The Inspiration to Write

Bill: Welcome to the True You Podcast. My name is Bill Tierney. I'm a compassionate results coach, and I'm here with my partner Martin Kettelhut. Marty's an executive and leadership coach. Yeah.

Marty: That's correct.

Bill: And and an author. And in fact, that's what we wanna talk a little bit about today is, last week we talked about me finding myself as a writer. Marty, you've been a writer and an author for, I think, longer than I have been. I know I've been writing articles for newsletters for a long time, but I haven't been a book writer until, oh, last year or two years ago when I first started writing, books. And you've been doing it for.

Marty: When did I first start? You know, really as a writer, not just as a student writing a paper, but and I would take it back to, when I, I got, I got a Fulbright Scholarship to go abroad and work on my dissertation. And, um, actually no, the Fulbright Scholarship was for the, when I was a music college. The, this is a scholarship from, uh, university of Keel, Northern Germany. And, um. That was the first time I really sat down, like as a writer, like, okay, my task here is to write. And started thinking like, what is it to do that, how is, how does that work? And, you know, structuring and, and, and finding the right approach and the right words. That was the first time I really, I think, became like a writer for writing's sake.

Bill: Did you have instructions? Did you have a mentor or a teacher

Marty: oh yeah,

Bill: you how to do

Marty: yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: yeah, I was working on, this is in a university environment, so I had a shoot, what do they call it? An English and German is ion's fat, like your dissertation father.

Bill: Oh, I see.

Marty: But in, in English we just say, principal, professor or something. I don't, I can't think of the word right now. But anyway, yes. And then there's a committee too. So I had three different professors that were sort of guiding me through that process. Yeah.

Bill: How'd that work? The guidance was they would look over your work or you would ask questions. How did you get that feedback from them?

Marty: yeah, I'm anxious to move on to the other because it wasn't a good experience to tell you the truth but that way it's supposed to work. Yes. You, you discuss your writing and you have a conversation and out of it.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: You generate a dissertation? I had I didn't have a very good experience as much as I tried at that with these particular professors,

Bill: I see. I see. They, do you mind, can we stay there for just another minute? I.

Marty: I just, yeah, go ahead.

Bill: The negative experience I assume to be that they, they didn't value the writing the way you wanted it to be valued. Is that

Marty: That's accurate.

Bill: Yeah, and that's impossible. There's something about putting your writing out in front of people that don't appreciate it, that is just almost soul crushing whereas when the people that find what I've written as nutritious. For their

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: fills me up. It's, and and it makes me a better writer. It makes me wanna do more of Sorry for taking you into

Marty: No, that's all right. It's all right. I mean, I think that there's a, it just points to a, a basic like wanting to be nourished. That was not present in them about what I was working on. I wanted to be nursed by them, but it didn't go both ways. And that's part of the, the org, the structure of the university and the personalities that, you know, that it cultivates, you know, they're interested in their own promotion and everything. So that was the problem there.

Bill: I see. So you were working on your dissertation, but the first book that you published, and I think you told me you self-published it,

Marty: Correct.

Bill: is called List Listen Till You

Marty: That's right. Listen till you disappear.

Bill: And yeah. What was your experience with that and what I wanna know what inspired it, what motivated it?

