How to Build Clarity, Energy, and Sustainable Performance with Madeline Davis Tully

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back or welcome to the Metta Performance Podcast where we talk about what it takes to create capable, inspired people in all aspects of work, sport, and life. And today, Michael and I are thrilled to introduce you all to Madeline Davis Tully and her story as a rower and a high-performance coach herself and to bring her stories about sport and life to the pod audience. So with that, Madeline, I'll let you introduce yourself.

[00:00:28] Yeah, thanks for that. And Holly and Michael, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to continue our conversations. So yes, as you said, I'm a performance and leadership coach now. I work with mid-career professionals, mostly former athletes who are taking on expanding responsibilities at work and at home, are feeling a little foggy about the way forward, are recognizing that what they've done to get here is not enough to keep them moving to the next level.

[00:00:57] And they want to protect time and they want to protect time and energy for the things that matter to them outside of work. Before I started doing this a few years ago, I spent the first 15 years almost of my career as a collegiate rowing coach. I coached at Stanford, Ohio State, and Boston University, as well as under 23 national team. So I've been around, I've had the good fortune of being around a lot of very high-performing environments.

[00:01:25] Amazing. And what keeps you working with high-performing environments? Because they're specific, high-pressure, fast-moving, what keeps you going back?

[00:01:36] Yeah, I just love it. These are my people. And when I was trying to figure out exactly who I was going to coach as I started my leadership and performance coaching business, I just kept coming back to, I love being with people who have big goals, who have high standards, who are willing to do the work and want to do the work.

[00:02:34] And I love that for myself. And I love that for myself. And I want to help others figure that out, too. I think that's integral to leading a life well-lived, is finding where those edges are and can you move them? Can you bump up against them and can you move them? Yeah, there was, as we were, Holly was telling me a little bit about you and just also knowing, coming from the athlete and coaching, we've seen this real overlap between athletics, work, and even life.

[00:03:03] And I'm curious what you've seen in your experience. Are you seeing the same thing? And what are those characteristics or things that you see in those overlaps between work, sport? Yeah, absolutely. Almost all of my clients are former athletes, if not current athletes. And I would say that that's not something I have specifically sought out so much as I think like attracts like.

[00:03:31] I mean, I think there's some bias here, right? People look at my background and they're like, oh, okay, I'm an athlete. I understand what it means to win multiple national championships that attracts me to this kind of person.

[00:03:43] There's certainly some of that at play. But I think also the strengths, the disposition that causes people first to seek out athletics and athletic opportunities and then keeps them in it are very much the same skills, strengths, disposition, interests that keeps them achieving and striving professionally, personally.

[00:04:11] You know, you see a level of discipline that's there, a level of expectation and accountability and standards that are there. There's a work ethic. There's a desire for improvement. I think that serves really well in all of those environments.

[00:04:28] And then, of course, on the flip side, like any strength can get over-indexed on, right? And that work ethic that got you on the varsity team, that got you on the national team, that gets you the promotion can also, when it's not done appropriately and thoughtfully and with a focused outcome, can lead to never being off, to being a workaholic, to not being able to protect yourself for the things that matter outside of that.

[00:04:57] And so that's where I come in. That's what I saw as I started talking to a lot of people and certainly saw in my own experiences. And is that how you, because I love the fact that your kind of target client is that mid-career. Because, I mean, I spent 30 plus years in corporate world and, you know, in your early career, you're just happy to have a job and pay the bills. You know, by the time you get up to the executive suite, pretty much, not that you don't need coaching, but you just need a different thing.

[00:05:27] But that mid-career is such a huge transition period for people. And transitions are always hard. Yeah. And I guess, was that just by design that that's what attracted you to that level of being able to help people make that transition? And what are some of the biggest challenges you see these mid-career folks struggling with that you're able to help them out with? Yeah, it was very much by design.

[00:05:54] I knew that that was the stage in life and in development that I really wanted to work with. Because, as you said, I think early on, you're glad to be there. You're going to do what needs to get done. And as unpopular as it may be, like, I kind of think that's what you need to do, right? Early on, you got to say yes to a lot of things. You got to take the job that's the next best step for you. You need to show up.

