TLDR;
If you’ve ever felt successful on the outside but empty inside, this podcast is for you.
With over a decade of personal transformation and leadership experience, Maurice Martin shares his powerful journey from deep depression to becoming a transformational coach and motivational speaker.
After years of hiding his authentic self and experiencing success while suffering internally, Martin reached a breaking point that prompted a profound personal transformation.
In this episode of Uncommon Leadership, Michael Hunter and Maurice Martin dive into the crucial role of authenticity, personal growth, and leadership. Martin emphasizes that meaningful change doesn’t require dramatic epiphanies, but comes through consistent small choices that build habits and momentum over time.
Martin’s expertise in navigating personal challenges, developing authentic leadership, and driving personal growth makes this a must-listen for anyone feeling stuck, burned out, or searching for a greater purpose.
Explore more from Maurice Martin, including his book “Your But Is Too Big“: https://www.mauricefmartin.com/store
Connect with Maurice here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricefmartin/
For more inspiring conversations like this, sign up for my newsletter at https://uncommonteams.com.
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Presented By: UncommonChange
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Hello and welcome to Uncommon Leadership. I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams, and whether you are feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, or that something isn’t quite the way you know it can be. You are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every single day. Here on Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams, and cultivating the resilience necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges all the way into thriving.
I’m Michael Hunter, as I said, and today we’ll uncover fresh insights into what it means to lead with resilience. And joining me today is Maurice F Martin. Maurice is a motivational speaker, transformational coach, and host of the Hope Rising Podcast. He empowers leaders to discover their spark, harmonize their lives, and lead with unwavering authenticity.
Maurice is also the author of Your But Is Too Big or, but has one T, not two, a powerful guide that helps readers heal from their past and walk fully into their God-given purpose. Welcome, Maurice.
Maurice F. Martin
Hey, thank you so much. I’m, excited. You know, we were introduced by a mutual friend months ago, and when I heard about the mission and the purpose of this podcast, I was just amazed about how aligned it actually is, and so I’m just looking forward to this conversation.
Michael
Absolutely. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since we got first introduced. I’m glad we’re making it happen today.
Maurice
Absolutely. Me too.
Michael
When did you first recognize that integrating your whole self, bringing that into everything that you do might be a valuable approach?
Maurice
You know, that’s a great question and, when I think about that question, I think about how it’s the opposite of what we’re taught most of the time, right? I actually remember a moment of being about 12 years old, okay? So, I’ll give you guys information you probably never really wanted about me. So, I went to a real small school, it was a private school, and there were 30 kids, through sixth grade. Okay, so we’re talking like there’s two people in a grade, three people in a grade. And when I got to junior high school, I was heading to go to the public schools and my mom pulls me aside and she says, listen, sometimes you know when you’re being goofy and you’re being silly, you act in a way that could rub people the wrong way and could make people not like you.
So I don’t want you to totally be yourself, when you start in school, right? And so I, was given this message of ‘do not be yourself’. And I found then, in some ways that was actually true. That if I watched the patterns of the people around me and then I emulated what they did and only gave them back what they gave me, I could make friends faster, I could get along with people faster.
A whole bunch of assimilation happened in great ways and so, what happens sometimes in our lives is that we learn habits and behaviors and patterns. We get positive results at the start, but in the end, it actually is forming bad habits that hinder us long term. I’m gonna say that again ’cause somebody else who’s listening, needs to hear it.
You learn something because it’s, helpful for you at the start of a process, you see immediate results and immediate rewards, and it pays immediate dividends. But long term, it alters and hurts your behavior and eventually your life. And so in my thirties, I was to the point where I was as burned out as a person can be.
I was a singer in my twenties and I was, you know, just really blessed. I was able to work with some Grammy-winning producers and tour the country. Played in front of 5,000 people, 10,000 people. Just really got a chance to enjoy a lot of things in the music industry. But behind closed doors, I didn’t really know who I was.
I had no peace. I found myself drinking more and more than I was drinking, and high more and more. And then there was a different woman in my bed every night and so many different things were happening that were just uncharacteristic to the guy I knew I was supposed to be. And so there was a moment in my early thirties I, wish I could say I figured it out earlier than that, but my thirties when I said, somehow I have to figure out who I really am.
And then bring him to the table.
Michael
What helped you come to that realization?
Maurice
Honestly, I kind of went a little crazy. My depression was to the point where I was waking up every day. I didn’t really wanna wake up. I was almost bummed that I woke up in the morning. I would go to my job. At that point, I was selling insurance.
