Character

Bill: So today we're gonna talk about character.

Marty: The greatest inventions that comes outta the relationship between you and your true self. Is your character.

Bill: Interesting. Good stuff. I hope you listen.

Marty: Hello everyone. Welcome to another installment of the True You Podcast. I'm here with my friend and colleague, bill Tierney. My name is Martin Kettle Hut. We're both coaches. We have different approaches. But there's enough of disagreement and enough agreement that we have always have great conversations Speaker 2: coaches with different approaches that, that was poetic.

Marty: It rhymes. the topic that we want to approach today is the topic of character, like a person's character and how is that different from something that they might do, right? Or a philosophy they might have or a mask they might be wearing. And, I brought it up and Bill was kind enough to say, yes, let's talk about it on the podcast. Because it, it's one of it's, I hear it missing in, in our conversations lately. I don't, even, as a coach, I don't, we don't talk about character and it seems like an almost like a 19th century thing to do, and yet it's such an important. Piece of living in the human world a person's character. The you're developing over your lifetime a character, right? We judge a person's. We, sometimes we just have intuitions. I don't wanna be with that kind of a character, or I do wanna be with that, that the. Batman's character. It's a positive thing. And so it, it lives in a different level than like individual actions that we might take or things we might say. It's a, it's a. It's something that is developed over time and has its ups and downs. It might, there might even be contradictions inside a character. he's, he's a guy who, loves to make as much money for himself as possible, but at Christmas time, he's such a generous giver to other people. And that seems like a contradicts, but that's his character. Okay.

Bill: so when someone says, now there's a person with some character that had, that person has character, let's say it that way. Yeah. I take that to mean that's a person with integrity. Interesting. What do you take it to mean? If someone says,

Marty: now there's somebody with character that has happened to me recently, and what I said was what kind of character? Yeah, it doesn't tell me much

Bill: that, that seems like a really valid question. I think

Marty: everybody has some kind of character. It's just what kind that's almost like saying how impressive was that? Impressive in what way? exactly. Yeah. Oh, how interesting. What do you mean? Speaker 2: what was interesting about it?

Marty: Yeah,

Bill: exactly. Yeah. So character. Yeah. This is, you're right, this isn't part of my vernacular. This isn't anything I think about. So as you're introducing the topic I've got a couple of different, I've got some curiosity about it. There's something here. I'm not sure what it is. I think it's important and I suspect that it's related somehow to the true you and maybe the absence of it or the loss of it. Maybe the recovery of it. Maybe we could do some examples.

Marty: let me start with this one. Okay. That is a, we often talk about characters in a book or characters in a play, right? That is one way that we use that term more frequently than to talk about ourselves or our friends. And I think that's, I illustrative in that. It shows that like an author has put together this piece of writing, so is to convey a certain kind of character, right? That, that it, they are composed characters are we create them of our of ourselves. It's not like your destiny or your fate, right? It's something you create. Speaker 2: So you've heard me talk about the false shame and false and shame identities and the true self. So when you explain it in that way, it sounds like that's the false identity. That's not who you really are. That's something you've created.

Marty: Why couldn't we create something that is who we really are

Bill: then Isn't that already created

Marty: in a sense? In a sense, yeah. I mean our relationship to nature is already created, but we can create it.

Bill: Alright, so here's what I'm getting from this so far flour made from usually wheat, let's just say wheat flour. Wheat grows out in the field. It's harvested, it's processed it ends up yielding flour. That can be. Use to bake things. You can bake bread, you can bake a pie, you can bake rolls, you can bake a million diff, you can use flour for gravy. There's a lot of different things. So maybe what you're pointing at is flour is the essence and what we make of it is what is the character.

