Bill Interviews Marty

Bill: Hey, Marty, how are you doing?

Marty: I'm very well, thank you.

Bill: You and I just were talking about this, but let's let the viewer listener in on our intention for this episode. I would like to interview you about your approach and philosophy when you're working with coaching clients. Okay. I just thought I'd ask you some questions about that, but, Maybe what I'll do is I'll start with some questions that get some background about how you got into coaching and how long you've been doing and that sort of thing.

Bill: Does that sound all right? That sounds

Marty: great. I'm honored that you ask. Yeah,

Bill: so let me just throw that out there. When did you start coaching?

Marty: I started coaching in the fall of 1998.

Bill: And why did you start coaching?

Marty: I. The short story is that I was in a self-development program and part of that program, or the extension of that program, if you went on to work with that company, was to you. You would have a coach. And I went on to see what that was like, and I found that. Having a coach really helped me to get beyond where I was to, to achieve things I didn't think I could and I thought that was an amazing relationship and I started thinking about how, given my background and critical thinking, I'd have a PhD in philosophy.

Marty: And how? The reason why I left philosophy was cuz I wanted to work more intimately with other human beings, not be alone in a library all day. I was like, okay, wow. I can use my critical thinking skills, I can use my desire to impact other human beings and make a difference. And this thing, coaching seems to be a good avenue to do that.

Marty: So then I went from there to go get myself trained as coach. That's, so those are the reasons why. Beautiful. Something that helped facilitate the why of that give it a little bit more specificity was that in that self-development program, I became friends with. A woman who. Also was dating a guy.

Marty: The guy was a motivational speaker who had come out of being a financial advisor and just sat, you know that he was good at that. He was especially good at sales. And then he realized that he really had this talent for motivational speaking, and he loved creating those speeches and going into corporations and getting paid lots of money.

Marty: To give a really inspiring hour talk. So she was dating him, she was my friend, and she said, you know what? The three of us ought to go into business together. Marty wants to be a coach. I'll run the office. She's very thorough, operations kind of management person, and he could be our cash cow drum up the business.

Marty: And so we talked about it and, within a couple of months we were registered in the state of Delaware and. And that's how it worked between three. So how this contributes to my why is that the clients that he was bringing in, as potential coaching clients, for me, they were all coming from financial services, from, and so that also, It was something at the time I was very concerned about the economy.

Marty: That hasn't changed by the way, but it's in a different way now. And oh, this is great. I can get in at the not quite ground, but second or third floor of the economy, these at financial advisors, if I can. Infuse some love into their world, then that'll spread into the economy. And so it was that, that contributed to my like, oh yes, this is why I'm here in this moment.

Marty: Does that make sense? It does.

Bill: I guess I've heard bits and pieces of that story before, but it strikes me, although I've known that you've been coaching for a long time. I didn't realize it'd been 25 years.

Marty: I know it's crazy. Yeah. And

Bill: this is an odd question maybe, but I'm inspired to ask it anyhow.

Bill: So here we are, 2023. Dr. Martin Kettle Hut PhD goes back to 1998. And has a conversation with brand new coach Martin Ke Hatt PhD. Wow. What advice would you give him?

Marty: Gosh, you know what? I'm coming up blank. Not blank, but full.

Bill: Let's turn it around.

Marty: Let's turn it around. Like I would tell him, you're right. I would just encourage him like, you're right on track. You're gonna, you got a great future ahead of you. Don't change a thing. Oh,

Bill: cool. So let's just try the turnaround anyhow.

Bill: The, let's change the circumstances. Bill, same thing. You come back and visit your 1998 version of yourself. And you're the guide. What questions would you have asked this 25 year tenured guide?

Marty: I definitely would've asked something around, what's the key? To what is the key to getting people to take on coaching, to take on their lives, to take on the identity shifts that it's gonna mean. Because I think a lot of times we let time that it's gonna take, or the money it's gonna cost or, the, that's just not me conversations.

Marty: Like I would never be able to, I can't see myself doing those great thing, all those conversations. What I would, my younger self would want to ask this more experienced coach. How, what's the best way to help people over that threshold? And the threshold

Bill: again. How do you define that?

Marty: Taking on

Bill: coaching. Yeah. So what is the key to getting people to take on coaching?

Marty: All right. Yeah, that, that was something I was struggling with at the time,

Bill: let's do a little role playing here then. Okay. I think 1998, Marty, and now you've just showed up. I guess I was polishing a bottle or something and you came out of it and you said, I am the Martin Kettle Hut from 2023.

Bill: I've been coaching for 25 years now, and I'm here to answer one question for you. And so as Marty I say to you, what is the key to getting people to take on coaching? How would you answer?

Marty: The answer to that question became the name of my company. It's listening, right? There's you don't have to lift them over that threshold.

Marty: You don't need to twist their arm over that. So there's no effort at all in getting 'em over that threshold. You just want to get super curious. Get in their world, get as if you were in their skin and you could feel what they're feeling, right? And that's all there is to it. The magic happens after that.

Marty: A as you do that's the whole point. It's really about just being so interested. And for them, I, I'm here for you, I'm for your success. And so what is it that you're tru you're troubling about? What is, what is it you're really wrestling with? Just really be in their world?

Marty: And that if that doesn't move them over the threshold than they weren't meant to be, I see. Yeah.

Bill: Oh, okay. So as young, 1998, Marty I might say something like, I love that, and it's hard to believe that's all it takes. Just getting curious. But that's been your experience for 25 years, huh?

Marty: That's all the results that I've produced. Not only in getting people over that threshold and taking on coaching, but also producing twice as much as they did in the last year. That's often a goal that financial advisors have is one to double my revenue. Or, transforming a marriage.

Marty: Or a relationship to a child or any goal that anybody's ever brought me, it wasn't because we lifted a bunch of heavy weights or, there's nothing sisyphean about this. It's, it was all because I just got interested. It's also what got me to accomplish the results in my life, like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Marty: Which I consider one of my highest achievements. It happened because I just, I had a client that wanted to do it. In fact, I had three clients who wanted to do it one year. They all work for the same firm, but in different offices. And I started asking How do you do that? I had never climbed a mountain before.

Marty: I had no idea. And I got deeply curious and really pursued it with him. And before you know it, I was on a plane to chiro, to Nairobi.

Bill: Wow. Marty, why don't I know that? Maybe you've told me that story, but I've never heard it before. I know that you had done that. Yeah so my listening shifted as soon as you said that you had done that.

Bill: And now I can't even remember the question. Do you remember the question? You were just answering?

Marty: If that's really all there is to it. Oh, I see. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. And so that you're saying that getting curious and listening was the key for how you were able to accomplish what you've accomplished.

Marty: Exactly. And even, once you're in Nairobi and you take the bus to the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro and now you've gotta march up the mountain. Even there, it was a matter of listening. Like you have to listen to your body. You get up above where there's really enough the same kind of oxygen you're used to breathing and you have to listen to your body and slow down and pace, pace yourself.

Marty: And you have to listen to the guide who's telling you, how to, how you're gonna do this and how, and what to look out for. And it's, I've really just found that, A, anything that I'm gonna produce in this life. It's about listening and this goes back to a deep spiritual belief of mine, which is that the whole universe, the manifest universe that we're walking around in every day, it emanates from this basic vibration.

Marty: The sound of God, just having a great time being blissed out and that, that. Unrolls into the bliss that is our universe. And so that's what we're listening for is how do things work naturally? What's the way that this is meant to be? And you follow that and your life just unfolds beautifully.

Bill: Fascinating. So stepping back now at a role I'm your fellow coach and friend, bill Tierney. I'm no longer 19 8 98 Martin. Okay. If you could summarize your coaching philosophy. I'll ask you about that first, and then I have a follow up question as well. What would that be?

Bill: How would you summarize your coaching philosophy?

Marty: I don't know. This is un, if this is unique, I doubt it, but I, my philosophy is that. Everything is in the client. The client is capable of anything and it's all in the client. And so it's, that's why listening is so important cuz you then you can draw, you're drawing out their wisdom, you're drawing out their insight, you're drawing out their ability to take action, all of it.

Marty: And The philosophy is, the get out of the way, get other things out of the way, make the way because it's all in the client and just waiting to bloom. You're saying

Bill: get yourself out of the way, you as the coach.

Marty: Oh yeah. Oftentimes. Oftentimes you have to get yourself out of the way.

Marty: Can you think of

Bill: an experience like a case study where you, obviously you're not gonna name the client, but where. You might have found yourself getting in the way, recognized it, got out of the way, and were able to help them tap into what was in them that helped them to achieve what they wanted to achieve.

Marty: Yeah many. One that just came to mind as you were asking the question, haven't talked about this client in a long time. She had deep trust issues. And so that was what was in the way of being on team in a corporation and managing it. And that's principally why she came at, why her employer sent her to me actually.

Marty: And and she had that same issue with me. She didn't trust me. Like, how do you know that's what I should do? Why do you think that this is the way that should do? What makes you think that I have that trust issue even, right? And so I had to get out of the way in the sense that I said I, I came clean with how crucial trust is to the coaching process, and that I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be able to work and nobody's gonna be able to work with you.

Marty: If you can't put even a little smidge of trust and see how it goes, and then maybe add a little more later but if you can't go there, then this won't work. So I got myself out of the way. I said, I'm taking myself out of this relationship because I, you have to trust or we're not gonna get anywhere.

Marty: And and so that she went home, she thought about that. Like that was pretty, struck her, like a ton of bricks in fact. And she came back and she said, I think you're right. And she started telling me stories about with her landlord and with her neighbors and with her mother and all these other people where trust was the thing in the way.

Marty: And she said, you're right. I can't, I don't think I can take another step forward in this life if I don't learn to trust. Wow.

Bill: What did you mean when you said, I'm gonna take myself out of this relationship.

Marty: I can't coach you.

Bill: Oh, I see. You withdrew your offer to coach her. That's

Marty: exactly what I did.

Bill: I see.

Bill: And that left her with realizing

Marty: that she was back in her life with all these same trust issues and no help.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. That's profound. Great example. So you actually may have answered just in your case study example there, this next question, which is, what is your coaching approach? You've told me about your philosophy and you've given me an example of what that might look like.

Bill: What is your approach? Let's just say I'm a brand new client and you and I have had a conversation and it looks like it's worth exploring whether or not you and I can work together. What are you gonna do in this first session that we have together?

Marty: I always ask three questions. They seem to work for me.

Marty: I'm, they're not, genie's and bottles, but I ask the client what they like about themself or the prospect. What do you like about yourself? What could be improved about you, and what gives you satisfaction?

Bill: So what do you like about yourself? What could be improved in you and what gives you satisfaction?

Bill: Yeah. And so let's just say that your prospect transparently, vulnerably, discloses those answers to those questions. What does that tell you? What do you do with that information?

Marty: Great. So the, what they like about themselves tells me what they're good at. That tells me, what their natural ability, I'm listening for natural abilities, learned skills, the things that, that they do well and enjoy because they are the things that we enjoy almost always.

Marty: And so those are the things that, that know, I can always work through those toward the results that they want. That's, so that's the basic line of thought there. And what can be improved about you? That's always gonna tell me what's in the way. It always reveals where their insecurity is basically, what they don't think is fully God-like about themselves comes out in, when you ask that question, they what's not aligned with their true.

Marty: Infinitely capable self, it comes out right there when you ask that question. And so that's usually where most of the work, even if they're with me for years after that's where most of the work happens. Is on that second question, is dis dispossessing them of those beliefs? Yes. Yes.

Bill: I've got a follow up question to that.

Bill: But I wanna make sure I capture those three questions again. Tell me please, in order, you asked those ques, what are the three questions? What do you like about yourself? Okay. That's number one. I.

Marty: What could be improved about you? Okay. That's number two. And sometimes if that, sometimes I have to tweak that one a little bit to make it a little bit more ordinary so it gets under their skin and they they put more energy into responding and I say, what don't you like about yourself? Yeah. Other people don't, that's too harsh. And they'd rather just, Talk about what could be improved. It's a little easier to take, but for some people I have to nudge a little bit and say, what?

Marty: What do you not like about yourself?

Bill: You nudging, what's the third question?

Marty: What gives you satisfaction?

Bill: Oh, what gives you satisfaction? Yeah. Great. Very good. There's a couple of things that, there's a lot that you've said here that I just love and there's, but there's a couple of things I wanna make sure that when I get this video and audio edited, we really underline and put in show notes.

