September 17, 2024 • 43 mins
In this special episode, I sit down with my dear friend and former business partner, Chalmers Brothers, for a candid, unscripted conversation about personal growth, communication skills, and the transformative power of ontological coaching. Chalmers has been a huge influence on my journey, and together, we reflect on how we first met, our early work experiences, and how a life-changing workshop completely shifted how we both saw relationships and ourselves.
You’ll learn about the importance of recognizing that everyone is a unique observer of the world—and how letting go of the need to always be "right" can open up new possibilities in your relationships. Chalmers shares some of his own experiences, including how one powerful distinction reshaped his approach to business and life.
Find out how you can avoid building resentment by addressing unspoken expectations and the power of having "missing conversations" to clear the air. We also explore the connection between the body, language, and emotions—and how becoming aware of these can change the way you show up in the world.
Tune in and discover how a few simple shifts in thinking can lead to deeper, more fulfilling relationships.
- Mark
Let’s connect:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrobertsonpcc
Email: mark@coachmark.com
Website: www.coachmark.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Robertson (00:00):
Welcome to Wake Up and Pay Attention the podcast
(00:02):
fueling positive change from theinside out. I'm Mark Robertson,
your host, with over 25 years asa professional coach, I'm
thrilled to explore the personalgrowth tools that have helped me
and hundreds of people just likeyou, design and awaken to their
best life. If you've ever feltoverwhelmed and unfulfilled,
like you're just going throughthe motions day after day. Maybe
(00:24):
you're afraid one day all theballs are going to drop. You're
in the right place. Together.Let's expand our self awareness
and make sustainable shifts thatimprove our communication
skills, relationships andoverall well being. This is a
judgment free zone whereopenness, understanding and
support rule. So grab yourheadphones and get ready. It's
(00:45):
time to wake up and payattention.
Welcome. Wake Up and PayAttention, listeners. It's an
exciting day today. I think thisis maybe episode 17 or 18. I'm
not certain, but it's my firstever episode with a guest, and I
am thrilled to have on who I theguy I think is the absolute
(01:09):
perfect first guest. So it's mydear friend, former business
partner, colleague,extraordinary author of two
books, front man for a bandcalled The Herd of Turtles, is a
guy that I actually refer tooften as the most optimistic
human being I've ever met in mylife. It's my dear friend,
(01:30):
Chalmers Brother.s So just wantto say, Hello, Chalmers.
Chalmers Brothers (01:33):
Hey Mark, great to be with you man, thanks
for the invite.
Mark Robertson (01:36):
Of course. Man, I'm really excited to be with
you. I just, like I said, Ithink it's really fitting that
you're my very first guestsince, you know, all this stuff,
really, for me, started withyou, you know, started with you
back in the day. And so maybethat's where we'll jump in to
this conversation. So listener,just know that Chalmers and I
are going to have an authenticconversation, not scripted, not
(01:57):
staged, and we'll see where ittakes us. I have no doubt you
will find it of interest today.So Chalmers, let me give a
little background on ourhistory, and then I'll just open
with a question or just ask youto talk. So I met Chalmers. We
both worked at AndersonConsulting, and I started
working at Anderson Consultingin 1989 and I'm sure I met you
(02:20):
at one of the outings there, butI don't think we knew each other
all that well until in 1991 Iremember being at some friend's
house. Chalmers was a manager atAnderson Consulting. When I
started there, I was a staffmember. He can tell you about
that if he wants to, but I wasat some friend's house, and they
had asked me to come for whatwas called an intro night.
Chalmers Brothers (02:42):
Introductory night, Intro night, that's
Mark Robertson (02:44):
Intro night, yeah, Intro night for education,
right.
for living, which you've heardme talk about, this is the first
place that I learned theontological distinction. And so
I went to their house with alittle bit of hesitation and
trepidation. Other Andersonstaff members were there, and lo
and behold, Chalmers and hiswife, Betsy, and another couple
were leading the intro night,and they were talking about
(03:04):
education for living. And Iremember listening and thinking,
wow, that sounds fascinating,but I didn't sign up right away,
because I was skeptical and notsure. It took me a little while,
but eventually I did sign up.And signed up did stage one, and
as I've talked about in thepodcast, everything changed
after that, you know? I mean, itchanged my whole life, really.
And so I did all of theeducation for living, courses
(03:27):
later, etc, etc. Took differentjobs. But here's where Chalmers
and I really got to know eachother better and got involved a
whole lot more. Was certainlythrough education for living.
And all the workshops that wewere doing in Chalmers and Betsy
town at the time, which wasColumbia, Tennessee. They were
killer at enrolling lots ofpeople from the hospital and
(03:49):
Chalmers in his businesscommunity. And so I was on
staff, and he was on staff. Andthen I remember EFL kind of died
down a little bit, and then werekindled it. And I here's what
I remember. I don't know if youremember this or not. I don't do
this accurate, but we werehaving one in Nashville, and we
were both on staff, because youand I, Betsy and Brett and a few
others were the only ones thatcould staff. At that time. We
(04:11):
were just building thecommunity, and I remember asking
Mike Papania for permission,because I was going to start my
own business. This was like aJanuary or February of 1998 and
I decided I knew thedistinctions well enough I was
going to go out and and offerthem on my own. And you were on
staff, and I was asking Mike forpermission to use the
distinction. It's he said,Absolutely. And the way I recall
(04:33):
it was you were there and youmaybe overheard the
conversation. You were like,yeah, yeah, yeah, you know me
too. But I think you werealready doing some of this stuff
you had left Anderson, and we'redoing strategic planning. As I
recall, we were staffing an EFLworkshop. And then I remember
later that night, when we weredone for that evening, you
called me. This is myrecollection. You said, Hey,
man, you know, why don't we gointo business together? And I
(04:54):
remember thinking, holy cow,man, this is Chalmers. Like, of
course, you know, I didn't eventhink about it like Absolutely.
And as I say, like I jumped onyour coattails because you were
already doing it in a way wewent. And then I remember, I was
like a week or two, and wealready had a gig for two weeks
of day long stuff with Beckarnley World parts or something.
Remember that? That's myrecollection. That was the start
(05:18):
of a three and a half yearbusiness relationship. That was
fantastic, which we can talkabout, but that gives you all,
as listeners, a little historywith Chalmers and I so Chalmers
like for me, and I think for youboth, of our exposure to the
ontological distinctions wasthrough Education for Living or
EFL. So correct me, if that'snot true, but you obviously got
started before me talk a littlebit about your experience for
(05:41):
the EFL and why was itsignificant enough that you were
enrolling others afterwards?
Chalmers Brothers (05:46):
And it was not that different than your
experience. It was a lifechanger. Here's what happened.
Gotten buried in '86 and Betsyand I were doing great. And in
early '87 some friends of ours,Larry and Henry kept talking
about, we went to this workshop.You guys got to go. You guys got
to go. We went to this workshop.It's incredible. You guys got to
(06:07):
go. And in my head, I wasthinking, number one, I'm I'm
not really sure what a workshopis. Number two, I'm pretty sure
I don't need one. And numberthree, I was so arrogant. Number
three, my actual thought processwas, if I haven't heard of this
already. How good can it be? Andthey finally said, Look, we will
pay for y'all to go. And if youdon't think it's worth it, don't
pay us back. They actually saidthat. And so that got my
(06:30):
attention. I said, okay, it wasin Baton Rouge, as I remember,
yeah, and Mark, it changed mylife as well. I remember it's
Friday night, all day, Saturday,all day, Sunday. And I remember
about midday Saturday havingthis thought. I came in here 12
hours ago, thinking myrelationship with Betsy was a
9.5 out of 10. We were copaceticin every way, and I realized
(06:52):
it's a 9.5 if 10 is right hereat eye level, but what if 10 is
in the clouds right? What if Ihad grossly underestimated how
good things can be, and had beenunintentionally limiting the
single most importantrelationship in my life. And
that cost me two hours in myhead. It was like, Oh my God,
wait a minute. Wait a minute. Ialso realized I had a lot in
(07:14):
common with some of the peoplein the workshop that I didn't
think I had in common with,right? And so I had electrical
my terminal certainty cracked,right? I was so certain about,
and then I started thinking,whoosh, maybe, maybe there's
other stuff in my life. I'd onlybe so rock solid, certain about,
(07:34):
yeah. And it just created anopening. It created a space that
was like, and I was, again, Ilook back at myself, I was
sometimes wrong, but never indoubt. Right? I was completely I
was sure that I saw thingsobjectively, unless I was
obviously really happy orobviously really sad. I
basically saw things as theywere. Yeah, yeah. And of course,
(07:55):
I got a hit that this wasn't thecase at all. And last point, and
I remember this clearly onSunday morning. Now, these are
closed groups, as you remember,right? You don't join the group
once they start, right? Youstart Friday with that group. On
Sunday morning, we're in thelobby, waiting to go into the
conference room, and there's alady looks like she's a new
lady, like a new person, and I'masked to say, Listen, maybe she
(08:19):
doesn't know it's a closedgroup, maybe somebody's wife,
somebody's sister, she reallycan't go in. I walked over to
her, about to introduce myselfand make sure she felt
comfortable. And I realized itwas not a new person. It was a
person, a lady who'd been therethe whole time. And as you like,
I think I may have shared thiswith you. We did a forgiveness
process on Saturday night, andshe didn't look the same on
(08:41):
Sunday morning. Yeah? She didnot physically look the same.
Her eyes were not the same, hershoulders were not the same, her
forehead was not the same, yeah,I went back to Betsy and I said,
You know what? I'm not reallysure 100% what we got ourselves
into, but I'm I'm not done. I'mnot done. Yeah, I came out with
that workshop Mark with it was ashift in my life. It was a shift
(09:03):
in life. And I, like you, I wentback for more, right? I went to
stage two program and theresults program, and it was a
giant turning point in my life,and I knew at some point I was
going to do something with it,right? Even at that early stage,
it was like, I don't knowexactly what this is, but I
(09:24):
think I want to stay in it in abig way. And ultimately that led
me to Newfield, right? I mean,so the we were together, so we
started working in 1991something like that, I think,
right?
