{"id":3971,"date":"2018-01-11T19:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T19:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=3971"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:30","slug":"leading-and-learning-away-off-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2018\/01\/11\/leading-and-learning-away-off-shore\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading and Learning “Away Off Shore”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leveraging the power of \u201cemotional intelligence\u201d to become a business and community leader, Jason Bridges \u201998 <\/strong>hosts an internship program that is transforming Wabash students\u2019 lives.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

It\u2019s a breezy Thursday afternoon in July on Nantucket Island, the hydrangeas are just a week past peak bloom, and Cole Crouch \u201917 is steering a pickup down Cisco Brewery\u2019s tree-lined gravel lane toward a sun-soaked swirl of tin roofs, tourists, townies, food trucks, and beers of varying shades.<\/p>\n

He parks at the edge of the Belgian-block courtyard and smiles as he hops out of the truck, calls out to a guy in a black Cisco Brewers T-shirt pulling kegs from the storeroom, and walks toward the bikes he\u2019s here to retrieve.<\/p>\n

He takes his time, too, transforming the crowd into a procession of one-on-one introductions. He greets the guy checking IDs at the door by name.<\/p>\n

Those who knew him on the Wabash campus as the quiet, intense, and studious editor of The Bachelor <\/em>might be surprised to see this joyful, gregarious Cole Crouch managing Nantucket Bike Tours.<\/p>\n

Cole will tell you the change is intentional and heartfelt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thankful for the people around me,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m happier than I\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an awakening familiar to the 14 Wabash interns who have worked for Nantucket Bike Tours (NBT) and lived with Courtney and Jason Bridges during the past seven summers.<\/p>\n

None of this happens by accident, yet none of it would have been possible without one.<\/p>\n

In October 1991, Jason was a 15-year-old sophomore riding with two friends to Wapahani High School near Selma, IN, when the driver lost control of the car and hit a utility pole. Jason\u2019s skull fractured in five places; his brain was hemorrhaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my family arrived, doctors told them to expect the worst,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Two weeks in intensive care and a month later, he walked out of the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all felt it was a miracle,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I had some brain damage. I couldn\u2019t think as well, I couldn\u2019t remember very well, and everything was slower. I was a straight-A student before the accident, but now I was struggling for D\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason credits faculty, friends, and family for helping him through high school, and though he was challenged at Wabash, he made the Dean\u2019s List his senior year.<\/p>\n

But along with the obstacles came a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight after the accident I couldn\u2019t move very fast. I started watching more. I found I could practice being aware of where I was in a room, body language, the emotions I was feeling, and self-manage them in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t know<\/strong> this \u201cpractice\u201d had a name, but Jason was developing his \u201cemotional intelligence (EQ).\u201d New York Times <\/em>science writer Daniel Goleman defines EQ as a set of skills, including control of one\u2019s impulses, self-motivation, empathy, and social competence in interpersonal relationships.<\/p>\n

When Jason was 23, he found similar principles in a much older book\u2014Dale Carnegie\u2019s How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em>\u2014and began to use them in his life and work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw it as my golden ticket\u2014I didn\u2019t have the IQ; I could never outsmart anybody. But I could do this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the things that really matter in life but they\u2019re not taught at any school: Who do you want as a friend? What do you want in a spouse or in a co-worker? Nobody ever says, \u2018Man, if you only had a higher GPA then we could be friends.\u2019 You want trust, honesty, gratitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was working in the service industry; I had grown up in a restaurant, so I applied this throughout my 20s and I started to get better and better the more I practiced.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was about to find a place to teach it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s called a \u2018pirate\u2019s toenail,\u2019\u201d NBT intern Joey Lenkey \u201919 says gleefully. He is describing a shell to the family of four he\u2019s leading on a bike tour stopped at Nantucket\u2019s Brant Point Beach. \u201cCan you find one?\u201d<\/p>\n

The kids race to the sand and spread out to find the shell, their parents not far behind.<\/p>\n

Jason\u2019s mantra for the interns is \u201cBe Interested, Not Interesting (BINI).\u201d He stresses listening and paying attention to others\u2019 needs. Later in the tour, when Joey notices that the mom is lagging behind, he pedals back to encourage her up a cobblestone hill. There are no small moments.<\/p>\n

But when you\u2019re leading kids, interesting matters, too, and you can feel the energy level rise as the family hunts for the pirate\u2019s toenail. The kids are only mildly disappointed when Dad is the first to find one!<\/p>\n

courtney and jason met in 2009 while competing in Nantucket\u2019s annual Rock Run 50-mile endurance race. They dated long-distance for a year while Courtney finished grad school. She had returned to the island to teach when the couple took a bike tour in Boston that would reroute their lives.<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>We went in November 2010. It was freezing.<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>(laughs) Freezing!<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>And we really had a great time.<\/p>\n

