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Episode 039: Leslie Gold Talks About the Importance of Exercise in Recovery
31 Plays6 days ago
In this episode, Leslie Gold of Strides in Recovery runs to talk about the benefits of exercise in recovery. Visit our website at www.nbhap.org.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Destination Change'
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to Destination Change, a podcast where we talk recovery, treatment and more. I'm your host, Andy Feeder-Sutton with the National Behavioral Health Association providers, and I use she, her pronouns.
Mission of Strides in Recovery
00:00:22
Speaker
My guest today is Leslie Gold.
00:00:24
Speaker
Leslie, she, her is the founder and executive director of Strides in Recovery, a Los Angeles based nonprofit that uses goal oriented group running and walking programs to support long term sobriety for individuals overcoming addiction.
00:00:36
Speaker
Since launching the organization in 2018, Leslie has built collaborative partnerships with addiction treatment providers, recovery communities, race directors, local businesses, shoot owners, and financial supporters across Los Angeles County provide evidence-based programs that strengthen participants physically, mentally, and emotionally.
00:00:52
Speaker
Prior to founding Strides in Recovery, Leslie built a 30-plus year career in healthcare care leadership, project management, analytics. She held senior roles in clinical quality improvement, managed care contracting, cost accounting, decision support, and information systems implementation.
00:01:07
Speaker
Her commitment to service extends beyond her professional work.
Founding a Nonprofit Journey
00:01:11
Speaker
She has volunteered with a wide range of community organizations for her entire life, focusing on causes that strengthen individuals and families.
00:01:18
Speaker
Welcome to Destination Change, Leslie. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Now for regular listeners, they all know my my first question is always the same for everybody. I like to hear what I call origin stories.
00:01:29
Speaker
Basically, what got you know there are billions of jobs out there, different types of things you can do. What got you into this field and why? Well, if you had told me 15 years ago that one day I would...
00:01:43
Speaker
quit a perfectly good, well-paying job to start a nonprofit and then happily work even more hours for no pay, and that the nonprofit was going to be focused on leading running groups for clients in addiction treatment programs, and that somehow in the process, I would become a distance runner myself.
00:02:01
Speaker
I never would have believed that. I'm not in recovery myself. Addiction was not something even on my
Running as a Personal and Community Tool
00:02:10
Speaker
radar screen. I'm fortunate that it was not in my family or my circle of friends.
00:02:15
Speaker
I don't have clinical training. Back then I was a casual runner and the idea of starting a nonprofit had never even crossed my mind at that point. But i had been a runner ever since I was in high school for a number of different reasons that changed throughout my life.
00:02:34
Speaker
Early on, it was because i saw that the healthiest, most energetic people in my family were the ones who exercised the most. And my uncle was a runner and a baseball player. And I thought I want to be like him. So i started going to run with him.
00:02:51
Speaker
And then I realized later on that running was a great way to just lower stress. When I had my kids, it was a good way to lose the pregnancy pounds. After each kid, I had to keep running a little bit more to lose the weight.
00:03:06
Speaker
It was also a great time to... just take time out in the start of my day to clear my head enjoy nature. As my kids got older, it became social. And so for me, running was just always something that I did for myself.
00:03:21
Speaker
But all of that changed because of a number of events that happened over maybe the course of about five to 10 years. I would break it into, it was crazy.
00:03:35
Speaker
two casual conversations and adding the local paper and then an aha moment and then being given an opportunity to coach that just completely changed everything.
00:03:46
Speaker
Once I started running more when my kids were older, that my neighbor encouraged me to run a half marathon. And I thought, you know, why not? That sounds fun. So I ran it with him.
00:03:58
Speaker
had fun, started running a whole bunch more marathon half marathons. And then, of course, my my running buddies were like, you should run a full marathon. And it took me a while to convince myself that I was willing to take the time, no but well, that I could. And i started to think, though, I know how much time it takes to run a marathon and train for that. So why would I want to do it? So I said, okay,
00:04:26
Speaker
I'm going to run for a good cause. And now I'm just going to sit back and wait for that good cause to inspire me. And I saw an ad in the paper one day that said, run to save a soul, the only Jewish themed charity team for the Los Angeles Marathon. So I thought, okay, you know, I'm Jewish. I'll go run for a Jewish charity. That sounds good.
