lee: Then that yeah, exactly. Then then why you're even showing up. And that's where that that opening ten minutes that you talked about earlier of let's just talk about one good thing. And and I do this here with with my manager meetings, and I'm trying to do it now with like even just my weekly meetings, is open up like, okay, let's just go around the room, give me one good thing. Because then that then that kind of sets the tone. Like it could be a a thing we accomplished or, you know, a a kudos to somebody or whatever, but it sets the tone of positivity from the front end. And so now we're building on what what's already good and we're we're going to build and do more of that versus oftentimes you just jump in meetings and you're dealing with issues and you're dealing with crises and you're focused on the negative. And so you know that one thing alone is is gonna have an impact there.

Jordan DeGree: And it's a chance to practice a culture of reflection, right? Because now you've just reflected through a bunch of people's lenses, perspective, what positive

Chris Lee: Yes. There's that perspective thing, yes.

Jordan DeGree: impact the organization is having from a bunch of different voices. And so number one, you have to have this in

Chris Lee: Yeah. Well and then and then and I'm gonna cut you off, but but it it makes me think of like here's so here's a leadership superpower for the person that's that's running the meeting or is in charge of this organization. If you pay attention to those things that get brought up. So if if the same person brings up the same kind of thing each time or there's or there's consistent themes among the good things that people bring up, you can probably assume that that's important to them. You know, and and so now you're getting to know your people a little bit. You're getting their perspective. So talk about, you know, fighting that burnout later on. So if you're going to highlight an accomplishment specific to what's going to resonate with a person, so that so that person always brings up, hey, we got this this project done, and they celebrate that the project got done, their perspective is on, you know. accomplishments like but man look at that. Like they like stepping back, like, man, we we got that done. Versus others, it might be more relational. Like, man, I I really liked going out and working with so and so, or I really liked bringing the interns up and teaching them new things. Well now the next time you bring up something good for them, you can say, Hey, man, look at how far that intern has developed this year. And you know that that's going to resonate with them rather than just this blanket assuming that whatever you point out is going to resonate with everybody. And so you can really hone in on that perspective and find out what's going to impact the people around you by just paying attention to what it is that they say.

Jordan DeGree: Yeah, that's gold right there, Chris. Absolutely. I I anyone listening or watching, write that down because

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: I agree that that's you know, we just assume again it's seeing the world through other people's lenses, through other people's eyes. And that's

Chris Lee: Exactly. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: how you start to build those strong relationships in times of good and in times of bad. Because there's always that opportunity to strengthen a relationship, whether everything's peachy keen. Or, you know, everything's on fire and and you're just struggling

Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: to like put out the fires. It's all relationship building opportunities. So yeah, so to get back to the meeting, you know, everyone has to you have to have a sense that there's gonna be something accomplished out of the meeting. And then you also need to find a balance between whenever you pose a challenge or a question or a topic, right, that the meeting is gonna

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: kind of like work on. There has to be a balance, I think, between individual thought and and group share. And a lot of

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jordan DeGree: times we forget about the individual and we just assume that everyone's good at doing that on their own. But we've experimented with some meeting types where we'll present a challenge or a topic or a question, and then nobody can talk for two minutes. Everybody has a post-it pad in front of them, and they just write as many ideas or thoughts about that as they want. During that two minutes. And then at the end of the two minutes, we'll go around the table and everyone reads one of their post-its. And then we go around again and they read another one. And you start to see if there's themes. Three out of the five

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jordan DeGree: people all mention this, this, and this, or all five people mentioned this. Or, whoa, here was an outlighter idea that probably wouldn't have gotten brought up if w people would have just started talking.

Chris Lee: Hm, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: But that might be where the solution lies. And so, you know, finding that balance between giving people time to r think and reflect on what the topic is before you start sharing can really help everyone feel like they're contributing to the conversation. Even the quiet people have time to think about it, put down some ideas, and then have something to share. and it prevents people like me who love to just like Raise their hand, start talking, right? Like burst through it. Yeah. It prevents people

Chris Lee: yeah. Just throw ideas around. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: like me from guiding the meeting toward my my intended outcome, even if it's subconscious for my part.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Jordan DeGree: and it starts to give it the room a little more flatness versus hierarchy. We've done this with all sorts of different size groups, and what we find interesting is that, you know, we'll do it with. Companies that you have the founder and CEO, you have the line worker giving people that time to think on their own and then kind of create some equality in how things are shared initially helps