Mark Robertson (09:37):
You and I started working together as
business partners in, actually,in 98
Yeah, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (09:40):
Right, right. Because that was after, well, in
And I remember the speaker didn't show
Columbia, Tennessee, yeah, Iwent to a Kiwanis meeting that
opened the door for us forSocial Security Administration,
right?
up at the Kiwanis meeting, yeah.And the President said, can
anybody fill 20 minutes. And bythat point, I had been doing
(10:02):
this work on my own, you know,for a bit I said, you know, I
can do 20 minutes. And after themeeting, a guy came up and said,
my name is Milt Beaver,remember, with SSA, and there is
a training program opportunityin the Southeast US for
managerial training. Would youlike to have, you know, us to
give you an RFP, yeah,absolutely. And it, I think we
(10:24):
worked on that together, and wedid not get the gig. We didn't
get the gig, but the theorganization that got it was
disqualified, and that turnedin, and so we ended up getting
it. And Mark, my memory is thatwas about one two day workshop a
month for 24 months, yeah, inthe southeastern US, yeah. And
looking back at it, the table ofcontents for my first book was
(10:48):
our agenda for that two dayworkshop.
Mark Robertson (10:50):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (10:51):
That's that's the only way I knew how to do
it, yep. And so we spent a lotof time in front of some pretty
big rooms going over thesedistinctions and sharing our
version of these distinctions,and looking back saying yes at
the Kiwanis meeting, opened thedoor for what ultimately turned
into the first book and somewonderful opportunities for us
(11:11):
to do a lot of work together.
Mark Robertson (11:13):
Right, right, right. Gosh, there's so many
places we could go with that.Let me pick a couple things. One
is when you were talking aboutthe new lady that was trying to
get in the workshop. So that'sI'll connect it to what I've
been teaching. I've beenteaching the ontological
distinctions to my audience for17 episodes now, which is what I
wanted to do when I started thepodcast. So remembering that
we're all different observers,and then the observer that we
(11:35):
are is made up of our language,our emotion and our body, and
they're intricately connected.So I thought your example is a
beautiful example of, literally,in stage one, someone's body
changes. All three of thosechange, like our beliefs, our
thought processes, our emotionalstate, but you're talking
explicitly about literally, herbody looks different. She looks
(11:56):
like a new human being. And Ihad the same experience too on
Sunday, like, whoa. These arenot the same human beings,
right?
Chalmers Brothers (12:02):
It's and it really points to the generative
power of language. We speakourselves into the world. Yes,
we describe with language. Butthat's not all that we do, and
it's this whole other, not allthat we do, right? It's giantly
important, because thesedeclarations, right, the
declarations of forgiveness, ofdirection, we set goals we move
(12:24):
in the world. Those arecreative, generative things. And
until I was introduced to thesedistinctions, I didn't
understand language that way. Ididn't understand that there is
a generative, creative capacityof this thing called language.
Mark Robertson (12:39):
I didn't either. I had no idea until the workshop
that and so many other things Ididn't I've never seen before
and didn't understand, by theway, the last episode that I
just did was the power ofdeclaration. So it's interesting
that you're that you're bringingthat over to the very last
distinction that I covered. Soit's timely that you talk about
it. Um, let me shift gears alittle bit, or pick up on
something you said. So you didstage one, and obviously you did
(13:03):
all of the EFL, and you feltlike it was powerful enough. And
you were in New Orleans at thetime, but then I ran into you in
Nashville in '91 you wereworking here as a manager.
That's when I went to the intronight. And my journey kind of
got started. I'm not sure ifthere's anything. I guess my
curiosity was like, was thereanything else you would want to
(13:25):
say about that journey that ledup to when we met that had you
like, be committed enough to belike, You know what? I'm going
to lead these intro nights andbuild this community. I want
other people to have thislearning. Anything else you want
to say about that?
Chalmers Brothers (13:40):
I had never encountered anything like it at
all, and I again, coming from aplace of sometimes wrong would
never end out right. I was justlowered this entire not only did
I not know this, I didn't know Ididn't know it right, the entire
body of learning was off myradar screen. Yeah, and that had
never happened to me, and I wasprofoundly moved at the way that
(14:04):
it could build relationships.One of my pet peeves that
happened pretty quick after thatis I think the world needs fewer
25 year old child resist meaningpeople walking around being
terminally right? Withcertainty, terminally, right. I
noticed that the world would bea better place if everybody
(14:25):
understood that we are simplyunique observers. We do not and
we cannot have access to howanything actually is. All we
know is how it is for us.
Mark Robertson (14:36):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (14:37):
And think about what's going on on the
planet, what's going on inrelationships. It's this
criminal certainty, this notionof being right, yep, right. And
the notion of, can we shift fromright, wrong to powerful,
unpowerful, effective,ineffective, right? Once you
separate events fromexplanations, which is something
(14:57):
I couldn't do before theseworkshops, right? I. Was
convinced that the way I sawthings, or the way I explained
them, was the way they were.
Mark Robertson (15:04):
It is, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (15:04):
But once I saw that, and once I was
introduced to the possibilitymoving away from a right wrong
orientation. And let's be clear,most of us adopt the right wrong
orientation. We come by it.Honestly. Nobody teaches us
this. It's weak
Mark Robertson (15:19):
Our cultural suit.
Chalmers Brothers (15:20):
It's cultural suit. It just seems to be the
way I have eyes. You have eyes,yeah, it is you saw, yeah. And
once I was introduced to thispossibility of not operating
with the right wrong lens, well,then it, then I started thinking
about relationships,interpersonal, intercultural
relationships, yeah, howdifferent would it be if
(15:41):
everybody was acutely aware thatthey are interpreting all the
time? What if everybody wasacutely aware that they are
necessarily interpreting basedon their life, their DNA, their
parents, their culture, theirtime period? How different would
things be? And so I wasinterested in it. And what I
noticed, too, is that inEducation for Living, we were
(16:04):
being coached. We weren't beingtrained to be coaches. We were
being coached, yeah. And at thetime, coaching wasn't really a
thing. There was no ICF. Therewas no ICF, right? That wasn't
part of the landscape, right?And I started in the early 90s,
in the EFL community, peoplestarted mentioning new field
network, and I started saying,Look, man, if you're really
(16:25):
serious about this, if you wantto carry this forward, like as a
profession, if you want tointegrate this into your
professional life, and thethings you offer you know to the
world, you need to getcertified. You need to get
certified. And the only peoplethat they knew that were doing
this work is Julio Alaya, theNewfield network, and that's
where I went. I mean, eventoday, there aren't that many
(16:47):
ontologically orientedcertifications, right? I mean,
I'm privileged to work withMarcus Marsden and the group in
Singapore, right? Used to becalled Newfield Asia, but it's
called the works partnershipnow. And anyhow, I did the the
long program in 1995 I do. I doagain of 1995.
Mark Robertson (17:07):
Okay, let me pause you there, and we'll pick
up, because I want to go back tosomething that's so much firing
you've already talked a tonabout a lot of the territory
I've covered in the podcast, andthe challenges of this and what
you see. So I want to say acouple things. One is your
terminal certainty and the wholehow right we are, I think you're
so spot on, but what I'mnoticing is like how differently
(17:28):
we came to the experience. Likeyou came with a terminal
certainty that you already had.I came because of a father who
had that same terminal certaintyand was right about everything,
and it had such an imprint onme. So I just want to draw that
out. Yeah, very different placeswe came from. And I find it
interesting that we ended up asbusiness partners. I think it's
perfect, right? And so again,still, a lot of places we could
(17:50):
I want to get back to your newfield journey, but I'm with you,
man, let me tee this up realquick and talk about it, and
then you can pick up new field.The last few years, I've been
talking about the ontologicaldistinctions as a framework or a
template that I think is just somuch more powerful for how we
could do life, how we could behuman beings, how we could
communicate, how we could dorelationships, what you're
(18:11):
talking about. I know you sharethat idea because of the way
that you're talking, and I feellike I've sidetracked us here
maybe a little bit. But talkabout, do you see this the
ontological framework ortemplate, in the same way that
so many of the current wayspeople have learned to think
about who we are and communicateand do relationships? In my
(18:34):
opinion, I say it this way,they're inadequate, incomplete,
insufficient, or they justdon't, flat out work. You got
any thoughts about that idea oflike the world is almost
yearning for a differentframework or template, and I
feel like we have one, and it'slike we got to get this out to
as many people as we can.
Chalmers Brothers (18:51):
I agree. I mean, my sense is this, that
this is a type of emergingcommon sense. Now, it may be
glacially emerging, but it's acommon sense. I think that's
emerging because of an increasein self awareness, right? The
whole notion once you increaseyour level of self awareness
even a little bit, I believethat balloon can't snap back to
(19:12):
exactly like it was, right? Isay the good news is, once we're
involved in this work, is thatwe're now much more conscious of
our own role, right, as theauthor of our lives. In a sense,
the bad news is you can'tpretend. You don't see that.
Yeah, yeah, you can't pretend.And so I do believe mark that
this is a type of awareness.It's a type of living that we
(19:36):
need on the planet. Again, I mayshare with you my purpose in
life is to help shift theconsciousness of a million
people. I want to help a millionpeople shift how they see
themselves and theirpossibilities. Yeah, and I think
this body of work is absolutelymy vehicle.
Mark Robertson (19:51):
I think we might need to raise that number
brother, like, from a million toa billion, or maybe all of us as
ontological coaches. Let's.Let's go for a bill.