Marty: Yeah. Well, what motivated it was, I, you know, I had, I had been coaching for a couple years and the main topic, I would say the central topic of the coaching was. Developing your business. Growing your business. And, and what, and so this book grew out of like, what have I, what kinds of things have we been discussing? What are the exercises I've been giving? What has been effective for people and growing their business? It turned out to be mostly about being a good listener. People wanna be heard. And when you are the one who's willing to hear them, they wanna work with you. And so your business grows like that, right? And then you. It's contagious too. You know those people that have li been listened well thoroughly by you they get other people to listen to them about you. And again, the business grows. So that's where the book gen got generated from. And, um. And then, and I took it to all different levels, like listening to your own self care as well. There are levels of, of yourself to listen inside your life and in your body and in your own mind for what you need to show up as a good listener. So there, there were, there was, it's listening not only to the outside, and there are many dimensions of that too. We start in the, later in the book, we start listening to your environment. How it supports you or doesn't, et cetera. So it's all about listening and I, I, um, I met a woman in New York City who I didn't know what she did at first, um, but she wanted coaching. Gail Wal Gay Wally is her name. She's a beautiful person and she said, oh, this is perfect because I'm an editor. I can, you know, I can edit the book as you write it and you can coach me in my business. And it, it was a great partnership. She's a very good editor. I learned a lot from her in the process. And in the meantime, her business grew. She started focusing on. Coaches and therapists out of our relationship, and that narrowing of her target market made her business grow because she wasn't trying to edit everything that's out there. And she became a specialist in the field and people talked about her within the field. So it was a really good mutual relationship.

Bill: It sounds like it. And. I assume that she benefited from reading the book and helping you to edit and taking on the principles that you wrote

Marty: Yes. Yes, she did. Exactly. And she acknowledged that.

Bill: Just, I wanna just briefly mention that as I listened to you describe the inspiration for the book I just wanna report that when I was first trained in sales, it was on the car lot on a new and used car lot. In here in Spokane, and it was really hardcore Zig Ziglar type training, strategies and techniques for trapping people into making a saying yes and buying today and paying top dollar and all that stuff. And I really like. Yes, it was high conflict. I felt like a snail with salt getting poured on me every time I sat in one of those sales meetings and walked out on the lot and knew I was being expected, I was expected to use those strategies and techniques, and they just, I took, I used that term soul crushing

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: about writing. Well, that's what that experience was And I was desperate. I didn't know. I, with my high school education, I had nothing else that I knew I could exchange for money other than the grocery business. And by then I'm so tired of the grocery business. So time went on, I had all these other sales jobs too. And that, those lessons that had gotten into me about how to talk to people in such a way that you manipulate them into saying yes to what you're trying to sell, that just kept getting into me and kept getting in the way. And then of course I kept failing and struggling because it didn't resonate with me. And then I became a coach and I tried some of those strategies as a coach and they didn't work there either, and I finally just threw them away. And when I was introduced to IFS, I decided I'm not gonna sell anybody. I'm just gonna have conversations with people and I'm gonna do what I do in coaching sessions. I'm gonna really listen to what they have to say. So I'm, I just wanna endorse what you're that my business really caught on when I let go of any sales strategies and

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and just connected with people and was there present with them in the conversation

Marty: I do use this. That's great. Thank you for that. And it I do use that. Those sales techniques in a, in a part of my new book on, on leadership, to show that listening isn't purely passive. You can be the listener and be the leader.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: people think it's the other way around. I mean, I was told as a child, you know, listen to what your father said. Uh, you're not listening what your dad said, meaning you're not obeying. It wasn't that, it wasn't that I didn't hear what he said, I didn't wanna obey.

Bill: Uhhuh

Marty: but you can use some of those sales techniques, listening for their interests, right? This is a sales technique that you can either use, to manipulate people into something they don't want. Or you could use it for your mutual benefit, actually,

Bill: to try to meet needs by listening for them.

Marty: Oh, well if that's, if that's what you're interested in, that's what's important to you. You ought to go to a different, you know, car dealership because we don't have that kind of car here or

Bill: or we're looking at the wrong car and I've got something else that will

Marty: Exactly right. That sort of thing, you know. Um, so. So that, and I just, my point in the leadership book is that listening is not merely passive. You can actually be the one leading the direction of the conversation in the way you listen.

Bill: The art and science of heart LED leadership is the subtitle to Leadership as Relation by Martin w Kettle Hut, And here's the book that he's referring to now. This is the most recently published book that Marty's written. Very beautiful cover. Love that cover. Tell me about the cover. What's the design?