And so, you know, insurance is a very, there’s not a lot of emotion involved instead of what, except for what you’re trying to elicit from the client, right? From the customer. And so I’m selling insurance. I’m making the most money I’ve ever made in my life. But my life feels empty. It feels like I’m a robot and I’m just, my car is driving itself to work.
And then I’m robotically going through the script of my day trying to get these people on board to make money, and it was just very soulless for me. There was no spark, there was no passion. I was just void of joy. And so that was really when I knew because honestly, I didn’t wanna live anymore. I was honestly suicidal. And suicidal for me, I know it looks different for everybody, but for me, it was waking up in the morning and thinking, boy, if I hadn’t woken up today, life might be better for the rest of the world. If I was gonna end it, how might I do it? So I was in a very, low place in my life, and when I decided, and it’s a decision.
I decided that I wanted to come to the other side of it, that, hey, you know what? I don’t wanna always be the miserable, frustrated, upset. Here, I’ll give it, make this a stereotype. I don’t wanna be the angry black man anymore. Right? Like, I, don’t wanna be the angry black guy anymore. And so, I literally had to come to terms with, well, if I’m going to get better, then I have to go down this path.
And it’s really a path of no return.
Michael
What helped you finally make that decision? It sounds like you’d been hanging out there for a good long while. Didn’t really, weren’t really happy there. And yet you weren’t unhappy enough that you finally flipped the bit and said, okay, I’m gonna not do this anymore.
What finally flip that for you?
Maurice
Yeah. You know, it was a series of events and I always say it was the perfect storm for me. One of the things that happened in that season of my life was that my younger brother had passed away, and it was the second brother who died in two years. And so, you know, there’s a little bit of, processing in my own emotions of, well, I have a chance to live and my brothers can’t. At that same period of time, I was getting married, and so I ended up getting married to my wife two months after my brother died. So I would say that in the midst of all of those things, it was kind of like. I was really at a place where I was either gonna go all the way in the direction of let’s not do this anymore, or all the way in the direction of, I gotta find a way to thrive now.
And I I took the fact that I was getting married seriously. I also didn’t want my brother’s death to be in vain. And I felt like if I can really walk in the fullness of my purpose, my God-given purpose, I can make what my brother meant to me mean something in the world. He was a very inspirational person.
He was a very solid person. And, in that part of my life, I was anything but solid. And so I think that I wanted to embody some of the characteristics I saw in him and kind of let his legacy live much longer than he did on the earth. And so I think it was a lot of those types of factors for me.
Michael
I understand how each of those were piling up and becoming more and more straws on the camelback. Lots of people have many of those similar factors impinging on them, encouraging that, go ahead and make that leap. And yet they still just don’t quite, aren’t able to make that decision that, okay, I am gonna do the drastic shift. This is gonna take, it’s actually is worth it to me.
What inside you really made all of this decide that I wanna live up to, what my brother’s memory means to, what my life with my wife that I sit I’m here to do means? What the life that I know God wants me to do here for; that I’m ready to live up to that? What really got you to be able to stand up and say yes to all of that?
Maurice
I tell a story sometimes, and when I tell it, it will either sound like woo woo and craziness, or you will hear the sincerity in my voice and believe me. Okay? And so one of the stories I’ve often told is that, a month and a half before my brother passed away, I got in a car. I was high that morning, so I got up and smoked some marijuana before going to work, which is kind of where I was at that point in my life.
And I was driving to work and I was as angry as I’ve ever been. I was thinking about driving my car off the road, ending my life. If I go to the right, I’m going off into an embankment, but there’s like trees and stuff down there. Maybe if I go to the left, there’s the concrete, but I gotta hit it right.
And I’m scared ’cause I don’t wanna do this wrong and just crash my car and it doesn’t do anything and I’m going through this and I start screaming at the top of my lungs. I don’t know if you’ve ever been, maybe some of your listeners have been to that breaking point, where you get so emotional, you just start hollering and whoever’s listening just gets it.
And there was nobody in the car. And so I started yelling at a God that I didn’t know if he existed or not. Okay. So it was like, Hey if you exist, you are gonna get this cussing and swearing right now. And, to be honest with you, I had that day, probably the greatest epiphany I’d ever had. It started off with a vision and literally it was like I was driving in my car, I was yelling and screaming, and then I had a vision and I was outside of my car and I was standing on a stage and I was speaking to this crowd. I know this is gonna sound weird, but I literally was out of my car. In a moment, and I was having this major impact on people. Okay. And I see this and it’s just a few seconds long and I see it and I felt it.