[00:06:21] And I've also found that a lot of organizations will support their executives. They have some more opportunities and access to coaching. And that mid-level group, those mid-managers, for lack of a better word, get overlooked in that a lot. And I hear that in the people that I talk to. Oh, if I was a level higher, my company would pay for this stuff. But where I am, they don't. Or it's not an inherent part of that.

[00:06:48] And I also think it's a critical point where if as people are transitioning from leading a small team to a larger team or even from an IC to leading a team, they're having to think bigger picture, more strategically and pull out of just doing but actually leading. And they're doing big things outside of that. Maybe they're starting a family. Maybe they're focused on training for the Ironman, right? They're doing big stuff out there that matters.

[00:07:17] And this is a point where if they approach it intentionally and thoughtfully and build good habits and build good systems now, they can apply that to the rest of their careers and the rest of their lives so that they don't get to a point in their late 80s, early 40s, 50s where they're like, oh, my God, how did I get here? What am I doing? And I don't know how to change now.

[00:07:42] And if they can establish that as they're kind of on the way up, they have the chance of really building a career and a life that is aligned with their values, that serves them, that allows them to achieve and be who they want to be very intentionally as opposed to just falling in or sort of continuing along.

[00:08:05] You're mentioning something that we've heard from a handful of our guests consistently, which is the power of systems to help you change, transform, be more authentically yourself or create a fulfilling life.

[00:08:19] And I want to kind of bring it back to something that you mentioned earlier, which is kind of the origin story of you into your coaching life, recognizing that yourself and other people, if they do too much of the same thing or maybe put too much pressure on themselves, lean in too hard. You know, you didn't say this, but like white knuckle, how they get performance, it can backfire. And I've definitely experienced that myself.

[00:08:43] And I'm curious if you see that with the clients that you work with in middle management. Basically, what's coming to my mind is, you know, some people will do more of what they've always been doing. But I think when it comes to a corporate life or career or, you know, as life changes, late 20s, 30s, 40s, you really can't be doing more of what you've always done because the results will start to not work. Right. You can't. It's not always about working harder.

[00:09:13] It's about changing how you work. Yes. To get different outcomes. So I'm curious, how do clients usually arrive to you? Are they are they stuck? Are they curious? Are they burnt out? Maybe do you see any themes that emerge? Yeah, they're usually stuck. They're somewhere between like foggy to stuck.

[00:09:36] Foggy is something I've actually heard quite a bit from the people that I've worked with and spoken to is that they're just they've worked really hard. They've gotten to a certain point. And now the way forward is foggy. It was clear in the beginning of your career how for many people progress how to work up. Like I have this role and then I want to get the next role up and then I want to get my boss's role. Right. And then you kind of keep going.

[00:10:01] And then they get to a point where often it's they're going from being a subject matter expert or being promoted because they're very good at doing this thing. And now they have to manage a team. And that's not you're an engineer. You're a really good engineer. You get promoted to bigger and more important engineering roles because you're a good engineer. And then at some point you get promoted to managing engineers. And that's a whole other job. Right. You see it in every industry.

[00:10:27] And so often they come to me at that point where they are recognizing I have not been developing the skills that I need to do the job that I'm in now. Some of it is also they're having they're taking the time to look around and say, is this really what I'm going to keep doing? Right. Again, at this stage in life, like I've been working really hard. I got here.

[00:10:51] They look around and it's like, is this really what I want it to look like for the rest of my career, for myself, for my family, for my pursuits? And they need some help to figure out what to do next. So sometimes it is continue on the path, but do that with clearer knowledge of why and what part of that matters to you and what do you say yes to, but what do you say no to? And some of that is we change the path. Right.

[00:11:21] Sometimes the outcome of this work is I actually don't want to continue what I'm doing because it doesn't align with what matters to me. And so I'm going to just shift a little bit and and go this way. So it's often a mix of that. Like I need to upskill or and I need to gain some more clarity around what matters to me and why this feels wrong. Right.

[00:11:45] I had a client come to me who was working with a very large tech company and she was just feeling completely overwhelmed. And it wasn't so much the workload or the stress, although they were important factors. She's like, it just doesn't feel right. And everything in her career, she had been to really impressive institutions. She had progressed through her career. This should have been really good. She's like, something's it's not something's wrong.

[00:12:12] And so we started off with doing some really foundational values work and realize actually what the company was doing and what their approach was, was just fundamentally misaligned with her view of the world. And so it wasn't so much about the day to day or the job. It was just that the company was just not what she believed in.