00:04:45
Speaker
Without checking at all as to what they did. And when I showed up the first day, was like, oh, I'm in an addiction treatment program and everybody else on the team is in their first couple months of sobriety.
00:05:00
Speaker
And i was fortunate that they were very accepting of me. I thought maybe they're going to think, why are you here? And you don't belong or whatever, but people were just super warm and and welcoming. And so I started training for my...
00:05:15
Speaker
first marathon with the team. This was at Beit Shuvah, which is a ah rehab up in West LA. And that was when I had my aha moment.
00:05:26
Speaker
Up until then, I had always thought of running as something I just did for my own physical, mental, emotional health. But what would happen is I'd be running with people is they would start to share their stories with me.
00:05:42
Speaker
And, you know, I would help out since I had a lot of running experience at that point, doing half marathons, just encouraging them, pacing them. But most of the time I was listening and learning.
00:05:53
Speaker
And there were so many times when I'd get to the end of the run and people were, oh, you know, thanks so much for your help. and And I really appreciate that you took the time to listen to my story. it it meant a lot.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I would hear this over and over. And that was when I started thinking like, wait, I mean, my running is helping somebody else. And that just really opened my eyes. And then at the end of that season, I did the l LA Marathon and They asked me, hey, do you want to help coach the team next year? So I thought, yeah, sure, why not?
00:06:28
Speaker
So that was in 2013. I've been coaching that team ever since. So I've literally gotten hundreds of people in their first year of recovery over the finish line of the LA Marathon.
00:06:42
Speaker
And then as I started to hear so many stories from people saying things like, training taught me I'm stronger than I thought. i could do whatever I put my mind to. I don't have to go through life alone anymore. I love being part of something bigger. And that's when I started thinking, well, gee, I should start a nonprofit and bring some kind of running program to other treatment programs. And 2018, couldn't.
00:07:07
Speaker
quit my job and now here I am. Star to Strides and Recovery. That is very much an origin story, definitely. i mean, you kind of already covered it, but give me the elevator pitch for Strides and Recovery. what When you are trying to sell the organization to funders or to people to join, what do you usually say?
00:07:28
Speaker
that we help people grow physically stronger, emotionally stronger, and mentally stronger so that they can do the hard work of recovery. Believe it or not, 2018 is almost 10 years ago. I'm still very much in the 90s or last decade.
00:07:48
Speaker
What have you seen kind of over the years since you started in terms of this program? Has has it gotten better? Has it gotten worse? Have you seen different people? Any trends? Well, we started out at One Sober Living, and now we have about 1,300 people a year going through the program. We lead about 120 groups a month in treatment programs all across Los Angeles County.
00:08:15
Speaker
And what I've seen is... the change in the running culture in LA County. So a couple things. One is that several of the treatment programs that we serve have embraced running so much that now they're actually hosting their own 5Ks. And we have one program where They let their clients in sober living. They tell them anybody who wants to train for a half marathon, we're taking you to Maui to run that half marathon. And they've they've done that.
00:08:48
Speaker
And then we go to a lot of the big public races and There are always people coming up to us. They see our shirts and they want to share their story. And I start to hear things about, oh, yeah, we see you everywhere. And I love it that people join the organization because they'll tell us, oh, we saw your group running or we saw you at a race. So I feel like within L.A. County, it's we're starting to raise awareness that...
00:09:14
Speaker
Running is a helpful type of recovery capital. And, you know, i I love it when people come up and share their stories and want to be part of it because they've seen us out
Benefits of Running in Addiction Recovery
00:09:24
Speaker
there. So the running community definitely knows who we are.
00:09:27
Speaker
yeah Before we get into the recovery capital side, as someone and based in L.A. myself, I do know the answer to this, but I do know we have people who are not based in l L.A. that are listening to this.
00:09:38
Speaker
I'm sure their first thought is there are places to run in L.A., So talk a little bit more about the the running community in Los Angeles. Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:48
Speaker
So there's lots of parks. I mean, well, when we go to the treatment programs, we go right to their door if if that's what they want and start the run from there. We have a couple groups in Pasadena where they meet us at the Rose Bowl. And one lap around the Rose Bowl is actually a perfect five k We do some community runs that bring all of our teams together a couple times a year where we start at a park in Hermosa Beach and run down to the bike path along the beach, which is actually 22 miles long. we We don't do all 22 of it, but we run four miles to an AA meeting that takes place on the sand in Redondo Beach.