Bill: The first one is, what is the key to getting people to take on coaching? How do you get 'em over that threshold? And then the second one is these three questions. What do you like about yourself? What could be improved about yourself, and then what gives you satisfaction. And I wanna invite the viewer listener to this podcast episode to ask themselves those questions.

Bill: And if you would be so brave as and courageous as to email. Either me or Marty with those answers or put them in comments wherever you find this podcast. You might just bring your comments up in one of the episodes and talk right back to you through one of these episodes of this podcast.

Marty: Exactly. Or if you'd rather have that conversation in private, get in touch and say so. Yep.

Bill: Very good. And how can they get in touch

Marty: with you, Marty? Best way is to go to listening is the key.com. Listening is the key as if it were one word.com. And then when you're on the site for a couple seconds, a little popup comes up and says, do you wanna get in touch with Dr.

Marty: Kelut? And you just, and that's

Bill: how you do it, huh? Yeah. Okay, great. Great. So get that. Let's just have you, if you're inclined to send in your answers, send them directly to Marty by going to listening is the key.com. Wait for that little irritating popup to come up so you can tell Marty that you wanna talk to him.

Bill: That's right. What else do you want folks to know? What do you, what would you like me to know about your coaching philosophy, your coaching approach, or anything else that you'd, you can think of that you'd like us to know about how you help

Marty: people? Sometimes this people wanna know what's your process?

Marty: What's the program? I, people often say that, what's your program? And I've been doing this for a quarter of a century, so I have lots of tools and lots of exercises, lots of programs and processes that I've learned or made up that work. But I don't have a one size fits all thing that you know that a lot of people do, and those are great.

Marty: But I'm, since listening is the key, I'm gonna be in this like a partner. And and so at every stage, we check we were checking in and seeing what's needed. Now, not what, you're okay. You did step five, let's do step six now. It's not gonna be like that. It's gonna be.

Marty: Constantly customized to your need this week. And it doesn't mean that we don't have ongoing projects that we're working on. We definitely do. And some of these exercises take a couple of weeks or months, but I'm not, I don't have a one size fits all way of doing it. So it's gonna be customized.

Marty: And that's, I think I. Ultimately, I'm gonna be going on a limb here and say that's why people usually want stay with me longer than just to the end of a three month program or a six month commitment where it's all the same thing for every client that comes through. People stay with me. They don't have to, obviously, but they gen, they often do stay with me longer because life keeps going on and they keep wanting to have this partner in their life.

Bill: I think I have one more question for you, and then of course I'm gonna invite you to say anything more that you'd like to say. But what do you believe about why your approach helps? So first of all, let me tell you what I understand about your approach, that is, that listening is the key, that your listening is what makes the difference for people.

Bill: And gets them to take on coaching. Once they have taken on coaching, how does your listening help them to get the results that they want?

Marty: Very good question. So two. There are two polls basically that that the dynamic of producing what they want to produce whether it's, qualitative or quantitative comes out of, and the first poll is, it comes out in that second question that I ask in our first conversation.

Marty: It's that internal resistance. It's that internal critic. Right All. And there, there might be a whole family of criticisms in there and things that they say about themselves and believe about themselves that. I call it all your secret identity, cuz you don't talk to anybody about these things, right?

Marty: So there's, that's on one end and we go to work on like how true these things are and how to attend to them. Or if they could be let go, what would that take? Could, so completing is what I call it, completing, putting closure on all of that resistance to the real richness and fire of life.

Marty: And then the other poll that we have to work with to produce the results is your purpose. What are you weren't born on accident, right? And nothing in the universe is not related to the things around it in intimate ways, and there's a reason why you know, the flower. Has a pretty color and then nice smell, right?

Marty: The, it, there's, it has purpose. Everything in the universe has purpose, including you the human being that you are. And so we get clear on what your purpose is by various means, by the way that I can't go into right now, but you all my clients know what their purpose is. And so it's in this dynamic of.

Marty: Putting closure on the things you say to yourself that keep you from producing the result you want and getting aligned with your purpose, that the, all of the results come out of that,

Bill: those two polls are, I'll use different words but if it seems more like that takes you, takes it away from what you just stated I'd like you to correct me.

