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This episode and the following transcript were originally published by Stand Together Foundation.
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Jeff Proctor
Hey, everybody. Jeff Proctor here. I’m a consultant at Stand Together and one of your hosts for the Stand Together Podcast. Every time you hear my voice on the show, it’ll be alongside my friend, Ski, and we’ll be talking principles with some of the most impactful and inspiring makers of change and hope dealers in the country. In this episode type, Principles, we’ll meet incredible leaders who are applying upending principles as they work to lead and join in healing their communities. I hope you’ll join us.
Ski Ahmad
Welcome back to the Stand Together Podcast. I’m Ski Ahmad.
Jeff Proctor
And I’m Jeff Proctor. We’re excited to join the podcast to bring you our first of three episodes on the principles that drive the Stand Together community.
Ski Ahmad
Wait, the what? That do what?
Jeff Proctor
Was I not perfectly clear?
Ski Ahmad
I think maybe we’re going to have to explain this a bit for folks who don’t spend all of their time nerding out like we do, Jeff.
Jeff Proctor
Well, by all means, proceed.
Ski Ahmad
No. Not at all. For real, man. No, you go first.
Jeff Proctor
All righty. I’ll give my version of the story and you can tell me where I’m wrong. For me, I’m fortunate to get to do work that touches on a few overlapping obsessions, and I use that word on purpose. I’ve always been deeply interested in people, why they do what they do, what makes them tick. I studied psychology and communications as an undergrad, added a grad degree in economics, and have looped all the way back around to pretty much constantly diving into psychology again now.
Ski Ahmad
Dude, you are a huge people nerd.
Jeff Proctor
That is correct, sir. Tying all of this to my role at Stand Together: we’re all about understanding and helping create the conditions that result in the greatest social and economic progress for everyone. We call those conditions “the principles of human progress.” The more a society is characterized by those principles, the more people in that society will enjoy progress. And I can spend my time working to more deeply understand those principles and help people apply them in contexts that matter to them. More on that in a minute, but Ski, how’d I do?
Ski Ahmad
Pretty good. So then I’ll share my perspective. For me, I get fired up about this stuff for several reasons. One, I grew up in an environment or a neighborhood where I didn’t experience productive conditions around me. So when you talk about those conditions, I didn’t really experience those. I know what it’s like to not have them present, too.
I’ve come to realize in life that me, Ski, I tend to be refueled and energized by other people passionately trying to do great things to improve other people’s lives. That’s how I get refueled.
And then three, I was foolish enough back in early 2010 or so—when I became a supervisor for the first time—I was foolish enough to try creating a work environment based on the presence of these principles of human progress. And it worked.
So I did it again in a different role, then at a different company, and the respective teams thrived and those individuals, their resulting fire, then empowered me to do even more. What I’m saying, Jeff, is I’ve become passionate about intentionally creating these environments based on these conditions at work, at home, and in the community. That’s why our listeners will hear me get amped up about these topics.
Jeff Proctor
That makes total sense to me. Why don’t we get into it? What does it mean to apply a “principle of human progress?” And yes, I am doing air quotes here in the studio. Today’s episode is about the principle of bottom up. Sometimes I use terms like emergence or spontaneous order—gain, more nerd stuff—somewhat interchangeably. There are powerful social processes that exist as a result of human action but not of human design. We call those bottom up emergent processes.
Ski Ahmad
I like that, Jeff. If you think about it, take language for example. Human languages exist because people struggle to communicate with each other and ultimately figured out a helpful way to do so, and we continue to update and modify languages each day. Sometimes we say quote—and I’ll use air quotes, Jeff. Sometimes we might say, “No one created languages.” But it’s probably more accurate to say, “We all helped create languages.” So it’s a bottom up solution to a really important problem.
Jeff Proctor
How do we help people apply principles like bottom up to make real-world decisions?
Ski Ahmad
Well, our Catalyst listeners should probably be having light bulbs going off right about now. And if you tuned in to our previous episodes, you heard Evan describe what or who a Catalyst is. Here at Stand Together Foundation, we partner with high impact nonprofits—we call them Catalysts—out on the front lines, helping people in poverty, removing barriers, and empowering people to reach their full potential. The one big way the bottom up principle shows up for us is in the vision dimension of our management philosophy.
Jeff Proctor
I concur. That’s the whole point. The goal of our approach is to help leaders create organizations where each person can come to work and figure out what to do to best advance the mission of that organization without being told what to do. That way, knowledge about the right things to work on emerges from throughout the organization. It isn’t dictated from the top.
Ski Ahmad
A bottom up organization advocating for a bottom up world.