Chalmers Brothers (20:01):
I love it mark. And I think we need this
perspective. We need thisstarting point of understanding
that we are unique observers, astarting point that the internal
narratives we live in, we're notjust reading them. We wrote
them. Yeah, and if we don't likethe direction of our lives,
well, we have the authority toreinterpret, but don't have the
(20:24):
authority to reinterpret ifwe're holding ourselves as
right, because human beings willdo a lot of things in order to
be right. We'll give uprelationships, we'll go to
battle in order to be right. Andso it's this, I mean, when you
really think about it, theability to not operate with a
right wrong grid, right, theability to not come at things
(20:45):
with right wrong. Think how manyrelationships it's
extraordinary, unnecessarilyderailed, yeah. Think how many
people are unnecessarilyunhappy, yeah, because of living
with this right, wrongorientation. You're not going to
say there's never a time forright wrong, but the subset is
much smaller than I wasoperating with in my 20s, right?
(21:06):
Yeah, it's much, much smallersubset. And so I really believe
that if we can acknowledge weare each necessarily unique
observers, nobody has access tohow anything is right. We know
how it is for us, and we couplethat with this notion of living
in language, right, and creatinginterpretations, narratives and
(21:30):
stories out of which we takeaction and out of which we
produce results. And this is thekey, right? The actions we take
are not based on events thathappen. The actions we take are
based on their explanations ofthe events.
Mark Robertson (21:42):
The Observer we are, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (21:43):
The observer we are the way and all the
metaphors are visual. We'reunique observers. We didn't see
it that way, yeah? But what'sreally happening is we're unique
explainers. We're uniqueinterpreters. It happens in
language, yeah?
Mark Robertson (21:57):
So I'll jump on that, you know? I think part of
it is you keep talking about I'mright. You know, I remember
hearing like you can be right oryou can be in relationship, but
you can't have both. And myinterpretation is it's such a
pervasive background Americanconversation. I'm not sure it's
the same in other countries,maybe some European countries,
where they're more heady, but Ithink in the other countries
(22:18):
where they're more LatinAmerica, and other areas where
they're more bodily oriented, Idon't think they have the same
thing. I think with my clientshere working in America, I think
you're correct that they don'teven see that. It's the template
they're using on everything, andit's it pops up so much that
it's crazy. What I'll say is, Iwant to draw out what you also
said, and then I'll come back toI want to bring it back to the
new field piece, because I havesomething I want to I want to
(22:43):
ask you there ground zero forme, Chalmers, is about the
observer piece that you'retalking about like just a
fundamental understanding thatI'm a unique observer, you're a
unique observer. Everybody elseis a different observer than me,
and they're legit and valid inthe observer that they are. I
think that is ground zero. Allthis other stuff comes out of
(23:05):
that. And the way I've beentalking about it for a while now
is, I think maybe this isAmerican I'm not sure, but
because we don't understandthat, that we don't validate the
unique observer, we don'tacknowledge that the way I see
it is the way I see it, not theway all of that stuff has us
approach relationship withourself, but also with others
(23:26):
very differently. When we comeat it with the I'm right and I
see it the way it is, then itall becomes about the moment in
which you don't see, think,feel, or act the same as me. My
job is to change your mind. Myjob is to show you how right I
am. And I've been talking foryears now about we have to turn
this 180 degrees. What if we allapproached with this notion of
(23:48):
like we're different observers,and we're gonna see, think, feel
and act differently? Let'sconnect. Let me explore how you
see that when the moment Irealize you see it differently
than me, be curious ask, but Ithink we're so entrenched. As
you've said, the way I see it isthe way it is. And it just,
it's, it's the launching pointfrom which we do relationship.
Chalmers Brothers (24:11):
Mark, it is. And again, think about this.
When I was in my mid 20s, I wasrock solid, certain, right?
Yeah, that if you didn't seethings like I did, that there
was something wrong with you.You're an idiot. The incredible
part of this is nobody evertaught me that right that was
never, ever a part of anycurriculum I ever had, ever,
ever, and yet, there I was. Ibelieve this when you and I talk
(24:33):
about supporting people, becausewe've tried to support ourselves
in moving away from the rightwrong lens and adopting a works,
doesn't work, or powerful,unpowerful lens. The reason it
feels a little bit odd to bedoing that, I believe, is
because the right wrong grade isso deeply baked in. It is right,
the right wrong country is sounconsciously part of our growth
(24:56):
and development that we don'teven see it. And I think. You
may be right. Maybe it's moreprevalent in America, but I do
think because of our culturalhistory and a lot of things, but
I think other countries havetheir version of it. I haven't
traveled, to be honest, asextensively enough and spent
enough time in other cultures tobe able to say that with any
evidence, but my sense is thatwe certainly our culture, we
(25:22):
have an unconscious backgroundthat nobody ever taught us, and
it's influencing how weperceive. It's influencing how
we interpret.
Mark Robertson (25:31):
Yeah, it's what we swim in. It's the soup we
swam in our whole lives. Greatpoint. Remember when we did the
workshop for a company up inCanada, and we were talking
about this at lunch. And, youknow, we're like, we got a big
dose of the I'm right, yeah. AndI agree. The other countries, I
think do as well. But they werelike, Oh, they were listening
like, Oh, we don't have the I'mright. We have more of the How
(25:52):
can we both be right? Yeah, Ithink that's where they're at.
So when you hear that, it's evenmore like, how do we validate
each other, so we can both beright, which is a fundamentally
different soup in which to growup again and grow up in, right?
So let me bring you back,because we again. We this may be
part one of a much longerconversation, but I love where
(26:13):
we're going. Let me bring youback to Newfield. You were in
the EFL community. You heardpeople talking about Newfield.
As you said, EFL was about youand your own experience and your
own growth. New Field became itsounds like about, how do I get
trained as a coach to be abetter coach? But I would love
for you to talk about combiningthe experience you had with
(26:34):
Education for Living and thenyour new field learning, and
what that has meant, or theimpact it's had, because I know,
I talk about it as like EFL wasthe immersive personal
experience, and then Newfieldwas a lot. It was more of that,
but also the theory and meetingJulio and Raphael and
understanding the the origins ofthis stuff. And I think the
(26:56):
blend is powerful, but I'd loveto hear your take on that.
Chalmers Brothers (27:00):
It's very similar mark the EFL experience
just dunked me in the water andwoke me up, in a way that it was
an emotional shift, it was acognitive shift, it was a self
awareness shift. It was likewhen I left EFL that very first
workshop, I had two hugeemotions right, side by side
(27:21):
regret and ambition, right? Myregret was like, Oh, crap. Look
at how I've lived. Look at whatI've been taking for granted.
Look at what type of husband Ihaven't been being, yeah, what
type of son and brother Ihaven't been being, yeah. And
the ambition was and, you know,I got a whole new lens. I got a
(27:42):
whole new set of tools to beginusing. I have a whole new life
in front of me.
Mark Robertson (27:47):
Tons of possibilities.
Chalmers Brothers (27:48):
Tons of possibilities that were just
exploding, and it was like this,and that had never happened
before. And when I started andagain, by the time '92, '93, '94
rolled around, I had done theEFL programs, and I was about to
leave Anderson, right, and Iknew was not going to be a long
term Anderson partner and allthat. And so I was going to be
(28:09):
doing a version of independentconsulting slash coaching work.
And I knew enough by that timethat this is what I wanted to
do. Yep, my last couple years atAnderson, I was already deeply,
deeply thinking about, how do Ido this for living? Shared these
distinctions, yeah, and theopportunity to do new field did
(28:31):
present itself, and I went andit was very similar two years
ago. It wasn't that, it wasn'tpersonal, because it very much
was, but there was a deepeningof the philosophical
understanding, right? There wasa deepening of, where does this
come from? What is this? What'sit based on, you know,
Heraclitus and Plato andAristotle and Wittgenstein and
Searle and Austin and Heideggerand Nietzsche, right? And this
(28:54):
was like, I had never, I'd neverbeen exposed to any of that. I
know that it was a course inphilosophy because it wasn't,
but it was enough of anunderpinning that was really
intriguing to me about wheredoes this come from. How have I
gone this salt bar in my lifeand never heard of this?
Mark Robertson (29:12):
Been exposed? Yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (29:13):
It was like this giant opening, but I took
Newfield explicitlyunderstanding I was going to
teach this, okay, many peoplewent to new field for different
reasons, right? You know,different life experiences, and
wanted to expand their horizons.And that's good, but I knew for
me, I was going to incorporatethis in my work, inside
(29:35):
organizations. Okay, all the allof my note taking, all of my
homework, everything I wasdoing, I was thinking, how can I
use, yeah, build my my way ofsharing, right? You know, this
body of work in a corporatesetting.
Mark Robertson (29:51):
And here you are, you know. 35 years later,
you know, still doing that,right?
Chalmers Brothers (29:57):
It's crazy. And one other key difference.
Between EFL and Newfield.Newfield was my transition to
the business application,leadership application. EFL was
more about me as a person, as ahuman, as a father, like, I
guess, as a as a to be father,right, as a husband. Yeah, and
(30:20):
and Newfield was a transition init was the first time these
distinctions were presented in aformat that I could see going
pretty well in a businessconversation.
Mark Robertson (30:32):
Right? Yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (30:33):
Direct, direct, you know, application.
And I remember in Newfield abouthalfway through. It's a year
long program, I already hadbinders full of notes. And if
I'm going to do this, how wouldI do it? And really, to be
honest, man, the way I firststarted after Newfield, right?
So Newfield ended in December of'95 Okay, so since January of 96
(30:59):
this is all I had been doing. Imean, full time, yeah, left
Anderson by then, yeah. The wayit started was, man, if you can
remember, back in the day,people were hiring sole
practitioners like me for someTQM, you know, total quality
management. There was someprocess re engineering, yep,
strategic planning,facilitation, goal setting, some
(31:22):
team building, right? So I wasdoing that independently as a
sole proprietor, and I startedasking my clients, or telling my
clients, look, I'll be happy todo a two day weekend workshop,
but I got something better. Yougot to give me a half a day up
front to do what I want to do toto set the stage, right? Yeah,
yeah. And as an investment,right? As an investment in the
(31:43):
effectiveness of what we'regoing to do, and this other
process, yeah, yeah. And thatinitial half day intro
gradually, gradually, graduallybecame all I'm doing.
