Marty: Welcome to Not Your Typical Leadership Coaching with me, Martin Ketelhut and Bill Tierney, an IFS practitioner. And results coach. And results coach. Why, why, why do

Bill: it, all of this, if you're not going to get different results? People come to the internal family systems model, looking for a practitioner or therapist or coach because they want to make changes in their lives. And they may not even know that though, they may not know that why they're going coming and asking for help is because they want to make changes, but often even something as basic, basic as I'm suffering and I don't want to anymore.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: right. Is it is a desire for change, but when, when it comes to change, we all kind of have some history with that. Yes. And it's not all positive. No, mostly not. Mostly not. So I want to stop suffering. And then if I, as a coach say, Oh, what I'm hearing from you is you want to make some changes? Oh, no, I don't want to make any changes. I just want to stop suffering.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Do it

Marty: to me. Make the change. You know, I'll pay the money and you make the change and then we'll all be happy. I want you

Bill: to

Marty: be the change

Bill: I want in the world. Yes.

Marty: Right. Get somebody to be the change you want to see in the world. That's what Gandhi said. Well, but this, this leads into our topic for today, in a sense, because these are examples of people who have, I think they're, they're living from a truth that we would agree with. It's a hard 1 to grass, which is, you know, I don't want to. Do anything I don't want to do. I want these changes, but I don't want to have to do any of the things that I don't like to do.

Bill: Yeah. Yes. So help me make some changes, only doing the things I want to do.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Yeah. Which is a legitimate, it's a legitimate request. Sure, yeah, and we need to bottle it and then make sure that we have enough productivity that we can keep up with the demand. Because if we could find a way to do that, we can find a way to help people make change the changes that they need to make in their lives without ever having to do anything that they don't want to do. We probably.

Marty: And yet, if I understand you correctly, that you live by this philosophy, if we want to call it that, you know, only live only doing what you want to do. And you are a product of coaching. So how is that? How

Bill: so? So what did you say? So

Marty: he's having coaches that

Bill: didn't ask you to do anything that you didn't want to do. I fired him when they insisted that I do what I didn't want to do. I really did. I've had a lot of coaches who insisted that that nothing could change unless I did something I wasn't willing to do. And so I didn't use them as coaches anymore. I tried for a long time. There were many times that I did. I tried to make myself do what I didn't want to do, but I found every single time it didn't work every single time.

Marty: So I'm a little confused because on the one hand, I heard you just say, maybe I misheard. That no one's going to get different results if they don't do some of those things in that the coach says that they really would rather not have to do. And now I hear you saying, well, if coach told me to do something, I want to do, I'd fire that coach me.

Bill: The coach says to me. If you want to make, get different results, that means you're gonna have to do different things. Yes. Agreed. Yep. And I'm just saying, but those different things need to be things that I want to do. And, uh, this takes me back to an early conversation with Carlos, my first coach. And, um, when I hired Carlos, I said, I want to be a coach. That's my number one objective. I want to be a coach. And I, and so I want your coaching to become a coach. Right. And he said, great, let's do that. And we started meeting every week. And I remember sitting down, uh, at the coffee shop, we, this is long before COVID. This was in 2011, sitting down at the coffee shop, talking with him and he said, okay, I've got some, got my notepad here. I'll take some notes. Tell me what it is that you're going to do to build your coaching business. And I said, I, I don't know that I'm going to do anything to, I'm just going to, you know, start talking to people. Well, what people are you going to talk to? Well, whoever wants coaching. Well, how are you going to know that they want coaching? Um, they'll ask for my help. Why would they ask you for your help? Because they know that I'm a coach. How do they find out you're a coach? I mean, he kept asking these questions, and I'm starting to get kind of uncomfortable, and I said, Carlos, I think I see what you're getting at. Um, you want me to take a bunch of actions so that I can get the word out that I'm a coach, and have people hire me as a coach. You want me to, like, you know, I'm, I'm guessing you want me to take to start attending networking events and, and maybe take other actions to get the word out that I'm a coach. He said, yes, exactly. What are you, what are you going to do? I said, I, you know, I think I just want to continue, just have the conversations I'm already having with people. And if the conversations I'm having with people are effective enough. They're going to be talking about that with other people in their life. Those other people are going to want coaching. They're going to refer them. I just want my business to grow organically. So yeah, okay, that does, it's, that's a great idea. But, but until you get enough people talking about you, that's probably not going to happen. You

