Micheal Pacheco 0:09
Hey, everybody, welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have Ty Hammond Tizen executive team and leadership coach, the founder of one mountain leadership and creator of the true leadership approach. He works with people who are committed to their growth as both a leader and as a human being, to learn how to consistently transform what holds them back into the confidence, capacity and presence of true leadership. Ty Hammond, welcome to their martial Coach,
Ty Hammond 0:40
thank you so much for having me.
Micheal Pacheco 0:42
I appreciate you making time for us here. As always like to open up this podcast by simply inviting our guests to tell us a little bit more about yourself, in your own words, and what got you into the coaching thing?
Ty Hammond 0:54
Yeah, great, thank you, I appreciate that opportunity, you know, is speaking about this on, on the coffee with coaches podcast a little bit as well, and just talking about this, this journey into, you know, becoming a coach is so, so different for for most folks. And, you know, I think I could go at it from a couple of different places. There’s the personal aspect of the journey, for sure. And then there is also a professional aspect. And, you know, from a personal space, I would say that, you know, I experienced as a very young child, some pretty significant challenges, right, my mother died when I was four years old. And that led me really into a life, I would say, the first 20 years of my life where I was really deeply plagued by self judgment, by shame, by, by a story of not being safe, and not being enough that I would say, really influenced every single aspect of my life. And really, really hard ways. I was just, I would say, putting it the other way, I was like, I really committed myself to my victim story and to my suffering, I would say, the first 20 years of my life, and then it just essentially, as it does happen for a lot of people, you know, that that extent of hardship really just had me seeking what else was possible. And so for the last the latter 20 years, I’m just turning 40 here and a little bit, I really committed myself, to my freedom, and to my healing. And that really began a deep introspective journey, one in which I very willingly and intention and intentionally sought out seeking help, yeah, and healing. And in the process, not only did I experience, you know, immense healing along the way come had been very, very fortunate to come across amazing, amazing teachers and mentors, I also just fell in love with human potential and the possibility of human growth and development. So I became an avid student, I would say, a really committed student of just how people grow, how consciousness develops, I’ve just like super interested in that, you know, from my own journey, but also just in general. And so that’s sort of on the personal side, really in a in a jiff, and that that commitment to my own freedom and to my own growth is it’s really paramount in my life. To this day, I’ve experienced so much healing, right and, and experience a life of such a freedom in and, and confidence and capacity in a way that I never could have even dreamed was possible when I was younger and right, it’s an ongoing journey forever and ever. So it’s still, you know, remains my my number one. And along the way, you know, this interest in relationships and how we communicate with each other, and how we grow together and how we work together. You know, it really just naturally led me into this place of leadership development. And so, you know, I’ve only I’ve been actually working with groups in terms of like organizational development, and team building and group dynamics for longer than I have been working with individuals. And there was a reason that I sort of waited to work with individuals. But I’ve always been interested in the dynamics of how human beings of course, learn and grow, right, but how do we learn and grow together? And then when you bring that together, and when I’ve had experiences working with companies over the years, we’re a team experience can be boiled as though A whole spectrum, right, it can be the most amazing experience that people have ever had, working together towards something and achieving something incredible. And it can also be one of the hardest experiences that people have had, depending on what those dynamics are. And I’ve had, there’s lots of other stories in there that I could that I could say, and I can tell, but I would say those are the primary things is sort of coalesced into this deep passion for personal growth, development, how consciousness and growth works. And you know how people can work together, and grow together in ways that, of course, help us to achieve a common aim a common purpose, all the things that happen when you’re working in organizations, towards a common goal.
Micheal Pacheco 5:49
That’s great. That’s great. I want to thank you, first of all, for, you know, kind of opening up in public like that, and being very vulnerable. About your, your past and kind of how you came around to this as you were going through this journey of healing. Personally, what did that look like for you? Did you hire a coach? Or did you have other kind of methods to go through that kind of stuff that you committed to what did that look like?