Marty: Yeah, the, the marketing people came up with that. I, I had, I had chosen a painting that I wanted to use. I saw it online and I asked the woman. She actually lives in Nicaragua. And I wrote to her and I said could we use that painting on the cover of my book? She pondered it for a couple of weeks and they wrote me back and said, yes, good luck with that. And and then the marketing people said, no, we have a better design. We're gonna use this. And I liked it. I liked it.

Bill: Yeah, I like

Marty: and, um, so what I like about it is that it, first of all, it's in a heart shape but the heart is made up a of a whole bunch of people. It's not one, it's not one heart, it's a multiple heart, right? Many people make up the heart and then, and then the guy, the marketing guy had the cleverness to you notice the middle of the heart is brighter. It's a lighter color.

Bill: I did not notice

Marty: He brighten that up so it's not the same color as the rest of the cover, and that just makes it, outstanding.

Bill: huh, nice. So there it is. Leadership as relation. It's, it looks like it's backwards on my screen. Maybe it's forward when you see it, but

Marty: Made up of many.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I had a couple of marked here in the book. Social contract for teams. I've got one page.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: I'd like to go through these bullets, just, we don't have to stay here for very long, but I'd like to, these are a couple of things that really stood out to me when I read the book.

Marty: Yeah, I love that, that work that I discovered by a guy named Keith Ferrazzi sounds like a name of an Italian car to me.

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: But yeah very important distinctions that he comes up with and steps to follow and techniques to use to pro basically to promote candor. It's all about,

Bill: mm-hmm.

Marty: fostering candor,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: safety. You know, you ask for permission for things, you put you, you address people in a safe way. So that's, so that the group can lead itself as opposed to one person dictating how the group is gonna go. I think it's brilliant work that he does.

Bill: So these bullet points are his

Marty: Yes.

Bill: from his book, uh, new Social Contract for Teams by Keith Ferrazzi.

Marty: Yes,

Bill: R-R-A-Z-Z-I, do you mind if I just go through these eight bullet

Marty: sure. But before you do, one of the reasons why I was interested in that title of his new social contract is because in. I think it might be this chapter or in previous chapter I'm talking about the enlightenment social contract. Right. That was the concept of the enlightenment about how to govern is through social contract. And so I, I do a, a reading of that and where that's left us with regard to the. Concept of money, our contracting around money and where that's left us in the modern age.

Bill: Yeah, it's brilliant. It was really well done. So here are those. Here are those bullet points by Keith

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and from a new social contract for teams. Our team does not avoid conflict. I'm just gonna read the opening.

Marty: Our team does not avoid conflict.

Bill: Yep.

Marty: that's a buster right there.

Bill: Yep. Yeah. It calls out the main cause of dysfunction in my we're gonna all be nice.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: We're gonna pretend like the does, the conflict doesn't exist, but as soon as you, the person I'm blaming for the conflict, turns his back or leaves the room. I'm gonna be talking to my buddy here about, about how you've caused this conflict.

Marty: or if I was raised, in this coddled, the coddling of the American mind that Jonathan Hyde talks about, as soon as there's conflict, I'm quitting. I'm going look for a softer environment to work in.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Guilty my first 50 years of my life, that's exactly what I did. Yeah. Our team does not have silos. We are committed to a shared mission that acts as a North star. This is good

Marty: I wanna talk about every single one of them. I'll let you finish them though.

Bill: please do, please pause me and talk about each one of 'em. Let's go back our team does not have

Marty: that silos one. Some people I've had, some people say, well, how could you not? Work in silos. Don't we need them? Yes. They're, they're, everybody has their own duties, uh, you know, talents, weak weaknesses and strengths to bring to the team. Not everybody plays the same position on the team. You need different, you need a fullback, you need a halfback, you need a forward, you need goalie. Like you don't all play the same position, of course, but. When I worked with the guy who I interview in chapter 11 about faith and the, and technology and the internet, that was what his team needed most. They were so siloed that it was hampering their growth. The marketing team didn't understand the technology and, you know, the, the. Creative team didn't understand management and they, they needed to get outta their silos. And so what I asked them to do was start having parties, you know, get together, informally, get to know each other, and from that they naturally started to learn about each other's departments and that got them to work much more strongly together.

