202 Nick Jonsson - Find Your Tribe

Nick Jonsson is a business leader, author, speaker, podcast host, networking expert, and entrepreneur. His primary mission is to empower individuals towards living a life beyond their wildest dreams through vulnerability and holistic happiness. He is the co-founder and Managing Director of Executives' Global Network (EGN) Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest confidential peer group network, providing more than 900 senior executives and business owners a safe haven to share their challenges, receive support, and learn from each other. Nick is deeply passionate about physical health, mental health, and emotional health awareness and believes that well-being is crucial for leaders to perform at their best.

Nick is also a 2023 Top 2%-World age group triathlon athlete by Ironman, which has taught him the importance of resilience and a goal-driven mindset. As a keynote speaker, Nick shares his wealth of experience, unique insights, and expertise with audiences. He is also an executive coach, who is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations achieve their goals. Furthermore, Jonsson is the host of the popular podcast, "EGN Leadership Conversations: The Untold Secrets of the C-Suite" which has over 190 episodes and is consistently ranked in the Top 100 most listened podcasts by business leaders on Spotify, Apple, and Google Podcast in Southeast Asia.

Nick's book, "Executive Loneliness: The 5 Pathways to Overcoming Isolation, Stress, Anxiety & Depression in the Modern Business World", is a #1 international bestseller.

In this episode, Jason and Nick discuss:

• Gift of Desperation
• Building Safe Spaces
• The Importance of Community and Support
• The Power of Vulnerability and Building Authentic Connections
• Taking Action and Seeking Help

Key Takeaways:

• Embrace vulnerability to unlock your potential as a leader.
• Build a strong and supportive community network to thrive in all aspects of life.
• Discover mental health support and resources to nurture your well-being.
• Harness the power of open communication and sharing for personal and professional growth.
• Find purpose through meaningful community connections for a fulfilling life journey.

“Find your tribe. We all need community. We all need to belong to a tribe.”

 - Nick Jonsson

Connect with Nick Jonsson:

Website: https://www.nickjonsson.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-jonsson/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonsson.nick 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonssonnick/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NickJonsson 

Connect with Steve and Jason:

• LinkedIn: Jason or Steve

• Website: Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking

• Email: grow@rewireinc.com
  
  

Listen to the podcast here:

Nick Jonsson- Find Your Tribe          

Hello and welcome, everybody, to this episode of The Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell, and I’ve got a guest across the world. You know, right now, I'm in the USA on the west coast; typically, I'm on the east coast, but today I'm on the west coast in Oregon, and I get to interview a guest on the other side of the world, Nick Jonsson, who, oh, my gosh, Nick, I don't know, the accolades that you've gotten and the things that you've achieved in your life, from being a number one bestselling author to not only being a triathlete, but an Iron man triathlete. Not only being an Iron man triathlete but being ranked worldwide. Nick Jonsson. Nick, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jason, I'm very excited to be with you here.

You know, I said, you're on the other side of the world. Where are you right now? Where do we find you in the world?

Well, I do live and work in Southeast Asia, so my playground is sort of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia. This morning I'm in Thailand and I have a flight to Singapore this afternoon, so that's the part of the world where I'm working and living.

Yeah, the magic of the Internet, the magic of technology. You and I can still do this even though we're on the other side of the world from one another. So, I'm excited about that. Nick, to, to give our audience a little bit of context, gosh, I feel like I could read the bio on your website or go through LinkedIn and pick out certain things and in the little intro, I mentioned a few things, but would you mind just taking 90 seconds, little more, a little less, whatever works for you, and just introduce yourself to the audience. Who the heck is Nick Jonsson?

