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This is Grief and Pizza, a
podcast exploring the highs

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and lows at the intersection of
business and emotional well being.

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In this episode, we spoke with Barrett
Brooks about how acknowledging and

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integrating past pain is essential
for personal growth and success.

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So Barrett, it's great to
have you on the podcast.

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Uh, we met in the summer at, uh, Sean
Blanc's retreat and in the short period

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of time that Um, we've known you, I've
come to think of you this very clear

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communicator and very courageous person.

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And so today I'm really excited
to learn more about the work that

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you're doing with that in mind.

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Um, cause I think, you know, I
know who you are as a person,

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but I don't actually know much
about the work that you're doing.

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Um, so just the way that you show
up in the world has been really

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inspiring and some of the advice
that you gave us at the retreat.

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Was actually quite impactful in the way
that in the decision making that we made

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towards the end of this year, we had
to make some really tough decisions and

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your directness and the way that you
communicate with such compassion was

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really helpful, um, in us moving forward.

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So I'm really stoked to talk to you today.

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So Barrett Brooks, uh, former COO at
ConvertKit and now executive coach.

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Um, maybe you'd like to
introduce yourself here.

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Yeah, well, deeply honored by that, uh,
really, really kind intro, um, I can't

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think of better ways to be described, uh,
would rather be described in those ways

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as, you know, thoughtful and, and, uh,
I don't know, something like authentic.

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I think you said, um, then accomplished.

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So, uh, thank you for that.

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Um, yeah, I'm Barrett.

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Uh, I am an executive coach.

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Uh, used to be a startup executive,
um, at ConvertKit and a couple other

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companies that I worked at over time.

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Um, As a person, I am a
dad of two young boys.

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My wife and I have been together
for going on 15 years now.

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And I live in Portland, Oregon.

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And I would say I feel most at
peace and at home in nature.

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I have a really deep passion for
protecting our natural world.

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And a lot of the work that I
do in the world is in an effort

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to help protect what we have.

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And also to try and inspire people to
tackle hard and important problems and

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what they choose to work on in business,
especially, um, I think that business can

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be one of the most powerful forces for
good in the world, but it takes really

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courageous leadership to make that true.

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And I really want to hold up role
models and examples of people who

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use business that way, both through
my coaching work and through my

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writing and my podcasting and my
other efforts, um, to try and create.

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Another definition of success beyond just
building the next unicorn or, you know,

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financial measures that we typically use.

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So maybe that we'll use
that as a jumping off point.

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Yeah.

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I'm curious if that sort of passion may
be on the nature side, like has that

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always been there or was there sort of
a, a turning point for you or like, what

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were some of the breadcrumbs that led for
that to become part of your big mission?

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Yeah.

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Uh, it's such a thoughtful question.

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I think a lot about origins, uh,
and threads to pull on like this,

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both for my clients and for myself.

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And the best explanation I have on
this Well, number one is that it's just

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still deeply rooted in our biology.

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I mean, we haven't really evolved
beyond this as just a species, um,

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not to get overly philosophical right
off the bat, but, um, I think some of

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it's just hardwired into us still that
we're very connected to the natural

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world and we haven't fully figured out
how to replicate that attachment and

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the way we build architecture and the
way we build communities and cities.

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Um, so that's there, but from an early
age, my parents just got us outside a lot.

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Uh, I hated a lot of it.

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I mean, we went on a lot of hikes and
like boring camping trips, what felt

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like boring camping trips at the time.

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And now as a parent, it's completely
transformed my relationship to that

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because that formed the basis for
wanting to do those things and loving it.

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And, um, and wanting my boys to do that
with us too, and wanting them to enjoy it.

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Uh, I'll also just add that we watched so
much Discovery Channel and like Nat Geo

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and all that kind of thing growing up.

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Um, If it wasn't sports on
the TV, it was nature shows.

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And I think that just had a deep
psychological embedding in my,

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in my mind that stuck around.

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And so, you know, you can get
all kinds of arguments for why we

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should protect the natural world.

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You know, maybe there's
cures for cancer out there.

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Maybe, uh, humanity will die without it.

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Um, you know, whatever it ranges.

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My argument is that
nature is just beautiful.

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The natural world is just beautiful.

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And I think that that alone, we don't
allow ourselves to make that kind of

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argument enough in society that just
like beauty is enough to want to protect

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something and we can build all these
logical reasons for why that should

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be true and like why we should do it.

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But I think that can be enough
just to say it's beautiful and

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therefore we should protect it.

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It's so funny how we don't appreciate
that stuff when we're kids, right?

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Like the going outside and all
the stuff that, in retrospect,

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we wish we'd appreciated more.

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It's almost, it's, it's too bad.

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I'm curious how your kids are
maybe dealing with that now.

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And you're like, no, trust
me, we want to be outside.

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Like, are you having to, to deal
with that from your own kids in

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the way that maybe you resisted?

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It's funny because, you know, if you
give them an option, you can have

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your tablet or you can go outside.

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They'll say, I want my tablet.

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But if you were a scientist studying
their behavior and you looked at them

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on a tablet and immediately afterwards,
and you looked at how they behave

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outside and immediately afterwards,
they're both much more, they're maybe

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equally engaged in each when they're
outside, when they're on a tablet.

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But the after effects are
so drastically different.

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I mean just completely dysregulated, don't
know what's going on with their emotions

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after being on a tablet versus after we're
on a hike or something like that at peace.

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Calm, engaged, connected, um, and I'm
not saying that means it's always better,

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obviously, for them to be outside.

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Like, technology is a beautiful thing,
but I do find it fascinating that just

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from a evidence based perspective,
anecdotal, of course, to my family, like,

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they love it and they're much more at
peace after having spent time outdoors.

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How does that, um, in your work,
you talk a little bit on your

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website about the importance of
Biodiversity in, in business.

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Like, do you see any corollaries or
parallels in that, in, in leadership

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that, you know, if we're, if we're out
of, out of touch with our more based

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nature and, and, you know, how, how
could we bring more of that feeling

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of connection to nature in the work?

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Um, do you, do you see any
correspondence there or?

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Yeah.

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Oh man, there's so many
directions we can go here.

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Um, absolutely.

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You know, I think the.

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The brokenness of our natural
world that we have created is

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reflected in the brokenness in our
organizations and in our relationship,

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in our personal relationships.

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I mean, we could go whichever
direction with that.

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And I think all of it is rooted in
pain and trying to meet our needs.

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Um, And fundamentally, if you have
unmet needs, you know, the lower

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down Maslow's hierarchy you go, the
more you're willing to sacrifice

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almost anything else to meet them.

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And I think in society, even when we
have met those baseline needs, we often

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operate from a mental place of acting as
if we're still trying to meet those needs.

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I mean, you can have millionaires,
billionaires still acting as if

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they're trying to never be poor again.

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Um, And not necessarily
intentionally, just through their

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actions, if you look at them.

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So, I mean, I would say that our
organizations end up broken in a

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similar way to the way nature gets
broken because of old pain and the

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way that we don't process through
it and grieve it and move beyond it.

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Um, and then we inflicted
on the people around us.

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We inflicted on often the
people who love us the most.

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Um, some of whom are colleagues
and some of whom are the people

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who work with us and for us.

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If, uh, if I may, Barrett, I love how
you shared your mission on Twitter.

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Um, if I could just read this out.

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Help people acknowledge and integrate
their pain from their past, so they

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can realize their potential and use
it to make the world a better place.

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First of all, I just think it's a
beautiful articulation of your mission.

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Um, obviously you're
passionate about this.

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How do we take the pain from our past and
Again, whether it's working through it,

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whether it's acknowledging it, noticing
like why we're driven to make decisions

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out of fear, something that we're
avoiding or something that we're seeking.

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Um, so seeing this at a leadership level,
I imagine it's pretty interesting because

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as a coach, you're probably somewhat.

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like a business therapist, right?

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Like you're seeing a lot of people's
junk and kind of how it's influencing

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what they're putting out into the world.

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So I would just love to maybe dig into
that a little bit, maybe how that became

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your mission and even how this shows
up for leaders over and over again.

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I'm curious how many leaders actually are
in therapy and working through that stuff.

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Like, I'm just really curious, kind
of what you're seeing as an executive

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coach and kind of what's most
interesting for you in this space.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh, let me answer the last part first.

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Um, it was interesting because I,
I wrote that mission and the vision

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I shared with it on the plane home
from the retreat where we met.

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Um, and it was just kind of
like stream of consciousness.

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I felt like I had a lot of clarity
that retreat was a big kind of

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turning point for me last year.

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Um, and I see.

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pain every day in working with clients.

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I see pain showing up at work every day.

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And so let me just caveat this straight.

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Let me give my caveat.

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I am not a trained psychologist or
therapist, and I think there's a

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really, really important difference
between coaching and therapy.

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And I think great coaches know
that, acknowledge it, work with

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that, are intentional about it.

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Um, And I, my ambition is to be a great
coach and to be able to draw that line.

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I'm also very fascinated in my own journey
through therapy and coaching alongside

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each other and how they interrelate.

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So what I tell all my clients is it would
be ideal if every person I worked with

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was both in therapy and working with me.

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And the reason I say that
is the shit's gonna come up.

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Like it comes up at work because for
founders and creators, especially

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Your entity that you are building,
whether it's just a newsletter or

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it's like a team is an attachment.

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It's like a, an attachment
relationship, which in therapy speak

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is like your parents growing up or
whoever's taking care of you, your

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partner in life as you grow older.

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And I really believe that for
entrepreneurs, your company is like

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another attachment relationship.

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And so every pain, trauma, hardship,
Old pattern that's no longer

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serving you mostly shows up first
in your attachment relationships.

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And, you know, now that seems obvious
to me, like, of course, the patterns

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are playing out at work because
for founders it's that personal.

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Um, but I don't think that's
always visible to everyone.

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And I'm not sure every
founder wants to work on it.

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I do think most of the people that end
up coming to me want to work on it.

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They're like, I've hit a limit.

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My patterns won't let me
get past this anymore.

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And so I have to figure something out.

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And when I find, when I work with people
who are in therapy, what I notice is

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often the things they're learning about
themselves in therapy directly apply

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to how they're showing up at work.

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And so we get to work with
what they're taking away from

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therapy in a work context.

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I'm not trying to, I think
it's really important.

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Like I don't have the training
to help you process a trauma.

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That can be really dangerous, right?

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But if you have processed a trauma and
you now recognize patterns from that

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that have showed up at work, that's
really fruitful ground for coaching.

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And I just think there's a nuanced
difference there between tackling it

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at the base level and then talking
about how it applies at work.

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Appreciate that distinction, for sure.

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Yeah, I'm curious about another tweet
that you wrote this morning, actually.

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You were talking about being focused on
Inner and outer alignment this year, uh,

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and in the past that you felt that this
was more of a seeking type relationship

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with that, and that now you feel like
it's actually really become embodied.

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Um, I'm curious what,
what's changed for you.

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Uh, what do you think
the key was to feeling?

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Cause it, it, I think you also
mentioned how people keep noticing

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that, wow, this guy seems really.

224
00:12:53,633 --> 00:12:57,923
Really aligned, really confident,
and you know, is there something

225
00:12:57,923 --> 00:13:01,123
that you can point to or what
you've been working on that you feel

226
00:13:01,123 --> 00:13:03,193
has been helpful in that regard?

227
00:13:03,193 --> 00:13:05,233
Yeah.

228
00:13:05,233 --> 00:13:10,893
Well, I mean, I'm really lucky and
thankful to have the resources I

229
00:13:10,893 --> 00:13:12,903
have to invest in these things,
so let me say that first.

230
00:13:13,373 --> 00:13:17,703
Um, but I would say it's
kind of a trio of things.

231
00:13:17,713 --> 00:13:21,043
One is my wife and I have done marriage
counseling from the day we got married

232
00:13:21,553 --> 00:13:26,303
and we felt like it's a wellness
practice for us, not a like, let's

233
00:13:26,303 --> 00:13:29,583
wait till it's broken and then seek
it out, which is okay too, because

234
00:13:29,583 --> 00:13:30,783
sometimes you just end up there.

235
00:13:30,833 --> 00:13:36,603
Um, so that's been a huge tool, uh,
alongside that we each do individual

236
00:13:36,603 --> 00:13:42,183
therapy and my therapist works in a
modality called internal family systems.

237
00:13:42,803 --> 00:13:48,723
Um, there's a, if someone wants to look
into it, there's a great book by the, uh,

238
00:13:48,773 --> 00:13:52,523
person who came up with it named Richard
Schwartz, uh, that's called No Bad Parts.

239
00:13:53,103 --> 00:13:58,303
And, um, whole idea is that basically
we all have inner children that get

240
00:13:58,303 --> 00:14:01,813
kind of frozen at a point in time based
on pain that we experienced growing

241
00:14:01,813 --> 00:14:03,433
up in our attachment relationships.

242
00:14:04,193 --> 00:14:07,173
Um, I guess theoretically it would
be possible that some people don't,

243
00:14:07,263 --> 00:14:09,373
don't have that, but mostly we all do.

244
00:14:09,763 --> 00:14:11,603
And in times of.

245
00:14:12,043 --> 00:14:16,673
Triggering, uh, where we are triggered,
we return to that little person, basically

246
00:14:16,673 --> 00:14:18,223
the state that that little person was at.

247
00:14:18,703 --> 00:14:23,823
And so this form of therapy helps you
dissect all of the parts of yourself that

248
00:14:23,823 --> 00:14:25,693
you build to protect that little person.

249
00:14:26,213 --> 00:14:29,213
And these are kind of like rep
representative of the patterns

250
00:14:29,433 --> 00:14:30,563
that you have in your life.