Bill: need to do some things that might be uncomfortable. So at that point, I just, I just said, yeah, no, I'm not willing to do anything that's uncomfortable. And he was a little stumped, as you can imagine, being my coach, how stumped you must, I would be stumped with a client like that. Absolutely stumped. And so, um, I, I over time noticed that there were things that I, that were uncomfortable that I was, but that I was willing to do. I recognized, yeah, I can't just wait for the world to recognize Bill's a coach because I've got business cards now. I've actually somehow got to earn, not only earn the reputation that I'm a good coach and that I help people make a difference, but I've also got to take some action and, and do some things to have people know me as a coach so that they think of me when they need a coach or when they're talking to someone else that needs a coach. So I, I found that I was willing to do things that were uncomfortable. Now that. Doing things that are uncomfortable, that I was willing to do, by definition means that I was, that I wanted to do them. So it took a bit of a shift in my mind. Say that again. Doing things that I'm uncomfortable to do, but willing to do, is by definition something I want to do. Okay.

Marty: Okay. You're uncomfortable, but willing. So

Bill: the key here is that I remember I'm that I remember that I choose to do this, that I'm not, it's uncomfortable, but I chose this. It's uncomfortable, but I chose to do it. Meaning I want to do it. Nobody's making me do it. Oh, okay. Okay. I gotcha. Yeah. So now I can really say, honestly, I don't do anything I don't want to do. So it seems like there's a lot

Marty: of things in life and we can come back to the coaching in a second, but just to take the lens way out for a second. It seems like there's a lot of things in life that if we use that little I don't want to call it a reframe, but it is a reframe exactly, you know, like I don't want to take out the trash, but if I don't, so, so I'm, I'm willing and therefore I choose to take out the trash.

Bill: It's a very empowering. It kind of, at first glance, it sounds like a rebellious teenager thing that you'd hear from your teenage son or daughter. Right. What I don't want to do. Right.

Marty: Of course, we, we are all like that about a lot of things, filling out our taxes and, you know, staying waiting at a red light when there's nobody else at the intersection, all kinds of stuff, you know, and

Bill: yet we're doing it

Marty: in

Bill: my mind. I'm thinking here I am doing what I don't want to do. That, that is extremely disempowering, like who am I, what's wrong with me, that I'm doing, that I'm living a life full of doing things that I don't want to do.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Yet.

Marty: That would not be a life, that would not be much of a life at all, that'd be like being in a concentration camp.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: Yeah, exactly.

Bill: No choice. Powerless. Mm

Bill: hmm. But the reality is that there are, that in my life, I'll just speak for myself, that in my life, I've had a choice. From whatever age I could have survived on my own, I've had a choice. How old

Bill: was that? 8, 9, 10 years old? Somewhere in there maybe? Wouldn't have been guaranteed. But I mean, at 8 or 9 years old, if I decided to run away from home and go make it on my own, I might have survived. I don't know. But I had a choice. Things weren't great for me when I was 8, 9, 10 years old at home. Living with my mom and dad. Things were, in fact, things were starting to ramp up and get pretty ugly. And the thought occurred to me, I should just run away. But then I would think of running away and realize I'm more scared at the idea of running away and being out there on my own than staying at home and knowing what dangers I'm confronted with here. Yeah, right. So I chose to stay home. Now, I certainly didn't have the mindset at that time, I'm doing what I want to do. Just the opposite. I, at that age, if you would ask me, do you want to, do you choose this living situation that you have now? I would say absolutely not. I want things to be better. I want mom and dad to be nice. I don't want them to fight all the time. I don't want them to be drunk. I don't want all this violence. I don't want to be scared all the time.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And yet reality, even then was I chose it.