Jeff Proctor
How poetic of you. Speaking of bottom up solutions, I could not be more thrilled to welcome Scott Strode. Scott is one of the first social entrepreneurs I got to work with after we launched Stand Together Foundation and you get to work with him all the time in your role. This is going to be a great chat.
Hi, Scott. Welcome to the show.
One of the things that Ski and I are going to do in all of our episodes is invite our guests to tell a little bit of their story. But because some of those stories are already out there with Stand Together producing videos and stories about some of our Catalyst partners, I want to ask you to give us a little bit of your background, but also through the lens of this bottom up principle: what are some things about recovery and about your story that maybe people don’t know about unless they’re close to the issue?
Scott Strode
Well, I guess if you’re close to the issue, you probably have heard stories similar to mine in that I experienced early childhood trauma that caused some pain, that really was the primary driver of my addiction story. I was trying to fill some self-esteem wounds and numb that pain by drinking and drugging. And as quickly as that became a coping mechanism for me, it actually started failing me as a coping mechanism by stripping away a lot of the dreams I had about who I could be in my life and ultimately took me to a pretty lonely dark place.
I think where there’s something that might be a little bit different is the fact that I found my way into a boxing gym and got exposed to climbing. There was something about tying into that climbing rope for the first time and pushing through that fear of getting onto the cliff and getting to the top of the climb that, that started to sort of breathe some oxygen on this self-esteem ember that was still smoldering there inside me, and ultimately helped that catch fire.
What I realized is that intrinsic strength was always within me, and what I see more broadly in the addiction recovery landscape, and how we’re approaching that issue, is that we’re doing it more so from this top down control way: looking at the people that are struggling as actually the problem. Whereas the truth is, within them is already the solution. We just have to create the space for it to come out.
Jeff Proctor
I’m interested to hear—and I know I’ve heard some of your story that you shared before—but how did you find your way to boxing and climbing? Because that’s, as you’re alluding to, maybe not the path that most people would think of when they think, “What am I going to do to pursue recovery?” How did that happen for you?
Scott Strode
For me, it was that addiction taking hold in your life isn’t something that you sort of imagine or dream of as a kid that, “I’m going to grow up and become an addict.” It’s sort of insidious. It just starts creeping in and you start shedding more healthy nurturing relationships as you go deeper into your addiction, and you end up surrounding yourself almost entirely by a group of folks that are drinking and using the way you are.
I remember sort of feeling as if I was losing myself in this life that I was living, and that I wanted to break out of that. I didn’t know how to do it, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered as a kid, my stepfather was going to take me on this camping trip. Ultimately, it got rained out, but I remember thinking, I think being in the outdoors could be powerful and I didn’t know why I had that sort of instinct.
I had worked in my active addiction and some experiential education stuff. And so I knew the power of some of those things, but I went to this outdoor store and thought, “I’m going to get outdoorsy. What do I need to buy to be outdoorsy?” And the guy’s like, “You need a GORE-TEX jacket.” And I was like, “I think that sounds great. I’ll take one.” I was like, “Whoa, $200.” Now they’re like six.
But anyway, I bought this jacket and I was walking out of the store and I saw a brochure for ice climbing and I thought, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.” But something about that image made me think, “Could I ever be that person who’s on that climb, who’s doing that thing?” And it opened up this little part of me that had me thinking if I stayed sober on Friday night, I could actually go climb on Saturday.
Once I took that first step, there was really no stopping it, because at that point I started to realize that there’s this person that I can be and this person that I wrongly think I am. I thought I was entirely my addiction story or my failures. But once you start having that belief of who you can be, it’s pretty hard to go backwards from there because there’s always a discomfort because you know that there’s something brighter out there. So I just continued to get pulled towards what I think of as sort of the next evolution of me.
Jeff Proctor
That’s incredible. When you contrasted top down with bottom up, I think one of the things that I see in your story is that the insights that you had about yourself as you were walking in to buy the jacket, as you were thinking about becoming outdoorsy, those were insights that were specific to you as a person. There’s something that I couldn’t have predicted, necessarily might have been the things that would help you where you’re at and that give you that vision of where you could be.
I think that’s such a good explanation of what this principle in practice really looks like. It’s not that top down solutions are misled. It’s not that they’re ill-hearted. It’s not that people aren’t trying to help. It’s literally that the knowledge that you needed to discover about yourself in order to pick the specific path that you ended up taking was a journey of self-discovery for you, and not something that could necessarily be designed and implemented on you as if you are the problem. Right?
Scott Strode
I agree totally. I mean, I agree with you that those attempts at top down solutions are well-intentioned and often trying to solve a pretty complex issue. But I think instead what really needs to happen is to create the container in which the person can actually thrive and reach their full potential. I think the way to create that container is use sort of a culture or principles to create a safe and supportive space for that thriving to happen.