And it felt about as real as anything that I’d ever felt in my life. And after that was done, I heard a still small voice begin to speak to me. And it didn’t sound like James Earl Jones. Like it wasn’t like some voice from outer space, it sounded like thought. But I knew it was not my thought. I can’t explain it in a different way than that, and it was a moment where I realized maybe I’m not in this life by myself.
Maybe there’s something greater than us because that thing took my feeling of it’s time to die too. Maybe I should live. That was a month and a half before my brother died. And so I think that the seed was already planted that I think I want to live. I think I want to make something happen. My brother’s death paralleled with, and now I’m getting married.
It was a push for me, but here’s one thing that I would say to you. I’ve worked as a life coach and as a motivational speaker for, many years since the,n and also as, drug counselor. I tell people that you don’t have to have an aha moment to change your life. Some people feel like you have to have that breaking point of this one magical thing, and it happens, and now I can change.
I don’t believe that’s true. I believe the change and transformation happen through a series of choices. And different choices build habits and different habits build momentum and different momentum can cause you to change in your perspective and your perception of your life. I’m gonna say that again ’cause probably somebody else needs to hear it.
Right? So a series of choices. If I just keep choosing differently, those choices will begin to form habits. I begin to habitually do things because I’ve been choosing it and choosing it. Like literally the neuro pathways in my mind will start to change. I feel stressed. I do this, I feel frustrated. I do that, and if I just keep making choices, then the new habits that I am forming are going to begin to create momentum for me. I will start to feel a little bit more peaceful when I was feeling out of control. I will start to feel a little bit of contentment when I was feeling nothing but restless. I will feel a little bit of value when I felt like my life was worth nothing if I just keep making the choices.
And so what I often tell people is, don’t wait for the magical moment to come, make the magical moment come. Just say, well, what the heck do I have to lose? If life is that burned out, if you’re waking up every day and you just feel lifeless, if you just feel void of energy, void of purpose, void of that spark you used to have, what do you have to lose to say, “I can choose some different behaviors in hopes that the different behaviors can change my perception and my perspective over time”?
Michael
Absolutely. Hundred percent agree. I always start with, and one of my core principles is everything is a tiny step. If the step feels too big, there’s always a smaller step we can take that feels safe.
And all we’re committing to is taking this step. If this step goes somewhere we don’t like, that’s fine. We’re not committed to anything more. We can take a different step in a different direction, in a different way. We can crawl inside a step. We can jump or hop or a cartwheel from there, whatever it feels like, that’s gonna work help us take that next, make that next move better.
Maurice
Have you ever been about to walk downstairs and it’s late at night and you’re not exactly sure where the steps begin? So you do that thing where you kind of slide your foot along the ground until you actually find the edge, right?
And so you’re not stepping your kind of scooting and you know, sometimes that’s what progress looks like, that, you don’t feel like you’re moving because one foot is still firmly planted where you already were, but the other foot is just slightly moving in the direction of destiny, in the direction of progress, in the direction of change.
And so there’s this feeling that many people have that you have to have a leap of faith to change your life. That it just is gonna take some huge mega thing. And a lot of people will say, well, Maurice, you don’t understand. Over the course of my life, I have tried a whole bunch of things and they didn’t work out.
And what I would say is, but did you stick with them? That it’s actually not about starting. That’s not it. It’s about after you quit, will you start again? Everyone quits something. Okay? If you are a business owner and you’re watching today, or I know you said that you know, there’s a lot of people who are in the tech world. Right? Okay. One thing that I know about being in the tech world is that many people in their jobs and in their companies, it’s like so hot and cold. It’s like you’re, a part of the latest trend, the hottest thing. Sky’s the limit. Job security, we’re a part of the next wave, and then all of a sudden the wave shifts.
And you can wonder like, where are we going and will we be a part of it, right? That there’s going to be that momentum. And sometimes in those, difficult moments, you can wanna quit. You can want to give up, and that’s normal to get to quit. Nobody will ever tell you that it’s normal to quit. I’ve quit in my marriage.
I’ve quit in my mental health. I’ve quit in my spiritual life. I’ve quit. The key is, if you say, I’m done, I can’t do this anymore, an hour later will you say, okay, I overreacted. My emotions got the best of me. I can’t quit. And then will you start again from the place that you left?
Many people when they quit, they never go back. They never restart. And I think that’s actually more important than the critical steps of starting. It’s- will you start again after you quit? Whatever the thing is you’re doing, building the business, building the dream, raising the family, whatever it is we’re talking about.
What do you do after you quit?
Michael
Yes. This is one reason I talk about everything in terms of steps. Because, when you’re just taking one step and then eventually taking another step. It’s not that you quit, it’s that you paused. You might have taken some time to reflect. You might not have known that’s what you were doing. You might have-
Maurice
That’s it.