251
00:14:31,093 --> 00:14:37,973
So beginning to go to that form of
therapy was an end of 2022 thing for

252
00:14:37,983 --> 00:14:40,873
me that opened all of these doors.

253
00:14:40,893 --> 00:14:48,263
To integrating new patterns for old
patterns that I knew were there, but I

254
00:14:48,263 --> 00:14:49,583
couldn't figure out how to get out of.

255
00:14:50,383 --> 00:14:54,023
So this just happened to be the modality
that allowed me to kind of move through

256
00:14:54,023 --> 00:14:57,123
it rather than just being able to see it
and not figure out what to do with it.

257
00:14:58,043 --> 00:15:01,333
Um, and then the last was just, I worked
with a coach for five years who I love.

258
00:15:01,333 --> 00:15:03,623
His name is Andy Christinger
at a firm called Reboot.

259
00:15:04,143 --> 00:15:07,233
Um, their founder has written
a couple of wonderful books and

260
00:15:07,233 --> 00:15:10,003
they have a great podcast for
anyone interested in this stuff.

261
00:15:10,493 --> 00:15:19,653
Um, by the same name reboot and he
created the space for me to create

262
00:15:19,683 --> 00:15:25,483
change in myself relative to my work
and helped me through a very long arc

263
00:15:25,483 --> 00:15:31,983
of transition that began with realizing,
uh, in my old role as a COO that I was,

264
00:15:32,823 --> 00:15:37,603
I had recreated conditions at work that
allowed me to constantly live in old pain.

265
00:15:39,383 --> 00:15:39,953
And.

266
00:15:40,343 --> 00:15:45,753
That was why I left that job was I could
not be in that job and get better Like

267
00:15:45,763 --> 00:15:49,713
it where where get better is not like
improve my performance, but like feel

268
00:15:49,713 --> 00:15:55,233
better inside So that was kind of the
beginning of this arc I think was leaving

269
00:15:55,233 --> 00:16:00,493
that job and then going on this kind of
walkabout over a couple of years Using all

270
00:16:00,493 --> 00:16:06,093
these resources to help me kind of unpack
it and then put myself back together Are

271
00:16:06,093 --> 00:16:11,283
you willing to share any of those maybe
Yeah Like specific patterns or like, I

272
00:16:11,323 --> 00:16:15,183
didn't like that or, or, you know, uh,
I imagine your coach helped you kind of

273
00:16:15,293 --> 00:16:18,273
hone in on them or notice them and maybe
the therapist helped you with that too.

274
00:16:18,273 --> 00:16:20,863
But like, are you able to or
willing to share some of the

275
00:16:20,863 --> 00:16:22,559
ones that have been big for you?

276
00:16:22,559 --> 00:16:26,683
I just wrote about this in kind of
summary the other day as I was writing

277
00:16:26,683 --> 00:16:29,013
my review for myself of the last year.

278
00:16:29,053 --> 00:16:38,838
Um, so one of them was, uh, my father
was an incredible, um, Servant leader and

279
00:16:38,838 --> 00:16:43,908
that he showed us his love, but he was not
very able to communicate his love to us.

280
00:16:44,378 --> 00:16:48,158
And he was the stay at home
partner and my parents partnership.

281
00:16:48,158 --> 00:16:50,628
And so he took care of my
brother and I growing up.

282
00:16:51,268 --> 00:16:56,668
Um, and he also had a lot of repressed
emotion, a lot of anger, and I learned

283
00:16:56,668 --> 00:17:02,408
to be super hyper vigilant, um, super
hyper, just hyper vigilant, uh, in

284
00:17:02,408 --> 00:17:06,438
response to that, because it was always
kind of unknown what would spark anger.

285
00:17:06,453 --> 00:17:14,753
And in that process, I learned to repress
my own emotion in favor of kind of having

286
00:17:14,753 --> 00:17:18,623
feelers out all the time for what is
everyone else going through right now?

287
00:17:18,623 --> 00:17:20,663
And how do I head off
anything that might go wrong?

288
00:17:21,753 --> 00:17:25,563
This is incredibly useful for
things like coaching and leading

289
00:17:25,763 --> 00:17:29,203
because I'm hyper aware of what
other people are experiencing.

290
00:17:29,913 --> 00:17:31,013
I can see their emotions.

291
00:17:31,013 --> 00:17:34,263
I can see the impact of my
actions and the impact of other

292
00:17:34,263 --> 00:17:35,903
leaders actions on their people.

293
00:17:37,208 --> 00:17:43,408
But there is a negative pattern in
there, which is if you, or if I remain

294
00:17:43,528 --> 00:17:48,868
hypervigilant and continue to negate
my own experience and my own feelings

295
00:17:49,408 --> 00:17:54,138
in that process, I become resentful,
frustrated and repressed myself.

296
00:17:54,208 --> 00:17:54,508
Right?

297
00:17:54,528 --> 00:17:55,778
And that's the great irony.

298
00:17:57,068 --> 00:17:59,208
And so that was a big pattern
that I had to work through.

299
00:17:59,558 --> 00:18:03,848
Was beginning to acknowledge my emotions
and learn that there's a difference

300
00:18:03,848 --> 00:18:10,088
between caring for people and Trying to
head off their emotions before they can

301
00:18:10,088 --> 00:18:17,638
communicate them So that was a big that's
yeah, that's a huge one like Learning

302
00:18:17,638 --> 00:18:21,928
not to manage other people's emotions as
a way to almost manage your own, to not

303
00:18:22,048 --> 00:18:24,908
feel the discomfort of, yeah, that's.

304
00:18:25,458 --> 00:18:27,088
And it's ultimately a safety thing, right?

305
00:18:27,088 --> 00:18:31,078
Like it's a safety inclination for if
someone else's emotions are dangerous,

306
00:18:31,108 --> 00:18:34,908
then I better take care of them so
that they don't become dangerous to me.

307
00:18:35,198 --> 00:18:35,818
Yes.

308
00:18:37,058 --> 00:18:37,878
So that was a big one.

309
00:18:37,938 --> 00:18:42,568
Um, another one is that, uh, so my
mom was a breadwinner, incredibly

310
00:18:42,568 --> 00:18:46,368
performance driven person, like high
achiever, managed sales teams, always

311
00:18:46,368 --> 00:18:48,058
met our quotas, that kind of person.

312
00:18:48,788 --> 00:18:54,248
And we joke now, like we, my mom, I
have this great appreciation for, like

313
00:18:54,248 --> 00:18:59,538
she can have these conversations and
recognize what was good about how she

314
00:19:00,743 --> 00:19:04,683
herself as a mom and also maybe where
she fell short and like we can talk

315
00:19:04,693 --> 00:19:06,673
about it, which is an incredible gift.

316
00:19:07,153 --> 00:19:09,863
Um, so we joke now that mom
was kind of more of a coach

317
00:19:09,863 --> 00:19:11,043
than a mom in a lot of ways.

318
00:19:11,053 --> 00:19:15,953
It was like very, at least for me, my
brother has a very different personality.

319
00:19:16,003 --> 00:19:19,588
Um, You know, I had a lot of
talents and like I was able to do

320
00:19:19,608 --> 00:19:23,708
things relatively easily at the
beginning at school or in sports.

321
00:19:24,058 --> 00:19:28,828
And my mom was just so performance driven
that it was like, here are the 12 ways

322
00:19:28,828 --> 00:19:30,578
you could get better after today's game.

323
00:19:31,118 --> 00:19:36,448
And we very rarely celebrated or like
really took the time to look at prior

324
00:19:36,448 --> 00:19:39,208
achievement up to now and appreciate it.

325
00:19:39,718 --> 00:19:44,098
So, one might expect that out of
that comes a great inner critic who

326
00:19:44,098 --> 00:19:45,658
is never satisfied with anything.

327
00:19:46,843 --> 00:19:53,573
And, um, so a pattern is that I am
constantly striving for perfection

328
00:19:53,923 --> 00:19:57,773
and to get everything right before
anyone can give me any feedback.

329
00:19:58,443 --> 00:20:01,843
And so I'm trying to have all my
ducks in a row all the time, no

330
00:20:01,843 --> 00:20:05,763
matter what, so that no one catches
me doing something wrong before I do.

331
00:20:07,213 --> 00:20:12,083
Um, that can lead to a big sensitivity
to criticism and shying away from over.

332
00:20:12,588 --> 00:20:15,698
From putting myself in situations where
expectations are high and I might let

333
00:20:15,698 --> 00:20:20,668
someone down and the major negative
way that showed up for me is I had

334
00:20:20,668 --> 00:20:24,568
this upper limit where if I got to the
point where I actually was doing well

335
00:20:24,568 --> 00:20:28,258
on something, my audience was growing,
my writing was getting traction,

336
00:20:28,948 --> 00:20:30,438
the company was growing, whatever.

337
00:20:31,098 --> 00:20:34,668
Now it goes from, can he do it
to everyone expects him to do it.

338
00:20:35,173 --> 00:20:36,643
And that's harder to maintain.

339
00:20:37,363 --> 00:20:40,843
And so there was like performance
anxiety almost, where I would sabotage

340
00:20:40,863 --> 00:20:43,083
myself or slow down or disappear.

341
00:20:43,633 --> 00:20:47,533
Um, so that one I'd say I'm still
like actively working with and playing

342
00:20:47,533 --> 00:20:49,213
with and reforming habits around.

343
00:20:49,633 --> 00:20:52,553
So there's probably four or five
like that, that were really present

344
00:20:52,553 --> 00:20:57,493
for me, that I've had to, or gotten
the opportunity to just change and

345
00:20:57,493 --> 00:21:00,793
transform and learn their beauty
and learn their shadow side and have

346
00:21:00,793 --> 00:21:02,083
a different relationship to them.

347
00:21:04,348 --> 00:21:07,848
Incredible, incredible level of
self awareness and willingness to

348
00:21:07,858 --> 00:21:10,388
confront those, those parts of us.

349
00:21:10,388 --> 00:21:15,198
Like, I know doing that work is not
always easy and, you know, kudos to

350
00:21:15,198 --> 00:21:16,728
you for looking at the hard parts.

351
00:21:17,368 --> 00:21:17,838
Thank you.

352
00:21:19,048 --> 00:21:19,398
Yeah.

353
00:21:19,858 --> 00:21:20,128
Yeah.

354
00:21:20,128 --> 00:21:21,118
I'm very thankful for it.

355
00:21:21,118 --> 00:21:25,608
It's, uh, you know, maybe because
of some of these patterns, I've

356
00:21:25,608 --> 00:21:28,958
always had a tendency to look inward
and to try and understand myself.

357
00:21:29,488 --> 00:21:31,488
And I think that's been a gift.

358
00:21:31,778 --> 00:21:36,208
In the process, because I'm already kind
of there, but now instead of getting

359
00:21:36,228 --> 00:21:40,378
anxious about what I see, it's like I
have the tools to be able to work with it.

360
00:21:40,648 --> 00:21:41,098
Interesting.

361
00:21:41,478 --> 00:21:41,648
Yeah.

362
00:21:41,698 --> 00:21:44,698
Yeah, I'm curious how you're, and this
is a bit more of a personal question,

363
00:21:44,698 --> 00:21:49,398
but how the dynamics of noticing like
the mom's the breadwinner, dad the stay

364
00:21:49,398 --> 00:21:53,208
at home, um, how that may have shaped
or influenced your own relationship

365
00:21:53,208 --> 00:21:56,428
with your partner now, and then I'm
sure you're even confronting aspects

366
00:21:56,428 --> 00:22:00,588
of that, being a father, just kind
of curious if, uh, If that's been an

367
00:22:00,608 --> 00:22:04,618
influence for you or in kind of how you
see your own dynamic with your partner.

368
00:22:05,028 --> 00:22:05,718
Huge.

369
00:22:05,748 --> 00:22:12,998
Um, I think I default to a belief that
women are extremely capable leaders and

370
00:22:12,998 --> 00:22:14,888
business people because my mother was.

371
00:22:14,958 --> 00:22:22,738
Um, and you know, I am a white guy who
kind of meets the stereotype of tech exec

372
00:22:22,738 --> 00:22:24,848
in terms of background and all of that.

373
00:22:25,198 --> 00:22:30,958
Um, But I found, I find that I'm, I often
feel out of place and conversations with

374
00:22:30,968 --> 00:22:35,658
other stereotypical tech exec type people
because of my background in that way.

375
00:22:35,658 --> 00:22:42,268
Um, it's like I default to thinking
that a woman is going to want to have

376
00:22:42,268 --> 00:22:46,318
a career, is going to want to drive
earnings in the family, may not want

377
00:22:46,368 --> 00:22:50,548
to be the one who stays at home, that
there's going to be, um, equal or maybe

378
00:22:50,548 --> 00:22:53,118
even lopsided division of labor at home.

379
00:22:53,523 --> 00:22:55,683
Towards the male in the relationship.

380
00:22:55,683 --> 00:23:01,433
And so there's a lot of things like that
where like I hold myself to a standard

381
00:23:01,433 --> 00:23:06,933
of I expect to do half of the like, you
know, underappreciated labor at home.

382
00:23:06,963 --> 00:23:08,373
I don't think I always live up to that.

383
00:23:08,953 --> 00:23:11,443
Um, but that's my inner
expectation of myself.

384
00:23:11,473 --> 00:23:14,963
I don't think I would have
that if my mom were like a

385
00:23:14,973 --> 00:23:16,613
stereotypical stay at home mom.

386
00:23:17,893 --> 00:23:21,363
Um, I thought a lot about
this in my schooling as well.

387
00:23:21,403 --> 00:23:22,703
I went to school in Atlanta.