Jeff Proctor
Ski, that’s starting to sound a little bit like that environment thing you keep talking about.
Ski Ahmad
It is. And that’s a great introduction to who you were, Scott, your original story. Can you introduce our listeners to who you are now?
Scott Strode
I mean I think that those stories and those early days are still part of me, but I think that who I am today is really who I had the opportunity to be my whole life, just the environment wasn’t set up for me to succeed in that direction. I can break that down a little bit more.
Even in my active addiction, I was good at pulling people together and building community; it’s just what we were doing was very different. It wasn’t necessarily lifting each other up as much as it was just helping the party go on longer and louder and more intensely. But when that energy got freed up to move in a positive direction, I realized that, in my early recovery, I started surrounding myself with a group of people that were much more excited about getting up at five in the morning to go climbing than they were staying out till five in the morning.
We were sort of creating an environment where we believed in each other to take on challenges and do things that I think, on our own, we wouldn’t have had the courage to step into. And that started to become the underpinnings in the framework of what would become The Phoenix, is this space where you’re believed in until you start believing in yourself.
Jeff Proctor
Scott, I want to drill in on that. You mentioned earlier beliefs, principles, practices. Before we talk about the environment that The Phoenix creates, I want to talk a little bit about your beliefs about people, the insights that you’ve gained that of course ultimately became integral to The Phoenix. But before we get there, what are those beliefs and values that you have, that you’ve learned through your experience?
Scott Strode
I think that I have this deep belief in people that really is sort of born from having seen so many folks who’ve experienced significant challenges and struggles in their lives, but when given the opportunity, they can thrive and express this intrinsic strength that I believe is deep inside of all of us. I think sometimes the environments we’re born into and the challenges and the circumstances create barriers and create experiences that begin to undermine that intrinsic belief in ourselves. I think that, as humans, we have and start to create a message that actually undercuts that self-esteem and sort of throws up barriers in front of that strength to keep it from being expressed.
But what I’m always moved by with my work at Phoenix is just seeing folks come from pretty tough places but still being able to identify that self-esteem ember smoldering inside of them and knowing in my heart that if we just give it enough oxygen, it’s going to catch fire. Because I’ve seen it catch fire so many times, that you actually get to a place where you can start to see people as who they really are and truly were born into this world, versus their circumstances, and you just know if you can help change those circumstances that everything will change.
Jeff Proctor
Not to make too much light, but sometimes the term potential can be a bit of a backhanded comment. If you tell me, I have a lot of potential, that might mean that you think I haven’t amounted to too much yet, but the way you talk about it is, that is who you are. You are that person. You are good. You are capable. And if we get the environment right, if we apply the right principles, and treat each other the right way, people will emerge from these difficult situations. And Ski, I know our whirlwind trip around the country with all these Catalyst groups that we work with, we see it over and over and over again, both in the folks who work for the organizations as well as the clients and customers that they serve. These stories of people finding who they really are and thriving as a result.
Ski Ahmad
And that’s part of why we’re doing the work that we’re doing at Stand Together Foundation. It’s going out and finding these organizations who have this deep belief in people, as Scott just mentioned, and being willing to pour into those individuals. And Scott, I love the thought at The Phoenix, you’re going to try your best to believe in an individual until they believe in themselves. Talk a little bit about that as part of your journey, that moment where you feel like, “Hey, I’m beginning to believe in myself.” And then what that began to unlock for you.
Scott Strode
I think it took me a long time to get there, and I think the narrative I heard when I was young really had me fully believing that I wasn’t deserving of love or that I didn’t have an inherent value. I think that it took a lot of messages that were the opposite of that before I actually started to hear it.
I just remember this time when I was early in my climbing career, and I went to a big mountain to climb, and I was in recovery at this point, and I had become a student of mountaineering and climbing. I was with a guide and there’s a big group of people, we’re on the mountain, and he made a decision, a safety call that I disagreed with, and I voiced it and I thought, “Man, where’d that come from?”
It came from this trust in myself and what I had learned, and the training I had gotten, and my instinct about how to keep myself and the group safe. And it was the right call. Half of the group went down, half of the group went up, and the group that went up got hammered by a big storm and was snowed into a tent for a couple days, and experienced some altitude sickness.
The group that went down, we’d drank coffee at base camp and watched the storm hammer the mountain. It was like, that was just this affirmation for me that I actually have something to contribute. And in something that I have a love for, I can contribute in a way that I’m helping lift others. Maybe it was lifting them down the mountain instead of up it, but it ultimately allowed them to go climb other mountains later. That was a change for me and I just carried that moment forward and started building on it.