Ty Hammond 6:16
Yeah, thank you. I think it’s a really important question. I think, you know, at the beginning, and this is so so I don’t want to say it’s so deeply baked in to, I think, some of what I’m still finding myself working through and working with, I don’t think it stops. No, no, no, no, no, ever. But when I first sort of, like, let’s say, I was, you know, I was really 19 years old, when I was like, something’s gotta be I gotta try it, I have to do something different. This particular story, this, you know, way that I’m experiencing the world, I have to be open to something else. And when that light switch turned on, it really like I just threw myself caught was called into however you want to call it, we’re looking for another way forward. I really didn’t know what to do. And I just did everything that I could on my own. Right. And I experienced what I thought was really a lot, you know, I did a lot of healing, but it was all really very much self LED. And as I live in, first of all, I don’t regret any of it, right? I totally needed that experience. But that was also born from some of the from of the old story in the suffering that told me that I was alone. So I was alone in my suffering. And then I became alone. In my journey, out of healing, right, I was still alone. And then as you actually ended up running into some very significant challenges later, later on, let’s say, like, you know, six, seven years down the line, I’m like, mid 20s. And I have experienced what, what I feel I like major leaps and bounds in terms of transforming, right, and, you know, experiencing, not as a victim, I would say, but now as the hero of my own story, which is its own issue or challenge. Because, you know, whether you’re the victim or the hero, you’re still on that drama wheel, if you know that. Sort of. So there’s still issues inherent with that, right? So I moved, I changed from the victim to the hero of my story, because I had saved myself. But that was just a whole new story that I had bought into, right. And that had very significant effects on my life, essentially, all which came crashing down. And the universe has this tendency, I will just say with me, to just, I’m consistently shown are given opportunities to see what’s actually true by bumping up against what’s actually happening in reality. So I, you know, when I was 29, a woman that I had met, who I am amazingly best friends with now, but it was not a committed relationship in a way that we were sort of looking to have a baby, she ended up getting pregnant and I was, you know, confronted with, I think what happens at least for Are you a father, you’re a parent,
Micheal Pacheco 9:15
I am a father as of four months ago. Oh, my gosh,
Ty Hammond 9:19
couldn’t Well, first of all, congratulations. That’s that’s huge. I don’t know what it was for you. But for me, that process of stepping into fatherhood just confronted me with so much right, and it became not about me in this way that just was so real and so important, that all the essentially the lies the stories that I had been telling myself, you know, from this journey of doing things on my own, began to really shake up and shake apart and it was in that and it was in that part process, right of that sort of shaking up and shaking free that, fortunately I have I have a relationship with teacher in a particular tradition, that has been incredibly important in terms of access to wisdom that has truly, truly helped and being part of a community in which people are, you know, all collectively engaged in a conversation together on how to learn and grow and like recognizing that we’re all doing our own stuff. Right. So I would say that, that that really was the doorway open, where I was like, oh, I need help. And that’s really, that’s really when everything shifted, right. So I would say, I thought that I made all of this progress. You know, it was totally necessary, I had to do it. And then once that story of, you know, I was like alone in my suffering. And then I was alone in my, you know, being a hero taking me out of my suffering. And then once both of those fell, and I was just sort of at a place where I needed some help. That’s where everything really started shifting. And, and I’d say, for the past, you know, 10 years, that’s really been a deep commitment, or I’ve been receiving a lot of help. Awesome. Consistently and consistently. Do you know that I have my teachers and my mentors that I meet with regularly? So yeah, absolutely.
Micheal Pacheco 11:29
You have your own coach, a coach that you that coaches, you.
Ty Hammond 11:33
So I have a several different so I have a teacher, which I would say is, is a coach, in some ways. Though, it’s really particularly focused on the inner work, which is some of it, I focus on in my own work. And then I have a mentor that is more sort of, in the professional realm, he’s actually been a colleague of mine, we’ve done a lot of work together, and I have regular calls with him. And I’m at a point right now, where, you know, I’m build, I’m building a business. And so there’s all the, like, the components of, of actually learning how to build a business, right, which is, which is brand new domain, I think you probably understand you can be the, you know, you’d be the best at your craft in what you’re doing. But if you don’t know how to sort of bring that message to the world. And, you know, it’s all of the sort of foundations of actually building a business, which are the places that I’m, you know, receiving, I would say coaching help around at this point.
Micheal Pacheco 12:33
Nice. That’s great. That’s awesome, man, I’m a little jealous that you, you figured it out, or you started to figure it out at 19, it took me took me 35 years, to figure out that I needed to make some changes and kind of kind of turn stuff around a little bit. You know, I’ll share a quick story about my past. So I grew up, my father abandoned me when he was six years old, I was told by my family that he told my mother to either have an abortion or he was going to take off, he was going to leave, he ended up leaving. And and my mother was emotionally abusive at times. And there was all sorts of stuff kind of going on there. And, and 35 years is how long it took me to really kind of get into I mean, I’m going to call it for lack of a better phrase, I’m gonna call it personal development, right? And start kind of reading books and teaching myself some stuff and then looking for mentors, and then eventually looking for coaches, and so on and so forth. So that’s, I mean, it’s just it’s been such, it’s been incredibly impactful in my life. And I can it sounds like it’s been as equally impactful in yours. Which is here.
Ty Hammond 13:44
Yeah, what I so thank you for sharing that story. I guess I’m always curious about that inflection point, because I have my own in my mind, like, what is that? Could you speak to them? So curious? Premier, like, what was that point? 35.
Micheal Pacheco 13:59
For me, it was a kidney failure. I was born with a kidney disease. Both my kidneys were not good. It was it’s progressive. Progressive, basically, kidney defect. And at 35 years old, it was it was kidney failure. And I was like, I just It forced me to it forced me to take things a little more seriously, you know, and then and then four months ago, right? My My daughter is born and I’m leveling up again and looking at myself in the mirror like okay, you know, I thought I thought shit got real. A few years back now I know it’s really
Ty Hammond 14:39
with you my friend. Nice the board. Yeah, for sure.