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: create it, helps reduce the hierarchy, reduce the power structure for that meeting at least, so that the ideas become the stars, not the importance of the people saying the idea. And then ultimately after the meeting. the power structure is still the power structure. And so the leadership is going to decide what ideas to move forward with and how and when. But you also now have buy-in from more people in the room potentially to help implement that idea going forward. So I that's my thing on meetings, right? You have to have a sense that it's going to accomplish something. You have to have a balance between individual thinking and group thinking. And I probably didn't say this, but I think this is probably the most important thing You have have some clarity around what it is that you're you're meeting to solve or you're meeting to discuss or you're meeting to accomplish. Yeah,

Chris Lee: Yes. Yeah. Why are we even here in the first place? Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and what we find is that people are really bad at framing challenges. And

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: most meetings, unless it's like a standing meeting, which, my gosh, that's a whole other thing. But most meetings

Chris Lee: God, yeah. Right.

Jordan DeGree: are geared towards solving challenges. But what we find, and we've done a lot of work on this both. internally, but also as we work with groups, is people either frame challenges way too big and they get these really then big, broad ideas out of the discussion

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: that are hard to actually like start to implement because they're too big or they're too broad, or

Chris Lee: Yeah, it becomes pretty vague with scale. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: they're like way too small and there's only one possible answer. And so it's the meeting itself is like an exercise of just like, I need people to rubber stamp this so I can go do it. I'm gonna make it

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: such a small challenge that there's really only one way that we could solve it, which I already know. So I just need these people to agree with me so that I can go do it. You gotta find that sweet spot, right? Where the yeah,

Chris Lee: Right, yeah. Yeah. Artif artificial buy in. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: where the where the challenge is framed in a way where it's small enough to create a an implementable strategy, but it's big enough that you're authentically bringing people to that meeting. to create new ideas or new collections of ideas that can can help solve the challenge. And so it's really interesting. So I'll just give an example, right? we so we do some work with a major manufacturing company in Iowa.

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: They're a global company, but we work with their team of engineers pretty frequently. And they had a they had a problem in one of their products that was like a I think they said it was like a twelve million dollar a year problem. It created twelve million dollars worth of like after sales issues

Chris Lee: Okay.

Jordan DeGree: because of service and delay, whatever. Anyway, they wanted to lead off with how do we solve this problem? And we were like, that's too big. Yeah, that's too big, right? And so we said, Are

Chris Lee: Mm. How do we solve this twelve million dollar problem? Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: there are there different ways of thinking about what's contributing to the problem? And they said, Well, yeah, it's And so we ended up breaking the problem down into three different challenge questions that the team that was meeting then addressed. So one was, how can technology, software, solve this problem? How can we leverage software to solve this problem? Then another

Chris Lee: Mm, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: one was how can we leverage design and manufacturing processes? You know, the the the parts itself to solve this problem. And then third one was How do we involve I forget what it was, but it was a third lens through which to look at it. And they got so many richer ideas. And ultimately they ended up having solutions in each bucket that they combined, or that by implementing a software solution and a design solution and whatever the third one was, they ended up solving the problem. And we followed up with them like six six months later, and we said, so. You know what happened? They go, Well, first of all, it's no l we solved the problem.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: And we sent seven ideas out of this three hour meeting to our patent attorneys because they were so good, they're being patented now

Chris Lee: Uh-huh.

Jordan DeGree: to help us continue to not only solve this problem but create new

Chris Lee: Nice. Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: opportunities. And we're like, Okay, so like, you know, the the thousand bucks we charge you was probably well worth it then. And they're like, my god. So

Chris Lee: Right, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: But you

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: know, framing the challenge appropriately created this, they'd been asking this same question, how do we solve this problem? In the

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: one way, and they weren't getting the answers that worked, but they kept getting the same answers. So by looking at the question and saying, How do we solve the problem from this lens, from this lens, or from this lens, ultimately allowed them to make progress toward a result that they felt really good about.

Chris Lee: Yeah. So when you say we worked with this company, obviously you're you're not referring to your role with with INA. What so what was this or is this other role that you you fill that you know, does ideas and and better meeting structures.

Jordan DeGree: If we want to go down this rabbit hole, Chris. This if if people really want like to feel like, my god, what an idiot. You can just listen to

Chris Lee: Yeah, it would.

Jordan DeGree: all the stuff that I do in my life. so so so

Chris Lee: well we're gonna we're gonna get into some of this.

