On Being Neurodivergent with Morgan Monte

Bill: active minds, active people, people that are really up to a lot. Often have so much going on that they begin to get overwhelmed by it all.

Bill: I choose not to do what I don't wanna do. I choose to do what I wanna do and I wanna be doing what I wanna do all the time.

Bill: If nothing else is going on, I got time to spend some time on it now. I will do that, but I know it's not so urgent that I can't be present for whatever's happening right now.

Marty: Welcome everybody. You're you dialed into another edition, another episode of the True You podcast,

Bill: dates you dialed in. I don't think people don't dial anymore.

Marty: That's true. But we, and we still refer to Zoom meetings as calls well,

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: As you, as you can hear, I'm with my, um, co-host, bill Tierney. My name's Martin Kettle.

Bill: How did that, how did that flow? Okay. Did you, was that all right to say it that way?

Marty: I stumbled. At that time I had to stop and think, what am I gonna say? Not partner, but co-host.

Bill: it is. Just before, for the listener, before we hit record, Marty is saying, you know, I just, I, I don't, I, I always call you my partner, but then that kind implies so many different things and I wanna, what else would I call you? And so I made some suggestions and he landed on you. You landed on co-host and I, I love that. PO Podcast co-host.

Marty: Well, and we have other relationships too. Um, we're, we are friends

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: and we're also members of a group of coaches that call themselves the Coaching Excellence Team. Um. We have other connections besides this podcast as Well,

Bill: and a lot more in common too. You know?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: It's okay to say so. I think you've said so on the podcast, we're both in recovery.

Marty: Both in recovery. We're both bald.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: We're both in our sixties.

Bill: No, I'm not in my sixties.

Marty: Oh, you're no longer in your sixties. That's right. You're 71 now.

Bill: Yeah, I just turned 71.

Marty: Now

Bill: Yep.

Marty: you better

Bill: So we could, we can just say we're both old.

Marty: Okay. We're both old.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: So, uh, we were talking, um, before getting, uh, getting on the podcast today projects and having lots of projects and, and also coaching people have lots of projects and, and exciting it is. And yet, you know, you at a certain point, you're, you wanna like, wait, am I keeping track of it all? Am I moving everything forward where I need to be? Um, am I over my head? Is it too much? How do I organize all this? There's all these things come up when you're, uh, involved in a lot of stuff that you, that's important to you and, and that needs to be prioritized in some sense. So, um. There are this, this is something that a lot of and, and, and, and curious people, um, wrestle with, and so we thought we'd talk a little bit about how to best go about that today. Mm-hmm.

Bill: There's a lot of aspects of this and there's a lot of ways that we could go about talking about it. Um, the first thing that pops into my mind is that, that active minds, active people, people that are really up to a lot. Often have so much going on that they, they begin to get overwhelmed by it all and, and it gets disorganized and, and, and, uh, and that can be very stressful, even, even, uh, anxiety producing. Um, we might just call that aspect of this conversation. The log jam.

Marty: Okay. Yes, I've been, I've, I've been log jammed myself many times

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: and had to find a way out. Yes.

Bill: Yes. And so finding a way out can produce negative consequences if it, if it's not, if we're just escaping, like ending a job,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: a relationship, severing a bridge, um, withdrawing from commitments.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Doing so abruptly without consideration for the impact on others that, that, that might bring temporary relief.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And it comes with a, just a whole pile of repairs that eventually are gonna need to be made or other workarounds just to, to manage how it feels to, to walk away from something you've made a commitment to.

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

Bill: Or it can be brought back into balance and, and something that's much more manageable, uh, if approached in a, in a very thoughtful and, uh, compassionate, I would say way.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. Um, yes.

Marty: And then another phase of this, or part of this is organization. How do I organize myself and these projects?

Bill: Right, right.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And I wanna suggest that maybe we, we just approach the conversation from the perspective of the coach that helps people that come to, to them

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: this challenge.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, and you and I have talked about how, how you coach and how I coach. The framing around a coaching session for me has, has become, gotten illuminated to me. It's gotten pretty clear

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that the client wants something. We could call that the coaching objective.

Marty: Yeah, I, I, I always say, do you have a request, a coaching request? What? What is it you request? We, we look at.

Bill: So the over the objective would be the overall umbrella that all those requests would fall under. In, in the way I think about it,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: I wanna know when a client comes to me, what are you hoping coaching will help you accomplish if we're successful, how would you know that kind of question And, and then we frame that in such a way that we have a clearly stated coaching objective and sometimes. We'll make it a clearly stated, aspirational vision for what life looks like once that objective is achieved,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right. objective is for, uh, covers the whole, the whole coaching relationship. A a request is usually for a particular hour together.

