Self-Management vs. Self-Leadership

Bill: : self-management is absolutely exhausting. And there is another way. There's another way to be other than self-managed and

Bill: : And with that awareness comes insight, and with insight comes an opportunity, choice

Bill: : self-awareness leading to self-trust, leading to self-leadership. What makes What makes self-leadership possible?self-leadership possible?

Marty: : Welcome. Welcome once again to one of my favorite places to be every week, and it falls right in the middle of the week. It's so delightful. It's like we used to call Wednesdays hump day, right? The

Bill: : Yeah.

Marty: : in the middle of the week. And usually it's hard to get over the hump, but I have this opportunity every Wednesday when we record the TrueYou podcast to be with my friend Bill Tierney, and and to always have a great conversation. And it usually starts by us getting on before we press record, and we just start talking, and out of it, great conversation always arises. No doubt, it always does. And then we say wait. We should press record."

Bill: : Perfect.

Marty: : And that's exactly what happened today. And I'll just say what the headline is and then maybe see where you wanna go with this. We were talking about the difference between self-management and self-leadership, which of course brings up the difference between the small self and the Self with a capital S, if you will. It also brings up the difference between management and leadership. Two really important topics

Bill: : yeah. I'm just opening up my mind to let insights flow in on this. I don't consider myself to be a, an expert, and I don't consider my concepts and theories about it to be f-finalized whatsoever. it's an exciting time to, to just really recognize that self-management is predominantly what I-- how I've lived my life up until a few years ago, and including today. I'm, I'm-- I still do some self-management and it seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Like I, the, I better manage myself

Marty: : define it a little bit so people know, 'cause it might sound to our audience like exactly the best thing in the world. What are you talking about?

Bill: : and it is, it's very beneficial to manage ourselves if we need to be managed. And but what it implies, even the term itself, is that I need to manage myself, which means that I a- am at conflict with myself. has me behaving, feeling, acting, thinking, saying things and reacting in ways that have to be managed. Not a part, parts of me. And so it's a busy job that, that another or several parts of me have taken on. Like the-- maybe it's a self-management team that I have inside that's busy managing the part of me that would have me, at one time smoking two packs a day of cigarettes at one time drinking a six-pack of beer a day, at one time, the list goes on and on. Smoking pot first thing in the morning and last thing at night and every chance I got in between. The parts of me that want to, wanted to just express unbridled anger, once that started waking up inside of me, that certainly needed to be managed once it started creating problems in my life, which it did immediately. So there's parts of me that, that want to express or help in particular ways, and then there are parts that are trying to manage and control those other parts. that's what I mean by self-management.

Marty: : Got it. I just wanna add in here I'm also listening to this conversation myself from the point of view of my target market, which are financial advisors who've broken away from the big wire houses, the Smith Barneys and the JP Morgans and the PaineWebbers, although PaineWebber doesn't exist anymore. What are the other ones? UBS, Uni Bank of Switzerland. They've broken away and they've started their own firm,

Bill: : I

Marty: : And

Bill: : see

Marty: : there comes a point, and this is like 90% of my clientele, where they're a bit too busy managing conflicts with their team to grow.

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : And it's just it's just like managing the parts of yourself

Bill: : Exactly. Exactly. I-i-- the organized systems of life seem to be fractals, whether it's an individual with parts or an individual that's part of a group or a group that's part of a larger organization or an organization that's large-- that's part of a larger community, just keeps going around and on. But individuals and

Marty: : also-- I think it's also, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanna add another layer. It's also I think why or explains like what we see in a Donald Trump type person. He's really trying to manage people, In a certain way, to be a certain way, to do what he wants, to have it all reflect his desires a- as the manager, and he's not leading

Bill: : Correct. Yeah. And it's

Marty: : letting himself be led either,

Bill: : yeah. Depending on the perspective of anyone that's watching hi- him do that that's gonna elicit different reactions. Those that think that the reason that he's doing it is for the good of the country, they're gonna, they're gonna be think this is a great leader."