[00:12:32] And so no matter how well she time blocked her calendar or she built, you know, shove her laptop at the end of the day, all that stuff wasn't going to change the fact that she was doing work that didn't serve things that were important to her. And that's why it felt wrong and why it's so important when you have that feeling to follow it. Amazing, because one of the things I'd written down prior to us getting off the phone was just about core values.

[00:12:56] And I think a lot of people, the great tragedy of the American corporation is that the people who need to help the most, that people transitioning from. I mean, I was that way. I went from being a really good individual contributor. Hey, we're going to make you a director. Good luck. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. And and looking back, it would have been great. I think we should flip the script and the corporation.

[00:13:23] You know, it's like, why do these top level executives get coaches when they could pay for them themselves? Reinvest that money to this group that's your emerging leaders. But that ache a lot of people feel is that dissonance between what their values are, whether it's work is number three on my list of priorities to I don't like what the company's doing, you know, and it's against what I believe in.

[00:13:48] But yet so few people have sat down and spent time identifying their core values. What do they mean to me? How do I live according to them? Do you find that same thing in your own practice? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I figured. This is this is like a big soapbox I could get on because I feel like values are. In some ways, the idea of values is ubiquitous. They're everywhere.

[00:14:15] Every like team team building workshop offsite is like, yeah, we're going to talk about our team values and our company values or whatever they are. And sometimes there's some individual work in there and it can be done. You know, I've I've done a lot of work around values and how people arrive at them. And there's a lot of things that are like, oh, do this values exercise. And it's just a list of values. It's like, which ones do you like? It's like, oh, my gosh, this is so superficial. Right. Like, what do these even mean to you? Are you living them? What feels wrong?

[00:14:45] What's missing? Right. Right. And so with my clients, this is usually one of the first meetings that we have. At least one is all about values. And we can talk for multiple sessions about what matters, what doesn't. How do you define if you say, you know, honesty is important to you? OK, what does that mean? What does it feel like? When are you living it? When are you not living it? What does it feel like when other people don't hold your same values?

[00:15:13] What do you do about it? I think it's something that's often overlooked or just misunderstood how deep it can be. And we come back to that in my work all the time. Just when something, you know, there's a question. Should I have this opportunity? Should I do it or not? OK, well, does it align with your values? Does it not? And using that framework to help make some decisions.

[00:15:39] Because if you're not actually using the values in action to help make decisions more easily or with more clarity, among a lot of other things, then they don't matter. Then they're just a couple of words on a post-it note in the back of your drawer or wherever it is. I totally agree. And I know we work with clients in a very similar way with values as being so essential for the foundation. And I always describe values as a compass.

[00:16:09] And once you have your compass built, then you can make value-based decisions. You can navigate your world with your compass. And yes, tons of activities and actions. And if anybody's listening right now and they're like, oh, I think I know what my values are, but I'm not quite sure, definitely spend time or work with a coach to hold you accountable to create your values. And the concepts that you're speaking about right now, they're simple, but they're not easy.

[00:16:36] And as athletes, we know the value of a coach is to help you show up and do the thing. Like recently, I've been strength training more. So I have a trainer and the reason why I have a trainer is because I have all of my equipment in my basement, but I don't go to my basement to do my strength training. I have to hire somebody to keep me accountable to reach my goals, right? I'm not ashamed of that. That's a system. That's a strategy for me to actually accomplish what I'm setting out to do.

[00:17:03] And like an athlete works with a coach to do the same thing, individuals, these middle managers, midlife individuals can work with a coach to help them create the strategy, follow through and have that accountability that I think is so critical. And Michael, I love what you said about the corporate world should flip the script and invest in the middle management, the 80% or 60%-ish, right? Versus the already high-performing individuals.

[00:17:33] Because most people, I think, kind of take on life completely solo with this assumption that we should have it figured out. Why don't we have it figured out? Why does everybody else have it figured out? But I don't. And the power of partnership. So I'm curious for both of you to kind of respond to that and kind of think about how can we encourage more people to be comfortable working in deep partnership with somebody else to become the best version of themselves?