Marty: But I'm willing to, that sounds. About right to me. I don't have any difference with that. I don't know what the endowments are yet though,

Bill: and I'm just, that's my way of wrapping my mind around if character's not the false identity. If it's not something we've created, that's not who we are. Like for example, why would we create a false identity in the first place? Yeah. Because. I have an idea that who I am is either too much or not enough, or somehow deficient or comes with shortcomings. So I need to hide that and make sure nobody figures out what I think is true about me because I have shame around it. So what I do instead is I create a false identity so that people like what I present rather than what they than what they wouldn't like, which is I'm afraid that they wouldn't like if they really saw who I really was. So that's how I think of false identity. But you're not saying character is what I make of myself for that particular reason. It's just how I show up in the world intentionally.

Marty: Yeah. Based on if that were true of you, I would say that part of your character is that you're fearful and that you make things up.

Bill: Oh. That's helpful. I'm getting a little bit of a foothill foothold here now.

Marty: Yeah I suppose you, I hadn't thought about this, but I suppose, you could create a false character of yourself. Yes. I think most of us do. Yeah. And, yeah. And usually when we notice somebody for their character, it's because of the positive, the something good and lasting that they've created of themselves. But I suppose, yeah, I suppose there could be, I hadn't really thought of it that way, but I

Bill: suppose he's quite a character. Yeah. Another use of the phrase right there or the term. And now that doesn't always mean positive. What a character that guy is. It could be the guy that makes stuff up and that, is always gotta be the center of attention. That's a boy what a character he is. So that isn't always a positive comment.

Marty: No. Correct. Yeah. But then, the way like Marcus Aurelius who is very popular in the men's world right now. Skepticism no. Wait, not skepticism, that's not the right word.

Bill: What is the word? I know which word you're looking for and I can't get to it either. It'll show up. Not stoicism, tism. There, it's, yeah. Tism.

Marty: Yeah. And so when he talks about a person's character. He's talking about, how they perform in dire situations, in, in tough situations. How they, it is, how they deal with the complexity of life. What comes out of them in those times. And that's what is mostly what he refers to as character. This came up and another reason why this topic came up for me was because recently I was bemoaning the fact that certain things hadn't worked out in my life and feeling yeah, like a loser. And and a friend of mine, I think very astutely, if I could say that. Said you know what I see is that that in all those situations you're talking about leaving academia because I didn't quite fit there or, writing a book that not many people read. Those, these are the kinds of things that were on my mind. He said what I see is that everything that you touch, you turn to gold. You know that you, your character. Is that you're not satisfied with, the certain things and you go to work on them and you put them through your mill and you grind out something that, like a new point of view something more beautiful than was there before. And that he said that goes to your character, right? Yes, I might have not gotten a million people to read my book, but I did take the topic that I wrote on and did my own thing with it, yeah. And it's not popular, but there, but it's, but I turned that topic into gold for me.

Bill: Yeah. Okay. You're giving this more context and that's very helpful to me. What I'm beginning to formulate is the idea that maybe character is determined by how much access one has to their true, authentic self.

Marty: could buy that. Yeah. Yeah, so the no matter what, whether, what life dishes out, because it's, it's not about that you got all the good luck or all the bad luck. That doesn't determine your character. What determines your character is that you stayed true to who you. You are.

Bill: So in other words, how you respond to it. Am I gonna respond to that from a place of, let's just say, for example, fear. Fear will block me from being my true self and did for years and decades. Decades of my life. Fear. And I wasn't even aware that it was happening. I had no idea that fear was running my life. And while that was happening, I couldn't respond to life as my true, authentic self. And so someone in those days might have said his character's a little sketchy. I don't know that I trust him. That's what that means. Yeah. Speaker 2: And someone in my life that might say that they would've been right.

Bill: Yeah. I wasn't trustworthy. At one point in my life, I had so much fear that I was busy hiding what I was afraid people might think of me and working really hard to present what I wanted them to think of me. And bottom line is anybody that was in touch with their true, authentic self noticed the misalignment between the truth that they were listening from or watching from, and the untruth that I was presenting. Would've been fair for somebody to say, boy, he lacks character.