Bill: right? Specifically in this hour together, how, what is, what is the outcome you wish? What is it you wanna discuss? What, what breakthrough, I mean, there's a, there's a thousand different questions we could ask to establish that.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: by the way, um, if there's coaches listening and, and you don't already realize this, consider that the entire coaching session, the entire hour or 45 minutes or how much time you spend in coaching could be spent just fleshing out the coaching request. And that would be a great benefit to the client

Marty: It is. It is indeed. Yeah.

Bill: because it brings about clarity.

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

Bill: And, and Clarity is one of the eight Cs. Just, and, and not that we need to limit it to the eight Cs, but it's just one of those experiences. Of tapping into innate resources. It's like priming the pump of now more will flow. If I can get clear about what it is that I want or, and don't want. If I can get clear about what is the problem, if I can get clear about the plan and that's, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself. So once we have a coaching objective, um, for me it's important to understand the gap between where the client is now. As they stand in the desire of that objective of, of achieving that objective. So we need to establish that gap.

Marty: The gap between where they are now and where they want to be.

Bill: Exactly,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and often, more often than not lately, I'm noticing that the best way to establish that gap is to recognize the pattern or the cycle that the client finds themselves automatically involuntarily stuck in.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That produces the, the, the result that they're getting now, which is also known as the problem.

Marty: And, and one other thing about establishing that gap, you know, talking about the gap, which is where this cycle occurs, is. Currently in that gap is

Bill: I.

Marty: how, do you want client, Mr. Client, how do you want to measure that? Like, do you wanna measure that in dollars and cents? Do you wanna measure that in hours of free time? What, what would be, or is it the way you're gonna feel and what is that and how will you measure that? You know, so that, so

Bill: Measuring. Yeah.

Marty: Yeah, we have metrics and we, and we can know whether or not we've there or not. I've, you know, I, I know people, who never seem happy because they, they haven't said what it would actually, how you would measure arrival.

Bill: Yeah, exactly. How will you know? How you know you've achieved it?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That's why I like the aspirational results statement because it describes what life looks like once you've arrived there. Yeah.

Marty: Okay. Yeah.

Bill: Alright, so now let's see if we can apply this. We've got an objective, we've got a problem. That makes that objective desirable, and there's the gap between those two. And then the, the, the third element would be the plan. I know what I want. I know what's causing me not to have what I want. And now here what, what's a, a reasonable, logical, workable plan that will help me to get, get to the objective.

Marty: Yes. I wanna say something about, sometimes they don't know what did you say it? The,

Bill: The problem, the gap that, oh, right, right. That's a lot of, that's where a lot of the coaching is,

Marty: So they might not, you know, be able to, oh yeah, the problem is this and oh, well, might not know. It's like, I don't know. I've been working at this. I can't, I don't know what the problem is. So,

Bill: right.

Marty: um, there might be some real work that goes into, um, what the obstacle to having what they want is.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Marty: Uh, I, that might not be the best word, but sometimes, like, sometimes it's a pattern of behavior,

Bill: Right?

Marty: a cycle. And so there's something to see

Bill: Yep.

Marty: gets that cycle going and locked in. But it could also be like an in the way, something just something in the way, like an

Bill: like an external constraint of some sort.

Marty: could be external or internal.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marty: Right.

Bill: Yeah. Well, and I'm going to just suggest that, that what's in the way will show up in a cycle or a pattern. 'cause when it gets in the way, then we're gonna do what we do about trying to move it out of the way, or giving up, or whatever that is. And then find ourselves either giving up or trying harder or whatever. Whatever we experience until we find ourselves right back and faced it with what? Whatever's in the way.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. I don't. I, I, I mean, I guess I'm just allowing for that. There might not be a cycle yet,

Bill: Okay.

Marty: still be an obstacle,

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. There doesn't have to be, there doesn't have to be a cycle. It's just that I.

Marty: I'm just myself when, you know, the, the famous episode of my life where I hit a wall. It's an academic, was no cycle of doing anything yet. I just knew I'd hit a wall and I knew. And that, that the obstacle was, you know, um, doing more of the same, uh, be continuing on this. I didn't wanna continue on this path, but

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: there was no cycle of that. I was caught in there. It was just like, oh, this isn't what I wanna do for the rest of my life.

Bill: Right. Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Got it. Well, if there had been a cycle, recognizing that you didn't wanna do that for the rest of your life probably broke you out of it

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bill: if, if there was. So I want to offer up the experience that I just have been wrestling with as a, as an example of this.