Bill: So one poll is to complete what's incomplete. And the other poll is finding purpose.

Marty: That's right. Okay.

Bill: Yeah. Great. So another bullet point for show notes. That's

Marty: exactly right. Those are the, those are absolutely key.

Bill: Completing what's incomplete and finding purpose. Yeah. That's great.

Bill: Anything else that you wanna say before we end

Marty: this episode? Just that I, I think it's a really amazing thing in coaching itself. It's part of the reason why I love doing it because, from the moment I was introduced to it in that self-development program back in 97, right? The year before I started doing this I just, it's wow, what we can be for each other.

Marty: On, on both sides of that partnership. I think that, and I'll be brief in this, but I think it goes back to a long history. If you look at culture and the way our culture got to where it is. We've been moving more to an industrialized hierarchized and now information oriented way of life.

Marty: And in all of that, because of the, the dualities that get that, build those hierarchies And that, information is processed through we've weeded out something that was there way back when we were indigenous or aboriginal people. We all had mentors. It was built into life that, you studied with your mentor, you learned their trade, or you knew this way of contributing to society and the, and there was a very intimate partnership there that now, you go through.

Marty: The education system or the industrial complex or the corporate and the you, that all gets eliminated. Or if you get to the top and you say, gosh, I really need somebody to talk to, they'll pay to bring somebody in you are me, bill. But it's not an integral part of the way society works anymore that's been weeded out.

Marty: Just, and we didn't notice that we needed that. And so I love that it's coming back and that the coaching industry is burgeoning because I think it is integral to what human beings need, and it's a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Bill: Marty, I love your language. I love your vocabulary. I love your brain. I love your heart.

Bill: Love you brother. Thank you, and I so appreciate you telling me and everybody that's listening more about how you help people. And finally one last question. I thought I was done, but I have one more question that is, I know you're always up to some big project. What's your big project right now? Do you wanna talk about it at all?

Marty: Oh, I'd love to. I can go on and on about it. Yes, I'm writing a book and teaching a group coaching program on leadership. They're both on leadership. I just I recognize that's first of all, Something that I've been studying all along and just starting to bring it together into a curriculum and And it's also something that we sorely need right now in our world.

Marty: And I don't mean to be critical of our leaders. They're doing the best they can, but we haven't studied it. And I'm studying it now and I'm learning, and I'll just, I'll close by saying the main thing that I'm learning is that it's not something that like, a handful of characteristics of certain people.

Marty: Oh, he's a leader, he's got a charisma, he's got intelligence, he's got bold. Leadership is a relational entity. It's, it occurs, leadership occurs in a relationship between a leader, the LED people, the people who are being led and the future. That they all come together to produce. It's a DIC relationship.

Marty: It's a threesome between the future. The people who are being led and the leader, and that's where that leadership is. Is that Trina?

Bill: Wow. What a great way to describe that. I'd never heard it that way. So one more time, I'm gonna make sure I get this in show notes as well. The three, the what makes up that triad?

Bill: The leader, the lead, the leader, the lead and the future.

Marty: And the future they're creating together. Yes.

Bill: That's beautiful. All right. And to contact you one more time, the, your website please. And

Marty: without that, you get, and you might get enforcement or. Victimhood, if, or management or,

Bill: that's not leadership,

Marty: especially or somebody who's self-promoting and I'm a leader in the industry because I'm the loudest and the, the one who has the most expensive advertising, but following. Is anybody engaged in what you're doing besides you? I

Bill: have really, I'm watching really funny and stupid commercials, so apparently you're my leader.

Bill: I'm not talking to you, Marty, but I'm thinking of the commercials that I see on television. The, let's say for example, the leading insurance company is the company that has the, maybe the silliest and stupidest commercials on tv. That's not the leadership that you're talking about, is it? No.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Love it. And one more time, website is,

Marty: Listening is the key. Just write it out as if for one word with no spaces and that's, that'll get you

Bill: to me.com. Yeah. Martin Kelly, thank Kettle Hut. Thank you so much for taking the time and talking to me. Thanks for asking episodes.

Bill: We'll talk then maybe we'll do the this in reverse next time. Let's do okay. Sounds good. Bye. But let me just hit stop recording here.