Tech Titans: How to Stop Fitting In and Start Leading with Tony Martignetti

(Tony Martignetti at 00:00:00) Today, we're bringing you our most timeless advice from our last conversation with executive coach, Tony Martignetti. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:15) The way I got connected to you was some people reached out to me. They're like, "Hey, you need to have Tony on the show." They sent me a bunch of your materials. One of the things was the TED Talk.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:26) I looked at the TED Talk. I watched it. But my first question to you is, what even puts you on this path of studying being your true self in the workplace? Were you not your true self in the workplace?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:00:41) Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's really the core of a lot of what we do in the world. We start to realize what's missing, and then we seek it, and then we become the voice of the thing that we most want. So, yeah, I'll give you my backstory if you like.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:01) Yeah.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:01:03) So before I got into the world of work, I was an artist. I had spent time drawing, painting, just really a passionate artist. And then I decided that wasn't going to make the bills, wasn't going to pay the bills. And it wasn't just my decision. It was actually a lot of well-meaning adults in my life saying, "Hey, you've got to figure out a path that's going to pay for your family and all." So I was a pre-med major because that made a lot of sense, right? I went into medicine, and then eventually realized that wasn't right. So I got into business—accounting, finance, that kind of stuff—and found myself working in the biotech industry, which is fantastic. I mean, we're working on some amazing stuff, and the work I was doing was meaningful.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:01:57) But the reality is, underneath all of that, there was always something missing for me. I always felt like there was a missing component, and I had to show up differently at work than I was in my true life. I felt like I had to hide my creativity. I had to hide my personality and instead show up as the analytical person, right? Because I had to hide for so long, I eventually started to get burnt out and stressed and felt like, you know, there's something missing.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:30) And I'm sorry. I do interrupt people because I'm interested in what you're saying. I kind of want to piece it apart a little bit. You felt like—so you had this beautiful artistic background, right?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:02:41) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:41) But then at work, you felt like you had to hide that? Why?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:02:47) Well, because there was an expectation of trying to be like everyone else. I was in an industry where everyone had these Ivy League degrees and they showed up polished and knowledgeable and scientific—this sense of really not like me. Like a person who thinks and dreams of creative aspirations and thinks about people. They were more analytical, thinking about science—just kind of the polar opposite of who I really was. And although they really appreciated that—underneath what I was showing up on the surface, I think they saw who I really was, even though I was trying to hide it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:34) And this is you learning about yourself. This is you developing self-awareness, right? Because if you realize that you're a square in a circle world or you're a circle in a square world—I'm not saying it's right and I don't study this—but my strategy is if I'm a circle in a square world, I'm going to go find a circle world. I need to go find a world where I can be the best circle that I can be.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:04:01) And that's great because it's comfortable, right? There's a sense of you find a place where you belong. If you don't fit in, you find a place where you fit in. The reality is, I think that a lot of people want to make an impact in certain areas, and that might require them to change the way that those organizations, those fields, are wired—changing the environment. And what's interesting is the art that I was developing, working on, was all about environments, shaping worlds. And now here I am in a place where I start to shape worlds in the work that I do now, which is all about changing environments. When I was in the world of working in biotechs and different companies in the tech world, a lot of the worlds I worked in, they didn't feel right. They needed someone to change the environment.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:00) So ultimately, what was the outcome for you? What did you end up doing? Did you go find circle world, or did you find out how to be a circle in a square world?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:05:09) I love that, circle world. No, I mean, I stuck it out for longer than I probably should have until I felt myself so burnt out that I went to the darkest moments of my life. And then, step by step, I got out of that moment. The darkest moments were on the verge of not really wanting to go on, but then realizing that I had something to live for. And slowly but surely, I clawed my way out and started to see possibilities through meditation and therapy and all these things that I started to grasp at as opportunities to find a better way. And then finally, I found myself in a boardroom of a biotech company realizing that this is the moment that I need to really take control of things and said, "I'm going to leave this room, and I'm going to change—I'm going to leave this room to change the room." And that's really what I said as I walked out the door. I literally said, "I'm not coming back." I didn't say that. I said it to myself.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:16) One of the gray areas I had when listening to your awesome TED Talk with over 2 million views—go check it out, we'll put the link in the show notes, all that good stuff—but one of the gray areas that I had was, okay, when you said, "Don't check yourself at the door. Here's how to share your true self," there was actually a quote I took a note on: If you want people to show up as their true selves, you have to show up as your true self. I thought that was the most amazing thing that you said in that talk because it's something that I—it's a lived experience that I have had, which brings up this gray area. What happens if you hear this advice and your true self sucks? What if you're hiding parts of yourself because you know that you personally—they do not—you don't meet your own standards, and the result of that is shame, right? The normal, healthy result of you not meeting your own standards is shame. So you feel that shame. You hide your true self because you suck. How do you navigate—where's that gray area of showing who you really are but also designing and preparing and working yourself to become somebody that's worth sharing about?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:07:24) Well, first of all, there's an element of owning the suck and facing it. And I think this is actually where a lot of the pieces of my work come together. I have this book called "Campfire Lessons for Leaders, How Uncovering Your Past Can Propel You Forward," which we'll talk a bit more about. But there's an element of saying, okay, well, you first have to get to know yourself before you can share more of who you are with others. First, get to know really who you are, and that might also come with the uncomfortable parts of saying, "Hey, there's a part of me that I haven't really faced or haven't really come to grips with." And when you do that, you have to take three Cs of doing that reflection: curiosity, compassion, and connection. And connection—you know, obviously thinking of connection as being something that's outward to someone else—but you have to connect with who you are, and I think that's an important aspect that a lot of us miss.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:08:28) In fact, that's what I was missing until I left that room. I didn't ask the questions that I most needed to connect with, which is, who am I? Who do I really want to be? Those existential questions that we often kind of don't want to face because they seem so shocking and—you know, you're like, "I really don't like who I am. Why do I want to ask that question?" The reality is that when you do and allow yourself to face them, you start to say, "Hey, maybe I'm not all that bad, and the parts that I don't really like, I can start to say, okay, that was just part of the journey, and they're offset by these other parts that I really do appreciate, and I can use as the tools to lean forward."

