The Authentic Mind

Bill: Well, hi Marty.

Marty: Good afternoon.

Bill: It is afternoon. Today is, it is, uh, 25th of February that we're recording this. It's about one 20 in the afternoon, and my name is Bill Tieri. This is another episode of the True You Podcast, and this is my partner Marty Kettle Hut.

Marty: Yes. Who knows what time people listen to this. It could be, you know,

Bill: Anytime it'd be the evening, morning, afternoon, middle of the night.

Marty: for us, it's the middle of the week and the middle of the day.

Bill: Yeah, that's right. And I'm, uh, I'm in my flex week, meaning that I usually don't schedule, uh, coaching appointments during this last week of the month. Uh, every once in a while I'll, I'll do, uh, makeup coaching sessions, but this is, uh, uh, a week for me to either relax or get caught up or work on projects and, and I'm, uh, doing a little bit of all of that this week.

Marty: Even in a shorter month, like February.

Bill: Yeah, just, yeah. So I'm doing sessions three weeks out of every month.

Marty: I see. Great.

Bill: Yeah. So you, uh, brought up a great topic. I think that, that, might make for an interesting conversation. Let's see. See where it goes.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And, uh, why don't I just hand it off to you and just let you explain what, what your idea is, and let's see where this convers what happens in, in this talk.

Marty: Yeah. Well, uh, uh, we, uh, this of this could come up later when we talk to Jerry Wexler again, uh, later in March. Um, because what got me going on this topic was, that I like you am writing a memoir. mine is specifically around the topic of beauty, right? So it has a, I'm not telling like my life, you know, in general, but, but they're all there. What's led me to my view of beauty, uh, these, these experiences anyway, so. Um, and, and, and, and it was, uh, or having him as a guest last year that got me thinking that this would be a better way because It's a philosophical topic, you know, what is beauty? You know, and it's only been, generally speaking, we don't discuss it. And you know, as a topic, we just say, oh, that's beautiful. I like that. That's pretty right. why do we say that? Why do we attribute to? And so for me, it's a philosophical topic and I've studied it in school too. and, and yet that's, I don't want to write, a philosophical tract. I, I definitely, I'm not trying to prove a point. Right. And it's not an exposition, right? Like, or, you know, trying to convince anybody of anything like that. So, so when we spoke with Jerry last year, I was like, oh, I should write it as, you know, like, just like a, a journey, the journey of my experiences that, taught me what I have come to see about beauty, right?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: So that's sort of just a background for, you know, then, then as I'm writing each time, and I'm, I'm quite early into this, but each time I, you know, I, I think of something that was formative

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: that I wanna write about. Then I think to myself, I'm like, oh, was this so important to me? What, what was important? What does this say about the true me

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: that I wanna tell this story? Right. Um, and that it has to do with beauty. Um, so I, you know, I was just thinking about all the, all you know, that, that question and, um, I, uh, just today, this morning, I was writing about an experience ' cause I, I, it, it has to do with Wagner's music. Which has a, you know, a lot of connotations, but, you know, people have ideas about what that means. Oh, I hate that stuff. It's so bombastic, you know, is one of the main things I hear people say, or wasn't he a Nazi? You know, like that's another thing people say. Of course he died before Hitler. Um. Um, but the Nazis loved of the things he wrote. They exploited them in his absence and his sister participated in that. She outlived him. And anyway, so there are those associations, right? And, um, and so I was, I was thinking this one, like, why was this so important to me? I remember the first opera of his that I got to know was the last one he wrote. And it, and it opens really slowly. And it's not bombastic at all. It's subtle. Right. And it's, it's, it just, it's, it's like almost like ethereal, just this music. And, and it, and it, it moves very slowly. And, and I just remember sitting and listening to this, it was long before I ever saw a production of it.

Bill: You were listening on an lp? Uh, yeah. Okay. And as you listened, what were you, what did you experience?

Marty: I was like, sucked in. Like,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: this is work. This is a, there's a huge, you could just feel there's a huge arch to this. Like it's a epic story unfolding here. Right. And, um, and I, the other, and I noticed like how the music was working too. So I, so I do like epic stories. I like big. You know, um, things that, that grab your attention and keep you like a book that, you know, you, you, you open it up and you read the first page and like, oh boy, this is gonna be a nice long haul. I'm, I'm, I'm into this. and. I also, I could hear how the music worked. doesn't write, like most composers, he uses light motifs. So they're, they're little snippets of music that have significance and he's constantly like stretching them out and. Turning them around and putting 'em in different contexts, like with a different accompaniment underneath or song versus in the violins. And so he tells the story through the music so I could hear the story

Bill: Are you? Wait, so you're saying that you just heard music. You did. Did you also hear opera singers that, that were verbal? Vocalizing the story.

Marty: that comes. That comes eventually, but it takes a while before he gets

Bill: So you're already feeling the energy of the story before you actually. Get some formation around it through the language that, that the, the singers provide.

Marty: Yes, exactly. And, and like most operas, most of the time you can't tell what the singers are saying anyway.

Bill: Right?

Marty: Right. That's un

Bill: Do you, did you already know the story before you listened to the music?

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: You could just sense the story through the music and, and the opera singers weren't helpful because you can't understand their words.

Marty: Basically, I mean,

Bill: You're only listening. Listening. You're not watching. So somehow you had the experience of a story only from listening to music and words that you didn't understand.