Michael
You’re scared. You might not have known that was going on. It might have felt like you were quitting. You might even have explicitly said, I quit. But you were still there. And you still took another step. There were probably all sorts of other things going on, influences from other people, not having all the resources you needed internally to take the next step.
And universally, every person I talked to and they said, oh, I quit on this thing. Or on everything. When we dig into it, it’s not that they quit. It’s that they had voices from outside telling them that quitting was the right thing to do, or the thing they wanted to do or stepping towards was wrong.
It’s that they didn’t have the resources they need internally and externally to sustain their movement. There’s all these other factors going on.
I don’t think that we as humans and physical bodies actually, can physically quit. I don’t think we know how to do that. I don’t think our spirit lets us quit since there’s all this other stuff that there’s so much weight pressing against us that we don’t always have the wherewithal to, overcome all that.
Maurice
Yes, and I, oh. Man, I just love what you just said because, okay, so think about the ramifications of that, right? When I say I quit, I don’t really quit. I just ruminate on the feeling of quitting. So now what happens is, guilt and shame and regret and all these things begin to pile on me because I’m almost haunted by the thing that I know I didn’t really quit, I paused. And I’m realizing that if I could find the courage to hit the pause button and get back to it, that maybe, whatever I was meant to accomplish, I could, but now it feels like I’ve waited too long. Oh, maybe I’m rusty. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe I can’t get it right. What’s the point?
And so you’re never actually quitting. You are just. Sitting in the pause, allowing the, and ruminating in the pause and marinating in the pause. And one thing I’ve often said, you talked about those voices. If you don’t take action in those moments, then the, external voices of doubt become the internal voices of doubt.
Everybody who told you what you couldn’t do and what you couldn’t be and that it wouldn’t work out and just give it time. It becomes now the voice that echoes on the inside of you. And now it’s your voice telling you, well, it was never gonna work out and it was never gonna do it. And, now you didn’t just pause, but now your pauses become your identity.
Now you’re just a quitter. Now you’re the person who didn’t make it. Now you begin to identify what the feelings you’re ruminating in. Right? And it makes sense. We just had Thanksgiving. A lot of people, they do the Turkey on Thanksgiving or they do, you know, they, and and some people do steaks on Thanksgiving.
Whatever it is you do. The best meat is made when you marinate it for a while. You take it and you put some spices on it, and you let those spices just, you let it just sit in those spices long enough that now the flavor of what it’s sitting in begins to evade into the meat. So when I take a bite, every bite has what it was sitting in.
Well, what happens when I sit in my doubts? When I sit in all of my worries and my insecurities? When I just sit in my fears? If I do that for long enough, now when people get to sample me, that’s the flavor they get of me. It’s me with a side of doubt or fear or worry or whatever it is. And so the key is, I’ve gotta know, I can’t sit in this. I can’t stay here. I’m gonna get here sometimes, but I can’t stay here. I gotta do whatever I gotta do to get out of it. Sometimes you gotta pay for a professional, sometimes you gotta go for a walk off and get some fresh air. Sometimes you need to go on a vacation and take a break and just think about life.
There’s a lot of things you can do, but you can’t stay sitting in those bad emotions.
Michael
And we don’t have to clear all that up before we can do what we wanna do.
Maurice
Sure, don’t.
Michael
To continue your meat metaphor, all of these things are bones that when someone takes, samples us, as you said, they get a piece of bone too because this stuff has come in and it’s what we believe is helping hold this up, perhaps. It’s not a big deal that they get a bone, they’re like, pick it out. They might say, oh, that hurt ’cause it poked him in the cheek or whatever, and they toss it out and they continue on. I don’t know anyone who has ever stopped eating a meal and thrown away the food because they got a bone. It’s just
Maurice
Right. Exactly.
Michael
part of what happens, everyone knows when I eat food that might have bones or other foreign substances in it, that’s gonna happen every so often. It’s not a judgment on the cook, it’s not a judgment on me. It’s not a judgment on anyone else who is involved in the production of that food. It’s just something that happens.
And the same is true in, I am having a conversation with my boss or an important prospective client or someone that works for me and something triggers, words I don’t expect to say, come out or even just I have a tone slightly different than I wanted to have, and that causes the other person a trigger.
It’s not a big deal. All this stuff is, transient. We can come back to it. It’s never damaging to the point of- conversation can’t continue from there.
Maurice
Well, I think that the difference for many of us is that when we’re doing technical work, we understand that technical work has a process and I must see the process through.