Marty: So it sounds like the crucial as I'm feeling into that and comparing in moments of my life. It sounds like the crucial step. I mean, because, okay, it's something I want to do. It's clear. It's something I am choosing to do. That's clear. But in the middle, there's this getting willing.

Bill: That's right. That's right. And, and what I noticed, let's switch it to you a little bit. Let me ask you if you, if you have an experience similar to the one I have. When you are presented with something that there is to do and you see that it's necessary, that if you could get yourself to do it, it would work, but you find that you're not willing to do it. How hard is it to get yourself to do it

Marty: when you're not willing? It's very hard.

Bill: It seems like it, right? It seemed, it seems really impossible. And yet we, I think are all faced with that internal polarization several times every single day. And for some of us more, more than others, I

Bill: want to do this, but I better not. I don't want to do this, but I better. Yeah. And somewhere in between there, and this is a different space than you were asking about, but somewhere in between there is is a decision conscious or not. It's a decision because we find ourselves either not doing what we tell ourselves. We should Be doing or doing what we tell ourselves that we shouldn't be doing.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Right. In reality, whatever it is that we do or don't do, we've chosen that choice may be unconscious. We may not be consciously aware of the choice. And what I'm advocating is that we make that. choice conscious. If the choice is no, I choose not to do that, then don't do it. But choose it with full awareness of what, of what you're weighing out here. What am I weighing out? When I say, no, I'm not going to do this. What am I letting, what am I saying no to? When I say, when I say no to, to this behavior, this action that I, that I could be taking, what else am I saying no to? Let's say I, let's say I've got a job where I'm getting paid X number of dollars per hour and I get paid by the hour and I get a call from the boss and the boss says Hey, I know it's your day off. But if you come in today, it's overtime for you And i'll pay you for four hours of overtime. Will you come in and help us out? So if I say no to that i'm saying no to four hours of overtime And the money that that that would pay me and what the things I could buy with that money I'm also saying no to what I, what I would, uh, if I say no to that, I'm saying no to my boss's approval. I might be saying no to the, an opportunity for, for, uh, promotion later on. Yep.

Bill: Um, I might be saying no to, uh, feeling comfortable when I am at work next time I see my boss. What am I saying yes to? If I say no to those four hours of overtime, what am I saying yes to? I'm saying, I'm saying yes to what I want to spend that four hours doing.

Marty: Right,

Bill: right. Relaxing, restoring, going for a hike, hanging out with friends, getting drunk, whatever I'm going to do, whatever I'm

Bill: saying, that's what I'm saying yes to. So that's another piece of this is that when I, when I, when I do consciously make the choice, I'm, I can, I can then say consciously, I'm saying yes to these things and no to those things. That's very Now, so

Marty: now where the challenge shifts from, from me in that is To things that you're saying yes or no to that are definitive of who you are. It's not just like some activity, but it's like, well, this would mean what what this would mean what the, you know, what I'm missing out on is being

Bill: yes.

Marty: You know, the being willing being a team member being, you know, supportive of this whole enterprise. Um, and, you know, if I'm saying, yes, I'm becoming a company guy. I'm, uh. You know, I'm going to ask his, sir, or what, you know, I'm just taking other angles that come up on this. Right. I mean, 1 of the recent examples for me personally was I said, yes. To doing something that I didn't want to do called raising, you know, crowdsourcing the money to produce a book. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to go ask people for money. I, I said, well, who am I, if I'm an author. Right there, and it's going to cost money to produce a book. Like, am I going to say, well, I'm the author that put all his stuff in a drawer and let it rot. No, that's not who I am. I'm going to take those other steps that are necessary to get the book published because that's who I am. Right? So there was that. It was, it wasn't like the activity. It was the identity, the identity that I aligned with.