Marty: : All right

Bill: : Those of the, of those who see that his efforts to get his way in the way that he get, tries to get his way are damaging the country are gonna see that as problematic

Marty: : But either way, whether you're for or against, you like him or you don't like him, you can see that this is why there's so much turnover and why he's so busy, 'cause he's managing as opposed to being led

Bill: : Which has gotta be exhausting. Exhausting for somebody even older than I am. For anybody, frankly. And that's the other, that's the other part of this, is that self-management is absolutely exhausting. And there is another way. There's another way to be other than self-managed, and that would be self-led. And you've written your book on leadership. You've written numerous articles about leadership. We've talked about how many episodes did we record? 70 or 80 episodes on the Leadership Coaching Podcast. So we talked a lot about the difference between leadership and management, and maybe I could just have you as the expert on this summarize that. How do you see it?

Marty: : if I were gonna summarize it re- the summary would be that a leader actually empowers a team, right? As opposed to managing a bunch of people to get them to do the way h- that one part sees things ought to be done. It's about empowering them to all do their jobs well, to be good at what their jobs are, to be satisfied, to be fulfilled. That uplifts everybody, including the person who's doing the leading. So

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : that's the short explanation of the difference

Bill: : Yeah. So a manager is trying to get people to change their actions, their behaviors, their output, and is busy measuring that and w- applying whatever strategies they have to accomplish that. Whereas a leader is basically moving stuff out of the way as much as they possibly can and supporting as much as they possibly can so that the person that they're leading can be successful

Marty: : Now measurement, just to, I know you mentioned the word measurement. That's also a good tool for a leader, sometimes if you just show somebody, "Look, in four hours you did this much work. Today in four hours you did this much work," that's enough for that person to go, "Huh, okay, need to eat better. That was the difference." Or, "I, I need to not be distracted. That was the difference." And so just showing somebody their meas- their metrics is

Bill: : Yeah.

Marty: : all it takes for

Bill: : Yeah.

Marty: : to improve

Bill: : Yeah. Yeah, it's a tool that can be used as a blunt instrument or a, an a loving m- influencer

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

Bill: : So where do we wanna go with this? So there's self-management. Maybe before we move on to what the alternative, and I pointed directly to it, but I didn't talk about the gap in between. What the gap in between self-management and self-leadership, and I haven't really even talked about what does that mean to be living as, with self-leadership instead of self-management. But some examples of self-management would be addiction and recovery from addiction. A lot of the programs out there that are the most popular and the most the biggest money makers really are the ones that have people taking on specific formulas and strategies for managing themselves.

Marty: : Yeah

Bill: : there's 12-step there's treatment centers, there's tons of books about what it is that you should do to manage yourself so that you don't return to that addiction that you're trying to recover from

Marty: : I've heard in the social media I've seen for new programs, and they're all about managing. They're not AA. They say, "Oh, you don't wanna go that way, but we've got a way to manage yourself," and

Bill: : here's another formula for you to plug into and you do these things and yeah.

Marty: : That's right. And or you take this dr- you take this supplement or something like that. Yeah

Bill: : so it's to, it's so as to manage the consequences or the potential or to avoid the cons- the potential consequences of a return to the addiction typically

Marty: : And why, before we move on toward the solution or the s- the phases toward it, why is it that we realize that there is an alternative? Wh- what has, why is that a blind spot for us that we think that all there is to manage myself?

Bill: : I've got some theories about that and I'm happy to spend them with you. I don't know that I have a conclusive answer though. So it-- with all due humility I need to, just let you know that this is my opinion and this is just a theory.

