From Rock Bottom to Resilience: How One Executive Coach Rebuilt His Life

Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast.

We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice.

Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents Talk.

My name is Lianne Castelino.

Our guest today is an executive coach and a psychotherapist.

Nick Jonsson is also a keynote speaker, a counselor, and a best selling author.

He's also an ironman.

He is an accredited sober coach now in his ninth year of sobriety and he's also a father of one.

Nick joins us today from Phuket, Thailand.

Thank you so much for taking the time.

Wonderful to be here.

Thank you for having me.

You know, in reading about your background, it seems like you've lived multiple lives with all the different things that you've done over the span of your life.

And one of those things is that you spent many years using alcohol to manage the stresses in your life often associated with the executive piece and the pressures that you were living through.

What was the moment that you realized that the thing that brought you, that you thought was helping you cope was actually what was destroying many things around you?

It was the point when it didn't work anymore, when it didn't relax me.

It wasn't no longer a social lubricant.

It was something that I even did just to cope.

That's when I realized that something has to change here.

But from the point of realizing that something has to change, until I did that change, it was many years, unfortunately.

And do you remember that day, Nick?

Yeah.

I mean, it came in bits and pieces.

And looking back at it, I see it obviously much more clear.

At the time, I was in denial about it.

But I do remember when I asked for help the first time with alcohol.

When you look back on that time, were there any early warning signs that now, as you reflect on it, you may have missed?

Yeah, about even 10 years before I stopped where there started to be early warning signs, such as, you know, having to go to the hospital on a Monday morning after a big weekend with consuming too much alcohol.

But at the time, I didn't add it up together.

And even the doctors and so on, they, they, they didn't find it either.

It was high blood pressure and some other things they found and I got medications for that.

But most likely also I wasn't completely honest about my alcohol consumption when they asked me about it.

So therefore they couldn't uncover it.

And, and therefore Life just went on like normal.

Of course, I had one or two sick days, got some medication, and then I was on again.

Many parents who listen to or watch this interview may not be struggling with alcohol, but they may use things like work achievement, social media, the busyness of our lives as way to escape stress.

So is the real issue then, in your opinion, how we cope with stress?

Yes, it is.

And indeed, rightly as you said, Leanne, alcohol was my go to someone else.

It can definitely be anything else.

There's so many ways of unhealthy ways to cope.

And they don't have to be perhaps unhealthy if they are done in small, healthy doses.

But if we use some as a way to escape, as a use to cope, that's when a bad habit can turn over to an addiction.

As it happened to me, I didn't think I was addicted to alcohol before I was.

Take us and paint us a picture, if you could, Nick, of what that looked like in your life at the time.

What was happening around you in terms of, you know, your relationships, your family.

Anything that you remember was particularly impacted by your alcohol.

Yeah, so my most of my alcohol consumption at the time was after work.

So if I had very stressful job, I was managing hospitals and clinics, a lot of staff, so very high, precious job.

And it was all on and, you know, not being a medical professional in that sense, being more in the sales part and operations, being around doctors and having all these difficult conversations all day.

I was completely exhausted after days of work and.

And also I felt many times that I didn't understand the full conversations.

And then to cope with that, then, you know, I felt I worked so hard and I did achieve good result as well.

I was hitting all the targets and I was kept, you know, getting promotion and rises.

Then I thought after work, well, I need to wind down.

So I went to the bar after work and that was basically my pattern for many years.

I felt, you know, for a few hours got socialized having drinks in the bar.

So that was my way to cope instead of speaking about my challenges and inst of doing some healthy activities.

That was basically what sent me off.

You've said that true resilience comes from recovery, not relentless hustle.

That is almost the opposite of what we're all conditioned to believe, certainly in the world that we live in today.

What does hustle culture, in your view, teach kids about success, failure and self worth?

Yeah.

So I was born myself in Sweden on May 1, which is Labor Day.

I think my parents were hoping already this is going to be a hard worker.

And I was.

So I grew up in a family where my father was a construction worker.

So I was groomed to also be, you know, be a hard worker.

I started summer, were summer working my leave from school, age 14 in constructions, and age 17, I was already a construction painter.

And for about four, five years I worked full time as a painter.

And I learned quickly that if I want to earn more money, it was working extra hours, even signing up for weekend work and so on, and working harder.

So I associated only, you know, success with hard work and hustle.

It was never about asking for help or thinking about doing differently.

And I carried that kind of mindset with me into the working place and also in my.

My first marriage that, you know, so therefore I wasn't vulnerable.

I didn't ask for help.

I didn't haven't explored how to cope with feelings, challenges, setbacks, and therefore I naturally you as I found alcohol eventually worked for winding down after work.

Then it could also work on.

On some of those feelings that I had to deal with.

It's so interesting because you talk about that discipline background that you grew up in and that you, you know, you carried forward for many years.

It's a fine line.

Right.

So how does one go about distinguishing healthy discipline from the relentless striving that we're talking about?

That becomes unhealthy.

Yeah.

I believe the best way to learn it, and if we don't want to go to the painful rock bottom that I did it, is to have coaches and having these conversations with our children already as we are growing up and having open conversations where we're supporting each other and asking for help and so on.

And I can just look at my.

My triathlon journey as well.

I did triathlons before my crash almost a decade ago, and then it was doing it by myself, grinding on, pushing, and so painful.

I remember falling over, crashing at the finish line of a triathlon, being carried into the medical tent, you know, learning it the painful way and the dangerous way.

I could have died in heat stroke in some of those races because I just didn't have enough information.

And this was a decade ago, right before AI and so on.

Now perhaps it's easier to get this information or easier to speak up these days.

So I have applied this thinking now of always having open conversations in all areas of my life and, and that includes my son as well, to have open conversations and teach him that we can talk and ask for help early on rather than waiting until it becomes a crisis.

Give us an example if you could Nick, of you know what some of the open conversation Topics with your 17 year old son might include.

For a start, I have completely owned my alcohol addiction to him and made amends for that because I was a distant, lousy father for two, three years when I wouldn't be there for him.

So I made full amends on that.

I take an ownership for us.

They explained what happened and he appreciate that part.

So I've been an open book within what happened in my life.

And I said, I said I'm sorry I didn't show up at that time, but I'm here now.

What can I do for you?

How can I be the best father I can for you?

That's the starting point of it.

And then every time we as a parent make a mistake or go through a challenging time, that's our golden opportunity to demonstrate to our kids that no one is perfect.

Everyone will go through challenges and it is how we deal with those challenges and how we express ourselves, how we ask for help, how we're using resources and how they see us going through that.

We will set the scene that is very different from how I grew up.

And just one example here on that was when my son faced some real challenges at his school a few years ago.

He ended up in a bad group with some of the kids.

They were shopkeeping, they were, some of the kids brought knife to school and so on.

It was all these kind of warning signals and every week there would be another crisis and things were happening.

And rather than disciplining him or you know, having that approach to him, I wanted to build closer relationship with him for giving him a safe space to talk and making sure that he felt safe here.

I did that myself on a one on one level, but I also appointed, I'm a coach myself but I appointed another coach and a female coach from another perspective to someone who he has never met before, but softly introduced her so that they could have one on one conversation for her to capture as much as possible what was going on, what would he prefer to do with the situation and so on.

And he learned through that experience, going through that first few months that you know, I wouldn't judge him, we wouldn't cut him off, we wouldn't discipline him.

Instead we were looking at solutions with him.

In the end of this, this incident, we stepped fully behind.

I also engaged my ex wife at the time and we had conversations.

In this instance he was in an international school, a very good school.

We had worked hard for and paid for for him to be part of.

And especially my ex wife was very proud.

It was an in Sweden in an English curriculum which is quite.

And the school that he wanted to move to was a local small school in Swedish language.

So it was a hard one on us parents.

But for in order to stand behind him and having done all the work, we backed him, he changed school and all the problems that were happening at the time has disappeared.

Take us through what that must have been like for you, Nick, because here you are having all that lived experience.

Now you've, you're a coach, you're dealing with other people.

Now it's your son.

And that's a whole different lens to look through this through.

Right.

And so I wonder what did that look like for you?

What did you learn about yourself?

Well, I certainly learned that, you know, this works with children also.

Everything we learn in coaching about ourselves and in the professional world is also true with our children, especially making them feel heard, listening to them, paraphrasing, demonstrating that we clearly heard them.

I would summarize back to him.

Am I understanding you correctly that you think that, you know, moving to this school would be the best option?

Okay.

And you know, what is the motivation behind that and what would be the obstacles with that?

What would be the challenges?

And you know, really getting him thinking deeply about it and even giving him some homework to think about it and ask, encouraging him to ask his friends, what do they think?

You know, so that it really, really was something that he spent time on thinking through, coming to his conclusions.

And once he had made up his mind fully, I had to make that call to my ex wife.

And that was probably one of the most difficult conversations of my life.

But then explaining clearly to her and asking for her blessing and support to stand behind him in this decision.

So it just taught me to that no matter what challenges we are facing, jumping into hard and disciplining someone, even if it's our own children, especially when they're teenagers, doesn't help.

Now we live in an era where information is so easy to find, they can go on ChatGPT in a heartbeat to find the information.

It was different perhaps before.

When we grew up, we were isolated and our parents were our source for information.

The world have changed now and we have to wake up to that.

It's such an important point now.

As an executive coach, Nick, you have a resilience framework.

Can you take us through the key pillars and why is this important for parents to know?

Yeah.

So the, in the key pillars, then the number one I Call it surrender and what I mean with the surrender step and what happens there is then having the awareness of ourselves and you know, looking at our blind spots.

And I have a self assessment for people to fill in where everyone can take an honest look at ourselves.

It's almost like if this was a business we would call it like an audit or a stock take, but it's a chance faster rate sells in our life, you know, how are we doing?

And hopefully on such an assessment we can be honest for a moment with ourselves if it's something that is not serving me well.

Are there some habits I have in my life that you know is holding me back?

Am I overworking?

Am I consuming something too much?

It doesn't have to be alcohol, but maybe I'm spending too much time on social media, maybe I'm binge watching Netflix when I should be doing something that is more healthier for me.

Maybe I'm watching the news too much and everyone would know for themselves.

So that's the first step that I would capture.

And then it goes on.

It's, it's five steps in total.

Take us through those, those five steps, if you could.

Yeah, sure.

So after the surrender step, then when we have identified what it is we need to remove from our life, then we cannot just remove that right away because if we do that, we are sort of white knuckling ourselves or we are being dry from that.

We just remove it and then eventually we relapse when we have a challenge and come back in our life.

And that's where Most of the 12 step recovery programs and so on perhaps are challenged because they remove something but not putting in something.

And so the second step therefore is purpose.

And there I'm doing deep work with the people I work with to really look back into their life, their childhood.

It's a complete assessment of what are the things in their life that used to give them positive energy as a child.

What about now?

What are the dreams, the passions?

And if, if no one was there, if you didn't have an employer or anyone in your life, what would you do with your life?

Like those kind of open ended coaching questions for them to think bigger.

So we're mapping out that kind of purpose, the legacy they want to leave in the second step, then moving on to the third step.

It's about connection, a healthier connection with ourselves.

It's also making amends with the people around us, especially our family and so on.

If we have hurt someone because many times, if we have spent too much on one habit so it flipped over to an addiction.

Then we become quite selfish in defending that, protecting that.

So then it's about making sure that we own that, like how I did with my son, making full amends for what I done.

So we clear that so we can forgive ourselves and have a better relationship with ourselves.

So that was the third and then the fourth is goals.

And especially if I'm working with executives, people tend to have professional goals, being very driven professionally and with a career, but having neglected then goals in all the other areas of our life.

So I look holistically at the, as we call it in coaching the wheel of life, which is eight parts and that includes then business and career is one.

But finances, health, relationships and family and friends, romantic relationship, if we are married, personal growth, contribution, spirituality, fun and recreation and physical environments.

We look at all those areas and rank ourselves on 1 to 10 where we are now and 1 to 10 where we want to go.

And then those gaps are where we set short term, medium and long term goals in all the areas of our life.

So just by that, it's sort of already 25 goals for our life that I as a coach will work with them on.

And then making the roadmap to that happen.

So suddenly you have then 25 plus goals for yourself, which is a direction for you.

And then the last step is the discipline.

Then how do you set up the discipline and accountability for those goals to be achieved.

And so that's sort of the journey.

So when we do that, what we remove in that first step, you have a meaningful life that gives you so much positive energy that you no longer have any space for the bad habit or addiction that you started with.

That.

That's the process that I help leaders with.

It's so interesting to hear you itemize that because it seems to me the first step, surrender, really the success of that step is foundational to the rest of that.

Right.

The next four steps.

But vulnerability, it would seem, is really key to surrender.

Is that how you see it?

Yes, absolutely.

And that is where many struggle.

Many will not do the first step.

And in fact even many trainers and coaches would skip the first step.

They will keep adding new things in your life.

But the issue when we keep adding more things, it will just be temporary, then it will fall off because we didn't really do the thorough work.

So I believe in doing it very holistically and doing it properly.

And then it works and then it sticks there.

I done it on myself and I now help others to go through this journey.

You argue that Recovery and renewal should be treated as the foundation for what we're talking here, not the role reward for healthy family life.

Why is that?

Well, I think that most of our gone through some challenges in our life.

We have always something to work on and I say that that's our golden nugget.

In my case, it was alcohol that became my struggle.

And today it's one of the best things ever happened to me because now I can help others to go through that.

So no matter what challenges we are going through right now, as long as we take that and we work on that, we turn it around, then we can use it to our advantage.

Because the most likely, you won't be the first human being ever to go through that challenge.

There will be other people who also might fall into that kind of bad habit or addiction.

And therefore you can be of service to others.

And that's what I do now every day.

For parents, families listening to this interview who may feel disconnected and overwhelmed, where do you suggest they could start A small step that they could take to begin this journey of renewal?

Yeah.

So the very simple step is to just get out the pen and paper and do an audit of yourself.

Are there some parts of your life that is holding you back and you will know it in your heart.

I've been quite honest here about saying that alcohol didn't serve me well anymore.

Well, is there something in your life that if you look at it objectively, honestly at yourself, that is not functioning and that is not working.

Are you spending 2, 3 hours on social media at night when you know you should be reading a book?

We should study towards something then those are the bits that you can write that down on a piece of paper or put it into AI and ask who can I talk to about this?

And then have a human conversation.

We should only use AI to link, as I believe, to that right person to have a proper human conversation.

Because that's vulnerability.

It's not vulnerability to share it with an AI agent.

That's just the first step in getting that help.

We've talked a lot about the stress that a parent can face.

And many parents choose to shield their kids from stress, from seeing them be stressed out.

Take us through what your thought is on that.

What are the pros and cons of shielding kids from their parent stress?

Yeah, well, I think, I mean we have to be careful what we share with the parent, with the children.

We don't have to over share to them.

They might not be able to cope with everything, but we also shouldn't Shield them completely from the challenges.

We have to tell them what's happening, but really think through that.

And if we're not sure what to share, discuss it with the coach and come up with a strategy.

That's very much something that I do on my calls.

When parents are going through difficult times that we discuss, we want to disclose, but we also don't want to harm the children.

So on that point, then, what is age appropriate or when is it age appropriate for a parent to begin to have these conversations with their kids, to be authentic and be vulnerable and share appropriately with their kids?

Yeah.

So if I'm looking at my own journey, sort of when I came back to my son, I couldn't really have the deep conversations about what had happened with alcohol and so on.

What I could do the first few years was being very present and the way it worked because I was in Singapore at the time.

He was about 6 years of age then, living in Sweden, I was in Singapore.

The world went into lockdowns and I worked with a child psychologist at the time to help me to repair the relationship.

And she gave me all the kind of tools that I could use to enhance my relationship because I was lost.

And the way it worked then was to map out all the passions he had, the hobbies he had, the name of teachers, the name of his friends, and so on.

And my ex wife gave me all this information for me to study and learn so I could have some meaningful conversations and demonstrate that I knew a bit about his life.

And we communicated.

The next was a bit similar.

Like the steps I help people with was to map out what is it really that he's passionate about.

So I had to ask my ex wife to help and she was happy to support.

The one thing she shared was that he loves to play online gaming and especially Minecraft.

So what I did then was I learned to play multiplayer Minecraft.

I installed that with webcam and headset in Singapore.

And on Saturdays we would log on and play multiplayer together.

And this went on for three years.

And so I was coming into his world.

Three hours was that block.

Every Saturday when I was in his world, he will run around in Minecraft showing me world.

He would introduce me to his friends, showing buildings he's built and so on.

So I was completely in his world, listening, following him.

And through this, every weekend, he would open up more, he would speak more, we'd build a stronger connection and I would, in bits and pieces then be back and being the father that I always should have been, and that allowed Me to build a foundation for step by step, being more honest and open and vulnerable with him.

But I had to build that trust first because that was broken.

He didn't even know his father.

And we have to come into their world, not try to drag them into our world.

Building trust through connection, certainly.

In that example, Nick, how would you describe what a genuinely resilient family routine looks like?

What should it include?

It should include having some honest conversations.

If we're sitting around a dinner table after work and we're asking how everyone's day has been, then there's a golden opportunity for parents to share something that has happened at work or some challenge they went through, how they dealt with that, how did they cope with it, how did they seek help, how did they go through it, and how they feeling better now having solved it rather than going to bed with this challenge.

Because if we are being vulnerable and talking about these matters, then the children will copy us.

They will be comfortable doing the same.

You know, obviously, every child is different, Every household is different, Every parenting style is different.

You know, it's hard to know or to provide tips that apply to everybody, but you're the father of a teenage boy.

There are lots of parents in our audience that are parents of teens and young adults.

They tend to go through phases in that adolescent phase of life where they might not talk much, they might be avoiding the family on some level.

If a parent begins to notice that their teen may be using avoidance, gaming, even alcohol or some kind of substance to numb stress, what is the first conversation that parents should consider having with that child?

Yeah, so the first thing to do is, I believe, especially when we deal with teenagers and again, they have access to so much information that is to have a coaching style.

I think that we need to have a coaching style as a foundation.

Like, I have not told my son since he became a teenager what he should do.

I'm asking him questions and letting him come up with his own conclusions and backing him and so on.

I will, for example, because I'm based in Asia, but I come to Sweden about three months almost of the year when I'm spending time there to be closer to him and working from there, also to see my parents and so on.

And I'm not enforcing myself for it for him on that time because it's on his terms.

I will make him aware where I am, what I'm doing, and he's welcome to come.

Also, during my travel overseas and so on, he comes to visit me a few times a year.

I'm Telling him, I will be in this country this time.

Could I invite you?

If you're interested, you're welcome to come.

And he pick and choose what he wants to do.

So when I'm in Sweden, then the almost three months, I will let him know.

Typically we have a chat on the Sunday.

I would say, well, I will go and swim on Tuesday, I will probably cycle on Thursday, There's a football match on on Friday, and.

And my dad is coming.

Is there something of this that.

That suits you or would you like to do something else?

So I just leave it completely open.

And he buys into a lot of things and because he's not forced to, and he can decide whatever he wants.

And therefore we have that as a foundation for conversations.

And he does therefore bring up stuff he's uncomfortable with if.

If children at a party offering him alcohol, for example.

And he doesn't want to drink, at least not yet.

He's turning 18 soon.

He doesn't want to drink because he heard from me how it affected me.

So he's quite protective and he's politely declining to them and he would share to me how that went down on.

So therefore we can have an open conversation about it.

It's so interesting because, I mean, we live in uniquely challenging times as parents.

Certainly as young people growing up today, I wonder, you know, as a coach, you've got all kinds of clients.

Some of those clients are parents.

Some of those parents are struggling with the very things that we're talking about here.

Are there any specific trends that you're noticing, Nick, as it relates to parents stress and family life that you're seeing?

Yeah, a trend I see is that there's more stress and tension in family these days.

I think jobs are scared.

There's not much in security.

And many families perhaps have a mortgage and loans.

And we built our lives on.

On a different.

In a different world.

Right when, when there was more security.

You work 30, 40 years and you get your golden watch and you know, you.

You set up your life like that.

You have your mortgage to match that, that.

Well, unfortunately, that's not the world we live in anymore.

There's automation, there's layoffs of jobs, and as a result of that, we don't have that security.

And it's very challenging, therefore, as a parent, to provide that safety and security for our children.

So we just have to be very mindful about that and that there is tough there.

And everyone, therefore, I believe, need to have their safe spaces to discuss because it's a lot to carry and if we don't talk about those insecurities, we go to bed with them, then eventually we will start to choose unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And I say that the healthy way to deal with all of these things is indeed seeking help, speaking, but not waiting until it's too far.

That's what I did.

I waited until I caused too much damage on myself and the people around me.

And it's such a natural thing for people to do.

Right.

You think I can get through this?

I am better than this.

I am strong.

I, you know, I'm resilient until you're not.

And it's different for every person.

Is there one small change that you could suggest that a family who is experiencing sort of this chaotic description that you provided us of all these things kind of happening and it's happening to more and more people that would strengthen their connection and reduce that chaos.

Yeah.

I think before the parents start bringing these conversations into the family, I think it's very essential that they do some work on themselves to sort of clean up their side of the street to have some one on one conversations.

It's almost like if a couple are working on each other.

I don't recommend for a couple who are struggling to go into couples therapy, both of them, it normally backfires.

For most of the cases I heard it backfires because they weren't ready.

It would be too much tension.

There were too much, much.

The best is for one, each of them to have their own sort of coach or therapist to have their own conversations, to really let everything out first and prepare that and then go into a couple's therapy session.

And the same way, don't bring in children in a conversation on something that's very difficult.

If we haven't worked that through for ourselves and sorted that out and really thought through.

That's the safe space that, that coaches can give or therapists, depending on the, the seriousness of the situation.

What gives you hope about where we are in terms of resilience as you look forward, understanding all of you know, the world we live in today and the confluence of things that people are dealing with in the family.

What gives you hope about resilience, looking into the future?

Well, finding the right support has been quite challenging in the past and we might be tossed around from the wrong coach, the wrong therap, and maybe someone have seen two or three.

Nothing worked out.

And I believe in this world now we live in with AI, it's easier to find the right help.

So for anyone who's listening, if they take the tips.

I said write things down in detail or go into ChatGPT and put it on voice recording and and ask it to interview you based on the challenge you have.

You can really capture quite a few pages on your unique challenge.

What is it really that you're struggling with?

And then the next question based on this profile while who would be the five most suitable people I can talk to then?

No matter what challenge you are facing then those people will be there and then you can have most offer a complimentary connection call and you can start being on the way to seek help.

And I also can say that if someone doesn't have the money to seek help, if someone doesn't have the money for a coach or therapist, then for most of the addictions and struggles they are also voluntary organizations such as 12 step programs and they are field of volunteers who will be there to help as well.

Lots of important practical advice.

Nick Johnson, Psychotherapist, Executive Coach and Ironman thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.

Thank you Lynne.

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