388
00:23:23,163 --> 00:23:29,453
There was a very kind of forward looking,
uh, integration program for students

389
00:23:29,453 --> 00:23:33,813
in underserved schools as measured by
performance outcomes, having the option

390
00:23:33,813 --> 00:23:36,733
to, um, go across the county to school.

391
00:23:36,733 --> 00:23:41,213
So, what that ended up looking like in
practicality was often black students,

392
00:23:41,223 --> 00:23:43,763
sometimes, uh, Latino students.

393
00:23:44,298 --> 00:23:47,268
Getting on a bus, riding an hour
to the north part of the county

394
00:23:47,268 --> 00:23:51,198
where I lived and going to what were
previously majority white schools.

395
00:23:51,698 --> 00:23:55,548
And because of that, we had about
a 50 50 population between white

396
00:23:55,548 --> 00:23:57,798
students and non white students.

397
00:23:58,758 --> 00:24:02,128
All my teammates on, on basketball
teams and baseball teams, like

398
00:24:02,148 --> 00:24:04,088
80 percent of them were black.

399
00:24:04,578 --> 00:24:09,558
Uh, many of my fellow students
in classes were black and Latino.

400
00:24:09,908 --> 00:24:13,743
And so So again, it's just
like that conditioning piece

401
00:24:13,783 --> 00:24:15,103
of what are your defaults?

402
00:24:15,633 --> 00:24:19,393
And so my defaults are half the
people around you are not going to

403
00:24:19,403 --> 00:24:22,913
be like you from the same background
and put the same skin color and

404
00:24:22,923 --> 00:24:24,693
income level and whatever else.

405
00:24:24,693 --> 00:24:30,293
Um, so anyways, all that's like a very
long way of saying, I think that shows up

406
00:24:30,293 --> 00:24:35,683
in kind of everything that I expect and
do both at work and in my personal life.

407
00:24:36,073 --> 00:24:40,513
And I also feel quite out of place because
I look like that would not be the case.

408
00:24:41,823 --> 00:24:46,993
Um, but I feel out of place with
people who think like what I look like.

409
00:24:48,163 --> 00:24:49,063
If that makes sense.

410
00:24:49,263 --> 00:24:50,273
That makes sense, yeah.

411
00:24:50,853 --> 00:24:52,293
So it's just a weird thing.

412
00:24:52,743 --> 00:24:55,723
Um, that I'm also very grateful for.

413
00:24:55,763 --> 00:24:59,023
I mean like I would not trade anything
in the world for my mom having taught me

414
00:24:59,023 --> 00:25:00,463
everything she taught me about leadership.

415
00:25:00,463 --> 00:25:05,868
I think I have an inherently more
Empathetic, connected, human oriented

416
00:25:05,868 --> 00:25:09,738
approach to leadership because my mom
was the one who taught me to lead.

417
00:25:10,338 --> 00:25:13,798
That's so, so interesting, too,
because I think Ben had a pretty,

418
00:25:14,188 --> 00:25:16,168
you know, independent mom.

419
00:25:16,258 --> 00:25:20,438
It was pretty adventurous and do,
like, very much, you know, carves

420
00:25:20,438 --> 00:25:23,528
her own path and goes on her own
vacations and does her own thing.

421
00:25:23,528 --> 00:25:27,258
And I think that's a big reason why
there's, like, a lot of respect,

422
00:25:27,268 --> 00:25:32,143
like, mutual admiration and respect
for us both being the, You know,

423
00:25:32,143 --> 00:25:35,143
independent creators that we are, and
so I'm always, you know, grateful.

424
00:25:35,163 --> 00:25:38,643
Kudos to the, to the mums that,
uh, you know, help shape, uh.

425
00:25:38,643 --> 00:25:39,683
Trailblazers, you know.

426
00:25:39,833 --> 00:25:41,963
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

427
00:25:43,263 --> 00:25:44,763
Yeah, I'm grateful for it.

428
00:25:44,763 --> 00:25:50,013
It's um, it's a complex thing, you know,
I think, I think my, my view on it is

429
00:25:50,033 --> 00:25:51,423
kind of what my view is on most things.

430
00:25:51,423 --> 00:25:55,103
It's like, I don't think
there's a right model.

431
00:25:55,903 --> 00:25:57,433
There's not a right gender based model.

432
00:25:57,433 --> 00:26:00,973
I think that there are partnerships
where people should make conscious

433
00:26:00,973 --> 00:26:03,743
agreements with one another about
what's good for each of them.

434
00:26:04,523 --> 00:26:07,953
And as long as everyone's in,
in there acting from their

435
00:26:07,953 --> 00:26:09,603
agency, it's like, great.

436
00:26:09,913 --> 00:26:10,523
That works for you.

437
00:26:10,523 --> 00:26:11,073
Amazing.

438
00:26:11,153 --> 00:26:14,073
And that just happened to be the
one, the agreement that I came from.

439
00:26:14,493 --> 00:26:19,963
I'm curious, uh, To kind of pivot a
little bit how you think about your work

440
00:26:20,353 --> 00:26:23,823
Given that you've you kind of shifted
to a new type of work or maybe you were

441
00:26:23,823 --> 00:26:27,093
doing coaching before but you know now
thinking Of yourself as a coach and

442
00:26:27,093 --> 00:26:31,033
really thinking about your capacity and
how many people you can work with and

443
00:26:31,493 --> 00:26:34,393
I don't know How much the people that
you work with when you're kind of taking

444
00:26:34,403 --> 00:26:38,023
on Other people's problems a little bit
or you're having to really hold space

445
00:26:38,023 --> 00:26:42,043
for people like that's a special skill
set I'm curious how you think about and

446
00:26:42,043 --> 00:26:46,133
divide your time from day to day And how
you think about what your capacity is for

447
00:26:46,133 --> 00:26:50,523
holding space for other people versus your
own ideas that you're really craving to

448
00:26:50,523 --> 00:26:55,343
bring forward Yeah, I was really worried
about that trade off when I started this

449
00:26:57,623 --> 00:27:04,158
In fact, I think I did it I tried almost
everything not To do this path And part

450
00:27:04,158 --> 00:27:07,358
of that was just I had a mental barrier
on the idea of coaching in general like

451
00:27:07,358 --> 00:27:13,108
I had a Default negative perception of
coaching Even though well the thing that

452
00:27:13,108 --> 00:27:16,948
allowed me to get over it was realizing
my coach had been so instrumental to my

453
00:27:16,948 --> 00:27:24,193
growth So professional so well trained
And I was like, okay, so there are some

454
00:27:24,193 --> 00:27:26,113
coaches in the world who are full of it.

455
00:27:26,123 --> 00:27:28,313
Like they're, they're doing
a great disservice to people.

456
00:27:28,713 --> 00:27:33,353
And my coach and their firm has figured
out a way to train themselves and be

457
00:27:34,133 --> 00:27:35,543
that represents what I would like to be.

458
00:27:35,953 --> 00:27:38,643
And so that was like the mental
hurdle I had to get over first of all.

459
00:27:39,043 --> 00:27:45,063
But the next worry I had was, will I
feel stifled by not building myself

460
00:27:45,083 --> 00:27:50,083
by like being in the seat of, you
know, It's not, you're not even really

461
00:27:50,083 --> 00:27:53,723
an advisor, just like holding space
rather than being the person building

462
00:27:53,723 --> 00:27:57,053
something really concerned about that.

463
00:27:57,083 --> 00:28:03,273
And I'm a year in now and I'm, it's just
like, that doesn't even cross my mind.

464
00:28:03,343 --> 00:28:05,953
Um, which is just fascinating.

465
00:28:06,033 --> 00:28:06,493
Who knew?

466
00:28:06,563 --> 00:28:10,983
I, I didn't know I needed data to
back it up one way or the other.

467
00:28:11,653 --> 00:28:12,093
So.

468
00:28:12,908 --> 00:28:14,438
I don't worry about that as much now.

469
00:28:14,448 --> 00:28:18,388
However, I did structure things
with that in mind, where I

470
00:28:18,388 --> 00:28:20,048
coach on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

471
00:28:20,078 --> 00:28:21,928
I have eight coaching slots a week.

472
00:28:22,428 --> 00:28:26,988
There are four slots per Tuesday and four
slots per Thursday, two in the morning,

473
00:28:27,118 --> 00:28:30,288
lunch break where I can pick up my kid
from preschool, two in the afternoon.

474
00:28:30,918 --> 00:28:31,651
Those are the ones available.

475
00:28:31,651 --> 00:28:33,638
If you can't do it during
that time, I can't coach you.

476
00:28:35,038 --> 00:28:35,688
Good boundaries.

477
00:28:36,078 --> 00:28:41,198
And so Monday, Wednesday, Friday are then
available for my own creative work for.

478
00:28:41,603 --> 00:28:46,973
Um, business development for
volunteering family time and

479
00:28:47,023 --> 00:28:48,693
that division has seemed to work.

480
00:28:48,693 --> 00:28:52,023
Okay, uh, I didn't have the most
creative output in the world last year,

481
00:28:52,023 --> 00:28:54,813
but that was because I was growing my
practice and making sure I had enough

482
00:28:54,813 --> 00:28:58,643
clients where, you know, I needed to
take care of income first, basically.

483
00:28:59,353 --> 00:29:02,813
So now this year, I feel like I've
got enough clients and room where

484
00:29:02,813 --> 00:29:05,723
I can work my business development
system that I always work.

485
00:29:06,208 --> 00:29:08,978
Which is not complicated, just
basic outreach and relationship

486
00:29:08,978 --> 00:29:15,408
building, um, and make room for
creative work, which is really why

487
00:29:15,408 --> 00:29:17,288
I love the executive coaching model.

488
00:29:17,378 --> 00:29:23,038
It's like I can have as many as 16 clients
that comes out to somewhere between,

489
00:29:23,168 --> 00:29:26,258
depending on the pricing of individuals
and whether they're at a nonprofit or

490
00:29:26,258 --> 00:29:29,148
whatever, uh, 35 to 50 grand a month.

491
00:29:30,438 --> 00:29:32,548
And then with the rest of my
time, I can do whatever I want.

492
00:29:33,688 --> 00:29:38,138
And I identify as a writer, as a
creative person, and I just happen

493
00:29:38,138 --> 00:29:41,528
to have a valuable coaching skill
set and background now that provides

494
00:29:41,528 --> 00:29:42,678
a great business model for that.

495
00:29:43,328 --> 00:29:46,698
So I'm living more into that this
year as well, of kind of creating that

496
00:29:46,698 --> 00:29:49,208
room to make stuff, which feels good.

497
00:29:50,028 --> 00:29:54,518
How much does the, the calls
that you have, the coaching that

498
00:29:54,518 --> 00:29:57,508
you're doing throughout the week
influence what you're writing about?

499
00:29:57,838 --> 00:30:00,298
Like how, I guess,
different is your, you know.

500
00:30:00,948 --> 00:30:03,598
Here's what I'm noticing through
my executive coaching, or like, how

501
00:30:03,628 --> 00:30:05,038
separate are those things for you?

502
00:30:07,158 --> 00:30:07,978
Well, I'll answer.

503
00:30:08,128 --> 00:30:10,158
I remember there was a second part
of your question before, and it.

504
00:30:10,493 --> 00:30:11,523
Plays into this as well.

505
00:30:11,963 --> 00:30:14,323
How do I hold space for the
people that I'm working with?

506
00:30:14,373 --> 00:30:18,673
I've, I feel like I've been able to
have good boundaries in terms of not

507
00:30:18,833 --> 00:30:23,973
like taking it home with me, not feeling
like it's my job to solve for anyone.

508
00:30:24,043 --> 00:30:28,623
Um, And that took a lot of work.

509
00:30:28,623 --> 00:30:31,213
I mean, I think in the past I'd
be thinking constantly, like, how

510
00:30:31,213 --> 00:30:32,483
do I solve this for this person?

511
00:30:32,483 --> 00:30:33,703
That's not my job.

512
00:30:34,133 --> 00:30:37,533
My job is to be with them as they figure
out how to solve things for themselves.

513
00:30:38,238 --> 00:30:40,948
And ideally to work myself out of a
job so that they don't need me anymore.

514
00:30:40,948 --> 00:30:41,868
They just have the tools.

515
00:30:41,928 --> 00:30:49,568
Um, so the next question was
about, um, will remind me.

516
00:30:50,798 --> 00:30:54,908
Oh, just that, um, I'm curious
if you are writing about kind of

517
00:30:55,008 --> 00:30:56,548
what's coming up in those sessions.

518
00:30:56,648 --> 00:30:56,888
Yeah.

519
00:30:57,058 --> 00:30:58,358
Um, yes, definitely.

520
00:30:58,638 --> 00:31:03,728
Uh, I try to separate it by at least
a little bit and I don't know if I've

521
00:31:03,788 --> 00:31:05,758
ever written a tweet, LinkedIn post.

522
00:31:06,273 --> 00:31:12,183
Newsletter, anything else about a session
that wasn't also about another client?

523
00:31:13,803 --> 00:31:18,498
So it's very rare that problems
are unique, that unique, right?

524
00:31:18,498 --> 00:31:21,453
The specifics, you know, might
be unique, like the specific

525
00:31:21,453 --> 00:31:25,773
scenarios someone finds themselves
in, but the patterns are common.

526
00:31:26,373 --> 00:31:30,663
Um, and so I always, I always describe
it to clients that like there's the long

527
00:31:30,663 --> 00:31:34,683
arc of growth and then there's the little
arcs of growth that add up over time.

528
00:31:35,373 --> 00:31:37,623
And really the little arcs are
like working with different

529
00:31:37,633 --> 00:31:39,373
patterns in some ways of behavior.

530
00:31:39,373 --> 00:31:42,673
It's like, Oh, here's a pattern that's
holding me back and let me work on that.

531
00:31:42,673 --> 00:31:45,373
And now let me work on the
next one that adds up over time

532
00:31:45,373 --> 00:31:46,463
to where they want to get to.

533
00:31:46,963 --> 00:31:52,863
If they're ready, you know, if they're
ready in their inner world to do that.

534
00:31:52,863 --> 00:31:58,583
Um, and I, I write about both.

535
00:31:58,653 --> 00:32:01,313
I write about the long arc
and I write about the little

536
00:32:01,313 --> 00:32:04,683
arcs and I will admit that.

537
00:32:05,348 --> 00:32:12,138
I mean, there are times when I'm writing
from a place of past pain, you know, it's

538
00:32:12,138 --> 00:32:18,428
like I'm writing towards an old boss or
an old partner or an old whatever, because

539
00:32:18,428 --> 00:32:21,708
now I can see the brokenness with such
clarity from the seat that I sit in.

540
00:32:21,708 --> 00:32:26,208
Um, and then there are times where
I'm writing from a place of deep

541
00:32:26,208 --> 00:32:30,198
compassion for the common challenges
that I see entrepreneurs facing.

542
00:32:30,628 --> 00:32:33,408
Um, I think a little bit
of that fire is healthy.

543
00:32:33,408 --> 00:32:35,018
Too much of it is probably not very good.

544
00:32:37,278 --> 00:32:37,438
Yeah.

545
00:32:37,438 --> 00:32:41,898
I'm curious how much you are aware in the
moment that you're kind of coming from

546
00:32:41,898 --> 00:32:44,948
a, yeah, yeah, I think there are times.

547
00:32:45,568 --> 00:32:45,788
Yeah.

548
00:32:45,788 --> 00:32:49,028
There are times when I think
like, okay, now remember the whole

549
00:32:49,058 --> 00:32:54,308
audience you're talking to look
to you for compassion, right?

550
00:32:54,708 --> 00:32:57,298
Your audience is not
whoever created the pain.

551
00:32:57,438 --> 00:33:01,163
Um, And in fact, they
didn't even create the pain.

552
00:33:01,173 --> 00:33:03,673
I created the pain in response
to whatever they were doing.

553
00:33:03,713 --> 00:33:05,483
And I think that's an
important distinction too.

554
00:33:06,123 --> 00:33:06,933
Um, so

555
00:33:10,383 --> 00:33:11,853
you were going to ask something
though, Ben, I cut you off.

556
00:33:12,113 --> 00:33:13,713
Ben, did you have something you
were going to ask around that?

557
00:33:13,713 --> 00:33:18,773
It was, uh, it was kind of related,
you know, in terms of executive

558
00:33:18,793 --> 00:33:20,413
Barrett, former executive Barrett.

559
00:33:20,463 --> 00:33:21,983
How, like, how would you.

560
00:33:22,463 --> 00:33:25,243
How would you coach yourself or how
did you wish you were coached at

561
00:33:25,243 --> 00:33:26,993
the time when you were an executive?

562
00:33:27,363 --> 00:33:30,373
Sounds like you got a lot of good
stuff from your coach But you know

563
00:33:30,373 --> 00:33:33,613
in terms of the way that you would
approach somebody like yourself,

564
00:33:33,643 --> 00:33:34,763
what would that look like now?

565
00:33:35,173 --> 00:33:38,483
I think I Mean, I think
my coach did a great job.

566
00:33:38,493 --> 00:33:46,523
First of all, I think he He was probably
Default more patient with me than I am

567
00:33:46,543 --> 00:33:51,348
when I can see someone is In a situation
that's not serving them anymore, or

568
00:33:51,378 --> 00:33:54,208
they have thought patterns that aren't
serving them related to their situation.

569
00:33:55,358 --> 00:34:02,328
So, I mean, some of it would be
probably going right at making sure I

570
00:34:02,338 --> 00:34:06,148
had clarity on the dynamics at play.

571
00:34:06,588 --> 00:34:12,828
Um, And how they were
triggering old patterns for me.

572
00:34:12,968 --> 00:34:16,608
Um, I don't know.

573
00:34:17,538 --> 00:34:19,378
I don't know that I would have
been ready for that though.

574
00:34:19,418 --> 00:34:22,428
I think in some ways, probably
the amount of space it took was

575
00:34:22,428 --> 00:34:23,558
the amount of space it took.

576
00:34:24,368 --> 00:34:29,148
Maybe I could have been led along a little
bit faster, but I think my coach showed

577
00:34:29,148 --> 00:34:34,628
great discipline and letting me arrive
there on my own and not being artificially

578
00:34:34,628 --> 00:34:37,768
pushed to, to arrive at some conclusion.

579
00:34:37,898 --> 00:34:42,053
Um, But now I mean I can just
see the pattern so clearly.

580
00:34:42,063 --> 00:34:45,103
It's interesting, like I talked to
him about that, like how interesting

581
00:34:45,133 --> 00:34:48,263
it probably was for him to so
clearly be able to see the patterns.

582
00:34:48,643 --> 00:34:49,823
And just to need to wait.

583
00:34:49,823 --> 00:34:51,103
It's like look at the turn, it's shaky.

584
00:34:51,753 --> 00:34:52,163
Gently.

585
00:34:54,013 --> 00:34:56,623
Some of the job is just being okay.

586
00:34:56,913 --> 00:35:00,773
Being okay that in their own
time each person will, will

587
00:35:00,773 --> 00:35:03,873
arrive at, um, an understanding.

588
00:35:04,423 --> 00:35:07,613
And, and by doing it on their own
time it will be much more meaningful

589
00:35:07,623 --> 00:35:08,783
than you pointing it out to them.

590
00:35:11,048 --> 00:35:15,288
I was going to ask if you thought there
were questions he, you almost wish he'd

591
00:35:15,288 --> 00:35:18,368
asked that maybe would have helped you
maybe notice some of those dynamics

592
00:35:18,368 --> 00:35:22,048
earlier or just did it just need to
happen at the pace that it happened?

593
00:35:22,528 --> 00:35:24,618
Like how do you notice
the dynamics at play?

594
00:35:25,828 --> 00:35:33,248
Yeah, so what's interesting is, is I
actually, what I wish for is that he

595
00:35:33,248 --> 00:35:37,688
had been with me a year and a half
earlier than when we begun our work.

596
00:35:38,028 --> 00:35:44,578
We began our work, um, because that was
when the conditions were established

597
00:35:45,328 --> 00:35:47,778
that set me up for where I ended up.

598
00:35:48,598 --> 00:35:51,608
Um, so just to tell the story
really quickly, um, I'm going

599
00:35:51,608 --> 00:35:52,848
to grab my chair real quick.

600
00:35:53,688 --> 00:35:54,968
Here, gather a chair.

601
00:35:55,188 --> 00:35:56,088
Come around the fire.

602
00:35:56,338 --> 00:35:57,428
Gathering around the fire.

603
00:35:59,108 --> 00:36:00,418
So I, I joined ConvertKit.

604
00:36:00,438 --> 00:36:02,018
Nathan Berry, the CEO of ConvertKit.

605
00:36:02,658 --> 00:36:05,818
Dear friend of mine for a long time,
um, we were in a mastermind group

606
00:36:05,818 --> 00:36:14,998
together and, um, I got fired at my job
at a company called fizzle because I

607
00:36:14,998 --> 00:36:20,448
was irritating the living hell out of
one of the co founders by being very,

608
00:36:20,448 --> 00:36:23,648
very like outcome driven performance.

609
00:36:23,768 --> 00:36:25,278
I want my job was marketing.

610
00:36:25,278 --> 00:36:26,298
My job was to grow the company.

611
00:36:26,298 --> 00:36:28,538
I wanted to go to the company and
I wanted us to make it really big.

612
00:36:29,468 --> 00:36:29,888
Um.

613
00:36:30,813 --> 00:36:31,693
Some of that was healthy.

614
00:36:31,693 --> 00:36:35,683
Some of that was unhealthy, but
in my view, the thing that makes

615
00:36:35,683 --> 00:36:37,613
companies big is repeatable systems.

616
00:36:39,173 --> 00:36:40,593
People's systems aren't very fun.

617
00:36:42,383 --> 00:36:44,373
They're very like boring in a lot of ways.

618
00:36:44,673 --> 00:36:49,133
And for creative people, if you say, I'm
going to put you in a box and that box is

619
00:36:49,133 --> 00:36:50,973
the system and we need to run the system.

620
00:36:50,983 --> 00:36:52,663
They're like, get away from me.

621
00:36:53,613 --> 00:36:54,563
Why do we hire this guy?

622
00:36:54,863 --> 00:36:55,303
Yeah, exactly.

623
00:36:56,413 --> 00:36:57,373
I can see that pattern.

624
00:36:58,018 --> 00:37:02,098
And the CEO was caught in between
the two of us where he wanted the

625
00:37:02,098 --> 00:37:04,628
company to grow, but he was in
partnership with this other person.

626
00:37:05,228 --> 00:37:08,378
And so effectively, I forced him into
a situation where he had to choose.

627
00:37:09,668 --> 00:37:11,848
You're not going to choose the person
who's not your business partner.

628
00:37:11,848 --> 00:37:16,608
Um, so, you know, from that
angle, I have a very healthy

629
00:37:16,628 --> 00:37:17,868
relationship to all of that now.

630
00:37:17,868 --> 00:37:19,288
And like, I'm very close to both of them.

631
00:37:19,868 --> 00:37:23,608
So anyways, Nathan brought me into
ConvertKit on the back end of me

632
00:37:23,608 --> 00:37:25,058
being fired from that prior job.

633
00:37:25,078 --> 00:37:27,108
Um, but he wanted that drive.

634
00:37:27,118 --> 00:37:29,518
He wanted all the things that
I said weren't working before.

635
00:37:29,518 --> 00:37:31,138
He's like, yes, come help
me grow this company.

636
00:37:31,528 --> 00:37:33,158
So I led marketing there for a while.

637
00:37:33,738 --> 00:37:37,608
And then I decided that the conditions
were not working for me, that I

638
00:37:37,638 --> 00:37:40,678
needed to leave in order to, for my
career to continue to grow in the

639
00:37:40,678 --> 00:37:42,768
way I want it to, for me to be okay.

640
00:37:43,198 --> 00:37:44,938
So I took a job with a mentor in New York.

641
00:37:45,768 --> 00:37:49,518
He was going to pay me like almost
twice what I was making at convert kit.

642
00:37:50,118 --> 00:37:52,398
We got out of our lease in Portland.

643
00:37:52,948 --> 00:37:54,158
Signed a lease in New York.

644
00:37:54,368 --> 00:37:55,608
Everything was in motion.

645
00:37:55,958 --> 00:37:58,068
I told Nathan I was leaving ConvertKit.

646
00:37:58,648 --> 00:38:02,198
Um, I've told this story on a podcast
with Nathan, so this will, none

647
00:38:02,198 --> 00:38:03,178
of this will be a surprise to him.

648
00:38:03,178 --> 00:38:06,308
Uh, we cried together.

649
00:38:06,408 --> 00:38:08,828
He came back 48 hours later and
said, Hey, what if you stay here

650
00:38:08,828 --> 00:38:10,398
as COO and we'll do a whole thing.

651
00:38:10,398 --> 00:38:13,128
I'll give you ownership and increase
your salary and blah, blah, blah.

652
00:38:14,938 --> 00:38:15,828
And I was like, okay.

653
00:38:16,408 --> 00:38:16,878
I don't know.

654
00:38:17,058 --> 00:38:18,418
That sounds very stressful.

655
00:38:18,718 --> 00:38:19,778
I'm moving my life.

656
00:38:19,798 --> 00:38:21,238
I've already agreed,
you know, I don't know.

657
00:38:21,238 --> 00:38:23,768
You'd already made the plans
and checked out mentally.

658
00:38:23,768 --> 00:38:24,138
Yeah.

659
00:38:25,848 --> 00:38:28,068
I ended up staying obviously,
cause that's how you introduced

660
00:38:28,068 --> 00:38:29,388
me was the COO of ConvertKit.

661
00:38:29,848 --> 00:38:35,668
Um, but the number one mistake I made
was the same mistake I made at the prior

662
00:38:35,668 --> 00:38:41,708
company, which was we agreed to something,
but there was not a contract in place yet.

663
00:38:42,908 --> 00:38:46,228
And so there was a set amount of
ownership I was going to have by

664
00:38:46,238 --> 00:38:47,818
percentage of shares outstanding.

665
00:38:48,538 --> 00:38:51,338
We knew those would be partially
time based, partially performance

666
00:38:51,358 --> 00:38:54,658
based and a number of other things.

667
00:38:56,568 --> 00:39:02,208
I now have a strongly held view
that it is the CEO's job to put

668
00:39:02,208 --> 00:39:06,288
a contract in front of a person
that is agreeing to work for you.

669
00:39:07,323 --> 00:39:10,403
But it is that person's job
not to agree to work for you

670
00:39:10,463 --> 00:39:12,113
until they get the contract.

671
00:39:13,323 --> 00:39:18,803
So my flaw was, I agreed to a thing,
I started acting on that thing, and

672
00:39:18,803 --> 00:39:20,273
I did that before I had a contract.

673
00:39:20,343 --> 00:39:21,853
And I got rid of the leverage.

674
00:39:22,083 --> 00:39:24,103
And it wasn't intended
to be leverage, right?