And it’s a much more difficult and arduous task to see the process through emotionally. Right? So if I’m programming something, there’s this, there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then there’s a review, and then there’s a, and I can just keep going through processes and procedures. When life is about emotions, I start wondering, am I doing this wrong?
Because nobody really teaches you how to have emotions and how to deal with emotions and how to work through emotions. And so, and by the way, you never get to the end, right? I remember someone asked me one day when I first became a coach. They said, “Maurice, what qualifies you to sit in front of another person and coach them? You don’t have your whole life figured out.” And I said, “Who said that I have to have it all figured out to help someone figure it out?” It’s not actually a requirement. That’s not a real thing, right? So, anytime you’re sitting in front of another person, you are simply an outsider asking the right questions and then offering some of the right perspectives, and then giving some of the right goals and providing accountability so that they can get to a process.
And so I have helped people who had situations I didn’t understand. Things that I was unqualified in my own bank account or unqualified; they’ve got 75 employees and I have a one-man business. They’re, a CEO and they’re making millions and like, someday, can I please make my first one?
Right? And yet, what I’ve learned is that it’s not about the fact that I’ve reached a destination that I can help people. It’s that I’ve been willing to go on and stay on the journey that matters. And so anybody who’s listening what I would say is, you are not gonna just like get to the end of a thing.
You have to be willing to get into an ongoing pursuit of the best version of you. You’re going to be constantly growing and constantly maturing and constantly changing, and that’s okay. And there’s gonna be some bones sometimes. You’re gonna hit some snags. You’re gonna get frustrated or you’re gonna frustrate someone else.
That’s okay. It’s part of the process. That’s how you actually grow and learn and develop. It’s when you hit the error. When you get to the place where it’s like, man, I don’t know what to do now. Well, that’s when I grow. ’cause sometimes what you have to do is becoming the next version of you. And, here’s the last thing I’d say on this point. Sometimes people are afraid to grow because they know the version that they’ve always known.
And what I would say to you, if that’s how you feel is, remember that you’re always growing. You can either grow apathetic, grow afraid, grow frustrated, grow bitter. See, there’s all these things I can grow into. Some of you, you’re hearing it, you’re like, oh gosh, like I felt those things, right? Or you can grow more mature.
You can grow bolder, you can grow healthier, right? So I’m always growing. It’s just what direction am I growing in. And so now it’s not about this like finish line, it’s not about a make-believe, like I just gotta get to this place and I’ll be okay. It’s about the journey.
Michael
How do you help the people you work with, the teams and companies and individuals, build cultures and feel safe and empowered to take, to make that shift from: this is a destination I got at sprint to, or how fast I’m getting there, I know that’s where I’m getting there and until I get there, I’m not done to, I’m always done because it’s always only about the next step and there’s a journey and maybe I have a general idea where I’m going, maybe I have a very specific idea, maybe I have no idea? All of that. It’s always, all that matters is the next step.
Maurice
Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, you know, there’s a couple things that I would say. The first one is, if you’re building a culture, you probably should pay attention to the culture you’re sitting in.
So everybody’s thinking about the next goal, but we forget about looking around at what is. Like the place you’re at right now. Every company has values. Every company has a vision and a mission. And so the question is, forget about the goal that you set for 2024. Forget about the milestones you’re aiming for in 2025.
Look around. Do you embody, what you say you stand for because you did not write down on your mission statement: we wanna make X amount of dollars this year? Your mission statement is, we want to help these people accomplish these things in such and such a way. Are you it? I think that the beginning of helping a company always requires a really honest evaluation.
We gotta get real with each other. We can’t sit and lie to each other. Oh, everybody’s great here, man. We’re all happy. We’ve got a happy culture. And you look around and everybody’s tired and burned out. No, you have a burned-out culture and everybody’s hanging on for dear life. We gotta be honest.
That doesn’t mean don’t strive for the goals. I’m not saying that. I’m saying we have to be honest about, well, if everybody’s burned out, we gotta be real intentional about rebuilding the spark. And let’s be clear, I don’t think that there’s a magical 1, 2, 3 on how you regain a spark. That’s specific to your organization.
The members that you have, the beliefs that you have, the things that you stand for, and then you gotta put together a very strategic plan for that organization. And here’s the second thing that I would say, and this is the most important, maybe. Whoever’s in charge, it starts with you. You have to go first, right?
It’s like, it’s the company where I walk in or the school where I walk in, right? And the superintendent is sitting with their arms folded and they’re looking at all of their employees, like, you hear what he’s saying? These are some good words for You guys, right? This is what You guys need to do to get better.
