If You're Not Living on the Edge, You're Taking Up Too Much Space: Leadership Lessons (not politics) with Commissioner Justin Douglas
Dauphin County Commissioner Justin Douglas shares his journey from pastor to public servant, revealing how his diverse experiences across five states shaped his approach to leadership. With remarkable candor, Justin discusses his most challenging leadership moment—when he lost his pastoral position, church resources, and livelihood for standing up for LGBT inclusion. Now as a commissioner overseeing a county prison system in need of reform, Justin demonstrates how expanding our definition of "belonging" to include all stakeholders leads to better outcomes. He offers a refreshing perspective on political leadership, focusing on incremental progress, bipartisan collaboration, and viewing public service through a lens of relationship-building rather than partisan identity.
Justin shares stories that highlight the following key take-aways:
Fight for what you believe in, even when it costs you.
The best solutions emerge when everyone belongs at the table.
Reject the zero-sum approach to governance.
Learn when to compromise without abandoning principles. J
Hustle should be a season, not a lifestyle.
"I think we need fighters, not fighters against, but fighters for—in a way that you're willing to sacrifice something, not in the way that you're willing to be against somebody." ~Justin Douglas
Justin Douglas BIO:
Justin Douglas serves as County Commissioner for Dauphin County, PA, bringing over 20 years of non-profit leadership experience to public service. He gained national recognition when introducing President Biden at the launch of his 2024 campaign in Valley Forge. As Founder of The Belong Collective, Justin focuses on creating spaces of belonging and acceptance, working to bridge societal gaps across communities. His diverse background includes serving as a Lead Pastor and CrossFit coach, reflecting his holistic approach to community building. A published author of "Gratitude Devotional for Men," Justin balances his professional commitments with family life as a husband and father of three.
Elected in 2023, Commissioner Justin Douglas lives in Conewago Township with his wife and three children and is honored to serve the residents of Dauphin County. Current initiatives include prison reform, transparency, improved pay for county employees, and reimagining how county systems can better serve the community. He has a long history of advocating for underserved and overlooked communities- his experience is proving valuable in overseeing the County departments under his jurisdiction and beyond.
For more info on Justin:
@commishdouglas (Instagram)
The following is an AI transcript (expect errors).
Welcome to the guest today is County Commissioner Justin Douglas of Dauphin County, who is also my father, three, author, crossfitter, and former lead pastor is my good fortune to know you, Justin.
@26:48 - Justin Douglas
And I'm so glad to have you today. Justin, thank you so much for having me on. I really look forward to this conversation.
@26:54 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Oh, great. tell me, Justin, you have been all over the country. I think you've lived in five states. if I counted correctly, I can count that high.
And your career spanned some non-profit advocacy work, you know, variety of things. Did you always think you'd end up in politics and in public service here, or is this sort of by accident?
@27:16 - Justin Douglas
No, this is very much, I don't know if it's accident, divine providence, or just me stumbling into an opportunity to when someone said I should walk through a door.
Yeah, I mean, you referenced living in multiple states. I was born in Palm Springs, California, where my mom is from, lived there until I was eight when I'm the oldest of five.
got very expensive to live in the trailer park we lived in in Palm Springs. And my dad was from Indiana, so we moved to Indiana, grew up on a farm in Indiana.
always say my parents did the reverse hillbillies going from Palm Springs to the farm in Indiana. you know, those are two very different experiences, right?
Palm Springs to Indiana. then I went to school, I remember Virginia and then worked in Northern Virginia for a little bit and then lived in Boston for a while doing community organizing there and then took a church in Wisconsin in a very rural part of Wisconsin and then just about 10 years ago came here to Dauphin County to be a pastor at a church and yeah I lived in so many different contexts which I actually think has allowed me to serve this particular county so I'm not going to assume all your listeners know Dauphin County or even know Pennsylvania Dauphin County is where Hershey, Pennsylvania is and it's also where Harrisburg is so we have you know the capital of chocolate and we also have to stay in our county but what's unique about our county is we have you know an urban environment in Harrisburg we have suburban environment in Hershey and other places throughout the county but we also have a large rural context I've lived in each of those
context throughout my life in different states and and it's positioned me in a way to kind of understand the mindset of different constituents and when I got the opportunity to run for this office I was actually cold called by an organization that named run for something that you know said hey we think you'd be good for a county commissioner and it's not something I'd considered but I'd done a lot of advocacy work at the intersection of criminal justice and you know I now have oversight of the Dauphin County Prison which has been an opportunity outside of the public defender's office and outside of the district attorney and oversight of the courts and so this allows me to really have a seat at the table when we're making decisions about our criminal justice which is something very passionate about and so yeah the opportunity presented itself we've all probably been at that place of fear and trembling when someone says they think we're equipped for something but we say uh I don't know I think we all have that imposter syndrome in us a little bit of like I'm already an imposter at what I'm doing and you're asking me to do it.