Marty: : Okay

Bill: : But I spent a lot of time around al- in Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs. Roughly 38 years between all four programs that I got involved with, which were Al-Anon, AA, ACA or ACOA, and CODA. And and during that time, I learned a ton about the history of 12-step which goes all the way back to the '30s, 1930s when Bill Wilson partnered up with Dr. Bob Smith and Bill penned the 12 steps. And the orientation for those 12 steps was religious. Christianity really focused on the power of God because Bill had a very powerful spiritual awakening in his early recovery, and he was also supported by people that were of a religious bent. So lots of prayer, lots of relying upon God in order to offer a solution to what appeared to be a, an unanswerable dilemma, which was alcoholism. There, there was a group of people who began to put alcohol in their bodies, and once they started doing that, they couldn't seem to stop it or control it or manage themselves. And so this was an alternative to that. The conclusion was that the only way to solve this problem is through God. the solution would be to, do everything we can to morally correct ourselves and ask God to keep us morally corrected and and then to somehow grace us with the power to not take that first drink. That was the first thing that worked in practically in the history of mankind. And it really caught, and it caught on so well that hundreds and then thousands and probably millions of people Started going to AAA. It, and then it got people that were facing the courts for DUIs and domestic violence and other problems that were alcohol-related had an alternative be- be-- other than sending them off to jail only to have them return back out onto the streets and drink and cause the same problem again. there was the deferred prosecution that began, and I think this began probably back in the '60s. But even before that, in the '50s, the American Medical Association labeled alcoholism as a disease, and now it became diagnosable and treatable. And so treatment centers came into prominence because there was money to be made there and there was really a heartfelt belief that these 12 steps was-- they definitely were the way to help people. And getting them out of their lives, plugging them into whatever it was, two weeks, three, 30-day intensive, whatever it is to work those five of those 12 steps is really typically the way it happens in treatment centers became a very profitable and relatively suc-successful thing to do relative to the su- the success rates without any treatment at all. So it's just been accepted. It's-- at least here in the West, it seems to be accepted as the way to recover from addiction. Honestly it, it works to a degree. And in my experience, it worked for me And I wanna qualify this. It worked for me be- and I, and the evidence of that is that I stayed sober. But it didn't work for me, and the evidence of that is that I was miserable as I was staying sober. And the other thing I wanted to say to qualify that is it didn't work with me-- for me because I didn't work it. I didn't actually do the 12 steps the way they're described s- to do and there seemed to be a need for perfectionism around that, and yet I still stayed sober. so there's really a lot of confusion for me. There was a lot of confusion for me personally around that. So my theory in answer to your question is why is that the way to go? Why is that the most sought-after, the most automatic way to go? Because it's really the only widely, broadly accepted solution that I'm aware of, even though there's a lot of other opinions, including myself, about how to treat recovery from addiction

Marty: : What I thought you were gonna say was that there's-- that we don't recognize our, ourself with a capital S. We think that we just are these behaviors. We just are the, the I am I am my- these actions, I am these words. That's all I am. There's nothing more to me. And so there's this... And so one thing that I think al- alcoholics-- the thing about God, I think that has-- when it has been really effective for people is when they realize "Oh, there, there is something I, my... This is a higher power within me." I, I-- When I give myself to this higher power within me. Now, this is not the typical tr- Christian way. Usually we think God is over there or out there or up there. It's not a higher power of mine. It's a higher power external, not all Christianity is that way, not all religion is that way. And w- when it is effective, I think it's because when the people recognize, "Wow, there's a higher me within me that could be making better choices, that doesn't need to be managing me in this exhausting way and in conflict with myself. But I could love myself to health."

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : " I could love myself to sobriety. That's a higher power within me that I have."

Bill: : Yeah.

Marty: : So the new, the ACA has this new book that, everybody in ACA is now using "The Loving Parent Guidebook."

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : You develop that power within to love yourself, right? that's a new, that's not that's not even in AA. It's just in ACA. But it, a lot of-- We're getting more and more people in ACA who are also in AA, but they want some of that self-love

Bill: : Yeah. Yeah, my experience with ACA is it's a much more compassionate approach to recovery. It, it-- a-and the history of that is ACA was born out of Al-Anon from Alateen. When the teenagers that were attending the Alateen meetings because they weren't old enough to be going to the Al-Anon meetings, when they aged out and became adults, they didn't want to go to Al-Anon, so they started their own back in 1979 in New York. They started up their own group and eventually called it Adult Children of Alcoholics, and then later added it, "and Dysfunctional Families." And now it's a big thing. Really big thing. And it's a much more compassionate approach. And I do have that Loving Parent guidebook from ACA. It's wonderful. In fact, I, one of the things I love about it so much is that it just really aligns well with the IFS approach.

Marty: : Doesn't it?

Bill: : Yeah it refers to different versions of ourselves, different parts of ourselves, including that loving parent the wounded child. A-and so it's a great model for an introduction to the internal family systems model, where you recognize, man, there-- I have so many more resources in me than I ever thought possible. And if I just stick to I'm morally defective, I am someone with shortcomings, I am someone that without God is-- am not worthy of a good life, which seems to be just over and o- reinforced over and o- it was for me. For me, the meetings that I went to, it was reinforced in the AA program over and over that I wasn't worthy of having a decent life and I deserved all the bad things that I was getting, and I was lucky just to be sober. And that's the best I could hope for in my life was to be sober. And the other thing that got reinforced over and over-- and again I wanna just acknowledge that this was filtered through my mind. If anybody from AA is listening to this and saying, "But that's not what we teach, and that's not what we do," this is what I interpreted everything that I experienced in AA. I went for only 35 years. And I found it very painful and very difficult and struggled and suffered throughout sobriety. And the longer I stayed sober, the more pressure inside that I felt to be better than I was, to show up better than I was, to feel better than I did. for me, in my mind, the formula was the longer I'm sober, the better I should be. And that didn't work for me