Jeff Proctor
That is going to make this principle a lot more confusing. Sometimes the bottom up solution is to go down the mountain, so thank you for that.
Scott Strode
That’s true.
Jeff Proctor
We’re not having a hard time making that clear already.
Tell us how the combination of your experiences and your beliefs that you have developed and understood about yourself and others have culminated into the creation of The Phoenix, and the environment that The Phoenix creates to help folks in recovery.
Scott Strode
Well, I think the first part of that was not thinking that I alone had all the answers. I had to draw in other people’s inputs and thoughts on it. And so, I had a friend who was a climbing partner, who had been a clinical social worker, Jackie Helios, and another friend, Ben Court, who had worked with youth in experiential education, and some other friends.
We kind of came together and I said, “We have this idea, we want to start a nonprofit, we’re going to call it The Phoenix. What do you all think?” And they’re like, “Yeah, you should do that.” And then they all went back to their jobs and did their own thing, but kept encouraging me along. But what we started to realize is that there were these core things that had to be present. We didn’t know it at the time, but it had to create a psychologically safe environment for people to really be able to express themselves.
Because I think that we sort of picked some rules that we thought would create this safe space, that anything that isn’t encouraging, we don’t need to bring it to Phoenix. We want to encourage each other along, that we have to show up in a respectful way for each other, and we just sort of set some rules around some of that. But I think what was really special about what we created there, was we were starting to, in an unknowing way, lay down some principles that would become the container in which people could find the space to thrive.
Because when you’re in a place that you know you’re loved and accepted for all of you, even the tough parts of your story, you’re put at ease and that allows you to become more vulnerable. And in that vulnerability, it allows you to open up to the possibility and the potential that’s inside you.
That can be expressed through something simple, like tying into a climbing rope for the first time. And I don’t care who you are, if you tie into a climbing rope, there’s some fear. But if you’re in a safe environment and you know that person on the other end of the ropes got you, and more than that, they got you even if you don’t make it to the top, they’re still going to be there for you. It allows you to try. And in that trying, I find that you almost always make it to the top.
It may not be your first time; it may be your second or third, but then you come down and you carry that belief in yourself to the next thing you do. These were some of the early elements that that core group in the early days of The Phoenix started to build around the program. We saw a powerful effect it had on people because so many folks we find in The Phoenix really had been defined solely by their addiction stories in their life and we saw them as so much more.
Jeff Proctor
You keep bringing up the climbing rope. I think you’re trying to get me to tell the story about, after a few years of working with you all and hanging out first in Denver, and then the Boston gym, I made, at the time, what I thought was a mistake—and I now consider it a blessing—but the mistake of telling you guys that I was terrified of heights and would never, ever, ever climb on a climbing wall. And that if my family found out that I climbed, they would think something was wrong, because they were certain that that was a thing I would never do. And the gentle encouragement began. I think it was at least two trips to Boston later, and sure enough, I put those little shoes on, clipped into the rope, and eventually went up the wall.
When I say that I am afraid of heights, I don’t mean I worry about falling. I mean, my body stops working. My legs go to jelly. It is a complete mess. And everything that you’re describing about the container, they were the only reasons why I was able to overcome something like that. I’ve seen just a glimpse of that firsthand, where in the right environment with the right people around you, practicing the right values and beliefs, you accomplish things that you wouldn’t think you would’ve accomplished. So first of all, thank you to The Phoenix team for that. My follow-up question to that is, to whatever extent you can share some of the stories, what are some other ways you’ve seen people surprise even themselves inside the container of The Phoenix?
Scott Strode
I think it’s played out so many times at The Phoenix. I could pull up one in particular, that was just in the early days: we had a Phoenix member who had been a mountain biker, and he was a really good mountain biker. I mean, he had competed and raced and got involved with The Phoenix and got into recovery. I won’t say that The Phoenix helped him turn pro as an athlete—and that’s not our goal, to create professional athletes—but I think something about the way he changed, and how he was living and approaching his sport, he then turned pro after getting involved with The Phoenix. That wasn’t actually the moment that was most powerful. I think that the powerful moment was one time when I asked him to teach a Phoenix mountain biking event. He said, “I’ve never been asked to be a mentor to anyone.”
Jeff Proctor
Wow.
Scott Strode
And that’s the shift where something special happened. So it’s not always about the performing at the highest level of you, personally. It’s not about what mountain I was on climbing, and the height of that mountain, and if I got to the top or not. It was that transformational moment when he started to see himself as he could be a mentor to others. That meant that he had some inherent value that he could contribute to others. And that’s the moment that was powerful. We’ve seen that happen again and again at Phoenix programs.
Jeff Proctor
I’m glad to know that the fact that I haven’t gone pro in climbing hasn’t been a disappointment to the team.
Ski Ahmad
Well, maybe to some people, Jeff, it’s been a disappointment.
Scott Strode
There’s still time.
Ski Ahmad
Hey, Scott, one thing that I had on my mind in thinking about The Phoenix is this idea of… You talk about how heavy that door is to step into a place like The Phoenix—voluntarily coming in—and what’s happened with someone who’s struggling to open that door and walk in. Talk to us a little bit about the weight of that door, and how, at times, it prevents people from coming in. But then on the flip side, once you’ve come in, once you’ve opened that heavy door and come in, well, what that does in the lives of Phoenix members.
Scott Strode
I mean, I think for some background: The Phoenix program itself started primarily with activities rooted in what we’ve been talking about, because that was my lived experience. I was a climber. My friend was a climber. Jackie was a climber. We started doing outdoor programming, biking, hiking, climbing, triathlon, that kind of stuff.
And then we started coming into gyms with this free recovery support program. You just had to be 48 hours clean and sober. We had those sort of rules that we had built to create that supportive container. And we realized that to make that front door bigger, we had to add other activities. So we started bringing in meditation and yoga and all this other stuff, even social events and art. But as you mentioned, Ski, we always talked about the heaviest weight in the gym being that front door, because getting that 48 hours sober, if you’re early in recovery, is really hard.
And then walking into a room for the first time without that drink or drug in your system, that you’re oftentimes using to numb that pain or that self-esteem wound, or whatever it might be, is really hard to do. Everyone at Phoenix who comes regularly has a keen eye for watching that new person walk in the door. And when they see it, they make sure to scoop them up with love and support them in trying whatever activity it is, whether it’s Jeff trying climbing, or trying your first yoga class, or your first meditation, or even your first social event, being around people without drinking or drugging. Because we know that, that’s a fragile moment and it’s easier to go back out that door to that old life than it is to stay inside that building with this new group of people.
Anyway, I think that’s a powerful moment when you first come to Phoenix or anything new. You’re taking this mental model about who you thought you were and you’re going to try to break that by doing something very different. It’s like me trying to go into that store the first time and get outdoorsy. We all have that moment, but if we can push through it on the other side is actually our true potential.
Jeff Proctor
It took me a few visits with you all to really understand the 48 hours sober, and the heavy door, and the hug, and the importance of all of that, which I think reiterates the importance of proximity and developing environments like The Phoenix from a place of deep understanding: of what the experience of someone trying to move that door might be like. You’ve grown immensely since we first met six or seven years ago. How has The Phoenix, as an organization, maintained or improved even its ability to keep that proximity, closeness, bottom up thing going, and where have you struggled?
Scott Strode
I have to back up a little bit. We knew that supportive space was so important, that we were slow to grow. We wanted to make sure we could grow in a way that we could preserve that culture. And in part, through finding Stand Together and our partnership with the Stand Together Foundation, we started to realize how we could grow The Phoenix and put in place some principles that preserve that safe space.
The more confident we became in our ability to do that, the more confident we became in our ability to scale The Phoenix across the country, because I believe there’s this sort of fundamental human truth that we have, that we all can see the potential in others. We often have the hardest time seeing that potential in ourselves, I think, but we had people reaching out from across the country saying, “I have a loved one struggling with addiction. I think Phoenix could help if they were here.” And, “Is Phoenix ever going to launch in our community?”
What we realized is in the voice of that person reaching out to us, was actually somebody who could be that preserver of that culture and the person who could help that culture grow into their community if we could just empower them with the tools that we had at The Phoenix on how to create the program. It went from us thinking of The Phoenix as an organization and a program, to us thinking of The Phoenix as a movement; a movement where we believe in each other even if we don’t yet believe in ourselves. And that doesn’t see anyone who’s struggling with substance use as the problem. We actually see them as the solution. And if we can empower others in communities to carry that same culture and vision, that it will catch fire everywhere.
We don’t actually have to grow with Phoenix staff in other communities because there’s Phoenix advocates that’ll pick up that flag and carry it forward and bring Phoenix to their community. We just got to get out of their way and give them some tools to do it, and that’s how we started growing across the country.
Now that’s taking us from three states and seven communities when we first met Stand Together to over 40 states and I think like 130 communities now. We’ve served about a hundred thousand people since we started about 15 years ago, 16 years ago with Phoenix free recovery support. But what’s really powerful is now that that movement’s begun to take hold, I think we’re going to serve a hundred thousand people with free recovery support just this year, through all the volunteers that are carrying Phoenix flags and communities everywhere.