Bill: You said yes to what you wanted to say no to because of what else you were saying yes to. Yeah. You wanted to say no to the activity, to the, to taking the action. But you knew that if you didn't take that action, that you'd also have to say no to who you wanted to be. That's right. That's right. Great example. And in the end, Can you see how it's true that you only did what you wanted to do

Marty: in the end? Yes. In the end, yes. But in, but at the time I was just like, I don't wanna do this . Right?

Bill: So now let's, let's reframe again. In fact, um, maybe reframe isn't the right word here, but, but let's, let's break it down. Let's slow it way down and see what happened there. Mm-Hmm.

Bill: your publisher, I assume. Mm-Hmm. ,

Bill: uh, said to you, in order to get this book out and get it edited and get it sold and marketed, it, it's gonna cost some money. And, um, to get that money, here's one of the things that you can do.

Marty: Yeah. Unless you, you're just gonna take it out of your bank account. Here's, here's guidance on the path that we recommend you take.

Bill: Got it.

Bill: Yeah. So nobody's saying you have to do this, but there was kind of a, well, I'm looking at my banking account, bank account, and I don't have the money that I need to advance this further. Um,

Bill: I'm looking at the options here and what they're offering makes the most sense. And I'm noticing, I don't want to do it.

Marty: Right. Right.

Marty: And there's another factor that played into it. Which this gets at that who I am piece, you know, I thought I remember thinking, like, am I the guy who said no to the challenge of engaging my constituents. In support. No, that doesn't sound like me. Is it going to be hard? Yes, but will you be elated at the end of the process for having gone through it? Will you have in fact, might it be possible? I remember asking myself this, that you will have changed in your willingness to do this kind of thing, having done it and wouldn't that be nice to be that guy who no longer has any. Hesitation, you know, to ask for money or do

Bill: a big project like this. Yeah, there you go again. Just reframing and reframing and reframing.

Marty: That's right. We have to recommend that folks listen to the last episode on reframing.

Bill: Right? So, I want to now bring in IFS again. Of course, I always do this. Uh, I want to talk about internal family systems and how, how I actually use that in coaching to help people recognize that, in fact, they never do. I'm not the only one that only does what I want to do. Nobody that I know ever does anything that they don't want to do. Not unless they're actually being held hostage and have a gun to their head. Um, they That's I just want to

Marty: mark that that's counter intuitive, I think, because a lot of us think of our teenager or ourselves at times just being like, no, I'm not doing that. I don't want to. And you're saying you never don't do what we don't want to do.

Bill: Yeah, here's the evidence. Look at what you do. And I'm asserting that you're doing it because you want to look at what you're not doing and I'm asserting that you're not doing that because you don't want to. Whether you're consciously aware of the choice that you made or not, you're doing only what you want to do. And the evidence is that that's what you're doing. I see. Okay. So, if you're doing it at some level, you wanted to, yeah, right. And, and if you want to explore that, ask yourself questions like, well, what were you afraid would happen if you didn't do it? So, we think of the, let's go back to the example of the boss calls and says, it's Saturday afternoon. I need you to come in for 4 hours. The answer ends up being, yes. Okay. Fine. Well, okay. So you chose that maybe in a disempowered way, but you still chose it. Why? What were you afraid would happen if you didn't say yes to that? I am afraid the boss would have disapproved. He wouldn't have liked me. I wouldn't admit it would have missed out on opportunities in the future. Okay. So you want opportunities in the future. You want the boss's approval. That's why you did what you did.