Micheal Pacheco 14:42
Yeah, it’s been it’s been you know, all the all the miracles that I think you know, parents say it as though she’s she’s, it’s been amazing.
Ty Hammond 14:52
What’s her name? Her name is Opal. Opal. Fantastic, man. It’s amazing. My son now is now I in and and my fiance and I are getting married in March. And she has a child who’s eight. So we’re we got we got two little ones in the household ourselves.
Micheal Pacheco 15:10
That’s awesome, man. That’s great. Circling back to to you, you mentioned you had an interest in how consciousness develops? Talk a little bit more about that what you mean by that?
Ty Hammond 15:26
Well, there’s a couple of different routes, I think that I could I could go at this from here, because ultimately this sort of gets at this question, it sort of gets to the essence of the work that I do, I think it’s a lot to sort of, claim, let’s say that you’re working at the level of consciousness, which is the source of experience, right. And in some ways, that’s how I make a distinction between my work and other work that’s out there, which is also helpful, but not actually working at the level of immediate direct experience. So I’ll talk about this in two ways. Because I feel like one of the ways that I’ve been talking about the work that I do is built from my own direct experience of having a teacher that is connected to an ancient wisdom, lineage, and the challenges that I had to actually receiving those teachings because of the modern western mind that I had. So I have dedicated myself and study experientially and through study, both from, you know, understanding, from my own experience, what are the ways that me and the way that I make sense of the world from this, you know, Western, super, hyper cognitive way of understanding the world has actually gotten in the way of me actually listening, for example, to what my teacher, my mentor, you know, has been saying for, you know, she was saying for 12 years, before I actually started listening in, it’s all about really coming in and experiencing what is happening in the body, in the present moment, prior to our interpretation of what’s happening in the mind. Right. So and as I have experienced and deepened in that work, which is a lot of what I offer through the true leadership, foundations mastermind, is really a learning how to be with experience in a way that you actually have the experience that you’re having. And so, you know, because you can’t actually not have the experience that you’re having, the only thing that we can do is disconnect from it. And when you disconnect from dissociation, it can be a, you know, a totally out of body dissociation or it can be even a tiny one. But to whatever extent we reject what’s happening, we’re disconnecting from the experience that we’re having. And the only way that I have found, at least from my experience to truly grow naturally, without any effort, right, is just to allow ourselves fully to have the experience that we’re having. Right? So that is ultimately you could say presence, right? It’s just being with what is right here without trying to find some, you know, following one of the the minds or the egoic constructs, many sort of little ways that it has to take us away from the present moment, because it doesn’t want to experience it. Yeah. Well, that’s one side. On the other side, I would say that I really have been studying adult developmental theory. So there’s, you know, theorists like Ken Wilber and out of Harvard right now, I’m totally forgetting I’m looking up on my bookshelf, Robert Keegan. Yeah. These adult developmental theorists which are talking about, and I think this is really important, as well understand for all
for coaches, no matter what kind of work that we’re doing, just essentially, understanding that development doesn’t stop in childhood where you don’t get to 18. And then which actually was the norm, there was sort of like, what was believed culturally and intellectually for a long time as that, you know, adult development. So you, you know, by the time you were 18 years, pretty much baked right? Now, of course, with brain science and adult development theory, we know that there’s these latter stages of adult development, right. And so studying that and really getting a sense, especially from the modern, you know, from the modern perspective, what are these different ways that we’re making sense of reality? Where are we in our learning journey, and I found that that has been absolutely critical in being a coach. right in understanding my own place, and my own development, certainly with engaging with groups and with teams to find is that like starting where you’re where you are, right, that that’s something depending on, you know, the way that you’re making understanding here is going to, you know, be more effective than if you’re making understanding your understanding or making sense of things in this way. So I’d say that there’s that, you know, those two realms, the sort of more cognitive approach based on the into, you know, intellectual sort of study of adult human development, and then there’s the immediate direct experience based on what I’ve learned through the practices and methodology of the teacher that I’ve been working with for close to 15 years now.
Micheal Pacheco 20:46
Well, so is this adult development theory? That’s a that’s a phrase that I’m not familiar with. But is that similar to like, we’re talking about, like brain plasticity here. neuroplasticity? I think that
Ty Hammond 21:00
those things are those things are related in a way, because anytime that you talk about growing, you’re going to be talking about neuroplasticity, in a way. But adult development theory is a really, I think, if not, you know, deeply what I think is deeply important, it’s at least very, very interesting. For anybody who’s, who is interested in in how people grow essentially, at, you know, at a very basic level, I’ll just say it’s like, you know, you know, that your daughter, right, can, will be able to do things and has a capacity will have a capacity to do things right at four years old, that she just does not have the capacity to do right now. As a four month old, right. And that’s not a making a statement about her being better or worse, right. It’s not saying for example, that the oak, you know that the 100 year old oak tree is better than the sapling, but it is sort of just acknowledging that there are different stages of growth that happen. And actually this the same thing happens in adult development, the thing about childhood development is that unless something goes horribly wrong, right, most, a vast majority of people are going to make it to the first stage, right of, of adult development. The thing about adult development, which I think makes, you know, coaching in organizations and with adults, so interesting is that anybody could be at any at multiple different places, right? And so, you know, you’re not guaranteed to move through the stages, it’s open and available to everybody, right? It’s a guarantee for no one. And that actually, that, that, that movement through these, first of all, just knowing about these stages is now what does it right, it takes and you can move through these stages, right, based on and I, you know, it’s so weird to talk about the thing like in stage, but you can grow without knowing about these, right. But to have that sort of map, in general, as a way for bringing deeper perspective about Oh, someone, I can see that if they’re seeing the world this way. That’s how they would respond to that, oh, I’m seeing the world this way. Because I’m making sense of the world in this way in terms of team and, you know, human development, that has been an invaluable map, I would say, yeah.
