🎙️ Humble Leadership: Let Go of Ego & People-Pleasing with Bruce Arfsten

Emotional intelligence and leadership grow through humility, self-awareness, and releasing people-pleasing patterns with Bruce Arfsten.

Leadership isn’t about being liked, it’s about being real. In this episode, Bruce Arfsten shares how curbing ego, learning from mistakes, and releasing people-pleasing habits allow leaders to show up with authenticity, emotional honesty, and true impact.

Bruce Arfsten is a leadership mentor and advocate for authentic, grounded leadership. He helps individuals move beyond ego-driven behaviors and into humility, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence, creating leaders who lead with integrity rather than approval.

👉Connect with Bruce here: 

Website: cometodallas.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brucearfsten

 #LeadershipDevelopment #EmotionalIntelligence #AuthenticLeadership #HumbleLeadership #SelfAwareness #MindsetMatters #PeoplePleaserRecovery #ConsciousLeadership #HumanPotential #PeakPerformance 

✨ 🌎 Want to Work with Dr. Campbell?
Discover how emotional intelligence transforms leadership and performance through Peak Performance WITH Emotional Intelligence (PPEI) programs and keynotes.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

When you get into a management role, you figure out pretty quickly that your employees aren't always gonna like you, and you can be the best manager in the world and they're still gonna talk bad about you. That's just that's just the nature of people, and so once I accepted the fact that not everybody's going to like me, but do I am I making decisions and doing things because it's the right thing to do? Right, that's that's all I need. Uh then I can sleep at night. I'm okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Right. And that's that's normally what I see as well. If I can make a decision and I can sleep at night with myself, then it was the best decision because we really do the best that we can with whatever we have. And if we do make a mistake, we still did our best.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Welcome to the Resilient Minds podcast. Stories of grid, growth, and success. On this show, we focus on the real stories behind the success: the struggles, the resilience, and the courage it took to keep moving forward even when the times got tough. My goal is to provide you with stories of hope and transformation, showing that no matter the challenges, there is a way forward, and you can find it. This is resilient minds.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Hey, I'm your host, Dr. Campbell, and I'm here with Bruce Arvston. He is the mayor of Arlington, Texas, and he is also a coach and a trainer, and he's actually been a real estate broker for a very long time. I am very excited to bring him and his story of transformation to you today because him and I had the uh very great pleasure of being on a panel a few weeks ago, and I heard a lot of his very valuable lessons, and that's what he's gonna be talking about today. So thank you so much, Bruce, for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Oh, thank you, Jacqueline. I'm really glad to be here. And just uh to make one minor correction uh out of the gate here, I'm the mayor of Addison, Texas, and not Arlington.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Um and I said Arlington, I'm so excited. You didn't. Oh, yes, I meant Addison. That's also where that's where I met him as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