Bill: That's great. Yeah I'm thinking of a client who, I'm not sure exactly what his position is in this very large and growing quickly company. But he was telling me about how sales is trying to. The salespeople are trying to earn their bonuses by selling things that they don't have an inventory and that take years to create.

Marty: Mm.

Bill: So what they're setting up is a real disappointed customer

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: and that's an

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Bill: You wanted to comment about the North Star, where you're committed to a shared mission that acts as our North

Marty: Well, yeah. Um, one of the basic premises and diagrams in the book is, um, of a triangle so that, when I say leadership is a relation, I don't mean just between a leader and a follower. There's a third element that North Star and it is actually doing the leading right. So the, you need a leader and a follower, leaders and followers, and you need a North star to have leadership, is what I say.

Bill: And I think that you have talked about this in the past, and you pointed to marriage is a good example of this.

Marty: Yes, exactly.

Bill: So the marriage, the relationship itself, that commitment is that North Star.

Marty: Well, what is it? What is the relationship committed to is the North Star. Yeah.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: That's right.

Bill: Yes. Not just a commitment that we're gonna stay married.

Marty: exactly. That's the thing that we need, what is this relationship about? What is our future? Does it, you could put it that way. What is the future we are committed to?

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Right? If you don't have that, then. You know, I get there are times when one's pulling the other one along, or, you know, there there's no, there's no agreement about how to make a certain choice is, um, one of my favorite examples of this is, when I first started swimming, I don't know why it is, but swimmers always exercise first thing in the morning, like 5:00 AM is that's when we swim our laps. I mean, I don't, I don't know many swimmers who exert do their laps in the afternoon. It's always first thing in the morning. Well, it's hard to get up in the dark and cold and head to the pool all by yourself. Even if you're on a team, you need a North star. Like, okay, let's agree we're gonna win the championship this year. Okay. Then when I call you at 5:00 AM and say, I'm coming to pick you up to go swimming, it's for the championship this year that we're both willing to get up and do this onerous task.

Bill: Yes. Very nice. I'm also thinking of when I asked Kathy to marry I don't know if I've told you this story before, but I was at Landmark Education over in Seattle at the advanced course. And if you've been to the landmark advanced course you may remember that the focus of that is to think out beyond your, yourself personally, into the impact that you might have in your community, in your family, in, in the world, at least that's the way I recall that being the

Marty: definitely.

Bill: of the advanced course. Yeah, I was inspired. I think I've mentioned before, I had a love, hate relationship with Landmark. I loved what happened for me, despite my resistance to. To the messaging often.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: the hate was that I just wanted to be able to be with what I learned and take it with my, with me and not be involved anymore. But that particular day so inspired and we were on a break. And as many landmarks know, on breaks, that's when you make your calls, that's when you reach out to people and make connections. That when you recognize that there've been bridges that have been burned and ruptures that need to be repaired and commitments that that you're inspired to make, now's the time to do it.

Marty: Just reminds me a quick parent. Parent. I did Landmark so long ago that when I did this, we had to go to the phone bank. We didn't have cell phones at that time. We went to the phone to do that.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. And I bet you they were full. They were

Marty: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. here's the scene. Kathy and I have been dating for a year and a half and. She's been married for 23 years and now she's divorced. I'm outta my second marriage and have been working on myself for 12 years by this point, or maybe even longer. Yeah, 14 years by this point. And in the landmark advanced course, I was so inspired that I had the idea that Kathy and I could actually break the chain of dysfunction in her family and in mine, and that we could

Marty: Beautiful.