Jordan DeGree: that that was through a nonprofit organization called Idea Bright,

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: that I founded way back in 2008 that has been go has been going now for 18 years. I've got a great team at Idea Bright, and IdeaBright is a nonprofit that really exists to help foster creativity and innovation in order to help people and communities thrive. And so aligned in some ways with the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance. But what's interesting about IdeaBrite is that it can pick and and work on problems, and it's not limited to kind of a certain type of problem. So IdeaBright. right now is working on three main issues. One is how do we foster creativity and innovation through informal play among kids and adults. And so one of the things that IdeaBright has launched and and this is actually our longest running initiative, is a creative play center and adult art studio space in downtown Dubuque. And we're we have regular hours, we host field trips, we host parties and groups, but every activity within the Creative Play Center is built on best practice research for how people and kids specifically, how how we strengthen, build and strengthen our creativity and innovation skills through

Chris Lee: Mm. Okay.

Jordan DeGree: play-based activities. And so we have a very specific set of criteria that we use when we're designing activities in order to research says is how you can best most effectively foster those skills. And so that's one thing that Idea Bright does. We also have a co-working space in Dubuque. This is a way that we foster creativity and innovation among adults in their lives, right? And so helping adults who are remote workers or entrepreneurs have a high quality space and a community of people and a set of support services That help them kind of like launch and grow whatever idea or initiative they're working on. and then the third thing that we do is we have a nationwide network called the Rural Ideas Network. And this is a network that supports rural innovators across the country. And so we work in partnership. you know, it's a member based thing, obviously, as a network. we have free memberships, we have paid memberships, they give you access to different levels of support and services. But we we have individuals that sign up as members, but we also partner with economic development groups and communities and nonprofits where they become a community partner. And then everyone in their community can receive our paid membership level at no cost. And so we have thousands of members across the country. We work with a bunch of different types of groups. We have a partner in Ohio. They cover a six Six state region. They're a community action agency. We have small rural economic development offices that we partner with. We have nonprofits that are doing co-working spaces, or are you know we have partners in North Dakota and New Mexico and California and Illinois and Iowa, Wisconsin, all over board. But

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: again, like the Iowa Nonprofit Alliance, it's it's a network that's geared toward helping people and ideas. and innovation flow across rural communities faster and more efficiently. and most importantly, it's a place where people who are living in rural communities who have big ideas, big dreams, big visions for how they can launch a business or make their community better or start an a volunteering initiative or a conservation group, they can find like minded, innovative people in the Rural Ideas Network. Cause sometimes In our small communities, unfortunately, when you have a big idea or a wild vision, sometimes it can be lonely. And and

Chris Lee: Yeah yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and if you can find other people that are like, yeah, do it. It's awesome. I did they did it over here. You should like learn

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: from them and then make it your own and do your own version of it.

Chris Lee: Mm.

Jordan DeGree: that kind of momentum can really propel ideas from just remaining ideas or be the difference to how an idea actually becomes. something that's creating value in a community or in someone's life. And so we do that. I also have I'll just go through the list. How about that? I have

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: I have a coffee shop I own where I'm kind of doing some experiments and how to bring people into entrepreneurship through the coffee shop. So moving people from thinking like an employee to thinking like a business owner and then through the coffee shop they can earn some equity and become a business owner, which is cool. I have You said a seven million dollar portfolio of property. It's actually eleven million dollars now. we just added a two hundred acre bed and breakfast. It's it's little couples cottages. they we do a seven course gourmet dinner one night during your stay. You get gourmet breakfastes breakfast delivered to your your cottage door every morning. so I really love hospitality. So most of my most of my property portfolio is hospitality related, whether it's you know, Airbnbs or bed and breakfasts, that type of thing. and I think it comes back to why I show up where I show up, you know, in the nonprofit world, but also in the for profit world. And it's it's to create experiences for people that help them experience life in a richer, more fuller way. maybe help them stretch their boundaries a little bit, stretch what they think they're capable of. That's why I teach art classes. We do stained glass and and pottery classes. I've I I teach both of those. We have other instructors too. but I love the look on someone's face when they show up for their first class and they've never done it before and they're not sure if they're gonna be able to, but something in their life has like made them feel like they need to step out and take this this risk. And

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: then by the end of the five or six weeks, whatever class it is, Or even sometimes a one-day workshop, you can see in their face that they now see themselves and what they're capable of just a little differently. And they're

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: they have a broader experience now in life. And I think that's what life's all about. So I'm I'm always trying to like, no matter what I'm doing, for profit, nonprofit, even with my kids, right? Like the the the dad conversations that I have with my kids. It's all about helping people see that. where they think their limits are, probably aren't really where their limits are. And and if they take small, sometimes big risks that are that to stretch those limits, a lot of times, maybe not the first time, maybe not the second time, but if you keep trying, eventually you'll see that your limits can stretch and can become much larger than what you think.