Marty: I see that. Now what I'm thinking about is there is, does that cover. Does that cover it? 'cause it does it. I'm thinking the character can also evolve and I don't know if the true me does

Bill: I, okay, so here's how I understand that. I agree with you. I don't know that, I do think that the true me evolves over eternity. But probably not so much in this experience of life. I see that pretty much the it's almost as if the reason to be here at all is to gain greater and greater access to my true identity. True identity. To who I really am. Evidenced by and what a great system this is, as far as I'm concerned, evidenced by joy. How much joy, how much love, how much connection, how much wisdom am I accessing? If we think about back to the if FS lens, again, the eight Cs, and then other qualities and resources that would be indicative of access to the true authentic capital S self. So when you say character develops over a lifetime? I think so too. I think that for me and I'm just gonna use me 'cause I'm the one I've been experimenting on all your, all of my life that I began by, escaping the unsafety of being my authentic self. It wasn't safe. It was too dangerous to show up that way. Yeah. So I escaped that by developing false and shame identities. Shame identity formed by drawing conclusions on that helped to explain why what was happening in my life was happening. It's because I'm not enough. It's because I'm too much. It's because there's something wrong with me. So there's the shame identity. Yeah. And then the false identity formed to hide all of that and to work on I improvement, improving it while I hit it. Whatever's wrong with me, I'm gonna hide it. And in the meantime, I'm gonna try to improve myself so that. Whoever I show up as in the world gets approval and it, and is trusted and does get me what I want. Over, over the course of this 70 years, so far of my lifetime, I have, my character has changed dramatically, especially in the last, I would say 20 years. 20, 25 years. And the reason it's changed is because I'm less of who I try to be and more of who I actually am.

Marty: That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. Yeah. I think I, I can say the same thing. I'm, I don't, if you ask somebody my character back in graduate school and ask that same person now, they would go, oh, no, wait. There's a big difference there. Speaker 2: This character, your character has changed.

Marty: And you are saying that what explains the difference is how close you've been to your true self? I think so,

Bill: yeah. I wanna talk about my son, Billy. Who at 13 years old, I don't know if I've talked about this in this podcast or the previous one, the previous leadership coaching PO podcast, but. Could I just tell this story? It's just to me, it's such an amazing story. Oh, please. In my second marriage, my son is 13 years old. He has refused to do his homework. He'll babysit his little sister, he'll help around the house if asked, but for some reason when it came to schoolwork, he just wasn't interested. Smart, real smart kid. Like me, pulled a b average, B plus average through high school, but didn't really much care. Basically he was just doing all that he needed to do to stay under the radar and not bring any attention to himself from the spec perspective of are you doing well enough in your grades? And we because his grades were good, we never suspected much until the teachers or the school would bring to our attention. Yeah. Billy's not turning in his homework. At first we would, we, my second wife and I would confront him about that and say, Hey, we just heard from the school, you're this many, you're gonna get an F in this class if you don't do something. And Billy would answer the test counts for 8% of the grade, and I'll take the test and I'll do fine. And, I'll end up with a B so what's the problem? And his my, my wife and I would say the problem is that you've been. You're expected to do your homework and when we ask you if you've done your homework, you've been saying yes. When in, in fact you've been saying no. Yeah. And his attitude was like, yeah, okay, whatever. And then so we would ground him and we would punish him and we'd take things away like his Nintendo or whatever the game machine was that he had at that time, Atari, whatever that was. And yeah, Speaker 2: so one year I had promised him if he gets, if he does all his homework by the end of the year, I'm gonna send him off to a basketball camp this summer. And he says, great. He was really into basketball, thought he was gonna be the next mi Michael Jordan. And so he. We get all the way to the end of the year. He comes in with his Bs, but the report card says, didn't turn his homework in pleasure in class and all that but would not comply with what we've asked him to do as far as homework. So I'm really conflicted. I told him I was gonna send him off to basketball camp. He's excited about it, but he didn't hold up his end of the bargain and it's expensive. So it caused some fights between my wife and I and but we ended up sending him to basketball camp. We'd go to pick him up after a couple of weeks and he gets in the car. How was basketball camp? It was fine. Did you learn some things about basketball? Nah, not really. Did you improve your skills? Nah, not much. Did you enjoy the camp? He said, yeah, I really did.