Bill: And we could live into it even if we, as we recognized our own dysfunction,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: we both had come from these broken relationships and yet we're committed that our relationship was gonna be functional whole. I walk into this area where there's a young woman sitting on a couch reading a book, nobody else is around. There's a window and I'm standing looking out the window, and I call Kathy and I, it was something like this. I just was thinking that you and I are really good together and I love you and I know you love me and we've been waiting 'cause we didn't wanna run rush into this thing. But I think it's about time for us to get married. I think that if you and I get married, we can model for our families a way to break this chain of dysfunction that's, that you and I have suffered from and that our kids are suffering from now as well. So what do you think? You wanna get married? She said. Sure. I said Great. That's we'll talk about, we'll set the date when I get home. Oh yeah, that sounds

Marty: That's wonderful.

Bill: So I get off the phone and this woman on the couch has been reading the book, says, did you just propose to get married? And I said, oh yeah, I did. And she jumped up from the couch and I don't know who this woman was. She screams and she gives me a big hug and she says, congratulations. She's all excited.

Marty: That's beautiful.

Bill: big sappy romance story.

Marty: I love it.

Bill: Yeah. Here's the next Our team is not encumbered by hierarchy or control.

Marty: So a big, a big theme in the book. And that's one of the reasons why I, you know, we're, we're working as a team and the, there are times when one person is doing the leading. Jesus soccer analogy again, you know, like the fullback brings the ball forward, right? He's leading at that time. We configure ourselves around where he's taking the ball, get ourselves in position to receive a pass, right? But, but he's not the leader of the team. Now, now the forward's got the ball and we can reconfigure around him. Everybody has something to contribute. It's a team, the team leads, and yes, we all have different roles. But that's, that's the, I think, a healthier, and you can see how, for example, different leaders of a corporation or of government, they use their cabinet. You know, either in a better, more thorough way or not. Like Lincoln for example, he took on his cabinet, consisted four of the six people on his cabinet had run against him in the election. Now isn't that smart?

Bill: it is. It, I, I remember reading that about him and just being blown

Marty: Right?

Bill: the wisdom of that.

Marty: See now that that's, he was forming a team to really have all of the things, all of the opinions, all of the directions that the country needed in one committee, one cabinet, and then, you know, he. Led the conversation like, and that's very different from, uh, somebody, I don't need to name names, you know, who, who just dictates the way it's all gonna go and everybody has to, bow down to that one person. So that, that's the, that's what I mean by leadership as a relation.

Bill: I don't think you need to name names. I everybody knows exactly who you're talking about. Let's go to the next one. Members meet their goals and commitments. What's that? Members meet their goals and commitments. So there's accountability. And by the way, the, these are the social contract for teams. We are seekers aware of and open about the areas in which we need to grow. And we proactively coach one

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Members maintain engagement and accept responsibility for elevating one another's energy. Celebrating our successes, expressing gratitude. These are great.

Marty: It is, yeah, I'm the team that I'm coaching on . Right now and, uh, their leadership team and going through the Gino Wickman's book called Traction the EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system. Is is the concept. Once they got their core values down, um. They said, well, this will be great. 'cause now whenever somebody on, you know, on the staff exhibits one of these core values, we can say, Hey, look it, look at how great that was. That's one of our core values, you know, that, that dedication to, serving that client no matter what it took, that's what, that's one of our core values. So they, that's the means by which to to, uh, you know, acknowledge each other and celebrate those things.

Bill: It starts with alignment on what those values are, and it's created by the team. And

Marty: Yes,

Bill: EOS.

Marty: that's right.

Bill: I also had studied EOS and supported one of my clients, a chiropractor in establishing what were their core values. And she got her whole team involved and did it in the old days on a whiteboard. She still has that taped up behind her office door. Every time I go in to see, or I can see that crumbly old, seven, 8-year-old paper that's, that still has all those core values. That makes me feel proud each time.