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: So that's that's me in a nutshell. That's why I do everything that I do, which is probably too much if you ask my wife it's too much stuff, but I love it all and I couldn't b yeah, I couldn't imagine not doing any of it.

Chris Lee: Yeah. And w wives tend to say that. Yeah. So I I I want to I wanna dig into that a little bit. First off, I I I I'm dying to find out. Have you ever done the working genius assessment? No. Okay.

Jordan DeGree: Janus, so just I I need the worker assessment.

Chris Lee: No. So so the the working working genius is was popularized by Patrick Lintoni. He's a a big organizational management guy. And he figured out this this system basically, he calls it working genius, and it defines what parts of work give you energy. And so it goes from having the big idea, you know, what what problems Do we solve or is there better way of doing this? All the way down to getting it done, checking the box, getting the checklist completed, and then everything in between. I would love for you to take that assessment I I'm betting I could guess what your results are going to be, but I'll I'll withhold that until maybe I see your results. But anyway, working genius.com, you can always go and do that. But so what I'm what I'm hearing in in this talk is is two major themes is you live in the world of of ideas, but not just your own. You you have this this what appears to be this innate need to unlock ideas within other people. So like you have all these ventures. So you you said you you've got this coffee shop, but you didn't you didn't say anything about the coffee. The coffee shop was a means to bring people in, to share ideas, to be together. You've got this co-working space, which you didn't say anything about any of the business and members or anything about Who actually works in that co-working space, you talked about this is a space for people to come in to bring their ideas to life, to explore their entrepreneurial dreams, to, I mean, that's and that's the root of entrepreneurship, right? Is you've got this idea, you're going to turn it into reality via some sort of business. Even earlier in this conversation, we were talking about meetings, and you're talking about giving people an opportunity to take two minutes of quiet, write their ideas down on post-it notes, and then share them with the group so that. The quiet people have a voice in this discussion, and that the leader in the room doesn't just dominate the conversation and then everybody be like, well, the leader said that's what the idea is going to be. So that's obviously the one we should go with. And, you know, we could explore that all we wanted to. But it's it's this underlying theme of of how do you create psychological safety? How do you create safe places for people's ideas to come to life? And I find that absolutely fascinating. And you do it like if you go. Listener, if you go to JordanDegree dot com on his website, he has nine tiles on here of his various ventures. So keynotes and events. you're the director of the non-nonprofit alliance, this rural ideas network, which you talked about, Degree Royal, that's that bear bed and breakfast that you talked about on 200 acres, I'm guessing. the Creative Adventure Lab, the Coffee Lab, the Innovation Lab, a a a business redevelopment area. It says right here, a 42,000 square foot redevelopment geared towards helping new ventures launch and grow and debuke, bringing ideas to life through people. And then studio art. You didn't you said it was stained glass and and pottery, but you didn't get into any of the details of the actual art. You said this is a place for people to come and they're, you know, they don't really see themselves as artists, and then at the end their ideas have come to life. And I I find that Fascinating and clear you have absolute just pure energy for it. And I I I love it. So I'm curious how I I'm curious about a lot of things. One, how do you find enough time to sleep at night doing all these different things? But two, when did you discover that this was your wiring? And when when and how did you did you just like grab a hold of that? And maybe this is a subject for another podcast we could dig into it. But I'm just I'm curious because so many people they don't have this. Like like they're not doing the thing that just absolutely brings them to life. And here you are doing like nine of them.

Jordan DeGree: gonna be really embarrassing Chris. I think I just realized it as you were saying it. so thank you. I've just you know I

Chris Lee: You're what you're welcome, I guess.

Jordan DeGree: I think everything that I do I'm trying to think about if this is actually true. And I think it is. So I'm saying it in the moment. I I believe

Chris Lee: Okay.