Micheal Pacheco 23:46
So yeah, it’s a essentially a framework for for conversation, understanding and analyzing behaviors, right. See something like that.
Ty Hammond 23:55
Yeah. And for, it’s really about understanding how someone makes sense of reality, so that Yeah, so, you know, the more the more that I can sense into that intuitively, right, the better I am going to be able to meet someone where they’re at, and have a conversation that is really going to be meaningful, and, and help provide support in ways that are going to be the most helpful. Yeah. And equally for equally for me to write. It’s all it’s an opportunity for self awareness, right? If I sort of know where I’m at in this particular framework, then I’ll be able to consistently ask myself these own questions and receive you know, guidance from the people that help and support me. Thanks.
Micheal Pacheco 24:52
Alright, so I think I think this is great. I think we’ve we’ve kind of established a foundation upon which we can now kind of like we can talk a little bit about your true leadership approach, right? You’ve talked a little bit about your kind of your background and your interests, how did that kind of culminate in this approach that you’ve created the true leadership approach? And what is the true leadership approach?
Ty Hammond 25:16
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that is, well, how did it all culminate together? I think that’s an interesting question. It you know, as with some things, I’d say, first of all, it, it is founded in my own personal direct experience, based on what I have learned, that is a very fundamental aspect that I’m not offering up something that is just sort of like a conceptual understanding or something that I learned from somebody else, right. That, you know, what I’m offering that, you know, as as many I would say, most people do, or offering up what they’ve what they’ve learned themselves. You know, that the second piece of it is, is coming. As I said, you know, this work at its essence, I think, is priming, the modern mind to receive Ancient Wisdom Teachings, it’s coming from the my own challenges that I have my own blockages of just hearing what my teacher was five years before I actually was able to hear it. So ultimately, what I saw in that, in my through my own experience with her, was that a lot of what I was hearing from her I was taking, and I think and my guess is that this is happening often right that we all have personality, we all have egoic construct, let’s say that we build up out of our experiences, we all haven’t there’s nothing wrong with having a personality. I hope not. Right, right. Right. But the personality is essentially the the collection of all of these different ways that make up our you know, defenses, and our reactivity and the things that, you know, make life hard, and ultimately, the thing that brings people to coaching, right, and ultimately, the things that like, you know, people want to work and grow on. So part of what, what I would, I began to see in in myself is that if you know, that you can give, you can give someone really a mate, you know, someone can, let’s say, read a book, or take a training, or even receive coaching, right. And if they’re taking that in through the filter of their personality, and applying it is most likely going to happen, there is what I would say, less of personal development as it is personality development. So one way that I I’ll just I’ll offer this little sort of metaphor, and then utilizing, which is like, can I sit at myself, right? Taking, you know, I saw myself as the victim in my story, and I became the hero of my own story, right. And I think there’s a way to a way to sidestep the challenge of that, because it’s sort of similar to let’s say, you’re in a prison yard, right, and you’re the, the weak person in the prison yard. And then you create, you know, you become the tough guy in the prison yard, it’s better to be the tough guy, and not be the one that’s getting beat up all the time. But you’re still in the right, you’re still not free, it’s better, right? So it can, it will help you, but it won’t free you. And the true leadership approach isn’t. And I want to just, you know, I think that so many in whatever way that we can find help is incredibly, incredibly important. The true leadership approach is actually about helping to identify it the at the basis of it, it’s very, very simple. It’s just learning to discern between what is actually awareness, like what we actually are, is loving awareness, not through the construct of our personality, but what we actually are, versus doing the work of personal development through the personality. And the difference between that is massive. Because if we do personal work, personal growth through, at least from my experience, I’ve done it myself, I can’t speak for everybody, but through the personality itself. It’s possible to just build up another aspect of our personality, right, I would say like a louder voice in a room of already crowded into an already crowded room of voices. And then the true leadership approach ultimately, is about learning how to attune to the different voices in the room.