675
00:39:24,103 --> 00:39:28,343
But like, in that situation, the incentive
for the leader to get a contract in front

676
00:39:28,343 --> 00:39:30,783
of you is the other thing that you're
going to go do if they don't do that.

677
00:39:31,743 --> 00:39:34,253
So, a year went by and
there was no contract.

678
00:39:35,733 --> 00:39:37,343
That's a bad situation to be in.

679
00:39:37,753 --> 00:39:43,483
I deeply regret putting myself in that
situation because even if the person

680
00:39:43,483 --> 00:39:48,943
you're negotiating with wants to do what's
good for both of you, all incentive, all

681
00:39:48,953 --> 00:39:52,793
leverage is gone and in a negotiation
without leverage, you're not negotiating.

682
00:39:52,933 --> 00:39:54,793
You're agreeing to whatever
the other person says.

683
00:39:54,793 --> 00:40:01,213
So I think that situation created
the conditions that would end up

684
00:40:01,263 --> 00:40:03,023
leading to me leaving that company.

685
00:40:04,713 --> 00:40:08,483
And if I could do that over again,
or I think I would have done it

686
00:40:08,483 --> 00:40:12,003
differently had I had a coach alongside
me at that moment, but I didn't.

687
00:40:12,683 --> 00:40:18,173
So that's my very long winded story and
answer about, you know, if I could have

688
00:40:18,173 --> 00:40:21,033
my coach do something differently, it's
like I would have a magically appear

689
00:40:21,033 --> 00:40:24,753
18 months earlier and help me work
through that so that I can have clear

690
00:40:24,763 --> 00:40:30,133
boundaries and operate from patterns
that I wasn't ready to operate from yet.

691
00:40:30,153 --> 00:40:32,193
I think that's a place where he
could have stepped in and said, look.

692
00:40:32,718 --> 00:40:34,088
There's the long arc of development.

693
00:40:34,128 --> 00:40:36,878
There's a small arc here that's
like very practical that I want to

694
00:40:36,878 --> 00:40:38,228
make sure that you're protected in.

695
00:40:38,658 --> 00:40:42,618
Yeah, that the first situation you
mentioned where there's that like very

696
00:40:42,618 --> 00:40:45,658
outcome driven I want to solve these
problems feels a bit related to that

697
00:40:45,668 --> 00:40:48,518
like as an ops person You're like I see
all the fires and I see where all the

698
00:40:48,518 --> 00:40:54,304
problems are and I can imagine there
was probably some Some similarity.

699
00:40:54,304 --> 00:41:01,533
Oh, yeah Yeah Yeah I'm also kind of
curious, maybe when were the first

700
00:41:01,543 --> 00:41:04,623
inklings while you were working there
that you're like, Ooh, okay, this is

701
00:41:05,033 --> 00:41:09,473
either the patterns are showing up,
or you're realizing that something

702
00:41:09,473 --> 00:41:12,413
wasn't aligned with the kind of
work that you wanted to be doing?

703
00:41:14,663 --> 00:41:22,493
Well, I mean, the core of the core of
what I was challenged by was, Nathan

704
00:41:22,503 --> 00:41:27,983
and I had incompatible Um, desires for
how big the company was going to grow in

705
00:41:28,193 --> 00:41:31,833
staffing and neither one of us was right.

706
00:41:31,873 --> 00:41:32,863
They were just incompatible.

707
00:41:32,883 --> 00:41:35,743
It's like if you married someone who, who
didn't want to have kids and you wanted

708
00:41:35,743 --> 00:41:38,183
to have kids and you knew that going in,
then you're like, well, what the hell?

709
00:41:38,803 --> 00:41:41,213
You know, you're wrong,
but it just isn't working.

710
00:41:41,213 --> 00:41:41,543
Yeah.

711
00:41:41,793 --> 00:41:42,613
Chose the wrong partner.

712
00:41:42,613 --> 00:41:48,963
Um, so for me, this might not come as
a surprise given the work that I do.

713
00:41:48,963 --> 00:41:50,703
It's like I view.

714
00:41:51,223 --> 00:41:55,303
Leadership as my core competency, like
that's what I want to be great at.

715
00:41:55,303 --> 00:41:57,943
That's what I want to help
others be great at and to lead.

716
00:41:57,943 --> 00:41:59,373
You have to have team.

717
00:42:00,283 --> 00:42:04,713
Um, and because of all of the brokenness
I see in organizational cultures,

718
00:42:04,713 --> 00:42:09,323
it's like, I viewed my work as create
great culture that makes people want

719
00:42:09,323 --> 00:42:12,683
to show up, that, that gives them an
environment where they can thrive and

720
00:42:12,683 --> 00:42:14,373
do the best work of their careers.

721
00:42:15,423 --> 00:42:18,943
And so part of the purpose of the
organization was to create great jobs.

722
00:42:20,098 --> 00:42:22,938
Like that's part of what we
were doing there as leaders.

723
00:42:22,938 --> 00:42:28,608
Um, you know, not like artificially,
I don't think you should ever grow

724
00:42:28,608 --> 00:42:31,428
a team beyond the needs of the
organization, but I did feel like

725
00:42:31,458 --> 00:42:32,828
that's part of what we're doing here.

726
00:42:33,378 --> 00:42:38,178
I think for Nathan, he comes from
more of a school of thought, uh, that

727
00:42:38,188 --> 00:42:39,808
he's spoken to in different cases.

728
00:42:39,808 --> 00:42:42,458
Like he's talked about, he started
the company with a kind of.

729
00:42:43,973 --> 00:42:46,093
Limit hard limit on how many
people you wanted to have.

730
00:42:46,103 --> 00:42:47,953
You want to have 50 people
or less on the team.

731
00:42:48,773 --> 00:42:51,923
And that was driven by this idea that
like Instagram grew to billions of dollars

732
00:42:51,923 --> 00:42:53,843
in value with 12 people on the team.

733
00:42:53,843 --> 00:42:55,763
And there's examples of
this throughout time.

734
00:42:56,603 --> 00:42:58,793
Um, and I just don't value that.

735
00:42:58,973 --> 00:42:59,973
I mean, that's just the bottom line.

736
00:42:59,973 --> 00:43:01,093
I don't value it in that way.

737
00:43:01,573 --> 00:43:03,473
And so we had a lot of
conflict over that thing.

738
00:43:03,633 --> 00:43:06,563
I think without really naming it, you
know, it's like we were dancing around

739
00:43:06,563 --> 00:43:10,143
it and trying to figure out solutions
that would work for both of us.

740
00:43:10,143 --> 00:43:11,763
And just ultimately it wasn't aligned.

741
00:43:12,193 --> 00:43:18,363
Um, And that's okay was the thing
that I wasn't able to say at the time.

742
00:43:18,943 --> 00:43:21,963
It was like, it was more
like, and that's not okay.

743
00:43:22,133 --> 00:43:25,513
And, and we're gonna, you know,
figure out how to make it work.

744
00:43:26,083 --> 00:43:32,253
Um, and I think once we got honest with
ourselves that that was at the base, it

745
00:43:32,253 --> 00:43:36,973
was a lot easier to be like, Oh, well, you
know, what's great is we can both continue

746
00:43:36,973 --> 00:43:38,743
to live great lives and not work together.

747
00:43:40,283 --> 00:43:41,483
And how did you navigate that?

748
00:43:41,493 --> 00:43:43,473
Because I know like you'd
worked there for a while and

749
00:43:43,473 --> 00:43:44,673
you had a deep friendship there.

750
00:43:44,673 --> 00:43:48,293
And like, I know, untangling these
kind of relationships is like,

751
00:43:48,303 --> 00:43:50,593
it's really hard to leave well.

752
00:43:50,593 --> 00:43:54,843
And I'm just kind of curious how
you guys managed to navigate that

753
00:43:55,133 --> 00:43:58,803
through the complexity of that
new ego, letting go of things.

754
00:43:59,633 --> 00:44:00,563
How did you get through it?

755
00:44:00,573 --> 00:44:03,693
Did you guys have a coach or
someone that was helping you work

756
00:44:03,693 --> 00:44:06,223
through the, the mess of that?

757
00:44:06,538 --> 00:44:06,928
Yeah.

758
00:44:07,218 --> 00:44:07,318
Yeah.

759
00:44:07,318 --> 00:44:10,158
We did a lot of joint coaching, you
know, but we each had our coaches.

760
00:44:10,168 --> 00:44:11,558
They were both at the same firm.

761
00:44:12,008 --> 00:44:14,728
We did joint coaching with them
working through all of that.

762
00:44:15,288 --> 00:44:19,218
Um, but there was just a day where
Nathan said, you know, uh, we've

763
00:44:19,228 --> 00:44:22,048
made some compromises on the size
of the team that we have here.

764
00:44:22,058 --> 00:44:24,288
And I, I think I regret those compromises.

765
00:44:24,318 --> 00:44:26,398
I think I'd like to try
and keep a team small.

766
00:44:27,198 --> 00:44:30,448
Um, I have, this was over two years
ago, so I have no idea how his

767
00:44:30,448 --> 00:44:31,808
perspective may have changed since then.

768
00:44:31,818 --> 00:44:33,988
I want to make sure to
leave room for that.

769
00:44:34,948 --> 00:44:35,738
And I said, okay.

770
00:44:36,323 --> 00:44:40,543
If that's the case, I totally
respect it, and I know that my

771
00:44:40,543 --> 00:44:42,293
time here is coming to a close.

772
00:44:42,313 --> 00:44:44,083
And so I just want you to
think on it for another week.

773
00:44:44,083 --> 00:44:47,103
And if you come back and you say, yes,
I'm definitely sure that I want to

774
00:44:47,113 --> 00:44:51,313
kind of level out the number of people
for a period of time, then I think we

775
00:44:51,313 --> 00:44:52,883
should make a plan for me to depart.

776
00:44:53,473 --> 00:44:56,493
Um, and he came back and he said, yeah,
that's what's important to me right now.

777
00:44:56,493 --> 00:44:58,223
And I said, okay, let's make the plan.

778
00:44:58,923 --> 00:45:00,903
And I think that was March
or something like that.

779
00:45:00,903 --> 00:45:01,733
2021.

780
00:45:01,983 --> 00:45:03,103
I left at the end of August.

781
00:45:03,103 --> 00:45:04,693
It was about a six month transition.

782
00:45:05,143 --> 00:45:05,653
Um.

783
00:45:06,078 --> 00:45:09,818
In the middle of that, I took a
month of sabbatical to make sure

784
00:45:10,218 --> 00:45:13,788
it wasn't just like burnout or
that I needed space or whatever.

785
00:45:14,048 --> 00:45:18,638
And so we told the executive team
I was leaving before my month

786
00:45:18,638 --> 00:45:20,498
off and left it open with them.

787
00:45:20,508 --> 00:45:23,098
He might come back and we
might say, this is okay.

788
00:45:24,448 --> 00:45:25,798
But the default plan is he's leaving.

789
00:45:26,778 --> 00:45:30,698
And I came back and I knew even more
then that I needed to leave because

790
00:45:30,698 --> 00:45:32,528
I had the space to really reflect on.

791
00:45:33,798 --> 00:45:35,958
What was and wasn't good
for me in the situation.

792
00:45:36,528 --> 00:45:40,118
Um, and then we wrapped up, we
communicated it to the team.

793
00:45:40,118 --> 00:45:42,668
I kind of handled all of the
communication structure and

794
00:45:43,718 --> 00:45:47,238
offboarding, documentation of everything
that I did and blah, blah, blah.

795
00:45:47,608 --> 00:45:53,008
So I think I left well, which is quite
different from the person to person

796
00:45:53,008 --> 00:45:57,138
relationship between he and I, you
know, leaving the organization well and

797
00:45:57,148 --> 00:46:02,413
managing the complexity of the Friendship,
beyond that, very different things.

798
00:46:03,343 --> 00:46:04,913
So challenging, yeah.

799
00:46:05,083 --> 00:46:06,193
I think we're still figuring that out.

800
00:46:06,193 --> 00:46:07,003
I still have a lot of pain.

801
00:46:07,003 --> 00:46:08,983
He probably still has a lot
of pain related to that.

802
00:46:09,083 --> 00:46:14,833
Um, and I wrote in my review, I said, I,
and the person that's paying the biggest

803
00:46:14,833 --> 00:46:16,333
cost for carrying that pain is me.

804
00:46:17,173 --> 00:46:19,123
But it's just not ready
to move through, you know?

805
00:46:19,213 --> 00:46:19,943
And I'm okay with that.

806
00:46:20,093 --> 00:46:21,553
It's like, it'll move through
when it moves through.

807
00:46:24,023 --> 00:46:28,813
I'd love to I'd love to ask you, I feel
like this is a decent segue here, about,

808
00:46:29,423 --> 00:46:35,123
um, like leaving well in the sense of, um,
sometimes I think we don't, when we, when

809
00:46:35,123 --> 00:46:40,263
we set aside projects, we, or we see them
as failures, or we see like this didn't

810
00:46:40,263 --> 00:46:43,513
work out, or I'm still dealing with this,
like, I don't think we necessarily take

811
00:46:43,553 --> 00:46:48,703
the time to, to grieve the, the change
and the change of identity through that.

812
00:46:49,118 --> 00:46:53,428
And so I know that a lot of the things
that you talk about is is working through

813
00:46:53,428 --> 00:46:58,768
these emotions and i'm curious like
actually I think we both lost our dogs

814
00:46:58,768 --> 00:47:03,118
right around the same time last year and
we had talked offline a little bit about

815
00:47:03,478 --> 00:47:06,868
The grieving process for that and you
know losing a pet that's been with you

816
00:47:06,868 --> 00:47:12,028
for so long and stuff And i'm curious
about your your relationship with grief

817
00:47:12,058 --> 00:47:17,138
and like how how has grief enabled you to
feel more joy What are the benefits of?

818
00:47:17,853 --> 00:47:20,403
Figuring out how to let that
move through you and really,

819
00:47:20,483 --> 00:47:22,173
you know, that embodied emotion.

820
00:47:22,443 --> 00:47:22,833
Yeah.

821
00:47:23,273 --> 00:47:28,033
Uh, it's one of my favorite topics
and it's one that probably five

822
00:47:28,033 --> 00:47:30,403
years ago, definitely 10 years ago,
I couldn't even have, I couldn't

823
00:47:30,403 --> 00:47:32,403
even have like broached it.

824
00:47:33,163 --> 00:47:33,483
Yeah.

825
00:47:34,313 --> 00:47:36,553
Sadness is one of those bad emotions.

826
00:47:36,563 --> 00:47:40,393
Sadness and anger were the two
that I was best at repressing.

827
00:47:40,393 --> 00:47:46,283
Um, and when I repressed them,
they came out as anxiety.

828
00:47:46,618 --> 00:47:47,918
It's like, well, can't feel those.

829
00:47:47,928 --> 00:47:50,208
So instead I'll get anxious and
like, look for stuff in the world

830
00:47:50,208 --> 00:47:51,198
that I should be worried about.

831
00:47:52,038 --> 00:47:54,288
Um, of course not consciously.

832
00:47:54,288 --> 00:47:54,568
Right.

833
00:47:55,038 --> 00:48:02,838
So now what I've learned is that crying,
sadness, fear, anger, these are just

834
00:48:02,838 --> 00:48:05,618
like base level human experiences.

835
00:48:05,888 --> 00:48:10,088
Um, one of the things I keep, uh,
right next to my desk for anytime I'm

836
00:48:10,088 --> 00:48:15,143
having a coaching session is this, um,
Emotion sensation wheel, which for audio

837
00:48:15,223 --> 00:48:18,563
listeners, they won't see it, but it's
like, it's got all the base emotions.

838
00:48:18,573 --> 00:48:21,803
And then all of the descriptors that
can come out of that for the nuance

839
00:48:21,803 --> 00:48:25,383
of the emotions that we experience,
because so often we just have

840
00:48:25,383 --> 00:48:29,793
like three words we use, um, you
know, it's like happy, sad, angry.

841
00:48:29,803 --> 00:48:30,893
Those are like the ones we know.

842
00:48:31,763 --> 00:48:35,613
And there's so much more nuance of
the emotional spectrum than that.

843
00:48:36,593 --> 00:48:39,833
So I've grown a lot of
appreciation for that fact.

844
00:48:40,383 --> 00:48:43,793
Having come from a place that's more
kind of traditional masculinity of

845
00:48:43,793 --> 00:48:49,143
like repress everything Stoicism in the
unhealthy sense not the like classical

846
00:48:49,163 --> 00:48:55,793
acknowledge emotions Move through them
despite that Like the don't acknowledge

847
00:48:55,793 --> 00:49:01,313
emotions and act like nothing's going on
kind of stoicism, you know So I view that

848
00:49:01,313 --> 00:49:05,413
as I'm very proud of that transformation
of being able to access it to begin with.

849
00:49:05,443 --> 00:49:09,233
And I think it's a really hard arc
of growth for people who come from

850
00:49:09,233 --> 00:49:12,953
that kind of background, which
is a lot of people, uh, because

851
00:49:12,953 --> 00:49:17,393
generationally it just wasn't really a
thing if you go back 123 generations.

852
00:49:17,443 --> 00:49:25,373
Um, so the relationship between
grief and joy, uh, is something

853
00:49:25,373 --> 00:49:26,243
I'm very passionate about.

854
00:49:26,243 --> 00:49:27,033
Probably.

855
00:49:27,523 --> 00:49:31,223
At least a chapter in a book
that I'm working on will be

856
00:49:31,223 --> 00:49:33,863
called The Cost of Joy is Grief.

857
00:49:35,553 --> 00:49:38,093
I just firmly believe that
The Cost of Joy is Grief.

858
00:49:39,133 --> 00:49:43,703
Because you can't actually When
you don't acknowledge either end of

859
00:49:43,703 --> 00:49:46,663
the spectrum, a lot of people won't
acknowledge joy because they're scared.

860
00:49:46,923 --> 00:49:48,243
They're scared that they might lose it.

861
00:49:49,333 --> 00:49:50,763
Uh, they're scared of grief.

862
00:49:51,593 --> 00:49:53,763
And when you cut either end off,
it's like when you're unwilling

863
00:49:53,763 --> 00:49:55,103
to grieve, you can't access joy.

864
00:49:55,143 --> 00:49:57,123
When you cut off joy,
you can't access grief.

865
00:49:57,463 --> 00:49:59,653
And so you get this narrow
emotional bandwidth.

866
00:50:00,663 --> 00:50:02,103
That's where I lived for a long time.

867
00:50:02,743 --> 00:50:06,193
And when I finally figured out how
to grieve, it was thanks to my coach.

868
00:50:06,193 --> 00:50:08,203
Actually, he really helped
me learn how to grieve.

869
00:50:08,213 --> 00:50:11,383
There's this wonderful book called,
um, the wild edge of sorrow.

870
00:50:11,383 --> 00:50:16,533
That's about grief that
helped me learn how to.

871
00:50:17,423 --> 00:50:21,853
Use ritual and thoughtfulness to
process as things are happening.

872
00:50:22,823 --> 00:50:25,783
Well, I had a lifetime of shit
I needed to go back and grieve.

873
00:50:26,533 --> 00:50:29,583
I mean, that was a big
part of this growth arc.

874
00:50:29,583 --> 00:50:31,773
I had to like empty the well, you know.

875
00:50:32,103 --> 00:50:33,623
It's like, damn, there's a lot down here.

876
00:50:34,423 --> 00:50:37,703
Um, but to come back
to the, the dog thing.

877
00:50:37,703 --> 00:50:39,843
So Hank, Hank was our black lab.

878
00:50:39,853 --> 00:50:42,313
He had been with us for, um.

879
00:50:43,408 --> 00:50:44,418
14 years.

880
00:50:44,428 --> 00:50:50,558
I got him my second last year of college,
uh, or last year, whatever in college

881
00:50:51,038 --> 00:50:53,608
lived at the fraternity house for his
first year or something like that.

882
00:50:53,658 --> 00:51:02,208
God knows what that dog saw did a, um,
and so he was our, he was our like Marley.

883
00:51:02,698 --> 00:51:05,398
Um, he, he was, he entered my
life a month before my wife did.

884
00:51:06,798 --> 00:51:10,573
And, uh, You know, he had cancer.

885
00:51:10,613 --> 00:51:11,993
It was a tumor in his mouth.

886
00:51:12,233 --> 00:51:13,373
It was very visible.

887
00:51:13,373 --> 00:51:16,793
It was, we waited too long, which
every dog owner that I've ever talked

888
00:51:16,793 --> 00:51:18,053
to basically says the same things.

889
00:51:18,063 --> 00:51:18,873
You just can't see it.

890
00:51:19,153 --> 00:51:23,663
You know, you can't see it happening,
um, in an objective way, I should say.

891
00:51:24,823 --> 00:51:28,763
So we had him euthanized in our backyard.

892
00:51:29,323 --> 00:51:30,073
It was.

893
00:51:30,768 --> 00:51:31,458
Beautiful.

894
00:51:31,458 --> 00:51:35,108
And I feel like it was literally
at the first moment in my life

895
00:51:35,108 --> 00:51:39,248
where I could fully process grief
appropriately as it was happening.

896
00:51:40,068 --> 00:51:44,988
I had just gotten done, like, digging
out the well, you know, of backlog.

897
00:51:47,208 --> 00:51:49,678
And I was so grateful.

898
00:51:50,218 --> 00:51:55,358
That I could grieve properly because
I could experience so much joy and

899
00:51:55,358 --> 00:52:01,478
presence and just thoughtfulness in his
final days and the days after it and

900
00:52:01,478 --> 00:52:06,268
just allow myself to cry and be with
it instead of like what I used to do,

901
00:52:06,678 --> 00:52:11,528
which would be repressed and then get
like panic attack inducing anxious.

902
00:52:13,028 --> 00:52:16,138
Um, so anyways, that was,
that was that experience.

903
00:52:16,138 --> 00:52:17,668
And I just think, you know.

904
00:52:19,118 --> 00:52:21,968
There is no formula for learning to do it.

905
00:52:22,398 --> 00:52:30,148
Mm hmm, but like If I was gonna give
someone an exercise there's a Okay,

906
00:52:30,148 --> 00:52:34,418
so the woo woo ness of coaching I just
like is so hard for me because I both

907
00:52:34,918 --> 00:52:39,268
Can hear it before it comes out and I
just can't say anything other than that.

908
00:52:39,268 --> 00:52:39,898
It works sometimes.

909
00:52:39,908 --> 00:52:46,158
So anyways One of the postures I really
love is a hand over the heart and a

910
00:52:46,158 --> 00:52:50,658
hand over the gut Center You know, just
standing with yourself, you know, ideally

911
00:52:50,658 --> 00:52:54,618
with yourself, especially if this is the
first time you're doing it and I always

912
00:52:55,578 --> 00:52:58,088
When someone's going through this and
coaching with me for the first time I

913
00:52:58,088 --> 00:53:02,458
say, okay hand over the heart and I want
you to imagine That there's a string

914
00:53:02,868 --> 00:53:07,218
growing either out of your finger or out
of your heart Towards the opposite, you

915
00:53:07,218 --> 00:53:09,828
know from your heart towards your finger
from your finger towards your heart

916
00:53:09,868 --> 00:53:13,518
and that you are Developing a direct
attachment as if it is an electrical

917
00:53:13,518 --> 00:53:21,383
wire and I just want you to Um, allow
whatever flows through that string to

918
00:53:21,383 --> 00:53:25,553
flow and just describe to me if you want
or keep it to yourself what comes up.

919
00:53:26,933 --> 00:53:31,573
And so often what comes up is pain
because that's where it lives.

920
00:53:31,583 --> 00:53:35,573
It lives in our body when we can't
express it lives in our body somewhere.

921
00:53:36,463 --> 00:53:38,043
And we often associate
that with the heart.

922
00:53:38,163 --> 00:53:42,393
It's like where our deepest,
most, um, personal feelings live.

923
00:53:43,228 --> 00:53:47,098
And just that exercise and writing down
what's coming up for you is probably

924
00:53:47,148 --> 00:53:51,968
a starting point for exploration with
the therapist or with yourself to say,

925
00:53:51,968 --> 00:53:54,448
okay, I might need to cry about this.

926
00:53:54,448 --> 00:53:55,808
I might need to yell about this.

927
00:53:55,808 --> 00:53:58,318
I might need to do any number
of things to help process it.

928
00:53:58,898 --> 00:54:01,798
But as you go through it, the
thing I love about the Wild Edge of

929
00:54:01,798 --> 00:54:07,198
Sorrow book is it has all of these
examples of ritual that conclusively

930
00:54:07,268 --> 00:54:09,618
allow you to act out an ending.

931
00:54:11,148 --> 00:54:15,498
And By acting out an ending,
it gives closure to something

932
00:54:15,498 --> 00:54:16,818
that is otherwise ephemeral.

933
00:54:16,828 --> 00:54:20,668
It's, it's, a dog's soul
lives in the ether, you know?

934
00:54:20,668 --> 00:54:22,378
It's like all dogs go to
heaven, where does it go?

935
00:54:25,468 --> 00:54:29,158
Whereas rituals, like for us,
the ritual was the euthanasia and

936
00:54:29,158 --> 00:54:34,388
having him cremated, and then we
bought a statue and put it right

937
00:54:34,388 --> 00:54:35,668
next to where we cremated him.

938
00:54:35,798 --> 00:54:38,548
Or, uh, sorry, right next
euthanized in our backyard.

939
00:54:39,058 --> 00:54:45,583
Um, And there was a processing that
came along with that and on the day

940
00:54:45,943 --> 00:54:48,423
we like put the statue out there,
I just sat out there and cried at

941
00:54:48,423 --> 00:54:49,813
the base of it for a long time.

942
00:54:50,983 --> 00:54:52,933
I couldn't have done that five years ago.

943
00:54:53,023 --> 00:54:54,273
I just didn't have it in me.

944
00:54:54,333 --> 00:54:55,583
I didn't know how to cry.

945
00:54:55,723 --> 00:54:56,763
It sounds ridiculous.

946
00:54:56,763 --> 00:54:57,983
You know, I just didn't know how to cry.

947
00:54:59,633 --> 00:55:02,413
So for a lot of people, a lot of men,
especially, I don't want to limit it to

948
00:55:02,413 --> 00:55:05,183
just men, but a lot of men, especially,
you just got to learn how to cry.

949
00:55:06,263 --> 00:55:08,213
Um, because that's a part of grief.

950
00:55:10,353 --> 00:55:13,563
It's kind of uncanny how
similar the experience is.

951
00:55:13,563 --> 00:55:16,783
I don't know if, Ben, you're comfortable
sharing any of your experience.

952
00:55:16,783 --> 00:55:17,203
Oh, yeah.

953
00:55:17,763 --> 00:55:18,033
Yeah.

954
00:55:18,233 --> 00:55:24,543
I mean, our dog, our dog Mochi was
also 14, uh, was, came, has lived

955
00:55:24,543 --> 00:55:29,233
with me for, uh, I say, I like to say
this a lot, two wives in two countries

956
00:55:29,253 --> 00:55:32,703
because, uh, I adopted her when she
was eight when I lived in the U.

957
00:55:32,703 --> 00:55:32,903
S.

958
00:55:32,903 --> 00:55:35,533
and now I'm in, in, uh, Canada.

959
00:55:35,613 --> 00:55:41,228
And yeah, like the, I do feel that that
sense of the polarities there where, like,

960
00:55:41,228 --> 00:55:45,578
I was definitely living in the middle
because when I started feeling this level

961
00:55:45,578 --> 00:55:51,048
of grief and anguish, like, for the loss
was, like, I Couldn't understand it.

962
00:55:51,098 --> 00:55:52,078
It made no sense.

963
00:55:52,158 --> 00:55:57,138
It was like I've never actually felt this
emotion before and It just gave me this

964
00:55:57,138 --> 00:56:01,678
renewed appreciation like, you know, like
I almost see it more as like rather than

965
00:56:01,678 --> 00:56:06,468
a polarity but more like a Circle where
like you get over to one other side and

966
00:56:06,468 --> 00:56:09,558
you can kind of peek around the edge
to see the other side a little bit so

967
00:56:09,558 --> 00:56:15,763
you're so the thing of like it Giving me
a renewed appreciation for my capacity to

968
00:56:15,763 --> 00:56:21,493
love a creature and people and things like
that And I also we also experienced the

969
00:56:21,493 --> 00:56:27,613
same the same rituals where we got Mochi
cremated I put her in these little put her

970
00:56:27,613 --> 00:56:31,733
in these little vials and jars that I put
all over the house So anytime I catch one

971
00:56:31,733 --> 00:56:33,323
out of my eye, it's like this reminder.

972
00:56:33,323 --> 00:56:37,338
It's the The momenti mori thing,
you know, always think about

973
00:56:37,348 --> 00:56:39,218
death and reflect on that.

974
00:56:39,638 --> 00:56:43,788
And yeah, I took one of her when we went
to japan for a month recently and I took

975
00:56:43,788 --> 00:56:48,728
her around with me and you know It felt
like this kind of Like completion ritual

976
00:56:48,728 --> 00:56:53,188
in a way, you know, she was uh, we adopted
her from a breeder outside of seattle

977
00:56:53,188 --> 00:56:57,508
That had a partner in japan So she had
come over from japan and then like I

978
00:56:57,508 --> 00:57:01,938
was like almost like returning with her
to To make this like ritual complete.

979
00:57:02,198 --> 00:57:06,898
Yeah All that stuff just really helped
unlock, unlock things and cry about the

980
00:57:06,898 --> 00:57:11,728
stuff and and Having this like beginning
and end kind of you know, the circle is

981
00:57:11,728 --> 00:57:13,338
complete kind of thing felt really good.

982
00:57:13,878 --> 00:57:14,238
Yeah.

983
00:57:14,638 --> 00:57:23,008
Yeah Yeah, the the other tool Just seems
so obvious now that I started using this

984
00:57:23,008 --> 00:57:27,318
here was writing I'm just writing about
the emotion of it and the grief of it.

985
00:57:28,478 --> 00:57:33,853
I My uncle died this year my my
dad's brother and that was his Last

986
00:57:33,853 --> 00:57:35,703
relative from his family of origin.

987
00:57:36,353 --> 00:57:39,973
And so my dad's kind of alone now
and that made me really emotional.

988
00:57:39,973 --> 00:57:42,973
It gave me a lot of grief, not just
for the loss of my uncle, who I wasn't

989
00:57:42,973 --> 00:57:46,433
very close to, but for my dad and his
experience of what that must be like.

990
00:57:48,733 --> 00:57:53,723
And writing on the plane home
was just such a powerful.

991
00:57:54,993 --> 00:57:58,103
It was, I didn't have anything else
to do, and I think it was the first

992
00:57:58,103 --> 00:58:01,003
plane ride I was by myself, number
one, and I just cried the whole way

993
00:58:01,003 --> 00:58:06,153
home, basically, while writing about,
uh, who my uncle was, what he meant,

994
00:58:06,333 --> 00:58:10,183
what his life must have been like, what
it means for my dad to be alone now.

995
00:58:10,183 --> 00:58:16,993
Um, I think you have, you kind of
have two options with those emotions.

996
00:58:17,043 --> 00:58:19,943
You either let them move
through you or they live in you.

997
00:58:19,943 --> 00:58:23,033
Um, and I, it's.

998
00:58:24,213 --> 00:58:27,493
really toxic to let them live
in you without moving through.

999
00:58:27,793 --> 00:58:31,213
Um, you know, the version that lives
in you after you let them move through

1000
00:58:31,213 --> 00:58:34,123
is very different from the version that
exists if you don't let them move at all.

1001
00:58:35,603 --> 00:58:38,983
It's a great, I think great
framing of that to understand.

1002
00:58:39,433 --> 00:58:39,673
Yeah.

1003
00:58:39,673 --> 00:58:43,113
It feels different after you've, it's
like the, you know, our last guest

1004
00:58:43,113 --> 00:58:47,143
Joe Hudson talking about, it's really
the resistance to emotions that hurts.

1005
00:58:47,558 --> 00:58:47,768
Yes.

1006
00:58:47,768 --> 00:58:49,598
It's not like the sadness itself hurts.

1007
00:58:49,598 --> 00:58:52,028
It's actually like trying
to resist that feeling that

1008
00:58:52,028 --> 00:58:53,708
actually causes us the most pain.

1009
00:58:54,518 --> 00:58:54,848
Yeah.

1010
00:58:54,938 --> 00:58:59,828
And I think the, the most unhealthy
expressions of them, you know?

1011
00:58:59,828 --> 00:58:59,888
Yeah.

1012
00:58:59,948 --> 00:59:02,918
To say I am angry can
be said just like that.

1013
00:59:03,158 --> 00:59:03,968
I'm feeling angry.

1014
00:59:04,838 --> 00:59:07,268
You just said it hurt me, I'm hurt.

1015
00:59:07,988 --> 00:59:12,938
Um, but what we more often get is
being yelled at or someone acting

1016
00:59:12,938 --> 00:59:14,738
it out, slamming a door, you know?

1017
00:59:15,903 --> 00:59:22,893
And it's saying the same thing, but the
release from naming it is so much, for

1018
00:59:22,893 --> 00:59:27,673
me anyways, it's been so much healthier
and in some ways easier than just

1019
00:59:27,683 --> 00:59:31,493
having to act it out and let it find
its way out of me in some other way.

1020
00:59:34,253 --> 00:59:38,218
You mentioned I don't know if it was on
Twitter or threads, but something about

1021
00:59:38,568 --> 00:59:42,768
how you felt that reading memoirs was,
you know, so much more powerful than,

1022
00:59:43,188 --> 00:59:45,238
um, various personal development books.

1023
00:59:45,238 --> 00:59:49,483
And I was thinking to myself, like, A
question I would have for you is, what's

1024
00:59:49,483 --> 00:59:54,173
the title of your memoir, or what are the
breadcrumbs and themes that would show up

1025
00:59:54,173 --> 00:59:58,043
in your memoir, and is what you're writing
a memoir, or is it something different?

1026
00:59:58,253 --> 01:00:04,173
Yeah, uh, I am, so I'm in a class
with a teacher, a woman named Ruthie

1027
01:00:04,173 --> 01:00:08,513
Ackerman, former New York Times
columnist and an author herself.

1028
01:00:09,023 --> 01:00:10,583
My wife introduced me to her.

1029
01:00:11,053 --> 01:00:14,523
She runs a year long class to
write your book, which is personal

1030
01:00:14,523 --> 01:00:15,913
writing focus, mostly memoir.

1031
01:00:15,933 --> 01:00:23,253
Um, if you'd asked me, so I gave a TEDx
talk in 2013 or something like that.

1032
01:00:23,313 --> 01:00:27,493
And if you'd asked me who my idol
was for writing, it was like some

1033
01:00:27,493 --> 01:00:31,763
combination of Dan Pink, Adam Grant,
you know, Malcolm Gladwell, like very

1034
01:00:31,783 --> 01:00:36,213
data driven, everything cited and
anecdotes and data and blah, blah, blah.

1035
01:00:36,953 --> 01:00:40,783
And I think I try, I basically tried to
mimic Dan Pink and giving that talk is

1036
01:00:40,783 --> 01:00:47,723
why I bring that up, which is amusing
looking back, you know, um, Um, if you

1037
01:00:47,723 --> 01:00:52,643
had asked that version of me, would you
ever imagine yourself writing a memoir?

1038
01:00:52,643 --> 01:00:55,483
I'd be like, come on, what
a ridiculous thing to do.

1039
01:00:55,803 --> 01:00:58,763
Like maybe if, maybe after I'm
president of the United States or

1040
01:00:58,763 --> 01:01:05,343
something, um, and now I think it's
just reflective of my emotional growth.

1041
01:01:05,443 --> 01:01:09,103
It's like, there are no one size
fits all solutions for anything.

1042
01:01:09,573 --> 01:01:10,663
It just doesn't work that way.

1043
01:01:10,663 --> 01:01:15,613
Um, even hammering a nail, there's
a hundred ways to hammer a nail.

1044
01:01:17,033 --> 01:01:22,143
You know, but that, that nuance gets
lost in social media and in how to,

1045
01:01:22,143 --> 01:01:23,903
and, and self help and all of that.

1046
01:01:23,903 --> 01:01:28,473
And there's nothing wrong with it because
methods can work for different people.

1047
01:01:28,473 --> 01:01:32,483
And I think there's a lot
of like truth and beauty and

1048
01:01:32,803 --> 01:01:34,873
people's pursuit of methodology.

1049
01:01:34,873 --> 01:01:42,023
Um, but I think a reflection of my own
growth is that I now know that no one

1050
01:01:42,023 --> 01:01:44,223
methodology is going to solve my problems.

1051
01:01:44,808 --> 01:01:49,418
And I can read stuff that
gives me a methodology with an

1052
01:01:49,418 --> 01:01:51,448
openness to learning something.

1053
01:01:51,878 --> 01:01:54,948
But to think that applying that is
going to finally make me feel the way

1054
01:01:54,948 --> 01:01:57,048
I want to feel is just a fool's errand.

1055
01:01:57,088 --> 01:02:05,408
Um, and so out of that has come a new
appreciation for the beauty of story,

1056
01:02:05,468 --> 01:02:09,518
for helping people make their own meaning
rather than making meaning for them.

1057
01:02:10,138 --> 01:02:14,133
And I think it's a big reflection of the
core practice of coaching is like, If

1058
01:02:14,133 --> 01:02:18,423
I'm making meaning for you as my client,
I am really I don't know if I'm allowed

1059
01:02:18,423 --> 01:02:19,533
to cuss But you can bleep it out later.

1060
01:02:19,533 --> 01:02:26,063
I'm really fucking my job up Because
I'm robbing you I'm robbing you of the

1061
01:02:26,063 --> 01:02:33,853
opportunity to make your own meaning and
on some level every system robs you of

1062
01:02:33,853 --> 01:02:39,883
the opportunity to make your own meaning I
Don't think that's necessarily completely

1063
01:02:39,883 --> 01:02:44,838
bad I think for A long time, I needed
other people's systems to help me get

1064
01:02:44,838 --> 01:02:47,818
where I've gotten, to be able to have
the possibility to process through stuff.

1065
01:02:49,128 --> 01:02:54,218
But at this point in my journey, I
gained so much from making my own

1066
01:02:54,218 --> 01:02:55,688
meaning of other people's stories.

1067
01:02:56,508 --> 01:03:00,438
And someone basically asked me, it's
like, I can't read memoir, like it seems

1068
01:03:00,438 --> 01:03:03,608
self indulgent and ridiculous, so can
you help me understand your point better?

1069
01:03:05,123 --> 01:03:06,243
And I gave him a few examples.

1070
01:03:06,243 --> 01:03:09,673
I said, I look over here because these
are my bookshelves and I always love being

1071
01:03:09,673 --> 01:03:11,543
able to look at everything I've read here.

1072
01:03:11,723 --> 01:03:17,303
Um, so memoirs I've read in the past
year, I read a book, uh, Paul Newman,

1073
01:03:17,643 --> 01:03:21,623
uh, memoir that's like posthumously
compiled by his children, I think.

1074
01:03:22,413 --> 01:03:26,723
And that one was just pure, that's like
the celebrity style where he was famous.

1075
01:03:27,113 --> 01:03:32,503
You know, he was before really, I, he
came before really, I appreciated that

1076
01:03:32,583 --> 01:03:37,483
his like work, um, I was too young to
appreciate him as he was doing his work,

1077
01:03:37,483 --> 01:03:38,623
I guess, is another way of saying it.

1078
01:03:39,153 --> 01:03:41,813
So I read that just from a personal
interest standpoint, but then I

1079
01:03:41,813 --> 01:03:45,113
read one called, uh, Deep Creek.

1080
01:03:45,143 --> 01:03:50,773
And that was about this author and
writer who purchased a ranch in the high

1081
01:03:50,773 --> 01:03:54,463
country of the Colorado mountains and
lived there alone for a lot of years.

1082
01:03:54,463 --> 01:03:56,223
You know, she had partners
on and off, but like.

1083
01:03:56,688 --> 01:04:00,668
That was the place she carved out for
herself as her safe place, and it was

1084
01:04:00,668 --> 01:04:05,648
about nature, and climate change, and
trauma, and like, parents, and, you

1085
01:04:05,648 --> 01:04:07,108
know, all the things we do to heal.

1086
01:04:07,748 --> 01:04:08,318
It was beautiful.