more. But you know, I think I've lived my life taking a lot of risks. I always say if you're if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
I like that one. So, you know, stepped out on the edge. And then, you know, on the night of the election, I was ahead by 42 votes and one by 184 to secure the seat that I've been sitting in for just a little over a year.
So that's a little bit of my background, a little bit of, you know, where I am now, but ultimately blessed and grateful for the trust that Alpin County voters put in me to put me in the seat and trying to leverage it for community good.
@30:38 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, wow, I love your you're living on the edge saying I had a mentor once like, you know, if you're not at least a little bit nervous about what you're doing, you're not doing enough, you're not dreaming big enough.
That seems to be from a very probably secure and predictable. old job, for lack of a better term, in the pastoral care, right, and then campaigning and moving into this very, you know, high profile and responsible role with the prisons and the district attorney and, you know, these other pretty significant areas underneath you.
@31:21 - Justin Douglas
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think maybe even some added context is helpful because in 2018, I was pastoring a church that was growing and had a campus launched in 2017 in the Midtown, Harrisburg area, and we were continuing to grow.
We were seeing, you know, continued influence, especially in the LGBT community, and it was just a passion of ours to see this community that was so often excluded from religion.
@31:53 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Absolutely.
@31:54 - Justin Douglas
To be included in our context. As you can imagine, that frustrated some people, and ultimately it led to, you know, a year and a half kind of challenge, if you will, just back and forth, kind of challenging with our denomination, which led to me at the end of that, my license being revoked for my commitment, LGBT people.
And that was probably the most challenging time in my life, like leadership wise. also just like caring for my family, like, so I went from a pretty secure salary, multiple staff members to, know, every Sunday morning, I was preaching two to three times at our main campus.
then one time in the evening at our midtown campus, it was quite an operation we had going. We went from all of that to, from one Sunday to the next, we no longer had any property, we no longer had any bank accounts, we no longer had any equipment, we no longer had any salary to pay our staff.
And I was living in a person who needed to find a different place to live. It was pretty brutal, if you've ever.
and just like, you know, got punched. That's what it was. And now, thankfully, you know, 97% of the people from that community immediately were committed to forming a new community.
And, you know, I was blessed to be entrusted to plant that and care for that and ultimately grow that.
But that was very challenging going from the amount of resources we had built up to having nothing and having to kind of pick out of the nest and build our wings on the way down, you know.
And then that happened in summer of 2019. The moment we got a little bit of like, okay, we're figuring this out, it's starting to come together our very first Sunday in our new venue was the Sunday that everything shut down.
@33:50 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
How was it? 2019 something's going.
@33:53 - Justin Douglas
So, when you say stability, what I would, want people to know is like, so during that time, I was try vocation.
I was crossfit coaching and personal training athletes. was uber driven. And I was an investor was receiving, you know, a small portion of what I was getting.
And so like my previous at my previous post before the rug was pulled out. Yeah. So yeah, and basically, even as and it was really a challenging time of sustainability.
so I've actually seen this job with all of its challenges in my competencies, right? I'm not necessarily confident with what the district attorney's life is like, or a public defender's life is like, or you know, a correction officers life is like a reward, right?
I'm having to learn about all of that. But there is a certain sense of steadiness now of working one job, as opposed to juggling the three.
and the ability to provide for my family that's a little more secure.
@35:03 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
so, so that's the trade offs of leadership at times.
@35:06 - Justin Douglas
you know, those people who are listening to your podcast, who are at startup type businesses that are leveraging and risking all kinds of things for a vision that they have.
And then there's people that are at more of a, you know, secure, stable position.
@35:19 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
And I think we lead in different places in those times.
@35:21 - Justin Douglas
those times typically find us more than we find them. And that's been my experience.
@35:27 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah. And we really rely on different muscles in those different times, right? We're building to take a page out of your fitness background, but we're we're building different muscles during those different contexts and experiences.
And then we can draw upon, you know, the foundation when we move into those different chapters in our career.