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:19) In the context of having the self-awareness, in the context of your aim—what are you aiming at? Because if you say, "Okay, well, you've got to know yourself to know if you fit into the workplace," but why? Why are you there? So what's your aim, Tony?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:09:35) Well, for me personally, my aim is all about creating places where people feel connected, because I know connection at the core is what drives people to make an impact and to innovate. I mean, in organizations we always talk about the bottom line, making progress and making a profit. Well, all of that comes from people feeling connected to each other. And when we don't, we're leaving a lot on the table. And I'll share something that might resonate with you. There's an author and thought leader named Todd Henry who wrote a book called "Die Empty."

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:13) What's that? I like him already. That's an apt title. I like it.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:10:16) Yeah. But I think what I love about it is his concept. The most valuable real estate in the world is the cemetery. And because of this idea that so many people go to their graves without actually letting their song be sung. And I think that idea—we want to be able to make sure that we're enabled and empowered ourselves to share all the ideas we have. And if we allow other people to hold us back, that's not serving us. It's not serving anybody, really. And I think that's what we're looking for. My aim is to have people feel safe and connected in a way that allows them to share all the ideas that they feel they have inside of them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:01) The hard part on that journey of self-discovery is just because you decide you want to know, it doesn't mean it's immediately available on tap for you.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:11:09) A hundred percent. I agree. You have to allow yourself to have the patience. You know, commit to a process and know that anything that's worth doing is going to take effort. And so I think if you are looking for quick fixes or any kind of fast passes, you're going to be sorely disappointed by that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:37) Yes. I am a firm believer that if I want to do anything, my level of commitment needs to be at a thousand days. Can you share a story or a shade, a perspective of your normal story that you tell, but an aspect of it that you've never shared before in your 250 episodes?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:11:59) Wow. That's a good question. And honestly, because of the fact that it's not really about me, it's about other people's stories. But I will share parts of my journey which people don't know.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:12) Okay.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:12:12) So growing up, I came from a family of immigrants. My dad came from Italy. My mother from Lebanon. And one of the things that was interesting about the work that I was doing as a young adult, outside of my normal path, was I built houses. And, you know, it wasn't something that I chose. My dad chose it for me. It was something that he did as a hobby for himself. That was not his main job either. But over time, we built—I shouldn't say eight houses. It was actually three buildings and five houses. And it was really amazing because I learned so much about what it takes to build things. And the types of people who are involved, all the different parts of the trades that have to come together to make a structure. And I learned a lot about community, and I also learned about trust through this work that I did. And I never really share this because it's something about how organizations come together even when they're coming from different places and different paths, and how do you build something amazing in the process of doing that.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:13:57) So when I think about what I'm doing now, you have a lot of people coming from different functions and trying to piece together an amazing product or amazing project, or maybe it's selling a new drug, whatever it may be. When I say drugs, I mean therapeutic, because that's the industry I was in. You're always having to rely on other people, and so the best thing you can do is make sure you have good relationships with them and that you build trust, because trust is the foundation of any good product that you're building. And so I just learned that early on. I didn't really know it. And this is the first time I'm sharing this concept.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:22) When you were doing that talk, you mentioned this data scientist, and I think she was a violinist virtuoso, some brilliant violinist, right? I hope I got that right. Why would she hide that? That's a weird thing to hide.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:14:37) Yeah. I mean, first of all, it also has a cultural nuance to that, which is to say that, you know, in some cultures, they just don't talk about their personal lives in the workplace.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:51) What—do you know what cultures that is?