Marty: So this is this, this gets into an area that I think is very touchy for people because a lot of times. We feel twist. Our arm is being twisted and we do something we don't want to do. And there's a reason why, like you said, there's, there's some sort of pressure or wanting to please or something that's going on there. And so, like, those times when we've made the mistake and I knew I shouldn't have done this thing. Well, the fingers pointing right back at you at some

Marty: level. You got willing. To go along with this scam, or you got willing to go on that date with that guy who you knew you didn't want to go on a date with that sort of thing. Right. Right. Like you're responsible. You are. So the, I guess the flip side of the coin, I don't do what nobody does what they don't want to do is you're responsible for what you

Bill: do. Exactly. As an adult, you're responsible for what you do. And when you choose things that you later then say, I shouldn't have done that. Why did I do that? What was I thinking? What was I thinking is a great question.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: slow it down and go back and say, well, what was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that that scammer that had me, um, giving him the password That had me giving him the password to my bank account. Why did I give it to him? What was I thinking? Oh, I was thinking that he was the bank Yeah, and I was thinking, and I was believing what he was saying, I was believing

Bill: that if I didn't give him my password that somebody was going to drain all the money out of my account, and I wanted to keep my money.

Marty: Right,

Bill: right. And I overrode that other voice saying, but this doesn't seem right with the bank asked me for my password. And I hear a lot of times

Marty: people say. Well, I didn't I was suspicious I wondered, but I went ahead with it.

Bill: Because what did you want? I wanted to protect my money. Yeah. And, and I was scared. There was a, so now bring in internal family systems. There was a part of me that was scared that might

Bill: go along with what that bank representative was telling me. What, who I thought was the bank representative was telling me to do that. I was going to act too late. I was going to hesitate. I was going to drag my feet and the scammers were going to be able to get in and get all my money. Right, right. To the scared part of me and that part of me took over. Yeah. From the perspective of that part of me, I chose to let that part make the, make the choice for me to give, give, give my password. And consequently, I lost all that money. That's what was going on. I was scared.

Marty: Very interesting. Very interesting. I think this, this is a paradigmatic shift for a lot of us to think that it's like a law of nature. If you're doing something at some level, you said yes to it. That's right. And so if you're not, Happy with the fact that you're doing that thing, then look and see what was I thinking and take responsibility

Bill: for that and many of what I'm calling choices that it could easily be argued. And the argument could be 1 to say, that's not really a choice. If it was made by your unconscious, if you were not consciously aware of the choice, it wasn't a choice. It wasn't really a decision. It was something that happened automatically. And I would agree with that. However, if, if that argument is being made so that I can say, but so therefore I'm with, I'm a victim here and I'm not responsible, then I'm giving all my power away. If that's what I'm going to do, if I'm willing to give my power to external circumstances, then I, then I probably need to be saying yes to being a victim. That's really what I'm saying is to that. I'm saying, yes, I have no power here. I'm going to give it to someone else. I'm going to give it to events and circumstances. Yeah, but I choose to live more powerfully than that. Even when I've messed up, even when I make a mistake, even when I've done something that that cost me that I didn't expect it to cost me or that hurt someone else. I, I want to be the 1 that is willing to be responsible because I've learned that by being willing to be responsible and own responsibility. Any consequences of any choices I've made, conscious or unconscious, leaves me standing in an empowered state, in charge of my own life.

Marty: Well, where it sends me, that's great, I love that, where it sends me is to a place of, I want to be better in touch with my intuitions. My, my subconscious so that I go with that. I, you know, I recognize like something inside me saying no, and I'm going to stay with the no and not let some heady thing in the way. Like, so I out of this conversation one thing that I get committed to is being in touch with my intuition.

Bill: Yes. Yes. So, some things to watch for there. How do you stay in touch with intuition? Well, if you've got a predominance of fear, you cannot sense your intuition. Are you aware of that? I mean, have you had that experience? I'm so scared that, that I have to shut down my intuition. I can't, I didn't even know I have one.

