Effective Communication

Marty: We've been talking about what makes for effective communication and one of the very. Basic elements, something you probably wouldn't even say normally if somebody asked you the question is honor. Honor needs to be there. The listener is honoring the speaker. The speaker is honoring the listener, and that's one of the basic fundamentals that leads to effective communication.

Bill: does it mean to honor someone? One of the things that could be. Is would be actually giving your attention to someone that's speaking instead of pretending like you're giving your attention to them.

Marty: how, how do you do that,

Bill: How do you let go. I'd like to let go. I'd like to give you my attention, but how do I do that?

Marty: Welcome everyone to the True You Podcast me, Martin Kettle Hut, author and executive coach, to the leaders in a family or an organization. And I'm joined by my partner in this endeavor, bill Tierney, coaching is and results based and, and steeped in the IFS model, internal family systems.

Bill: Yeah. Glad to be here. You said something I haven't heard you say before. Doesn't mean you haven't said it, I just didn't hear it before. And that was that you work with leadership teams from family businesses. Did I hear that right?

Marty: No, I, I work with leaders and some of them are leading families.

Bill: Oh, I get it. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm. There's lots of ways we lead, we lead our own personal lives. For example, you know, I led myself to the gym this morning. I didn't need somebody to do that for me. But I, I also as the older brother at Thanksgiving this last week, and we did ours a week before, and my family to avoid the hysteria at the airports. And I'm the, I'm the older brother. I'm a kind of. Leader in that, and I arranged the whole thing. I invited, et cetera. So we lead not only if we're manager of the company or CEO of the, of the corporation. We also have lots of other ways in which

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: we, even if it, you are just picking up the trash in your yard and you happened to reach over into the neighbor's yard and pick up a piece of trash that was in there, that's a subtle form of leadership.

Bill: Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Good examples. I had to get us the same size. I felt like I was sitting too low and then I just adjusted my camera and now I'm feeling feeling more equal to you.

Marty: You know, one of the things I've had to adjust as we've been doing this podcast um, the. The program that we use, squad cast, it locates our pictures off to the side. So I make the, the, the screen smaller and so that I can move it into the middle

Bill: Yeah. Yeah, it does. It changes our location on the screen. Uh, yeah. Let's, how did we decided on a topic today? Communication.

Marty: communication, which is a vast topic.

Bill: Yeah, it is. And so we're probably, maybe, maybe we wanna be more specific. Um, how about effective communication

Marty: Okay.

Bill: and what, what are the elements of that? What's it take? And, and I think it's kind of interesting just, uh, that. That this topic was born as the topic for this episode 12 minutes ago when we signed on. And you said you liked my new background, you liked it better than my closet doors. And, uh, I, so then I, I moved my desk, um, just this past weekend. So instead of looking out the window this way.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Now I'm looking at the wall with this background and I can still see out the window over here, so I get plenty of nice light and I can see what's going on out front.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, it's really worked out well, by the way. I'm not nearly as distracted as by what's going on out there. Um,

Marty: I also have the window over there.

Bill: oh, you do?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. And so you noticed on my bookshelf right about there.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: My, my.

Marty: Something that is also on my bookshelf right about here.

Bill: And isn't that incredible? So you would think that Marty and I decided we were both gonna go out and buy one of these, or maybe we were together and you, you liked that arrangement and I liked this arrangement, but it's much stranger than that.

Marty: It is much stranger than that. Yeah.

Bill: About the story for me is that about 10 years ago I was, uh, running. A lot more than I run now. I don't hardly run at all anymore, but I used to be quite a runner. I would run half marathons and I ran one marathon and there was a fundraiser every year in Spokane. They, and it's probably still going. Um, and it was a fundraiser for digging wells for water, clean drinking water in Kenya. And so after the race was finished. Of course I won the race, so I had to wait for everybody else to come in and, and so I was killing time. I'm just kidding. I didn't. Um, but, but they had, uh, tables set up with crafts that the people from Kenya that they brought over for the event, uh, were selling. And I saw this and I picked it up and I said, what is this? And she says, it's a talking stick. I said, okay. I was looking at it and wondering how it talked, and she said, no, uh, it doesn't talk. You, you talk if you're holding the stick, and everybody knows that if you're holding the stick, you are the one that talks. And then, so you have a story about your stick as well. Where did that come from?