[00:18:01] Ooh, this is my soapbox issue. Oh, so my, I remember a conversation I had with our, so I was in human resources at Humana, which is a Fortune 50 healthcare company. And I was talking about our succession planning. And they were, they were like, well, we've identified the top 75 leaders. I was like, well, what's, who are they? Like, how did you determine that?

[00:18:30] And they were like, well, these are all people who are VPs and above. And I said, well, what if the next CEO is sitting in a call center today? Like, they're like, we got to focus on the top 75. And I was like, those people don't need any help. And I think that's the big challenge in corporations today is just that, like, we're focusing on the wrong end of the leadership spectrum and that emerging leader.

[00:18:58] And that's why I love, I love what you're doing is focusing on those folks because honestly, they need it the most to become either to decide this isn't what I want to do. And I love that, that you're helping them because some people get into it and they're like, well, it's more money. It's a title. It's this, it's that. Yeah. And again, going back to the values equation, if it's against your values, probably not the right thing for you.

[00:19:24] But a lot of people just follow that corporate inertia and this is what I'm supposed to do. But there's just not that support to help people make these decisions in the corporate world today. Yeah, I agree. And I'm looking at this from both sides, right?

[00:19:38] From the employer side of things, the risk of not investing in the emerging leaders is often overlooked and so high because you never know, to your point, Michael, who that diamond in the rough is in the call center, right?

[00:19:57] If you're not looking outside the box to actually identify who are potential leaders or giving them enough exposure to real leadership development, not just every now and then workshop that everybody, you know, half sleeps through, but real access to development and really investing in them. You don't know who's there. You don't know who could be a really effective leader.

[00:20:24] And from a business perspective, it's just bad business, right? You're losing opportunities to develop internally, to develop your leaders. And by doing so, to develop buy-in and to develop a culture where the people there feel supported and invested in and trusted and feel like they have opportunities, not just sort of riding along some conveyor belt, as you said.

[00:20:50] And I think from the other side, you know, from the individual side of things, it is really hard to decide I'm on this path and do I need to get off of it? And this is where, back to what we were talking about before, one of the benefits of coming from an athletic background is you've always had a coach. You had a coach in your t-ball league. You had a coach in college.

[00:21:19] You have a coach now for your strength training, right? You have a coach. And so whether they know it or not, this is a population that's already accustomed to coaching, to being coached, to having a partner, to having somebody who trusts in them and can challenge them and has their best interests at heart. And so I have that conversation a lot with people who are like, I have no idea how this coaching works. I've never heard of it. I've never, I don't know what it looks like. I'm like, you do. You've had a coach.

[00:21:47] Now this is just, you know, not on the river or on the basketball court. So there's already a, I think, a predisposition to that. But those, you know, that challenge of just advancing through and actually stepping back and looking at where you're going and does it align with values? That was my personal experience in leaving rowing and getting into this kind of work because it's all I had been doing since I graduated college.

[00:22:13] I went right in, I spent a year working at a high school and coaching their team and then went right into collegiate rowing. And I just replaced one form of achievement and progression with another. So like, okay, I can get, I can be an assistant coach at the best lightweight program in the country at Stanford. We win a couple of national championships. I'm like, okay, well, I want to coach NCAA rowing. I want to coach openweight rowing. So I go to Ohio State and I coach there and win a couple of national championships. I'm like, okay, I want to be a head coach. I want my own program.

[00:22:42] So I come to Boston University to be a head coach and the director of women's rowing. And it very much advances. And along the way, I'm just dropping everything and moving across the country every three to four years. I'm working from, you know, 5 a.m. until 8 p.m. a lot of the time. I am not like, I would say I was not a particular like integrated member of the community in any of those places. I had a couple of friends, but I didn't do a whole lot. That schedule doesn't leave you with a whole lot of time. Yeah.

[00:23:13] And I was like pretty fine with that. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to work hard in advance. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a head coach and lead my own program. And I did that. And I knew I had advanced to the culture. We won the conference championship and got back to NCAAs for the first time in a while. I felt like I had achieved what I had set out to do there. And then back to the values point.

[00:23:43] I'm a firm believer that values do shift over your life and they ebb and they flow. And so younger, it was like, do the best work that I can do. Follow the next best thing. Well, then I got married. I had my first child. Suddenly leaving the house at 445 in the morning wasn't just a nuisance. But now I'm leaving a child here.