Jordan DeGree: it's true. Everything that I do If you're an investor of mine, don't listen to this part. I kind of stumble into it. it isn't always with this grand plan of, in 10 years I'm gonna be doing X, Y, and Z. And everything like leads up to that. And I think that for me, it is because I really enjoy looking at the landscape. What are the opportunities? What is compelling to me, and how do I leverage my talent or the talents of those around me, whether it's my team or my family or my community or the board of directors or whatever it may be, how do I leverage the talent around me to help maximize that opportunity. But like you said, and and a big theme in my life is you know, and this is why I work in nonprofit, but even in my for profit, is the idea of people over profits and purpose

Chris Lee: Hm. Yep.

Jordan DeGree: over profit. Versus you know, not that profit's not important. You you always have to have financial sustainability to have

Chris Lee: We gotta pay the bills. Sure, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: things continue on and and create long-term impact or value. but one of the ways that I think is is really important for me to get there, financial success and sustainability, is by helping the people involved with it have really amazing experiences. And whether that's volunteers, board members, employees, colleagues, or clients, right? A

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jordan DeGree: lot of businesses think about the client first and and they're important, but they're not the only people involved in the thing. And so if you can really like get the thing going where every person involved is creating an amazing having an amazing experience or or at least feeling fueled by it or learning from it or expanding who they are and their sense of self from it, then I think, you know, we we've been talking about culture. Then I think you have this culture that is is a fueling culture, not not a burning up culture, not a reduction culture. And when you can create and be involved in cultures like that, and like you said, I've got nine project tiles, things that I'm currently working on on that website, and they all they all for the most part are that. Right. There are these fueling cultures where I can see the impact. I'm at the summit. I can look out and see the the cool thing. Or at least I'm, you know, I I know where the summit is and I know where I'm trying to get to. And so all the little steps to get there are useful. and and contributing to that overall impact. And I can see that. And so for me, again, like I said, there's some things I don't like to do, end of the month, closing kind of stuff. But

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: The s the fact that I can for the most part spend my days working on a variety of different things that range across a variety of different topics, but do it in a way that Creates value, monetary value, sure, but culture value and outcome and

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: impact value, absolutely. That to me is is what gets me through the day and and why I can stay, even in this late stage of my life, why I can stay enthusiastic

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: and energetic. It's it's because the work I do is so rewarding and so impactful and and energizing that by going to work for the most part, I come home more energized than when I went in. And and I think for a lot of people that's not the case, and that's unfortunate, but I came to that because I was willing to take those small risks myself and move toward what I was passionate about and where I saw opportunity. I changed four my major four times in college because I I was interested in a lot of things and I couldn't picture myself just doing one thing for the rest of my career. And so ultimately I ended up choosing English education because I like working with kids. I like telling and and hearing stories and I like the way that those things can combine to create value. And so I also knew I could get a job anywhere in the world. teaching English. I knew that I could substitute if I couldn't find a job. And so it was like

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: total job security, but also flexibility. I knew I'd have three months off probably every summer to like pursue other things. I got a job

Chris Lee: Right.

Jordan DeGree: at this really amazing school, public school in Chicago, downtown Chicago on the south side. totally opened up my eyes to what education can and should be. It's it was a totally different model than your traditional high school. The district decided they were going to close it. They offered to transfer me to a traditional high school. And that was a big moment in my life, Chris, because the safe route would have been, yep, I'm gonna go do that because

Chris Lee: Yeah, take the transfer. Absolutely.

Jordan DeGree: you know, I've got school dead, I've got, I'm gonna go there and continue to make money and do the career thing. But instead,

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: I decided, no. I had taken this pottery class at a neighborhood pottery studio and was like, that's awesome. I wanna do some stuff like that. And you know what? If I move

Chris Lee: Yeah.

Jordan DeGree: into my parents' basement if I move back to Dubuque and live in my parents' basement and take this little bit of money that I've been able to save and buy some pottery wheels and rent space in a warehouse, I could probably do that. And so I did. And that was like that was the first risk I risk I took, like

Chris Lee: Of course you did.

Jordan DeGree: entrepreneurially, and it worked. And so that

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: was just like, you know, I mean it kinda worked. It wasn't like I mean I still had to

Chris Lee: Yeah. It

Jordan DeGree: do a part-time teaching job and I was living in my parents' basement, you know, not ideal

Chris Lee: it worked it worked well enough to get you by to the next thing. Right, yeah.