Jeff Proctor
That’s amazing. You put it so clearly and so succinctly talking about getting that phone call from a person in a community that you didn’t have a presence in. The top down mindset sees that as another task to solve for, and the bottom up emergent proximity based mindset says, “That’s an opportunity.” “That’s a resource.” “That is a person who, in the right container, maybe more of a virtual container, or at least a decentralized container… that person can be a powerful force for the people in their lives who are pursuing recovery.” I think that is so in line with what we actually mean when we talk about this concept and this idea.
We’re going to take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll talk about some of the challenges of believing in people in a society that often doesn’t.
[Short Break]
Ski Ahmad
Welcome back, everybody. We’re here with Scott Strode, the executive director and co-founder of The Phoenix. Before the break, we were talking about our personal experiences, engaging with The Phoenix, and Jeff talking about jumping on a climbing wall with a fear of heights. Dude, I don’t know why you ever, ever tried something like that.
Jeff Proctor
Going all the way up, baby.
Ski Ahmad
Scott, so I want to try to maybe dive a little bit deeper into the operations of The Phoenix. I mean, you’ve talked about the growth and the scale of The Phoenix, which is amazing. It’d be good to be able to unpack how these principles are specifically being applied within The Phoenix. If I’m a nonprofit leader trying to go drive change within my organization for the people that we serve, give me some examples of how these principles are being applied within The Phoenix to go help drive significant change.
Scott Strode
What a great question. I think The Phoenix as a organization and a leadership team was kind of set up to be able to step right in to some of these principles that we’ve been diving into in our work with Stand Together, because that belief in people and the intrinsic strength and value and contribution of people was already part of our program.
But I would say, as an emerging entrepreneur, as a social entrepreneur, I don’t think I was bringing that to our work. I was trying to mimic and match other organizations that were out there. I thought, “This is a big nonprofit, why don’t we build ourselves to look like that big nonprofit?” Because we were trying to grow nationally to meet the need and the demand because we’re losing way too many loved ones to addiction across the country. But we didn’t really know how to scale an organization across the country.
I think the mistake we made in the early days was thinking that we would make the decisions as a leadership team that would grow the organization and we would make every decision we needed to, and then we would build all these policies and procedures that would ensure that those decisions were being made everywhere in the same way. Eventually, you don’t know what’s on page 28 of the policy handbook, and it’s impossible to lead at scale in that way.
What you need to do to lead at scale in a way that the culture is maintained, is to bring onboard people who share the vision and the values of the organization, and then trust those people to practice their own principled entrepreneurship in how to best do Phoenix where they are, because I’m not on the ground in Texas where Phoenix is happening.
For me to try to tell them how to do Phoenix there, as long as the culture of that safe container or framework exists, Phoenix could be something very different there but the culture would be the same. That became part of our organizational values and our cultural values at Phoenix events. But what’s so special about that, is it helped us to start to realize that our member agreement, which was really the rules to protect that container or those principles, should instead of being written as rules should be written as the principles, because it allows it to spread even further.
If you essentially clearly state that we believe in people and anyone is welcome here and we believe in everybody’s ability to rise—that’s the container—then it allows it to reach even further. But let me break that down a little bit more as an organization.
For example, we started to realize that just fitness and exercise and all this stuff doesn’t appeal to everybody. Other people seeking recovery, something else will speak to them. And we had one of our staff who was a coach at the time in the gym, but had a background in music. He thought, when he got sober, that he had lost music forever. But what we realized was that he was uniquely positioned. He had unique gifts to help Phoenix start to bring music into our program, and by doing so, create a whole another way that people could engage with The Phoenix. People that felt like, “Once I got sober, I can’t go out to shows anymore. I can’t go out dancing anymore because I’m sober. I’m the only sober person in this bar.” When the truth is, they’re not.
It’s just that they haven’t found all the other sober folks that want to be there with them. So Vince took his background in music and started adding music programs to Phoenix. And that’s led to where we are now, where we’re talking to venues across the country and artists in the music industry, and ways that we can connect fans at shows to sober supportive spaces.
For example, we’re bringing this technology into our mobile app where you’ll be able to flip open your Phoenix app at a show and find the sober volunteers there that are rallying Phoenix members. Instead of being the only sober person at that show in your mind, you realize you’re one of thousands, or hundreds, or… it depends on how big the show is. Between that, and getting people plugged into music and listening and loving music again, it’s opened up a whole new channel for us.
Jeff Proctor
This past summer, I was at a music festival in Michigan, and there’s a place inside the festival where people just leave all sorts of different things. I saw a playing card, I’m a poker player. I got excited, walked over to the playing card, and right next to the playing card was a Phoenix wristband that someone had left around a tree limb in the middle of the forest. I went crazy. I was so happy for so many reasons. I wanted to find the Phoenix person who was there—although, to your point about having a thousand volunteers at this point—it’s unlikely that I would’ve known who they were. And I was excited that something like The Phoenix was showing up in even just a small way in that space. It was so cool.
