Bill: Welcome to another episode of the leadership coaching podcast. My name is Bill Tierney. I'm a results coach and Certified IFS practitioner and this is my co host. Dr. Martin Kettelhut. I who I referred to as Marty others referred to as doc Who's a leadership coach and the author of leadership as relation. And this episode, uh, we're calling solving the wrong problem. I've been reading Marty's book and, uh, I haven't quite finished it yet. I'm up to chapter 16, I believe. And, in the book, I was inspired by something that I read that I now am going to ask Marty to read to you. And then we'll get into our topic, solving the wrong problem.

Marty: Okay, cool. Here we go. Often a client will come to me, believing he knows the source of the challenge he's facing. And so without explaining the challenge, he just asked for help fixing what he thinks is the source of the problem. For example. George had trouble remembering names of new people he met, and since he was going to a networking event that night, he asked me to teach him a mnemonic system to fix the problem of remembering names. When I tested his hypothesis in our coaching session, it didn't hold water. Several reliable mnemonic systems we tried to failed to help him remember names since he was nervous about the networking event that night. I offered to accompany him and help him remembering people's names. That evening, as I observed him meeting people and attempting to implement the one mnemonic device we'd had a little success with when we experimented earlier in the day, I noticed as he met each new person, He was preoccupied with his supposed forgetfulness, using this mnemonic system, shaking the other person's hand correctly, looking them in the eye, and straightening his tie. He was always thinking about something other than the name itself, as it was first uttered. So instead of adding a mnemonic system to his thoughts, which just complicated things, we went to work on George's ability to pay attention. In the moment the name is said, To the name itself and to repeat it back to the new acquaintance this immediately solve the problem. Notice what leads us to the solution was not an a priori fix a priori means self evident something that you already know, nor was it tenaciously implementing his theory. The mnemonic device was the answer to the problem. We needed to observe through multiple iterations, what was actually in the way and what actually facilitated remembering names.

Bill: Okay. Very good. Love that story. And if you haven't got Marty's book yet, Leadership as Relation, The Art and Science of Heart Led Leadership, I recommend that you pick it up. Uh, got my copy through Amazon. What page? That was page 99, I believe, when you started reading,

Marty: That's right. Yes.

Bill: Yeah, yeah, recommend the book. Let me just tell you right up front though. It's not gonna be a whiz bang easy read It's it's you're gonna have to do a little bit of work as you read this book. It's gonna make you think It's gonna make you maybe challenge some of your own preconceived ideas Maybe you'll find that you're thinking about things that you've assumed just are just as things are only to realize Oh, maybe they don't have to be that way. So it's a very very Potentially life changing book here. So so let's get into it.

Marty: You're saying that be on both sides of that the reader knows so that, you know, they don't go if they're looking for an easy read by the pool. This might not be it,

Bill: Mm hmm.

Marty: it could be a challenging read by the pool

Bill: Yeah, right

Marty: um, and also, thank you for acknowledging that it's not just another leadership book. There are lots of them out there and this really does go do the, do some of the heavy lifting of creating a new paradigm, like a different way to think about leadership. So yes, it's going to be challenging,

Bill: Right. It's not going to be a formula to memorize and then, then execute either.

Marty: right?

Bill: Uh, what I noticed as I'm reading through the book is because of the way it does challenge my preset and programmed way of viewing the world, bit by bit by bit, it's changing how I interact with the world.

Marty: Nice. I like to hear that.

Bill: So you and I are leaders who coach and leaders who we both also write. You've got published books, two of them. I don't have any published books yet. I like to read. I like to write. I've got blog articles. I don't know how many, two, three hundred blog articles. I know you have a ton of blog articles too, but there's a lot of different ways to lead besides just the two that you, that I've named for you and I, coaching and writing.

Marty: One of writing that you've done a lot of that. I have not you create workbooks.

Bill: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Marty: I have a big thick workbook on my shelf from the time that we were doing coaching together.

Bill: Mm hmm.

Marty: Um, and I know you've written several since then. So that's, that's a huge, um, talent of yours.

Bill: Oh, thank you. You know, the, uh, the book that I'm working on right now was going to be Just an edited version of one of those workbooks, like the one that I gave you. But once I began to write it, I realized, this is going to require really, um, more than just a set of exercises for people to do. They need to understand why to do these exercises in the first place. So, so now I'm, I'm pretty challenged as I'm writing the book that I realized needed to be written rather than the one that I thought I wanted to. And what it's requiring is that I share with the reader What, what it is that, uh, that I experienced to learn what I learned, because I didn't go the route of, of education beyond high school. I didn't go, um, the route of being trained, uh, to learn all of these things that I learned about healing, personal recovery, uh, personal development. Uh, I went through my own self directed education. Um, many of the years that I was going through my self directed education, I didn't realize that's what I was doing. It felt to me like I was just barely getting by, uh, but that was so much part of my education. Anyhow, it's been a challenge. It's also been, uh, uh, enlightening for me and, and lots of fun. And I'm really, really enjoying it, really having a. A good and challenging time writing it. So, it's quite an experience. Hopefully it'll get done one of these days and get published.

Marty: I'm sure it will.

Bill: Well, we talked about that a couple of weeks ago. And we designed a project and, and by the way, I'm doing well on that project.

Marty: Oh, good.

Bill: I've taken a lot of the actions already that, that I said I was going to take and I'm moving direct, moving in the direction that I want to.

Marty: Fabulous. Fabulous.

Bill: I wonder if it would be helpful to demonstrate, like in a coaching setting an example of solving the wrong problem. Similar to what you described in your book.

Marty: Mm hmm. Well, by the way, as I was reading that, I was thinking, yes, I could. It's amazing how many different thoughts we can have at once. And I'm almost embarrassed to say that because I like to think that I'm. Minded focused on the one thing in front of me at any given time, but it's not true that, um, this happened in our mastermind circle, um, a couple of weeks ago to me and it, you know, it's nobody's fault. I hadn't clearly articulated what it was. But I was getting a lot of coaching from the group on some, on solving, a problem that had to do with creating a design plan. Right. But the real problem that I was suffering in that moment was I didn't know what to design. I didn't know where I wanted the plan to lead yet. Well, it was, it was a very frustrating moment for me. Cause I'm like, wait a minute, you know, I'm getting coached on the wrong one. Thing or I didn't even know that in the moment. So there's another, there's another example.

Bill: That's a great example. And, uh, if you're comfortable continuing to use that, we can, we can certainly use that. I want to throw out another one just came to mind as you were sharing that, and that, that is that when I was going through a particular training, um, I won't name the training. I don't want to name anybody involved in it, but I just want to talk about the experience in the training. I was. I was really upset to find that one of the students was coming into the training intoxicated. I could smell alcohol on their breath. I was noticing slurring of the words. I was noticing almost like behavior that you would expect to see in a bar room by someone that's there only just to get completely liberated from any kind of inhibition. So I thought, well, the responsible thing for me to do here is to go to the trainer and point out that this, that the student isn't is inebriated. And not just today, this is the fourth or fifth time in a row. This is a training that took, uh, that lasted over the course of months. So when I went to the trainer. And I said, so and so, I want you to know that so and so is under the influence. And I was shocked by the trainer's response to me. The response was, what did you say to them? I went to them because I wanted them to solve the problem.

Marty: Sure. Mm hmm.

Bill: I certainly didn't expect that they would expect me to solve the problem. After I got done being really pissed off at the trainer about just handing it back to me and not taking responsibility for the integrity of the training, Which is valid also. Um, I realized what was the problem that I wanted the trainer to solve for me?

Marty: Mm hmm. Mm

Bill: to create an environment where I felt safe to learn. This kind of learning environment was, was going to require that I be vulnerable, that I be open, that I be, and for me, I needed to trust that the people I was In that training with, we're going to be reliable to, um, well, to be sober as a bare minimum, uh, but also to, to, um, to being somewhat regulated and, and responsible with what I was about to share with them if I was going to be asked to do that. So that's the problem I thought that the trainer was responsible to solve for me. The, the problem that the trainer perceived was that I was uncomfortable with, with one of my fellow students being intoxicated. And the trainer's response was just to kind of hold me responsible for the problem that I had rather than to focus on the other student as if they had a problem. Now, I'm still not fully 100 percent satisfied with the way that whole thing was handled, but it was a shocker. And it was, it was also a, um, an example of just two dramatically different perceptions of what was going on in the moment. I did go to the other student.

Marty: Yes. Mm

Bill: and I, was scared, nervous. I grew up in an alcoholic, violent family.

Marty: hmm.

Bill: Where there's alcohol, there's a lot of unpredictability. You can almost expect there's going to be violence. There's going to be conflict. There's going to be gaslighting. There's going to be blaming. Uh, there's going to be a lot of, a lot of anger. Um, and this is the kind of energy that I was picking up from this other student. And so, surprisingly. I, the response that I got from them was, yeah, I did. I had a, I had a drinks till about one or two in the morning last night and you're still smelling on me today. I wasn't aware of things bringing it to my attention.

Marty: hmm. Mm

Bill: That was pretty much it. And surprisingly, this student made it all the way through the entire training. And so did I. And I don't know if they did anything about it or not, but once I realized that I couldn't just hand it off to the trainer and that it was just going to be my responsibility to be with myself, my own discomfort through this whole thing, I found ways to get through the training without being bothered by this.

Marty: Mm hmm. So, this is an example of solving the wrong problem.

Bill: It is. I thought the problem was the other student. Turns out the problem is my own discomfort.

Marty: Okay. Um, and so, what can we learn from that and these other examples about this phenomenon in general?

Bill: I guess the first thing I want to say is that, by acknowledging the hazards of assuming that we understand the problem before we actually do,

Marty: Mm hmm.

Bill: uh, we can put a lot of energy, time and, and maybe some unintended and get some unintended consequences from trying to solve the wrong problem.

Marty: Right. Right.

Bill: And what I want to, what I'm curious about and interested in, um, is if there's a way to kind of name a, an alternate process, how can we make sure that if there's a problem to be solved. The right person solving it and and the right problems being solved

Marty: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Bill: that that brings in a lot of curiosity based questions that we've all been trained that our coaches and a lot of leaders have been trained in the same way to ask before diving in to try to fix

Marty: Yes.

Bill: or resolve anything.

Marty: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Bill: So that's one of the things that I have been learning. It's one of the things I actually try to teach a little bit with my clients when when they're open to being taught. What do you, what would you say? What is that to learn for you out of this? Mm hmm. Mm

Marty: Well, the first thing, the first thing that reminds me of is this saying, it probably occurs in all cultures in some way, shape or form, like basically, beware the person who thinks he knows. He definitely doesn't know. And the person who comes to you and says, I really don't know, that person is on, that person has this, you know, is closer to the truth. Saying something true, at least, right? Socrates was a famous example of these in ancient times, right? He was the one guy who didn't claim to know what justice was or what the army should do. Or, you know, he always said, well, let's see what should, you know, are you sure that's right? What makes you think that he would question every, every theory, every hypothesis that was brought up. so, you know, he was known as the guy who. Knew more than anyone because he was humble about, you know, putting forth any statement. And so, you know, I think that where that leaves me is in that Socratic mode of like, well, let's question if you if you think that, like, in my example, if you think that learning a mnemonic device is going to solve the problem, let's experiment. Let's see. Let's wade into that. See how that works, which is what we did. I found like, that wasn't solving the problem.

Bill: hmm. I'm curious, do you, if you recall, I'm sure you probably do, did you go into that just assuming that he had correctly identified the problem that he was trying to solve?

Marty: No,

Bill: No, what did you go into it with instead of that?

Marty: I was, I was listening for what, what is going to help him remember names. That's what, that's what the client wanted was to remember names. When he told me he just needed a monitor by itself, I, I was still treading water around this issue. I'm not. going. I'm not swimming off in that direction. I'm still treading water. Let's try an amount of devices, but I'm listening for what's really going on here

Bill: Got it. Right, right, right. And, and so a lot of the, the,

Marty: like a doctor. I'm sorry. I'm interrupting you.

Bill: ahead. I think you're gonna say something similar to what I was gonna say.

Marty: Sometimes that that has happened in our family with our family doctor at times where he's like, I'm not sure what's causing that. Let's hold off on all I remember one time, um, inflam, inflammation inducing foods for a week and see if that makes a difference. Right? And in fact, the eczema started to go away. Okay, so it's got something to do with, now we can narrow it down, right? But you, it's that experimental, um, Like what? What if we put a little bit of salt in the dinner and see if that makes it taste better rather than assuming it's salt we need and dumping too much on put a little bit, you know, test it with a little bit first and see if that has the effect that you want. If so, okay, then we can go for it. So it's that waiting in testing experiment before coming to an absolute conclusion.

Bill: huh. Okay. Brings up another example in my history, which is that, uh, I landed in Alcoholics Anonymous in, on November 15th, 1982. And what everybody else in the meeting that I went to that night, What I seemed to assume was that I was there because I had a problem with alcohol. Seemed like a safe assumption, right? But here's what was actually true. I was there because I thought that the guy that invited me to the meeting was having an affair with my wife.

Marty: Sorry, that's not funny. You? Yes, yes.

Bill: And I wanted to keep an eye on him. I'd already confronted my wife about it and she denied it. I hadn't confronted him directly, but when he invited me to a meeting, first of all, I was offended. Why would, why would somebody invite me to an AA meeting, for God's sakes? That's ridiculous. Um, I don't have a problem. Of all the people that I know that have problems, I don't have a problem. And, um, and I, you know, I was angry at him for his arrogance for assuming that I did. And anyhow, I go to the meeting and, uh, I'm assuming that everybody else assumed that I was there because I had a problem with alcohol. What I didn't know was that I had a problem with alcohol. Now, here's some other assumptions that, and gradually, like over the next few days even, because I continued to go to meetings, I realized that I did in fact have a problem with alcohol. Here's the next level of assumption that, that actually kind of delayed my actual recovery for years and years and years. And that was that the fact that I drank alcohol, the amount of alcohol that I drank, when I drank, what happened when I drank, all those things were certainly more symptomology than Related to whatever the problem was, but the problem, the problem that needed to be solved was not that I drank alcohol or even how much I drank or what I did when I drank it. It took me a long time to realize this, like over 20 years, 20, 25 years of being sober and not having a single drink of alcohol before I realized what I'm really recovering from is, is my unhealed past. I'm, I'm recovering from my trauma and what it is that I'm actually recovering is my true authentic Self. That's what there is to recover, and that's what there is to recover from. It's not alcohol, although it was a good idea to stop drinking it for me. One of the first indications that I might have been trying to solve the wrong problem was that was, you know, I kept counting my time. Okay, I've been in sober a week. Things aren't really that much better. How come things aren't better? I haven't had a drink for a whole week. Now it's been 30 days, and in some ways, Yeah, things are better. I'm, I've saved some money. I'm not spending so much money on alcohol, but God, I'm nervous all the time and and I'm, I've got a short fuse and, and, uh, so now I'm 30 days sober and I'm thinking, well, after 30 days of sobriety, then everything should be solved because the problem is alcohol. No, man, I'm a, I'm a mess. 30 days. Okay. How about six months? I'll give it six months. And then, then I'm sure life's going to be better at six months. Well, I made it six months. Life was not better, man. Life was getting crazier. I was getting crazier.

Marty: Mm

Bill: I was, I, I I didn't understand it. Working the steps, going to meetings, doing service work, doing, getting a big book, doing all the things they said to do. Oh man. And, uh, so, okay, well, I'll get a year of sobriety. That's it. That's, I'll stay sober for a whole year. The story goes on and on and on. 10 years, that's when it'll, that's when it's really going to kick in. Now, 20 years, that's when, yeah. At 20, pretty soon I, I finally realized, Eh, maybe this is as good as it gets. And, and maybe, maybe, At, at about 20, 21 years, I, I finally had the thought, Maybe it's not just alcohol. fact, maybe alcohol was the solution for me. And without it now for the last 20 years, And without finding a, a, an adequate substitute, Um, I'm, I'm going to just have to deal with whatever the problem the alcohol was trying to solve and that's when recovery began for me. Over 20 years. I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

Marty: Very interesting. Very, very interesting. Um, one thing that I think it's helpful to keep in mind is the difference between an hypothesis. It might be that I'm an alcoholic and therefore the alcohol is the problem or, or, you know, but that's a hypothesis. What's the nature of a hypothesis? It needs evidence, right? You could say, well, you know, I, I think that they're eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Well, get evidence. Show me, you know, that's a hypothesis. Fine. Hypothetical. Nothing wrong with hypotheticals. I mean, you know, Jonas Salk said, well, maybe if we inject people with a little bit of polio, that their systems will build immunity to it and they'll be stronger and they won't get polio. Well, let's experiment. People had to volunteer. And we did experiments and we found out, hey, his hypothesis, we got now we got 10, 000 cases got 20, 000 cases. There's evidence now that this works. So it's, it's important to understand the category of statement that you're making the. status of it, which is different from a theory, a theory has been around for a long time and we haven't found any evidence against it. You know, like gravity, for example, we've, we have a formula and it keeps working. It does seem that the size and distance of bodies from each other does work in this way that gravity describes. And we haven't found a case where it doesn't. So that's a theory though, you know, it's not a hypothesis anymore. It's got evidence behind it, lots of it. Right?

Bill: Hypothesis. We need evidence, a theory. We have evidence.

Marty: And even at that, a theory is is indeterminate to a certain extent forever. I mean, till the end of till all evidence has that could ever be has been collected and none of us are going to live that long. So in a way, theories are open ended too, but not as open ended as a hypothesis, which is just like a good guess and need some evidence.

Bill: Chapter six, starting on page 87, the scientific method. Right out of your book. Okay, so what made you think of that as I'm talking about my 20 year journey of solving the wrong problem By the way I also want to throw in that I am so glad that I stopped drinking Once I realized that that that what the problem that drinking was trying to solve once I knew what that was and got to working on that At no point did it make any sense to me, well, then I should drink again. Because, well, for one thing, my life had gotten a lot better. There were a lot of problems that I was watching other people that continued to drink have that I never did have. So alcohol does cause a lot of problems for a lot of people, and I have escaped that for the last 41 years now, almost 42 years. Uh, and it never has occurred to me to drink again for that reason, but also because I don't feel like I need it. Like, whatever problem it was that alcohol was trying to solve has been solved enough. Now, by the work that I've done since I realized that, that that's the work there was to do, that I don't need it anymore. And why would, why in the world would I risk all that I've gained as a, as a result of, of not drinking? So I just wanted to say that because it might've sounded like, well, if he was solving the wrong problem, he should have been drinking the whole time. No, not, not at all.

Marty: Right, right. Right. Now, and, and, by the way, I'm not sure the word that carries enough power to express how proud and, and, and admiring I am of you that you are 40 years sober. That's huge.

Bill: It blows me away. Thank you. Then thank you for the acknowledgement. Yeah. It just is shocking. Shocking.

Marty: Mm hmm. Yeah. Imagine, imagine if the whole world were alcohol free. Imagine.

Bill: Well, yeah. Yeah. If we were, how about, imagine the whole world, um, under the influence of reality than, rather than a substance or some other delusion.

Marty: Mm hmm. Right. Which takes us back to this. The importance of knowing the status of your, You know, your, your assertion that you're, you know, is, is this a hypothesis I'm trying to prove? Like my client comes in with a hypothesis. I need a mnemonic device. I know it's a hypothesis because. It just got presented to me. I don't have any evidence for anything yet,

Bill: Mm hmm. Mm

Marty: right? Um, but I think it, you know, a lot of times I have some very dear friends who have been very deluded by stuff that it was on the internet, like, You know, has it been vetted, you know, did you experiment yourself, did you get any other evidence to corroborate some wackos theory, you know, I think we really need to pay attention to the status of our assertions where, you know, none of those statuses are bad, but they have implications like that hasn't been proven yet.

Bill: You made an interesting comment the other day that I want to ask you about now, it seems like it's a good time to ask it in this conversation and that is that, uh, we were talking about, does this person follow the scientific method?

Marty: Mm

Bill: Did these particular people in my life follow the scientific method? And I'm, and I'm wondered about myself. Do I, and, and I said to you that, that's what I was thinking was, I'm not sure. Do I, and you said it, you said A Absolutely. You followed the scientific method. That's what if FS is all about. Can you say more about that? Is this a good, good? Can you, are you comfortable addressing that here? Mm-Hmm.

Marty: Sure. No, I, I just, I mean, I observe you in all, not just when we talk IFS, but in, in other contexts too. Um, well, you, you, you seem very clear about the, you know, the, the difference between an opinion or, Like a one person's idea versus something that's, that's been corroborated and other people have found the same, gotten the same result in, in a different context so that it adds to the validity. I see you doing that

Bill: Hmm. Okay.

Marty: It's, very different from, you know, when, when you're with somebody, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of sad sometimes when you see somebody say, you know, well, what about those Democrats and eating babies, you know, in the basement of a pizza parlor? Like what? Do you realize the status of what you're saying? Like, do you have any evidence for that at all? Where, you know, you're saying it like it's a truth. There's no, there's no self consciousness around the status of, of these assertions. That's dangerous.

Bill: you're, that's an extreme example, of course, but it, it's useful. Extreme extremes are useful sometimes. An everyday example of that for almost everybody is that we carry around beliefs that either never were true or are no longer true. And they operate so deeply within our unconscious, we're not, we're not even aware that they are there running the show for us.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: Until something happens, or until someone says, what? What?

Marty: or, or, or evidence shows up that's very much the contrary. Like, how did that happen?

Bill: How could that be?

Marty: you know, like my, my family, my family of origin, my brothers and my mom and dad, I don't, they have it that I'm not good with money that I don't know how to handle money and it's, I believe it to a certain extent too, honestly. You know, because I grew up with that ringing in my ears and and the behavior around it that that accompanies it. And my so my brother was really surprised when we were talking over the weekend and I was telling him about how I've invested, you know, the little bit of money that I have. And he's like, wow, that's really smart. How did you come up with that? I didn't think you would.

Bill: huh.

Marty: You know, like he he has it like it's just true that Marty doesn't know how to work with money.

Bill: Well, and, and we have it that there are certain things true about us, especially in the realm of shame. What is it that's wrong with Bill? Well, um, earlier versions of myself could give you a list that we'd be talking about tomorrow still if this, if we started now. Well, what do you mean what's wrong with, where, what category should we start with? Everything is wrong with Bill. Um, and so in, there have been times in my life when essentially people refused to accept what I had accepted as true about myself. I remember a sixth grade teacher. I want to say it was Sister Mary Corita. It was one of the nuns. I And life hadn't been very easy for me. And I had now I'm 11 years old. I'm going into the sixth grade Catholic school. Um, I, I think I'm stupid. It's one of the conclusions that I drew about myself is that I'm stupid. One of the things dad used to say often enough for me to remember, uh, what he said, although I still, even though I looked it up one time, I don't remember what it means. He used to say that I didn't have enough brains to wad a shotgun. And, um, I remember at least being smart enough to wonder why I would ever need to do that. And, and as well as, you know, what, how many brains does it take? I mean, how many, anyhow, but, but the message was clear. Um, not smart. Not smart. So now I'm in the sixth grade, it's Sister Mary Corita, and she is a different kind of teacher. She's got us all working on these individual projects, and she's walking around the classroom, and she, um, she's looking at what we're doing, whether it's something that we're drawing, or a math problem that we're working on, or some writing that we're doing, or something. And she just gets really interested in, in what I was doing. And, and I'm nervous with the attention. It really is making me nervous that she's given me all this attention. And it was a math problem that I was working on. And, uh, my, uh, my grandpa on my dad's side had made up this baseball game using a poker deck of cards. And, um, the game was so elaborate that after you played a nine inning game with nine players on two teams, you could put together all the statistics and figure out the batting averages. I had learned how to do that in the eighth grade, in, in, in, when I was eight years old. Um, that I, dad had taught me that if I divided the number of hits by the number of at bats, it would give me my batting average and a decimal. And back in 1963, they weren't teaching decimals to eight year olds. And, uh, in fact, they were just starting to teach them by the time I was 11. And, and so this is one of the things Ms. Sister Mary Carita had seen. She handed me out the, the worksheet. And I was almost done when she came around and saw that I was almost done and she expected it to take the entire class time. And she said, wow. And I thought I was in trouble. I really did. Uh, and she said, you're really smart. Really? Shocking. Somebody else saw that. I, I didn't, it didn't occur to me that I was. It had never occurred to me that I was. Really believed that I was, that I was stupid.

Marty: another example that I wrote about this in my newsletter that came out this morning. I've had many clients come to me and say, I need more. I need more client. I need more conversations. I need more telephone calls. I need more people, more, more, more. they're, They're not getting anywhere because they're going in so many different directions. Like anybody who can fog a mirror, I'll deal with them, you know, just get some business in the door. And that doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't solve the problem. And they're wondering why. You know, they haven't chosen a target market. They don't have a vision for the kind of conversations they want to be having with, with the kind of people they want. Like if you don't, if you haven't said what you want and structured your, you know, your marketing accordingly, then it's not going to solve the problem. You're going to be. splattered all over the map. And, um, so it's not about more, it's about what's the quality of conversation, the quality of person, the quality, you have to ask the qualitative questions. Um, and, and then, you know, you've actually got like a lens or, um, pick your favorite analogy, but something that's actually going to grip the statistics that you want to make.

Bill: That's right.

Marty: So, um, there's another, you know, he thought this is based on a conversation with the client and he thought, Oh, and you know, I just need to ask Dr. Kettelhut how to get more, more people to talk to more appointments, more, you know, cause after all, it's a numbers game, right? Everybody knows that. Hmm. You know, it was, he was solving for the problem of not having enough, rather than recognizing that there are many more potential clients out there than you need. And what you need to do is to laser focus on who, what's the experience you really want to be having.

Bill: to wrap up. We're about almost 40 minutes into this, uh, episode. Can you believe it? What comes to mind is maybe the most, one of the most common and obvious ones. Um, Dr. Kettlehead, I'm, I'm just not happy. I need to make more money.

Marty: There

Bill: I'm sure that if I made more money, I'd be happy. Another, I don't know, 30, 40, 000 a year, which should do it. So can you show me how to make another 30 a year?

Marty: you go. Right. What's the connection between that money and your happiness? Actually, you

Bill: I, everybody knows you're happier if you have more money, right?

Marty: Well, that's not the case of, you know, I know some very wealthy people who are quite unhappy, didn't seem to solve their problem.

Bill: As always, an interesting conversation. Any takeaways that you'd like to share? Any final thoughts before we conclude this episode?

Marty: Well, just to go back to, you know, I think we all need to be a little bit more like a scientist. I mean, not in some strict sense, but aware of the status of the notions that we have. Is that a proven theory, or is that a hypothesis you're looking for evidence for, or is that a single piece of evidence? I, this came up in a conversation recently, a client, or a friend, wasn't a client, went to great lengths to prove to me that that this Muslim person was anti Semitic. Great. Okay. You found an example of somebody's age, but that does not mean which was what he was trying to show me was that all Muslims are anti semitic. I'm like, the case does not make a rule. So understand the status of our statements. I just want to bring that back. And, and it's, it's great. Just know that you're always in this sort of, you know, Experimenting, exploring and gathering evidence and seeing what really holds water. That's the name of the game of being human. It's not about a priori truth forevermore or, you know, um, being the soul, the soul. What do you call it? The person, the only person who knows the truth or anything like

Bill: Mm hmm. Mm

Marty: We're, we're all that's why you want to get into conversation to like, what evidence do you have for this? Does this make sense to you? This hypothesis, what evidence would you have for the, you know, as long as you go it alone, it's even harder. So it's better To answer these questions in community. I

Bill: a white lab coat and wear glasses and have a pocket protector, then that should do it. Yes? Oh, wait, doesn't quite solve the problem, does it? But I could go to, I could start there, I guess. All right.

Marty: mean, it's not a bad, there's no criticism in this either. Like this is, this is the nature of the beast. And so enjoy it, you know, enjoy following up on your ideas and seeing if they hold water.

Bill: Yeah. Enjoy making your life an experiment.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Beautiful. All right. We will talk to you next week. Thank you very much. Dr. Dr. Dr. Martin Kettlehead.

Marty: Thank you, Bill Tierney.

Bill: Take care.