So they stop making so much noise, it actually becomes quieter in there. So it’s less about creating a stronger, louder voice in an already crowded room. And it’s more about learning how to attend to the myriad and voices of the personality, which are all in, they’re all vying for their way forward for their strategies to avoid overcome or solve your problems. Right. And actually learn to attune to those in a way where you don’t follow the trap that they’re leading into you into, right leaning went into, which is ultimately disconnecting you from the present moment, not fully having an experience and therefore, you know, robbing you of an opportunity to truly grow from it. I don’t know, I’m, I’m, I’m consistently looking for ways to, you know, talk about a talk about this. And generally speaking, I’ll talk about this in terms of something that’s actually like happening with the person. So this is one of the first times I’d say I’m talking about it in more of a, like a conceptual sort of framework. So I’m curious how that landed for you.
Micheal Pacheco 30:53
No, that’s gonna, I think it tracks I might, if I can try to put it into my own words, and see if it tracks for you make sure that I’m understanding it correctly, please. Yeah, it almost it sounds to me like and I’m gonna put this in, I’m gonna use my own vernacular, not to say that yours is wrong or worse or anything, just to make sure that I understand it. It sounds to me like you’re basically what you’re it sounds like you’re doing is taking, working with people to help them understand the difference between, you know, kind of who they truly are, and the ego that protects them. And the and I think when you’re talking about a bunch of different voices, it sounds to me as though you’re talking about the ego, right? The ego is protecting you from stuff that goes, helping you the ego is what helps you survive through trauma, right, and all this stuff, and it builds the walls, and it builds the thick skins and it and it builds the stories like all of that is is ego. And being able to understand the difference between well, just being able to recognize, I think recognize might be the right word, being able to recognize when the ego is interpreting something in a very specific way. I think I think that that that is
Ty Hammond 32:20
I think, yeah, I think I think you really hit I think you really hit the nail on the head. You know, I think that’s, that’s, that’s really it. And I just so I call it the distinction between who we are and what we are, right, who we are, the construct of the personality, the identities that we build up, right, versus what we are is, is that is that blank, you know, it’s the, it’s the light behind, it’s the light behind the, you know, whatever, it’s the light that shining behind whatever film, you know, the the movie is showing, it could be a, you know, a scary movie or rom com, it doesn’t matter, you know, but the filter almost is, you know, that’s what we become identified. But it’s that light, that’s, that’s shining behind that it’s always the same. And you know that that is my experience of, you know, being free from the entanglements of just sort of getting locked in this? Well, you know, here’s this new, better part of my personality that’s actually going to take control of things. And you know, I’m not going to be the victim anymore, I’m going to do this. And like I say, that can be helpful, because it can it can, you know, you move, there’s a reason, at every single point along the journey that we, you know, created every single aspect of our personality, every single one was trying to help us and did it at some point, otherwise, we wouldn’t have done it. You know, the question is, like, you know, is it still working? Do you want to still do that? Do you want to stop, you know, creating more construct that ultimately, you know, can help for a little bit, but then just creates more problems down the line. Or, you know, and what I would say is the essence of the true leadership Foundations Program is really just getting the foundation in learning how to do the deep inner work, we’re always going to have stuff coming up, I’ve got stuff coming up all the time, I experienced increasing clarity, confidence, and presence. I have stuff coming up all the time, though, that I’m working to consistently clear and becoming aware of different parts of my personality that are, you know, running the show. And so, you know, that’s really the essence of the true leadership Foundation’s work, I like to say is, you know, to identify what is the heart of the matter, the one place where it would make the biggest difference to transform in your life, and to transform there certainly, but that’s not really the purpose of, of the work, the purpose of the work is to is to help someone to show and to help someone learn, really the very, very fundamentals of how to do the inner work, so that one can continue doing that in perpetuity, you know, to any learning and growing from our experiences. Well, after, you know, they’ve hopefully, you know, worked and learned from me or whatever is has happened. So Yeah. My prayer for it.
Micheal Pacheco 35:02
You, you talk about you talk about stories. And one of the great questions that one of my coaches asks me, whenever he calls me out on some bullshit is he’ll say, is that story serving you? I love that, right? Because that’s that’s the ultimate question. Like, we’ve all got stories, whether they’re great ones or bad ones. The question is, is it? Is it something that’s serving you? And it’s something that’s serving your higher purpose? Is it you know, is it is it leveling you up? Or is it keeping you down?
Ty Hammond 35:31
Yeah, well, it’s, it’s interesting, because I would say, you know, first of all, before you can even ask that question. You have to see that it’s a story. Right? Yeah, for sure. That that’s the that’s the tricky part is like, you know, we believe our story, someone we are so merged with our personality, we think it’s what we are. Yep. That’s the, that’s the prison. You know, that’s, that’s the, that’s the trick of it. And so that’s why, you know, the true leadership Foundations program is all about really, it’s slows everything way, way, way, way, way, way down, and says, Hold on, let’s get really clear on what awareness actually is, I’m gonna tell you about awareness through a filter. And I often say, you know, like, The Power of Awareness is to look at what we’ve been looking through. Right? And so, you know, understand, or even having the awareness that we’re looking through something that there is a story there is so important, right? Because you can be totally willing, and open to asking yourself that question. But if you don’t know, or don’t have awareness that you’re running a story around it, which is true for all of us in lots of different ways. You’ll never ask it.