Marty: Yeah, well uh, I'm gonna insert in the space between here. Um, it's interest. This is, and raises interesting questions for me just historically. Um. Maybe it's a universal thing that we're talking about because the American Indians, so no connection to Africa. They also use Talking Sticks. So interesting. It might be a universal need in communication that we're about to talk about. But my story is in the summer of 2000. I needed to do two big things. I needed to move all my belongings from New York City to San Diego, and I needed to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. And when I got down from the mountain and we were being bused back to Nairobi to fly home. We stopped at a little shop right on the border between Tanzania and Kenya, and I bought a big piece of, it's called, uh, it, well, it's, it's a huge of, uh, fabric. It's beautiful. It's all browns and purples and swirly shapes and everything. And I use it as a big, Uh, like a, almost like a painting in my living room. It takes up most of one wall. It's like, um, Monet's lilies, you know, it just goes on and on and on. Uh,

Bill: Hmm.

Marty: and I bought that and I also bought this, and I wondered, wonder what this was for. What did they use this for? And the thought had occurred to me 'cause I know that they, uh, an important piece of the, uh, diet of, oh, what's the name of the tribe now Maasai, of the Maasai people that made, this is goats milk and goat's And I thought, well, maybe they use this to con 'em out.

Bill: It would do the job. I would think

Marty: I would think so.

Bill: a substantial lever at the end there or, or not lever, but it's a substantial ball of very hard wood. I wouldn't wanna get hit with it for sure.

Marty: Right, exactly. So, but I'm relieved to know that it's actually just a talking stick.

Bill: Yeah. Well, that's what I was told, and, and I, and I believed her, so, yeah.

Marty: I do too.

Bill: So I, I, I've actually used it in live sessions with clients. When I used to do live sessions, I sometimes would bring this along and say, okay, if somebody's holding a stick, that means they're, they're the one that, that have the floor.

Marty: But you see these are, um, for those who can see are watching, these are beads. This is all

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: work.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. So 15 years apart and roughly 25 years ago, you, you bought yours. I bought mine 10 years ago and we end up, uh, working together. And you just happened to notice this on my bookshelf and it was several months ago that you brought yours out and showed it to me. So now

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: when we didn't have a topic for today to discuss that. Well, there, there it is. There's our topic. A talking stick represents communication and, and if we're talking about effective communic communication, we probably need to talk about ineffective communication. And we both had stories of clients who we helped in one way or another, or the people that they affected with their communications. Um, one, so yeah. What, what are some of the examples of.

Marty: just start with one of the, the, the point the why. The, a. The point about the the talking stick is that it, it, it creates a structure, a rule to follow in communication. That's very helpful, namely. When I have the talking stick, I get to do the talking and everyone isn't, is meant to listen to what I have to say and then I can, I can hand it to somebody else and then we all put our attention on that person and they get to do the talking. And that facilitates facility. It's facilitate, it encourages listing. Right. so this is an important element of, it's very basic, but it's an. Absolutely essential element of communication. If we're just talking at each other, nobody's on the listening side, communication does not happen.

Bill: And there's a big difference between listening and, and being quiet. There's a, there's, there's two, at least two different qualities of listening that I can name and maybe there's more. And one of these qualities is, is, is conducive to great communication and one of them is not.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So to listen for an opportunity to speak does not lead to good communication. To listen, to understand leads to great communication.

Marty: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Likely, if I'm listening to understand when I do speak, it's gonna be with a request for more clarity so I can understand better

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: if I'm listening for an opportunity to speak. There's a different internal influence, ha, internal experience happening where there's an influence that wants me to counter argue. Or dominate, probably, uh, dominate the person, dominate the conversation, or dominate the topic. Get my way.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And even when that is the case, and you gave in your example earlier, I don't want you to give those details again because it could lead back to the person that you're talking about thinking that we're talking about them. Uh, but, but when someone inserts themselves with an argument and, and just, and they're just waiting for the inhale so they have an opportunity to exhale with words, um, that leads to just conflict and, and, um, and it's really poor communication. You're not really understanding of the person, and you're not gonna be understood either because you're triggering a defensive response from the person you're speaking to.

Marty: And, and, right? I mean, the example recently. Um. When Pam Bondy was being, uh, oversight committee was asking her about her work the Attorney General of the United States, and she was just waiting. You could see she was just waiting for them to stop asking the question so that she could accuse them of things that she wanted to accuse them of. There was no communication.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And many times it'd be great to have these talking sticks and, and the, and the rule book that goes along with them and just distribute to each of these, to the, uh, congressmen and the senators and,

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: yeah. But, but yeah, that, that's not workable. It, it just, it what's.