Yeah, it'd be my pleasure to do so. So, basically, I was born in Sweden, educated in Australia, and then I lived and worked the last 20 years in Southeast Asia. My career has been in senior management roles, working for the big international firms, in leadership positions, working my way up as managing director specifically in the medical industry, servicing the oil and gas industry for all the big firms who are over in Asia, in the mining industry and oil and gas and so on. So, that's been my career path. The last couple of years, my life has changed. I left the corporate world and I'm now running an organization where we organize confidential peer groups for senior executives to create a safe space for them to discuss the work-related challenges, and through that, I'm hearing a lot of insights, a lot of stories on what's going on in the lives of the executives. And I should say also these days we have more entrepreneurs and founders, also groups for them, so that they can get together and discuss and get the support. So, that's a little bit about me. And yes, outside of the workplace, I'm passionate about sports, and with that also comes the mental health, emotional health, and I just want to end by saying, a few years ago I went through a crisis in my life. I hit my rock bottom, and we can explore more about this journey and my learnings from that as well. Thank you.

Well, if I were to neglect asking you about that little rock bottom piece, I would be neglecting my job as a podcast host. but I do have a question before we dig into that. You know, we start all of our podcast episodes with this one question that I don't know may or may not have anything to do with leadership, but it does have a lot to do with humanity, which is Nick, today, as you and I are engaging each other, what are you grateful for?

I'm grateful today for my health and my fitness, and I'm overall grateful for being grateful because sometimes in my life I haven't seen those parts. I looked at the negatives but waking up being grateful and having that as a natural default.

Being grateful for being grateful. Thank you for that. We do an episode around Thanksgiving here in the US, and because we ask everybody weekly that question, we do a compilation of those answers, and I have a feeling what you just said there about being grateful to be able to be grateful, I have a feeling that's going to hit that compilation episode, because you're right. There are days when I wake up and man, if I were honest, I'm not really sure I'm feeling grateful about things. So yeah, I appreciate that answer. Thank you. Going to the rock bottom piece. Let's go there and maybe we'll use that. I don't even know where we're going to go there., but maybe that's the foundation for where we end up, the topics that we end up talking about today. Would you mind diving into what you meant by rock bottom?

Absolutely. It'd be my pleasure to explain that. These days, I can talk about it, but back in the days, it was very painful. But what happened, basically, was that I reached the top of my career, you could say. I was a general manager heading up a medical division with over 400 staff running clinics, hospitals, and so on, and I had a good package. I had everything I had dreamt of, and once I found myself in that situation, then I wasn't happy. I felt isolated. I felt lonely. I started to question everything about myself. This led then to me resigning from my job. With this, also, I tumbled into a divorce. I lost my exercise routine. I stopped doing marathons. I changed my healthy diet to fast food and pizza. And with all of that, I ended up on a bar stool drinking beer. That became my new hobby, and it was a downward spiral. And it took me about two, three years to lose everything I had in my life. And there is where I found, eventually, I found what they call the gift of desperation to patch back my life again.

How long ago was that, Nick?        
            
So, I started to lose my focus in 2015, and that's when I filed for a divorce, resigned from my job, and so on, and then it was 2018 that I hit rock bottom.

Yeah. So that's six years ago, give or take. And in the span of a lifetime, that's really not that long ago. And so, when I look at the topics that you speak on, loneliness, mental health, I know is something that you're close to that you look to serve, now, I understand why. Not just because you have a heart for the mental health of humans and humanity, but because you had a personal experience yourself. And so, I get that, and I just want you to know out loud, I don't take what you just said lightly. This is recorded, and there'll be a lot of people that hear this, but you just got vulnerable yourself with me, and I just want you to know that I don't take that for granted. I don't take that lightly. I didn't even know we were going to go there, and so thank you for that. And my audience thanks you, too, because I know, like you, I coach a lot of executives, and when you start diving into people's lives, every one of us has some form or fashion of rock bottom. Maybe it's not exactly like the story that you just shared, but all of us have some version of that story for themselves. And so, the only way that we can learn and grow is to be in community with one another, to learn from one another, and to observe what's happening out there. And so right now, you've become part of the community of the Insight Interviews and Rewire, and so for all of us, I just want to thank you for that. With that being said, okay, we're in 2018, we're starting to be in 2019, with that gift of desperation that you talked about, what happened after that? What's the first rung of the ladder that you stepped on? Because going from there to where you are today, oh, man, that's a great big gap. But what were your first steps?