Marty: We kids, we don't have any idea that, our parents spent money on this. They want,

Bill: we want some appreciation here. We want some results.

Marty: I think about that sort of thing so often with my dad since he passed on oh my God, he spent so much time and money on these things and I just, I was like, no, that didn't really appeal to me.

Bill: right back to Billy. So you know, we're driving him back into Spokane. It's probably a 45 minute drive from the camp, and I can feel the tension between my wife and I. We're like, what the hell? What in the hell? And we spent all this money went to this struggle, we went and picked him up. He's just not showing any kind of appreciation for the experience. And we're quiet and the, for us, between my wife and I, the tension's kind of building, like I'm expecting my wife, his stepmom to blow her top like, look at all we spent and you should appreciate us. And I just, I'm waiting for her to blow and some silence is going by as the tension's building in the front seat. Billy's just fine in the backseat. He's fine. I'm not aware of that. He's fine in the backseat. I'm thinking he's probably feeling the tension too. No, he's not. He's just fine. So then he just begins talking without provocation. He just begins to talk from the backseat and say, i've been lying and, hiding and sneaking around and not really taking responsibility for my life. This is obviously not an exact quote, but something like this. And so I just have decided that from now on I'm gonna take responsibility for my life. And so I, I'm not gonna lie anymore, it doesn't mean I'm especially gonna be doing my homework, but I'm gonna, I'm just gonna take responsible for how I responsibility, for how I feel and for the experiences that I have in life. 'cause the reality is I'm responsible. What? Wow. I'd never heard anything like that from anybody ever. And now it's coming outta my 13-year-old son's mouth. And both my wife and I have been struggling at this point to take responsibility for our own lives, but we don't even know that's part of the problem. We think, I think she's the problem. She thinks I'm the problem, which is a real sign that I'm not taking responsibility for my own life. And he says that, and he just scratched my head and I said, oh, huh. Him saying that just left us speechless. It diffused the entire situation. We're no longer feeling that tension between us. We get home and he's a different kid from that day forward. He's a completely different kid. He's speaking honestly with us. He's giving his full answers. He's giving his full attention to everything that he's doing. He's present for everything that's going on in his life. He's making choices. He's a happier kid. And that's who he is today. He's 46 years old today. That was 33 years ago. And he is the same. Of course, he's developed over time. He's more mature, he is got more access to more resources. But the integrity that got installed in that a, b, c basketball camp, 40, 30, how many years did I just say? 33 years ago. It's still in him. He iPlan his true, authentic self. I wanna say

Marty: all the kids I know to that basketball camp. It sounds like it was great.

Bill: apparently it was for him. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't know that we were sending him off to a Christian basketball camper. We never would've done it. Yeah. Interesting. And the reason I say it that way is because we had strong prejudice at that time against. Anything that was labeled as Christian. This basketball camp hadn't promoted themselves as Christian. We didn't know it was until he got there and then began to speak about how the mentors at the camp were talking to him about the Bible and what Jesus taught and all this stuff. And essentially he's living that, although he doesn't speak about in those terms. So I'm sharing that story mainly because. This idea about character, this theory about character is that he stepped right into who he really is and has remained that for all these years, ever since.

Marty: So beautiful. Yeah. And I, that could very well have come out of the camp and the teachings around basketball even, could be, or maybe he just got it himself, like a bolt of, the angel Gabriel came to him or something, but.

Bill: No, it was definitely a mentor there at the school that he, that really championed him. I see. Yeah.