@35:47 - Justin Douglas
So, I liken it to this just a real quick, real quick. So in CrossFit, as I'm a CrossFit coach, I'll bring this up because, you know, if you do CrossFit, you have to talk about it.
@35:56 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
It's one of the rules. I thought you didn't talk about fake button.
@36:00 - Justin Douglas
And in CrossFit, it's general fitness, it's general preparedness, like we're doing all kinds of different movements and it's general.
when I would coach athletes, you know, coached a soccer player who went on to play in college, like you want to be sport specific with that athlete, what they're going through and what they need, the strengths they need to express in order to be successful in that particular lane that they're living in as a soccer player, General fitness for them would still be okay, but it wouldn't necessarily allow them to express all of their strengths that they would be able to express on the field.
As leaders, we have to do the same thing, we have to assess the situation we're in and that sometimes we might need to have a very sport specific training for the type of leadership that we're going to need to have in this season.
And at other times, it might be, I just need a general leadership kind of track to pull me in and to lift me up and to, you know, me what I need in the season.
@36:56 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, I talk a lot about seasons and knowing what season you're in for a company. or leadership season like you're talking about because you need to recruit different strengths, skills, activities, and know what to sort of put aside.
know, everything isn't important in every single season and you will drive yourself crazy. Yeah, excellent. So during that period of time, that 2019 to 2020, you know, that was one heck of a hustle for you, those three different roles you were playing at, you've still had your family during that time, of course.
What's something that you pull from that time that is useful for you now during this season of leadership in this role?
@37:41 - Justin Douglas
Fight for what you believe in.
@37:43 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah.
@37:44 - Justin Douglas
I knew when I fought for a community of people that traditionally don't belong in that context that I was taking risk.
And you know, I tell my kids do the right thing even when it's hard and it pays off in the end.
And even in the midst of the challenges that that presented, I just continue to live by that principle, that I'm doing the right thing, and it's hard.
And doing the right thing is not always easy. Actually, it often isn't easy. So I just continue to live by that principle and continue to say that the fight that is, I have to drive Uber till 2 AM tonight to make money.
That fight is part of this broader thing that I'm committed to. And while I could settle, I don't think I could live with myself on that side.
So I think you have to know kind of where your values and principles lie on some of those things.
I'm built differently than other people. I don't think everybody would have taken the same stand I took, and I have friends that I deeply admire who haven't taken that stand.
And I don't, I don't begrudge them. for that. I think we're all built differently. We all have different personalities and we all have different strengths and abilities we bring to the table.
While a people might look at me like, oh, that's so noble that you did that. But that doesn't come without costs, right?
And there's other people who recognize that there's other things they need to balance that, you know, and that wait for them is, you know, keeping a community open that serves so many people or, you know, other things.
so for me, I look at that season and I just look at it as emblematic of kind of the fighter I am.
I don't always want to bring boxes and gloves to everything I do in that sense, but I do think we need fighters and not fighters in fighters for even building coalitions to serve people.
Like it's not about fighting in a negative sense. I think it's about fighting for people in a way that you're willing to sacrifice something, not in the way that you're willing to be somebody.
but in the way that you're willing to do something.
@40:03 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I'm not here to be against, but I'm here to be for.
@40:06 - Justin Douglas
Yeah, but the passion is not just kind of like, I'm here, I guess I'm for this, like, for it with like, Rousal, that's, that's where I'm from that season.
And that's, think, what shaped me in, in this work, it's, you know, it's so easy to be jaded and it's so easy to fall into kind of the status quo politician, you know, a public servant.
And I think for me, I look back on that season as a reminder that like you've already stood up for your values and then the only one in the room doing it before.
And a lot of people followed you when you did that. And some of these people in this room that are against you right now, if you passionately share the perspective, you might be surprised at who becomes a follower.
And not necessarily follow me, but follow a direction that is good.
@40:58 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
The idea, right.
@41:00 - Justin Douglas
yeah. that's been helpful for me. Also having to learn, you know, the challenge of this job is learning when to conceive, when to take the field goal when you want to touch down.
Those are challenging times. prefer to throw the helmet area, I think, but you got to make those choices sometimes of compromise and I'm learning that lesson.
Now that's a lesson I'm learning.
@41:20 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
And that's something I think from the outside is hard for people to understand.
@41:25 - Justin Douglas
Very much.
@41:26 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Would you share or would you agree that's really something you learn when you get on the inside of your opposition like that?