00:10:27
Speaker
So, yeah, there are plenty of places to run, a lot of parks and parks. Just running through the neighborhoods. We have groups that run up and down Rodeo Drive. So it's a nice sightseeing, especially for people who are not from L.A.
00:10:40
Speaker
So, yep, L.A.' 's got plenty of places to run. And this is just out of curiosity because I get their emails. Are you aware of the AADAP marathon team? No, actually not. It's Asian American. don't know what the D part is. Oh, ADAP. Yeah, yeah. I thought you said Yes, ADAP. Actually, we coach them. So we met them at the LA Marathon, I don't know, a number of years ago, and it was only there. staff running the marathon at the time. And the person who was the CEO at the time happened to be there. And I said, Hey, have you ever thought about having your clients train? And that's how we got started. So yes, we, we've been working with them for a number of years.
00:11:20
Speaker
One of our coaches actually came out ah out of that program. He started with us just walking. He weighed 300 pounds. Now he runs races and and wins and has dropped over 100 pounds since we first met him.
00:11:35
Speaker
Nice. Now, you mentioned ah Recovery Capital. One of the things this destination change covers is the importance of Recovery Capital. How is running Recovery Capital? and Expand a little bit more on that.
00:11:47
Speaker
Sure. A couple of things. One is that we're giving people a community that they can be part of. So we tell people when they finish treatment, we definitely want them to stay connected with us. So they are welcome to come back and be volunteers. They're welcome to run with other groups.
00:12:08
Speaker
We always invite them to all of our events. We've had some alumni just decide on their own, like, hey, we're going to start our own running group. Like we had one of our coaches said, ah you know, I was thinking about doing the Long Beach Marathon. Is it okay if I put together a group? And I said, sure. And next thing you know, he had 28 people on the team and most of them were alumni from the program he had gone through.
00:12:32
Speaker
So we we create that community for people. It's also a coping strategy. like you know, it's a good way to just de-stress, clear your head. mean, sometimes when I'm leading a group, I'll ask people, what's your goal for the the run today? And i would say the number one answer I get is is clear my head.
00:12:54
Speaker
So that that's one. And then also, and I don't know how much you want me to go into all of the brain science, but there are a lot of neurochemical changes that happen that actually speed speed up the brain healing. and Yeah, as I was actually going to ask about, was actually getting, my next question was going to be about the the concept of a runner's high.
00:13:18
Speaker
And I'm assuming that is part of it. Yeah. And that's, that's a real thing. can tell you a funny story. One of the guys we were running with, I could tell some people want to walk, some people want to run. And then there's some people who just think they're not runners, but they they really are. So there was this one guy I was walking with and I'm trying to convince him to run and it just wouldn't work. And finally i said, all right, I'll tell you what, Ben, if you run, you get some free weed.
00:13:45
Speaker
And he looks at me, he's like, I can't touch that stuff anymore. And I said, well, you you don't have to, you get to make it in your own head. And he just looked at me. And then I explained that after your heart rate is in that 60 to 80% range for about 30 to 40 minutes, you start to produce a chemical called anandamide and it binds to the same receptors that THC does. So, which is the psychoactive ingredient in in marijuana. So, from your brain's perspective, you're smoking weed. And he just looks at me, well, I'm not a good runner. I'm like, so what? Like, let's just run from here to the next telephone pole.
00:14:20
Speaker
So we did. And then could I run a little further? I'm like, yeah. And we ran a little more. And then he's like, well, is it okay if I keep going? i'm Sure. and we get about three miles into it. And he stopped and he said,
00:14:32
Speaker
This is amazing. You were right. I can't believe it. And then when we got back the next week, he was the one telling everybody, you got to get out and run. It's like being half loaded. I love it. Now I understand why everyone does this. So so yeah, you get that that runner's high, but there are benefits over the the long-term. So one example, and they did this study at UCLA where they took two groups, both long-term meth users and One group just did the traditional therapy where, you know, group therapy and individual therapy and going to meetings. And the other group did the same thing. And then they added a couple days a week of cardio. And what they did was look at dopamine receptor activity in the control group and in the exercise group. And what they saw was that the
00:15:23
Speaker
increase in rate of dopamine receptor activity was three to four times higher after eight weeks. So for all those people who are like, well, what's so great about being sober? It's not fun. It's because their dopamine receptors are still shut down from all the use. But if you're exercising and the dopamine receptors become more active more quickly, people can see the benefits of sobriety more quickly.