Marty: So this leads me thank you for telling me that's a beautiful story. And you have a, your son has a beautiful character. I've met him. So I'm led to then just I have a curiosity about how we. How we foster this, this, it's a journey and it's a relationship to our true self. And so it changes, but it's always in relationship and that's how we build character. That's the hypothesis that we're putting forward. And it just. Like you said, and I po I put it out there and you tend to agree that's not something we are talking about. And so I'm just wondering like, where do we go from here? How do we foster the interest in the cultivation of character?

Bill: Yeah I agree that it's not a word that I use in my vernacular. It's not a conversation that I have. That might be. Labeled as we're talking about character right now, but I think I've been in the conversation and you have too for a long time. It's just that we're not using that language. Maybe the use of the word character is outdated. And been replaced with other things. And I think it's a combination of words like integrity authenticity, and true self.

Marty: Another. See there, there's always a couple of sources that bring me to these topics. Another source of my thinking about this topic was a podcast that I listened to by Shiloh Brooks. He introduces himself as a CEO and a professor. That's how he introduces himself every time in every episode. And he love, he discusses books. He's, he the, after he says, I'm a professor and A-C-E-O-I believe that books, that reading makes us better human beings. And that's why I read and that's what the podcast is out. He always has a book and an author. Sometimes they, they are the same. And sometimes they're different. Like he discusses a book. By somebody else, with another person. And they're very great conversations. And one of the things they said in one of the recent episodes was this relationship between characters in books made up by the author to, give us a certain impression, right? And to fulfill a certain function in, in, in the dramaturgy. And how we not only have the ability to create our own characters but that there their works of art. There, there's something beautiful about dwelling on them and reflecting on them and cultivating them and that, that's where I'm coming from. It's not a course in high school or it's college, like building character. Here's how, or it's three steps to, to character or something like that. And I, I know that it's a, the question I'm asking is at least adjacent to the topic of our podcast, the true you given that character is that relationship. But, and, but just to give a little more context for why I'm asking, like how do we bring this. More into like that, that people are cultivating character, that they're like characters in, in, in books. We look to that. We read that and we and we create that.

Bill: The question that you're asking I'm listening in a way that would have me restate and reflect what you're asking in a, just using different words. And I'll do that and then ask you, does it mean the same thing to you? Okay. How do we go about reclaiming who we really are? And the best way I know is by using the IFS model, which means to get curious and compassionate and really interested from a neutral at worst, neutral place about what we're actually experiencing. I just told you the story about my son, who at the age of 13 began to take responsibility for his own experiences. And then the next step besides, the declaration I will take responsibility for my own experience is, has to be followed by how am I gonna do that? I need a plan. If I haven't been taking responsibility for my, my, my experiences then how am I gonna bridge? You used the word earlier. We were talking about a bridge, oh, that was in a different topic that we might've been ended up talking about the transpo political to topic of bridging two different yeah. So how do I bridge the gap between what I now recognize I want a d the way I wanna live, who I wanna be in the world? That's the thing. And who I've been.

Marty: See, I'm also working on that question right now. I like I for, creating the new year to 20 20, 26. Sure. Completing what did and didn't happen in 2025, and then who am I gonna be in the new year? What and I try and imagine in my mind what that actually looks like. Who I'm being like. I'm dressing, how I'm carrying myself, the kinds of things that I'm saying, the kinds of experiences I'm having, the people I'm with, right? What is the, how is that my characters gonna develop in the new year?

Bill: Are you gonna be sweet bread or sourdough? Going back to my metaphor of the wheat, the raw material, the essence of who you are. That's what I hear you asking. Who asking yourself, who, what do I wanna, what do I wanna do with this flower. Yeah.