Marty: Sure. We go into, and it's just the amygdala working at that point,

Bill: right? And so much of what we get scared of in life doesn't actually. I can't remember what the quote is. It doesn't actually occur. I wish I could remember this quote, but it has something to do with, uh,

Marty: Fear isn't the end. The end fear is facts

Bill: appearing. Yeah. False evidence appearing real. Yeah. Is that what you're thinking of? No, I'm thinking there's a famous quote that I used to have memorized and loved that something like. 99 percent of, of, um, the things that I worry about in my life, um, of the 99 percent of the things that I worry about in life, 98 percent of them, I made up, they're, they're actually real. And that's, so my perception of the events, what I make events and circumstances mean in my life is what scares me. If, if the unresolved incomplete. past that my parts are still tethered to is, is, is providing the perspective, my perception of what's happening in that external world. I'm going to get scared of what's not there. I'm going to be scared of that shadow on the wall at night and just feel like it's someone in my room rather than the coat hanging on the coat hanger, right? And that fear locks me out of intuition, not just intuition. It locks me out of all the resources that are built right in that if I can stay open and clear and present to, then I have access to those resources and make choices consciously.

Marty: I think that this is in the, the age of the internet. This is a huge, um, admonition for all of us. 'cause notice when you're scrolling and when you're researching, as the people call it, you know, and doing the, like, is it fear that's driving you? Because you might be, you might be under the influence of a conspiracy theory and not something real. ,

Bill: yes. Yes, yes, yes. Another thing that that inspires in me is to ask a question. Um, and let's go ahead and use that scrolling as an example again. I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling. How long have I been doing this? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 15 minutes? Sometimes I'll look at my phone at the end of the week and it'll give me a notice and say, your screen time is up 57 percent this past week. And I think about, whoa. What was going on this past week? Why was I on the screen 57 percent more time than the week before? Yeah. Think about it. I realized, Oh, this was a hard week. This is a way for me to kind of escape from, from how hard this past week has been. And so if I can catch myself when I'm scrolling and ask myself a question like, why is this what I'm choosing right now? Yeah. Rather than, am I choosing this? Of course it is. At some level I've chosen to spend the last 10, 15, 20 minutes scrolling. Yeah. Why this, why am I choosing this right now? Right, right, right. And do I

Marty: continue to choose this right now? Right. I could tell you, like even last night I was. Scrolling on YouTube and I, and, you know, there's some article about some politician and the way it was, the heading was like, so and so screws up totally or gets nailed to the wall. Extreme thing like that. And at first I was like, oh, and then I went. What am I, you know, enjoying watching somebody else get nailed to the wall or suffer or look a fool? Like, I think I'm going to continue scrolling. I don't really need to practice schadenfreude today, you know? Right.

Bill: So these are parts of ourselves. That need our attention and I'm not asserting that we spend all our time hanging out with our parts and getting to know them. Although we certainly would benefit with every attempt to get to know our parts and understand them because as we understand our parts, they begin to understand themselves. They begin to trust us and they allow us to consciously choose rather than coming in from the unconscious and choosing for us.

Marty: That sounds like a really good place to park this conversation. Is there anything else that you wanted to add? I don't mean to cut you off, but that's a really good place to end this.

Bill: Yeah. Um, I, I guess to summarize my, my goal is to always lead from self, self being my true self, my essence, who I really am, uh, to lead with all the choices that I make in my life and make as many of them conscious as I possibly can. And do so in such a way that it programs the unconscious so that those unconscious choices now are ones that serve me and everybody else. Sounds like a plan, man. All right. Well, don't, don't do anything else that you don't want to do, man. Just don't do anything you don't want to do. There's my parting advice to you. Great. Great. Till next time. Thank you, Bill. Till next time. All right. Take care. Bye. That concludes another episode of Not Your Typical Leadership Coaching. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to fuel your leadership journey. Remember, true leadership is not about you. It's about empowering others. Take your insights to heart and cultivate a leadership mindset that will transform you from within. Thank you for joining us on this quest to leadership excellence. Don't forget to subscribe and stay tuned for our upcoming episodes where we delve deeper into the art of leadership. Until next time, remember that you have the power to lead with confidence and compassion from the inside out.