If that is the mindset of your leadership, then you’re only going to go as far as they go. Right? Because ultimately leaders model success. Whatever the leader is embodying, is what you’re ultimately aiming for. If you’re trying to climb the corporate ladder if you’re trying to be respected in the business. Whatever the leader models, is what success is to that organization.
And so, I have to be willing as a leader to say, it starts with me. Am I doing the best things that I can to manage myself before I manage the people I’m responsible for? And, so I think that there is the evaluation, but there is also the self-evaluation person to person, especially with leaders.
Are you embodying what you want them to embody? And I think that we sometimes make the critical error of assuming it’s everybody else that needs to get better. No, it’s me. I’m, married. I’m married. I have two children. When my wife is tripping, when my wife is stressed out, when I’m like, I just wish she would get it together.
What I’m really saying is. I probably need to evaluate myself and get it together to help her get it together. Right. That’s the honest assessment and I think that’s sometimes what organizations are lacking.
Michael
Absolutely. I discovered a long time ago when I’m angry with someone else, I’m probably actually angry with myself.
Maurice
Yes, a hundred percent. They’re probably embodying something. That was frustrating you on the inside already about you.
Michael
Yes. And what you said about the leader needing to change before, they can change the rest of the team, not only is true, and while it might seem a predicament. It’s actually a freeing because it means, even if you don’t believe you can change anything else about the situation, you can always change yourself.
And even if nothing else changes, it’s all going to get at least a little bit better because you are changed to become more who you wanna be, it’s gonna osmosify out into everyone else and make them a little more who they wanna be. And that’s gonna osmosify out into everyone that they interact with and work with, and talk to and buy from and sell to, and on and on and on.
So that just by changing yourself, you are the tiniest little bit, you’re making the whole world a little more the way you want it to be.
Maurice
And, okay, so somebody who was listening, they’ve made it this far and they heard me say what I said. And so they thought I was saying, you have to completely change and transform before your team does it.
And I hope they heard what you said, which is no, no, no. You have to be willing to take a tiny step. And other people will watch your leadership of a tiny step, and it will encourage some of them to take their step right then too. Some people, they’re gonna watch you take three tiny steps before they take one, and so it’s, you don’t have to get it all figured out before them.
You just have to be willing to go on the journey. That’s what we’re talking about. I keep going back to that word. I know journey’s cliche. I get it, but it’s real life. The other thing I would say is, be willing to tap into that part of you, that believes that about whatever you do.
Usually, a leader is a leader because, okay, whatever it is that you do in your business, when you have a problem, your problem-solving mindset kicks in and you go, well, it’s solvable. We’ll figure this out. I don’t know how, but we’ll get there. And then you commit, to solving the problem. The problem is that many of us have developed the muscles in the tech world.
We’ve developed the muscles in the trading world. We’ve developed the muscles in the program and the computing, the whatever it is that you do, you’ve developed the muscles there. You haven’t developed those muscles yet in your emotions or in your relationships or in your spirituality or whatever it is that you are struggling with, and so what would it look like if you said, well, hold on, if I can do it over there, I can apply it over here. I’m the same woman, I’m the same man. Like it’s still me. I’m a problem solver. Many of the people that are listening to this podcast right now are problem solvers. They are people who imagine the next wave of a thing and then get it there.
They are people who are taking a formula from a place to a place. They are people who are going into a sale and they’re envisioning what they need to do and say and present in order to get to the other side. And when they hit a snag, it is how they navigate the snag that either gets you the sale or loses it.
Right. We know this stuff. You are the same person in your marriage. You are the same person when you hit a conflict with your, you know, with your other coworkers. Yeah. But Maurice, I’m not as good at that. Yeah, because you haven’t been willing to practice it. You haven’t lifted that muscle over and over again. So lift the weight.
Michael
All the people you work with, all the people that you speak to, what is it that you do differently from everyone else that helps them find their way through all the change, uncertainty, and overwhelm that seems to be what life is these days?
Maurice
Great question. I try not to lean into a technique to be the difference.
Okay? So, if I’m selling authenticity, if I’m telling a person that what you need to get to is the healthiest, truest, realest version of you, when I sit down in front of people, the number one most important thing for me, the thing that differentiates me is showing up as me. I have a whole bunch of strengths.
I have a whole bunch of gifts that I bring to the table, and I have tools and techniques like everybody else. Everybody has tools and techniques. The difference is, that when I allow myself to say, look, I’m gonna say this thing, even though it might not be popular. I’m gonna lean into this thing because I feel and believe in it, and I’m gonna be rooted in it.