Marty: Great. Perfect.

Bill: Um, so I'm gonna just ask you to be coach and I'm, I'm gonna ask, not asking you to adopt what I just laid out as a, as a, as the framework, although it might be useful if you did. Like, establishing what, what is it that I want? What gets in the way of me getting in what I want, as you say. And then if we can get clear enough about that, that will establish, oh, well then clearly that's the problem. If that were resolved, then I would have much greater access to achieving the objective that I want, whatever that is.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: of course, then, then we would put together some sort of a plan. Like, so what are we gonna do about it?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: we, how are we gonna solve this problem? What are the steps?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Feel like you wanna do that.

Marty: Sure. Is there a problem?

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: Okay, great.

Bill: well, there's an objective.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: Yeah. In fact, there's seven of them.

Marty: Got it.

Bill: There are, and and the reason I can tell you that there's seven of 'em is because I, I got some coaching yesterday around, um, this state of. Always being so urgently pushing myself to get, to make progress on all of these different projects

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: and, and feeling almost overwhelmed by it. To the point, and by the way, this is, all of these projects are necessary. They're important. They're, uh, I, I value the outcome that I wish. In each of the projects, uh, very highly. These are, these are, these are things that are important to me that I wanna accomplish.

Marty: Right.

Bill: They aren't the problem. It's just that I have so many of them and so little, you know, hours in the day to do it. And there's, you know, the rest of my life too, that, that wants my attention.

Marty: Right. Right.

Bill: So, so that's both the problem and the objective, which would be bring it all back into balance.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Make a correction so that I, and this is what I learned yesterday, make a correction so that I stop saying yes to everything that I get excited about and, and know what my capacity is so that I can have balance in my life. That's, that's my desire, that's my objective.

Marty: Okay. well, I don't know if this is coaching, strictly speaking, but, overwhelm. I think it's the first thing to address, you know, the, because the, you can't make a plan and get committed to it and carry it out if you're feeling overwhelmed.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Well, you could, but it wouldn't be any fun.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: So I think the, the first thing is overwhelm is the symptom of. Having everything look equally important. All you know, it's like you got all of this in front of you and there's no, there's no order to it. That's when we feel overwhelmed. And does that apply? Does that sound correct here? Does that hit the mark?

Bill: pretty close. Uh, the, the equally important I think, of overwhelm in relationship to my capacity. Not so much in relationship to how many things I have to do. So, um, I feel when I, when I say I feel overwhelmed, what I'm really saying is I'm, I'm using up. All of my capacity and,

Marty: right. Exactly.

Bill: it feels like I need more capacity than I have.

Marty: And, and what I've observed is that when we're in that state, like I'm at capacity, like I got all this stuff going on, then, then what, what helps bring down the level of overall I'll make it disappear to no what you can do things in.

Bill: Yeah, exactly.

Marty: Right. So it's like, oh, now I only need to look at this one thing. I

Bill: Yes.

Marty: look at all of them right now. I, I know that, that there's, I'm going to get to all of them. want to get to all of them, and I will, but I don't have to be managing them all at once. I can start with this one and then the, the next one. I like that. So putting them in in an order, and I think that that. Involves, um, you know, using the, the criteria of urgent and important. 'cause some things need to get done right away. Even if they're not important, they it, that it's urgent that they get done. Like, my leg is bleeding. Get me to the hospital.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: my plan to deal with these projects later. Right.

Bill: Hmm. That's really good. Urgent and important. What's that? What's that called? There's a, there's a.

Marty: a distinction that Stephen Covey made in the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Bill: And that's a four, four box metrics, right? Matrix?

Marty: That's correct. That's correct. There's, urgent but not important.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: The phone's ringing. and you know, so it's an urgent thing to get the phone to stop ringing, but it's a spam call, so it's not important at all.

Bill: Yep. Got it.

Marty: Then there's important and not urgent. Like your workout today, you know, your exercise today, you could go without for one day, but it is important to exercise,

Bill: Okay.

Marty: right? Um, then there's, then there's important and urgent.

Bill: Yep.

Marty: my leg is broken and bleeding. I need to get to the hospital. So, you know, that's both.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: And then there's neither thing things that

Bill: Not important.

Marty: nor urgent, like eating another donut, smoking another cigarette. Neither urgent nor important.

Bill: Yeah. Okay. Love it. So I wonder if we can look at each of these seven projects that are swirling around. By the way, it, I stopped at seven because these are all things that I really. I'm excited about doing it and, and looking forward, forward to what it's gonna feel like when they're completed.