[00:24:07] And so now values are changing and being able to show up for my family and be present for them became a much more important value than it did to just advance, advance, advance, advance. And that's how I came to understand that I needed to shift and do something else. But I don't think if you asked me then, I did not have a coach. So I would not have explained it in this way. But it would have been like, this is really hard and I don't want to do it this way anymore.

[00:24:35] But I couldn't have really explained why. And I had a lot of hangups about, I'm just going to be, you know, some other woman who has a baby and leaves coaching. And there's a lot of that out there already. And I was really torn up about that.

[00:24:51] And the more I came to understand my, how the values were shifting, I could be more at peace with that because I knew what I was doing was in service of my values and that I don't have the responsibility to solve all the women in coaching problem, which is a whole other conversation. It's interesting. And I love the fact that a future client is, you're right. So many people, you know, have played t-ball, they played soccer or whatever growing up.

[00:25:19] So they have had coaching, they've had experience with coaches. And I'd love to get your take on why is there such hesitancy? We'll go hire a strength coach. We'll go hire something in the athletic side. But it's like we've walled off this, our job, the other big part of our life from coaching. And it's almost, it's like we can't see why we would need a coach for our job. Yeah.

[00:25:45] It's so much more personal and intimate than sport coaching, I have found. You know, it's easier for a lot of people to say, I've run a, you know, I've run a 345 marathon and I want to get to 330. Cool. It's very objective. We can measure it. It is not an indictment of your character that you're running this pace and not that pace.

[00:26:16] And to be clear, it's not an indictment of your character to want some support to figure out what to do next in your life and career. But it feels so much closer to your character and to who you are and to personal failings or achievements that often I've found that people just would rather not get there. Right? It is really uncomfortable. But it's not uncomfortable in like a run faster, lift heavy kind of way.

[00:26:43] It's uncomfortable that you have to confront some things about yourself and why you've made decisions the way that you've made decisions before. And how do you make them going forward? That's a lot. I wouldn't say it's more uncomfortable, but it's just very differently uncomfortable and much more personally uncomfortable. And I think that can be hard to touch for some. Yeah, that's a great insight. And I think you're spot on.

[00:27:09] And Holly and I have always talked about how important trust is in the coaching relationship. You know, I tell those people when I'm meeting them for the first time, it's like if you get any sense that you can't work with me or that you're not going to be able to trust me, it's like we should not work together. Because I'm going to, you're going to tell me a lot of things that are really personal because that's how we're going to grow and help you grow. You know, obviously that develops over time.

[00:27:37] I mean, I've got athletes that tell me stuff now that I'm like, kind of wish you'd kept that to yourself. But it's important to share it and that it does help me, you know, understand where they're coming from. So I love that perspective about it being pretty intimate and often touching on subjects that are uncomfortable. Yeah, and you need to know to the idea of trust.

[00:28:00] You need to know that the person you're going to share this stuff with will see you and hear you and not think less of you because of what you share with them. It takes some are more willing to do that earlier. Others, it takes a lot longer to get there. But it's knowing that you can say these personal things, these concerns or questions or doubts, and that the other person is going to continue to respect you, right?

[00:28:29] And like you and work with you despite and maybe because of those things that you've shared. But you have to earn that trust. That trust has to be earned. Right. And it's a reason why as coaches we practice having a nonjudgmental stance. Exactly. And being listening and hearing and staying with our client, not reacting to maybe their emotions or what they may say. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of a great coach is maintaining a nonjudgmental stance.

[00:28:58] And Madeline, I love how you have talked about, you know, the challenge that comes with evolution and change. And truly how we are meant to evolve. We are meant to change. It doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean it doesn't come without challenges. And, you know, this, how we work, all three of us, frankly, is all about helping people perform in a way that's meaningful for them. And I'd love to hear from you. How do you personally define high performance?

[00:29:26] Yeah, I've given this a lot of thought over time, you know, and in a lot of different avenues. And I've come to realize that performance is performance, whether it's in sport, at work, as a parent. I think I faced a lot of my biggest challenges in resilience and patience in parenting small children.

[00:29:51] How I've really come to think about performance is the combination of stress and rest. And it's the idea that to perform, you need to be stressed. And that's like, this is really coming from like a physiological background too, right? Muscles need to be stressed. Your aerobic system needs to be stressed and stretched beyond what it's done before to be able to build. If you're, we're talking about this a little bit beforehand, right?

