Jim Dethmer: Co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and co-author of the best-selling 'The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.' A former megachurch minister turned coach, he advises CEOs, hedge fund managers, and teams on eliminating drama and building trust.
What this episode covers
Jim Dethmer describes himself as a lifelong 'seeker' and 'smuggler' who finds the best transformational teachers and translates their tools for skeptical audiences. He walks Tim through practical frameworks from Byron Katie, Gay and Katie Hendricks, Hale Dwoskin, and Michael Beckwith, covering inquiry, conscious breathing, emotional literacy, radical responsibility versus blame, and candor. A central model is the four states of consciousness, to me, by me, through me, and as me, mapping how we relate to whatever life throws at us. Dethmer also shares his deeply personal 'descent to the ashes': leaving a marriage and the ministry at 43, being publicly disavowed, and rebuilding an authentic life. The conversation is framed around the early COVID-19 pandemic and how these tools help people stay present, reduce drama, and feel fully alive under pressure.
Recommended on this episode
Conscious Loving
Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks
“we read one of their books a book I recommend countlessly to people called conscious loving”— Jim Dethmer
The guest's own work
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
Jim Dethmer
“co-author of the number one best-selling book on conscious leadership the fifteen commitments of conscious leadership”— Tim Ferriss
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The Sedona Method
Hale Dwoskin
“I got this from Hale Dwoskin and the Sedona Method all of us have these three core wants”— Jim Dethmer
The Road Less Traveled
M. Scott Peck
“I was struggling to find the other book title the road less traveled is the other book yes yes yes”— Jim Dethmer
People of the Lie
M. Scott Peck
“people of the live was one of his book we can find it yeah he's got that another one of these great models that I stole”— Jim Dethmer
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
“it's in the hero's journey the story of the hero the hero of a Thousand Faces and I would be curious to know”— Tim Ferriss
Big reveals from this episode
- Dethmer reveals he was sub-clinically depressed much of his life, driven by a literal ache in his chest and chronic loneliness that fueled his lifelong search for peace and authentic relationship.
- He introduces the four states of consciousness model (to me / by me / through me / as me), borrowed from Michael Beckwith, as a framework for how we relate to the content of life.
- Dethmer recounts his 'descent to the ashes': entering a relationship with Debbie while still married, ending his marriage, moving into his office with no money, and being publicly disavowed by his church.
- A front-page Chicago newspaper article announced the church disavowing him as a former minister, exposing his affair and his men's-work to the entire community.
- He reframes accountability as 'radical responsibility,' arguing all blame (of others, self, or systems) keeps us in a low-learning, contracted state rooted in needing to be right.
- He distinguishes codependent relationships (taking responsibility for each other's happiness) from co-committed ones (each responsible for their own), the foundation of his marriage with Debbie.
- Dethmer defines conscious candor as differentiating fact (what a video camera could record) from story (judgments and interpretations) and revealing stories lightly to be known, not to be right.
- He admits that inside his version of Christianity he found people 'more interested in being good than in being free, and in being big than in being loving,' which drove him to quit.
Worth remembering
- Dethmer says he is drawn to teachers who make a 'big claim' that seems too good to be true, like Byron Katie's assertion that suffering is optional.
- Byron Katie's entire method ('The Work') boils down to four questions and a couple of turnarounds, simple enough to write on a 3x5 card.
- Gay Hendricks claimed it had been roughly 15 years since he and Katie had a drama-based fight, having removed blame and criticism from their relationship.
- Gay Hendricks' '4x4 breath' is a four-second inhale and four-second exhale into the belly, used to shift blood and brain chemistry out of an activated state.
- Dethmer teaches five core feelings (sad, angry, scared, joy, sexual/creative) and says you must be emotionally literate before you can be emotionally intelligent.
- He estimates most people are 'below the line' (reactive, threatened) 80 to 90 percent of the time, due to the natural human tendency to scan for threat.
- Drawing on Hale Dwoskin and the Sedona Method, he identifies three core wants behind reactivity: approval, control, and security (plus oneness).
- He cites Scott Peck's model of moving from 'pseudo-community' through the 'tunnel of chaos' to authentic community, from 'The Road Less Traveled' and 'The Different Drum.'
- Dethmer's 'integrity inventory' checks four pillars (from Gay and Katie Hendricks): unsaids, unkept agreements, unowned blame, and unfelt feelings, treating integrity as energetic wholeness rather than morality.
- Dethmer was a minister of one of the largest churches in the United States, speaking to thousands of people a week before he quit at 43.