(Tony Martignetti at 00:14:53) She was Asian, and she just didn't—she was quiet, and she didn't really speak up about who she was in the workplace. And I was like, "Wow, you're brilliant. And I think that what you do is just so cool and amazing. And the fact that you don't share that, I think, is really unfortunate." And when she did, I just saw this person start to open up and become more. I'm not saying it's just—I'm not trying to be biased in terms of creating an—

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:24) We're being biased here today. Okay.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:15:26) But I'm just saying, I think it just was part of her nature, being this person who stays kind of small, even though she was brilliant. Not just in the work she does technically, but also in her creativity. And so I encouraged her to share. And when she did, she started to open up. I mean, you could see that—she would come to our coaching sessions and she would tell me, "Oh my gosh, I had a few colleagues of mine come to my concert." And I'm like, "That's so cool."

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:01) Yeah? Nice. That's awesome. And yeah, sometimes they just need a little encouragement. I know, obviously, I do tech podcasts, right? I know so many people who are incredibly brilliant, but they just have a low appetite of words per day. Some people like to speak a lot, and some people like to speak very little externally. But their brains are usually going crazy. I find quiet people have incredibly high internal dialogue.

(Tony Martignetti at 00:16:28) Yeah. And this is not about pushing people to talk more and be a blabbermouth, but it's really about making sure that when they're having quality interactions, building connections that are going to be meaningful, and not shying away from it so that it becomes a situation where they feel like they should be saying things or should be feeling something different and then just feel completely shut down from all the things that are happening around them. That's what we want. We don't want people to feel shut down. And I think the key thing is to encourage people to open to others wherever they feel it's comfortable.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:07) I like you because you're a conduit between people who maybe want some change or know that there should be some change, but they don't know how to get it or they're a little shy or they're not exactly quite sure how to play it out. Because you run around preaching safety and openness. So when I hear you, if I were to ChatGPT analyzer, it'd be like, this guy makes people feel psychologically safe, open, and basically is like, hey, you can come here, which is its own function, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:37) And it has its own need. And I like that you do that because what you do is you get to interact with people at the intersection of massive potential.

(Tony Martin Getty at 00:17:51) I love that you put it that way. I'm gonna capture that sentence and put it in my website. No, I love it though because I think it really hits the central piece of what I'm all about truly. And I think because I had, you know, starting from where we started, I wasn't feeling that way.

(Tony Martin Getty at 00:18:12) And so now the gift I get to share with others is this feeling of I don't want to hold myself back nor do I want other people to feel held back themselves. And even though sometimes it can feel uncomfortable sharing things about ourselves, I think the best thing you can do is to lean into that a little bit and say, how can just one little thing, one moment of courage as I call it, create that momentum that you need to live the life that you want. And I'll just share a quick quote that I love and this is one that has helped me a lot in my journey. This comes from Peter Bregman. If you're willing to feel everything, you can have anything.

(Tony Martin Getty at 00:18:56) And that quote, and I'll repeat it again because I think it's so beautiful. If you're willing to feel everything, you can have anything. In that quote, I think is this idea that if we lean into all of the parts of our humanity really, we can experience so much more than what we've had before. That means discomfort, going into the unknown. And realize that sure, we're gonna have some moments of suck, but we're also gonna have moments of absolute joy in that process.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:33) No, I love what you're saying. Man, I think we did it. I think we made a podcast. How do you feel?

(Tony Martin Getty at 00:19:39) I feel great. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:42) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or a colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.