Even if it’s something that somebody else might not do. Like I allow myself to be authentic when I help people. Even right now on this podcast, every question you’ve asked me, there’s a million ways I could answer it. I am trying to lean into the real answer that I feel and believe. I try to bring a level of vulnerability to my coaching and to my speaking.
And what I mean by that is, a lot of people only sell you how successful they’ve been. I’m willing to tell you how much of a failure I’ve been because failure is required for success. And so I think that it is the vulnerability and the authenticity that I bring. Paired with my knowledge and my tools that help me to always in moment to moment think critically from a unique place, provide insight from a wise place.
I’m always going to say something a little bit different or advise you or bring you perspective just a little bit different than everyone else because I’m not trying to sound like someone else. I am giving you what I’ve learned over these years. I got a baby face, which I’m excited about. You know, I’m, only 40 sometimes I’m sitting in a room and I got people 20, 30 years older than me, 40 years older than me.
It happens, right? I’ve got a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. Sometimes I’m helping people, their kids are older than me, right? They’ve got a world of experience I don’t have, well, am I gonna pretend? I don’t believe in the term ‘fake it till you make it’. I hate that. I don’t think it’s real.
Whatever you practice, you perfect. So whatever I do over and over and over again, I get really good at. So if I pretend to be fake, I just become fake. I would say, that I believe, I was put on the earth to help people get healthier, to help organizations to get healthier, to help people go from a burned-out place to a place of really thriving.
I mean it. Those are buzz words. Google tells you, that you’re supposed to use those words like you, you know what I mean? ChatGPT will tell you to use those words. I actually believe I was put on the earth to help people walk in their authenticity. And so that’s the real answer I’d give you.
I have methods, I have techniques. I have perspectives. I have experience just like everybody else, so those things aren’t differentiators to me. I think that what makes me different, is that I’m willing to often be more raw and authentic than another person. And I will live and die by it. And I think that’s more what more organizations have to be willing to be and do.
Michael
For leaders who would like to start being a little more raw, a little more authentic in their leadership at work with the teams they’re leading, how do you suggest they start? What’s the first tiny step they can take?
Maurice
Don’t start with what makes you different than your team. Ask yourself what you are feeling, sensing, going through, that is something that is a unifier, for your team. Here’s an example. I was working with a client and he is a COO of a company. And he had been struggling. He was going through some emotional things, some mental things, but he’s leading a very big successful company. And it had been, you know, a real rough few months for him.
But he was also, he just kept sharing with me. It’s been a rough few months for the company in general. One of his employees had been sick. Somebody else I think had lost a child, like there was tragedies happening. Some of their numbers had been down in this post-covid world. As they were trying to navigate some things.
And, he went away for a few days, got some fresh perspective, and he came back to me and he said, here’s what I’ve realized. And he starts naming, you know, I know I was off and I know I was a little frustrated and I know I was, but now I feel like I’m really rejuvenated and I wanna do this and I wanna accomplish this, and I wanna do this, and I know we can do this, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, I asked a simple question, so when are you gonna tell your team? And it kind of caught him off guard. Like, what do you mean? I said, when are you going to stand in front of them and say, “I’ve had a rough few months, whether you knew it or not, and you guys have had a rough few months. We all know because we see the morale is down. We’ve all been going through some stressful times.” Now, he didn’t have to disclose what his stressful moments were. He didn’t have to disclose, he didn’t have to over-disclose anything. He just literally had to be vulnerable enough to say, “Hey, it’s been a little rough, but we can make it through this. Here’s what I’m proposing we’re gonna do moving forward to grow as an organization.” When you wanna begin the journey of being more transparent, begin with things that unify you as a team. We’re approaching the busy season and everybody doesn’t have a choice but to lean all the way in and you’re not gonna see your family and you’re not gonna see the kids for a while, and it’s gonna be hard, and we’re all feeling it.
A lot of times in those moments, people say things like, well, this is what you signed up for, instead of acknowledging the humanity of it. Acknowledge the humanity. Hey, listen, I know that you guys are pouring it all out here in the office, and then you go home and somebody wants you to have something left and it’s hard.
So we all gotta be in this thing together. We can’t just, you know, sometimes it’s just about acknowledging the truth and then presenting some sort of a, here’s what I think we need to be doing as a whole, or here’s even better. Ask the team, what do you think we need to do about this? Everybody’s really burned out.
What do you guys think? I mean, do you guys, do we need to, do we need to do X? Do we need to do Y? Do we need to do Z? Like, what do you guys propose? Some people are gonna blow you off. They’re not really thinking about that, their self, and they’re gonna think this is a dumb conversation. There’s gonna be a couple people in the room who are really going to appreciate that conversation. And I think that what we need to also understand is, you don’t get to control who appreciates your actions.