Mark Robertson (31:55):
Yeah, that's really cool. That is, that's
really that makes sense, thattime frame of like 96 is when
you launched fully out ofAnderson. And we're really you
had the Newfield stuff underyour belt. You were out there
working, because then when westarted in February of '98 so
you'd already been at it for acouple years, which was I still
talk about to this day, like, Idon't know, you know, I launched
(32:16):
on my own with, I don't knowwhere the confidence came from,
but it was like, I know thesedistinctions, they're the most
powerful thing I've ever, everseen. I know they can help
people in the workplace. I'mjust gonna start selling it. I
don't know what the heck I wasthinking, because I was not
prepared at all. But I alwayscredit us joining together as
the thing that really saved me,in a way, because I don't know
(32:39):
if I would have made it on myown. Who knows, right? It was
like, when you asked, I waslike, Absolutely, let's go. And
away we went, you know, and wewere, I remember immediately. I
remember the Social Securitygigs were a blast, but I
remember Beck Garley, because wehad some folks from their
organization in our EFLworkshop, and then they hired
us. That's great. Way we wentdoing one day, you know, doing
(33:00):
one day, teaching thesedistinctions and figuring out
our dance together, which was aball. I mean, that was-
Chalmers Brothers (33:06):
It was a ball. I remember our title, I
think, for our very firstworkshop, was leadership,
conversations and results, andthat is still, yeah, title of my
flagship program in Vistageright. I've been speaking on the
Vistage network for 27 years,and my main the program I do, if
(33:27):
they want to hire me for otherprograms, that's fine, but the
first one we're going to do isleadership conversations and
results. And I tell people,Look, the title of our program
today is leadership,conversations and results. So
for the next three hours, ourthree focus areas are going to
be
Mark Robertson (33:45):
Leadership, conversations and results.
Chalmers Brothers (33:49):
Yeah.
Mark Robertson (33:51):
Rocket science.
Chalmers Brothers (33:52):
No because that's what it's about.
Mark Robertson (33:54):
I remember when we came up with our company
name, and I remember our logonow, that sunrise thing, our
company with Change Learning andLeadership, LLC
Chalmers Brothers (34:02):
I think it was, it was.
Mark Robertson (34:03):
And so it that dovetailed, that fit in really
nicely. So you should feel good,like you have full credit for
why I'm a self sustaining adulthuman being now with my own
condo, because you asked me towork with you, and you've been
teaching this stuff now. So it's'96 what that? What's that? 28
years? 28 years. Yeah, 28 years,right? So do you have a favorite
(34:26):
distinction that you like toteach or talk about?
Chalmers Brothers (34:29):
There's a couple of these, like you talked
about, the observer, right? Justbecause of my own experience,
the whole notion that we arewalking talking bundles of
congruency, yeah, among ourlanguage, our moods and emotions
in our body, and that walking,talking bundle of congruency is
not static, right? We're uniqueobservers, but we're not the
same observer we were at 16.Yeah, notion that we're not as
(34:53):
much human beings, we're humanbecomings.
Mark Robertson (34:56):
There you go.
Chalmers Brothers (34:56):
I love that beautiful distinction. We are
human becomings. We are equallyin an ongoing process of
becoming, and that if we holdourselves that way, that means
we approach learningdifferently. It means we
approach change differently. Weapproach uncertainty
differently. Yeah. We approachrelationships differently. Yeah.
So that is a classic, and that'sprecisely what I didn't
(35:20):
understand at 25 that one,there's also an one of the most
beneficial distinctions I evergot, is a promise broken is not
the same as a silent expectationunmet. Yeah, and how many right?
A a promise broken is an issuefor trust. We have to have a
(35:40):
conversation. I'm going to makea responsible complaint. Yeah,
right, but that's not at all thesame. Thing is, if you just
don't magically fulfill myunspoken expectation, yeah, and
how many people's lives areunnecessarily troubled by the
resentment that comes about bynot having a clear distinction
(36:02):
between promises broken andsilent expectations unmet. If I
don't fulfill my silentexpectation, I may make a
request of you absolutely, butnot a complaint. The difference
in energy between a complaintand a request is massive, yeah.
I mean energetically, they'renot the same things at all,
yeah. And so now I mean thatwhen I think about when I think
(36:24):
about marriages, when I thinkabout relationship, when I think
about organizations, and I thinkabout teamwork, right, any
relationship, right? And youknow, a big part of my workshop,
I know yours as well, is helpingpeople make and manage
commitments. We don't managetime. We manage commitment
Mark Robertson (36:40):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (36:41):
And all commitments are not created
equal. Some elements ofeffective requests, valid
responses. Can we be clear abouthow we coordinate action? And
that is a central part of myleadership workshops, my
relationship workshops, yeah,right.
Mark Robertson (36:56):
You know, we're coming to an end of part one
here. So, so good. I hope you'llcome back for part two. I would
be happy to, because there'smore I want to talk about, but I
want to resonate with what yousaid, and then tee up part two,
because we got a Chalmers and Ihave to wrap for today. But you
know, the mood of resentmentwith a silent expectations never
met, or, more importantly, apromise that's not kept. Often
(37:18):
I've talked about in the veryfirst episode of my podcast,
about having to forgive myparents because I resented them,
the power of that and thinkingabout I see this in
organizations all the time,Chalmers, but even in personal
relationships, those littleresentments get built around
broken promises and people don'taddress them like those are
Massive missing conversations inteams and organizations, but in
(37:42):
marriages and relationships. Andyou know, imagine if we could
clear all that out just byhelping people address it
through a complaint and havingthose conversations. The
difference our corporate worldswould be and our personal worlds
would be.
Chalmers Brothers (37:57):
There is a fundamental distinction you just
mentioned that I want toemphasize, and I hit it directly
in my leadership workshops, myteamwork workshops, my
relationship workshops, missingconversations.
Mark Robertson (38:09):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (38:09):
Are there conversations? Well, one way I
like to tee it uporganizationally. Is okay,
anytime you see performance thatin your eyes is not up to par,
not where it needs to be, askyourself this question, is this
performance not where it needsto be? Because the conversation
that could have taken place didnot Yes, right? If so, what
(38:31):
would that conversation havebeen? Who would have been in it?
And think about our personallives. You mentioned resentment.
One of the expressions I gottaught is resentment is that
which arises when you fail tohonor a request I never made.
And so now we're not talkingabout broken promises as much as
we're talking about this silentexpectations that are unmet. So
we got two categories. One isone of my clients told me they
(38:53):
overheard this at a familyreunion. So you're telling me
I've been resentful for 20 yearsfor nothing. Okay, so these
stories like this is real. Thisis absolutely real. You mean dad
never said no. Dad never saidthat I was there. I was there
too. He never said that. Ofcourse. He did, of course. And
so we live in these narratives,Mark about shoulds and
(39:15):
shouldn'ts, but this one aboutit is predictable that if you
break a promise to me, and Ifeel powerless to do something
about it, my dignity getsaffected, and at some point I
get to be resentful
Mark Robertson (39:27):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (39:28):
And how do we navigate? And so we talked about
responsible complaints, right?Clearly, it's a missing
conversation, yeah, but it'salso a missing conversation if
we're operating with silentexpectations and viewing them as
clear commitments, it is amissing conversation to stop
doing that and say, Listen, ifyou want me to do something, I
know we're friends. We've knowneach other, but I still can't
(39:50):
read your mind. If you want meto do something, please make a
request Absolutely. How manybusiness relationships and
personal relationships are sub.Optimized at best and ruined at
worst, because we don't operatethis way.
Mark Robertson (40:04):
A lot right? Let me close this for today.
Chalmers, there's so much more Iwant to talk about. You nailed
the missing conversation. Like,in a way, that's all I do as a
coach is my clients are comingto me saying, Mark, help me
figure this out. And where wealmost always end up is, so
what's the conversation thatyou've got to have, and with
whom, let me help you have that.Let me help you get clarity
(40:25):
around how, why it's missing.Let me give you the tools, all
that stuff. And so, yeah, that'sthe core of our work. Is helping
people have missingconversations.
Chalmers Brothers (40:34):
And one piece of that, and we can maybe hit
this next time, is contextversus content. I absolutely
will. What is the context you'regoing to create in order to have
the content that you need? Andmany of us avoid conversations
that we feel are going to bedifficult. Could be talking
about how to start them. That'sright. One of the best
distinctions I was ever taughtis keeping separate context from
(40:56):
content.
Mark Robertson (40:56):
So I'll close with this thought. You and I
just feed off each other andmake something but I remember
Julio saying, you know, if youset a powerful context, the
content will take care ofitself.
Chalmers Brothers (41:06):
I believe this. You don't have to be a
Shakespeare wordsmith, no on thecontent, if the context is that
strong enough.
Mark Robertson (41:14):
So you got so much latitude. Well, let's pause
for today. But let me say thiscoming next will be I really
want to dig in more and seewhere, see about our history and
all this other stuff. But Ireally want to also, next time,
talk about, given ourbackgrounds with the
distinctions like, let's talksome too, about what we see as
current day challenges andissues that are going on, both
(41:36):
in our organizational work, butpersonally that that maybe we
think the framework could bereally powerful to address.
That's kind of where I want totake it. And as I know that you
and I will do is, once we getinto a conversation, it's
generative. We're going to gowherever we go.
Chalmers Brothers (41:49):
That sounds fantastic. Man, it's great.
Thanks for the invite. It'sgreat being with you, man, I
truly enjoyed it, and looking toforward to our next one already.
Mark Robertson (41:57):
So wonderful to have you. Thank you again for
setting aside some time, andwe'll we'll get to part two. I
don't know if we'll get to itbefore I head out west on
September 20, but I know we'llget to part two, and my hope
will be we got enough here thatI can drop part one for now. Get
and people will be teased by itexcited to hear you and all the
wisdom you bring. And, man,we'll just do our thing. So
(42:18):
thank you.