Marty: to think of the listening pieces. I'm, I wanna listen so well. I've that like, I, I'm just in them, like I am them, the person I'm listening to. And so I, I think of it like, I wanna listen so well that I don't have anything to say at the end. That's the way that, that's the way I kind of do it in my own mind. Like when I'm listening to a client for example, I wanna listen so well that I just feel like we are one at the end of what they've said, and I don't that. said what there's to say, that's how I think about listening in the way that you're, that that I think you're pointing to.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, when I am listening in that way, which it I aim to do, especially when I'm sitting in the coaching seat.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: By the way, I've known a lot of coaches that sit in a different position when they're coaching. They're, they're dominating the conversation. They're making their client wrong, and they're the experts and that, that, I've had coaches like that and that's just not workable. It absolutely, I, as a client, I've tried to make myself be, let them be the authority and follow their guidance. But the, there's a big problem with that, and that is if I follow their guidance and it works, it, the power and credit goes to them. I still haven't built my own confidence. I still don't trust myself to do it without them. But if they gimme something to do, I do it and it doesn't work, then I'm, I'm blaming them whether I do so secretly or overt. Uh, but in either case, it doesn't build confidence, and I think powerful coaching actually does that. Powerful coaching helps the client to recognize that they have the power, the wisdom, all the resources that they need to pull off whatever it is that they get an idea that they wanna pull off in the life.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's more like I, I find it, it's more kind of like, um. Leading them through their own house to show them like, well, you, you've got this couch, you've got this lamp. you know, that's just showing them this is you, you, you've got these talents. You've got this belief. Just showing them, you know, and then they work it out.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So in listening in the way that you were just describing. What I've noticed is that it takes a, a noticeable, hard to miss internal shift to go from listening so closely, so interestingly, and listening with such interest that when I, when I feel like, oh, this person now is waiting for something from me. I have to go find it. I have to shift and go find what it is I might wanna say.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Because I'm just, as you say, I'm just in what they're saying and I'm really getting it.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: I remember one time, and this was uh, gosh, 20, 23 years ago, I was listening to a friend talking about his passionate thoughts and feelings about Jesus, and at that point in my life, I still wasn't complete with the Catholic Church and still had a lot of problems with the idea of Jesus. But I was, but, and this is before I was a coach, I was just listening very closely to what he had to say. And, um, now I can, I can talk about it in terms of parts. So, so from a place of self, of authentic self where I was listening with compassion and, uh, without concern or worry or fear, and just really interested in wanting to understand. I, I noticed that I was nodding as he was talking about Jesus,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then a part of me spoke up inside and I could hear this, this voice in my head that said, oh, he thinks that when you're nodding you agree with what he's saying, that you believe what he believes. You need to set him straight. So I said, I stopped him and I said, I, I need to clarify something here. I'm listening and I think I'm understanding what you're saying, so I'm nodding, but when I'm nodding. It doesn't mean that I agree or believe what you believe. And then of course, that changed the whole conversation because at that point he, he had assumed that

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: he was shocked, in fact, that he, that, that I didn't believe as he believed and didn't agree with what he was saying.

Marty: You in a way, you were listening to how he was listening. You were seeing, could you, you could see in the conversation he was listening to your nodding as if that meant you were agreeing.

Bill: Yeah. Interesting. The, your, your use of the term listening here indicates there's more ways to listen than just with your ears.

Marty: Of course, yes. Yeah.

Bill: Hmm. So then listening points to potentially meaning making.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and so do some of these things that we don't notice. Like, uh, I could tell, I was talking to, um, a member of a team that I coached recently, and he was doing one of these. I could tell he wasn't listening. He was, he was figuring out what to say. You know, he's, it's, it's a power move, you know, you take up space, you, you show that you're un, you know, you're unfazed like that. And I, you know, so I stopped talking immediately. And I just asked him, you know, what, what are you thinking? What's going on? of course that gave me, he jumped right in. He hit, he hit, know, he definitely wanted to talk. So he got heard and, and then I could proceed.

Bill: Uh, you know, I've heard that before. I've heard a lot of what it means to have your arms crossed

Marty: That's another one. Yeah.