Micheal Pacheco 36:48
Yeah. Let’s talk tactics. Ty, how do you how do you get people to a point where they are able to differentiate? Were they able to recognize a story?
Ty Hammond 37:04
Yeah, it’s a great question. So within, within the program, we did. So one of the things that I have found in working working with people, and this is true in groups and individually, right, is that things have to be really, really relevant. That’s why I feel like mindfulness in general, or meditation in general, first of all, is super helpful, but can sometimes like miss an opportunity to make something really, really relevant in a person’s life. So we start by identifying what to call the heart of the matter, right in the heart of the matter, someone, you know, you start by doing a real, you know, in depth intake, by looking at essentially all of the things that will your vision for your life, right, and then all of the, you know, the sort of struggles or challenges that get in the way with that. And the heart of the matter is really like an inner leverage point, it’s finding something when you take a step back, and I help folks get to this, because it’s important to, to really, really identify this. But to get to the heart of the matter is that one thing, if you were to, if you imagine is like a string with beads, right, if you really get to the heart of the matter, you’ll pull that string and all the other beads will sort of line up, churning. So it’s really, it’s really at the core, whereas if you if you get something that’s not the heart of the matter, you pull it in, everything’s still sort of out of alignment, right? So you really want to work with what’s the source, because there’s a trillion things that you could be paying attention or decide to, you know, be aware of. So what is the most important thing, right? The one thing that’s gonna give you the biggest change for the least amount of effort is what a leverage point is. So you start with that. And then you begin to work yourself backwards. So begin by identifying what I call counter tactics. Right? Counter tactics really are. This word is important for a couple of reasons. One, it’s counter, it’s working counter to your heart of the matter. So if your heart of the matter, you know, you could identify, let’s say, your heart of the matter is something like simply like, well, let me just say, when you get to the heart of matter, it can sort of present itself you can say there’s a theme, something along the lines of like, things in general are not okay. Right? There’s the one theme that’s running through this is like something’s not okay. So, you know, expressed in a positive way, you might say, everything’s okay, that could be the heart of the matter, right? Or I am able to express myself confidently, something along those lines, right. So you take that heart of the matter and then you identify what are what are called counter tactics, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, which are countered to that heart of the matter, right, really listing them out in this process. You’re, you’re learning some there’s pieces all along the way here making this subject object shift, it’s what I was talking about before, it’s being able to look at what you’ve been looking through. Because reality is at anytime that one of those counter tactic behaviors, thoughts or feelings comes up, it is a red flag. It is your signal letting you know that your ego a construct is here. So you begin catching it, you begin tracking it very intentionally. Right? So that’s really the beginning of a much longer journey, right and begin. So it’s just like, the first thing is just seeing it. Right. Okay, well, I see it now what? Right, and then there’s a, the program essentially is a step by step where you’re learning how to do different tracking exercises, which is sort of reflecting into the past in order to strengthen your awareness in the present. Certainly meditation exercises, which are like, you know, I like to say, practice when it’s easy, so that it’s easier when it’s hard, right? Alchemy practices, which is actually how learning on these cumulative practices, how to actually stay with an experience that we’re having when our reactivity, ultimately, the egoic construct wants us to vacate the premises, so essentially, about how to stay and actually have the experience that we’re having, so that we grow from it. And then you know, what I call relating, which is a process of deep inner inquiry, in order to gather deeper understanding about, you know, where are these, you know, where these pieces have come from, not necessarily why they’re there, that’s less important, but how they’re trying to help. So that we can actually cultivate compassion. In a way everything is about just learning how to stay with what is happening, without leaving, in my experience, the people that I’ve worked with the leaders that I’ve worked with,
it’s the most effective leadership development that I’ve ever found. And once you do that, boy, helping someone, for example, have that difficult conversation is easy. Because they’ve actually grown their capacity to have a difficult conversation. It’s not about them having a tool to learn how to do it. There’s just a there’s more, there’s deeper presence ease with themselves, and within difficulty that allows them to engage in the world in a completely new way. In every aspect of their life.
Micheal Pacheco 42:27
Nice, nice tie. who are who are your clients? Who do you? Who do you typically work with? I know, you are an executive team and leadership coach, but who are your clients specifically?
Ty Hammond 42:38
Yeah, great. So you know, I’m really looking at three particular sectors. One is certainly more and more interested in climate. Right. So I have one of my one of my clients has been sustainable Ocean Alliance working with with leaders there. And the incredible work that they’ve been doing, they actually are having their like an accelerator for their sustainable ocean lines is also an accelerator for other ocean. Ocean entrepreneurial projects and businesses, right, and so are an accelerator for incredible projects. And I just recommend that everybody sort of look them up in the work that they’re doing. And you’ve heard me say before, leverage points, right? Climate to me, like the inner work of consciousness is a leverage point. Leadership is a leverage point in organizations and climate is a leverage point in the world right now. And so I’m super interested in working, you know, more there. I also, I also have had healthcare clients currently working with Stanford Emergency Medicine, for example. And I’ve worked with companies like Healthgrades, sort of more on the technology side, organizations like good eggs and sort of more on the technology side as well. So I would say those three sectors technology, healthcare, and, and, and climate is something that, you know, a new place that I’m sort of looking at potentially heading so Oh,
Micheal Pacheco 44:15
man, what’s, what about like, the size, typical size of the company? How many employees?