Yeah. So, I realized that I didn't speak about my emotions and feelings at that time. I had no one close to me that I was honest and vulnerable with. I had fantastic friends. We went to play golf together, having a great time and watching sports, drinking beer together, but I didn't want to bother them about my challenges, even though they were very good friends, and I'm sure they would have listened, and they would have been there for me, but I didn't open up. I didn't dare to be vulnerable. The change then in 2018 was that I had met a woman who's today, my second wife, and I decided to tell her how I felt internally. She was completely shocked. She thought I had it all together. She was very surprised when I explained my feelings to her, but she listened with empathy, and she immediately said, we need to sort this out. She dragged me to a doctor, and she shared my story to the doctor, so, I was exposed right away, and I had, like, a V-shaped recovery from that. As soon as she listened, the doctor listened, and then on it went on. A whole series of events happened. I found myself in a recovery program getting sympathy and support again, and I had friends around me who gone through similar patches before who also then were there for me. And so, it was just by speaking up, everything changed.    


    

This sounds like a very important person for you, so much so that you made her your wife, so that says a lot. I did enough research to know that you've got a talk called making each other better, and I'm assuming I don't know this, but I'm making a connection between what you just said and that talk, what are some of the key points with that particular talk or that idea that you're passionate about making each other better?   
     
            
Well, it is really about talking about things that is on our mind. Getting the problems on the table and that's what we do then in the confidential peer groups that we are running now. And I then, as the leader of this organization, need to be vulnerable first and lead by example, so that's what I've done by sharing my story and my learnings, because when I put my story, that involves some other things, there's so much stigma in the society, including alcoholism and so on. Then nothing is off the shots. Everyone feels safe by sharing their stories as soon as I go first.

                                                                                                           
"And so, that is what we mean by making each other better, that we are there for each other. We're there to speak up, and we are there to listen, and we're not there to judge anyone, and I believe that all human beings need to have these safe spaces in our workplaces, ideally, but if we cannot have them there, then we need to have professional and personal safe spaces outside the workplace."



I'm sitting here shaking my head in agreement with you and listening to you. For those that might be in their car right now or doing the dishes and listening to those words, they might be shaking their head, yes, too, but there also may be people that go, okay, that sounds great, Nick and Jason, but how do I do that? What does that even mean? So, if you're an executive that heard that and it sounded interesting to you, but you don't know, okay, great, I need a safe space, how do I do that? Because it is lonely at the top. So, what are some tangible steps executives can take if what you just said is interesting to them?

Yeah, I have a few safe spaces these days. So, one is the organization, then the confidential peer groups that I'm running. And also in the US, you will find a lot of peer groups, peer network, you will also find net mastermind groups, you'll find men's groups, you will find women's groups, and if anyone has any issues and suffer from any kind of addiction whatsoever, it's easy that bad habits turn over to an addiction, and it can be anything from shopping, gambling, social media, drugs, alcohol, and there will be an anonymous support group for each of them, full of volunteers ready to take a phone call. So therefore, the point is to join a group which is related to your course and come there and have a conversation. In addition to that, these days also, I belong to a triathlon group. I have my swim squad. I have a running group. And what I learned is by practicing my vulnerability, and I call it training the vulnerability muscle in the safe spaces, I can transfer this over to my run club and daring to be a little bit more vulnerable. Also, in that kind of situation, and people are responding by being vulnerable back, and then you're creating more safe spaces around you.

So, thank you for that. The answer that I took is join a group, right? And I like the detail that you put to that, but that whole idea of being lonely at the top and I'd like you to talk about the first book that you wrote, because the title goes around that, but it is being in community with people, and it sounds like you to take this question wherever you want to take it, you talked about, okay, a riding group, a swimming group, an executive group, maybe there's an addiction group. You mentioned a few different addictions that people suffer from at times. It sounds like, one, community is better than not being in community, and two, if it's possible to be in community with a very specific subject matter, tell me a little bit more about that.        

Yeah, that seems to work, because then you are with like-minded people who have been there before, who's gone through that challenge or that issue before, and therefore they can understand you. And I think it's important as human beings to get that sympathy. But I should also say that there's also a lot of individual support to get. I also got support by coaches, psychologists, mentors, sponsors. There are all these people who are there to help, and I'm one of them these days as well.

To get that individual support can be wonderful. To have a one on one, confidential, private conversation also, and I'm a big believer that we should create these networks and these individual connections in the good times so that we have safety networks for the challenging times, because life goes up and down. If I had been proactive about this and built up this in the good times, when I had my difficult times, it would have been uncovered on one of my calls with the coaches, but I didn't have that. Therefore, I had to find out the hard way instead.

But like you said, it was almost a gift, right? I've heard you say that whether it's the desperation piece or the challenge piece or the rock bottom, however you want to call it, it sounds like that needed to happen for you to be who you are in helping the way that you're helping today, right? Without that rock bottom, maybe you and I wouldn't even be talking right now.        

That's right on, Jason. Indeed. I wouldn't have been vulnerable. I might have found myself in a similar space, somehow overcoming it, but not being open, not being honest with myself and others about my challenges. So indeed, that needed to happen. And for some people it would be very traumatic and painful, and sadly, some who go through that are not with us today, and that was the next step that happened. I lost a friend because he didn't speak out. He didn't have the blessing of me to find someone to speak to. Sadly, this is still happening in our society today. People are isolated and they don't know how to get out of it.        

Yeah, there's a couple of different directions I want to go with you with that, but I'm almost thinking of the image that's in my mind, which is the iceberg, and many of us have seen different iceberg models to illustrate different concepts. But when I went to your website, Nick, and when I looked you up on LinkedIn, boy, there's a lot of accolades and there's a lot of achievements there, but if I think of an iceberg model, those achievements, those accolades, those things that you've been able to do are at the very tippy top, what people see, but if we were to look below the waterline, the image that I'm seeing is almost all these psychologists friends, your wife, now, your friends, your community, holding you up, right? Like they're the ones below the waterline. And all of us have that, or at least have the ability to get that, and so, I think what I'm hearing from you is, boy, if you're listening to this right now and you're hearing us talk about this and you're thinking, I don't have that community, that's not happening with me right now, and I know with a lot of executives, that does tend to be the case. Gosh, just reach out is what you're saying.

Yeah. But also, I had friends before I hit my rock bottom, and I have new friends now. The friends I had before, we still stay in touch from time to time, and some of them have become very close friends; others I'm not in touch with anymore. But many of the friends or the deepest relationships I have today are formed in 2018 and 2019 and recently, and they come from all the support groups by finding like-minded and also by working with coaches and finding my true purpose in life and then aligning my life. And along that journey, I found these people who are very close to my heart, and therefore they are more authentic, these connections, and I'm more honest with them. So, my call to anyone then would be to find your tribe. We all need community. We all need to belong to a tribe. And with the society these days, sitting more isolated, more online, we are not really part of a tribe. So, what I mean with this is find something that you can meet people in person, perhaps to replace the good old church culture. Anything it is. You need to belong to something.

Yeah. Find your tribe. So good. Having those authentic conversations and finding your why, like Simon Sinek says, and just being authentic, that comes from the power of vulnerability. And I know before we hit record, you and I talked about things that you're passionate around right now, and it is exactly that, the power of vulnerability. And, man, sometimes that gets a little squishy for people. I'm not really sure. I don't know. But just what do you have to say about the power of vulnerability? And I know it's a lot. You're writing a book on that right now, but what are just some initial things that come to mind when I ask that question?


                                                                                                         
"Yeah, I believe that vulnerability is just like a muscle. We need to train it and practice it. We have to start small and that means that practice it in a safe space and it can be any of these groups, like a mastermind or a men's group or women leaders’ network, where you start to practice being more vulnerable or with a coach on a one-on-one conversation that you open up."

In my case, it was by being honest to the doctor for the first place and just being honest with yourself and speak the truth, and it starts just there. Taking some steps there and then you will start to feel that people are there for you and it's a rewarding feeling. Then you can take the next step and be open and honest somewhere else.



Yeah. The power of vulnerability. So, I'm going to switch gears a little bit. Is that okay? I can do a hard shift. I've run one marathon, and I don't want to say it about killed me, but I'm one of those one and done guys and I've done triathlons. No, Iron Man's, but I have wild, wild respect for people that can do that with their bodies. There's a lot of things that need to be blessed with, genetically and otherwise. But, man, I'd love to hear you've not only done Iron man, but you're at the top of the game. I mean, you're ranked nationally. Again, we're doing a gear shift here. Is there a story or two that stick out to you either from a training for Iron man or going through it? Is there anything that pops to mind when I say, hey, that was an experience for sure and I think you're going to be doing more of this. Is there a particular story that sticks out in the training or the execution of Iron man?

Yeah. Again, I think it's about that we need to find our own tribe. And if I'm looking back at my teenage years, then I had a hobby of motorbikes, and then I start riding motorcycles. I joined a bike club, and we were working in the garage during the winter on the bikes and stuff like that, so that was my tribe then. And then later at university, it was golf that became my passion and that was my tribe. But then later on, when I was in my working life, this sort of disappeared in my life. Then I started to run, and I got injured too much from too much running. And then people said, well, you should do something else. So therefore, I found triathlon. And it was really true that you do swimming, you do cycling, you do running. If you're injured in running, you can still often swim and cycle, for example. So, it became a natural switch for me, therefore, and then suddenly I had three, four tribes from the different sports. And it is the social connection because I'm actually an introvert and I feel very comfortable having a conversation when I go for a jog with someone. I feel comfortable doing it when we cycle. And I also feel-good talking about something we have in common. So, for someone like me, then being an introvert, having the sport as the foundation, the community and exercise around it is the fueling thing. And to do it as a daily, to do some sport daily, to move, that is where I get the pleasure from it. So, it's the combination, but it's really the community at heart that brings me back to it.

Yeah, I was looking for some exciting story or whatever, but your passion around the vulnerability piece and the community piece, that's something that, as I'm learning who Nick Jonsson is, all things lead back to exactly that. The power of vulnerability, the power of community, finding your tribe, I'm hearing that loud and clear for you. That that's not something that oh, yeah, that sounds good, and I think I'll talk about that. Nope. That's who you are. That is how you're able to know the things that you're doing right now. Nick, as we close our time together today, is there anything that maybe I haven't asked you about that you would like to make sure our audience hears about today?

Yeah. I think a lost message, perhaps, is if there's any listener who feel that they're going through something, if it's something on your mind that make you wake up in the middle of the night or you wake up in the morning and you're stressing, you're sweating, you worry about it, my suggestion then, is just try to take a few deep breaths. Sit down with a pen and paper and just write down what that is. Try to explain in your own words what it is. Once you've written that down, take a few more breaths again, then think, who can I have a conversation with about this? And that could be anything from any of the anonymous organizations we discussed today. It can be a coach, a therapist. And the beautiful thing is that most of these phone calls can be anonymous. You can have an online session today. You don't have to go and be seen anywhere to just take action on that small, little piece and get that help. That would be my last call today, Jason and I know this little thing right here has helped many people.

 

Yeah, I would agree, and you know, I took notes on all that. Take a few deep breaths. Write something down. I know sometimes I'll be in the middle of a coaching session, and we'll use the word journal, and a lot of guys are like, I don't want to do that, but just write something down that provides clarity. More deep breaths. And then the last thing, potentially the most important, is take action. Reach out and literally take action, because I know for a lot of us, we can just get caught up in our minds, but deep breaths, writing down, taking action, reaching out to people. Now we can start to be on a different path, rather than just being up at night worried or anxious about something. So, yeah, thank you for that gift. That's a very simplified gift, and I also think it's a great place to end. Nick, dude, you lived up to all expectations, my friend. Thank you very much for all of it. I'm excited for your new book. When is that coming out? The Power. It may not be called the Power of Vulnerability, but when do you think that might come out?

Yeah, so I'm writing the book about vulnerability right now. I'm conducting interviews and so on, and I'm hoping to have it out in about one year's time. And I definitely keep you posted.       

2025. Really good. Well, there you have it. Insight, interview, community, Nick Jonsson from the other side of the world. And Nick, thank you for your time today. We're super grateful for it and can't wait for our paths to cross again soon.

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