So on the two-hour, fifteen-minute ferry ride back we\u2019re just chatting, and one of us is, like, \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t anyone do this on Nantucket?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Courtney and Jason Bridges \u201998<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We pulled out a piece of paper and started sketching it out\u2014\u201cYou could go here, and here.\u201d But my mindset was for someone else to do it.<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>And then you said\u2026<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>\u201cWhy don\u2019t you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>And that was very scary. Like, \u201cOh, no, no, no.\u201d I thought, Hmm, I\u2019d have to leave my safe job, salary. I don\u2019t know if I can leave that<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>But I think we were ready. He\u2019s always been an entrepreneur at heart. He was running a business as though he was the owner, so it was time to take on the challenge. I was a teacher, so I had my summers free to help with the bike tours.<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>Right, that was big.<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>I believe in you.<\/p>\n

Jason: <\/strong>I think she believed in me more than I did.<\/p>\n

Courtney: <\/strong>And we went for it. Before we knew it, we were building 25 bikes in our living room and opening the next summer as Nantucket Bike Tours.<\/p>\n

There was one problem: finding people to lead the tours for such a short summer season. Enter the Schroeder Center for Career Development and the Dill Small Business Internship Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t really been in close contact with the College until this point, and I didn\u2019t know this program existed,\u201d Jason says. \u201cWe had two applicants the first year and Ryan Cronin \u201913 said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan worked, lived, and ate meals with Courtney and Jason. Jason taught him accounting, marketing, and strategic planning. But Ryan was learning something more essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t like Jason was just trying to make me better at business; he was trying to make me a better person, a better leader,\u201d Ryan recalls.<\/p>\n

That changed the internship program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a 20-year-old, Ryan didn\u2019t have a lot of experience with EQ,\u201d Jason says. \u201cI just naturally started coaching him. He was ripe for it. And that\u2019s when I saw this could be an experience where they\u2019d learn these skills they could use for the rest of their lives, no matter what they did. At first the internship was 90 percent business, 10 percent emotional intelligence. Now that\u2019s flipped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe teach the value of taking the focus away from yourself and toward others. It\u2019s about asking questions, being curious, but it has to be genuine and sincere. You can\u2019t manipulate. All of this builds up to becoming a community leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason\u2019s confidence as both an entrepreneur and a leader has grown with each passing year. He received the most votes in the island\u2019s Board of Selectmen election in April, is a board member of the town\u2019s New School, and serves as the town\u2019s outreach manager. And in 2014, he and Courtney opened a second business on the island, The Handlebar Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday when it comes to running a business, I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019ve got this! We can do this,\u2019\u201d Jason says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Handlebar Caf\u00e9<\/strong> is definitely not a Starbucks.<\/p>\n

A \u201ccommunity space disguised as a coffee shop,\u201d it\u2019s Jason and Courtney\u2019s take on emotional intelligence incarnate with\u2014if Facebook reviews are to be believed\u2014the best morning buns and coffee on the island.<\/p>\n

With its picture window up front, the building feels more home than business. There are bikes on the walls and a mix of comfy couches and bar stools, and customers are greeted the moment they walk in and the screen door closes with that \u201cthwack\u201d only wooden screen doors can make.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an intimate, relaxing place where Jason and Courtney hope \u201cislanders and visitors alike can connect with the world on their own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this warm July evening, Cole, Joey, and fellow intern SaVonne Bennette \u201919 are walking from the caf\u00e9 down the brick walks past the manicured hedges and window boxes full of hydrangeas to meet Jason and Courtney for seafood at The Charlie Noble restaurant.<\/p>\n

Courtney suggests a vegan dish to Joey while SaVonne razzes him for being vegan and Joey razzes SaVonne for ordering meat, meat, and more meat. The friendly teasing continues as Joey recalls the night it was his turn to fix dinner a few weeks ago. He decided on campfire meals, got the fire started late, and no one got to eat until 9:30.<\/p>\n

The entr\u00e9es arrive and plates are passed around amidst the conversation. Courtney swaps food with a couple of the guys\u2014\u201cI know you don\u2019t like asparagus, so I\u2019ll take it, you can have this\u201d\u2014and Jason\u2014\u201cTry these carrots, they\u2019re so good!\u201d<\/p>\n

For five weeks they\u2019ve eaten most of their meals together. Joey says this is the time they feel most like a family\u2014and he hopes to bring what he\u2019s learned back to campus when summer ends.<\/p>\n

Jason calls the internship program \u201cone of the best things I\u2019ve done.\u201d He believes Cole, SaVonne, and Joey will carry their new skills and vision to whatever community they live in.<\/p>\n

But right now, this meal, this conversation, this community\u2014this Wabash family in Nantucket\u2014is enough.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Richard Paige, Kim Johnson, Christina Egbert, Steve Charles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leveraging the power of \u201cemotional intelligence\u201d to become a business and community leader, Jason Bridges \u201998 hosts an internship program that is transforming Wabash students\u2019 lives.\u00a0 It\u2019s a breezy Thursday afternoon in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":3972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-notes","category-featured-videos"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/01\/guys-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4025,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971\/revisions\/4025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}