Marty: : And if I could, I just wanna go back to, 'cause I'm, I'll-- I'm spending my days with, financial advisors and their businesses and so the, and all of this is exactly why they spend their... They get so in conflict and exhausted with managing their people is because, again, it's wait they didn't the, it-- They think that their job is to get these objects to behave differently, right?

Bill: : the, these other people

Marty: : Exactly, but they're treating them as objects.

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : gotta get this to move faster. I gotta get that to shut up. I gotta get this to do the..." And it's like they're treating their... And why I wanna refer to it as objects is because it's what's not being realized is the same thing. It's like there is a higher power within you and those people to actually communicate and work this out bumping into each other like billiard balls trying to get, that one to fall in the hole and that one, back on the table. there, we don't n- we don't realize it, how the resources we have access to, to make this a workable world

Bill: : Yeah, Speaker 4: Are you looking for a way to apply IFS in your everyday life? The Compassionate Results Guidebook can help. It blends IFS with coaching to help you work with your parts, make self-led choices, and live in the world authentically. You can order your copy on Amazon or learn more at compassionateresultsguidebook.com. Now back to the episode

Bill: : Yeah, that's, that is correct. That we have resources that we don't have access to until something changes. And I think the thing that gets in the way, one of the main things that gets in the way of accessing those resources is the idea that we have to manage ourselves. The-- So a new concept that IFS introduced me to was that these parts of me that I'm trying to manage, these behaviors, these thoughts, these feelings, these impulses that I'm trying to manage, those are all coming from parts of me that are s- that are trying to help. That idea that these parts are trying to help, it's just that the help that they're trying to p- to provide is maladaptive to the present moment. It made sense at the moment that they started doing these adaptive strategies years and years ago, but they don't anymore. But to recognize compassionately, these parts are actually trying to help, and they're just-- they need my help to help me better. Help me to help you, I might say to my parts. Let me help you understand that I'm 71 years old, and it's 2026 right now, and it's no longer 1961, and I'm not six years old anymore, and I have far more, resources and far more autonomy than I had before. I'm not in that desperate situation. And my parts begin to relax, and as they do, and they don't need to be managed anymore. And as they do, I get more access to resources those innate built-in resources that we all have.

Marty: : Yeah

Bill: : So back to your financial the leaders in your financial your target client.

Marty: : hey

Bill: : when they're-- What would you suggest for those managers and leaders who are moving objects around on the game board rather than leading?

Marty: : it's all about getting and communicating, like just asking each other "What is really going on here between us?" I want you to be, happy and love your job because that makes our company do better." How-- what is it that you need? Like you ask a part, what do you need, right?

Bill: : Break

Marty: : And, so that you can flourish, so that you can just be happy and do what you love to do and everything works. And the-- it's that basic conversation. I also, mo- the model I always have in my mind is our mastermind group,

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : we don't call it that anymore, but it works on the mastermind principle, which is that together we work better together. There's this other, there's this bigger, better, more compassionate, wiser mind that we are together. And so I encourage those financial advisors, to, a-access what you don't have from them. Like if you're playing soccer and you are, you have to be the one with the ball all the time, the, you're not using the team. Use your team, pass the ball, them to pass it to you. Start passing the ball and you will win more games. and so it's that concept that, that's behind all the various, specific techniques that I have them try

Bill: : As I'm listening, I'm thinking in terms of when I help a client build a trust-based relationship with one of their parts. Once we've identified and o- once we've identified the part that, that we wanna build that relationship with, and once we've created enough safety to be able to have a conversation where thing- where the truth can come out, one of the very first questions that we ask the client to ask the part is: What are you trying to accomplish? Or what is your job? Or what is your role here? and I'm imagining in any business where there's a leader, a manager, an employee that's answering to that manager and/or that leader the employee's there to accomplish something for the company. But before they're there to accomplish something for the company, they are in that position because they were trying to accomplish something for themselves

Marty: : True. Exactly.

Bill: : And it occurs to me if that leader has, is having a clash or a conflict with one of their employees, that a really great approach would be to understand what it is that motivates them to come to work What is it that you hope that this, that employment here will help you to accomplish? And the answer could be far-reaching. It could be I want a career. I want security. I wanna pay my bills. I want I want independence. I wanna buy that new car." Whatever it is, "I'm here because I wanna accomplish this for myself."

Marty: : Exactly. Working with a advisor who has a relatively new employee, and they put a lot on him. They asked a lot of him, and he was starting to get bogged down, and she just went in one day and said, "Look, I recognize, we've really piled it on here, and we really appreciate all that you're doing. Let's just take a moment, and get to know each other a little better. Like, why won't... what is it that you're trying to accomplish in your life?" And she found out at night he's studying. He wants to get a degree. He wants to be able to pay for his daughter to go to college. That's the reason for him to get an even better job. And she's "Wow, that's great. Now I understand, wh- why you're so motivated to do this big pile of work that we gave you." And so she's making-- she's now working out times and ways to support him in studying and getting the degree so that he can send his daughter to college. And it's, it makes all the... Now he, they are like, they are working like sides of a zipper together now. It's

Bill: : They're aligned, they're in harmony, they understand each other. At least she understands him, which is probably from his perspective the most important thing. And I'm guessing he's probably a lot more open to understanding what's important to her as well

Marty: : she reports back, it was, I was flattered that he asked me, questions about, 'cause he saw my husband come bring me to work and he asked about what we're up to and why I'm not at home on weekends 'cause they go up to their cabin upstate and stuff like that. So he's being mutually interested

Bill: : Now they're in relationship with each other. Now they have trust for each other. And so if any conflict comes up now, that can be discussed in an environment that's already been built based on trust

Marty: : That's right.

Bill: : than suspicion and defensiveness. I can tell you, man, as a younger man, I was not a very good employee. IFS has really changed me. Byron Katie has really changed me and and I will really age me now. I-- So I discovered Byron Katie about twenty-five years ago, and up to that point, I believed everything that I thought, and I was very reactive and very defensive if things didn't go exactly the way I needed them to go for me to feel okay about myself. So e-external circumstances like I had to have enough money. I was in the mortgage business at the time, and I was distressed often. I was scared to death that I wasn't gonna... I didn't get paid unless I, I did a loan. And people could just feel that desperation on me and, just they didn't want anything to do with me, of course, because here I am in a position to be able to loan them hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy h- buy a house. And it's, requires a lot of trust and if they're sensing that something's going on with their loan officer that's not being disclosed and not making sense, that there's a sense of desperation and an absence of trust when things like fees and interest rates are being negotiated. I was effectively pushing business away because I was so distressed, so scared, so worried af- coming out of a divorce and trying to establish myself independently again. And I was very reactive, and the results that I was producing were not good. I didn't have any, I didn't have any mentors that recognized that I was in that much distress or w- who responded to my probably baffling behavior with compassion where they might have sat down and said, "What's going on? You seem to be really troubled. What's going on? How can I help? Help me to understand so I can see if there's maybe some way that I can help you." But that's exactly what I needed. I didn't have mentorship. I didn't have anybody really laying down a model for me of what it looked like to be... to take the risk of act-actually asking somebody to, to help me sort out my struggles and what I was d- I was too afraid of being ex-exposed as weak and incompetent and man. But what Byron Katie did for me was help me to recognize I don't have to believe every thought, thought that I think and

Marty: : So simple and so mysterious at the same time.

Bill: : thoughts like, "I can't trust anybody." When Byron Katie helped me to challenge thoughts like that, is it true that I can't trust anybody? No. Maybe I can trust people. And then I be- began to be able to just say, tell the truth "I'm really struggling here. I don't understand this concept. It's, I don't understand why I'm not getting any business. Can you make... Can you help me? What can I do to get some more business?" And when that f- when that began to happen, I started doing better. People really wanted to support me. I was surprised. There are people in the world that I can trust, people that, in the world that actually have a heart and they care, that aren't just looking out for themselves. And so yeah, that's where my growth began is my own self-awareness. And that's, by g- by the way, that's, that is the very first step to move out of self-management towards self-leadership is to become more self-aware. Because if I don't trust myself so much that I have to manage myself, then I n- I need to heal the relationships within me

Marty: : Yeah. Yeah. Self-awareness. Yeah. I guess that's what I was pointing to when I said we don't realize we have these resources within us, self-awareness

Bill: : Yeah. Really I wanna turn away, especially if I'm suffering a lot and you're getting this, you've known me for a while, and even if you're just listening for the first time in this podcast, you're probably really picking up that, "But it sounds like Bill really used to suffer a lot." Yes, I did. I was either living in a state of depression or anxiety or just teeter-tottering between those two for the longest time in my life

Marty: : And most of us do. Bill's being very generous in sharing that struggle, but we've all-- there are a few young people I've met early, who are early in their career, and they have perfect self-awareness and they're sober about their work. But most of us are, did what you did in our own way, in our own careers

Bill: : Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that. While I was suffering, I didn't realize everybody else was too, or that the majority of people were. I felt pretty isolated. I was scared to let anybody see that I...

Marty: : were all managing ourselves

Bill: : That's right.

Marty: : show

Bill: : And it seemed this is interesting too, that along the years that I, as I continued to stay sober longer and longer and longer, that was earning me some sort of merit. People just assumed that I really had my shit together because I'd been sober for 5 years or 10 years or 15 or 20 or 25 or 30 or 35. Go- and the longer I'd been sober, the more pressure I felt to show up, and so the better I performed, and I pulled it off. Apparently thought-- people really thought that I had my stuff together So they were, so things were like people were asking me to sponsor them and because they, there's a saying, if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you're r- ready to take certain steps. And one of those unofficial steps is you get a sponsor. And so people were asking me to sponsor and I would say yes, but I was just struggling just as much as they were. and the people that sponsored, that I did sponsor and that appreciated, I just went golfing with one of them yesterday. This is a guy that I started sponsoring 37 years ago. said "Yeah, I knew you were fucked up, Bill. I knew you were struggling, but the thing that I really took comfort in was knowing that you could be honest about the fact that you were struggling so hard with me." And I was

Marty: : that's an- another piece of self-awareness,

Bill: : yeah. Yeah. So why would we not be self-aware? One of them is because we haven't had that modeled. Self-aware, internal interest as opposed to external focus, that's what a self-awareness requires, is bringing our attention to what am I experiencing right now in this moment, than what is that person or that situation over there doing to me that I'm feeling so uncomfortable?

Marty: : Yeah. The, and this might be the same thing, but the way that I was thinking of saying it is that you're shown a blind spot. I didn't realize that I had that, my break in self-awareness, happened at Landmark Education in the Landmark Forum, that first three-day weekend program that they offer, and I didn't, I just, I didn't see myself the way the exercises that they have you do, put it in perspective for me, and I was like... It was like being able to see the back of my head. I never saw that about me before, and that was... So yes, it's being modeled, but at the same time, that of a blind spot was so key

Bill: : I got a really impactful story about that if I could share it with you.

Marty: : Jeez

Bill: : the steps are really designed to do that, to bring us into self-awareness. Let's look at, step four, made a personal inventory of ourselves and that's not exactly the wording, but that's essentially it. I worked nine, 10, 11 of tho- of those four steps over the course of the 35 years that I was involved in AA, and yet none of them actually ever revealed anything to me about me.

Marty: : Interesting

Bill: : checking the box. Do I have resentments? Hell yeah. Here they are. I'm listing them all. And as I listed those resentments, I w- I was still quite convinced that I was justified in my resentment. But they are. Here's all my resentments. Do I have fears? Hell yeah. There's a lot to be scared of. Do I, so on and so forth. And have I done things to harm people? Oh, yeah, but they deserved it. Really underneath I'm thinking yeah, but if they hadn't been that particular way, then I probably wouldn't treat them that way. And I'm gonna go apologize anyhow, even though they deserved it." I'm being a little hard on myself and a little exam-

Marty: : at the same time, I'm thinking about the com- the peop- the newer people in my program

Bill: : Yeah

Marty: : and how they are so stuck on like not seeing themselves. They're doing the steps like you, in the way that you're just out, "Yeah, I'm mad at my dad, and I will be forevermore, so there."

Bill: : Yeah, he deserved it. Yeah.

Marty: : blind spot revelation

Bill: : E- exactly. Yeah. So I'm about, I don't know, I'm gonna guess 23, 24 years sober, and I'm I'm in the mortgage business and me and four other guys get together m- at least once every two weeks locally, and we go out to lunch. There's five of us. And "Where are we going this week, Al?" And Al would say, "We're going to the Thai place down on Riverside." "Okay, great. See you there. What time?" "Noon." "Great. Super. See you there." Like a month had passed by and I hadn't heard from anybody, and I called Al and I say, "Hey, Al what you doing today for lunch?" He says, "Oh, I'm getting together with the guys." "What guys?" "Oh..." And then he gets quiet. He realizes, "Oh, shit, I wasn't supposed to tell Bill." So I said w- where are you guys going?" He said I need to tell you." "What?" "Mike didn't want you to come." "Why?" Mike says he just doesn't have the energy for Bill Tierney today.

Marty: : Hey

Bill: : What? What does that mean? And Al was a great friend, and he said-- But this was so hard to hear. He said, "Mike s- Mike has to work really hard being around you because you always have a quick quip. You always have a sarcastic comment. You're always trying to be funny and he's irritated with not being able to trust you to be able to just share anything out loud without you making a joke out of it." And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn't seen that about myself. But the moment Al said, "This is what Mike is objecting to and doesn't want you around because of it,"

Marty: : Yeah

Bill: : first I f- I felt shame, but then I I felt aligned. Yes, he's right. I do that.

Marty: : Yeah.

Bill: : I had no idea it was affecting people. I thought I was funny. I thought I was entertaining. No, I was draining is what I was. So I will forever be grateful to Al for telling me that. And I ended up having a conversation with Mike about it and saying, "I get it, man. I'm so sorry. Give me another chance." And, I got to be-- go out to lunch with these guys again, and I became a much better listener

Marty: : Awesome. Wow. That's great

Bill: : So sometimes self-awareness c- is painful, but it doesn't have to be. It doesn't always have to be painful like that. But it-- But with awareness, that's-- this is an example of an insight that is so important that if you do something with it, as I did, I took it in, I owned it, I made some amends, I cleaned it up, and I really... over the next-- e- even now, it still shows up. There's a part of me that wants to be funny somebody's just shared something, and I'm not consciously aware that I've got some discomfort because of how intimate of what was just now shared. And I'll say some- I'll want to say something. So in a way, I'm kinda managing myself and saying that... Actually, that's not true. I'm not managing myself. I'm recognizing the part that wants to be funny, and then I'm offering leadership and saying, "No, we don't need to do that."

Marty: : That's right. That's right. That's the difference. You're not like suffocating yourself. You're aware of yourself.

Bill: : Yeah. Yeah. Yeah and even the part of me that leads and says, "No, we don't need to do that," also acknowledges, that is funny. But we're not gonna... We don't need to throw that out. We don't need to get a laugh right now. Yeah. So there's self-management. I know we need to start wrapping up here soon. There's self-management and then there's self-leadership, and in between that is, is a journey that includes increasing self-awareness. And that self-awareness doesn't have to be as extreme as what I just explained in my example of Mike not wanting me to go to lunch. It can be as simple as, "I'm feeling some discomfort. Where do I feel it in my body? Oh, here it is in my gut. It's a tightness. Now let me focus there. Ooh, interesting. When I focus there, it seems to move. I'm gonna keep watching. Ah, now it just seems to have gone away, but wow, now it's in my head. I got a, my headache. I got a headache now. What's, what is up with... Okay, apparently there's a part of me that really needs my attention." And even if you, if even if you don't go that far, but just be aware, just notice what is happening here. This is self-awareness. What is happening in my body? What's happening with my thoughts? What's happening with my emotions? What's happening with impulses? If that's especially important to notice in addiction, my urges, and then of course my behaviors. All of that, self-awareness. And with that awareness comes insight, and with insight comes an opportunity, choice

Marty: : Like with I'm not-- I, I hope I remember all this. was on the mastermind call and I was recogni- recognizing that I've been othering myself and that it's not been good for business and for having a social life. Thinking of myself as different and not like them and not willing to go where they go and blah, blah, blah. And I noticed when I went to do, to become more self-aware of what's going on in me, the first thing I noticed was that the, like this heaviness and this thing like I'm not willing to give that up. Like I am other, don't-- But-- And so that led me to the next realization about myself wh- is that it's not that I wanna conform and just be like everybody else and make my life about being l- the way other people think I should be. I want to be me. I want to be the unique soul that I am, but it's a m- but I don't need to it between me and other people, right? So then I started working out, oh, there's some freedom there. I'm aware that I do wanna be my individual self, but I just d- don't need to use it as what disqualifies me from marketing, for example, or from going to a men's group. I'm not like them. I can't do that. Wait a minute, I could do it my way. I could... My contribution and not... So that's, that was exactly what I went through

Bill: : that, thanks for sharing that real-life example. And what you're pointing to is that you found your way to freedom and choice. That, that ability to actually decide how do I wanna respond to this and how, and what do I wanna do here?