So once you decide to bring something to the team for all you know, the person with the most resistance today could be the person who most needed what you said, and they’re gonna walk into your office crying a year from now. Remember when you were talking about how burned out we were? I’m, lost man. I don’t know what to do.
Sometimes, like you don’t get to control when they react, how they react, when or where they react. But you must be willing to bring the authenticity. So that’s, what I would say. And, I hope everybody hears this. I’m not saying walk into the office crying every day.
I’m not saying go to your office and complain all the time. I’m not saying we need to hold hands, sing kumbaya, talk about feelings all the time. I’m just saying that you have to have the pulse of your team to know, everybody’s burned out, everybody’s frustrated, everybody’s angry at each other right now. Everybody’s in doubt that we don’t know where this business is going, or we don’t know if we’re gonna close our door.
Like, you know what your thing is. And you must be willing to face it and confront it and move forward.
Michael
If people would like to talk with you more, work with you to, do this a little more themselves. Would love to have you come speak to their company, their organization, their church, the groups that matter to them. What’s the best way for them to learn more about you and ask you for that?
Maurice
For all of the above, you can go to mauricefmartin.com. When you’re there, not only, you know, you’ll be able to read a little bit more about my organization, but also, you know, let’s say you wanna do something one-on-one, well actually even organizations can do this part. You can set up a free clarity call with me. So I’ll jump on a Zoom call with you and we can talk for 20 minutes.
And I try not to be too stingy, so sometimes 20 turns into 40 just because it needs to. And so I try to sit down and really help the people to evaluate: Am I the right choice and can I help? I just told you what the differentiator is, authenticity. So, you’ll have a pretty good idea pretty fast on if you think I can help.
And then when you’re at mauricefmartin.com, there’s a booking form there. So if somebody wanted me to bring in, you know, to their school, to their corporate office, to their church, all you have to do is fill out that form there and then I’ll get back to you and we get the ball rolling.
Michael
And if that’s a little too intimidating, talking with a real-life person about real-life emotions, you have a free webinar they can watch on demand, right?
Maurice
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, hey, you know what? One of the best things that you can do, you can either watch my free webinar, which you can get from my website, or just go to my YouTube channel. I have content there and I actually promised myself today I’m kind of starting a new series of videos.
So when I get off this interview with you, I’m gonna be doing some work. And so go watch some of my videos and in those videos, you’re gonna hear a lot of different types of teaching, and you’ll get a feel for things. I always tell people, if you’re really afraid to talk to me, but you have something you want me to address, write it in the comments.
So go to a YouTube video and say, could you do a video about, or could you address so and so? And I will make a video based on what people need. So that’s one of the easiest ways that you can do it. You can find me on social media as well. @mauricefmartin, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook, so come and find me.
Watch the content, ask the questions. I have a book, obviously. The book, your But is too big. Again, one T. And in that book, it’s available on Amazon and on my website. And I talk a lot in depth about the human emotional side of these things. Right. So maybe you say, I’m not ready to talk to Maurice yet.
Okay. Well read my book or buy my workbook and do the work that’s in the workbook. That will get you a step ahead even without a conversation physically with me.
Michael
And I’ll also offer to people, if putting a comment on Maurice’s YouTube is still too scary, send it to me, I’ll forward it on anonymized.
Say, “Hey, I got someone who’d love you to do a video about- thing.” So I’m happy to.
Maurice
I promise you, 48 hours from the time that I get that email from you, I will put that video up. And so yeah, in fact, wherever you’re watching, I would love if a whole bunch of ideas came to the podcast first, right? And then we took it from there. But yeah, that’s always a great way to do things.
Michael
I would love that too. What would you like to leave our audience with today, Maurice?
Maurice
Well if you made it this far through this conversation, I just want you to know that you are worth the process.
Sometimes we can just feel like it’s just too arduous to undertake changing or growing or dealing with problems or whatever it might be. And so I, what I would just say is, you are worth taking the time. You’re worth taking the time to get uncomfortable. You’re worth taking the energy to figure things out.
And ultimately, when you say yes to that process, there’s a lot of people who love you and care about you, who are gonna reap the benefits of it. So, not only are you worth it to you, for you, you are worth it for them.
Michael
Thank you, Maurice, for joining us today. Audience, thank you for joining us. And Maurice and I would love to know, right now for you, who are you worth being authentic for?
Please let us know.
Maurice
I love that. Let us know.
Michael
And then after you let us know, have a great rest of your day.