[00:30:18] If you're not uncomfortable, if you're not facing challenges and obstacles and things that you have not successfully done before, then you're not growing and you're not performing. Like you said, Holly, you'll never develop and evolve past where you are. For me, coming to accept and embrace stress and to welcome it has been a big mindset shift and something I work on my clients with a lot. It's like, we're never going to get rid of stress, but we actually don't want to get rid of stress.

[00:30:46] What we want is to have stress in a productive amount. And so then that's where the rest piece comes in. Because if you're continuously being stressed and you're never making the time to recover physically, but mentally as well, if you just go right from your stressful job to scrolling or watching TV or constantly getting notifications on your phone, your nervous system is never just off.

[00:31:12] Right. And so this is why exercise or breath work or just sitting down and reading a book is so critical. And then the last piece of this that I think is often overlooked is doing that with consistency. It's getting the rest and the stress consistently over time, showing up over time. Whether it's a big effort or a small one, it's making the effort.

[00:31:41] Right. And whether it's a big rest or a small rest, it's taking the rest. Something that I used to say to my athletes all the time was. If when you've got 10 out of 10 to give great, give 10. But if you've only got seven to give, it's midterms. You've got a big paper coming up. You're in a fight with your roommate, whatever it is. If you've got seven to give great, give seven.

[00:32:08] It's like whatever you've got to give, you still have to give it. If you only have seven that day, so you just don't show up. That's a problem. Right. It's just being there consistently so that the stress and the rest can combine. And that's how, for my view, high performance is sustained over time. It's understanding it ebbs and it flows, but it's not showing up. It's not giving up when it's not a 10 out of a 10. Yeah.

[00:32:40] I've been talking to thoughts in my head, but then reading, I mean, in Buddhism, they talk about that you really do have to lean into the discomfort. And in this current world, we're going to, the minute I feel bored or anxious, I'm going to pick up my phone or I'm going to play a game or something versus trying to think about why is this uncomfortable for me? Why, why am I feeling anxious about this and start to, as they say, think about your thinking

[00:33:09] and start to pull that apart because in there is the, the learning, the growth is understanding what it is that's causing you this discomfort. But we so often reach for social media, other things, alcohol, you know, other things to distract us from this discomfort. And we miss, it's really a missed opportunity for personal growth to lean into that. It's not easy.

[00:33:33] It's not fun a lot of times, but it is the place where we, we do grow by leaning into that discomfort. We all have so much wisdom within us, but if we never turn down the volume on the noise, we can't hear it. This is the classic, the best ideas come in the shower. Now you've got waterproof speakers you just bring into the showers. You don't ever have to think there either. But I, that's something I've been trying to do consciously for the past little while now

[00:34:02] is just, there's that tendency you're waiting in line at the grocery store. Like, I'll just pull up my phone real quick. Something like that, right? It's just to not pull it out. Just leave it there. Leave it in the other room. Don't pull it out of your bag. And you've got two minutes here or there to think. Maybe it's 30 seconds here and there just to think. And that starts to quiet the other noise and allows your inner voice to come out. And it's not always like, I've had the answer all along. You just weren't listening. Sometimes.

[00:34:32] That's great. But sometimes it's just like, oh, for me, it's like, have you remembered to check in with that friend you haven't talked to in a little while? It's like, no, I haven't. I've got to go do that. It's just kind of keeping you in touch with the things in your life that matter. But when it's just you're moving from one stimulus to the next, you never hear that. I love that a lot of what you're saying and like giving what you've got to give. It doesn't need to be perfect.

[00:35:00] And how easy it can be for us or our brains to hold us back from even showing up when we feel like we're starting at 70 percent and not 100 percent and how that can magnify across so many aspects of life. And I'm curious, as we're kind of wrapping up our conversation, how are you challenging and growing yourself lately? I really do love being uncomfortable.

[00:35:27] I think that's a gift that I've learned through endurance sport is I don't know that I was always that way, but I really seek that out. I get bored really easily if I'm not being stretched. And so I'd say in the grand scheme of things, I've been more stretched than at any other point in my life these past several years as I've left the only career that I've known and have built my own business while having two children and starting a family.