Chalmers Brothers (42:19):
It's a great pleasure. Man, thanks.
Mark Robertson (42:21):
Well, my friends, that's a wrap for
today. I'm so grateful youjoined me, and hope you feel
energized by the insights wetook a deeper look at together.
If anything resonated with youor inspired new thinking, drop
me a note. I'd love to hear yourbiggest takeaway. Please join me
next time as we dive deeper intothis never ending journey of
self discovery. Until then, bewell, be present. Live fully and
(42:46):
authentically. Wake up and payattention.
Welcome to Wake Up and Pay Attention the podcast
(00:02):
fueling positive change from theinside out. I'm Mark Robertson,
your host, with over 25 years asa professional coach, I'm
thrilled to explore the personalgrowth tools that have helped me
and hundreds of people just likeyou, design and awaken to their
best life. If you've ever feltoverwhelmed and unfulfilled,
like you're just going throughthe motions day after day. Maybe
(00:24):
you're afraid one day all theballs are going to drop. You're
in the right place. Together.Let's expand our self awareness
and make sustainable shifts thatimprove our communication
skills, relationships andoverall well being. This is a
judgment free zone whereopenness, understanding and
support rule. So grab yourheadphones and get ready. It's
(00:45):
time to wake up and payattention.
Welcome. Wake Up and PayAttention, listeners. It's an
exciting day today. I think thisis maybe episode 17 or 18. I'm
not certain, but it's my firstever episode with a guest, and I
am thrilled to have on who I theguy I think is the absolute
(01:09):
perfect first guest. So it's mydear friend, former business
partner, colleague,extraordinary author of two
books, front man for a bandcalled The Herd of Turtles, is a
guy that I actually refer tooften as the most optimistic
human being I've ever met in mylife. It's my dear friend,
(01:30):
Chalmers Brother.s So just wantto say, Hello, Chalmers.
Chalmers Brothers (01:33):
Hey Mark, great to be with you man, thanks
for the invite.
Mark Robertson (01:36):
Of course. Man, I'm really excited to be with
you. I just, like I said, Ithink it's really fitting that
you're my very first guestsince, you know, all this stuff,
really, for me, started withyou, you know, started with you
back in the day. And so maybethat's where we'll jump in to
this conversation. So listener,just know that Chalmers and I
are going to have an authenticconversation, not scripted, not
(01:57):
staged, and we'll see where ittakes us. I have no doubt you
will find it of interest today.So Chalmers, let me give a
little background on ourhistory, and then I'll just open
with a question or just ask youto talk. So I met Chalmers. We
both worked at AndersonConsulting, and I started
working at Anderson Consultingin 1989 and I'm sure I met you
(02:20):
at one of the outings there, butI don't think we knew each other
all that well until in 1991 Iremember being at some friend's
house. Chalmers was a manager atAnderson Consulting. When I
started there, I was a staffmember. He can tell you about
that if he wants to, but I wasat some friend's house, and they
had asked me to come for whatwas called an intro night.
Chalmers Brothers (02:42):
Introductory night, Intro night, that's
Mark Robertson (02:44):
Intro night, yeah, Intro night for education,
right.
for living, which you've heardme talk about, this is the first
place that I learned theontological distinction. And so
I went to their house with alittle bit of hesitation and
trepidation. Other Andersonstaff members were there, and lo
and behold, Chalmers and hiswife, Betsy, and another couple
were leading the intro night,and they were talking about
(03:04):
education for living. And Iremember listening and thinking,
wow, that sounds fascinating,but I didn't sign up right away,
because I was skeptical and notsure. It took me a little while,
but eventually I did sign up.And signed up did stage one, and
as I've talked about in thepodcast, everything changed
after that, you know? I mean, itchanged my whole life, really.
And so I did all of theeducation for living, courses
(03:27):
later, etc, etc. Took differentjobs. But here's where Chalmers
and I really got to know eachother better and got involved a
whole lot more. Was certainlythrough education for living.
And all the workshops that wewere doing in Chalmers and Betsy
town at the time, which wasColumbia, Tennessee. They were
killer at enrolling lots ofpeople from the hospital and
(03:49):
Chalmers in his businesscommunity. And so I was on
staff, and he was on staff. Andthen I remember EFL kind of died
down a little bit, and then werekindled it. And I here's what
I remember. I don't know if youremember this or not. I don't do
this accurate, but we werehaving one in Nashville, and we
were both on staff, because youand I, Betsy and Brett and a few
others were the only ones thatcould staff. At that time. We
(04:11):
were just building thecommunity, and I remember asking
Mike Papania for permission,because I was going to start my
own business. This was like aJanuary or February of 1998 and
I decided I knew thedistinctions well enough I was
going to go out and and offerthem on my own. And you were on
staff, and I was asking Mike forpermission to use the
distinction. It's he said,Absolutely. And the way I recall
(04:33):
it was you were there and youmaybe overheard the
conversation. You were like,yeah, yeah, yeah, you know me
too. But I think you werealready doing some of this stuff
you had left Anderson, and we'redoing strategic planning. As I
recall, we were staffing an EFLworkshop. And then I remember
later that night, when we weredone for that evening, you
called me. This is myrecollection. You said, Hey,
man, you know, why don't we gointo business together? And I
(04:54):
remember thinking, holy cow,man, this is Chalmers. Like, of
course, you know, I didn't eventhink about it like Absolutely.
And as I say, like I jumped onyour coattails because you were
already doing it in a way wewent. And then I remember, I was
like a week or two, and wealready had a gig for two weeks
of day long stuff with Beckarnley World parts or something.
Remember that? That's myrecollection. That was the start
(05:18):
of a three and a half yearbusiness relationship. That was
fantastic, which we can talkabout, but that gives you all,
as listeners, a little historywith Chalmers and I so Chalmers
like for me, and I think for youboth, of our exposure to the
ontological distinctions wasthrough Education for Living or
EFL. So correct me, if that'snot true, but you obviously got
started before me talk a littlebit about your experience for
(05:41):
the EFL and why was itsignificant enough that you were
enrolling others afterwards?
Chalmers Brothers (05:46):
And it was not that different than your
experience. It was a lifechanger. Here's what happened.
Gotten buried in '86 and Betsyand I were doing great. And in
early '87 some friends of ours,Larry and Henry kept talking
about, we went to this workshop.You guys got to go. You guys got
to go. We went to this workshop.It's incredible. You guys got to
(06:07):
go. And in my head, I wasthinking, number one, I'm I'm
not really sure what a workshopis. Number two, I'm pretty sure
I don't need one. And numberthree, I was so arrogant. Number
three, my actual thought processwas, if I haven't heard of this
already. How good can it be? Andthey finally said, Look, we will
pay for y'all to go. And if youdon't think it's worth it, don't
pay us back. They actually saidthat. And so that got my
(06:30):
attention. I said, okay, it wasin Baton Rouge, as I remember,
yeah, and Mark, it changed mylife as well. I remember it's
Friday night, all day, Saturday,all day, Sunday. And I remember
about midday Saturday havingthis thought. I came in here 12
hours ago, thinking myrelationship with Betsy was a
9.5 out of 10. We were copaceticin every way, and I realized
(06:52):
it's a 9.5 if 10 is right hereat eye level, but what if 10 is
in the clouds right? What if Ihad grossly underestimated how
good things can be, and had beenunintentionally limiting the
single most importantrelationship in my life. And
that cost me two hours in myhead. It was like, Oh my God,
wait a minute. Wait a minute. Ialso realized I had a lot in
(07:14):
common with some of the peoplein the workshop that I didn't
think I had in common with,right? And so I had electrical
my terminal certainty cracked,right? I was so certain about,
and then I started thinking,whoosh, maybe, maybe there's
other stuff in my life. I'd onlybe so rock solid, certain about,
(07:34):
yeah. And it just created anopening. It created a space that
was like, and I was, again, Ilook back at myself, I was
sometimes wrong, but never indoubt. Right? I was completely I
was sure that I saw thingsobjectively, unless I was
obviously really happy orobviously really sad. I
basically saw things as theywere. Yeah, yeah. And of course,
(07:55):
I got a hit that this wasn't thecase at all. And last point, and
I remember this clearly onSunday morning. Now, these are
closed groups, as you remember,right? You don't join the group
once they start, right? Youstart Friday with that group. On
Sunday morning, we're in thelobby, waiting to go into the
conference room, and there's alady looks like she's a new
lady, like a new person, and I'masked to say, Listen, maybe she
(08:19):
doesn't know it's a closedgroup, maybe somebody's wife,
somebody's sister, she reallycan't go in. I walked over to
her, about to introduce myselfand make sure she felt
comfortable. And I realized itwas not a new person. It was a
person, a lady who'd been therethe whole time. And as you like,
I think I may have shared thiswith you. We did a forgiveness
process on Saturday night, andshe didn't look the same on
(08:41):
Sunday morning. Yeah? She didnot physically look the same.
Her eyes were not the same, hershoulders were not the same, her
forehead was not the same, yeah,I went back to Betsy and I said,
You know what? I'm not reallysure 100% what we got ourselves
into, but I'm I'm not done. I'mnot done. Yeah, I came out with
that workshop Mark with it was ashift in my life. It was a shift
(09:03):
in life. And I, like you, I wentback for more, right? I went to
stage two program and theresults program, and it was a
giant turning point in my life,and I knew at some point I was
going to do something with it,right? Even at that early stage,
it was like, I don't knowexactly what this is, but I
(09:24):
think I want to stay in it in abig way. And ultimately that led
me to Newfield, right? I mean,so the we were together, so we
started working in 1991something like that, I think,
right?
Mark Robertson (09:37):
You and I started working together as
business partners in, actually,in 98
Yeah, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (09:40):
Right, right. Because that was after, well, in
And I remember the speaker didn't show
Columbia, Tennessee, yeah, Iwent to a Kiwanis meeting that
opened the door for us forSocial Security Administration,
right?
up at the Kiwanis meeting, yeah.And the President said, can
anybody fill 20 minutes. And bythat point, I had been doing
(10:02):
this work on my own, you know,for a bit I said, you know, I
can do 20 minutes. And after themeeting, a guy came up and said,
my name is Milt Beaver,remember, with SSA, and there is
a training program opportunityin the Southeast US for
managerial training. Would youlike to have, you know, us to
give you an RFP, yeah,absolutely. And it, I think we
(10:24):
worked on that together, and wedid not get the gig. We didn't
get the gig, but the theorganization that got it was
disqualified, and that turnedin, and so we ended up getting
it. And Mark, my memory is thatwas about one two day workshop a
month for 24 months, yeah, inthe southeastern US, yeah. And
looking back at it, the table ofcontents for my first book was
(10:48):
our agenda for that two dayworkshop.
Mark Robertson (10:50):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (10:51):
That's that's the only way I knew how to do
it, yep. And so we spent a lotof time in front of some pretty
big rooms going over thesedistinctions and sharing our
version of these distinctions,and looking back saying yes at
the Kiwanis meeting, opened thedoor for what ultimately turned
into the first book and somewonderful opportunities for us
(11:11):
to do a lot of work together.
Mark Robertson (11:13):
Right, right, right. Gosh, there's so many
places we could go with that.Let me pick a couple things. One
is when you were talking aboutthe new lady that was trying to
get in the workshop. So that'sI'll connect it to what I've
been teaching. I've beenteaching the ontological
distinctions to my audience for17 episodes now, which is what I
wanted to do when I started thepodcast. So remembering that
we're all different observers,and then the observer that we
(11:35):
are is made up of our language,our emotion and our body, and
they're intricately connected.So I thought your example is a
beautiful example of, literally,in stage one, someone's body
changes. All three of thosechange, like our beliefs, our
thought processes, our emotionalstate, but you're talking
explicitly about literally, herbody looks different. She looks
(11:56):
like a new human being. And Ihad the same experience too on
Sunday, like, whoa. These arenot the same human beings,
right?
Chalmers Brothers (12:02):
It's and it really points to the generative
power of language. We speakourselves into the world. Yes,
we describe with language. Butthat's not all that we do, and
it's this whole other, not allthat we do, right? It's giantly
important, because thesedeclarations, right, the
declarations of forgiveness, ofdirection, we set goals we move
(12:24):
in the world. Those arecreative, generative things. And
until I was introduced to thesedistinctions, I didn't
understand language that way. Ididn't understand that there is
a generative, creative capacityof this thing called language.
Mark Robertson (12:39):
I didn't either. I had no idea until the workshop
that and so many other things Ididn't I've never seen before
and didn't understand, by theway, the last episode that I
just did was the power ofdeclaration. So it's interesting
that you're that you're bringingthat over to the very last
distinction that I covered. Soit's timely that you talk about
it. Um, let me shift gears alittle bit, or pick up on
something you said. So you didstage one, and obviously you did
(13:03):
all of the EFL, and you feltlike it was powerful enough. And
you were in New Orleans at thetime, but then I ran into you in
Nashville in '91 you wereworking here as a manager.
That's when I went to the intronight. And my journey kind of
got started. I'm not sure ifthere's anything. I guess my
curiosity was like, was thereanything else you would want to
(13:25):
say about that journey that ledup to when we met that had you
like, be committed enough to belike, You know what? I'm going
to lead these intro nights andbuild this community. I want
other people to have thislearning. Anything else you want
to say about that?
Chalmers Brothers (13:40):
I had never encountered anything like it at
all, and I again, coming from aplace of sometimes wrong would
never end out right. I was justlowered this entire not only did
I not know this, I didn't know Ididn't know it right, the entire
body of learning was off myradar screen. Yeah, and that had
never happened to me, and I wasprofoundly moved at the way that
(14:04):
it could build relationships.One of my pet peeves that
happened pretty quick after thatis I think the world needs fewer
25 year old child resist meaningpeople walking around being
terminally right? Withcertainty, terminally, right. I
noticed that the world would bea better place if everybody
(14:25):
understood that we are simplyunique observers. We do not and
we cannot have access to howanything actually is. All we
know is how it is for us.
Mark Robertson (14:36):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (14:37):
And think about what's going on on the
planet, what's going on inrelationships. It's this
criminal certainty, this notionof being right, yep, right. And
the notion of, can we shift fromright, wrong to powerful,
unpowerful, effective,ineffective, right? Once you
separate events fromexplanations, which is something
(14:57):
I couldn't do before theseworkshops, right? I. Was
convinced that the way I sawthings, or the way I explained
them, was the way they were.
Mark Robertson (15:04):
It is, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (15:04):
But once I saw that, and once I was
introduced to the possibilitymoving away from a right wrong
orientation. And let's be clear,most of us adopt the right wrong
orientation. We come by it.Honestly. Nobody teaches us
this. It's weak
Mark Robertson (15:19):
Our cultural suit.
Chalmers Brothers (15:20):
It's cultural suit. It just seems to be the
way I have eyes. You have eyes,yeah, it is you saw, yeah. And
once I was introduced to thispossibility of not operating
with the right wrong lens, well,then it, then I started thinking
about relationships,interpersonal, intercultural
relationships, yeah, howdifferent would it be if
(15:41):
everybody was acutely aware thatthey are interpreting all the
time? What if everybody wasacutely aware that they are
necessarily interpreting basedon their life, their DNA, their
parents, their culture, theirtime period? How different would
things be? And so I wasinterested in it. And what I
noticed, too, is that inEducation for Living, we were
(16:04):
being coached. We weren't beingtrained to be coaches. We were
being coached, yeah. And at thetime, coaching wasn't really a
thing. There was no ICF. Therewas no ICF, right? That wasn't
part of the landscape, right?And I started in the early 90s,
in the EFL community, peoplestarted mentioning new field
network, and I started saying,Look, man, if you're really
(16:25):
serious about this, if you wantto carry this forward, like as a
profession, if you want tointegrate this into your
professional life, and thethings you offer you know to the
world, you need to getcertified. You need to get
certified. And the only peoplethat they knew that were doing
this work is Julio Alaya, theNewfield network, and that's
where I went. I mean, eventoday, there aren't that many
(16:47):
ontologically orientedcertifications, right? I mean,
I'm privileged to work withMarcus Marsden and the group in
Singapore, right? Used to becalled Newfield Asia, but it's
called the works partnershipnow. And anyhow, I did the the
long program in 1995 I do. I doagain of 1995.
Mark Robertson (17:07):
Okay, let me pause you there, and we'll pick
up, because I want to go back tosomething that's so much firing
you've already talked a tonabout a lot of the territory
I've covered in the podcast, andthe challenges of this and what
you see. So I want to say acouple things. One is your
terminal certainty and the wholehow right we are, I think you're
so spot on, but what I'mnoticing is like how differently
(17:28):
we came to the experience. Likeyou came with a terminal
certainty that you already had.I came because of a father who
had that same terminal certaintyand was right about everything,
and it had such an imprint onme. So I just want to draw that
out. Yeah, very different placeswe came from. And I find it
interesting that we ended up asbusiness partners. I think it's
perfect, right? And so again,still, a lot of places we could
(17:50):
I want to get back to your newfield journey, but I'm with you,
man, let me tee this up realquick and talk about it, and
then you can pick up new field.The last few years, I've been
talking about the ontologicaldistinctions as a framework or a
template that I think is just somuch more powerful for how we
could do life, how we could behuman beings, how we could
communicate, how we could dorelationships, what you're
(18:11):
talking about. I know you sharethat idea because of the way
that you're talking, and I feellike I've sidetracked us here
maybe a little bit. But talkabout, do you see this the
ontological framework ortemplate, in the same way that
so many of the current wayspeople have learned to think
about who we are and communicateand do relationships? In my
(18:34):
opinion, I say it this way,they're inadequate, incomplete,
insufficient, or they justdon't, flat out work. You got
any thoughts about that idea oflike the world is almost
yearning for a differentframework or template, and I
feel like we have one, and it'slike we got to get this out to
as many people as we can.
Chalmers Brothers (18:51):
I agree. I mean, my sense is this, that
this is a type of emergingcommon sense. Now, it may be
glacially emerging, but it's acommon sense. I think that's
emerging because of an increasein self awareness, right? The
whole notion once you increaseyour level of self awareness
even a little bit, I believethat balloon can't snap back to
(19:12):
exactly like it was, right? Isay the good news is, once we're
involved in this work, is thatwe're now much more conscious of
our own role, right, as theauthor of our lives. In a sense,
the bad news is you can'tpretend. You don't see that.
Yeah, yeah, you can't pretend.And so I do believe mark that
this is a type of awareness.It's a type of living that we
(19:36):
need on the planet. Again, I mayshare with you my purpose in
life is to help shift theconsciousness of a million
people. I want to help a millionpeople shift how they see
themselves and theirpossibilities. Yeah, and I think
this body of work is absolutelymy vehicle.
Mark Robertson (19:51):
I think we might need to raise that number
brother, like, from a million toa billion, or maybe all of us as
ontological coaches. Let's.Let's go for a bill.
Chalmers Brothers (20:01):
I love it mark. And I think we need this
perspective. We need thisstarting point of understanding
that we are unique observers, astarting point that the internal
narratives we live in, we're notjust reading them. We wrote
them. Yeah, and if we don't likethe direction of our lives,
well, we have the authority toreinterpret, but don't have the
(20:24):
authority to reinterpret ifwe're holding ourselves as
right, because human beings willdo a lot of things in order to
be right. We'll give uprelationships, we'll go to
battle in order to be right. Andso it's this, I mean, when you
really think about it, theability to not operate with a
right wrong grid, right, theability to not come at things
(20:45):
with right wrong. Think how manyrelationships it's
extraordinary, unnecessarilyderailed, yeah. Think how many
people are unnecessarilyunhappy, yeah, because of living
with this right, wrongorientation. You're not going to
say there's never a time forright wrong, but the subset is
much smaller than I wasoperating with in my 20s, right?
(21:06):
Yeah, it's much, much smallersubset. And so I really believe
that if we can acknowledge weare each necessarily unique
observers, nobody has access tohow anything is right. We know
how it is for us, and we couplethat with this notion of living
in language, right, and creatinginterpretations, narratives and
(21:30):
stories out of which we takeaction and out of which we
produce results. And this is thekey, right? The actions we take
are not based on events thathappen. The actions we take are
based on their explanations ofthe events.
Mark Robertson (21:42):
The Observer we are, yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (21:43):
The observer we are the way and all the
metaphors are visual. We'reunique observers. We didn't see
it that way, yeah? But what'sreally happening is we're unique
explainers. We're uniqueinterpreters. It happens in
language, yeah?
Mark Robertson (21:57):
So I'll jump on that, you know? I think part of
it is you keep talking about I'mright. You know, I remember
hearing like you can be right oryou can be in relationship, but
you can't have both. And myinterpretation is it's such a
pervasive background Americanconversation. I'm not sure it's
the same in other countries,maybe some European countries,
where they're more heady, but Ithink in the other countries
(22:18):
where they're more LatinAmerica, and other areas where
they're more bodily oriented, Idon't think they have the same
thing. I think with my clientshere working in America, I think
you're correct that they don'teven see that. It's the template
they're using on everything, andit's it pops up so much that
it's crazy. What I'll say is, Iwant to draw out what you also
said, and then I'll come back toI want to bring it back to the
new field piece, because I havesomething I want to I want to
(22:43):
ask you there ground zero forme, Chalmers, is about the
observer piece that you'retalking about like just a
fundamental understanding thatI'm a unique observer, you're a
unique observer. Everybody elseis a different observer than me,
and they're legit and valid inthe observer that they are. I
think that is ground zero. Allthis other stuff comes out of
(23:05):
that. And the way I've beentalking about it for a while now
is, I think maybe this isAmerican I'm not sure, but
because we don't understandthat, that we don't validate the
unique observer, we don'tacknowledge that the way I see
it is the way I see it, not theway all of that stuff has us
approach relationship withourself, but also with others
(23:26):
very differently. When we comeat it with the I'm right and I
see it the way it is, then itall becomes about the moment in
which you don't see, think,feel, or act the same as me. My
job is to change your mind. Myjob is to show you how right I
am. And I've been talking foryears now about we have to turn
this 180 degrees. What if we allapproached with this notion of
(23:48):
like we're different observers,and we're gonna see, think, feel
and act differently? Let'sconnect. Let me explore how you
see that when the moment Irealize you see it differently
than me, be curious ask, but Ithink we're so entrenched. As
you've said, the way I see it isthe way it is. And it just,
it's, it's the launching pointfrom which we do relationship.
Chalmers Brothers (24:11):
Mark, it is. And again, think about this.
When I was in my mid 20s, I wasrock solid, certain, right?
Yeah, that if you didn't seethings like I did, that there
was something wrong with you.You're an idiot. The incredible
part of this is nobody evertaught me that right that was
never, ever a part of anycurriculum I ever had, ever,
ever, and yet, there I was. Ibelieve this when you and I talk
(24:33):
about supporting people, becausewe've tried to support ourselves
in moving away from the rightwrong lens and adopting a works,
doesn't work, or powerful,unpowerful lens. The reason it
feels a little bit odd to bedoing that, I believe, is
because the right wrong grade isso deeply baked in. It is right,
the right wrong country is sounconsciously part of our growth
(24:56):
and development that we don'teven see it. And I think. You
may be right. Maybe it's moreprevalent in America, but I do
think because of our culturalhistory and a lot of things, but
I think other countries havetheir version of it. I haven't
traveled, to be honest, asextensively enough and spent
enough time in other cultures tobe able to say that with any
evidence, but my sense is thatwe certainly our culture, we
(25:22):
have an unconscious backgroundthat nobody ever taught us, and
it's influencing how weperceive. It's influencing how
we interpret.
Mark Robertson (25:31):
Yeah, it's what we swim in. It's the soup we
swam in our whole lives. Greatpoint. Remember when we did the
workshop for a company up inCanada, and we were talking
about this at lunch. And, youknow, we're like, we got a big
dose of the I'm right, yeah. AndI agree. The other countries, I
think do as well. But they werelike, Oh, they were listening
like, Oh, we don't have the I'mright. We have more of the How
(25:52):
can we both be right? Yeah, Ithink that's where they're at.
So when you hear that, it's evenmore like, how do we validate
each other, so we can both beright, which is a fundamentally
different soup in which to growup again and grow up in, right?
So let me bring you back,because we again. We this may be
part one of a much longerconversation, but I love where
(26:13):
we're going. Let me bring youback to Newfield. You were in
the EFL community. You heardpeople talking about Newfield.
As you said, EFL was about youand your own experience and your
own growth. New Field became itsounds like about, how do I get
trained as a coach to be abetter coach? But I would love
for you to talk about combiningthe experience you had with
(26:34):
Education for Living and thenyour new field learning, and
what that has meant, or theimpact it's had, because I know,
I talk about it as like EFL wasthe immersive personal
experience, and then Newfieldwas a lot. It was more of that,
but also the theory and meetingJulio and Raphael and
understanding the the origins ofthis stuff. And I think the
(26:56):
blend is powerful, but I'd loveto hear your take on that.
Chalmers Brothers (27:00):
It's very similar mark the EFL experience
just dunked me in the water andwoke me up, in a way that it was
an emotional shift, it was acognitive shift, it was a self
awareness shift. It was likewhen I left EFL that very first
workshop, I had two hugeemotions right, side by side
(27:21):
regret and ambition, right? Myregret was like, Oh, crap. Look
at how I've lived. Look at whatI've been taking for granted.
Look at what type of husband Ihaven't been being, yeah, what
type of son and brother Ihaven't been being, yeah. And
the ambition was and, you know,I got a whole new lens. I got a
(27:42):
whole new set of tools to beginusing. I have a whole new life
in front of me.
Mark Robertson (27:47):
Tons of possibilities.
Chalmers Brothers (27:48):
Tons of possibilities that were just
exploding, and it was like this,and that had never happened
before. And when I started andagain, by the time '92, '93, '94
rolled around, I had done theEFL programs, and I was about to
leave Anderson, right, and Iknew was not going to be a long
term Anderson partner and allthat. And so I was going to be
(28:09):
doing a version of independentconsulting slash coaching work.
And I knew enough by that timethat this is what I wanted to
do. Yep, my last couple years atAnderson, I was already deeply,
deeply thinking about, how do Ido this for living? Shared these
distinctions, yeah, and theopportunity to do new field did
(28:31):
present itself, and I went andit was very similar two years
ago. It wasn't that, it wasn'tpersonal, because it very much
was, but there was a deepeningof the philosophical
understanding, right? There wasa deepening of, where does this
come from? What is this? What'sit based on, you know,
Heraclitus and Plato andAristotle and Wittgenstein and
Searle and Austin and Heideggerand Nietzsche, right? And this
(28:54):
was like, I had never, I'd neverbeen exposed to any of that. I
know that it was a course inphilosophy because it wasn't,
but it was enough of anunderpinning that was really
intriguing to me about wheredoes this come from. How have I
gone this salt bar in my lifeand never heard of this?
Mark Robertson (29:12):
Been exposed? Yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (29:13):
It was like this giant opening, but I took
Newfield explicitlyunderstanding I was going to
teach this, okay, many peoplewent to new field for different
reasons, right? You know,different life experiences, and
wanted to expand their horizons.And that's good, but I knew for
me, I was going to incorporatethis in my work, inside
(29:35):
organizations. Okay, all the allof my note taking, all of my
homework, everything I wasdoing, I was thinking, how can I
use, yeah, build my my way ofsharing, right? You know, this
body of work in a corporatesetting.
Mark Robertson (29:51):
And here you are, you know. 35 years later,
you know, still doing that,right?
Chalmers Brothers (29:57):
It's crazy. And one other key difference.
Between EFL and Newfield.Newfield was my transition to
the business application,leadership application. EFL was
more about me as a person, as ahuman, as a father, like, I
guess, as a as a to be father,right, as a husband. Yeah, and
(30:20):
and Newfield was a transition init was the first time these
distinctions were presented in aformat that I could see going
pretty well in a businessconversation.
Mark Robertson (30:32):
Right? Yeah.
Chalmers Brothers (30:33):
Direct, direct, you know, application.
And I remember in Newfield abouthalfway through. It's a year
long program, I already hadbinders full of notes. And if
I'm going to do this, how wouldI do it? And really, to be
honest, man, the way I firststarted after Newfield, right?
So Newfield ended in December of'95 Okay, so since January of 96
(30:59):
this is all I had been doing. Imean, full time, yeah, left
Anderson by then, yeah. The wayit started was, man, if you can
remember, back in the day,people were hiring sole
practitioners like me for someTQM, you know, total quality
management. There was someprocess re engineering, yep,
strategic planning,facilitation, goal setting, some
(31:22):
team building, right? So I wasdoing that independently as a
sole proprietor, and I startedasking my clients, or telling my
clients, look, I'll be happy todo a two day weekend workshop,
but I got something better. Yougot to give me a half a day up
front to do what I want to do toto set the stage, right? Yeah,
yeah. And as an investment,right? As an investment in the
(31:43):
effectiveness of what we'regoing to do, and this other
process, yeah, yeah. And thatinitial half day intro
gradually, gradually, graduallybecame all I'm doing.
