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Universally personal.

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Welcome back to Universally Personal, the show where we strip away all the titles and get to the core of the human experience. Today we have a powerhouse guest who is refining what it means to wear the badge. He's the sheriff of Vandenberg County, and today he's giving us the unfiltered truth about leadership, grit, and life on the front lines. We're diving deep into his initial inspiration to enter criminal justice and tracking the life-altering decision process where he decided to step up and run for sheriff. It takes serious fortitude to win the seat, and he's sharing exactly how he dug deep to make it happen. Plus, we're breaking down his absolute favorite words to live by. A golden rule so simple yet so brilliant, we should probably print it on shirts. Get ready for an energetic, insightful, and fun conversation. Let's welcome Sheriff Noah Robinson.

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I worried that that would just be continually living rent-free in my head for the rest of my life if I took the easier path.

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Universally personal.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

First was like in college, and I thought, well, maybe I might want to go into law enforcement. And so I kind of had that, made that decision that this is something I wanted to do. I wanted to help people, but like any young guy, I wanted to catch bad guys too. Oh, the excitement factor of it was a was a driver. And that was a that was the great, you know, first half, first third of my career was doing just that and having fun doing it. I wanted to catch bad guys too. You know, but at some point I started working my way up into middle management and became convinced that um if I wanted to see any kind of change in the agency, not that we were doing a bad job, but improvements, just improvements, you know, then I was gonna have to move up in rank. Like anybody has an ego, you want to better your position. Uh nobody handed me my rank. I had to test for it and work for it. And there was some desire that, you know, you have to have that kind of drive to accomplish something. But it was always at the idea of improving my my rank at the agency to be able to put in charge of things so that I could have a positive influence over them. Made that decision that this is something I wanted to do. I wanted to help people, but like any young guy, I wanted to catch bad guys too. I wanted to catch bad guys too. I never had any desire to run for sheriff, none. But eventually I reached a fork in the road where I thought, okay, uh I see what's gonna happen here. If I can do nothing and just take the easier path and maybe I'll land okay, and maybe uh maybe I'll write out the rest of my career uh in my current position or one close to it, or I can just risk it all, right? I can just throw throw all the chips on the table. I can just risk it all, potentially destroy my career if I don't win. I reached a point where I thought that there's a small chance I could win, but if I don't take it, I will go the rest of my life wondering what would have been, wondering what it would have been. And I just it got to a point, and my wife and I talked about this extensively, knowing the risk we were taking here and doing this, but it got to a point where I didn't want to be, you know, a 65-year-old guy wondering what would have happened if I had made a go of it and tried to win. Yeah, I just I became convinced that I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn't take the shot that I had. And so I just went for it. And so I just went for it. And so I just went for it. Made that decision that this was something I wanted to do. I wanted to help people, but like any young guy, I wanted to catch up, guys, too. And so I just went for it. And I went like all in, like just all in as you can go. Just door knocking every single night, uh every single evening, every single weekend, just no rest for what felt like it was almost two years, darn near every day. And it was it was absolutely exhausting. You look at some of those pictures of me during the campaign, I'm like 40 pounds lighter, you know, which is uh which is great, you know, but it was like stress uh and just walking every day, every day. It doesn't matter if it's snow on the ground, it didn't even matter if it was raining, I was out there doing it. Um and so uh yeah, you look at those. I mean, I look I look 10 years younger, even though it was five years ago. But it it was definitely the most challenging two years of me and my wife's life without a doubt. It doesn't matter if it was snow on the ground, it didn't even matter if it was raining, I was out there doing it. And so I just went for it. But it it was definitely the most challenging two years of me and my wife's life, without a doubt. It became pretty clear to me that um my influence over the agency and my ability to move things in what I thought were the right direction was going to be greatly diminished if I didn't win. So I had that motivation. And then the motivation, as I spoke of, the idea that I think one of those the most pernicious questions that that take root in our brains when we get older is this idea to kind of navel gaze and look back and think, man, I wish I could go back and do that over again. Man, I wish I could go back and do that over again. And there's aren't too many opportunities in life that like present themselves before you where it's like, okay, this is clearly one of those moments, right? You know, you are clearly have this giant fork in the row with neon signs pointing different directions here. It had never been more clear to me, really in anything in my entire life, that okay, this is a really important decision here. And by not making a decision is a decision. And so, yeah, yeah, decision to get married, the decision to take a new job, and you know, these are these are kind of big life things, but they just don't come along all that often. And this one was the most obvious one that I had ever encountered, and um that weighed on me thinking, okay, you know how much headspace this is occupying right now. I worried that that would just be continually living rent-free in my head for the rest of my life if I took the easier path. So I did it. And it seems to have worked out. And by not making a decision is a decision. And so I just went for it. But it it was definitely the most challenging two years of me and my wife's life, without a doubt. I worried that that would just be continually living rent-free in my head for the rest of my life if I took the easier path. And at some point, and you knew that once you made that decision, everything was gonna change. I was able to work up the courage to do it because I told myself that this is uh this is one of those moments in life to where uh if you don't take the opportunity, um life will pass you by. I worried that that would just be continually living rent-free in my head for the rest of my life if I took the easier path. I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn't take the shot that was being the shot that I had. And so I just went for it.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Well, I'm grateful that an early motivation to catch bad guys brought you all the way to keeping our county safe. That got me wondering about the core principles supporting the overall duties of a leader. So I asked the sheriff if there's a specific quote or saying that guides his actions every single day.

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And I've always reminded myself, don't be that guy. Don't be a jerk.

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Universally personal.