1087
01:04:08,318 --> 01:04:11,738
It was like the intersection of a lot
of things I needed to see and read.

1088
01:04:12,558 --> 01:04:17,098
And then I read one called, um,
You Can Make This Place Beautiful.

1089
01:04:18,408 --> 01:04:18,958
It's right here.

1090
01:04:18,988 --> 01:04:22,758
I just happened to order
it, and it was used.

1091
01:04:23,933 --> 01:04:26,633
And I didn't know whether I would even
like it, but two people had recommended

1092
01:04:26,633 --> 01:04:29,933
it to me, my wife and the teacher
of that class, and I opened it up,

1093
01:04:30,363 --> 01:04:35,913
and it was signed, and it is by far
my favorite book I read last year.

1094
01:04:36,573 --> 01:04:37,183
Wow.

1095
01:04:37,593 --> 01:04:43,463
It is a book about, presumably, getting
divorced and trying to heal from it.

1096
01:04:44,893 --> 01:04:45,543
I'm not divorced.

1097
01:04:45,543 --> 01:04:48,623
I don't plan to get divorced, but,
and it wasn't, I wasn't reading it

1098
01:04:48,643 --> 01:04:49,753
because I planned to get divorced.

1099
01:04:50,043 --> 01:04:55,223
I was reading it because it was
recommended to me as a beautiful

1100
01:04:55,223 --> 01:04:58,813
exploration of what it means to
grieve the loss of something.

1101
01:04:58,813 --> 01:05:04,253
And what I took away from that
book was actually that it's a

1102
01:05:04,263 --> 01:05:06,573
book about healing ourselves.

1103
01:05:06,653 --> 01:05:11,813
And then Using that healing power
to then go do something good, you

1104
01:05:11,813 --> 01:05:16,303
know, it's like how to be a parent,
how to lead, how to heal from hard

1105
01:05:16,303 --> 01:05:17,833
shit that happens to all of us.

1106
01:05:18,863 --> 01:05:22,663
And it's just so beautifully written
and formatted in such an unexpected way.

1107
01:05:23,693 --> 01:05:26,913
I couldn't have gotten that
from like, I can't get that from

1108
01:05:26,923 --> 01:05:28,823
someone telling me how to heal.

1109
01:05:30,343 --> 01:05:33,613
You know, it was by
reading her experience.

1110
01:05:34,058 --> 01:05:37,768
In her writing style that then allowed
me to say, here's what this means for

1111
01:05:37,778 --> 01:05:39,378
me right now in this moment in time.

1112
01:05:39,628 --> 01:05:41,098
So to me, that's what memoir is.

1113
01:05:41,308 --> 01:05:44,528
And if I were going to name a memoir,
it would be a line from Deep Creek,

1114
01:05:44,558 --> 01:05:47,328
the book I mentioned earlier, which
I think you all have heard me say.

1115
01:05:48,048 --> 01:05:50,778
Uh, I would call it an
unbearably beautiful future.

1116
01:05:52,178 --> 01:05:56,978
And the reason why is, I've always
said I'm like, I'm an optimist.

1117
01:05:58,408 --> 01:06:03,753
But I think, in a way, my optimism
Was rooted in trying to avoid

1118
01:06:03,763 --> 01:06:07,073
negativity, trying to avoid negative
feelings, trying to avoid sadness

1119
01:06:07,073 --> 01:06:08,453
and grief and everything else.

1120
01:06:09,243 --> 01:06:13,523
And there's this thing that happened
to me when I started learning to

1121
01:06:13,563 --> 01:06:20,413
actually feel grief, which was like,
now everything can be even better.

1122
01:06:21,593 --> 01:06:22,813
Like this is even better.

1123
01:06:22,813 --> 01:06:25,453
I can like fully experience sadness.

1124
01:06:26,243 --> 01:06:31,263
I can have had something, a
relationship, a job, uh, whatever.

1125
01:06:31,913 --> 01:06:38,823
That I love so much that I have to cry to
process through what it means to lose it.

1126
01:06:40,263 --> 01:06:42,743
And that's where that line
comes from in the book.

1127
01:06:42,743 --> 01:06:49,103
She's talking about realizing that you
can heal enough for the future to be so

1128
01:06:49,163 --> 01:06:52,513
unimaginably different from today that
it's almost like I don't want to touch it.

1129
01:06:52,783 --> 01:06:53,673
Like a hot stove.

1130
01:06:54,723 --> 01:06:55,753
I love that idea.

1131
01:06:55,753 --> 01:06:58,403
It's so reflective of
where I've landed, I think.

1132
01:07:00,288 --> 01:07:05,018
Current place Maybe and who knows
what that'll be like in a year

1133
01:07:05,018 --> 01:07:06,448
and ten years and everything else.

1134
01:07:07,768 --> 01:07:11,628
I Love that and I think that's maybe
a beautiful way to to wrap up the

1135
01:07:11,628 --> 01:07:16,558
conversation and just What is the sort of
beautiful future that you are imagining

1136
01:07:16,858 --> 01:07:18,538
and even just kind of what's next for you?

1137
01:07:18,538 --> 01:07:20,598
Like what are you most
excited about right now?

1138
01:07:21,498 --> 01:07:28,633
Yeah Well, I mean, the most beautiful
future I could imagine is a future where

1139
01:07:29,083 --> 01:07:34,133
everyone has the access to resources
to process through their own, their

1140
01:07:34,133 --> 01:07:40,733
old pain and integrate it to live
just a fuller, healthier, holer, holer

1141
01:07:40,733 --> 01:07:44,313
is not a word, but you know, holer
life where they can operate from a

1142
01:07:44,323 --> 01:07:46,083
place of alignment with themselves.

1143
01:07:46,623 --> 01:07:49,543
Um, because I think
that would eliminate it.

1144
01:07:49,563 --> 01:07:54,593
A lot of the pain we inflict, you know,
when we are able to heal our own pain.

1145
01:07:55,883 --> 01:07:59,443
I know it's not fully possible, but
I think it's worth working towards.

1146
01:08:00,263 --> 01:08:05,213
Um, and I've come to believe that
coaching is an incredible tool when

1147
01:08:05,213 --> 01:08:10,203
taken seriously and when treated with
the proper care for helping, for being

1148
01:08:10,263 --> 01:08:12,993
a part of what helps people get there.

1149
01:08:14,113 --> 01:08:16,333
Uh, it's also inherently unscalable.

1150
01:08:16,813 --> 01:08:17,263
I mean.

1151
01:08:17,658 --> 01:08:20,638
There's like maybe not a
less scalable profession

1152
01:08:23,778 --> 01:08:26,808
And I love that about it because I
get to have such deep deep impact

1153
01:08:26,808 --> 01:08:30,018
on each person But I also know I'd
like to reach a lot more people

1154
01:08:31,398 --> 01:08:33,898
So I am taking this writing class.

1155
01:08:34,218 --> 01:08:39,448
I'm gonna write a memoir and the only
purpose I'm giving that memoir is to give

1156
01:08:39,488 --> 01:08:44,468
my two boys the permission to do all of
the exploration of their pain that they

1157
01:08:44,468 --> 01:08:48,248
need to do when they reach the point when
they're ready And then I will be there for

1158
01:08:48,248 --> 01:08:50,118
it for whatever they need in that process.

1159
01:08:50,678 --> 01:08:55,528
Um, and I want to share my story in such
a way that makes them feel totally safe to

1160
01:08:55,528 --> 01:08:57,558
do whatever they need to do to feel whole.

1161
01:08:57,558 --> 01:09:03,978
Um, and I hope and think that maybe that
might help other people too, but I'm only,

1162
01:09:04,168 --> 01:09:05,888
I'm only setting out with that purpose.

1163
01:09:07,008 --> 01:09:09,578
And then the other thing I'm doing is
I'm making my own podcast right now.

1164
01:09:09,728 --> 01:09:12,248
That'll come out sometime
near when this comes out.

1165
01:09:12,328 --> 01:09:17,263
Um, And that was largely inspired, I
mean, that was the topic of my hot seat

1166
01:09:17,263 --> 01:09:19,793
when we were together in Breckenridge,
what is my podcast going to be?

1167
01:09:21,483 --> 01:09:25,703
And that session basically gave me
permission to make my podcast whatever

1168
01:09:25,703 --> 01:09:29,183
I want it to be, that my coaching
earns my living so that I can make my

1169
01:09:29,183 --> 01:09:30,913
creative work whatever I want it to be.

1170
01:09:31,883 --> 01:09:36,073
And the triangulation that I've been
giving as kind of like guideposts is I'd

1171
01:09:36,073 --> 01:09:40,408
like it to occupy a space somewhere in
the middle of Uh, Krista Tippett's On

1172
01:09:40,418 --> 01:09:45,478
Being, which is just like an absolute
classic of the podcasting and radio genre.

1173
01:09:46,548 --> 01:09:51,178
Tim Ferriss show, which has some things
I hate and has some things I love.

1174
01:09:51,858 --> 01:09:56,098
And then a show called 80, 000 Hours,
which is a show from the effective

1175
01:09:56,098 --> 01:10:00,298
altruism movement about, um, the
most high impact careers you can

1176
01:10:00,338 --> 01:10:05,648
take on from like a Data driven
perspective, it's annoyingly nerdy.

1177
01:10:05,828 --> 01:10:08,518
And so I don't want it to be any of
those things, but if it was some mix

1178
01:10:08,518 --> 01:10:11,298
of a little bit of all those things,
I think that would be really awesome.

1179
01:10:11,388 --> 01:10:17,128
Um, and I'm interviewing what I'm
calling high impact leaders who are,

1180
01:10:17,288 --> 01:10:23,358
or leaders, thinkers, and artists who I
think are working to, um, build a better

1181
01:10:23,358 --> 01:10:28,908
world and some concrete way, and that
doesn't have to mean they're building

1182
01:10:29,088 --> 01:10:30,678
nuclear power plants, but it might.

1183
01:10:31,333 --> 01:10:34,073
It might mean that they're writing
books like You Can Make This Place

1184
01:10:34,073 --> 01:10:37,143
Beautiful that are helping people
heal and learn about themselves.

1185
01:10:37,483 --> 01:10:38,123
It's gorgeous.

1186
01:10:38,673 --> 01:10:39,253
Beautiful.

1187
01:10:39,543 --> 01:10:40,543
Yeah, it's really beautiful.

1188
01:10:40,543 --> 01:10:45,993
Looking forward to being a subscriber and
a fan of yours for the next decade or so.

1189
01:10:46,073 --> 01:10:46,253
Absolutely.

1190
01:10:46,463 --> 01:10:47,063
Thanks, y'all.

1191
01:10:47,803 --> 01:10:51,073
Yeah, where can people find, uh, I
guess more about you or your work?

1192
01:10:51,073 --> 01:10:54,573
What's the best medium for
people to explore your writing?

1193
01:10:54,988 --> 01:10:58,878
Yeah, the best, absolute best
medium to stay in touch is, um,

1194
01:10:58,888 --> 01:11:00,598
by subscribing at barrettbrooks.

1195
01:11:00,598 --> 01:11:00,908
com.

1196
01:11:01,298 --> 01:11:04,768
Um, classic email call to action there.

1197
01:11:05,088 --> 01:11:09,098
Um, I'm sending a Saturday newsletter
this year, and then I'll send

1198
01:11:09,098 --> 01:11:11,798
emails for my podcast, and I try
not to do much more than that.

1199
01:11:12,568 --> 01:11:16,548
And, uh, and then Twitter is probably
where I'm most active, although

1200
01:11:16,548 --> 01:11:20,798
I've been picking up on LinkedIn
too for I don't know, some people

1201
01:11:20,798 --> 01:11:23,498
really hate LinkedIn, but if you
like LinkedIn, I'm there as well.

1202
01:11:24,568 --> 01:11:25,668
And that's Barrett A.

1203
01:11:25,668 --> 01:11:27,288
Brooks on any social platform.

1204
01:11:27,288 --> 01:11:27,938
You can find me.

1205
01:11:27,938 --> 01:11:30,238
Awesome.

1206
01:11:30,238 --> 01:11:31,158
Amazing, Barrett.

1207
01:11:31,228 --> 01:11:35,908
Thank you for just being so, so
you, just so open, so vulnerable, so

1208
01:11:35,908 --> 01:11:38,438
thoughtful in the way that you show up.

1209
01:11:38,438 --> 01:11:40,798
It's truly inspiring to us.

1210
01:11:42,313 --> 01:11:43,243
Writing down all the book.

1211
01:11:43,283 --> 01:11:46,333
I'm like, okay, it's time to check out
memoirs, which is something I might

1212
01:11:46,333 --> 01:11:50,103
not have even thought of doing until
I saw your writing and I thought, what

1213
01:11:50,103 --> 01:11:55,103
a beautiful way to learn more deeply
about those lessons than frameworks.

1214
01:11:55,103 --> 01:11:59,083
Like, I'm just really grateful
for that little, little note.

1215
01:11:59,333 --> 01:12:00,943
Yeah, there's a place for both.

1216
01:12:01,653 --> 01:12:02,713
Yeah, yeah.

1217
01:12:03,983 --> 01:12:04,393
Well, thanks, y'all.

1218
01:12:04,473 --> 01:12:06,453
I'm so grateful for you having me on.

1219
01:12:06,583 --> 01:12:08,093
And I'm really grateful
you're making the show.

1220
01:12:08,093 --> 01:12:11,053
I think it'll be important for
everyone who ends up listening.

1221
01:12:12,493 --> 01:12:13,153
Thanks so much.

1222
01:12:13,163 --> 01:12:13,583
Amazing.

1223
01:12:13,613 --> 01:12:14,643
Thanks so much Barrett.