@41:32 - Justin Douglas
Sure. So, I mean, I don't want to make this about politics. We all know Republicans and Democrats, right?
@41:39 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I'm just going to be honest. a Democrat.
@41:41 - Justin Douglas
When I came into office, we looked at the county to two Democrat commissioners for the first time, believe since the Civil War.
So it gives you a kind of understanding, you know, I'm stepping into a very Republican context. But one thing that's great is I have a lot of Republican colleagues that are either row officers or even my fellow Republican commissioners who have
join me on votes, even when me and the other Democratic college have been split. And it's just me championing something.
But you know, so I believe in working with everybody and bringing everybody, you know, into the opportunity to make decisions, not just, you know, cocking with your team.
I think that team sport idea of politics has caused a lot of harm, especially around good ideas that we can get behind and don't need to become partisan ideas.
But the thing I will say, is part of that learning is learning when to say, we can't this everything I want it to be right now.
I know where the finish line on this policy, on this funding, on this thing we need is, and we are so far from it.
And I know for a fact, I don't have the votes to get us there like a light switch. But I need to think of my role as making the room writer as opposed
turning lights on. So that's kind of the way I think about it. And you know, sometimes I mentally have to think, okay, we made the room 10% brighter.
It's not the lights are not on. This is not everything we needed. But it's brighter than it was before we got involved.
And, you know, the challenging piece that you bring up though is the public doesn't always see it that way.
Sometimes the public is a zero sum game. It's a better have done it all or none of it matters.
And, you know, some of those people, I think, are just so hurt from the way the system has failed in so many ways.
I think empathy is a way to lead into that. And then other times, you know, you've just got to recognize that part of being in the public and part of being a leader is that people are going to criticize you.
know, how you handle that, especially in this seat. I think that can determine whether successful or not. And, you know, try to listen to your critics, but it's
the same time, you have to know in a county of,000 residents, not everybody's going to like Justin Douglas and some people are going to be frustrated by decision-making, right?
I want to listen to those people, I want to try to understand those people, but I also don't want that one comment on the Facebook thread to round out all the people that's something I champion helped.
And so that's kind of how I approach it.
@44:24 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I love the analogy of making the room brighter and am I at least making it 10% brighter, 10% brighter.
And if you can last, right, so the resilience piece of this, right, you're there to continue to make it brighter versus the zero sum game mindset.
think that's really smart and how you're thinking about that. You talk a lot about belonging and bridging societal gaps and things like that.
That's been important to you, obviously, with your pastoral career and nonprofit work. How does that show up today in this work and for you at the work
place.
@45:03 - Justin Douglas
Here's an example. Look, our prison in Dolphin County is a real challenge. That's one of the worst prisons in Pennsylvania, maybe even in the nation.
We've had a number of deaths in our prison and we're doing everything we can to make it better. And when I was out on the campaign trail, I'll talk about a failure in a sense, but kind of how, you know, I've learned to include and to see the belonging of a group that I didn't always see or understand.
I talked a lot about inmates. I talked a lot about our inmates in Dolphin County Prison and the justices served and the fact that even a sentence at Dolphin County Prison or being held pretrial, meaning you're innocent until proven guilty, should not be a death sentence, no matter what, right?
You should get adequate care, adequate care. the provisions, adequate food, and even adequate reentry resources as you reenter society because ultimately I think what we all want our justices to do is make our community safer.
And we know that when people are educated and when people get opportunity while they're incarcerated, they enter our society for the better.
So I talked a lot about inmates. Having been in this job now, I realized the ecosystem that is often county prison can only be made better when the people who call that place that live in that place every day, right?
And the people who work in that place every day are cared for. Our perspectives are both included in the matter.
The one thing I became educated on, the average lifespan for a correctional officer is 59 years old across our country.
@46:50 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Oh my.
@46:51 - Justin Douglas
No one should work in a career that takes years off their life, let alone entirely rid them of retired life, right?
That is... It's a crazy statistic, it's likely related to the consistent demands for overtime because when you're staffing, but also the PTSD and the trauma of having to consistently walk around with your head on a swivel, consistently see things that you can't unseat, right?
We need better care for our correction officers, need better resources for our correction officers, we need better pay for our correction officers.
So much of this, less demands on overtime, all of these things are things that I think are, when I think of belonging, know, lot of people, I could talk about the fact that the county celebrated pride for the first time.