Jordan DeGree: for a 26 year old. But but it worked and and that kind of just was the eye opener for me that wait, I can define my own existence and what it means to do work and be productive and have impact. And I haven't looked back. It's just it's amplified from there. And so now it's like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. Whatever it is.

Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah. So it again it comes back to that theme of of chasing and unlocking ideas. and and and doing it through people. you you said a couple of times, you know, the the end of the month drudgery work of, you know, entering the receipts. I'm I'm with you on that. So that's and going back to working genius, that's that tenacity work. I have a stack of receipts that, you know, I'm supposed to enter into my spreadsheet for my my LLC that I do through this podcast and everything. And I it it's just not bad. I did read a thing the other day though that there is AI systems that will just read your receipts and build the spreadsheet for you. You can bet that I'm just going to outsource that here very very, very soon. But that's that tenacity work. And, you know, and I like and this is why I like doing the podcast here is because it gets me to share in ideas. You know, my working genius is is wonder and invention. So I I love asking the big questions, which is, you know, hence those big questions I was asking you at the start of this, and then just living in this world of ideas. And and and so I'm guessing the idea thing is is definitely one of the things that energize you, and that's what working genius is all about, is like what is it that gives you energy? And I just I I love that you carved a pathway for you to just pursue that energy because so many people don't do that. And I I really wish for the betterment of the world that more people would, that they would, they would see that they would understand this concept that that we are all of us are wired in certain ways. There are people out there that would absolutely love taking all of your receipts and entering them into a ledger and making all the numbers work out. Like like there's a reason we have CPAs because they love that type of stuff. Right. And so But that's you know, I couldn't imagine you could not pay me enough to to do that. But there are some people that just absolutely love it and they're just they're wired that way. And I just I would love it if more people would take the time to understand their innate wirings and then build life around that rather than just building life around whatever somebody told them to do and you know, like, well, I'll just I'll just drudge this out until I hit retirement and then I'll go do what I want. Or, you know, and and so it just but anyway, that's a side thing. All right, I want to close this out. One last question for you. If you could leave a message for leaders, specifically in the parks and conservation world, but really leaders in general. could be say a big billboard that everybody would see or just a one message that comes across their not their LinkedIn feed 'cause you're not on LinkedIn, but you get the idea. Like just one message that could reach out to all the leaders out there. What would it be?

Jordan DeGree: Like, I think if this is gonna be the one that I think would make the world a better place, like

Chris Lee: Right. I like that.

Jordan DeGree: right away. and it comes back to something we talked about earlier in this episode. I think that if I could send a message to leaders, and if they had to do it, this would be even better. it would be take an hour. And think about how you can structure your next meeting a little differently to make it a better

Chris Lee: Mm-hmm.

Jordan DeGree: meeting and to focus on the relationships of the people in the room before you focus on the challenge or the problem that you're trying to solve. That would be it.

Chris Lee: That's good. That's good. Yeah. you're talking my language there. Bet better meetings. That I I'm gonna have to build a webinar around that. Maybe I'll I'll I'll invite you to it and we can we can geek out about that stuff. That's a good one. You're right. I mean, better meetings, better life for everyone, but that focus on on relationship building before just task management, that that could be immensely powerful in so many ways. Jordan, I I appreciate this talk. If someone wanted to find out more about you, or learn about what you're up to or get in touch with you, where would they go?

Jordan DeGree: Everything we talked about today and more and it's a great place to start. if anything any of the different ventures that I have sparked your interest or you just wanna reach out, that's

Chris Lee: All right. Yeah. That's Jordan Degree.com, J O R D A N D E G R E E E. D D good Lord. It'll be in the show notes. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. Everybody can find it there. well, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time. There are so many different things I would love to continue to talk about, but in the interest of your time, I'll I'll wind this up. So everybody listening, thank you for what you do. We'll talk to you again soon. Take care. Wait, wait, wait. Don't go yet. Don't start that next episode. I've got something for you. The Parks and Restoration Better Meetings Field Guide. See, most meetings just suck. And I'm going to wage war on crappy meetings. Go to parksandrestoration.com, enter your email into the next level leadership community mailing list, and you'll get access to the free PDF download, which is the Better Meetings field guide. It will walk you through what meetings to get rid of, how to make the standing meetings better, and just all around get things done and not just sit there twiddling your thumbs and wondering why. Did I get myself into this? The Better Meetings Field Guide from Parks and Restoration. Go to parksandrestoration.com, join the next level leadership community, get the download. See you at the next episode. Take care.