Marty: That's right. That's right.

Bill: Wow.

Marty: mean, I went and consulted the libretto to see like, what are they saying? You know, and, and, and get familiar with the story,

Bill: And how close were you? Did you did, was it accurate to what you had imagined that the story was being told through the music?

Marty: yeah.

Bill: Interesting.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Wow. Wow. So

Marty: so

Bill: I jump in?

Marty: this way that he writes it, it helps anybody listening to do this. Like

Bill: well I dunno, I dunno that just anybody can do that. Marty. I think that what you're describing is, is um, is extra. I think it's something that I don't, I can't imagine. I mean, I appreciate music as well.

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: And I notice all the different instruments and the different harmonies and how the, the ebb and flow of the music and the tempo and the volume, and I can appreciate all of that, but I don't imagine stories from that music and certainly don't imagine them accurately to what the composer might've intended.

Marty: Uh, well, it's not like, uh, I don't mean to say like that. I could say, oh, there's a table there, and somebody's walking over to the table and now he's taking a drink. Or like, I, it wasn't details.

Bill: But you, you have a sense of the emotional movement of the story.

Marty: Very much. Oh, clearly

Bill: Yeah. Right, right.

Marty: Right?

Bill: here's what I'm really interested in, and, and I don't know if you're doing this in your memoir or not. When you say memoir, what I think of is it's, it's almost like an autobiography. It's, it's the telling of a period of someone's life or their, or their entire life.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: this happened, and then this happened and this happened. And, um. So I'm imagining this, this would be so much fun for you to write about, to write about the experience that you're now describing to me. But,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: least are in close proximity to me and watching, watching my life unfold.

Marty: Right, exactly.

Bill: that turned out to be quite a challenge because, and this is what Jerry caught me in, and maybe we can talk to Jerry when he, when he comes in a couple of weeks and, and, and ask him about this. But I wanted to teach, when I first started writing my memoir, I wanted to teach people. As I was writing it, and he, he said, you know, you're gonna lose him if you do that. You, you?

Marty: That's, that's the number one thing that I've gotten from your feedback. The, the, the, beginning of the book that you read, it's like, oh, I'm not here to teach like I, that, that's the number one thing is like, no, I, I'm, and so I've, I've edited quite a bit since you

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: So yes. No, it's not about teaching, it's about

Bill: And yet.

Marty: what the experience was

Bill: Yes.

Marty: like,

Bill: Yes.

Marty: like this fascination with this piece of music unfolding and sucking me in and like, what is this?

Bill: here's the thing that magic that I've discovered about that is that if you can just describe your experience and tell us what you got from it in the moment that you got it.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: the reader gets to, gets to learn what they're gonna learn. And it may be the thing that you'd wanna teach them if you were teaching. That's what I, so like in my, my book starts out at, at five years old and spans all the way up till I'm 27 years old and I've, and I've just collected my 30 year, 30 day medallion of getting sober.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I'm not teaching anything in that 22 year span. But I, but the readers of of the book are telling me that they're learning a lot about themselves, about recovery, about the nature of addiction and that sort of thing. And I'm not at, at any point in the book am I saying, here, let me tell you about addiction. Lemme tell you about, you know, the lesson that I learned from this. Not at all.

Marty: Right. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. And I, the, the sample that I read of your book.

Marty: would I just say, sounded like I was trying to teach you something?

Bill: Oh, no, no, no. I, I think that I'm just. Stacking onto what you're already saying, and what I understand you to say is that you're just telling the story and, and I'm just really supporting that you do that because you're a tremendous writer. And I, the thing that, and I think I told you this too, in my review of what you sent me, was that the thing I enjoyed the most outta the sample that you gave me was the description of you crashing on your moped. Not because I wanted to see you hurt, but the way you described it.

Marty: using that insight that you, that you know that, that the way that was written was substantially different than the other parts you read to write the rest of it. Like I, I review like, oh, look at the way I did that. That's the kind of writing that I need to do here around the Bogner, for example. Right.

Bill: Y Yes. And if I, if I could, so I don't know who Wagner is. And so even as we were talking here just now, you said now, now most people read, my only reaction to that is who's Wagner. So I don't know who your reader's gonna be, but, but it doesn't matter that I don't know who Wagner is. If I'm reading,

Marty: I don't wanna teach them who Wagner is either. I just, you know, I want it to just flow like,

Bill: I wanna know. Yeah, exactly. When I'm reading your memoir, I wanna know about what is it, what was it like for Marty to go through these different ages of his life and have these experiences and learn what he learned?

Marty: Right, and I think that that, that, that is what has led me to the, you know, this topic for the true like, okay, so what is true about, what does the, what do these stories that I'm telling about my life that relate to beauty, what do they show about the true me?

Bill: And I could feel that as you were describing the, the, with the passion that you described, it just now in this conversation that it tapped into something that's true for you.

Marty: And, you know, this particular story is a, is a, opera, I should say is a story, is a hero's journey story. And, you know, I've been exposed to other, you know, like Star Wars is a Hero's Journey story.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: And um, the Ring, the Lord of the Rings is,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: a hero's journey story. There are lots of them that we're familiar with. Um, and there was something about like the, this. This, this hero, he's a nature boy. Like he come, he, he, they just, he's been wandering around lost in the, in the woods, you know? And. He, shoots zero and kills a dove, not a dove, a swan,

Bill: Hmm.

Marty: is, and all these, the, the, the monks who live on this sacred land, they come up, they're like, what did you do? You just killed the sacred swan. Who are you? What is going on here? That's where the story initiates.

Bill: I agree. Yeah.

Marty: And so I kind of identify with his innocence. Right. And that he is sort of like. He's, they have a prophecy. They, they've been telling each other about who's to come to save them. They, they've been afflicted and anyway, gonna be the one. And, but he's so innocent. He's like, oh, uh, I don't know. I kill whatever I can to make, you know, to make dinner. Right. And so that's, that's part of what I, um, identified with him. But there's another part of this story that. I think is interesting to me and about me. I, I was so taken with this other, just a different kind of music. doesn't write like other composers, and, and this is, you know, I'm not the first person to assert that it's well known. And, and so I was so taken what, how different this music was that I did a lot of reading about it. And I found out that Wagner himself had started a foundation when he was still alive that would allow musicians from around the world to come to bi where he built his theater and performed these operas and see them and experience them and learn about them and, and so. I, I, I didn't know how to get, you know, that I didn't have their address. They, they don't publicize this.

Bill: Hmm.

Marty: And so I just wrote to the Chamber of Commerce in the city of this little Bavarian city By, it's not, it is like, you know, maybe 30,000 people live there.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Of course in August, the city fills up with lots of people for the festival. But, um, I just, I thought, well, I'll run to the Chamber of Commerce and see if they could me up with the Wagner Foundation. it turns out who is, who is the mayor, and it's a small town and runs the Chamber of Commerce, is also the head of the Wagner Foundation.

Bill: Perfect.

Marty: So he put me in touch with people where I lived that would interview me to see if I could, you know, I was a candidate for this scholarship. So there was something about the adventurousness, the, the, you know, the willingness to try and to

Bill: Right.

Marty: out there.

Bill: and creative. Right.

Marty: right.

Bill: Creative.

Marty: I had a nice interview with this little old

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: who represented the Wagner, um, and afterwards she, she said, oh, oh, she would you, I could tell it was going well, and then she was gonna say yes. so I got really ballsy and I said, could I bring my lover?

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Which, you know, I was like thinking the Wagner people are probably very conservative. I don't know if I can bring a male lover along and they pay for it and, and so she said, I'll submit it. We'll see, you know, and they went, they wound up paying for both of us to go to

Bill: Wow. Wow.

Marty: And you get lodging and delicious food for all the meals for a week. every day there's a lecture on the opera for that evening. And you know, so you can familiarize yourself with the light motifs and you can hear them when the, when it begins, and they give you a little history and everything. and then, then, then the opera. And it was such an amazing thing to be, you know, we are like. Bohemians, I'm in a tweed coat, you know, and, and khaki pants. And these people, most of the people there are very wealthy, like dressed to the nines, long dresses and jewelry and tuxedos, you know,

Bill: Huh.

Marty: here, here we are, you know, like a couple of graduate students got in somehow to this amazing experience.

Bill: And I assume that your lover, your partner, was also much appreciative of the experience, the music that

Marty: Yeah. Very,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: very much. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Wonderful. Look at your pa Joy, your passion, uh, as you're telling the story. I'm hoping that this story is gonna be in your book, the whole story.

Marty: it is. It, it it will be. Yes. I was just working on it today. So, yeah, so that, that, you know, it's, it's interesting how that, that shows you something about me that just, but my telling it

Bill: Oh, yeah.

Marty: but what is true about me and how I live my life.

Bill: Yeah. And. You know, this is, may feel a little off topic, but I think it may be closer to on topic than I, than that first glance it looks like. But I've got this idea, this theory, that when, when babies are born, they are souls that have, that have a history already, and that they come into these bodies with pre-baked personalities and preferences. And when I hear you talk about this, you know, you're describing with enthusiasm and joy, something that I would just turn down in a heartbeat. I would not, I would not put my life synergy into this because it's not something that I'm interested in. But look at you. Look how interested you are in it. And so I think, I think absolutely. It says something about who you are and, and reflects, you know, what's what I think, what brings us joy. What, what makes time just disappear.

Marty: Right,

Bill: What puts this into the flow? what, pulls us forward like in an undeniable way. Like, we can't, not, do we, we can't not do it. We gotta do it.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. and I think that I, I subscribed to that same theory. I learned it somewhere else that, that, you know. We are not like blank slates when we come into this life,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: but we've got, we've got call it karma, you know, in a good sense and in a bad sense. Um, and, and so I think some of these experiences that we might consider difficult or challenging, we chose them so that we could transform that karma and, and get freer and um, one live to the next.

Bill: Yeah, I'm not, I, I don't know that I understand karma. Um. I, I think it's, I'm open to it and, and it's interesting. I just think that, however, whatever we've experienced in however many lifetimes that we've lived by the time we, we land in these bodies

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: up in what we find humorous. And I mean, there's babies that they don't even smile for the first six months of their lives. And then there's babies that are practically laughing on their way out the womb. And, and, and then there's everything in between as well. And it's just so interesting. I, I've always been, been fascinated with babies to watch their. Personalities as they develop in the days after they're born. Incredible. And I think that, that, that shows up. I mean, who they are at five days old is who, you know, who we're gonna see them being at 25 years old or 55.

Marty: It's amazing. So I. I was sort of thinking about this topic last night that we might talk about today, and I wondered, because I notice when you talk about your experiences in the groceries.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: industry industry that there's, there's something that feels very Bill about those experiences. I wondered, like, would you say that, like for me, you know, the, the experiences of learning about Wagner's music is something telling about me that your experiences in the grocery industry is so, tells you something about the true you.

Bill: I think so. I think you know that and the way that I often will talk about my experience 21 years in the grocery business is, and most of the careers that I've. Had, with the exception of coaching, is that I loved it and I hated it. And I think both of those extremes tell, tell myself, tell me and anybody that's watching about me, what is it? What is it that I hated? And what is it that I loved? And, and, uh, and the in between loving and hating was me just wanting, but not knowing how to get back to loving it again. I loved being creative. I loved being independent. I loved being autonomous. I loved, uh, being able to take actions that, that, that created results, rewards, and.

Marty: Right. That's one of the things I remember you saying, like, like it made a difference how things were stacked, where things were on display and you, and, and, and you know about what got sold and the, and I was, that was, that's, I was so fascinated to hear that about you.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Another example of that, um, showed up when I was, interestingly, I didn't write about this in my book, and I'm surprised I didn't because it was, it's, it's such a fun memory for me. But when we were living in Great Falls, Montana, I'm 15, 16 years old, and. Really into baseball. I mean, I loved baseball and what I loved most about it besides playing it in the backyard, I wasn't very good when it came to competing, but I loved playing catch and hit hitting the ball and playing 500 out in the field and that sort of thing. But I loved the statistics part of it. I

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: surprised I didn't end up being A-C-P-A-I. So I got a couple of poster boards and set up a scoreboard for the American League and the National League, uh, in 1971. And I had it downstairs, uh, in the unused kitchen on the counter, and I had cut little holes in it and, and cut out little numbers that I could replace so that I could keep track of the wins and losses for every team on both leagues. And, uh, and I would change that every day. I would look at the newspaper in the morning to see who won and who lost, and then I would change my, my standings. I did that every day through, well, at least one, one season. That's 165 games for, I don't know. I think at that time there were 12, 12 teams that were playing.

Marty: Uh

Bill: And, and so that, that interest in numbers and, and, and seeing things change and,

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: uh, rooting for a team. Well, I was, I was my own team and, and the story that I was working on was my team and, and there were things that I could do to hit a home run and things I could do to strike out. And, and I, I just loved that. I really enjoyed it. I love playing the game alive.

Marty: That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when my dad would take us to the, we lived on the other side of the Mississippi from St. Louis, but close. And so we'd, we'd go to Bush. It was, at that time it was Bush Stadium where the Cardinals played.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: And, um, and I was, I was the one who kept score. I had this, the,

Bill: Right.

Marty: the, this chart and I kept track of every, every

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: every bat, every walk, the whole thing and all the statistics. I was into that.

Bill: What year would that have been that you would've been in at Bush Stadium?

Marty: um, somewhere between 1970 and 1977.

Bill: Well, that's pretty, so, so I was there in 1969 at Bush Stadium,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: because we, at that time lived in Topeka, Kansas, and most of my relatives lived in Kansas City in Independence, Missouri. And one day my uncle Tom, my dad, my brother and I drove across Missouri for a Cardinals game.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: It's a great memory.

Marty: Yeah, I, so, so, back to keeping track like, um. There's something very compelling. You know, when statistics, like, they don't lie. They, they tell you and, and they develop slowly, and the end of the day, you add 'em up and they either this team won or that team won and that, you know, they don't, that's they're, they're tooth telling.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, and as we're talking about this right now, I think part of my interest in things like statistics and keeping track of numbers and the way the way to measure to win or lose has to do with survival mechanisms that I developed growing up too.

Marty: Oh wow.

Bill: I believe that, you know, um, I, I, I heard years and years ago, uh, what landed initially as bizarre, a statement that landed just as bizarre to me, and that was that children are begging for boundaries. That wasn't my experience as a father. It didn't seem like that that's not the way that I viewed. My kids

Marty: are, say it again. Children

Bill: are begging for boundaries.

Marty: begging for boundaries.

Bill: My kids rebelled against any boundary that I would set for them. So I I, but then when I thought, well, that can't be right, they're not begging. I don't see in any way, shape or form how they're begging me for boundaries.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: But then as I started watching, after I heard that, I realized that in fact, yes, that, that they have to have boundaries even though they might rebel and push back against them, they really want them so that they know what's safe and what isn't, so that they know how far they can go and how when they have to stop.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: The best example of that is my daughter Sarah, who um, was, I don't know, 12 or 13 years old, and she was on the phone, and in those days, the phone was attached to the wall with a long 20 foot cord where she could walk around the corner and keep her conversation secret. Um, so much has changed over these years. Anyhow, she stayed in the kitchen where I happened to be sitting at the kitchen table when she took this call from, let's just say Mary, and, uh oh, she says, oh, hi. Hi, Mary. Um, I don't know. Let me, let me ask. And she covers the phone, but not really, and says, Hey dad, can I spend the night at Mary's? And she's shaking her head no. And I, and I got it. I said, oh, absolutely not. You haven't done your homework and you've gotta get caught up on your chores. You have to stay home tonight. Oh, I'm sorry Mary. I can't spend the night. So that's a, that's an extreme example maybe of, of how kids are begging their boundaries. But I think there's. The, the same thing goes with statistics, like, how am I doing? What's the score?

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: well are we doing? I, I've got a scoreboard up here on to my left that keeps track of my coaching business and how I'm doing in, in, in my business. And I love, I love playing the game of business almost as much as I love coaching.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Order,

Bill: Yeah. Exactly in the mi from chaos came the need for order. Exactly. That's what, that's what I think is going on and maybe why I have such an interest in that. And yet there's more to it than just that, that, that, there's something about that that really draws me.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: It has me very, very interested. Who knows, maybe I just wanted to write brothers or, or something was to trying to figure stuff out in a previous life, who knows how to calculate engineering and, and that sort of thing.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can identify with that in a lot of ways. I'm thinking of a lot of it, you know, my own, like the baseball statistics is one of them, but there are other things and, and so I, I, I can see that in you, and I can, and I can see that in, in me. I think the, the, the thing about Wagner, one of the things that it tells about me is that I like to escape.

Bill: Mm, fantasized.

Marty: To be a Fantas. Yeah. Absorbed in another reality.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: and, and that, you know, did a lot of that as a kid. 'cause, know, I didn't want, I didn't wanna be around. You know, dad yelling at mom and, you know, my brother's getting in trouble. I just wanted to get away from it all, you know, and go down in the basement and work on my train set, or go read an an engrossing novel. You know, like I did a lot of that as a kid.

Bill: Are you writing about that in your book? you are. I hope you do. I really, I, I think it's all relevant. I think it all fits together.

Marty: I'm sure that's true. I'm sure that's true.

Bill: Like why were you drawn to books? It's because you found the beauty in books. Why were you drawn to, to building, working on your train set? Because you found beauty in that experience.

Marty: mm-hmm. Yeah. Right.

Bill: And you can call it escap.

Marty: There was, there was an order, order, like a love of order in that too, because you know, there's electricity flowing through those tracks.

Bill: Right?

Marty: You have to get it right or the train doesn't work.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: know, like especially when you start, it's not just a circle, but when you start adding switches and other directions that the trains can go and other trains on the same track, and it gets complicated electronic for electricity at that. That was part of my fascination

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Always the scientist, huh? What works and what doesn't?

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. are there other things that, that you can think of that were like, sort of re, that are revealing of the true you experiences that you've had that not necessarily like in a co being coached, um, but, but where you, you is just somehow speaks for who you are.

Bill: Yeah, this, this is a, maybe a different aspect. What you're asking about, but I think it's just as, uh, it's in the same category of, of what we're talking about now, and that is that internal guidance system. And I think you and I talked about this before. I, I absolutely believe that we all have an internal guidance system and that, that, uh, the way it seems to work is that when I am experiencing joy and interest and curiosity authentically. That, that my guidance system is saying, yeah, move in that direction. And when I'm experiencing, um, displeasure, uh, if I'm suffering, experiencing, uh, discomfort,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: then my internal guidance system wants me to pay attention to that as well. I, for example, I have, um, I have an internal timer that that tells me when it's time to leave. Uh, if I don't have a, a speaking of boundaries, if I don't have a closed end, this is how, this is how long I can be here doing this thing,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: then, then something inside says, okay, this has been enough.

Marty: Uh.

Bill: And so I think that there, that that tells us something about ourselves and about each other as well. Not, not from, not from a place of judgment or valuation, but, but just that we, that if, if we are to trust ourselves, then I think that we need to pay attention to every, everything that happens that's involuntary. And most of it is, that's what I've noticed is that most of my life, unless I'm very conscious about it, very intentional about it, most of my life is pretty automatic.

Marty: Right.

Bill: So that, that internal, after 47 minutes of, let's say, sitting and watching my friend's daughter, uh, at, at a gymnastics meet, uh, it was time. It was, it was just time my body needed to leave.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: that I didn't love what, what I'd experienced up to that point or the people that I was hanging out with. It just was time to leave. And I don't know why that, that, that it was time to leave at that point, but it was, and it worked out well. And I don't know if that's it's because I avoided being in an accident if I'd left three minutes later or an hour later or what, what it was about. But I'm, I've just grown to really trust that when I get these internal indications of, of it's time to move or leave or stop or start, that I need to pay attention to those things.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then that indicates, and we've talked a little bit about this as well, to me, that points to that, that the authentic me is not contained in this body, that the authentic me. Uh, draws from resources that go well beyond what I'm consciously aware of it as the me that that's experiencing this, this earthly life.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and that's, I love that you know that there's something that is. Authentically you, the true you that is not contained in your body,

Bill: Yeah. In fact, the body might be contained within whatever that is. That

Marty: whatever

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Bill: Or, or they may, may just only be vaguely, remotely related to each other. I, I, I have a, I used to have a friend who would say, um, something along the lines, I wish I could say it the way that she did. 'cause it was always very funny the way she said it, but something to do with it. The body is just transportation. She just needs somebody for transportation. So.

Marty: Right. Right. That's good. Right? That's how we get around, you know? But it's not who we are.

Bill: right. Yeah. Since we're on this, on this, in this material plane, having this material experience, we need to have a body so we can move around and pick things up.

Marty: Yeah. Well that reminds me of, um, one of the other things that I, I don't know, somehow it feels to me very telling about the true me my best meditation experiences. The ones where I would like really was not thinking for a long time,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: like, and, and was like just free and, and blissful and, um, and, and, and deeply into it. The, the has always happened when I was sitting in a group. I've never had as deep an experience on my own as I've had sitting with others. And there have been a couple times when, you know, it was particularly one time I was, when I was living in New York City and this buddy and I, we, we rented a loft, I mean a, um, a commercial loft space. You know, the rest of the floors in this building were full of. Carpeting from the East. It was just a storage building, but the fifth floor wasn't, wasn't, hadn't been filled up yet, and we rented it from this. Indian guy, and this is on 27th Street just off of Broadway in New York City. And we lived there for a couple years in this huge, like 5,000 foot space. You know, a warehouse with a little kitchen in the corner and a bathroom. Um, and um, and we had great, you know, parties and stuff there. one time I invited my meditation group over and everybody brought, we had a Pollock dinner and we had dinner and then we, we to the other end of the, the space and we sat in a circle and we just let ourselves go into meditation. And I think we sat for like two hours. All of us completely just gone, you

Bill: Well,

Marty: It was amazing. It was one of the best meditations I've ever had. And so I think that the, you know, like that being in a community is part of it

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: and, and letting go of the need to think or the desire to think, you know, and, and just be together with no conversation. That, that really, I don't know. It, it, it was. Something I value hugely

Bill: I am thinking of a book that I read about this, about the power of. Prayer and meditation in groups, you know, um, often I'll see on social media somebody's had a tragedy or a scary thing is happening. Someone got hit by a car, now they're in the hospital. And the comments in Facebook often will be thoughts and prayers. And uh, and then someone will also comment, keep your thoughts and your prayers to yourself. Who needs that? That's worthless. But the fact is that. And, and, and I say it as as a fact because I, I believe this is so, that prayer actually is powerful and it really works. Uh, and, and regardless what, and my beliefs have changed over the years, and I've, I've thought about this when I absolutely was angry about the idea that, that, that there would be a God mad about it. And, and then, you know, as time's gone on, I'm certainly not angry about it at all. In fact, I. You know, I believe that now, and, and so, but, but still, to me, the idea of prayer is somewhat of a mystery only in that I wonder why it works and, and, and how it works rather than whether it works. And so one of the, one of the books that I read, um, and I'd love to, I'm gonna type it in here and see if I can find it. I'd like to figure out which book it was, but it described how, um. There was an a, a group of people who all gathered in Washington, DC and, um, prayed, might have been tm, uh, for three or four days straight with an intention to drop the crime rate,

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: uh, over whatever period of time that was, maybe it was a month, and they measured, measured before, during, after. Historical, and it was clearly indisputably that the crime rate dropped

Marty: Oh my

Bill: when they had this group of people that were meditating together with that intention.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So when you talk about meditation in a group, I absolutely think that there's something happening there that I, I don't understand, but I'm fascinated by. Bye.

Marty: Well, one of the things is, you know, I, I feel like I can let go, like, okay, I'm, you know, we're all doing this together. Like, I, I don't have to be on, like, when I'm alone, I, I, there's part of me that, you know, to be on guard 'cause I'm alone and I might need to defend myself or, or just answer the

Bill: Right.

Marty: or whatever, you

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: But when we are all doing it together, it like it, there's like this. You are safe, you know, we're all doing this, and, and so it, it's that. I think that's, that's a part of it. I also think that, you know, like if you take that example that you just sort, you

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: said, and you, you extend it, let's say like that you got, you know, a hundred thousand people to sit around the world

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: or 2 million people for all over the world. Well, the crime rate would go down in part because

Bill: everybody.

Marty: people now committing crimes. That's one reason, that's one way it works. But, but, but you know, you're actually create, you are actually creating peace on

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not finding the book that I was hoping it would hop out on, off the page. But you know, Lynn McTaggart, I, I think anything that she writes is worth reading. Uh, she wrote a book called The Power of Aid about this, um. And then you're old enough to remember, I think this is from the eighties, somebody had written around about the hundredth monkey. Does that sound familiar?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: what do you remember about that? Because I, I, I might just massacre the, the, the, the explanation of it. If you understand it, I wanna hand it to you.

Marty: I don't, I don't, no, I, I remember that, and this isn't about, you know, go ahead.

Bill: Well, I, what I remember about it is, I, I, okay, I'll stop looking over there. Uh, that there were, there were two islands of monkeys, and these monkeys were being observed on both islands, and it had something to do with how the monkeys were opening the coconuts and getting the milk and eat, eating the meat of the coconut. And on one island. It was, uh, observed that, uh, um, one or two monkeys had figured out that they could bang the coconuts on a rock or bang rocks on the coconut and crack them open. And when other monkeys on that same island saw them doing that, they very quickly adapted the strategy. And now all the monkeys on that island

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: are doing that to open up the coconut and, and. They, they say the hundredth monkey. When the hundredth monkey adapted that strategy, all of a sudden all the monkeys on the other island that were completely disconnected from this island began the, the same strategy

Marty: Interesting. Yeah. Well, this is the other thing that this brings up. The other thing that I wanted to say about the, the. The group meditation and the bringing the crime rate down and everything,

Bill: I.

Marty: I think it, it suggest it. What it illustrates I'm gonna say to me is that is the, the oneness of human mind.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: You know, there's a, there's a, I have a different brain than you have, but, but our thinking, there's lots of ways in which we could illustrate that. We we're not thinking alone. We're thinking to, you know, communally. You know, we're, we inherit a history of a way of thinking and then we, we contribute to that and we pass it around and, and, and so I, I think there, and there are lots of other ways to approach this too, but I think that that's, where, where I think what it suggests about the true US is that. Um, there is, there is a, there is a communal mind. There's this shared mind besides the individual minds, there's also shared mind. And so yeah, if you get a, if you get enough of that shared mind on the, on the same peaceful wavelength, you know, it, or, or the creative in innovative wavelength of the monkeys. It, it's contagious. Yes. It, it's, it's through the whole mind.

Bill: There's a woman by the name of Brooke Steele, who has a very popular podcast and has had for at least the last 12 years now, and she has the name of a podcast is, um, the Life Coach School. And, uh, when I was first coaching. And coaching part-time. I searched for podcasts 'cause I was running a lot in those days. And I put my headphones on or earpiece on, and I'd go for seven to 13 mile runs and listened to one episode after the other, after the other, after the other. And one of the things that, um. When I discovered her, even in the first two or three episodes of her podcast, she talked about her experience with Byron Katie, which really got me interested because by then I had already been listening to Byron Katie for about, not listening, but practicing the, the, the method of Byron Katie for about 10, 12 years. And as, as, uh, Brooke Castillo talked about her experience and what she took away from the Byron Katie. Experience. I was right there with her. The, I was having the same kinds of experiences that she was having. I loved how she had taken what she'd learned from Byron Katie and, and installed it into her coaching practice. And I had created, um, a tool, you know, me, to create all kinds of tools. When I discovered things, I, I create tools. Well, I created a tool called, uh, outcome by Design. And the way, the way it worked was using the logic of Byron Katie, which is that anytime we have thoughts that. That argue with reality, we suffer and then suffering, I took it a step further. Suffering is disempowering. If we, if we operate from a place of suffering, we're operating from a place of, of lack of power.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, and so the outcome by design was to notice the results that you're getting. Recognize that you're getting the results that you're getting because of the things that you're doing, and you're doing the things that you're doing because of how you feel emotionally, and you feel emotionally how you feel emotionally because of the things that you think and you think the things that you think because of what you believe.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then I'd work that back and forth. Well, so then what you need to do if you want a different outcome, what is that? What actions would you have to take to get that outcome? How would you have to feel to be willing to take those actions? What would you have to think to have those feelings and what would you have to believe for those thoughts? Just flow freely and now what can we do to install that belief in you? That's, that's the way I worked back then 13 years ago as a coach.

Marty: That's beautiful.

Bill: I'm listening now to RK Castillo and she says, okay, I've got this method called C-T-F-A-R. Circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, results. What? I thought, she stole it from me. She, she, she must have read my material somewhere and she stole it and she rebranded it. I can't believe she, I'm so mad at Brooke as deal now for doing that. But then I realized, you know, I think this has happened many, many, many times before where I've gotten the same, this unique idea. Breakfast burritos is another example of this. I breakfast Bri, nobody ever thought of breakfast burritos before and I thought of it, I should. I should franchise that. And then McDonald's came out with it that same week.

Marty: Oh my

Bill: I thought about it. Anyhow, I think,

Marty: a German,

Bill: what

Marty: German word for that

Bill: is it?

Marty: type geist,

Bill: Tight geist.

Marty: right?

Bill: Yeah. I felt a little tight geist.

Marty: Geist is the word either for mind or spirit.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: You can further distinguish when, when Germans speak about geist, they say, well, I mean geist in the sense of, you know, your mind, your intelligence. Or they say, no, I mean spirit like a ghost, or you know, a.

Bill: Hmm mm-hmm. Poultry.

Marty: where we get our word goes,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: the word

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Um, so that psych geist is, you know, that that's a concept that a lot of Americans use too, right? Oh, we, yeah. You know, the, the, the, the, the Beatles, they were part of this whole psych geist of freedom

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: social justice like that. We use that term quite a

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: what it means.

Bill: yeah. So this is more, um, uh, evidence, I suppose, of the, of the one mind that we share.

Marty: Yeah. I, I, I think so

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Yeah. Um, yeah, we're all working it. And this also reminds me of these studies in physics. You know, the Einstein was puzzled by, you know, how could this Adam, something happens to this Adam, and it's affecting this other Adam on, you know, that's a million miles

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Like, how did they relate? And so, um, David B comes after. Einstein and, and says, well, his theory is that, that there never was separation. Nothing is really separated that any spec of the universe is, you know, it's a, it contains all of the information of the whole universe in it. You know, mean, you think about if you really started to study, I don't know, a grain of sand on the beach in Africa. Well, it would connect to where it came from, which has relates to history and where all of that, and you, pretty soon you get the whole history of the universe from it. And so, you know, it might very well be that the reason why these, sense of shared mind is there is because, you know, it, we're not, we never, were really

Bill: Right. Yes. Yes.

Marty: The, the separation is the illusion and the truth is that it's all connected.

Bill: Right. Yeah. Love that. Now, who's, is it Elizabeth? Um, what's her last name? She, she eat, pray, love. Let's do.

Marty: Gilbert.

Bill: Is it Elizabeth Gilbert? She wrote another book since then that talks about, oh, big Magic is the name of that book, and it's a fantastic book. And she, she writes about, she tells about, um, this inspiration for a book that she was gonna write,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: but this happened that happened and she wasn't able to get the book written. Years later, she falls in love with this other author, uh, who's written some great stuff, and she's at one of her events and they sit down for coffee and, um. The author that she gets to know is telling her about a book that she's inspired to write, and it's the book that, that Elizabeth wasn't able to write years earlier. It is almost precisely the book that, and, and, uh, so her, her theory about that is that we have these muses that come visit us with these ideas and they don't hang around long. If we don't grab the idea and do something with it, they'll go to somebody that's more receptive to than, than we are. I love that. I mean, that is exciting to, to think about that, that.

Marty: Well, and it's not that. It's not, that in itself is not just her idea either, that the muses go way back to ancient times, right? The, and that's the, the Greeks talked about the muses and builds statues of them and everything. So that she's, she, that's another aspect of the communal mind that she's expressing

Bill: Right. And it kind of explains how before we had language in writing, that information would get passed on. And, and, and I, I guess what I understood at one point was that, well, it must be passed on from one generation to the next, to the next. And that's this, this legacy wisdom that, and that, that, uh, um, Aboriginal people, uh, share without, without the common. Um, ways to collect and store data that we have now. Uh, but it's, but it now, it, it appears it's more like, um, the ability to, to tap into and access the archives in, in that, in that shared mind space somehow.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: about the same dynamic.

Marty: Well, I think that's, that's why people like the Dalai Lama or you know, the Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed, they, they're accessing the archives why they say these things that are so true for everybody for all times because they're, they're living in that reality of, of the connectedness of it

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, so this, just to wrap up here, uh, before we end, I wa I wanna just kind of, uh, think about some of the things that we talked about here and, and kind of where we ended up going. You were talking about Li lived experience and how that reflect. Um, who we really are. Uh, and, and you, you talked about that in relationship to the book that you're writing on beauty and, um, and we ended up talking about memoirs there for a little while. And now look where the conversation's gone. Way, way beyond this, this, this singular identity of who I am as true self to base, maybe who we are as, as true people, as as, as a, as.

Marty: And, and who I am as us.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: Who you are. As us. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. That's right. That's right. What a interesting, interesting conversation. I really appreciate it. I, we, neither of us knew where this was gonna get go. I'm really glad you brought it up.

Marty: Well, thank you for indulging me and you know, and that's something we didn't know where it was gonna go. I appreciate your, your, um, willingness to come along.

Bill: Before we end, I wonder if I can put you on the spot and, and if it's a no, then we'll just cut this out of the end of the podcast episode. But I wanted to follow up with you from the coaching that you and I did a couple of weeks ago

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that was released just last week, I believe, as an episode.

Marty: Yeah. Uh, thank you for asking about that. Um, I could say a lot about it, but let me be brief. Um, it has impacted me enormously. I redid my plan for 2026 in a much more creative way, I got in touch with, the part of me that is just at home and being creative, like knows that I am creative and that I'm good at it and that I love it. And, um. So I, I have a whole new lease on life for this year after

Bill: Wow.

Marty: Yeah. I, you know, I, I, you know, that like I, I know that I'm, I am a virtuoso at it. In fact, like that's where I'm coming from as opposed to. Oh my God. How am I going to these difficult waters and get over the constraints put on me by society? Like, I'm not in that space at all. I'm, I am. I am. Uh, I know that I, I'm creating my reality and, and I'm happily doing it. It's fun. Like I walk around, I walk around. My apartment or the the, and I'm just like a little kid, like, oh, this is so fun what I, what I'm making of this life. So it was profound and helpful.

Bill: Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with me. One more thing I wanna just say before we end, and that is that we have a, a bunch of, uh, guests signed up to, to join us here for the next couple months. We, we will have, uh, uh, a woman by the name of, uh, Marisa Slosky. I hope I'm pronouncing her name correctly. She's gonna be joining us. She reached out to us and, and showed an interest in being a, a guest and once she filled out our application, you and I both looked at it at it and said, yeah, let's get her on the show. And there's Jerry Wexler, who as you said, mentioned, uh, joined us last year and we're looking forward. He's my memoir coach and, um, he's a memoir writer and, uh, also an IFS therapist. So.

Marty: He's rubbed off on me as well, even though I haven't, you know, hired him to help me. I've learned a lot already.

Bill: Oh yeah. He's got so much to teach just in a single conversation. There's so much to glean from him. And then there's Nick, Nick Mima, a mutual friend of, uh, both yours and mine, who's in our coaching excellence team that meets every Friday morning. And it'll be great to have Nick on. Uh, he's got a wealth of experience and knowledge and wisdom. Then we're gonna, we're gonna have some of the authors of the parks work guidebook. My fellow authors, uh, Allison and Elina will be joining us for one episode. So there'll be four of us on the podcast episode that, that. And then also Morgan, another one of the authors out of, she's living in Michigan and she's signed up as well. So we'll have her on the show as well. And we're hoping to have Noga the, the fourth, the fifth and final, uh, author of the Parksville Guidebook. And the reason that we wanna have everybody on the show, all of these authors of the Parkwood Guidebook, is that we've released the candle version of it now, and the parts, uh, the, the, excuse me, the print version. Should, should be out here in about a month. And, uh, Elina and I are working on the audio book, so we're hoping in two to three months we, we will have the audio book out as well. So should be fun having all these guests.

Marty: Yeah, we got a lot of great episodes coming up.

Bill: Marty. Thank you have, enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks.

Marty: You too. Thank you, bill.

Bill: Bye.

Marty: Bye.