Marty: Great. Great.

Bill: There are several other projects that I could add to the list that are less exciting, much less exciting, but let's just maybe stick with these seven

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: unless you think that it would be important to bring those other things in as.

Marty: I wanna bring a, a, another level in too, before we start looking at them. And that is that are, um, more urgent and important times to work, to work on projects. So certain projects, it's important that you work on them first thing in the day. Other things that, you know, it, it, it's, would be fine to work on it, you know, while you are watching tv. You know, something like

Bill: Yeah, when's the best time to focus on it?

Marty: Right? So if we're looking at putting them in a certain order, like actually, I, I, I clients work as quickly as possible into getting. Time blocked in the actual calendar. Not, not just like a, a stack on a piece of paper of, of priorities, but where do they actually go in the calendar? Then we wanna take into account when, you know, in your week you would actually address each of them. Some of them might, you might need to do during the week because they involve working with other people while they're at their desk and others, you know, oh, I can do this on Saturday. 'cause it, it doesn't involve that.

Bill: Really good stuff, bill. Yeah, that, that makes so much sense. I haven't thought about ti time blocking for a while.

Marty: well this is what I always find, that this is what it ultimately comes down to. Where does it fit in the actual calendar? Like it, it's one thing to have abstract priorities, but where does it actually fit in this coming week? You know?

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marty: Okay, so what, what is all of this, um, suggesting to you as you look at your seven projects?

Bill: Well, I, um. I'm getting some clarity about why it feels so overwhelming, because, um, well, there's an, like, for one thing, there's an internal argument about what we wanna be doing, what we, my parts of me want me to be doing.

Marty: Good. Uh. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Like, I'm really excited about this compassionate re uh, recovery project that, that I'm creating. So I'm excited about it. So. But, but looking through the lens of important and urgent, um, it does have some urgency. I, I've kind of backed myself into a corner with a start date that a group starts, and it's important because it's immensely important because I think it will begin to address and solve a problem that. It's very far reaching in the United States, in, in, in the world probably. And that is the nature of recovery. So it's both, it's high on importance, high on urgency. I wonder, I wonder if, if Stephen Covey would mind if we added a third, uh, consideration to important and urgent. And that would be exciting. You know, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Um. Inspired, uh, help me with this. You know what I'm saying?

Marty: this, he would, he would say that's a dimension of importance.

Bill: Okay.

Marty: to you, that's important.

Bill: see O okay. That's why it's important because I'm so inspired by it. I see. Yeah.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Well, you use the broken leg, you know, it's important to get that set because if you don't, uh, you know, your leg may not heal correctly. It's urgent to get it set because you're in pain.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, yeah, and so the thing that popped for me just now with the time block and where does it fit on your calendar was, I guess I need to know what are my deadlines for all of these things?

Marty: Good. Good. Mm-hmm.

Bill: So.

Marty: right. Because sometimes I'm just um, for the sake of the listener, um, that, you know, sometimes something's more urgent. You gotta get this done by Friday. But it might not be the most interesting, inspiring, and to you important project, but that tells you what to address first. It, it helps give some order to this, know, to this, um, overwhelm.

Bill: Yeah, so project number one, the Compassionate uh, recovery Project. I've got a deadline of April 27th to have a big chunk of this done,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: um, so that I can deliver week one of the pro program

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: of the project. And uh, the next one is.

Marty: Can I ask you before you move on, how many hours of work do you have there, but that you need to put in between now and April 27th on this? Speaker 3: Are you in a profession that helps people discover, cultivate, and express their true selves? Are you a coach, a therapist, a spiritual leader, a health professional, scientist, writer, speaker, or other specialist that recognizes the power and value of authenticity? Would you like to be a guest on our podcast? We're looking for guests to bring on the show to expand this exploration of the true you. You'll find a link in the show notes to use to introduce yourself and start that conversation.

Bill: Oh man.

Marty: What do you need to do?

Bill: I need to feel good about what I'm presenting in week one.

Marty: Okay,

Bill: I really should feel good about what I'm gonna be presenting in week two, so that I'm not under real high pressure between weeks one and two

Marty: so you need to plan two presentations.

Bill: plan first two weeks for sure. And, and those first two weeks have to be, and I have to plan all nine weeks far enough, at least in an outline to see that these two weeks support an outcome over the pre the next seven after that. That I, that I want to achieve by then,

Marty: Okay. Got it. And, and what does that like, involve working at your desk, uh, or taking a walk and thinking what kind of work is

Bill: it's working at my desk, reviewing the curriculum,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: having it reflected back to me. Just by reading it on the page and, and noticing what happens inside when I consider, is this really what I wanna be saying?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: What's missing? What elements are missing, what, what else needs to be said here? What would the actual interaction of the group be? So, lots of that stuff.