Ty Hammond 44:21
Yeah, great. I’m finding, I’m finding that most of my work is is settling in organizations that have 1000 people are less, right. That’s really especially the kind of work that I do with organizations and teams. Once it starts to get outside of that, I’ve just found that it’s it’s harder to actually have that deeper long term ongoing sustained work with an organization so yeah, that’s been that’s that’s something that I find is really beneficial. Again, we primarily talked about you know, in individual coaching and the true leadership Foundations program. But the other aspect of my work actually, I’ve been doing it longer than I’ve been doing individual coaching is that is the team and organizational aspect. And so really being able to get in there and engage with an organization, I would say, especially when they grow past that stage, where, you know, they might not have a learning, you know, they might not have an l&d department yet, right there. They, you know, might not be holding sort of all the things in house that a larger organization might have, and are looking for more of a partner, right, in terms of really focusing on culture, really focusing on relationships, helping, helping teams, right to, to have better conversations, I think that accountability is another real leverage point in organizations. Nice. So really have very specific offerings around that how to leverage accountability for, you know, really transforming culture within an organization, and just really, fundamentally pinpointing that is, has been amazingly transformative. So, right.
Micheal Pacheco 46:09
Where do you Where are your clients? Right now? How do you market your services?
Ty Hammond 46:14
Well, this is the you know, this is the thing I would say is my, you heard me saying earlier, you know, do you have a coach, and when I’d say what I’d say is, you know, my learning edge right now, is taking my business from word of mouth, into a place where, you know, I’m learning right now I’m learning how to substantiate my business online, on LinkedIn, you know, I’m, it’s a whole new language, one that I will say, I’m super interested in and have been having, you know, a lot of fun with in terms of writing and like the sort of psychology, right of, you know, the one thing I will say is like, the difference between, you know, if you and I are in a coaching conversation, and I say something, and it just lands with like, oh, my gosh, that makes so much sense. That can that can, you know, sound like crickets on LinkedIn, where you’re not having the context, right? And, and so learning that I’m like, Oh, of course, you know, people are having to spend their own mental calories in order to make sense of what I’m even saying. And so, I’m really having to learn and wanting to learn right now how to talk about things in, you know, in this new arena, in a way that really makes sense. I’m super interested in in doing more podcasts, you know, this is one of I think it’s only like the third one that I’ve done. So, so that’s, you know, that’s a really exciting way to get out and sort of talk about things. And I’d say, you know, other than, obviously, still continuing word of mouth and creating long term ongoing relationships with the clients, you know, that I already have. It’s about being active on LinkedIn and learning that whole game of marketing.
Micheal Pacheco 47:54
Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, it is its own language for sure. Awesome, yeah, you should do more podcasts, podcasts are a great way to, to get to get the word out. And it’s really good. It’s just really good practice for you to for any coach that you specifically, right. But yeah, reveal you to, to talk about what you do and how you do it and just gain more mental clarity for yourself about it. Right? Because you’re, you’re you’re you’re in the hot seat, you got it?
Ty Hammond 48:29
Well, if I can, it’s one thing that’s been interesting for me here in this conversation, because I realized, while I was talking to you that most of the time that I’m talking about the true leadership, foundations course, right, and the true leader and true leadership approach. I’m talking about it in context with someone that has something that they’re working with in their mind, and I’m talking about it less as a sort of abstract idea. And so that was a little bit of a like, Oh, this is a, you know, this is a new way that I’m learning how to talk about this. So I’ve appreciated that that opportunity to have that conversation here today.
Micheal Pacheco 49:05
Awesome. Awesome. Ty, I wasn’t even keeping track of the time we are like right at the hour. So I want to be respectful of your time. Why don’t you quickly if you have a couple more minutes, would you share with us some some big wins that you’ve had? With your coaches? We’re sorry, with your coaching?