Marty: : And it's amazing, like ever since I had that realization, which was like a week ago, been filling notebooks with notes on... Because my, what I'm interested in and what I don't think nobody I don't think anybody else is in, is beauty. And so I've been writing and writing about what is a beautiful business. I'm planning a series, for Substack, for my Substack on beauty in business. What does that mean? This is a great thing and I wanna share it. It's a whole different attitude from, "Oh, nobody care." In business, nobody wants to talk about beauty. I have a whole new take on it

Bill: : I love it. I'm eager to read the, what you're writing

Marty: : the first piece that will come out middle of next week

Bill: : and what are you calling it?

Marty: : Beautiful business.

Bill: : Beautiful. Love it. That's great. So how does somebody get on your reading list?

Marty: : on you go to Examined Life.

Bill: : Okay

Marty: : Examined Life, that's where it all got started was my bringing my interest in philosophy together with my interest in business, the leading the examined life. That's what, the famous Socr- Socratic thing was, to lead an examined life rather than an, an unexamined life. And so that's the core idea

Bill: : I think it's time to, for us to wrap it up. What'd we talk about today, Marty?

Marty: : everything and its brother. We talked about the difference between managing oneself and being self-led. And we talked about the difference, between programs like AA that, impose a structure versus, W- becoming more self-aware and re- recognizing the freedom and creativity to make the life you want out of that

Bill: : Yeah. And so many other things related to all of that. I think one of the important things we talked about here was, m- self-awareness leading to self-trust, leading to self-leadership.

Marty: : Yes

Bill: : Leading from self-trust, leading from self-compassion, and leading from a willingness to be self-aware and to own what it is that we notice, even though I didn't specifically say that. That's a big piece of it. I'm looking inside, I'm realizing I've got this feeling that I don't like, and I've got this memory that I'm ashamed of or whatever it is. And I'm realize I'm working this hard to manage all of that so I can keep it a secret or so that nobody ever figures out what I think it is wrong with me. That, that's what I mean by self-awareness and ownership and then self-trust.

Marty: : And I think all of that points to that this other t- theme that we've had today about just recognizing that so much more, there are so much more resources within us, this self that can lead us, this love within us for us that is already there, instead of having to manipulate the world to work out in a certain way for us

Bill: : Yeah, exactly. I love that point that you made. E- Emmett Fox. Did you ever read any Emmett Fox?

Marty: : I don't think so

Bill: : I think it's Emmett, and I wanna say two X's, Fox. And he-- The reason I know it all about Emmett Fox is because one of my sponsors in AA introduced me to him, and he was-- he influenced Bill Wilson back in the day. And he's a metaphysician and talked about greeting the Christ in each other, and I think that's what you're talking about. Recognizing the Christ in each other or recognizing the deity the spark of di- of deity in each and every one of us. And something about that, even back that many years ago, 43 years ago, when I was first introduced to that concept and idea, despite me wanting to really push away anything having to do with God because of my Catholic unbri-upbringing that I didn't enjoy something about that resonated. And and I was confused by that. How in the world does anything having to do God-- with God resonate with me? It took me years to sort it out and to understand it. And it really is what you're talking about, that each of us do have that spark of God inside of us

Marty: : Yeah, do

Bill: : And that is where just even a little tiny spark of that gives us ample resource to everything that we need to do whatever it is we need to do and deal with whatever it is that comes our way

Marty: : Yeah. Yeah. We could do a whole episode on that, the recognizing the spark in others and in ourselves and what, how to learn from that. That's another episode

Bill: : Yeah. When we do that, I'll try to get a couple of quotes up from Emmett Fox, and I'll get his name spelled correctly. He he taught me a lot. Reading his books taught me a lot early in sobriety.

Marty: : Great. Great. Bring it

Bill: : Another great conversation, Marty. Great to see you.

Marty: : Twice

Bill: : care