Marty: do you think that if you put in hour each week between now and the end of April, that you would be at that point where you had two.

Bill: No.

Marty: No.

Bill: No, I, this is more like four or five hours a week probably.

Marty: Four or five hours a week. Very good. Okay. And

Bill: I,

Marty: do you,

Bill: if I, if I had four or five hours dedicated uninterrupted that I could give to this project between now and, and this deadline that I've set of April 27th, I'm confident that I would be delivered that able to deliver the program that I wanna deliver. High quality, I'd be prepared, I'd be confident, and all of the logistics, all of the mechanics built that need to get built around it would be done.

Marty: Now, you could write that down in your notes right now, you know, four to five hours. Or you could your calendar right now and look and see where, where do those, where does that time actually occur and put a block in there to do

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: now,

Bill: Hmm, right now while we're talking during this podcast,

Marty: yeah. I mean, if that's, if that's, you know, pushing it then, then just write.

Bill: maybe not. Maybe not, I guess. Uh, yeah. Bear with me a minute. Let me pull up my calendar. You can continue to talk to our listening audience as I'm doing this.

Marty: Yeah, so you begin to see, like I I, I just worked very intimately with the calendar, but you could, you could just make a note, okay, I've gotta look for this time in my calendar. You could do that, I, I find that as soon as it's, it's gotta, it exists in space and time in your calendar. A level of overwhelm starts to come down, right? Like,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: it's gonna happen. It's, I just have to show up for my disappointment. I just set with myself

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: it'll get done.

Bill: very good. Okay. Yeah, so I just found a couple of hours, um, you know, and I've already put in at least that many this week. So if I just start taking a look at next week, actually, I think I could probably make it all up by this weekend for, you know, and, and get this week's in.

Marty: This is the kind of thing, if it were me, I would wanna get all the work done in the next two weeks and then have, you know, two weeks to mull it over and, you know, comb through it and refine it.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: That's just me, you know.

Bill: Yeah. This is brilliant actually. So now I've got next week covered. Now I'm looking at the, I got two weeks left to get this done. There we go. One more. Boom.

Marty: And so while you're putting that in your calendar, you know the, that we, we started with this because this has an urgency about it. It needs to be done by the 27th of April. And so the next thing to do is to look and see. Because you've said these are all important to

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: that helps because now we can, we can just worry about the, you know, the, the urgency of each one from that point on. But, you know, if we have people listening and they're like, well, I'm not sure that all nine are equally important, then that's another factor to weigh, know, you wanna get the, the urgencies done first, but. It's good to know like, okay, I have this much more important thing, the thing that really gonna mean a lot more to me. It's gonna have much more significance in my life. so I, you know, the, it won't start for three months because I got all these urgencies now. I've got it in my calendar for three months from now. I am looking forward to getting to this important project that doesn't have all that urgency to it, but it's in the calendar, so I'm not going to let the urgencies that arise between now and then get in the way of my starting that project three months from now. I've already carved out time for it because it's important.

Bill: Well, and the other thing that I did that made this move what we're doing right now, a little easier for me to do than it might be for others who haven't got this in place, was the clarity that this is my top priority. This,

Marty: Great.

Bill: is my most important project right here. It's both, both highly important and, and, um, uh, and urgent.

Marty: Yeah. No, but that's a good thing to say because you know, if you, whoever you are, you, if you can look and say like, well, this is the one that really means the most to me. This is what's most important. That's very helpful. You know, you've already started to put things in order, and that's, that's, that's the name of the game here. That's what gets us out of

Bill: So let me just, between now and my, um, first group meeting,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I've got 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17 hours scheduled,

Marty: Awesome.

Bill: is, which is one more than the minimum that I'd said I would need to have. Actually no, that's, that's great. That's, that's plenty. And I feel confident that I'll be ready.

Marty: Great.

Bill: That'll gimme all the time. I need super. So then we move on to the next project,

Marty: Yes. Mm-hmm.

Bill: and that is, I'm gonna probably move what I have placed as my number two priority.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: is probably, no, no longer number two, because while it's important to me,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: it's not urgent. So it's important but not urgent, and therefore it's probably not number two, the next.

Marty: when I have something like that, I will go, I will go ahead and, you know, like, uh, just make an arbitrary box for myself on on Saturday. You know, I, I can't think about this now, but it's really important. So I make a box on Saturday morning and, and I know that, okay, I'll, I'll, there's, there's a place for it. It's, it's not gonna get lost. There's a place for it.

Bill: Right. The next project, the next two projects are equally not as important, not as urgent.

Marty: Okay?

Bill: all important, but not as urgent. Uh, what's more urgent is project number seven, but I'm gotta wait on something else to happen before I can even start the project.

Marty: I see. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And, and it's outta my hands other than pestering the vendor that I need to get this from, which I've been doing plenty of. Uh,

Marty: Uh, so you dunno when, when you will get her hear back.

Bill: I don't, I've been promised, um, delivery on this for the last month and, and they have not followed through, uh, and done what they said they were gonna do. So it is creating frustration and adding to my overwhelm that I have no power in order to advance this project. So

Marty: Well

Bill: I'm on the verge of, if there's one more delay, I may just drop the project altogether.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um.

Marty: Yeah. Is there a date by when? You would say, okay, I've done everything I can. I haven't heard from them. Now, uh, today's, you know, is that something to put in the calendar? Like if I haven't heard from them by this date, I'm calling to say I'm not doing it.

Bill: Yeah, that's good. Yep. Really good. What is that? What is that deadline? I think that that deadline is a week from Friday, so 10 days from now basically.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah, that's very good. That actually helps me relax in this moment, knowing I'm not gonna let this string me along alone. This was important enough to pursue it and tolerate total BS customer service for the past month because I really want it to happen. Um, but if it can't, I mean, it's. This is indicative of what I can expect to have happen if I have any problems with the system that I'm trying to onboard right now

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: You know, if it's this hard to onboard, what it's gonna be like if I have a problem to deal with.

Marty: You are right, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bill: all right, I'm gonna add a, a deadline there to my calendar. So deadline for fill in the blank. I'm not gonna say it out loud. I don't want, I don't wanna trash them.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: Although I sure feel like it.

Marty: And I don't know about you, but I would put, I put that at the end of the day, like at five o'clock. I'm not doing any more work, but there's a box there that says, if you hadn't heard from them yet, tomorrow morning, you say, I'm

Bill: Yeah. Yep, that's right. Very good. Okay, so that kind of takes the urgency completely out of that. I've done as much as I can do, and if I don't hear back from them and we don't have it installed by next Friday, I just withdraw.

Marty: Great.

Bill: There, so I'm, now I see that number five moves up to number two because there is some urgency to that. I've already got that on my calendar. Um, number two works into three now. Number three turns into four, and then number four turns into five and six and seven. Pretty much stay the same.

Marty: And I just wanna add, you know, sometimes I've had the, the experience myself where I think this is the order that I want them in. And then once you get working on them, things change. 'cause you're dealing with other forces and you have to wait on something. Or this is, you know,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: longer than I thought. Some things change and you do have to reorder them and, and give notes to yourself when to get back to them. So.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: happen. You have to be flexible in that way.

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: So what's the next one?

Bill: uh, recording an audio book of my part one, the first book of, of three of my memoir,

Marty: Uhhuh.

Bill: and I've got 27 of the chapters recorded already, so I need to record 13 more chapters. That's gonna take me about three hours,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: day before.

Marty: And by when do you want to have

Bill: I wanna have that done this weekend, so I'm, I just now blocked the time. Got it. So

Marty: Great.

Bill: yeah.

Marty: Great.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah, I really find it very helpful, you know, that it, it's got, I go, I always go back to what's got to fit in this calendar. This is, this shows me the time of my life. If it doesn't fit in there,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: then I'm just talking, you know, into the wind.

Bill: I, by the way, what I just now did, and, uh, if somebody was paying really close attention, they're gonna say, but wait a minute, you didn't, you say that was gonna move back in priority? I realized, no, I don't wanna move it back in priority. This is really so important to me that I wanna make it urgent.

Marty: Okay,

Bill: It's a self-imposed deadline. It's not one that anything or anybody else is, is imposing on me.

Marty: good. Good.

Bill: I just wanna, I just wanna do it 'cause it's that important to me. Right, right. And this falls into the category of, um, uh, let's see. This weekend will be the, okay, this falls into the category. Uh, and this came up in, in the conversation yesterday too, uh, of, I only do what I wanna do

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and, and, um, I wanna do what I wanna do all the time. So there's two different aspects of choice here. I, I, I choose not to do what I don't wanna do. I choose to do what I wanna do,

Marty: Yes.

Bill: and I wanna be doing what I'm doing, what I wanna do all the time. And that sounds really selfish, but, but what's interesting about this is that, um, it's, it's energizing to know that I'm only doing what I wanna do. And if I, if I fall into the, the trap of thinking that says, oh, I don't wanna be doing this, it was on my calendar. When I put it on my calendar, did I think I didn't wanna do it? What happened? Why, why did I change my mind? Or is it simply that I, I need a break. I need, I need, uh, there's something, do I have an unmet need? Do I need to walk away from the desk?

Marty: Mm.

Bill: Do I need to walk around the block? Do I need to get a drink of water? Do I need, if I eat and recently something like that, meet the need and then step back into it again and, and realize, oh, okay, no, I can remember now. I remember now why I wanted to do this, and I have the capacity to meet it, to be able to do it.

Marty: Very good.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, and I, I wanna just underscore like that. I like that you. You are choosing the, I I wanna bring this forward. It might not be as urgent, you know, like in terms of an external deadline, but I wanted to, I often myself, will do the, the biggest hairiest stuff first, that I know that, that everything else is downhill from there. You know, like

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: I got the big ugly hard thing done first, so now everything else is gonna be much more pleasant. And I'll just put that first on purpose.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah,

Marty: there are these various criteria that we can bring to bear give things order.

Bill: yeah. Well, you, these have been, you've given some real nuggets here. I mean, what I'm taking away is the importance of. Time blocking that, that lit up a light bulb that hadn't been a, a lit for a long time. Um, I mean, I, I used my calendar, but not as efficiently as I could. I realized today. Uh, setting po setting clear intentions. How am I gonna use my time? How am I, how am I gonna use my life? Uh, what do I wanna be doing in that life? You know, generally I can say, well, I'm gonna be doing whatever I wanna be doing. But the, the, but then it gets down to the specifics. Well, what do I wanna be doing from on Saturday from 8:00 AM till noon?

Marty: Right.

Bill: Um, I got an invitation from a friend to go golfing, and that's not, that's nowhere on my list here.

Marty: I see.

Bill: You know, his friendship is on my list. It's not on this list, but it's on, it's a priority for me. It's important, but it's certainly not urgent and it's not, it's not something, you know, spending five hours with him on the golf course doesn't override how urgent and important these other projects are. So what I did there was I blocked out time four weeks from now after I meet this major deadline.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Right. mean, and you know, just on the, on the general topic, you know, there are, there are things in our lives, you know, they're different for each of us. Like, spending time with your spouse would be an imp important thing. If you didn't get to do it today, you know, it's not super urgent. There might be an urgency at some point, but that's an important thing. And so. Or, or like, you know, um, your exercise as an example, we said, or, you know, you people, many people have a morning routine that really it's very important to have the time in the calendar for that. Um, and so, you know, when you go to your compose, your schedule, these important things go in first. that then you, you work urgencies around them if, and if you get or called away from, you know, like you are in an, you're in a chunk of time in your calendar, that's, it's important that you are doing your morning routine, let's say, and the phone rings well. You're doing what's important now, and, and so there you wanna have, you wanna have time to return that call, but you don't want to, you don't want to the mistake of doing something urgent during an important time,

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: right? And so, you know, for some people this means, you know, posting on your door so that the administrative staff knows, know, these are the times I've got blocked. So, you know, I'm not to be disturbed during those times.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Or if somebody comes into your office, you know, um, or, and, and says, Hey, can I, can I talk to you right now? Well, not now, but here's when you could come.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Right? they guard these times because they are important.

Bill: Yeah. Very good. Before we end, there's two things I want to do. One is to go back to like the structure of coaching conversation that, that I started out with talking about the, the log jam.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: the log jam of being overwhelmed. If a client comes to me or you as a coach, what's the process? And I wonder how closely what you and I just now did today followed that. So the objective had clarity about the objective. I believe I wanted to, um, well, I, I didn't wanna feel so overwhelmed. I wanted to be able to manage these projects in a much more balanced way. I, I believe is what I said.

Marty: That's right. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And, and that was my request, is that you, you act as coach and, and walk me through this so that I can find a way to not feel so overwhelmed and feel, uh, more balanced. Have a, have a, have a plan for how to. Accomplish all that I wanna accomplish, but be, feel more balanced about it.

Marty: And on a scale from one to 10, how close do we come to the mark of.

Bill: I think, I think a 10. I mean, I'm confident that I can get the most urgent thing done on time. Uh, I, I'm confident that I can, uh, that I can either get the second most important thing and an urgent thing done on time, and if not on time, very close to on time.

Marty: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Bill: the challenge there is can I do it without throwing myself out of balance? Do I have to be extreme about my, the time I dedicate to project number two in order to get it hit by this, this pretty aggressive deadline that I gave myself, which is like three days from now, four days from now.