I can talk about the fact that we got a committee of community members and most people when they think belonging, that's a kind of think, and I'm proud of those things.
I also think belonging is about saying we have a whole population of our staff that been at the far back line, and like, how do we see that?
needs being met actually make everyone better. The needs of inmates being met makes CEOs lives better. The needs of CEOs being, needs being met make inmates lives better.
And that's what belonging is. Belonging is trying to expand your view admitting that maybe you excluding people from the table or excluded people from your conscious, conscious as you are thinking of how we could solve a problem and ensuring that you take a moment to center their perspective on how to solve problems.
so it's something I'm committed to because I've just seen the value and I've seen that when you do that it actually works.
You get to solutions faster.
@48:40 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
That's a real powerful story.
@48:43 - Justin Douglas
Yeah. lot of them here in the county I mean we've got so many different services. got 40 departments, you know, and each one of them have stories like that where we can and are, you know, tent if you will, and sure perspective.
are, you know, brought into the scope of what we're considering when we're making changes.
@49:05 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, well, there's a pretty, pretty popular business adage that, you know, my number one priority is not my client, it's my staff, right?
Or my employee, because when I take care of my employee and my staff, they will take care of my client.
And I think that's what I hear from your story with the prison, right? We're focused on the inmate and yes, we want the outcomes to improve for the inmate, but the actions in which to get that result, we need to shift or broaden that focus, what are you saying is to include those correction officers in the focus.
@49:45 - Justin Douglas
Definitely from the advocate side, which is the best.
@49:48 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, yeah.
@49:49 - Justin Douglas
I always and only saw the lens at the end.
@49:52 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yes.
@49:53 - Justin Douglas
Yeah. I'm seeing the lens of the correction officer, right? see it as a both and I don't see this.
@50:00 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Mm hmm.
@50:00 - Justin Douglas
But I don't see, you know, I think both of them being, you have an opportunity to have their perspective centered and finding a way in which you serve both of those populations and better the last of both of those populations, you see such better results.
@50:16 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah. I mean, it's a customer service issue, right?
@50:19 - Justin Douglas
mean, the airlines have this issue, right?
@50:21 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Any large company that serves a client population, you know, the airline wants happy passengers, will they get that through, you know, happy staff that's well taken care of, not working a lot over time.
@50:35 - Justin Douglas
You know, they don't want crash plans either, right? Same kind of concept. Most of the county government I've learned is customer service, like we get constituent concerns regularly.
Our office gets back to every constituent that reaches out to us. When we decided, when we to that, we realized how big of a heavy lift that was.
And most people, when they're finally reaching out to my office, they're
@51:00 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
They've tried a few times.
@51:01 - Justin Douglas
They've tried couple of things, they've tried going other places, and they're usually kind of like, I'm calling rank, taking this to the commissioner because this thing isn't getting done.
Look, that's the challenge of any public service, whether you're in the private sector and you're serving your clients, whether you're a nonprofit world and you're carrying for a vision admission that is serving people, we are as good as leaders, as we are at what I call self-sacrificial service, like the ability to sacrifice ourselves for the service of the population that we feel called to lead.
That's one of the best leaders is what I've, that's the ethic at least to which I try to live.
@51:50 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
So, as a recovering nonprofit leader, I want to pull on that thread a little bit.
@51:57 - Justin Douglas
I mean, the things later tonight. No, I said the recovery meetings later tonight.
@52:03 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, okay. So, you know, we're going to take some names and numbers later. What would your fitness coach have?
We put your fitness coach hat on, you know, for this conversation. advice do you have to that leader who is, you know, putting themselves last, right?
They are not prioritizing themselves. They are pushing themselves for their company,-profit or not. Leaders exhaust themselves, especially in that startup phase you mentioned earlier, non-profit leaders, I did it, I saw it, I demanded it, you know, I knew better, to the expense of my family, to the expense of my staff's families.
And there are better ways. So, so as of putting your fitness hat on or putting, putting on whatever hat you went on, what advice do you have?
@52:54 - Justin Douglas
Look, I mean, the best, I think, analogy that I've heard is the idea of being on the airplane. and the masks drop, and you got your kids next to you.
And are you going to put your mask on first or your kids? Your instincts are going to say, I better put my kids' masks on first, because you do anything for your kids.
You'd sacrifice for even your life for your kids in this moment. But the idea of actually putting the mask on yourself gives you the ability to actually care for them longer and actually have more sustainable care.