00:15:47
Speaker
so that's one. There's also one of the changes is that any kind of cardio, it doesn't have to be you know running, but anything that is moderate aerobic and keeps your heart rate in that 60 to 80% range for you know at least half an hour or more increases production of BDNF, which is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which stimulates the production of new brain cells and particularly in the the hippocampus.
00:16:15
Speaker
And the reason that's important is because the hippocampus is part of the system of of learning and memory. So you can have people who are in early recovery and they sincerely want to be sober, and I'm sure you know people like this, they get out of treatment and a month later they relapse.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's because even though in their heart and soul they want to be sober, their brains are still wired for their old habits. So if you can exercise and speed up the rate at which the brain is growing new neurons and new connections between the neurons, the brain's being strengthened to support the new habits. So you're basically giving people the brain they need to help them in in recovery. We actually have a list of lots of studies on our our website that
00:17:06
Speaker
I mean, it's a list of links to all these studies. You can see the the benefits. I was actually looking at it right now. I am not a runner. I think the last time I ran a mile was in high school when they made us all run miles. If someone wanted to kind of get started in running a marathon or running a mile, what are some of the tips or advice that you would give?
Operational Insights and Challenges
00:17:28
Speaker
I would say the first thing is take running out of the equation and just think about it as movement. We deliberately call the organization Strides in Recovery because we want people to feel welcome if they're starting as a walker.
00:17:45
Speaker
But I would say the first thing would be carve out the time to do it. And, you know, some people are morning people. They're very happy to get up at the crack of dawn and go out and do something for half an hour. Other people would rather wait to the end of the day. So whatever, find the time that works for you and just carve out maybe 20, 30 minutes and go out for a walk or do whatever kind of movement you want so that that starts to become a habit.
00:18:13
Speaker
And then once you have that habit carved out, that's when you can start deciding, do I want to go faster or do I want to go further? And just start with little goals. What we do with our program participants is like, we're just going to run to the next lamppost and then we'll walk and then maybe we'll go to lampposts. And one of the things I like to hear is... When they'll say, oh, yeah, when I first started this, I couldn't even go a block. And now I made it all the way to, you know, whatever point, like the park where we take a break or whatever. But just make it a habit and just make a little bit of progress every day. And you turn around and six months later, hey, I'm a runner. Yeah.
00:18:53
Speaker
Well, one of the things I like to ask, especially people who are in the executive director slash CEO type of role, I know there's no such thing as at a you know typical day slash week, but what exactly do you do on a day day basis?
00:19:09
Speaker
Well, you're right. There is definitely not a a typical day, but I do have a standard approach that I take. And i always start by looking at the to-do list that i put together at the end of the previous day.
00:19:25
Speaker
And then the way I prioritize is I look at those tasks that are things that if I don't get them done, I'm holding somebody else up. Like maybe somebody has given me a document to review or a contract to sign where they need photos for the social media posts that they're making. So that's always my number one priority is make sure that I am giving everybody else what they need to be able to get their jobs done.
00:19:51
Speaker
Then I focus on what are the things that I consider my job, so to speak, and focus on those. As an executive director and transitioning from being involved in all the day-to-day operations to eventually moving to a more big picture kind of a role, I have to make that decision of how much time am I spending doing kind of working in the business as opposed to working on the business. So once I've gotten those things done and I consider like, hey, that's my job, like running payroll is an example, then
00:20:29
Speaker
It's step back and look at the big picture and take time to think strategically and what's the longer term vision and how do we need to align the organization to get toward that vision.
00:20:41
Speaker
And then by the end of the day, I go back and I look at my list and, all right, what are all the things that i wanted to get done today? Did I actually get them done? And if there were things that I didn't, they go right at the top of the party list for the next day. But I always like to end my day by thinking through What do I need to focus on tomorrow so that I can start the day running?