Marty: I bet. Yeah.

Bill: Me members are deeply committed to one another. And finally, our team is achieving its full potential as it pursues breakthrough innovation and transformation.

Marty: Right.

Bill: the book is Leadership as Relation. And let me ask you the same question about this book, Marty, I asked you about the listen until you disappear. What motivated and inspired this book?

Marty: I, there was a, I felt all around me a crisis in leadership. I mean, I think, you know, around 2016, I felt, I felt like the tremors in our country and people, you know, starting to shift and wonder, well, what, what, what really should leadership look like? And, and there were, you know. Models of some people thought, well, you know, there shouldn't really be any leadership basically, you know, we gotta take care. We maybe we need, you know, um. We need an army to protect us from other nations or certain things, you know, like, people to fix the sewer system, but otherwise, you know, it's little as little governance as possible. You and then there are other people who are saying, no, we need, we need like a really, like one person to really take charge here. And show us the way, and we all get behind that one person and then other people like, oh no, democracy, you know, is the answer. And we just need to do more democracy, and so I, you know, I started to look at, well, where did these ideas come from? And what and what, what is best? And it took me to a whole bunch of literature that was written in the middle of the LA 20th century, uh, came from the University of Ohio and the University of Michigan. There was a bunch of studies done. And they did, tests and, and, um, small group, uh, discussions and they went about it scientifically and they wrote a bunch of articles and I read those. And so my first thing was I, I recognized like, okay, there are times when, you know, we do need somebody, one person to say which way we're gonna go. There are times when that's true. And there are other times when, like for example, when the quarterback calls the play, we don't have a discussion about it. He just says, we're doing the. We're doing this and they do it right. And then there are other times when it's wide open, like everybody's equal. And we we're just brainstorming, like, let every idea is equally valid. We'll put 'em all on the whiteboard and right. So there are times when the laissez-faire like, just let it be, let it happen. Let them do what they need. Is most appropriate. And then there are other times when we need to take a vote, you know, and see what the majority thinks. So that was the first thing that I noticed is that instead of choosing one or the other there, we needed to be flexible. So I recognized it depends on that North star again, in any given moment, right? So that and um, and then I got to thinking about, you know, what does the fact that it changes. What does that mean right from time to time? The way things leadership need itself needs to be flexible in how it, how it's structured, what does that mean, right? And, um, and, and that other people that you know are involved. And so I got to see that leadership at its best is a relationship not only amongst, in space but in time as well. And so, yeah, it came out of my, just really reflecting on what's going on in this country.

Bill: And I got, and as you answered my question, I remembered I recognized much of what you just talked about, you wrote about at length.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: these different approaches and how they're one is needed at one time and other, another approach might be needed at another time.

Marty: Yeah. My, my. The guy that I was dating at the time that I wrote it, he, he thought that was the most important part of the whole book. Like I never thought that it could be all of them.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great read and I'm not the only one that thinks so. In fact, before we were we hit record today, you were telling me about have, having a webinar where you met someone who had been reading your articles. So tell me more about that.

Marty: Yeah. Both of these guys that I was mentioning to you, they're responding to a series of articles that I've been writing on coaching for the future. I'm really proud of them. I'm really. You know, there's nothing hackneyed about what I'm saying coaching for the future needs to be. I'm really looking deeply and boldly at what you know has become passe and not really making a difference anymore, and what coaching for a better future needs to look like. And so there's a certain, I take a certain responsibility at for my position in society for our position as coach. Coaches in society, who do we need to be for the future of our world? That's what this series is about. Um, and the one guy, I met him at a conference where I gave a talk on coaching for accountability in coaching for the future. So one of zis points there, we hold each other accountable. That you pointed to? I am, I'm, I gave a, a talk at this con was a webinar. Somebody else organized when I was invited to speak at about the, the analog element. 'cause most of the talks at the conference were on digital. Programs to hold each other accountable. Using AI or just, you know, like Slack channels, things like this. And I have experience with all of those and others, and I, what I find is that there's an analog element that needs to be part of the accountability for it to stick. And that was what my talk was about. And, um,

Bill: By analog, you mean person to person.