One of the things that's real about this work and most nonprofit work is the problems never go away. Battles you're fighting are going to be there today and tomorrow and the next day and the next 20 years from now, the next person going to be in the fight doing the work.
And I think sometimes, at least I'll just be from my own sake, but a lot of people who feel called to mission-based work that serves people, they, I don't want to say they have a savior complex in a negative way.
I would say they have this feeling of like I have to do. Like I have. I have to sacrifice even the health of myself and my family for this work because that's what it means to be called to it.
I think we have to push against that notion. I think we have to say you can be called to something and still have balance in your life.
I also think there are times in my life where hustling was the right thing to do, where burning the candle of both ends was the right thing to do.
I consciously knew I was paying for it, but what I was doing was a season doing that and then stepping away in the next season and getting that rest and rejuvenation that I needed.
I think there is a way you can acknowledge the need to hustle at times and the need to push the boundaries.
I think you have to know that your life needs to be organized in that way. When I talk to an 18-year-old who wants to get into politics and work for a senator, let's just say you want to work for
@55:00 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
or senator.
@55:00 - Justin Douglas
I know the work life balance of people who are senators, you know, you might want to wait until you're done working for a senator to get married.
You might want to think about, you know, the fact that like, as you expand your commitments outside of that senator's office, you're going to have a real tough time holding the influence that you have in that office and holding, you know, the work that's demanded of you.
And so I think understanding the role that you're in and what it demands, because certain roles demand just about everything, whether that's healthy or not.
But that's why most people who work for senators work for them for two, three, four years, and then move on to the next more sustainable thing.
And so, you know, I think of people who go to med school, I have friends that went to med school, it's one of the most unhealthy things to go to med school, which is kind of hilarious.
are these are hard doctors, right? But like the hours they have to the ways in which they have to do things, it's like, but if you want to become a doctor, you have to endure
for this very challenging thing that forces you to have this level of grit that you're probably going to need when you get into that profession.
And so, you know, boot camps, the same thing, you go through boot camps. So I think for CrossFit workout, it's like in the middle of a CrossFit workout, all you want to do is stop, like all you want to do is stop, you're selling it now.
But when it's over, when it's over, here's the thing that's interesting. When it's over, you feel a sense of accomplishment, you feel a pride and you feel a sense of like collectively we did something hard together this morning.
Like I work out early in the morning, collectively, we did something hard together this morning, and it actually makes the next hard thing I have to do easier because I'm endured something hard.
@56:43 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Do the hardest thing first, yep.
@56:45 - Justin Douglas
Yes, do the hardest thing first. And so I think, I think of that when I think of like the people who are committed to a season of doing something hard, I just think what ends up happening in the American way, the Western way is that we say, well, I'm just going
do this hard thing for the season, and that season becomes multiple seasons, multiple years, multiple decades, and multiple marriages get sacrificed.
@57:10 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
They must live in a state where there's no seasons. Yeah, well, you need to move to Pennsylvania where we have seasons, right?
actually not long ago.
@57:18 - Justin Douglas
Then you know, then you know, except for Mars. The sad thing is a pastive. I've seen people put their profession above their family, put their profession above everything, and while they might be incredibly successful in their profession, they've sacrificed on the other side.
I guess all I would say is like, that's a decision you have to make as a person, and that's also something where I know a lot of people who have failed at that and are on their second marriage and they're doing so much better and they're getting it right.
so I think if you fail that at once that you can't figure it out second try. I'm honored to be in a relationship and friendship with so many people who have had that experience and who are.
are committed to doing better and committed to finding that balance. But as a leader, that's one of the hardest things to do.
And in this work, it's one of the hardest things to do because so much of what's, I mean, I'll even just share with you right now, I just got a text before I hopped on this podcast that we have some refugees from our region that got detained by ICE that were afraid are going to be deported because the country in which they were, they came here as refugees from that they might be deported to, tried to ethnically cleanse them.
Like, so this is not a good situation. So, you know, I can get a text in a moment about them being on an airplane headed for a fate that we don't know.
And these are my residents, these are my And that's not the kind of thing that you're like, well, work starts tomorrow at 8.30.
And that text, you know what I mean? it's the kind of thing where you drop everything and you say, son, I'm gonna have to miss your game tonight.
You know, but I think it's about trying to figure out what those things are. the first year in this role, I said yes.
@59:07 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
what they're not.
@59:08 - Justin Douglas
used that one version. Yeah, and what they're not, yeah, good point. now having the experience in this role, it was really hard to discern.