Bill: or Yeah. To have, have your hands behind your head and your arms out like this to make you look bigger. I do this 'cause it feels comfortable. Unless I'm in denial and I've, I've heard all these interpretations of what each of these things mean and I've even uncrossed my arms. 'cause I didn't want them to think that that's what it meant. Sometimes what it meant is this is the most comfortable position that I can hold right now.

Marty: it does. Absolutely no question about that.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah. I.

Bill: But I mean, you, you went with your instinct. You must, I'll bet that you had another indicator besides his body language that, that he wasn't listening as much as he wanted to talk.

Marty: Mm-hmm. that could be, but um, I mean, there are, there are, there are lots of these things to watch. We, we listen with our eyes, we listen with our nose. Not necessarily over zoom, but in, you know, at other times, you know. We, we listen with all of our senses and they all give us clues as to what there is to learn in the moment.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: There's a lot to listen to while someone's talking.

Marty: I was talking to, uh, this is two weeks ago. I was talking to a young client of mine and I saw this. I was like, what is your leg trying to tell us? And he said, how did you know? And, and then I said, well, just listen to your leg. What is it saying? What's that thought that it's having? And he said, I'm scared to do the assignment you just gave me. So

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: lots of ways we listen.

Bill: really nice.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I was sharing with you that there was an, uh, that when a member of one of my groups leaves. And this began probably three years ago when I recognized just how awkward it is to have a participant leave and to know what to do and what to say other than see you later. Like, it always felt incomplete to me when they would leave because I didn't know how they felt and they didn't know how I felt.

Marty: Hmm, no communication.

Bill: Right. So I formalized that so that when participants leave a group, we earmark some time. Now it's easy, very easy to, to spend an entire session saying goodbye to somebody. So if there's a lot of turnover, even once every three months, somebody leaves a group, we just, we really don't have the time to spend a full hour on completion. But that's how rich it can be.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Spending the time saying goodbye to someone that you know, you're not gonna be interacting with as much or as frequently or maybe at all again.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, so I designed some questions that, that are suggestions for people to ask themselves and then answered for themselves, and then if they wanna share their answers with the person that's departing, and vice versa for the departing participant to ask themselves answer for themselves. And then decide whether they wanna share with the group. And, um, it's a beautiful, it can be just a beautiful experience. It's so connecting and, and there's almost like a dichotomy here. That, and it, this happened, maybe just this morning is a good example of it, where the completion process had me feeling more connected to the person that was leaving than I'd felt before, before they left.

Marty: I get that.

Bill: Would it be helpful, do you suppose to share those questions?

Marty: It would be, I'm dying to hear 'em. Yes.

Bill: a document to share with my group members, and I'll include it in show notes so that if anybody listening does groups or just wants to use the questions, in a, a situation where someone's leaving, um, you, you might kind of, this might be helpful in knowing what to say. So here's what I've written. Saying goodbye to a group member is both a time of celebration and a time of letting go. The completion process is, is designed. This completion process is designed to honor the connections we've built, the impact we've had on one another, and the ways we've grown together. By taking time to reflect on these prompts and questions, both the departing member and the remaining group members can express gratitude, share meaningful acknowledgements, and recognize the unique contributions each of us has made. These exchanges not only provide closure, but also strengthen the sense of respect, care, and mutual appreciation that defines our group. So that's the setup and here are the prompts, uh, and the questions for the group members.

Marty: Let me just quickly say something like, I notice that the, the purpose. Like, if I could just reduce what you, the, the preamble there to is to honor

Bill: That's right.

Marty: just like the talking

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: So it sounds like we have a, observation here that honor is key to communication.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: go

Bill: Yeah, really good honor. Honor sounds like comes from the same word that honest comes from,

Marty: It does, yes. Mm-hmm.

Bill: and honest has to do with truth. Truth has to do with trust. Trust has to do with safety. Safety, trust, honesty, honoring. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so answer the following questions to prepare to acknowledge the departing group member or the departing person. Number one, what positive influence has this person had on you?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Number two, what do you appreciate about this person? Number three, what have you learned from this person? And number four, what will you miss when they're gone?

Marty: That's great.

Bill: I, it just occurred to me that this would work really well for, uh, a eulogy as well.

Marty: Oh gosh. Yeah, it would. Yeah. I mean, those, those are so poignant. Those four questions. You, they, they, yeah. There's. You can, it sets up a thorough look at letting you know, um, honoring and letting go.

Bill: Mm-hmm. And here's the questions, very similar.

Marty: Imagine if we did those four questions at the end of every conversation,

Bill: Hmm. We'd never stop talking

Marty: but we'd be, but we'd feel honored and, and heard.

Bill: and safe and connected.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Bill: So the departing member questions are very similar, but there's some, some differences. So the, the instructions for the departing member is, are, are, answer the following questions to prepare to acknowledge the group. Number one, how have you grown and what have you accomplished since being in the group? And if, if it's not a group departure, maybe the question would be, how have you grown and what have you accomplished in relationship with this person that, or, or this group that you're leading.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Number two is what have you appreciated about being a member of this group?

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Number three, what have you learned during your participation in the group?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And number four, what will you miss? And there's been a couple of times that where we have used the entire 90 minute in the group session for a completion and we go deeper.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: as a group, I have them journal, um, and I ask them these questions. As you reflect on these questions and this transition, what parts of you become activated?

Marty: Uh, okay, now we're gonna be here for a while.

Bill: Right, right. And some common answers to that question are sad. I've got a part that's really sad,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I've got a part that's really sad,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Part that feels abandoned, Mm-hmm.

Bill: a part that was afraid to speak up when I was answering those questions because it felt like I was supposed to play nice and I don't want to, that's that has shown up.

Marty: Mm-hmm. it just, I'm. Uh, making an observation as you're, as you're going on to talk about these and realizing that focus just went from heart to head. Like

Bill: really?

Marty: if, yeah, I'm, I'm just gonna respond like in a word to each of those four questions, let's say it's gonna be intuitive, it's gonna be right the heart, like the heart of the matter.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: But now these questions, this isn't a bad thing, by the way, but it, I just noticed that my, my attention went from here to here,

Bill: And that makes sense because I'm asking you an intellectual question. What parts, first of all, it requires a noticing, so that is, that can be somatic, but it does require a mental process to kind of inventory, what am I noticing?

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: the part that is sad. I'm noticing the part that feels abandoned. I'm noticing the part that's incomplete because of that argument that we never got cleaned up.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. I have a friend who's in, uh, right now, on, on a trip, a big adventure, the other side of the world. She's never been there. And she posts a whole bunch of pictures, like 25 pictures on Facebook. They're really interesting, especially at the markets. But anyway, I, I wrote her and I said, gimme three words to describe the experience you're having. And, and she wrote back and said. Three words. Um, freedom, flow, gratitude. Very poignant. Just like there, right. That

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: that's, and that's different from, tell me about your trip. Right.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yep. a couple more. There's, there's a few more here. Would you like me to share them?

Marty: Yes,

Bill: The deeper dive?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So the suggestion is then you just notice, just notice what's go, what's, and as, as Marshall Rosenberg would say, if he were still on the planet, but he says in his recorded documents, what's alive inside.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: what you're experiencing in this moment as we complete with this person that's leaving. Or as you are, as you're about to leave

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: what's alive inside. What parts have become activated? Take some notes and notes, not only about the parts of you, but also what you notice about how they influence you. I feel sad. I feel angry. I'm nervous. My body's shaking. My leg is bouncing. Whatever that would be. Set intentions for how you wanna respond to these parts and act on any insights you gain. Like an insight might be, gosh, I thought that I was. I thought that I was complete with Robert when, when this thing happened three months ago, and now that he's leaving, I realize I'm guarded and I'm holding back on what? I don't want him to feel good about the things that I say. I'm kind of pissed at him.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: Darn it. So that's an insight I need to do something about that. Robert, can you and I get together sometime before you leave because I, I think I still need to work on cleaning some stuff up. Yeah,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: I don't know a Robert that I am incomplete with. I'm just using that name.

Marty: I do.

Bill: You do? Okay. So if your name's Robert and you think I'm sorry.

Marty: My daddy's name was Robert.

Bill: Oh, okay.

Marty: Lots of in there.

Bill: Yeah. Right, right. Uh, so that was number one. Number two, explore what feels incomplete. So we've, everybody's had an opportunity to say, and notice those questions really pointed to. Things that are gonna make you feel good. What are you gonna miss? What did you appreciate? What did you learn? How did you grow? What have you accomplished? Those are all real positive, feel good things. What's not here intentionally? In, in, in the questions that prompt completion are acknowledgements of incompletion,

Marty: Exactly right. Yeah.