Marty: not necessarily, I mean, sometimes, sometimes you can, what I mean is a continuity. There needs to be a bridge between the intention to do something and be held accountable to it, and the action that gets it done. There needs to be a continuity. So a light switch goes on or off. It's digital, on or off. But a dimmer is a continuity between those points, right? It holds or bridges, right? The space between, and that's what, that's what we need to hold someone accountable. You don't just say, okay, it's your job to do this. Go do it. And then three days later, did it get done or not? Like that's not holding somebody accountable.

Bill: A form of it.

Marty: I say that's missing accountability. That's just a, that's a digital and it's an on or off thing.

Bill: I

Marty: And what accountability is, is the continuity that gets you from the intention to the action. Sparked this guy, you know, he went boom, bang, bing, snap, crackle, pop, and it set up a bunch of ideas. And so we started, we started talking.

Bill: Oh, cool. And he is the one that you heard the phrase be more human from first

Marty: that's right. He wrote, he's just finished a couple pieces of book and a dissertation of a different sort than the one that I wrote, but much how do I say, less philosophical, more hands-on, doable piece on lead on, um, leadership. And, uh, and so he comes to the same conclusion though, basically be more human like. Human isn't just, turning, you know, somebody, like dumping a project on somebody and saying, you gotta get it done by May 5th, or else that's not holding anybody accountable. So he, he was saying, we need to be more human in our leadership as well. So we, you know, we had a similar theme.

Bill: And then you hooked up with someone else on LinkedIn who was also reading your the same series. Is that right?

Marty: Yes. Yes. He liked something, a couple of things that I wrote. Um, it started out I was talking about, uh, leadership for the FU or coaching for the future. Needs to have a, a future oriented focus and in a deeper way than we usually talk about it. Um, but that North Star is back to the North Star and I, I, there was a phrase I use, I said, I compared it to, you know, there, there are short term things, you know, like profits this quarter. That you, you could compare to like, the way we, we chop down a bunch of wood early for bulk purposes. You know, like to make the kind of paper that they print, you know, dirty novels on, right? That, that kind of paper or toilet paper early, but then there's for four. For structural, like for telephone poles and the, the wood to build, you know, the structure of a building, you need to let the forest grow longer. You need to have a longer per, uh, a longer term perspective and let it grow. And I was saying that similar in coaching, we, we can't just be focused on the immediate gratification. How does that immediate. Gratification of making a million dollars next quarter, how does that fit into the overall life of this company and of these people, right? Is that, you know, is do we just give it, do whatever we have to to meet that immediate goal? Or is there a longer term perspective that's going to influence the, you know, how we live in the present? And I use that, harvesting wood analogy and he liked that.

Bill: Yeah, that's a good one. That's very good. We've just got a few minutes left, Marty and I I wanna at least mention that you're currently writing your third book that you intend to publish and it's called Beauty. Tell me how that experience is going and what's inspiring that.

Marty: I like to think it's my fourth 'cause I include my dissertation as a book.

Bill: Okay.

Marty: is a book. But of in the public, well, it's actually in the Library of Congress, but Yes. Right.

Bill: What is the name of your dissertation?

Marty: It is a long, it's a long thing. Basically it's called the short, the short title. Then after the colon, there's a long thing, but the short title is The polar sense

Bill: The Polar Sense.