Ty Hammond 49:26
Yeah, well, I’m super. I’m super excited because this true leadership foundations mastermind that I have started, which essentially, I’m in, I’m enrolling people and now and I’ve got my first eight, you know, folks engaged in this what I would say as a community of practice, right? So I have been individually coaching people through this framework that I have been developing over the past five years now turned it into, you know, an offering in which more than one person can do it and so, like, even just yesterday, getting off of a call, I think we’re only You know, really two, three months into the process. And boy, that the benefit of collective learning is just immense. So I really, really love that aspect. It’s more along these lines of people learning from each other. Alright, so there’s obviously the foundation of the work that we’re learning. But the learning that’s coming through in the breakthroughs that people that people see, I’ll tell you, and it’s even just yesterday, two people really just, this is just at the beginning of the work, really beginning to see that they are not their thoughts in a way that is so has so much transformative potential in a way that they begin to actually inhabit their body in a way that you can just see it, I mean, then they express it in their eyes is like this absolutely fundamental transformation. You know, so that’s just that’s just really what happened yesterday, I’m thinking up for folks that have worked with me longer over time. The transformations that I see from this work or or, you know, they’re, they’re absolutely incredible. It’s, it’s truly more, it’s deeper happiness, and confidence, there’s all of this sort of external benefits of that. And I would say in leadership positions, it’s people recognizing that they’re able to handle more complexity and, you know, deeper challenges without, without sort of getting swayed or feeling overwhelmed, right. So that’s a really pragmatic way that it shows up in the world, you know, other leaders that I have worked with over time, really seeing that that has turned into very significant increases in responsibility, right, and promotions in the way of, you know, taking on more complexity and the ability to manage and lead more people in really significant ways. But I’ll tell you, the things that really stick out for me or are, you know, ineffable, in a way, you know, there’s those sort of external things, but really, it’s it’s, it’s someone getting the sense that they have the fundamental tools now that when challenge arises, not if you know, but when the hard stuff arises that they have a basic framework, right? That, that they don’t feel overwhelmed, you know, even if what they’re experiencing is overwhelming, that they don’t feel overwhelmed, in addition, by saying, what the heck am I going to do about this, that there is a wisdom and a security and a comfort and a peace that comes from that comes from having a really solid foundation on, you know, knowing how to learn and grow from the experiences that we have, and continuously during doing so. Okay, life.
Micheal Pacheco 52:56
I love that. I think I think that’s, that’s such important work for humankind, if you can’t, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought in my own kind of journey and journaling lately. If you can’t, if you can’t succeed, at whatever it is you’re doing, if you can’t succeed at that, if you can’t Excel, during the hard times, you already know that it’s not going to last that long term. Because hard times you’re going to come around again, if you can only so if you if you have to wait until things are easy, you know that it’s not sustainable. So you have to be able, you have to you have to be able to survive those hard times and thrive during those hard times. Because they’re not going to stop.
Ty Hammond 53:47
Right. I mean, I so I so love that. And I feel like there’s you know, there’s, there’s immense wisdom that that is also like really freeing, when you know, and it’s, you know, part of it, I think is just a realization of this, this shift from you know, how do I you know, turn the world into my own image of what I think I need it to be in order for me to feel better, right? To how do I engage with the world as it is in a way in which my happiness is not dependent on whether or not I have a partner, right? My confidence is not dependent on whether or not I’m employed, that I’m actually so well seated in myself and in in the essence of what I am that I can have hardships and experienced the inevitable ups and downs and, you know, challenges that we will all have and will never cease having as long as we have a body on this planet and, and still be connected right to that innate goodness to that and the value and worth and beauty and okayness that’s great.
Micheal Pacheco 54:51
I love it, man. That’s fantastic. I really do. I appreciate that sentiment. Like I said, I think it’s super, super, super important work. So good on your tie where? Where can people where can people go to learn more about the true leadership mastermind?
Ty Hammond 55:08
Great. Yeah, thank you. So two places right now one place is just going to be to find me, Ty Hammond, on LinkedIn and reach out to me there. And another place is at my website one month in leadership.com. And there’s a tab for mastermind there.
Micheal Pacheco 55:23
Beauty. Hi, Is there anywhere else? online social media where people can can connect with you and follow you online? Or is LinkedIn kind of a hotspot the website,
Ty Hammond 55:32
you know, like I said, Man, I’m just starting here. So I’m starting, I’m trying to start pretty simple. I’m starting with one with one social media outlet. That seems like a big enough lift for me as it is right now. So that’s the primary place. At some point, I plan on being on Instagram, and you know, all those different places, but little by little step by step here.
Micheal Pacheco 55:53
However, man, well, we’ll talk more about LinkedIn offline, because I think that’s a good spot for you. Awesome tie in anything else that you would like to hit to talk to talk about that we didn’t have a chance to hit upon before we before we wrap up?
Ty Hammond 56:09
You know, I just I just want to reflect back to you that I, you know, really enjoyed this conversation. And, you know, even as you asked me that question, I felt like the questions that you asked really help, you know, I appreciate I feel like led me on a journey where I was able to talk about this in a way in which I actually feel pretty, you know, complete there’s so much more that I could could talk about here, but I don’t feel like I’m leaving any sort of too crazy open threads and I and so I just want to kick back that appreciation towards you. And this conversation. Yeah,
Micheal Pacheco 56:42
thank you so much, Ty Hammonds for taking the time to be here with us today on the remarkable coach podcast. We appreciate it.
Ty Hammond 56:48
Thank you so much. I appreciate it’s been my pleasure to be here. And thank
Micheal Pacheco 56:51
you to our listeners and viewers. We’ll see you guys next time. Cheers.