Community Focus and Partnerships
00:21:02
Speaker
Well, you know, sounds like you have a rather boring day with nothing happening then. yes Now you are based in l LA, but the organization itself is national, correct?
00:21:13
Speaker
We just focus in l LA. that The initial goal actually was to go national, but as we started to get into it, I saw just how important the community aspect of it is. So rather than spread ourselves thin, we decided to really go deep in LA and, you know, more events, more connection with alumni, more community engagement, and just really develop a very strong recovery and in Los Angeles, a recovery community in Los Angeles.
00:21:41
Speaker
The bio I read talked about, you know, you'd built collaborative partnerships, one of which you lists shoe donors, which i makes sense when you hear about it, but it's not the first thing I would think of with a partnership for people who run races. So talk a little bit about that and, and you know, what it what it takes to build these partnerships. What are some of your wins with these partnerships?
00:22:00
Speaker
Sure. Well, the shoe donors, a lot of the people who are in the program come in without running shoes. They're they're coming in off the streets or they're coming straight from prison. So they don't have shoes. you know they're They're showing up and they're wearing flip-flops shoes with holes in them or slippers. So...
00:22:23
Speaker
We want to make sure that that is not a barrier to participation. And the shoe donors, they find us. It's it's pretty amazing. We have one person who he's been sober for probably 40, 45 years. And he goes around to running stores and collects all these shoes. I was connected to him through a store manager at Fleet Feet in the Valley. And anytime I call him up like, hey, you got shoes and he will literally show up with 75 pairs of of shoes that he's collected from running stores. We have people who have found us on social media and collected shoes for us. So we're
00:23:06
Speaker
We have two big donors in San Diego. So I drive down there every once in a while, load up the car with all the bags of shoes. We have people who mail them to us. We host our own race once a year and have a big shoe donation box there. So, you know, we easily go through, i don't know, 700 or 800 pairs of shoes a year.
00:23:27
Speaker
So we'll keep them coming. Yeah, no, definitely. Your longer bio that you had says, you know, you're a presenter at many conferences and you've also done, you know, other non addiction treatment conferences, leadership and financial whatnot. Is it usually on the same topic? do you vary it? Is it always about running an addiction or is it just do you have a variety of the topics that you talk about?
00:23:50
Speaker
This was all back in my my prior career. I was working in healthcare. So I was speaking a lot of hospital financial management types of conferences.
00:24:01
Speaker
And then I've spoken at the Cady Conference. I've spoken at CCAP a couple times. And that is definitely one of the things I want to do more of. But for now, I'm focusing on organizational sustainability. And then ah we'll do some more more outreach too.
00:24:16
Speaker
Oh, no, definitely. What would you say is your least favorite or slash hardest part of what you do? That's a tough one. I think it might be giving myself a break and not working 60 hours a week at it. You know, there's there's so much that, you know, I think when you have...
00:24:36
Speaker
A job, so to speak, working for a company, it's easier to say, well, okay, this is, I've worked X number of hours. I contributed what I'm expected to do. i'm I'm done. But, you know, when it's yours, you're always looking around it. Well, I could do this. I could do that. Then we could do more of this and that. And so I think the hardest thing is probably taking a break. Yeah. Well, and since it's a nonprofit too, the having worked in nonprofits myself, I i know that that is also ah part of that, not wanting to stop working because you're like, we got to get this taken care of.
00:25:10
Speaker
On the opposite side, what is the easiest slash favorite part of what you do? I love the coaching part of it. and one of my favorite days actually is coming up in a few weeks is the l LA Marathon.
00:25:25
Speaker
Because like with this year's marathon, we're going to have the whole Bait Chuba team there. We've got about 45 people who are running as part of the Strides and Recovery nonprofit partner program. So they're fundraising for Strides and Recovery programs. We have clients from Beacon House who are running the full marathon. And i go out there and I run it with them. And then because I'm a coach, I get a special bib, which allows me to stay in the finish zone. So i get to the finish zone and I'm there for a couple hours. And I just love watching the looks on people's faces when they come across and put that medal on and are just like, i I can't believe I did this. So, so many of them are first timers. And then we also have people who, like one of our coaches,
00:26:08
Speaker
said, I'm going to do the l LA Marathon every time, every year that I'm sober. So every time he comes across like this year, it's going to be la Marathon number eight for him. But yeah, just just being in the finish zone and watching the looks on people's faces is amazing. And for all the races we do that are shorter, most of the participants in our program and They're in a treatment program for maybe you know three months, so they don't have time to train for a full marathon. So we have them going 5Ks and 10Ks. And it's it's the same joy. You watch them like everyone's cheering them on. They get to the finish line. They get a medal. And they're just so happy. And I i love seeing that.
Evidence and Guidance for Recovery Programs
00:26:47
Speaker
That is definitely my favorite part. Great. Now, we already kind of talked about this, but I was hoping to get some more information. you talked about the evidence supporting the the benefits of running and exercise and recovery. And your longer bio talks about how you've worked, collaborated with researchers at various universities to try and get evidence that proves this. Talk a little bit more about that in your work with that.
00:27:09
Speaker
Sure. The researchers find us. I mean, it'll be, I'll get emails typically from PhD students that, hey, I'm working on this project and can we interview your clients? Can they complete these surveys? And we connect them up so that they can have a population to work with. Because that's that's the problem that's hard for the the researchers is they have the ideas, but they don't necessarily have the population to do the research with. So we make that connection happen. And we actually have one of our coaches who's PhD student at UCLA and her
00:27:49
Speaker
thesis is going to be all about running as an intervention. So she's been running with our clients for a couple years, interviewing all of them and not all of them, but I mean, all the ones that that she runs with. And I'm really looking forward since I know her and know these people who she's talking to. I look forward to when she she writes it all up, which is going to start in ah another few weeks.
00:28:12
Speaker
So yeah, like any anytime someone reaches out and says, you know, can we help? but like Absolutely. We can. We provide what they need. Now, since you are L.A.-based, which apologies for getting that wrong, if somebody that was not in L.A. wanted to kind of start up something similar, what would be kind of your recommendations, your tips, that kind of stuff?
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, that happens. I get calls you know fairly often like, hey, how can we do something like this in and our community? And i usually start to talk to them to understand what their vision is and what the recovery community looks like where they're they live because it really varies from location to location.
00:28:54
Speaker
And then also just understand what kind of time they have available to put something like this together. So I don't think there's a one size fits all solution. You know, some people want to start A run club that is focused on people who are out in the community and are sober. So they might start by reaching out, let's say, to the Alano clubs in their area. Other people want to do this as part of a treatment program.
00:29:21
Speaker
Like they want to come into the treatment program, which is how we got our start. Some people want to just run races and and fundraise for us and not actually start their own program. So I talk to them and figure out what's going to be the best fit given their community and their availability.
00:29:40
Speaker
I am very much a sci-fi fantasy geek. So one of the things I like asking is if you could travel back in time to when you were first starting out, what would you tell yourself? What kind are the lessons learned since you started? Yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
my biggest one was, if there are areas that you know, are not your strength, so just go in with, oh, well, we'll just hire somebody to do that. That was a mistake that I made early on, because I know that my strengths are in the finance and operations side and in the coaching side. And I had very little experience with fundraising or grant writing and thought, oh, hey, no problem. Fundraising, we'll just hire a grant writer.
00:30:19
Speaker
And that did not work out the way I would have liked. And the lesson I learned from that is that if you don't understand the job at all or what your needs are that are very specific to your organization, then you can't ask the right questions during the interview process to separate out the people who really know how to do the job versus the ones who were just really good at giving all the right answers in the interview. And then you hire them and you don't get the results you want. So what I do now is when it's something that know is not going to be my strength and I'm not going to spend the time making it my strength is
00:31:02
Speaker
do the job just long enough so I start to understand what it is and what the most important parts are and how to ask the right kinds of questions.
00:31:13
Speaker
So that helped understand figure out, okay, what is the right person that's going to fit in this role specific to what our organization needs? And then also over the years, I've gotten more people on the team. It used to be just me doing everything. And now I've got coaches and a program director and social media and events people is I let them interview people as well so that I can get a lot of different perspectives. And then this way,
00:31:40
Speaker
we have been able to build a really good solid team because we're getting input from people and because we understand much better what our needs are. Definitely sounds like you've learned the right lessons. The hard way, but yes.
00:31:55
Speaker
Now you're obviously in a position of power. You've done this for quite a few years. Our audience is a wide range from people who are just starting out to CEO. So i always like to ask people if somebody approached you for advice for how to get into the inter industry or for what, you know, how to become a leader, what kind of advice would you give them?
00:32:13
Speaker
No matter what your organization is there challenges. different categories of functions that have to be done. And rather than going in with this giant endless to-do list, I would encourage people to organize it into areas and then tackle those areas one at a time and decide what the priorities are. So those areas, the way I see it are your program, your operations, like what are the things you have to do every day so that the people you're serving
00:32:47
Speaker
get the experience you're trying to create for them. So that's one piece of the organization. The second piece is sort of the marketing PR, you know, how does the community know about what you do? Because you probably need volunteers and donors and other types of community supporters. So how do you get the word out? So think about your marketing. And then there's all of that kind of background stuff that has to happen. People have to get paid. You've got to balance the books.
00:33:17
Speaker
You know, there are tax returns that have to be filed. There are human resources laws you've got to be on top of. So think about how you want to have smooth processes that keep the organization running well. And then the last area is the fundraising part of it.
00:33:33
Speaker
And, you know, it's not like you can do every single one of those four areas every day, but i would say try to at least do something in each of those four areas, like the programming, the marketing, the admin, and the fundraising every week.
00:33:47
Speaker
And then also try to find that right balance between doing the work versus overseeing the work. And when you're a growing organization, and you do spend a lot of time doing the work, but slowly you have to step back and take on more of a ah leadership role. And to me, that means thinking about what kind of culture you want to create, making sure everybody understands what the vision is, how you prioritize things.
00:34:15
Speaker
and make sure that gets communicated out so you do have an organization that's growing according to your vision and everybody is growing together in the same direction.
00:34:27
Speaker
And then finally, something that's important to me is ensuring the long-term sustainability of the organization. So right now, if I were to step away, things would fall apart, but i want to get it to the point where the organization was gonna run perfectly well without me. And there are parts right now of strides and recovery that do run perfectly well without me. And I'm very proud of how well my team just owns it and runs with it.
00:34:53
Speaker
But there are other areas where I have to focus and and and need work. So I would tell people like, think about, The long-term plan, your succession planning, like are all your processes documented so well that somebody else could step in? do you have a roadmap out there? Do you have tools to reinforce the type of culture that you want?
00:35:12
Speaker
And think about that early on. And as you spend less time doing the day-to-day work, you can think more about what your succession plan is and how it's going to be successful. that is a great way to segue into recommending some of our own stuff. Many of our webinars are about the the back end of how to run an organization. In fact, we have a 10 course SUD treatment provider bootcamp series. Now, admittedly, it was recorded in 2018, which unfortunately is a lot longer lot longer ago than i that it feels. And so some of it may be outdated, but you know most of that information is is still relevant to today. And of course, members get it for free.
00:35:53
Speaker
The first one, 10 things you need to know to succeed in behavioral health is free regardless of whether you're member. And of course, all the webinars are free if you are a member. In the bio you sent me, you had a couple of links for resources and things to do. But for those who may not, who may just get the podcast and and may not read the show notes, what are some of the resources that you use on a regular basis to kind of keep up with what you're doing?
00:36:18
Speaker
There's a book by Dr. John Rady, who is at Harvard, all about the the brain science and the the changes that exercise induces. And i use that as a reference quite a lot because...
00:36:34
Speaker
there there's so much in there and so many examples. And I like to be able to have all those examples in my head as I'm i'm talking to people. So I go back to that quite a bit. From the perspective of how to actually build a nonprofit, I have two different resources that I go to.
00:36:51
Speaker
One is the how I built this podcast that's on on NPR by Guy Raz, and he's interviewing all these different entrepreneurs. And one of the things that I learned was,
00:37:03
Speaker
no matter how different these different entrepreneurs from each other, you know, some did it as partners, some did it as individuals, some had a lot of expertise in the area, some didn't.
00:37:14
Speaker
The one thing they all had in common was that no matter how many times they hit a roadblock, they didn't quit. They just kept on reinventing themselves, trying new things. They see failure as, okay, we learned what didn't work, so keep going.
Engagement and Marketing Strategies
00:37:28
Speaker
So it was a you know just Just keep going. and And I learned from that. And then to be more specific about a nonprofit, there's a podcast I like to listen to that by Joan Gary that's called Nonprofits Are Messy. And she'll talk about things. be Oh, yeah, that happened to me too. Oh, good. wonder how they're solving that problem. So that that's also helpful.
00:37:50
Speaker
And then in terms of other resources, I would love to see more people who are looking for an active, sober community, come join us. We have all kinds of resources on our our website. You can, there are links to all of our social media. So we are on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook,
00:38:12
Speaker
YouTube and TikTok so people can join with whatever platform they want. We have our monthly events on our calendar and people are welcome to join us there. We have ways to come out and get involved and run with us on a ah regular basis. So that's that's the best resource that we can offer. Come join our community.
00:38:32
Speaker
and Well, and you mentioned that your hardest part was was marketing. I'm going to promote a resource I use on a regular basis for my marketing. Are you familiar with the Goodman Center and Andy Goodman?
00:38:44
Speaker
ah No, actually, I'm not. He basically is ah all about the power of storytelling and marketing. And he has this great ah book that you can download for free, When Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, all about how not to do your visual ads. He also has When Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. so If you're looking for suggestions on how to do a good PowerPoint, that's also, they have a monthly newsletter where they send out kind of the latest things they've learned or new tips and tricks. And yeah, I first encountered him back in the late nineties and the fact that I'm still promoting him should tell you how much of an influence he had on me. So well thank you. Yeah. I'll check that out. Yeah. And I'll make sure all of these resources and are linked in the show notes for those of you who are interested. Yeah. Now, you did already mention your social media, but just in case, if people want to get a hold of you, where can they go?
00:39:36
Speaker
There's a contact us link on the Strides in Recovery website, and then they can also message us on Facebook or Instagram. so those are probably the three three best ways.
00:39:48
Speaker
And it's stridesinrecovery.org, correct? That's
Personal Motivations and Closing Remarks
00:39:51
Speaker
correct. And then was there something that you wanted to talk about that we hadn't or that you thought i was going to ask, but we didn't? I think I'd like to share some of the quotes from some of the participants in our program that just so people can see how meaningful it is. I mean, and these are some quotes from some of our coaches.
00:40:13
Speaker
And a number of our coaches or people are sober themselves and a number of them came through our our program. So, you know, one that i like, this is one of the people who was on that Long Beach marathon team. She wrote, strides never gave up on me. I ran my first half marathon and now I feel like I can accomplish anything I put my mind to.
00:40:34
Speaker
Running keeps me mentally, physically and emotionally strong. I went from running amok in the cold streets to running for my recovery. of Another one from one of our runners said, you know, when I got clean, I needed something to replace the chaos, something healthy to pour my energy into. That's where running came in. Running reminds me that progress isn't about speed. It's about consistency. And it's become a spiritual practice for me.
00:40:59
Speaker
Every mile I run feels like I'm leaving the old version of myself behind. We have another one who said, once I started running, I weaned off my psych meds. And he said, the main thing running has done for me lies in the moments when I'm alone on the road and my mind tells me that I can't run anymore.
00:41:14
Speaker
And any preconceived notions, any false narratives I've created for myself, about myself, are all shattered when my body does and can run more. I no longer hate myself and everything about me.
00:41:25
Speaker
Those are some great quotes. Great way to end it too. Although I do always ask, this is kind of a rephrase of the initial question, but gut instinct without thinking about it, why do you do what you do?
00:41:38
Speaker
Because it's incredibly rewarding. And I feel like I get to take things I'm good at and things that I care about and make a ah big difference. i I love that I've created an organization where we've grown into a ah big community and people literally tell me that I've changed their lives.
00:42:02
Speaker
that is and What could be better than that? Brilliant reason. Exactly. You've been listening to Destination Change. Our guest today was Leslie Gold. Thank you for being here. Our theme song is Sun Nation by Keetze and used via the Creative Commons license by the Free Music Archive.
00:42:17
Speaker
Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts so we get more listeners. In the meantime, you can always learn more, see more about the podcast, including show notes and where else to listen on our website, www.nbhap.org.
00:42:31
Speaker
If you have any questions for the podcast, please email us at info at nbhap.org. Thanks for listening.