Marty: And I have some words and some images in my mind. But I'm just the, I guess what I'm doing right now in my mind is, for all the people who already know what IFS is and are involved in, its magic that, we've given them like, okay, that just keep doing that. That's the right thing to do to develop character. And for people who aren't familiar with IFS, this would be a great thing to, to find out more about, find a practitioner and get into that conversation. And, but I'm also looking for what is doing that? What is, for people who don't know what IFS is, and so that's why I'm, I would start talking about, creating myself in the new year. I could do that using the IFS model. I could, hire an IFS coach to help me work on that question. And. But that's the kind of question that I, that's all I wanted to say is that's the kind of question that we're talking about is like, who do to be? What will I look like? How will I carry myself, what will I be saying? Those sorts of things. And,

Bill: and if I could just bring the IFS lens into, to that question could be notice what, what happens when you ask yourself that question? Who do I wanna be in the new year could be answered by a part of you that thinks that there's something wrong with you that needs to be improved. Good point. Or the question could be answered by an aspirational part of you that is plugged into plenty of self energy and can tap into the potential of your true purpose.

Marty: So let me just so it let's say that. You or how you're reacting to who you think you've been and you want to, change that. Oh gosh, that was wrong. I need to be this. Then at the character level, you are being a contrarian.

Bill: Yep. You have one part that's opposed to another one.

Marty: Yeah, exactly. And but if you set up your whole, the, who you're going to try and be for the new year as a negation of who you've been or who somebody else is.

Bill: Yep.

Marty: And that's at the core of it. That's, that you're working against, you're in react. That's who you are.

Bill: You're setting up 2026 to be a battle.

Marty: so I'm just really, I'm. Really prising the point that you're making. And it is, we have to come from from nothing to when you go to January care, you want it to be a reaction. You want it to come from all your fully resourced self. Speaker 2: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: What would you aspire to from your true, authentic self if you didn't have to hide who you are? Afraid you are? If you didn't have to prove yourself to anybody, that's a good

Marty: basket. Yeah. You

Bill: didn't have to wait for applause. Approval and appreciation for what it is you might do and who you might be next year.

Marty: Even. Even your material needs the say they're all met. Speaker 2: Who

Marty: and who do you wanna be? Yeah. And when it's true to self, it will take care of all of those other issues.

Bill: Absolutely. Yeah. When the flow, when there's flow, it's because it's aligned and harmonious inside. When there's an absence of flow when there's some stops and starts when it's. Effortful when you're noticing second doubting second guessing and self-doubting, then that's the time to turn inward and get curious about what parts are in conflict now, what parts are struggling a little bit with, a good example of this might be. Let's just say someone decides I am gonna have a voice in 2026. I've been quiet, I've been reserved, I've been careful, I've been cautious and I've been trying to stay outta trouble. And some, let's say some, somebody just recognizes that's. That I'm not gonna be that anymore. I'm tired of being keeping to myself and not fully expressing myself. So in 2026, I'm going to express myself more fully. And I think what that's gonna look like is I'm gonna go to. Get some coaching around how to be a, become a speaker in the world. Maybe all, what's the name of the organization that you go to practice Toastmasters. I'm gonna join Toastmasters. I'm gonna get a mentor. I'm gonna go out there and speak. So here's what's predictable. That same person who's then quiet and stayed in the shadows to stay safe their entire life now decides they're gonna go out there and have a voice. What's predictable is that they're gonna be terrified in that first Toastmasters meeting.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And the first time they get up to do their first two minute speech or whatever it is that they, that Toastmasters does. I've done it, but it's been years ago. Or when they consider the prospect of going to a rotary club and say, not, I'd like to speak in front of your group. Terrifying. And that's when we wanna get, of course it's not, we're not in flow anymore. We're in fact, we might be at a dead stop turnaround. What was I thinking?

Marty: Right. Exactly. And that's where we

Bill: would Go ahead.

Marty: It's an example of you being in reaction. That's why this is happening.

Bill: so what I'm, yeah. My point is even a purposeful. Purpose driven aspiration of being fully self-expressed, being my true, authentic self can trigger parts of us that that still believe that being true and authentic to ourselves is dangerous. Yeah. So there's an opportunity for compassion, curiosity, and healing.