So I've been able to hit the pause button more frequently as I've learned like what actually is the role.
@59:22 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, and as a new leader, you're also, you know, getting your credibility up and, you know, and you had a lot of new relationships to form and things like that.
So, you know, in your one, maybe there are a lot more yeses than there are noes for that reason.
@59:36 - Justin Douglas
But again, you only have a one year one. Right.
@59:39 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, one year one. Yeah, yeah. that moves on. Yeah, wow. So pushing back on half two and knowing that it is a season that I think I asked for you what your advice is.
I think that's what I heard through there. just, you know, make sure it's a season. We can hustle, right?
Yeah. but your whole life should not be hustle.
@1:00:03 - Justin Douglas
And have goals, have end dates. what are you hustling for? Are you just telling because of the tyranny of the urgent that's on your desk today?
@1:00:10 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Hustle towards something.
@1:00:11 - Justin Douglas
Hustle towards something. then you know you completed what you were hustling toward. so like have something that is your goals written out that keep you on task.
I have next to me here the Daily Stoic, which I try to read every day. But I also have this finishers journal that I have that has been in it different goals.
And it keeps me on task of like, know, based on like kind of the intake of like what I put on there is my goals for the next 90 days because it's a 90 day journal.
what are the steps that I'm thinking to continue to accomplish that? And then we keep what we call our GSD list, get stuff done.
What is that stuff?
@1:00:58 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
And not that clean of a pie.
@1:01:00 - Justin Douglas
You know, we have a running, know, list that I can pull up at any moment and see like, where is this in the progress so that when I do feel burnout or I feel like, you know, aimless, you know, in my leadership, I'm able to go test the time.
Did I, what I can look back at a week and be like, did I just sit in meeting after meeting?
@1:01:21 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Okay, reflection is so important because we get and get lost in the, you know, the recency of what just happened will overshadow the entire day, the entire week, the entire month.
So that's brilliant.
@1:01:34 - Justin Douglas
Definitely. And in my office, like, we get into like 20 things a day. So like, it's events happening and you should be there because you're the commissioner and like, so, you know, that, that ability to say, I have to say yes to some of these things, but over one way, you're going to say no to a lot of these things that aren't furthering the goal or accomplishing the task.
But if you never put the goal down, or you never put the tasks down the that's going to take to accomplish the goal.
You're probably going to be aimless. You're probably going to feel like you're hustling a lot. You're probably not trying to go nowhere.
@1:02:08 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, I say you're going to be busy, but not achieving anything and busy in action are two different things.
@1:02:14 - Justin Douglas
Yeah.
@1:02:15 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
so having those priorities, writing them down, reviewing them, and then looking back to see how far you've come. My last question, where Justin, are you still growing and learning as a leader?
Since we never arrive at this thing in relationship.
@1:02:33 - Justin Douglas
Everywhere. But I would say, well, here's what I would say. would say whenever you jump from one, we'll just use the word industry.
Even though you know, people is something I've done, I think my whole life, most of my career is being in organizations that serve people.
even in fitness, you serve a class, you serve your client's talent. I've always just connected with that concept of like I'm here to serve.
of people. So that is an easy concept for this seat because that's such a part of this. But also part of this is that you have 1,600 employees across the county.
we have directors that come to me for advice or that come to me for guidance about something that I'm not an expert in their particular department or what they do.
And so I think for me, it's just like this full of like growing and competency in different areas that I have oversight in, and that I have passion in continuing to kind of dig deeper into those spaces.
That's something that I'm learning. The other thing I'm learning, or at least I think I'm in the very like infancy stages of starting to plant some seeds of things I want to do better at.
This last year, you know, so much of what I've done has been very much like calling out in the sense of, you know, things that existed that, you know, to be reformed.
And I'm still very passionate about that and I would still do everything. Fresh eyes.
@1:04:05 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
It's a great phenomenon.
@1:04:07 - Justin Douglas
But now I think it's about, you know, how do I now started having meetings with some of those same people that are connected to organizations that I've called out.
And some of them, you know, look at me and say, you know, oh, I didn't know you want to meet with me.
Like, and I'm like, yeah, want to, I want to figure out how we find a way forward. We're partners in this work.
I understand I haven't been impressed by decisions or things that you've done in the past. But the past of the past and the future is the future.
you know, how do we find way to build trust and to not be rivals, but be collaborators in the work that further stuff and counting.
so that has been challenging for me as a leader because I know often in work and just in life, when someone is our rival.