Marty: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Bill: at a 10. Yeah. Far more feeling, far more balanced and well within my capacity to be

Marty: Awesome.

Bill: able to get it done. Yeah.

Marty: to hear.

Bill: Well, and we established the gap because we established the problem. We didn't name the gap. Um, but, but the problem was clearly established and that was that I didn't know when I was gonna do these things.

Marty: Right,

Bill: way I've been doing it is every chance I get,

Marty: right.

Bill: and, and so if my wife's talking to me or something, or someone else needs my attention. I'm either a little distracted thinking about, okay, is she finished talking to me now so I can get back to getting this thing done, or, um, so knowing it's on my calendar, okay, yeah. If nothing else is going on, I got time to spend some time on it now. I will do that, but, um, I know it's not, it's not so urgent that I can't be present for whatever's happening right now.

Marty: Great. Yeah. I mean even, even other things like, well I gotta drive to the store to pick up the milk, but gosh, I'm bothered because I need, I have these other things I gotta do now. You know? Oh, that's, I got that in the calendar. No worries.

Bill: You know, that's so funny that you say that. 'cause Kathy and I went grocery shopping last night. I had my phone with me and I was working on this number one project as I was having, well, she was looking at oranges and lettuce. You wanna go get this and that. Yeah. I'll go get it. And so I went and got those things and right back on my phone again. So yeah, we established what is the problem. I, I hadn't, I hadn't clearly, uh, reserved the time in my life to do these things. It was just now that was the, that was the only answer to the question is now. And everything else that got in the, every, everything else that needed my attention was getting, kind of getting in the way

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: of, of what I really wanted to be doing because I didn't have this time reserved. So that was great. And the plan, so the plan, now I have a plan and that's the last piece. I have a plan that will solve the problem and help me get this done. And given that I already had in place, that they only land on my projects list if I want them to do, want, wanna do them, if they are both at least important

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: Right.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Great. And then the last thing I think that that we should address here before we say goodbye is, what the hell does this have to do with the true you?

Marty: Well, for one thing. The things that you, um, put in your calendar to committing your time to, they are, this is, this shows us what the true you is, the true you are these commitments. And that's why we take care of them make sure that there is time for them.

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: an expression of the true.

Bill: well, you talked about measuring. And, and, uh, with each of these projects, there's a deadline to hit. I know what I'm gonna deliver by this particular deadline, and that's, that's a way to measure. There's also the measurement of milestones along the way. So if between now and, you know, three weeks from now, I want to have, be able to do this group and be prepared for it with confidence. Um. Then where do I need to be in two weeks and where do I need to be in one week? And that's another way to measure along the way to make sure that I'm doing the project Pro, pro progress. Uh, but, but the, the, the honest, authentic self-expression is the best evidence that I'm being who I really am. My true you

Marty: Yes.

Bill: is that if I, if when I'm honestly authentically expressing myself, I am, I'm internally aligned and um. Then, then that I can't think of a better measure of how, how I'm, how I'm perceiving, and then choosing and then acting from my authentic self.

Marty: Right, right. I agree. And, and on the other, you know, side of it, like when, when we're in an overwhelmed state. Some new information comes in or somebody needs something from us, or, or, you know, your wife wants to be with you while you shop or something like that, then um, then, you know, your, your one is not likely to respond from authentic self, but it's gonna be from this dizzy sort

Bill: That's right. That's right. That's right. Exactly. Well, wonderful. Thanks for the coaching.

Marty: You are welcome.

Bill: was excellent coaching. I really appreciate it. And you know, I began this process yesterday looking at the parts of me that can't say no to anything I get excited about. And that, that got me as far as it did, and it was great. I, I ended up with a plan. The conversation with you today, the coaching that I got from you today, really, uh, fine tuned that plan and as you saw, changed my priority. And in fact, I'm gonna have to redo all of that because it's all scribbled now. But, yeah. Very good. Thank you so much for the coaching

Marty: you're welcome.

Bill: listener. Thanks for listening. If you've listened to, to this entire thing time, I hope you'll continue to, to listen. We'll, we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, Marty. Speaker: We appreciate who you are that you would be listening to this podcast and want to acknowledge all those parts of you that yearn for the experience of the true you. Speaker 2: If you like this episode, click like Share it with others and be sure to subscribe. Listen again next week for the newest episode. Speaker: Check show notes for a transcript and a link to resources including a link to let us know if you'd like to be a guest on our podcast. Speaker 2: Thank you for listening and going on this journey with us. Back to the true you.