Bill: and I say intentionally only because. As the coach facilitating a 90 minute group, I know the Pandora's box that that will open up.

Marty: Yeah. Well that's a, that's a different process that that's a process of getting to a place of being able to say, okay, now I'm complete. I'm going to either stay or leave the group. Right. That completion process is where you get to say all the things that are incomplete and attend to them so that you can come to a conversation like the one that you've designed and, and, and, you know, leave in honor.

Bill: Mm-hmm. And. It's not, I don't know that it's a realistic expectation in most settings, that you would leave a situation feeling like everything's been wrapped up and completed.

Marty: True that.

Bill: There's gonna be some incompletions, and so actually, I'm a little bit inspired right now to have a separate communication with the person that's leaving

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and invite them to explore what's incomplete from the group.

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: And, and at least give them an opportunity to document some trailheads that they might explore and, and actions that they might take.

Marty: yeah. So that's an important, this is an important, I guess the topic is communic effective communication, then. I, I mean, I'll just say it in a really bald way since I have no hair and neither do you the, you know, if you just be positive, you're, you won't be, you probably won't be get complete. There is always incompletions that need to be addressed. um, you know, an effective communication always has both sides of it. You know, you don't just say, you know, um. I'm I, I think you should leave the company. You say you've done a lot of good for us and I think you should leave the company.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, this is really good. I'm, I'm realizing some things just as we're going through this stuff. So number two is explore what feels incomplete, unrealized hopes, for example, regrets, unhealed hurts, and things that are still in process that haven't come to completion yet.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, and early in, in my experience of having a coach, one of the first and most powerful experiences that I had was an incompletion conversation with my coach, Carlos.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Who used a tool from Accomplishment Coaching that had me answer several different questions. And since I'd never experienced it before, I didn't filter my answers because if I'd known what was coming, I probably would've been less talkative. I would've told him less because the question really boiled down to what feels incomplete. And we were, we were focused on a particular, uh, issue. I think I was leaving one mortgage company for another one. And,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and he wanted me to leave powerfully and I did too. And so he said one of the things that that is gonna suck your power is if you have things that are incomplete that, because those will be the kind of energetically drawing on you until you do complete them. And that made sense to me. So I said, okay, well what do I do? He said, well, that answered these questions. And one of the questions was, what feels incomplete about X, Y, Z mortgage company and your experience there?

Marty: Uh huh.

Bill: And then he'd, I'd say something, he'd write it down and he'd say, what else? I'd, oh, what else? Huh? Okay. Uh, and then something else came to mind. He'd write it down and then he'd say, what else? He, he, there was 15 things and I could see his body language turned starting to shift. And he was looking at his watch, like, we only have an hour here, dude. And, but he didn't give, he didn't tell me in advance that there was gonna be a limit to how many things I could list. And, and there were, there were at least those 15 things.

Marty: Uh, so I, I really, that's really helpful though. You know, it, it does take a minute sometimes to get in touch with. We're so used to living with incomp completion.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: That's what gives us cancer. I think

Bill: Well.

Marty: it's so widespread and hard and nailed down. Um, um, that, that's a huge speculation. You don't have to believe that, but.

Bill: Well, here's what's, here's what we do know is true about that though. And, and I want you to continue, but rather than just sweeping that aside, I, I agree with you. And here's one way that that makes sense to me, is that for every incompletion there's an ongoing investment of energy to manage that in completion until it's complete.

Marty: right. That's right.

Bill: And if I'm using a energy that could be going to my immune system. It could be,

Marty: Totally. Absolutely. No. The, the, the interface between the body and the mind is. Strong.

Bill: oh yeah, yeah.

Marty: yeah,

Bill: I interrupted. Are you still with the thought that I interrupted?

Marty: I'm not with that thought, I'm trying, but I am trying to recoup where was I?

Bill: That's what, that's kind of what I'm asking. Yeah.

Marty: Uh, um.

Bill: said, you were saying that it can cause cancer to, to live with all these in completions.

Marty: Right. Yeah. And we don't realize. So we've gotten immune to it, you know, it's like, like the bacteria in our body. We don't, you know, realize it's there. Um, and eating away at us. And, and so to, to, to have somebody like Carlos sit there and ask anything else, anything else really gets you to, you know. Thoroughly examine. Look within what? let's see. Is there anything else? And you, and you know, to suss those things out, um, that's so valuable

Bill: It is

Marty: somebody take the time to really let you sink into yourself and feel all that's there to say.

Bill: his next question made me regret. Listing all those things. Though

Marty: Go.

Bill: he taught me, I'd already been learning how to take responsibility for my experience, but I still was playing the victim card quite a bit. I mean, all of those completions had a, had a feel of victim to them. Not as a criticism, I'm not saying, saying that I'm not criticizing that version of myself from 15 years ago when I first met Carlos. I'm just saying. That I felt victimized by those incompletions like this happened to me

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: incomplete.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I didn't want it to go this way. I wasn't happy with how it went, and I'm kind of pissed or hurt about it.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Uh uh, and so the, his next question was, now let's go through the list and for each of these things, what do you wanna do with this? You feel incomplete about x, y, Z mortgage company because you don't think that they paid you for that last loan that that got funded.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: are you gonna do with that? Are you gonna let it go? Are you going to pursue it? Are you gonna get going to get an attorney if necessary? What? What are you, what are you gonna do with it?

Marty: And this is that moment where so many times I hear people in my environment say, well, it is what it is. And you could tell that they don't really mean that. It just is what it is. They have an attitude about it.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I would translate that if I were the one that's saying that from 15 years ago. That means. Well, I'm, I've just been victimized. There's nothing I can do about this.

Marty: That's

Bill: I have no power in this situation.

Marty: right.

Bill: And by him saying, so now what do you wanna do with that?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: He's handing me an opportunity to either claim my victimhood or to take action

Marty: This is, we, uh, earlier I referred to this as attending to those things that are incomplete.

Bill: Yeah. Good.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and by the way, one of the things that I, I, I was really trying to make him like me. I wanted Carlos to like me, and it was my sense that for everything that on that list, I needed to have some action plan. There was something I needed to do with it.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and when it came to. Let's say my boss at X, Y, Z and his attitude and how he humiliated me in that sales meeting that, that one time, and that felt incomplete 'cause I still felt resentful toward him. Carlos says, what do you wanna do with that? You ready to let it go? No. Are you ready to confront him? No. Well, what are you gonna do with it? Nothing. Okay. So you're, you're going to, you choose to remain incomplete with this. And I wanted to say, f you Carlos, you're not, I want you to be loving and supportive here, and you're, you're confronting me, darn it.

Marty: Don't you have a pill I could take to make this?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was a great exercise.

Marty: that's so honest. That's so, and it honors, it honors the incompletion to be honest about it.

Bill: Yeah. Be in choice about it.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: powerfully to be resentful if that's what you, but just know you're choosing it.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill: And then I think, and, and a couple of those kinds of responses, I said to him, I don't know what I would do about this. I don't, I don't even if I did wanna let it go, how would I, it's in, it's in me like this burning resentment that I can't stop thinking about every time I hear his first name, even if somebody else has it, I think of this resentment, but how am I supposed to let it go?

Marty: yeah, yeah.

Bill: And that's a great coaching conversation right there, by the way. It's an, it's a wonderful coaching conversation. Okay, lemme get back to this list. We're about out of time here. I can't believe it's been, we've been in this conversation for almost an hour. The, the third and final thing is decide how to address what's incomplete. Interestingly, I had, I didn't look at that first before I said all that I just said, so you can release it. You can continue processing it, you can communicate about it, you can make a request, or you can seek a repair. There's maybe a lot more things beyond that that you can do, but those are the suggestions that are in this,

Marty: Uh huh.

Bill: in this in, or excuse me, in this, uh, completion process.

Marty: Yeah. I mean, another thing that this reminds me to say it helps to have somebody lead you to prompt the questions for you.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: To sit and be listening for the, and it helps draw us out that. It, it's not impossible to sit down and just journal to yourself. That's, that, that can definitely work. It's can be very powerful, but it's, it's also good to be guided. You know, like you're, you're not answering the question. Get back or, or you know, like, oh wow, that was, that really hit you. I could tell you got to the heart of it there. It helps to have these prompts to do it in conversation with somebody.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: so hire a coach,

Bill: Brought you by the International Coaching of Federation.

Marty: right?

Bill: So thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please tell your best friend and. And your family members about it, and have them listen as well, and then you guys can have a discussion about the things that we're discussing. We'd love to see you in the next episode. Thank you, Marty. Thank you, listeners.