When someone is on the other side. When someone abuses our trust, it's easy to write them off and not choose the harder road to travel, which is trying to find the, you know, amid all the seeds, right, that could be good in restoring this relationship.
And that's a two-way street. That's not just me if they don't want to restore that. They don't want to see the reform that's good for everybody.
And, you know, I'm going to stick to my principles, but there's also a lot of people who do value some of the reforms, but have, you know, have to upgrade to that operating system too, and it takes time, right?
And so being more gracious and giving people the opportunity to, you know, continue to be part of the solution that have been part of the solution in the past, but need to adopt kind of some of the new principles.
That's something I'm working on. I have not figured that out. Yeah, but I'm trying right.
@1:06:01 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
That's a new conversation to have and those are new muscles Even for that organization that the you know originally was pushed away and sort of called out and now to be called back in But with new stuff such expectations.
@1:06:14 - Justin Douglas
Yeah, right.
@1:06:16 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
that's a whole new ball of wax there. That's great Okay, so I lied I do have one more question.
@1:06:21 - Justin Douglas
What is your favorite?
@1:06:23 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Crossfit exercise and why?
@1:06:25 - Justin Douglas
Oh shoot My favorite crossfit exercise Ah the clean and jerk so like you take a barbell off the ground and You put it into like the front rack so like on your collarbone kind of with your elbows up and you get spot And then once you stand it up, you do a jerk you push it over your head Split split jerk like you split your split your legs.
It's like a Olympic lifting I want the glyph to his left. I say that's probably one of my favorites.
So crossfit blends gymnastics Waylifting of my structural movements, like running, not a big kind of running, and I'm allergic to it, actually.
I'm a polar bear. So gymnastics aren't great. I'm a big boy. So weightlifting stuff is what I tend to be decent and what I tend to enjoy.
So that's kind of, that's not your favorite, yeah.
@1:07:19 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, I think I would probably crush myself if I try that, but oh, you do great for any and everybody.
@1:07:25 - Justin Douglas
That's what I said. Yeah, well, great.
@1:07:27 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, you sold me.
@1:07:28 - Justin Douglas
That's awesome.
@1:07:29 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Oh, Justin, this has been a great, great conversation. thoroughly enjoyed it. I really appreciate your time. know you are incredibly busy serving the community.
will just sum up three things that I really feel the listeners will take away. I'm sure they'll take away a lot of things.
I love how we talked about seasons. We talked about seasons in a couple of different ways, but really being deliberate about the muscles that you're building in the current season and just pausing, acknowledging that you're building particular muscles that you're going to
draw upon in your next season, you know, and not necessarily thinking that you're toiling away for not in those busy hustle seasons.
I'm definitely going to quote you that living on the edge, if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
That's beautiful. I love that one. And this idea of belonging is expanding your viewpoint of who needs to be at the table.
I think that's a really great way to think about it. And there's so many opportunities for leaders to we apply that way of thinking about belonging in terms of who do they have at the table when they're making decisions, when they've made decision and need to communicate it out, who needs to be at the table when they're talking about that.
So lots of different applications for that one. So love it, love it, love it. If people want to know more about you or don't county, where can they go?
@1:08:50 - Justin Douglas
Yeah, well, first let me say this, thank you for this platform. opportunity to have this conversation because I do think conversations like this, even with your friends and other leaders over
If you're listening to this, these are the places where that iron sharpens iron and you get stronger. learned something today.
You learned something and hopefully the people who listen this learn something. But don't just do that. Go talk to other leaders.
learn from other leaders. This is the beautiful thing about leadership that we grow together when we grow best. so thank you for everything you're doing with this.
If you want to follow me, obviously, if you want to learn more about my county that I serve in, it's often county.gov.
I'd love for you to go see our website and learn more about what we do.
@1:09:28 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Certainly, if you're a constituent and you're in.gov.
@1:09:30 - Justin Douglas
would love for you to learn more about what the county can provide you. Or if you're on Instagram, you can follow me at commish.dugless.
And I would love to connect with you there. And also on LinkedIn. You can find me, Justin Douglas on LinkedIn.
@1:09:47 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Awesome. And I'll have that in the show notes.
@1:09:49 - Justin Douglas
Great.
@1:09:50 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Thank you so much. Folks can find it there. Thank you so much again, Justin. Have a great day.