[00:35:56] I'm constantly uncomfortable and in places that I haven't been in before and doing things that I haven't done before. So seeing that professionally, personally, as a parent and a partner and an entrepreneur is great. I mean, sucks at times, right? It's really hard and I mess up and I fail, but I really try to remind myself of what a privilege it is to be able to fail at these things that were never even options that I

[00:36:26] thought I could have. And so that mindset is really important to me to hold on to. And more concretely, something that I'm always trying to do now in this kind of coaching is just to continue to learn and to train. And so I'm in a training program now that is really uncomfortable and really stretching me, but it's also putting me in a community of other people who want to do that. And so that community piece of it is really important.

[00:36:52] And learning new ways to approach coaching or to work with clients in just all ever expanding ways I love because this is a profession and a calling that can take so many different shapes and so many different forms. And there's so many different flavors to it. And every one of we have a lot of overlap, the three of us, and we bring our own unique approach to it. And every coach brings their own unique approach to it.

[00:37:20] And so I kind of feel like I could just continue to learn about it forever, which is the plan. So I love being able to do that in this really focused program now and to be able to just continue doing that. And then the other piece on the physical side, as we've talked about before, is I've got the high rocks bug. So I'm like, I'm very into that now. I've done the individual and I've done the mixed doubles with my husband.

[00:37:42] And I like that slowly but surely the garage gym just keeps growing and as it has a tendency to do. And so like, did I ever think I was going to be rolling out a carpet in my driveway at 5am in January so I could push a sled across it? No, I didn't. That's an insane thing to do.

[00:38:05] As I've learned through my work, one of my values is craft and is learning new crafts. Step back for a second. This is why it's so important to know your values is because at first I was like, why do I just keep jumping from thing to thing every couple of years? Like, oh, I'm going to do triathlons. I'm going to do CrossFit. I'm going to do marathon. I'm going to do high rocks. Like, why can't I just stick with it? It's like, actually, what I enjoy is the process of building a craft and doing something new

[00:38:35] and being really uncomfortable. Um, and that understanding that has helped me have a different appreciation for taking on a new challenge. So all that is to say, doing a lot of running and moving heavy things. That's beautiful. I love that value of a craft. And as somebody that's been in multiple sports myself, I definitely resonate with that.

[00:39:00] And it can come with some maybe confusion from others in community who don't have that same value because they're like, why, well, why aren't you doing that next race? Well, what are you signing up for next? And it's like, well, you know, how I orient value in my life is, is different or is this specific way. Yeah. And we, I know I could speak for Michael. We're happy to have you in our coaching community. We think that coaches are some of the best people, most interesting, and I'm happy to

[00:39:26] have more individuals like you being able to serve more people. Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And I, I so enjoy chatting with you guys about all of this. Like, this is the stuff that really matters. This is the stuff I could, I think about all the time as I know you do too, and love seeing, putting it into practice and seeing different ways to do it. And so I really, I genuinely appreciate being able to have these conversations. And one last thing I'll say related to the values is there are a million different ways

[00:39:56] to go about figuring this out. I have a worksheet that I continue to update all the time, but I feel pretty good with where it is now. So if any of the listeners are interested in doing some of that values work, I'd be more than happy to share it with anybody. So we can put my email address somewhere. But if anybody wants to take a look at that, what that exercise is like as part of their process, I'd be more than happy to share it with anyone. Excellent. Yeah. Go ahead and share how people can learn and follow more about you. Yeah.

[00:40:25] So my website is MDT, MDT lead.com. And I'm on there. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, Madeline Davis Tully. And I also have a Substack, which has been a lot of fun. Speaking of craft, getting back into writing things longer than an email and a text. And so I've really been exploring a lot of these ideas that we've been talking about as well. So if anybody wants to follow along, they can find me MDT lead on Substack.

[00:40:54] Amazing. Michael, anything left to add? It's been a great conversation. Love getting coaches together. I'll put in a plug that folks, if you need a coach, get a coach. You do. You do. Yes. Thank you so much for spending time and chatting with us. And I definitely encourage anybody that may be resonating and hearing, you know, this is me. I'm in middle life or middle management. And I feel like I'm stuck or can use help in accountability and kind of discovering what's next.

[00:41:24] Reach out to Madeline. I'm sure she'd be happy to help you. And thank you again for taking time and sharing your story. With us. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks.