Marty: Welcome to the Leadership Coaching Podcast with Bill Tierney and Martin Kettelhut. It's good to be with you again. This is a podcast where we look at all kinds of issues around coaching and leadership. The challenges of coaching leaders, um, the, the coaching, um, for leaders. people in leadership positions and the, the, also, you know, the leadership that is involved in being a coach. Um, so there's a lot of different angles and, and our topic, the one we wanted to look at today is this growing edge that most of the people that come for coaching, you know, they, they want a coach, they have a growing edge and they want to push it a little bit. They want to grow through that edge. Um, But at the same time, you know, that's a difficult, there, there are difficulties and you can, you can get in the way of somebody's growth, right? Where they, you know, they made themselves vulnerable. Same thing on the coaches side, right? If you're, if you're sitting there in your coaching calls, you know, over a whole weekend, nothing really challenges you, you might be a nice guy because it does take a certain amount of being on your edge as coach. To reach in and say those things that nobody else is saying to your client that need to be said if they're going to grow. So, I, both Bill and I were reflecting on how we've been on our edge this week. And so we thought this would be a good topic to take up.

Bill: Yeah. Thanks for introducing it in this way. We talked for at least 10 minutes before we hit record, maybe even longer than that, as I was kind of finding my way through trying to define for you, Marty, what it is that I've been experiencing this week. Trying to find words for And it's not just been this week. I'm, I'm just on this side of recovering from COVID. And so my energy level's been low, my brain's been somewhat fogged. I do feel like I'm, I've walked out of the fogginess now, and I went running for the first time this week.

Marty: Mm

Bill: The first time in two weeks since I got COVID and, and, and that apparently was the test for me. It's when I, when I was able to go run a mile and a half without stopping to walk for me at 69 years old, that's pretty damn good. I think I'm doing okay. Yeah. So I'm back to physically probably 95 plus percent fit. Um, I don't know that I'm convinced that I'm mentally that well fit. And I don't know if that has anything to do with brain fog from COVID or if I'm just feeling challenged as a coach these days. And one of the ideas that I floated by you was it could be that the nature of the conversations that I'm having with my clients are so high level that, uh, it requires my clients to be. at their edge.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: And one thing I know about human beings, starting with this one that's speaking right now, is that when I get close enough to my edge, my parts can get scared.

Marty: Sure.

Bill: And they can begin to respond with survival strategies. Nora, last week, when we talked to her, was talking about, uh, survival mechanism. And when the survival mechanism kicks in, then we do and say, or don't do and don't say, so that we can survive whatever it is that feels like a threat to us. And that, there's a little bit of that, it feels like there's a little bit of that energy here for me, in, in that I'm at my edge, I sense that many of my clients at their, are at their edge, and the challenge is. For me as coach to step, I don't know, is it to step into my edge or away from it, but to step into my power?

Marty: I think it's going to be into it ultimately, but let's look at that. Um, I think, first of all, to note that there, there's no difficulty in, you know, there's no physical difficult. It's not taking like physical effort. So the difficulty has something to do with the, you know, you're thinking about these, these conversations and, um, I think you named it. It's there's a fear there, right? If you're working under fear, that's going to, it's going to drain, it's going to drain your battery, your energy and your capacity quickly,

Bill: That's right.

Marty: the resistance, I'm going to say that's a form of resistance, and it could come in lots of different forms, but in, I think, as you pointed out, in this case, it's a fear, and I just, I think, first of all, let's just explore a little bit, what is the fear?

Bill: Well, I, like I like to do with my clients, speaking in general terms, makes it very difficult to land anywhere. Um, I, I, I kind of need to think about, you know, maybe an example or two of when I have been feeling like on my edge or on edge in, in, my coaching sessions with my clients. Um, and I told you an example earlier, I want to be really respectful to my clients and not name enough detail about anything where I would point to, to them and the experience that they had. But, but I do a lot of group coaching and, um, from time to time. A client might get activated. They might have parts activated by something that happens in the group coaching session. And then they want to ask me about it, like what happened there? Because something happened inside of me, they might say, when that happened. And it's going to be helpful for me to understand what were you thinking? Why did you say that? Why did you, why did you go in that particular direction?

Marty: right, right. Mm.

Bill: Something happened in that coaching session and I got triggered. Now, the fear for me is often fear that they don't like me anymore. And that's embarrassing to admit that. I'm supposed to be this, this powerful coach and I am, I am most of the time a powerful coach. And yet I have young parts of me that get scared that people won't like me, that people don't approve. Or worse off that, that they might actually criticize me and want to try to hurt me. There's a fear of conflict.

Marty: Yeah. So thank you for saying that. I think that work, so to speak, becomes okay. You know, how do I deal with this? This. This fear of conflict, you know, um, rather than, avoiding the edge, right? There's, okay, there's a fear that there's going to be conflict and, you know, how will I deal with that? Where do I stand in that? Or do I or do I want to avoid it? You

Bill: Or there's a fear because there's a sense of conflict now. And the fear is, am I going to get stuck in this? Is this going to, this feels dangerous, is it going to be, actually be dangerous?

Marty: Yeah, let me, let me, just, um, give you an example of the sort of thing that I had in mind when we were talking about the topic and then maybe there'll be a confluence here. So I've been doing this marketing scheme. That makes it sound so nasty. It's not a scheme like that, but it is a, it is a way of marketing by holding events, inviting people to an event, being at the front of the room at the event, this is online and, um, and then, you know, Interacting with, with this group and then seeing who might fall out of that as clients. Well, it hasn't been very effective. And so I've been looking at why. And, and how to improve that, or maybe this isn't a good, uh, good market method. So one of the, one of the people who has been attending these, let me know that she wasn't going to be able to be at the, at the, the round table that was just last night, actually, and this, she said this about a week ago, and so knowing that I haven't been getting the results that I want from marketing in this way. And seeing that she was contemplating, she was telling me in her message that she was contemplating doing a similar sort of thing to promote her business. I felt my edge come up like, okay, I, I can be very forthcoming here. I can be very vulnerable with her and I can let her know that this method of marketing. Hasn't been working for me so that she could learn from that. She might be able to do it better, or she might avoid a waste of money and time by not going down that route. Right.

Bill: Mm hmm. Mm

Marty: I got, and so I said, let's, let's, let's forget the round table. Let's you and I talk. Right. I want, I want you to get that job. I know she's looking for a job. I want you to get that job. Let's go right to the heart of the matter and talk about that. And so I'm right on my edge, you know, because it's not this group where whoever wants to can follow up with me afterwards. I'm like going after her in a way with, you know, with, with an open heart. But, and, um, It was, it was edgy because I told her, you know, I don't think you should do this, what I've been doing. I don't think you should do it right. This way of marketing and, and I critique some of the other things that I, I, I see about the way she's going about looking for the job. I even recommended and walked her through project design, which has been a topic of ours recently with, with Nora. And that was really what. Ultimately sold her, she's like, wow, I need a project design when she saw how powerful it was and the difference it could make. So that, that was all on the edge for me, you know, because I'm, I, I'm, I'm out on the skinny branches saying, you know, I'm doing the same thing you're doing and it hasn't been working, but I do have some feedback for you, right? Like

Bill: hmm. Mm hmm.

Marty: And, um, it w it turned out to be very effective. You know, she, she will be a client of mine starting in November, but, what I had to do, I felt like, and what was effect turned out to be effective was I had to deal with a different fear, a fear that, um, like that, that she wouldn't buy anything that I had to say that I would come across as just Well, you don't, it's not working for you. You don't know what you're talking about. Why would I take advice from you? Right. As opposed to grabbing her attention and wanting her to come over and work with me. I was like showing her, I don't know what I'm doing either. Right. So

Bill: At least when it comes to marketing.

Marty: Exactly. Right. Right. So, um, what I needed to do is I needed to get in the place before I had the, you know, the, the follow up communication where we were actually in real time together. I had to get. I had to detach from the result, you know, I, I'm going to, I, you know, I told myself I'm going to go for this and because out of, uh, you know, just commitment to her now the desire to make a difference and if it doesn't, okay, you know, that's not a big deal, you know, and I spent, I would spend an hour preparing, I spent an hour with her. And if that was two hours didn't amount to anything, well, two hours in my whole life, it's not a big deal, but I had to get to that place of seeing that because otherwise I was going to be, I was going to be edgy in a, in, in a negative way, like my fear would have destroyed the conversation.

Bill: You, say that again, you needed to get to the place where you, you realized that, I think I heard you just say. What was it that you had to realize?

Marty: That, uh, that I, I needed to be unattached that

Bill: Yes.

Marty: I was gonna, you know, I remember just another analogy, but it fits for me. I remember, you know, when we played soccer in high school and there was the town next door to us. I don't know why, but all the kids in that town, they got much bigger than us much faster. And we knew every time we played Mitchell, that was the name of the town. They were going to You know, beat the heck out of us. We were going to be bloody laying on the floor and they were going to walk with lots of points. Right. And so the coach was just like, you know what I know, I know, just go out there and, you know, play your heart out, you know, just, just, um, no holds barred, you know, just, uh, full out, give it your best and, you know, leave it all on the field kind of thing. Right.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: And, and so. I mean, we never beat them, but we had some, we had some of our best performances against the team from

Bill: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Marty: So it's that kind of thing is what I had to get to with this, this, prospect is like, okay, I'm going to leave it all in the field. And if it doesn't work, okay. But this is otherwise, you know, if I'm just like trying to look like I know more than she does or not reveal the fact that I don't know. I'm, you know, I don't, I'm not any better at this marketing part of it than she is, or, you know, like all of that, if I got into that, or if I was attached to converting her into a client, or else I was going to die of starvation, something like that, it would never have gone over. But I was clear like, okay. I'm gonna be standing. I'm gonna be sitting right here in this chair. I'm gonna be healthy and fine if she says no, so I'm gonna give her my best

Bill: So your original fear was

Marty: that original with the, um, you're distinguishing it from a different one.

Bill: no, no. When you began the story with this particular client, you had a fear that you had to get passed in order to essentially make the declaration. I'm just going to leave it all on the field. I'm going to bring, I'm going to bring it regardless of the outcome.

Marty: right that I would that the fear was that I was gonna come across. I was I was gonna occur to her as worthless.

Bill: Yeah. So the, the fear was based on a concern about what she might think of you. Now this goes to what you and I were talking about at the very beginning before we hit record of what ended up being, you know, our growing edge as the topic. Um, and that was what we do and don't have responsibility for when it comes to our relationships with other people. And, um, so I'm just going to recount what I was talking to you about, which is, was that. Even though, intellectually, anybody that's been involved in personal development for more than five minutes knows that we're not responsible for how another person feels emotionally. Now, I remember it was far more than five minutes before I got that. Um, that, that when I got that, it was a profound, Awakening. Wow. I'm really, I mean, I was deeply immersed in codependency. And, and so for me, for someone to suggest, I'm not responsible for how my wife feels. I'm not responsible for, for how my mother felt when I was growing up or my father. And I'm not responsible for their reactions and their behaviors. I didn't cause them to think that I didn't cause them to feel that I didn't cause them to do that. So there's that idea. And, and now you're introducing also the idea, or at least you're referencing the idea. I'm also not responsible for just even what people think. I'm not responsible for how they feel. I'm not responsible for what they think. And I'm not responsible for what they do. But there is a responsibility in there when we are in responsible for what they do. But there is a responsibility

Marty: that's the thing. I mean, ultimately, we're not responding. I mean, part of the reason for that is because they've got a whole history, you know, you know, they have looked at life from different angles than you have. They've been exposed. exposed to tv programs that you haven't. They've, their grandparents talk to different language than you speak. Like, there's so much. It goes very deep and complexly into their past. How could you ever be responsible for understanding and meeting all that? You can't.

Bill: And yet, I'm, the way I think about it using the internal family systems model is that I have young parts that don't seem to understand that. How could I be responsible for someone with all of their vast history and how they might react to what's happening in this given moment?

Marty: So then we go to that young part and we look, you know, how come? You feel like you, you're going to not be liked, um, or that you need to be liked. I should say, right. That you need to avoid conflict or in my case that you need to prove your worth. Right. How come you feel that? Where does that come from? Is that true? Right,

Bill: And, and, and with enough exploration, what gets revealed every single time is a core belief. I need someone to like me because if you don't like me , you're going to hurt me. People are dangerous might be that core belief or, you know, so given that people are dangerous, That means that, that I, I either need to avoid people altogether or find a way to be safe with them given that they're dangerous. So how do I stay safe with, with a person? Make sure that they like me, because I notice that people that, people can hurt people, but they don't seem to hurt people that they like. They only seem to hurt people that they don't like, so I'm going to work really hard to make sure they like me. Yes, it can be argued, for sure.

Marty: mean, I know the people I've heard the most in life where the people were the closest to me, actually. I just. I just felt like a license that I didn't really have because we were so close to say the nastiest things in the world. And so, but that's another topic. Um, so where things shift is when you do want to be responsible for somebody else's feeling. You, you choose it. Right, like, like in the marriage, you know, you could just, you know, stay well and I'm not responsible for her feelings. And so, you know, I'm just not gonna do anything about the fact that she's all upset at me right now. Or you could say, well, I'm in this relationship. I want to take responsibility for how she's feeling right now. And then. Go clean it up. You know, I have a conversation that's concerned about her feelings, that wants to know how, you know, what they were and to clean them up and repair and heal. But there's too many people in the world with too complex history, each of them, that you could ever do that for everybody. Mm

Bill: Well, I would, I would say even for my wife that I could even do that. I think what there is to be responsible for, let's just say using your scenario that I've said or done something that somehow triggered some suffering for my wife. And I see that she's suffering and maybe that's being manifested and she doesn't want to talk to me right now. Or, or she's, she's trying her best to, to not let me see her upset. I bet I, but I can see it. And, and, um, so what is it I, I can be responsible for it. I can't, I absolutely cannot be responsible for how she feels no matter how much I'd like to change how she feels. I can't be responsible for it. I don't have that kind of power, but what I can take responsibility for is the, the quality of the relationship that we're having right now.

Marty: Mm hmm.

Bill: I notice, you know, so it might look like acknowledging verbally, acknowledging out loud. Okay. Yeah. I notice. That you seem to be suffering over there and I don't want to push you and I don't want to push you to say or do anything that you're not comfortable saying or doing right now, but I just want you to know I see you. I see that you're suffering and and I want you to know that I'm open to having a conversation with you about this if and whenever you're ready to do so. And I also want to report that while you're suffering, I'm noticing I've got parts that are activated and a little bit scared of you because I noticed that wounded, when people get wounded, they can strike out and they can hurt others. So

Marty: Mm

Bill: like, you know, I did not intend to hurt you. I see that I did. And when you're ready to talk, let's talk because I'm, because the relationship and the quality of that relationship is important to me and whether or not you're suffering is important to me.

Marty: hmm. All right. right. Um, I remember one time, uh, when I was working for the Center for Excellence, I was the head coach. There were about six coaches. And, um, so I, I don't remember what exactly what it was, but there was something we needed to do differently. As a team, right? All of us coaches. And I, I told them in our coaches meeting and the behavior didn't change. And, you know, I remember at first I was like, well, I told, you know, the other people on the board or the, the steering committee, I was like, look, I told them and, you know, I was kind of standing and you should fire them because they know when they're not getting better. And. My colleague quasi boss said to me, well, if they haven't gotten the message yet, then it's up to you to make sure they get it. They haven't gotten it yet. And your job was that they get this message, right? Which was interesting because it made me go, okay, I can see that I could be responsible for that. I didn't make sure I didn't ask them, you know, did you get it? What difference is that going to make? How will you behave differently? Um, and, and the. You know that I knew full well that they were going to resist make changing this behavior and so I was hoping that having just said it, I was off the hook, right? I didn't have to make sure that it changed their behavior,

Bill: Mm hmm.

Marty: right? But, but that was the job. And so, you know, I, I went back to them the next week. We had our weekly coaches meeting. I'm like, look, remember I said this and I noticed nobody has changed, you know, what, where do we go from here? Because, you know, you could lose your jobs over this. You know, and then I noticed I was being threatening and giving them an ultimatum. And I didn't like that. And I said, I realized I just did that. And I don't want to do that, but it's true. You know, if this behavior doesn't change, we, we can't keep you on. And so what, you know, what do you need from me? What, what, what about the way I presented it? Didn't, wasn't effective. Talk to me. We've got, cause together we have to make this change.

Bill: hmm. And how'd it go?

Marty: It was ineffective. And I left the job. I left, I left them with the company and went on to do my own thing because I could see like, this is, I don't want to, I don't want to fight this battle.

Bill: Right. Yeah.

Marty: I actually left the company. That was when I left the center for excellence in 2003.

Bill: So as you're sharing that story, and this happened last week when we're talking too, and it's, it's predictable that this would happen. Um, I'm not just reading your book, by the way, I'm, I'm, I'm almost finished with it. I'm loving it so much. One of the things that we talked about possibly doing today in this episode would, would be to work through one of your exercises. We're not gonna have time to do that today, but. So I'm reading your book, and I'm really impacted by it, and I'm loving, I'm at the back of the book where there's these really powerful and important exercises that you've laid out for us, like TEFCA, Thoughts, Emotions, Facts, Commitment, Actions. There's an exercise and a process for dealing with difficult people. Um, You know, these are, these are like working mental workouts, uh, like working in the gym and practicing them. And it's my intention to, to absolutely, you know, as you know, I've done one of the exercises that are recommended in the back of this book and there's several more here that I can, that I will benefit from when I do them and I, and I will do them. I'm also listening to extreme ownership.

Marty: Yes. Uh huh.

Bill: And another book that I have, I recommend your book, Leadership as Relation. I recommend, highly recommend these Navy SEALs that have recorded that have written this book, Extreme Ownership, and they've taken it into corporations. And I'm thinking about one of the examples that I just listened to this morning when I was out on my run of, um, a leadership team of sales managers who, uh, were asked to deliver the news to their sales teams.

Marty: Mm hmm.

Bill: The commission structure had changed and not for the better that, that the lowest producing sales people were really going to be punished by this and highest producing sales team on the surface, it appeared would also not benefit from, from the changes. Um, so one of these writers of the book was hired as a consultant to come into the company and, and work with, because they recognized they had problems on this leadership team.

Marty: hmm. Mm

Bill: When he went in to say, what's going on with this new

Marty: hmm.

Bill: sales commission proposal, and everybody completely was down on it. Everybody was down on it. Well, the, the point of the chapter that I'm listening to right now is that you have a responsibility as a leader to understand why if you're, if you're taking directions from someone above you and you're passing that, either you're passing that on to people below you or, uh, your peers, or it's simply your responsibility to execute this. If you don't understand why you're doing it and you don't disagree, then you are responsible to find out why, to understand it. And so why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you go to the person that gave this for you to do and ask them, why are we doing it? Well, the feedback that he got was, because I don't want to appear stupid. I should, I should somehow understand this already, but the truth is I don't. Um, and so he got kind of nowhere with the, the sales team, the sales managers, and went directly to the CEO who had, who had designed the, Uh new strategy the new sales commission strategy. So She got defensive She got kind of angry that anybody would question her because she's in that she was that kind of a leader I know what i'm doing. You should just believe me and do what I say to do and never question it Obviously that was a problem because it's not going to fly But once he worked with her And said, listen, I don't understand it. Explain it to me. Why, why is it that this is a good idea? So she explained it to him and he said, okay, that makes perfectly good sense. Your sales managers need to know that too. So the next day she shows up to the meeting and she says, I understand you guys don't understand why we're doing this. So she explained it and the problem was solved because they finally did understand why I'm thinking about your story when in, in leadership excellence, is that the name of the company?

Marty: The Center for Excellence, it was called.

Bill: Yeah. Uh, there's maybe that that's what was missing for somebody. And even when it was explained, it still wasn't like bought into as, as an, as a value that was shared. Does that sound about right?

Marty: Uh, I think that's a good point. I don't think in this case, that's what was missing.

Bill: Okay. What do you think was

Marty: I had explained why,

Bill: You had.

Marty: but maybe, maybe not to, think the real problem was that these coaches They didn't want to do what they needed to do and that's, you know, like it wasn't, I could have explained it in an individual way to each of them and this, they were just rebelling. They were just not

Bill: They had their own agendas that they couldn't get past. And the example that you gave me earlier with your with the person that wasn't your client at the time, who's saying, I want this job, but you saw that she was blind to a couple of things. And you, you, you got past your own agenda and

Marty: right.

Bill: you shifted to the agenda of serving her much like Rich Lidman talks about in The Prosperous Coach. Another great book, and Steve Chandler, in that book. Focusing on what it is, you know, presence, another thing that you do such a great job of writing about in this book is presence, and power, and purpose, and how to execute all of those, and what they all mean. So,

Marty: I think that one of the things that I want to say before the end of this podcast is that part of what we can learn from this truism that you're not ultimately responsible, you could, you could try as hard as you want to be responsible for somebody else's feelings, but you're never going to get there. And so it'd be better. You know, to to focus on and this is, I think, real upshot focus on your own place in that conversation. You know, like, why are you triggered or why can't you say what you need to say? Whatever that is, bring it back home right now. It would be great if we lived in a universe where everybody. Was well trained and how to, you know, take responsibility for themselves and not to be responsible, you know, to assume responsibility for others. That would be a nice world to live in, but it's just not that, you know, that's never going to happen.

Bill: however we can make progress. Uh, I can make progress myself. One of the conversations that I had in a coaching group just this morning was that there are times when I recognize something's happening inside of me that prevents me from showing up as the best and highest version of myself. And I also know that if I were to take the time to slow down and get real curious about what it is that's happening inside, I could get past it, and voila, find myself showing up as the best and highest version of myself.

Marty: Sure, sure. You're one of those people who's trained.

Bill: And yet, on Sunday, I was there, I was triggered, I was not able to show up as the highest, best version of myself, I knew I could stop, do the work, and get there, decided not to. Decided to just spend three hours on the couch watching my football team lose instead. And I, and I, I guess the reason I'm saying that, which, you know, part, part of me saying, well, that's embarrassing. Why would you share that with everybody? It's, it's because despite the fact that I'm trained, that I have parts built right in. That just don't want to go to the trouble. It goes back to your team. They didn't want to do what was needed to do because they either didn't know how to or they weren't willing to work out what was whatever's happening inside that had had them cut off, cut off from their own power. And I'll admit it. Me too. Me too. And yet I'm I'm going to say this on the episode because I just made this commitment this morning for the next seven days, I'm doing a daily practice of 10 minutes, where I go inside and I check with what, what parts are activated. And, and then at least three times over the next week, I will take another 10 minutes, and I'll get curious about the part that is activated, and so I can free myself back up, go get back into my true, powerful, authentic self, and show up as the best and highest version of myself. I'm going to do that because I need to exercise that muscle. Clearly, last Sunday indicated that I'm, that this is, this is a weak area for me. This is why maybe I've been on edge.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I, you know, I, I would love to hear next time we talk, you know, how, what you learned and how that went. And, um, cause that, that sounds like work. We only could be doing and I would like to be doing. And some

Bill: Let's, Let's, talk about that next week when we record our episode for Leadership Coaching podcast. What was it that I did? Did I keep my commitment? What, what difference did it make? What did I notice? And and now what's my commitment given what I've already accomplished And am I going to go to the gym for a week and then get fat for the rest of the year? Or am I going to keep it up?

Marty: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think it's great. I, uh, it's similarly what my practice right now is. 'cause I'm, I, you know, I don't normally, I'm working toward a vision of like a place I want to get to and. Having just completed this book, I'm going through a little bit. I'm coming out of a postpartum weird phase. And so I don't have a clear vision right now of where I'm headed. I, you know, I know some things I want to do, but, um, it's not like having a plan and I usually work, you know, with plan. And so where I'm at my practice right now is to have alignment in each moment. Right. You know, like when I was talking to that, that prospect and I was like, okay, you know, I, I needed to get my experience with doing this way of marketing aligned with what I was saying to her. And I needed to get my commitment to making a difference for her aligned with not doing that marketing thing. I had to get all that lined up and that was invigorating actually, but, but it took me being in the moment. And and not having an agenda, right?

Bill: Let's see if we can summarize this conversation. We are at time now. I'm glad we just jumped in knowing Knowing that you know, it could have gotten messy. I don't think it did. I think it was kind of Pretty much stayed in the same direction Uh, i'll be calling this episode if you agree the growing edge

Marty: Okay.

Bill: And I guess one last comment I want to make before we completely wrap up here is that you opened up with an idea, which was that many people come to coaching because they want to push the, they want to push the growing edge. And I want to recognize too, that there are people that come to coaching because they recognize that they lack the capacity to even want to push that growing edge and they want to expand capacity so they can feel that, that inspiration and that motivation and the I can ness of it. I, I can push my edge right now. I would say that prior to this conversation today, I would have been standing on this side of, I'm not so sure that I can't, I think I'm already at my edge and what I'm realizing now is that a big part of what this conversation is doing for me is expanding the, I can this in my mind. I think it's something I can do.

Marty: Well, since you're going to throw that in, I'm going to throw one more piece in really quickly. I have a new client who came to me because he wanted to get off the edge. Like there's just too many challenges right now. And they're all they're all good, but he can't be doing all of that at once. So we're, we're working on prioritizing, right? And, and, and, um, looking, okay, which, what, what, what part of this edge you can work on today? Um, rather than being on the edge about everything at once. So there are also people come to coaching to come back from the edge a little bit.

Bill: Yes. Yes. Great. I'm really glad that we got that in. So summarize, if you're, if you're on the edge or feeling like you might be, maybe you're even feeling like you're over the edge. Or feeling, feeling like you're close enough to the edge where it's challenging you, where you're, you're beginning to wonder, you know, do I have what it takes? Do I have the inner resources? Do I have the capacity to keep pushing the edge? Sometimes the answer is. As you just stated, Marty, back off from it a little bit and, and reorganize, have a plan, get a plan. If you don't have one already, you know, maybe, maybe you need to start before you even make a plan of taking an inventory. What, where in my life am I on edge in what different areas and given the recognition that I can really only focus on one area at a time. Um, what area do I want to start with? Where do I want to focus today? And, and let's see if I can feel like I can either expand my capacity so that it no longer feels like an edge for me, or I, I can expand my capacity so that I can feel like I can push beyond the edge that I, that I've had so far. And then, and then with a plan, maybe then I can tackle the next thing and the next and the next. But I believe it all starts with just acknowledging. There's this feeling going on inside. There's something happening. It feels a little bit off. I'm not in the flow right now and I want to be. What's happening? What's the edge?

Marty: Good episode.

Bill: Till next week and be sure and check with me and see how I did on this commitment.

Marty: Oh, will do. Will do.

Bill: Okay. Till next week.