Marty: Yeah. Like op opposites.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: What, when is that appropriate to think in terms of opposites and when is it not really in logic. Right. So it's about logic. But anyway, yeah, the, the ru the book I'm writing now is on beauty And um, almost immediately when I mentioned that I would say eight out of 10 people, I guess that's four out of five people say to me, oh, isn't it in the eye of the beholder? Isn't that something subjective? And, um. I wanna show that that's that there would be no beauty if we just had, if it were just sub, sub subjective, that, that the whole concept falls apart if it's just subjective. That beauty arises in a relationship as well with the object

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: are, there are schools of thought that say the opposite. They say, oh no, there is an objective. You can tell certain things are beautiful objectively and others are not. And that's, that's another, so these two schools are at odds with each other. And I'm saying no, it there's something that happens, I would say, of a spiritual nature. Like, it's not, it's not it's not in either the body of the subject or in the body of the object. It happens in the relationship between them that beauty arises.

Bill: Let me tell you how I'm relating to what you're saying right now. If I could. In 1970, I was 15 years old and my family moved from Kansas City, Kansas to Great Falls,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Prior to that the tallest hill I'd ever seen in my life was a haystack. Kansas is so flat, there are some little foothills around Missouri, around St. Joseph and that area but it's just as flat as the, as far as you can see. So flying into Great Falls , we flew over these amazing. Rocky Mountains snow covered Rocky Mountains in June, and we landed in the airport in Great Falls. There was snow on the ground , June 6th, I wanna say 1970 little inch or two of snow on the ground. And it was just like we had flown into a completely new No sooner than we got into town did we rent a car. Begin to drive outside of great falls into the foothills and into the mountains, and we start, started seeing deer and elk. It was, it just incredible. Just incredible wildlife and beauty and trees and gorgeous. And we all agreed. This is beautiful. was 1970. I lived in Montana until right around 1983. And then moved areas of the Pacific Northwest. Now, let's go fast forward to right around 1999. I had been away from Montana and had just been living in the city here in Spokane. and there's, I don't have to go very far to see mountains, but it's, eh, it's mountains. The contrast being when I went from Kansas to Montana Mountains. Oh my God. Just awe inspiring beauty. Now I'm in Spokane and someone that lives in Kansas could come to Spokane and say the same thing. Oh, this is inspiring beauty to me. It's whole hum. But in 1999, I made a trip back to Montana for the first time in about, I wanna say seven to eight years. And I, my life had changed. I was freshly divorced. I was going back to Montana to see people whose, who, whose the relationships I just burned during the marriage going back to make repairs. mind is just pretty much preoccupied and I'm driving through the panhandle of Idaho into Montana and I come around a bend and I am literally awestruck at the beauty of what I'd seen. And I'd see I'd been drive, I had driven by that a hundred times before, but something about that day. those circumstances, that

Marty: In your frame of mind?

Bill: Struck me and I went back later, I took my wife several years later back to say, I gotta show you this spot. And we drove and she said, oh yeah, that's pretty. And I thought, yeah, I, it is pretty, isn't it? But it wasn't, awe wasn't the beauty that had struck me that day in that way.

Marty: Yeah. So there there's a relation between the objective and the subject. One other thing I do wanna say that I'm Exploring in the book. It's not just that it's a relation, but also that it's the organizing relation of creation and I mean, God's creation as well as our creations. Like we created this conversation in a way, I say ultimately. Of making it a beautiful thing. And that, you know, like when, when, uh, a politician makes an argument for his policy, the ultimately it's not just because he thinks it's true, but it's beautiful. This would make for a beautiful world, you know, when you make, when you make a choice about, you know, whether to be, let's, I'm thinking of an ethical, like the whistleblower, in your company. You do it not because it's not because it, you know, it's easy or it feels good, but because it's the beautiful thing to do. So I'm looking also at beauty as sort of like the organizing principle of creation

Bill: Oh wow.

Marty: and if like, and what if we could get behind making this a more beautiful world because that's how God created it. That's the secondary thesis.

Bill: let's end on that beautiful note,

Marty: Thank

Bill: Marty. Thanks for the conversation listener. Thanks for listening. We'll, till next time.