Scott Strode
That’s awesome, and you’re going to see it even more. It happens to me like when I’m flying from one Phoenix site to another. Sometimes I’m in the airport, and I’ve got my sober shirt or my Phoenix shirt on, and somebody walks up and they’re like, “Yo, man. You go to Phoenix too?” And I’m like, “I do.” And they’re like, “Where do you go?” And I was like, “Everywhere I can.” It’s becoming that movement, and I really do think it’s possible for us to change the way the country’s approaching addiction.
Jeff Proctor
Scott, we’ve talked before about the perspective that The Phoenix has, of multiple pathways to recovery, and really trying to be big tent and open to a lot of ways to realize one’s potential. But it also seems true that there are some approaches that don’t work as well. Can you help us understand that tension a little bit better?
Scott Strode
I think so. I mean, I think certainly The Phoenix is a place where part of our culture is around being open to multiple recovery pathways, because we know it’s going to be different for everybody. Not everybody’s going to go to the top of a mountain to find their sobriety and that might not speak to them, but they could still find a home at Phoenix and in some of our other activities or whatnot.
Maybe if your faith was a big part of your recovery, and the 12 Step Community was a big part of your recovery, you’re also coming to Phoenix and welcome to come to Phoenix—but somebody might just come to Phoenix for their sobriety and that works for them. But I think we can be open to multiple recovery pathways, but we can also create a space in how we’re approaching addiction for new and innovative ways to approach this issue.
Because I think with top down solutions, we tend to kind of look for the “evidence-based practice”, is something you hear a lot. To me, what that means is, we now are only going to fund and fuel that way to approach this issue when we’re already saying at Phoenix, we know that the experience is different for everybody, and what works for you is probably really about you and what you need in that moment.
So it’s more about creating the space for you to step into your kind of self-actualization journey than it is this just one way to approach it. I’ll just share an example of how the more top down structure is kind of inherently broken.
I was with a bunch of leaders that work in and around the recovery space. We were talking to a representative out of DC that controls a lot of the funding, that gets deployed in this space. The question was, in the group, “Where do you think funding will be next year, so that we can position our organizations for it?” And that’s the tail wagging the dog.
We should be saying, “What is the most innovative and transformational way to help people rise from the ashes of addiction so that we can position ourselves for that next year?” As opposed to saying, “Where’s the money going to be next year so I can tailor my organization to be ready for that?” That’s the challenge and the problem with this sort of top down strategy is, we are going to create the wrong incentives and drive organizations to a place of work that may not even actually be the best way to address the issue.
Jeff Proctor
The bottom up is the knowledge of what works informing what gets funded, and the top down is the knowledge of what can be funded, informing what gets tried.
Scott Strode
Yep, exactly.
Ski Ahmad
Well, Scott, I had a question for you. Our last episode with Evan Feinberg and Lauren McCann, Evan shared a story about how his proximity to you and the proximity to the work that The Phoenix is doing fundamentally changed how he engaged with a family member that he has, that is on a recovery journey.
Evan Feinberg
I’ve had a family member struggle deeply with addiction and hit rock bottom, and the way that we interact with that family member now versus before we met The Phoenix is completely different. We scoop him up with love, rather than intervention and judgment. The Phoenix has transformed his life and he’s never set foot in a Phoenix gym or a Phoenix program. I always bring that up, because I just think the impact that this Catalyst movement can create, because it’s transforming lives… They’ve gone from 4,000 to 100,000 people at Phoenix, they’ll be at a million in a few years. It’s exciting to think that if they serve a million people, how many more people beyond those one million will be transformed from a mindset shift.
Ski Ahmad
My question is, how does that make you feel, when you hear the story that someone who has heard about The Phoenix, knows about The Phoenix, is out carrying the flag of The Phoenix. It may not be that they’re wearing a Phoenix t-shirt or have the wristband, as you had mentioned, but because they have experienced what The Phoenix is doing, that they’re out engaging with their family members, with their friends, in ways wholly different than they would have otherwise. How does that make you feel as the founder of The Phoenix?
Scott Strode
Well, I mean, it makes me feel good. I mean, I feel like it is affirming to me that there is that fundamental human truth, I mentioned, this belief in people that there’s an intrinsic strength within all of us. And if we start to see the folks we love, and even the folks we see experiencing homelessness, and out on the street, open drug use—or whatever it might be that we see around us—the most significant challenges in our community. If we can actually see the people experiencing those challenges for the real gifts that are within them and start approaching it in a way where we can help them find the supportive space for those gifts to be expressed, that we can change the world. I fully believe that. There’s no problem that we can’t tackle if we tackle it through these principles. I’ll share a quick story, it makes me think of something that happened to me recently.
I have become a father now, and given my childhood, that was something I was worried about. I was worried given what I saw growing up about what kind of dad could I be. And now I’ve been able to jump in with both feet and just be a dad. The other day I took my son to the playground and I’m standing there and I’m wearing a Phoenix shirt. Surprise, I usually do. A guy came up to me and he said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’ve been hoping that I run into you someday. My dad reached out to you when I was in active addiction and asked you for help. And you actually came to my apartment and knocked on the door.”
I remember it. It was open, so I went in and he was in there. He had been using for days and I helped get him to an urgent care and ultimately into detox and into recovery, into some meetings and get plugged into Phoenix. He said, “I was hoping I’d run into you because I’m here with my sons and I’ve been in recovery since then.”
Ski Ahmad
Wow.
Scott Strode
And here is this person that I actually didn’t even know on the day I knocked on his door, but I went out of my way because I knew that inside of him was this strength and potential to bring something positive to this world. And here we are years later, standing on a playground as a couple of dads in recovery with our sons playing there in front of us, growing up in a very different environment than I grew up in because we were there for each other. And imagine if we could do that for each other across the country, be there for each other, and help believe in each other until we start believing in ourselves.
Jeff Proctor
After hearing my climbing story, there’s probably going to be a line out the door, so we should be ready for that.
Scott Strode
Hey, we’re ready for it. Come on.
Jeff Proctor
Scott, one of the things that I was thinking about in hearing you tell your story about two dads and their sons out at the park is, that’s really the essence of what all of this work is. Across the Stand Together community, that type of outcome is being created and replicated across the country and that’s not something that can be scripted. It’s not something that can be dictated or declared. It has to be done. The work has to be done in the communities, the right principles, the right practices have to be brought to bear across the different challenges that we face as a society.
I share your optimism that we can actually get there, that the norm can be that when we see someone openly using drugs in public or something like you mentioned, that we can see the human being and rally around them and provide the container in the way that you describe it to make that happen.
I wanted to kind of open the floor to you and say, based on everything that you’ve done, those stories that you’ve experienced, that you’ve been a part of. What’s the future look like? What’s the future look like for Phoenix? What’s the future look like in terms of this society where maybe we can take the lessons of the container and uncontain them and let them be available for all?
Scott Strode
I think that the potential to address some of the hardest issues that are impacting our country and the world is just massive. I think that currently, when you have an innovative and a different approach to one of these complex issues, you have some fear about bringing it forward because the system that is operating today feels so big, and sometimes overwhelming, that it might feel impossible to actually change that system to something better, but it is possible to change it. And you do it a little bit at a time, incrementally at a time, with folks who believe in others. And what happens is just like what we’re seeing at The Phoenix, where we’re actually starting to see the addiction recovery industry operate differently because of brushing up against the refreshing, hopeful, positive energy of Phoenix members across the country.
I think we can do that same thing when we’re thinking about how to change the criminal justice system, or how we approach homelessness, or how we approach education in our country. Whatever it might be, we got to draw out those innovators and those principles and entrepreneurs, and create a space for them for their voices to be heard. Because if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we say this in recovery, “You’re going to keep getting what you got.” It’s like, let’s change it up and do it in a principled and an empowerment way.
Jeff Proctor
That’s awesome. Scott, thanks for joining us today. You and I have been talking for six or seven years now, I think, and I can honestly say I learned new things today. Thank you for sharing the stories that you shared and for joining us on the podcast. Where can people find out more about The Phoenix?
Scott Strode
Well, you can learn more and find Phoenix programs at thephoenix.org or through The Phoenix app in the App Store. Just look up The Phoenix Sober Community, and look for the big red phoenix bird and come hang out with us. I want to emphasize, too: it’s not just for people in recovery. Allies and supporters are welcome, because there’s no movement that has grown in our country that can be led solely by the people impacted by the issue. It’s going to take all of us to make the change. So we need allies and supporters to come with us and go to thephoenix.org and check it out. Maybe we’ll have to post something on there about Jeff training for his first ice climb, that might be the next step.
Jeff Proctor
Wow. Upping the ante. All right.
Ski Ahmad
Thanks a lot, Scott. We really appreciate you stopping by and taking the time. Be sure to tune in next week and meet Ty Spells, who’s an amazing leader at Stand Together Foundation, and she’s going to be conversing with Kayleigh Jones for a different perspective on the work that The Phoenix is doing. You won’t want to miss Kayleigh’s story.
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