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It's not Maya Angelou, it's not Martin Luther King, it's not uh you know, any of the great thinkers of our time, you know. I wonder that I have to remind myself one of a phrase I kind of repeat in my head, it's so simple. It's like, don't be a jerk. Don't be a jerk, don't be a jerk. You know, it's just so it's just such a simple little phrase that pops in my head, which is like when someone's talking to you, you might have an automatic negative reaction, you know? And just always remember talking to people that that are you you instantly take a disliking to because they're so arrogant and they're not listening to you and they're just waiting for their term to talk. And I've always reminded myself, don't be that guy. I wonder that I have to remind myself one of the phrase I kind of repeat in my head, it's so simple as it don't be a jerk. It's very easy to fall on that trap when you're like politicians, God forbid, I guess that's what I am now. You're in a room of people and you're talking to somebody, and like you catch yourself, somebody else catches your eye and they're waving at you, and you wave at them, oh hey, and then and then you come back to the person and they just they just saw that you looked away from them and that you weren't listening to them. It's like, and then I try to get back in it. No, I'm sorry, I just was waving at that guy. I'm sorry, please go ahead. Just you know, trying to remind yourself of all the things that you didn't like in other people and not to not to do, not to be that person don't be a jerk. Don't be a jerk, not to be that person, you know, that um is superficial, you know, and to remind yourself to be in the moment when someone's talking to you, you know. And you know, I say don't be a jerk. You know, it's it's very easy sometimes to dismiss somebody and up kind of blow them off when they're telling something to you. But people, yeah, the phrase I remember along with that is, you know, people will remember, um, they won't remember what you said, but they will remember how you treated them. I wonder that I have to remind myself one of the phrase I kind of repeat in my head. It's so simple as like, don't be a jerk. On some text threads sometimes when I watch people pop off, it's like, oh gosh, you can't take that one back. Oh, buddy, you probably shouldn't have said that. You know? Why? For for about five seconds of dopamine release, you have now gonna you're gonna have to spend the rest of your life earning that person's trust back, if even if you even if you want to. Not not worth it. Not worth it. You know, it's just like they, you know, people don't remember what you say, but they remember how you say it and how you portrayed it yourself. And I think that's one of those life lessons that people should probably learn earlier than later.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Don't be a jerk. That's simpler than I would expect. But it makes sense. It seems like the baseline of humanity. Next, I asked the sheriff to tell us a little about his leadership approach.

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Uh I think we're all we're all going through this thing through life and learning these things as we go. And you know, my goal is just to try to be a little bit better each day.

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Universally personal.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Everyone always wants to cast themselves in the best possible light, right? And and uh I'm still guilty of it. You know, you you you have interactions with people. I I you know I I deal with county council people and county commissioners and other elected officials and the public and sh you know, the fellow sheriff deputies, and you know, you're you're always like the hero, right? You're you're the one that's like fighting the righteous fight here and what you're doing is correct, and you know, you and you have to have some degree of confidence in yourself. But you know, I I have gone back and taken a little self-check, self-evaluation, and it's like, okay, can you can you maybe um take a look at you know how you behaved during that meeting or what how the other person might um might have viewed what you were saying? Can you maybe take a look at how you behave during that meeting? And perhaps um perhaps you could have handled that differently, or perhaps maybe the way you approach that topic, you know, that that person may have been defensive because of something you said. And so a willingness to kind of self-evaluate um is something I've had to learn, sometimes painfully so. Perhaps you could have handled that differently. My goal is just to try to be a little bit better each day. Not being afraid to cast a little bit of introspection on yourself because I mean there have been things I've done poorly, um, but thought I was righteous in doing it, but um probably could have handled it better and been a bit more uh cognizant of where somebody else's viewpoint. Uh I think we're all we're all going through this thing through life and learning these things as we go. And you know, my goal is just to try to be a little bit better each day. And I'm kind of the rudder on the back of it, right? And you know, the more I work with people and and and uh willing to kind of drop the ego a little bit, I can I can better steer this this I've got a bigger rudder. But I think I think the more you you you you fight with people and the more you uh you've seen as somebody who can't, you know, that that can't be worked with, I think you're you're decreasing the size of your rudder, and then you're you know you're decreasing your ability to steer the ship ultimately. And so um that's a lesson I think I've had to learn probably sometimes painfully so over these last four years, which is uh you get more done working with people and being accommodating than you do just going in alone and and trying just to to force your way into bringing something into existence as opposed to building a collaborative, you know, collaborating and and bringing more folks in. Not being afraid to cast a little bit of introspection on yourself because you know there have been things I've done poorly, um, but thought I was righteous in doing it, but um probably could have handled it better and been a bit more uh cognizant of where somebody else's viewpoint. I think if there's any goal for my second term here, which looks like a with no opponent, I think it's a lock. I think I think uh I don't have too much to worry about with nobody else in the ballot, but I don't think it's uh wrong of me at this point to be setting a goal for my my second term, which is um to be a bit uh be a bit more collaborative and uh understand that uh you can't get anything done by yourself. You've got to have buy-in. And so I've had some successes this first term. I think I would have had more successes if I uh have been a bit more willing to uh you know to take uh take other viewpoints into consideration and try to build a build a consensus before moving forward. Uh I think we're all we're all going through this thing through life and learning these things as we go. And you know, my goal is just to try to be a little bit better each day.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. It's not every day you get to hear that level of raw honesty, humor, and heart from the county's top cop. If you love this episode as much as we did, make sure you follow us, leave us a five star review, and share this episode with a friend who may need a little inspiration today. And as always, be fit, stay sharp, and listen closely.

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Universally personal.