Mark Robertson (31:55):
Yeah, that's really cool. That is, that's
really that makes sense, thattime frame of like 96 is when
you launched fully out ofAnderson. And we're really you
had the Newfield stuff underyour belt. You were out there
working, because then when westarted in February of '98 so
you'd already been at it for acouple years, which was I still
talk about to this day, like, Idon't know, you know, I launched
(32:16):
on my own with, I don't knowwhere the confidence came from,
but it was like, I know thesedistinctions, they're the most
powerful thing I've ever, everseen. I know they can help
people in the workplace. I'mjust gonna start selling it. I
don't know what the heck I wasthinking, because I was not
prepared at all. But I alwayscredit us joining together as
the thing that really saved me,in a way, because I don't know
(32:39):
if I would have made it on myown. Who knows, right? It was
like, when you asked, I waslike, Absolutely, let's go. And
away we went, you know, and wewere, I remember immediately. I
remember the Social Securitygigs were a blast, but I
remember Beck Garley, because wehad some folks from their
organization in our EFLworkshop, and then they hired
us. That's great. Way we wentdoing one day, you know, doing
(33:00):
one day, teaching thesedistinctions and figuring out
our dance together, which was aball. I mean, that was-
Chalmers Brothers (33:06):
It was a ball. I remember our title, I
think, for our very firstworkshop, was leadership,
conversations and results, andthat is still, yeah, title of my
flagship program in Vistageright. I've been speaking on the
Vistage network for 27 years,and my main the program I do, if
(33:27):
they want to hire me for otherprograms, that's fine, but the
first one we're going to do isleadership conversations and
results. And I tell people,Look, the title of our program
today is leadership,conversations and results. So
for the next three hours, ourthree focus areas are going to
be
Mark Robertson (33:45):
Leadership, conversations and results.
Chalmers Brothers (33:49):
Yeah.
Mark Robertson (33:51):
Rocket science.
Chalmers Brothers (33:52):
No because that's what it's about.
Mark Robertson (33:54):
I remember when we came up with our company
name, and I remember our logonow, that sunrise thing, our
company with Change Learning andLeadership, LLC
Chalmers Brothers (34:02):
I think it was, it was.
Mark Robertson (34:03):
And so it that dovetailed, that fit in really
nicely. So you should feel good,like you have full credit for
why I'm a self sustaining adulthuman being now with my own
condo, because you asked me towork with you, and you've been
teaching this stuff now. So it's'96 what that? What's that? 28
years? 28 years. Yeah, 28 years,right? So do you have a favorite
(34:26):
distinction that you like toteach or talk about?
Chalmers Brothers (34:29):
There's a couple of these, like you talked
about, the observer, right? Justbecause of my own experience,
the whole notion that we arewalking talking bundles of
congruency, yeah, among ourlanguage, our moods and emotions
in our body, and that walking,talking bundle of congruency is
not static, right? We're uniqueobservers, but we're not the
same observer we were at 16.Yeah, notion that we're not as
(34:53):
much human beings, we're humanbecomings.
Mark Robertson (34:56):
There you go.
Chalmers Brothers (34:56):
I love that beautiful distinction. We are
human becomings. We are equallyin an ongoing process of
becoming, and that if we holdourselves that way, that means
we approach learningdifferently. It means we
approach change differently. Weapproach uncertainty
differently. Yeah. We approachrelationships differently. Yeah.
So that is a classic, and that'sprecisely what I didn't
(35:20):
understand at 25 that one,there's also an one of the most
beneficial distinctions I evergot, is a promise broken is not
the same as a silent expectationunmet. Yeah, and how many right?
A a promise broken is an issuefor trust. We have to have a
(35:40):
conversation. I'm going to makea responsible complaint. Yeah,
right, but that's not at all thesame. Thing is, if you just
don't magically fulfill myunspoken expectation, yeah, and
how many people's lives areunnecessarily troubled by the
resentment that comes about bynot having a clear distinction
(36:02):
between promises broken andsilent expectations unmet. If I
don't fulfill my silentexpectation, I may make a
request of you absolutely, butnot a complaint. The difference
in energy between a complaintand a request is massive, yeah.
I mean energetically, they'renot the same things at all,
yeah. And so now I mean thatwhen I think about when I think
(36:24):
about marriages, when I thinkabout relationship, when I think
about organizations, and I thinkabout teamwork, right, any
relationship, right? And youknow, a big part of my workshop,
I know yours as well, is helpingpeople make and manage
commitments. We don't managetime. We manage commitment
Mark Robertson (36:40):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (36:41):
And all commitments are not created
equal. Some elements ofeffective requests, valid
responses. Can we be clear abouthow we coordinate action? And
that is a central part of myleadership workshops, my
relationship workshops, yeah,right.
Mark Robertson (36:56):
You know, we're coming to an end of part one
here. So, so good. I hope you'llcome back for part two. I would
be happy to, because there'smore I want to talk about, but I
want to resonate with what yousaid, and then tee up part two,
because we got a Chalmers and Ihave to wrap for today. But you
know, the mood of resentmentwith a silent expectations never
met, or, more importantly, apromise that's not kept. Often
(37:18):
I've talked about in the veryfirst episode of my podcast,
about having to forgive myparents because I resented them,
the power of that and thinkingabout I see this in
organizations all the time,Chalmers, but even in personal
relationships, those littleresentments get built around
broken promises and people don'taddress them like those are
Massive missing conversations inteams and organizations, but in
(37:42):
marriages and relationships. Andyou know, imagine if we could
clear all that out just byhelping people address it
through a complaint and havingthose conversations. The
difference our corporate worldswould be and our personal worlds
would be.
Chalmers Brothers (37:57):
There is a fundamental distinction you just
mentioned that I want toemphasize, and I hit it directly
in my leadership workshops, myteamwork workshops, my
relationship workshops, missingconversations.
Mark Robertson (38:09):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (38:09):
Are there conversations? Well, one way I
like to tee it uporganizationally. Is okay,
anytime you see performance thatin your eyes is not up to par,
not where it needs to be, askyourself this question, is this
performance not where it needsto be? Because the conversation
that could have taken place didnot Yes, right? If so, what
(38:31):
would that conversation havebeen? Who would have been in it?
And think about our personallives. You mentioned resentment.
One of the expressions I gottaught is resentment is that
which arises when you fail tohonor a request I never made.
And so now we're not talkingabout broken promises as much as
we're talking about this silentexpectations that are unmet. So
we got two categories. One isone of my clients told me they
(38:53):
overheard this at a familyreunion. So you're telling me
I've been resentful for 20 yearsfor nothing. Okay, so these
stories like this is real. Thisis absolutely real. You mean dad
never said no. Dad never saidthat I was there. I was there
too. He never said that. Ofcourse. He did, of course. And
so we live in these narratives,Mark about shoulds and
(39:15):
shouldn'ts, but this one aboutit is predictable that if you
break a promise to me, and Ifeel powerless to do something
about it, my dignity getsaffected, and at some point I
get to be resentful
Mark Robertson (39:27):
Absolutely.
Chalmers Brothers (39:28):
And how do we navigate? And so we talked about
responsible complaints, right?Clearly, it's a missing
conversation, yeah, but it'salso a missing conversation if
we're operating with silentexpectations and viewing them as
clear commitments, it is amissing conversation to stop
doing that and say, Listen, ifyou want me to do something, I
know we're friends. We've knowneach other, but I still can't
(39:50):
read your mind. If you want meto do something, please make a
request Absolutely. How manybusiness relationships and
personal relationships are sub.Optimized at best and ruined at
worst, because we don't operatethis way.
Mark Robertson (40:04):
A lot right? Let me close this for today.
Chalmers, there's so much more Iwant to talk about. You nailed
the missing conversation. Like,in a way, that's all I do as a
coach is my clients are comingto me saying, Mark, help me
figure this out. And where wealmost always end up is, so
what's the conversation thatyou've got to have, and with
whom, let me help you have that.Let me help you get clarity
(40:25):
around how, why it's missing.Let me give you the tools, all
that stuff. And so, yeah, that'sthe core of our work. Is helping
people have missingconversations.
Chalmers Brothers (40:34):
And one piece of that, and we can maybe hit
this next time, is contextversus content. I absolutely
will. What is the context you'regoing to create in order to have
the content that you need? Andmany of us avoid conversations
that we feel are going to bedifficult. Could be talking
about how to start them. That'sright. One of the best
distinctions I was ever taughtis keeping separate context from
(40:56):
content.
Mark Robertson (40:56):
So I'll close with this thought. You and I
just feed off each other andmake something but I remember
Julio saying, you know, if youset a powerful context, the
content will take care ofitself.
Chalmers Brothers (41:06):
I believe this. You don't have to be a
Shakespeare wordsmith, no on thecontent, if the context is that
strong enough.
Mark Robertson (41:14):
So you got so much latitude. Well, let's pause
for today. But let me say thiscoming next will be I really
want to dig in more and seewhere, see about our history and
all this other stuff. But Ireally want to also, next time,
talk about, given ourbackgrounds with the
distinctions like, let's talksome too, about what we see as
current day challenges andissues that are going on, both
(41:36):
in our organizational work, butpersonally that that maybe we
think the framework could bereally powerful to address.
That's kind of where I want totake it. And as I know that you
and I will do is, once we getinto a conversation, it's
generative. We're going to gowherever we go.
Chalmers Brothers (41:49):
That sounds fantastic. Man, it's great.
Thanks for the invite. It'sgreat being with you, man, I
truly enjoyed it, and looking toforward to our next one already.
Mark Robertson (41:57):
So wonderful to have you. Thank you again for
setting aside some time, andwe'll we'll get to part two. I
don't know if we'll get to itbefore I head out west on
September 20, but I know we'llget to part two, and my hope
will be we got enough here thatI can drop part one for now. Get
and people will be teased by itexcited to hear you and all the
wisdom you bring. And, man,we'll just do our thing. So
(42:18):
thank you.
Chalmers Brothers (42:19):
It's a great pleasure. Man, thanks.
Mark Robertson (42:21):
Well, my friends, that's a wrap for
today. I'm so grateful youjoined me, and hope you feel
energized by the insights wetook a deeper look at together.
If anything resonated with youor inspired new thinking, drop
me a note. I'd love to hear yourbiggest takeaway. Please join me
next time as we dive deeper intothis never ending journey of
self discovery. Until then, bewell, be present. Live fully and
(42:46):
authentically. Wake up and payattention.
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