Marty: and just on. That's great. And as soon as I did my, work for on creating 20 26, 2, 2, I would say miraculous things happened. And by miracle I don't mean other worldly, unexpected in this world. Yes. Yes. And it was because of the alignment, like you said, when there's alignment, poof, pop things happen. Yeah.

Bill: The way is cleared.

Marty: Yeah. The way is cleared and yeah. And it's not nearly the work that it, that I thought it was gonna be. The clarity brought the results to me.

Bill: That's exciting.

Marty: It is. Yeah.

Bill: Do you wanna talk any more about what you're declaring for 2026? Do you wanna publicize it?

Marty: I don't know. Let me see. My intention is to make a measurable contribution to the shift in the dominant logic underlying human thought from individual to social. And so under that intention, I have an objective of identifying groups, making this shift, who and the work that I might do with them. Already two things, I didn't expect came up out of the blue groups that are making this shift from an individualist, which is to say binary logic to a community logic, community based way of thinking. And and. And they, they out of a normal, boring networking conversation, they heard the difference too. And now we're gonna be working together. Wow. Marty, Speaker 2: that's

Marty: Faab Speaker 2: fabulous. So the reticular activation system, you familiar reticular? No. And I'm not a scientist, so I'm not gonna be a reliable source of technical information about this, but what I understand about it is that. I bought a 2010 Subaru Outback and it was my favorite cont color Hunter Green and and I thought, obviously this car's been in an accident because I've never, ever once seen a Hunter Green Subaru Outback before, so I better get, say it again.

Marty: And so they painted it. That was my

Bill: story. Yeah. So this car's been wrecked and then somebody you know got it fixed and they repainted at Hunter Green. I love the color, but now I'm suspicious of the car because I've never seen a Hunter Green Subaru before, Outback before. The day that I bought the car, I saw five more and I'd never seen the Hunter Green Outbacks before. I saw five of 'em out there, and I kept seeing them everywhere after that. Uhhuh, here's my point, you named. What you wanted in your life. And it started showing up. It was always there, but it started showing up for you.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: That's an example of the

Marty: flow and of clarity. The clarity that you were talking about. When we are aligned with our true self And things, it shows up.

Bill: Yep. Yeah, I this sounds lazy, really. When I first heard this concept or this idea, I thought how lazy, anything worth having is worth just busting your ass for, right? So what I now do is when things start getting hard, I just walk away for a minute or five, or a day or a week.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: And then I come back to it again when I'm fresh. And I'm out of the struggle and the trying and the effort and it flows or it just goes in the garbage and it, I

Marty: just let it go. Yeah. That's great. That's a great, that's a really important, these are, this is a, these are all practices for building character. All of them. That's a great one. Yeah. My swim coach would, he's, I'm in the middle of practice. He'd be like, get outta the water. Go over there on the, on go down the slide with the kids, play in the shallow water. Do that, use that ball for a while. Just get, get out of the pattern. 'cause you're stiff, you're hurting, get out of it completely and then come back and we'll swim smooth. Nice.

Bill: That's great. I love that. That is great. What a great story that is and what a great example of, yeah, the recent things get hard is because we keep trying so hard and what I've what, and it's not that there's no place for effort. Of course there is, but there's a difference between effort that comes from love and inspiration and effort that comes from got to have to.

Marty: And another way of saying that is there's a difference between effort that comes from C character versus Eric effort that comes from a misalignment with character.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. This has been a far more interesting conversation than I afraid was. Afraid it was going to be. So I'm glad that we had it. I

Marty: could tell, I could tell the whole

Bill: time. I was trying to find some footing in even before we hit record. And how are we gonna talk about this? And I'm just so relieved and delighted. I

Marty: didn't know either. I had Marcus Aurelius and Shiloh Brooks and all these other things that I, and they all, the word character was there and I didn't know what was gonna come out of it either.

Bill: So we, we gotta wrap up. Thanks for joining us. Until next time. Bye.