And I'm and I'm friends with the mayor of Arlington, so I'm sure he would like that correction to be made.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Perfect. We'll send him the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Exactly. No, I'm glad to be here with you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Absolutely. It's it's really my pleasure because I'm I'm very honored with you giving me your time because you have so much going on and you are a leader of a city, right? So I would really like for you to share what your experience has been with having your hands, because there's a lot of people who are self-employed. Their energy is spread thin and they don't or can't manage so many different projects. And you have your hands in so many, but you seem so grounded to me now and when we were on the panel together.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah, it it's uh it's certainly a lot to juggle every day, and some days it really is a juggling act because I really wear three different hats. Uh my mayor hat, which is on, it's really on all the time, but sometimes it's on just a little bit stronger than others, depending on on the uh what the schedule looks like. And then my real estate broker hat. I've been in the real estate space for 33 years now, and then my training and development hat, uh, which will from day to day can be a little bit busier than others. And so so I do have to juggle those uh those three hats each each day and try to manage my schedule as best I can. And and it can certainly be challenging. Some days uh I'm wearing all three hats at some point or another, and some just one or two, and uh and it's uh it's challenging, but I but I get a lot out of that challenge because I I can I can look and see the day and I and it helped it it requires me to be structured, which is not necessarily my nature to be super structured and organized, so but it really pushes me to do that, and and I've gotten way better at it uh just because of of the necessity of it.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Well, I bet, and I feel like I'm the same way. I'm a very free-spirited visionary and very creative, very emotional too. Like I'm just kind of like everywhere, but I have to be organized in order to get all of the things done. So I I feel like having the balance of the two instead of just being very, very rigidly organized or very, you know, flower child and free-spirited everywhere all of the time. You really can't get anything done like that. So when it comes to running a city, I could not imagine having other hats to wear. So you you definitely have your hands in a lot. Can you tell me what got you, what made you want to run for mayor?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Well, I was on the city council before for six years from 2011 to 2017, and we have term limits, and so that was the end of my three consecutive two-year terms that I was able to do. So I took some time away. And and for me, that was uh it was a great opportunity to serve the town of Addison. It really, for me, it's not really a political role so much as it is just a community service. Uh, I I've lived in Addison for 23 years, and it's a great town to live in, a great place to serve and and and be able to uh offer up whatever I have to the community. And so I loved being on the city council, that was great. And then when I was out for a few years, people would ask me, Well, when the current mayor is done, are you going to run for mayor? And my answer was always, Well, we'll see. You know, we gotta have to see what life is bringing at the time. Do I have the bandwidth available to do it? And and uh just kind of what does it look like? And so about a year and a half or so out, I started having more conversations with folks, and and uh and you you get to a point that you have to commit and say, Yep, I'm gonna I'm gonna go do it. And really, about a year out from that, you need to start really making a decision. So I had more conversations with folks and trying to see what level of support there was out there, and it was a lot of support. And again, for me, it wasn't anything about you know um the ego or anything like that, because I don't have a big ego that I'm trying to feed, but but but it's a great make what great way for me to serve my community, and and and I was feeling a lot of support and encouragement from folks to to uh to run. And so I decided to run in in 2023 and uh and was able to uh to win the the mayor. And so I've been I'm in just finishing up three years, I'm so I'm in my second two-year term as mayor, and then the plan is that I'll run again for my third two-year term in 2027.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Very nice. And I was wondering why you were saying that, you you even said out loud that you you don't have this big ego to feed. So a lot of people who go into the public eye, they usually do have those big egos, and then they have to curb them, right? To make sure that they are just as much in service of others as they are of themselves. But then, and humility has a lot to do with that. So usually the job humbles them, from what I've seen. Um, but from your perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if you had a little anxiety being in the public eye if you're really doing it for service, but then you have all this responsibility and all these eyes on you.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Yeah, it's it's not it's not the easiest thing to take, knowing that really pretty much anything you do, there's going to be somebody that disagrees. And and some people disagree adamantly and loudly. And not always so kindly. And and it it initially that's that's a little hard to take. You know, and when I because when I think back to who I was in my youth, where I was very much a people pleaser, I wanted everybody to like me, and when they didn't like me, my feelings were hurt, and I was sad, and oh, I don't like that. And then and then I started working in the in the hotel business, and then and I got into management in the in the hotel world, and this was half a lifetime ago. And when you get into a management role, you figure out pretty quickly that your employees aren't always gonna like you, and you can be the best manager in the world, and they're still gonna talk bad about you. That's just that's just the nature of people. And so once I accepted the fact that not everybody's going to like me, but do I am I making decisions and doing things because it's the right thing to do? Right, that's that's all I need. Uh, then I can sleep at night. I'm okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:29

Right. And that's that's normally what I see as well. If I can make a decision and I can sleep at night with myself, then it was the best decision because we really do the best that we can with whatever we have. And if we do make a mistake, we still did our best. You know, and that's what makes, in my opinion, that's what makes leadership so hard, is because a lot of people they just don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Right. Yeah, and you know, and we are still human and we're still going to make mistakes. And and some decisions, you know, we might make and and feel 100% good with it at the time. And then if you wouldn't want to look back at look back at it a year later, you might have made a dis different decision with different information. But you make the best decision you can with the information you have available at the time and do it and do it for the right reasons, then I think you're on solid ground.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Right. When it comes to you and overcoming the the people pleasing, you you said back in your day, but how long ago was it that you were stuck in that people pleasing and trying to make everybody happy role?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

I was I was in my 20s. And so that was decades ago. We don't even have to say how many decades, but it was a lot of decades ago. But yeah, so I was in my tw I was in my twenties, and and and I thought I had all the answers and thought I knew everything, and and uh and and and I thought because I was so I was nice to everybody that everything was great, and uh, but it just it was kind of an incompleteness, is what I felt though. I I wasn't I wasn't comfortable speaking my mind, stating my opinion, and I wanted to always make sure and listen to what everybody else said, and so then maybe I can if well if I say this, then maybe they'll like me better because I agree with them a little bit. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 10:21

Yeah. What do you think the hardest thing for you to overcome was?

SPEAKER_02 10:28

It wasn't really hard to overcome the uh the the feeling of not being liked by everyone. It wasn't hard, but I d I uh it was a it was a discomfort initially, you know, knowing that somebody that some that I that I'm saying or doing something that somebody is going to uh disagree with, even though I didn't necessarily have high respect or value for their opinion, it was still an opinion. And and it really took it took me getting to a place where I believed and and felt confident that my opinion was as valuable as anybody else's. Yeah, and I think it was just probably a uh an insecurity that I had to overcome the insecurity of of uh of not being worthy, I guess, to to to have to have a have a voice. And uh and once I felt comfortable getting my voice out there, then it's then it's growth from there. But I was kind of stumbling along, I think, for quite a quite a while there.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

Right. Well, what I hear when you say that is your own validity, like you're valid too.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

Well, a lot of things um about the nervous system, a lot of people don't know about the nervous system is that fear and shame can shut us down very quickly. So it's actually a spectrum. It's not whether you're feeling fear or shame, it's how much fear and shame you have at any given moment. And so something that let's say it is an insecurity in it, you know, it's a little uncomfortable. There might be a little bit of fear and a little bit of shame, or one or the other. What is something that it was overwhelming? It was hard, it triggered your fear, it triggered your shame, and you're like, I don't know if I can actually make it through this. What has been that in your life?

SPEAKER_02 12:26

I would say again, going way back into my younger days, I was I was married for about six, six and a half years, and I got married very young. I was 20 years old when I got married, and uh it was it was a it was a marriage that I felt um i it it wasn't it wasn't if if you if I was gonna predict somebody's marriage to be successful, I would have looked at my situation and said there's not a chance. But I was 20 years old and I knew I I had all the answers. And all the red flags that were waving at there, I could fix every one of those red flags because I had a little bit of um maybe that was ego kicking in, I don't know, but maybe but it was but it was a um it's it was really a lack of awareness, I think, a lack of understanding the human emotion, everything that I that I thought I could fix was way deeper than I could had even any awareness of. And so so going through that was difficult for me just to um to see that I I was not capable of of what I thought I could do. And and and that really was very humbling for me to to to see that and and um and not not be able to do anything about it. To feel a little bit helpless, yeah. And and then seeing the the end coming near of that whole that whole chapter, and it was uh it was it was stressful and and and that that probably didn't help my insecurities and my my feeling of uh unworthiness and and those kind of things.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Right. So were you still in your people pleasing mentality when you were in transition with that divorce?

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Oh absolutely. Yeah, that that's that's really what what drove that uh willingness to to go through that through that chapter uh as it was, you know. I was uh we we uh we had a situation with with with family living with us uh pretty much the whole time we were married, and so the likelihood of that succeed succeeding in that situation was not uh was was very low. And and so yeah, yeah, so it was uh uh the the um the inevitability of it uh w was there. I didn't want to I didn't want to accept that.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

And and I had also this kind of a blindness, I think, or a and maybe this was just a lack of awareness too, that I thought everything I was doing was right. And uh because I was doing it for the right reasons and and it was uh I thought I was doing a noble thing or whatever. Uh it was um it was just a complete w lack of awareness, in my opinion. And then looking back when and when I do the the uh after action report on that situation, I look back and see all the different things that that I did that uh that if I was again, if I was looking at somebody from the outside looking in, I'd say, Oh my gosh, young man, you're a mess.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

I like how you emphasize awareness because that's one of the big things that I am an advocate for.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Me too.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

We're not we're never gonna get it right. Like it's never gonna be perfect, the journey's never gonna be done. But as long as you know when you're not aware, you just won't make any decisions. And it's okay, well, I'm not good right now. Let me step away because I don't have clarity. And then let me calm my body, let me let me calm my mouth, my mind, let me gain clarity before I come back and try to engage because it's not fair to you in that situation, and it's really not fair to anybody around you. You know, that's even more important, yes, in a relationship, absolutely, but people do this in leadership all the time. They realize that they're not present and they're not aware, and they're making decisions.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Yeah, and a lot of times they're making those decisions just based on emotions or just a reflex. They're they're just reacting instead of taking time to really pause and think through the what's what's actually going on and then giving a really reasoned response. And I see that all the time where it's just this reflective thing when people start to get in each other's faces over things and then they're arguing, and and neither one nobody's gonna change anybody's mind in that situation.

SPEAKER_05 17:12

No.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

But if if if if one or both of us can take a pause, take a step back and say this is this is not productive. Yeah, we got we gotta take it, take a step back, and and I and I talk about you know the the the space that that Victor Frankel referred to in his in his uh in in some of his writings. And and uh I don't know if you're familiar with that.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

Man search for meaning.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

What yeah, Victor Frankel?

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Are you familiar with Victor? Yeah, yeah. So so he's he's that the he's got the quote that's attributed to him about the space. Uh, between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in that space lies our power to choose our response, and it's in our response lies our freedom and our growth.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

And so I I I'll tell people frequently, you know, when they say, How's your day going? I say, I'm really working on the space. Because it's one of those days that you kind of get pushed and like, all right, I gotta, I gotta take the space, even if it's just a few seconds in between that stimulus. I gotta take, I gotta take that space, I gotta back up. Sometimes physically you need to back up, sometimes you need to leave the room and say, Look, I I I need a few minutes. Let's come back and talk again. But um, but the the because the human side of it says, all right, so you you I get this stimulus, I'm gonna respond, I'm gonna react right now, and I'm gonna tell you what I think, what I feel, and and it's not it's not productive.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

No, it's not. And I feel like that reactive emotional response is normally what is expected, and so it's accepted that it's okay. Really, there's another response that is more capable. It is more um really it's collaborative because with somebody who can have self-reflection, they can pause, which means that you have self-control, or at least the awareness that you're gonna be out of control in just a second. But then you can say out loud, which means they've had to at least confront themselves internally enough that when they're like demons are coming out, they say, Hey, I'm not in control of myself. I have to leave for just right. And and what I've found is saying it out loud holds you accountable. And from the inside, it holds the parts of you that really want to come out. It lets them know, oh, you do see me. You do see that part of you that wants to come out and be dysfunctional. So we're I know.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

And I don't like it when that comes out, but sometimes sometimes it happens, you know, we do the best we can, but sometimes you just don't quite get there because our when our brains kick in, it's it's hard to rein them in sometimes. But that really is what it's all about, it's having that awareness and knowing that that that part of my brain is working now that I need to gotta settle that down just a little bit and get and get that the better side of my brain working. And you probably have some better names for it than for the for that part of the brain than I do.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Well, I would say parts work, but I think we all have different aspects of ourselves. But what I've seen, and and there's plenty of people who I'm sure are listening, when you're healing and you're truly working on yourself, your protector parts, which are all ego-driven and they're all fear and shame and aggression, or or they're fearful, so they want to run for their lives. Who knows? They're the ones in the front seat. So as you are transitioning, the more wiser, more calm version of you starts to come in the front, but you notice how they they have this tug of war inside of you. The more awareness you have, the more control you say, or the more control you have, and you can actually say, I'm not in control right now.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

You know, and it it's really that's the humbling piece, in my opinion, that like to say that I'm not in control right now, I need to step aside.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah. And it's really so important when we can to try to understand where somebody else is coming from. Because I think in our world, especially the the world that we live in now, this whole social media driven world where everybody's trying to prove everybody else wrong, and you're because you don't agree with me, you're a bad person. But if I if I can really listen to somebody have and have a conversation with them, truly trying to understand where they're coming from, that's a whole different conversation than me trying to show you how right I am and you trying to show me how right you are. It's neither one neither one of us is gonna get, we're gonna dig in.

SPEAKER_05 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

And and and if I can say to you, after I've listened to you, truly listened, if I can say to you, I never thought about it that way, I think that shows you respect and honors your opinion and your position. And then maybe we can have a more reasonable Discussion then with an open mind.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

You said something along the same lines when we were on the panel together. And I really appreciate you saying that because you said it to everybody. You really try when you're having a conversation with people to truly listen, like listen to hear, right, instead of listening to respond. And one of the very valuable gifts that I've been given in my life was I spent six uh 15 years in the mental health field. And so by default, I learned the skill and really the gift of just listening. No matter what an individual has done in their life, if I sat down and I listened to them for a full hour, I would completely understand from their point of view by the time we were done. So I learned to not not judge people because there's a story that you just don't understand if you don't understand where they're coming from. Just listen.

SPEAKER_05 22:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

That's where where the self-awareness comes in too. If you're not present and you're not able to connect with somebody, you can't listen.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Yeah, and and you have and you have to be willing to try to see things from from their point of view and have some empathy and see where they're coming from because everybody has this different lived experience. And and everybody has a story, and some if you if you'll just take the time to hear somebody's story and truly listen to it, you'll be amazed at uh what at the stories that people have and the things that so many people have overcome and how they've gotten to where they are in the world, and and uh and uh to me I find that very humbling. Yeah. When I th when when when somebody is telling me their story, and then I think about things that maybe I've thought, well, that well, that was kind of a rough thing to go through, and it wasn't anything compared to what so many people have had to deal with and overcome.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Right, I agree. Really seeing somebody. So before we end today, I would really love for you to tell me what is Addison up to? What what big projects do you guys have going on? Anything new?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Well, we have a lot going on actually, and and we're very busy these days. Uh well, we have an election coming up in May. We have an election every May, so that's always an interesting time of year. Uh a city manager that I used to work with when I was on the city council, um, he always referred to this as the silly season, when when all the when the candidates are out doing campaigning and talking about themselves and the other candidates, and and it does get kind of silly sometimes. So there's there's that side of it. So every year in Addison, we have six council members and the mayor, and that makes up the council. And so three of those council seats are up for election each May. So there's a regular cycle. And so that's going on. So and and our our elections are real simple because we're all at large, and so the top three vote getters get in. And so we have five candidates that are running for three seats, and so so seeing how that all all those uh all those things play against each other or with each other, uh, it's it's interesting and to have conversations with folks around town that uh that support one or the other for whatever reason. Those conversations are always interesting, and everybody's trying to put their best foot forward and and trying to trying to say the right things to to get support from folks. So so the like that election always goes every year. This year we have a couple of other things coming up. The uh we have a police station that's over 40 years old, and so we have a bond election for a new police station, and that's a 50$55 million bond uh proposition. And uh and so because we need to have something new. We don't have enough room, the building is not in good condition, it's not ADA compliant. So uh, but one thing I know about Addison residents, they love their police and fire, and so I feel I feel confident that they'll vote to approve the bond. Then we have to figure out where are we gonna build it, what's it gonna look like, and and all the different things that go with that, but we have to get get through the first part first. Then the other thing on the election that's that's pretty big for us is the uh the DART, uh the Dallas Area Rapid Transit election. This is a a year as a member city of DART, that's the uh the uh the transit system. The um this is an opportunity, a city that's a member can vote once every six years to to get out of DART if they want to. Uh there's a lot of other other things. I won't go into all the detail of it, but that's there's there's of course there's people on both sides of that, of course. You know, there's people that uh you know think transit's important and and others that would rather do it differently. And and and everybody makes different points that are good, and so we'll see how the the election goes with that. Uh other things that are going on, uh a lot of redevelopment around town. Um we've got you know, we've got we don't have really any open green space for the most part, and so we're looking at you know redeveloping some spots that that uh and trying to get owners to kind of go on a path that we want for our strategic plan for the town, and and and and um so that those are the things that are that keep us busy because we always have to do we always have to plan. Yeah, if if there's anything I've learned about working in in the city, you there's a lot of planning that goes on, and it doesn't always go the way you want to, but if you don't know where you want it to be, then you won't know if you're going the right direction or not. So um so we're we're we're working on that. Um of course the this right now, everybody's talking about the uh FIFA World Cup uh soccer coming to to the North Texas area this summer, and that's gonna be interesting to see all those all the people that come in from around the world to to see the soccer games and and how that affects us. Uh, you know, we can do all the planning for that we want to, but until it happens, you really don't know how it's all gonna play out. So so that'll be an interesting time for us too.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Well, I'm super excited for all the big things that you guys have, and I am so grateful for your time today. Thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Of course, I'm happy to do it, and and thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Absolutely.